Assassins assassinating asses outsides Allanak alone atnight

[theebie]

Ho,

why's there not a class 'outdoor assassin' that is about the same like
a city-assassin, but has outdoor sneak, outdoor hide and outdoor backstab ?

and no, that's not the ranger class...

---someone---

[Akaramu]

Why is that not the ranger class?

[Anonymous]

ranger:

guy who doesnt get lost in sandstorm
is able to track down animals
medium fighting abilities
can find edible worms on the ground

out-sassin:

guy who does get lost in sandstorm
is able to track down people (allright makes no difference here)
good backstab/assassinating abilities
can find only normal worms on the ground

andsoon

[Armaddict]

Outsassins would die pretty fast.

It's a role that requires certain things the city provides.

The ranger is the closest thing to an outdoor assassin that you can get.

Compare Jason Bourne (Yeah, I know, cheesy) to a Marine Force Recon.

There's reasons they work in entirely different settings.

[Cenghiz]

Maybe because backstabbing someone in a room which's a league long should not be a usual practice.

>emote leans forward a little and starts walking towards ~chubby with careful steps.
>emote keeps on walking, readying ~knife, a grin on his face.
>Think Good.. After 20 steps more, I'll be able to see his face clearly.
.....
Of course you may say you were hiding and the victim passed by the bush you were hiding beneath. But then; ask the victim.. He will claim that there was a league between you and him. Please, pick a ranger and use poisoned arrows. It'll be much more deadly and realistic. Rangers are best suited to become outdoors assassins.. Because they don't even need to be in the same room with you. And the extra advantages are extra advantages.

Of course it's just my opinion but... Making a class to become desert backstabbers doesn't look right to me. I'm already deadly bored of "The class <bla> consists of twinks!" topics.

Note: I've met assassins outdoors, well-played ones. It's not impossible, either. Choose a bush by the road which you know your victim will pass. Of course crouching by some bush is not the same as standing silent and still nearby a shadowed wall but, bah. The penalty is not that huge I believe.

[Anonymous]

Because it is not the sort of character role that would be pervasive enough to warrant a new guild?

Rangers make better outdoor killers than some backstabbing, desert-wise assassin would any day of the week.  Pull out that arrow and shoot that dude much further away than you could ever chuck a knife, and why even bother getting close.

[Ghost]

It -is- the ranger class.

And archery is the wilderness version of backstab.

[Anonymous]

Maybe because backstabbing someone in a room which's a league long should not be a usual practice.

Tell that to a game-full of NPCs that can do that.

Sa'alam,

Dirr

[JollyGreenGiant]

Backstab works in the outdoors just fine as it is.  As for the rest, there are existing ways to make things work.  I'm sure you'll figure it out.

[jhunter]

He will claim that there was a league between you and him.

And he would be full of shit if he could not see his stalker in the first place. I just can't believe that victims who do not see someone in an outdoor room think they have any right to claim how far away an unseen attacker was.

Edit: It's sort of like the childhood thing:
"I got you!"

"*whine* No you didn't I had a forcefield!"

:roll:

Gimme a break.

[Malifaxis]

I can not find a single way to reply to this post in a non-offensive manner.

I can't even figure out a way to make a humorous quip without it coming out as a flame.

Theebie, if I could change your IRL name to Kenny, I'd change mine to Cartman.

[halfhuman]

I agree with the popular thing that you should just shoot an arrow at them.

I don't think that backstabbing in the desert is OOC, I mean, not if you're with a companion.  If you really have the desire to kill grebbers, go foraging salt with them, wait till they've found a piece and be like:

grebber (picking up a grain of purple streaked salt and holding it up inspecting it) Hey! The streaks in this salt look cool.

assassin (getting to his feet from where he was picking at a vain with his dagger, and walking toward grebber and looking over his shoulder at the salt) Lemme see... AAAGGGHHH!! AAAAGGGHHH!!!! DIEE!!!! DIEEE!!!

Just grab a bow and some poison and camp out your favorite road/deposit, and wait for the carnage

[Larrath]

I don't think that backstab is a skill that should be used in the wilderness, unless you're standing specifically in a narrow pass where you can realistically hide.  It's possible to see extremely far in the desert, and most dunes don't work like those old fashioned lamp-posts that could hide an elephant.

Sneaking UP on someone in the desert, unless it's in the middle of the night (and even then), is incredibly difficult to realistically pull off.


Though then again, if you want to set up such an ambush, by all means.
Go to a pass, pick up a ton of big stones (a pile of twelve head-sized rocks can probably block a place pretty nicely) and set it with custom drop descs.  Then hide, and play it out slowly.

If my PC was walking in the desert and was suddenly backstabbed without any emotes or background or anything, I would write a complaining email (sounds useless, does it?  It's not) and then I'd kill someone.

[Anonymous]

Sneaking UP on someone in the desert, unless it's in the middle of the night (and even then), is incredibly difficult to realistically pull off.

I'm kind of curious why you say this.  Some hunter busy scanning the horizon to the east might not notice someone creeping behind dunes behind him.  When you add in the winds which blow enough to cover the sound of footfalls in loose sand it doesn't seem like a hard thing to do.

[JollyGreenGiant]

I don't think that backstab is a skill that should be used in the wilderness, unless you're standing specifically in a narrow pass where you can realistically hide.

Common misconception.  Backstab, contrary to popular belief, is not a skill limited to stabbing someone in the back.  If I walk up to someone with my arms wide open and a big smile like I'm going to hug them, and ram a dagger into their gut when I get close enough, that's a "backstab".  If I pull a needle out of my hair while embracing someone and stab them through their carotid, that's a "backstab."  If I get up in someone's face while arguing with them and throw one hand up as a distraction, wait for their eyes to follow, and punch a shiv through their ribs when they look, that's a backstab.

A backstab is any kind of sneaky assault aimed at something vital, whether I'm flanking someone who is already locked in combat, distracting someone and then jabbing them when they're not looking, or just plain sneak up behind someone and land a poniard between some vertebra.  They might be more difficult to pull off in the wilderness, but certainly not restricted to places where you can hide.

[Larrath]

This said hunter will have to scan east so intently that he wouldn't notice someone walking at least three leagues, up and down and around dunes, wearing a cloak.
Unless the victim is a dwarf whose focus is to keep looking east and be a moron, I don't see how anyone wouldn't turn around at least once in that timeframe, just to make sure that there are no silt flyers, raptors, jakhals or gith archers approaching.

Desert sneak, in my eyes, is used far more to sneak around someone than it is to sneak up at someone.

So that's it.  If you sneak up to someone from three rooms away using your l33t sneak and hide and then backstab them without any emotes whatsoever, you should die.  Sometimes all the thinks in the world don't cut it, and backstabbing someone in the open desert is exactly one of these cases.

(Naturally, this is different if there is something else that is specifically distracting them, like another raider or a meteor shower).

[Bogre]

I think desert sneak could be used to approach someone in rough terrain or scrub. Not flat sand-dunes, but maybe among gorges and thorn-forests, etc.

[Agent_137]

As long as you can imagine what you are doing in your head, and it's roughly logical, you'll do fine.

If you are just using the coded aspect of sneak and leaving it at that, you're doing something wrong. Even if you are within acceptable limits, you're cheating yourself out of the real experience here.

[mansa]

I have successfully played an assassin class in the wilderness, surviving on very little.  I died when I went into the city.

[Anonymous]

flat sand-dunes

Am I the only one that finds the idea of a flat sand-dunes ridiculous.

Sa'alam,

Dirr

[jhunter]

No. Your not.

[EvilRoeSlade]

This said hunter will have to scan east so intently that he wouldn't notice someone walking at least three leagues, up and down and around dunes, wearing a cloak.

You couldn't see someone three leagues away if they were wearing a purple cloak, jumping up and down, waving a gigantic maul, and raving at the top of their lungs about Muk Uteps bathroom habits.  Three leagues is nine miles, and nine miles is a hell of a long ways away.  You might be able to see a speck in the distance, and if you squinted REALLY hard than MAYBE (probably not, huh) you could see it moving a little, but you wouldn't be able to accurately say what color it was.

Furthermore, when we're talking about wave dunes, we're talking about each one being like a small hill.  You kill yourself climbing over one, and then you still can't see past the next one.  At the top of the dune you might be able to stop and take a look around, but your clever pursuer will be at the bottom of whichever dune he's at, waiting for you to continue your journey so he can continue closing the distance.

If I backstab you, maybe I'm the one that -should- die, but you're the one that's -going- to.

And one more thing.

Hey guys, why don't we have desert assassins?

Dunno kid.  Why don't we have desert pickpockets?

[Larrath]

No, in the one second when they're three leagues away, the victim will not be able to notice them.  Realistically walking three leagues in the desert, though, even for an elf, is going to take at least an IC hour.  It's a long way to go and hilly sand is pretty hard to move on.

Nobody is going to stare in the same direction for this direction.  Or rather, I'll put it like this.  Staring in the same direction for such a long period of time is a rare action, and the attacker doesn't get to assume that the victim is doing it.  I could might as well walk up to a noble and emote stabbing them while their guard goes to highfive a friend they meet on the road.  Not likely.


Now, you want to talk dunes?  A person standing in a dune in unsafe, lawless, monstrous animal and raider-infested territory is N times less likely to stand in the same place and not look around, thanks to this visibility constraint that you brought up before.
I'm going to give the attacker the benefit of the doubt and assume that they can sneak up the first two and a half leagues without being noticed.

It isn't really possible to crouch around the corner of a dune and peek behind it, so I would really like to know how someone can walk the final half league...hell.  The final twenty steps from the victim to the attacker, without being noticed.  Again, unless the victim is playing his character as particularly unobservant and/or mentally retarded, this is very difficult to do.


Doing a backstab (going by JGG's definition just to kill two birds with one stone) requires standing very close to the victim.  99% of all desert travellers walk around with weapons drawn at all times.  This is -not- simple, and it is almost as bad as the legendary magicker who practiced spells while mudsexing unless it's done as part of a scene of at least three emotes, one of which coming from the victim to show that it's even humanly possible to sneak up on them like that.


Visibility in the desert is ridiculously good, and most Zalanthans are going to be smart enough to look behind them every now and then.  That's what you do if you want to spot those thousand and five threats that frolic around in Zalanthas' beautiful magickal sands.


And finally, maybe it's my character who will die, but it's you who will have the real concequences to worry about.

[Delirium]

[minor derail]

When referring to distance, I tend to use 'leagues' only for OOC simplicity. Often, if it's possible without causing IC confusion, I'll cut the room numbers in half - three rooms would be a league and a half, or four rooms two leagues.

I don't think that each room outdoors is actually a league. If it is, we got some seriously speedy people. Even if I stopped at every single room to look each direction, check the weather, toss out an emote and sniff the flowers, I'd still be travelling too fast if that's actually the case. (And that would sorely hurt gameplay in most cases, because though the journey is half the fun, sometimes you need to get where you need to be, and now.)

And don't even get me started on the awkwardness of having to bend around the idea of shooting an arrow one league, much less two or three. No, I would much prefer to think that the rooms are actually smaller, and that the animal is actually just the next dune over and I've crept within about a quarter-mile to get close enough to shoot him, even though he's two rooms away, codewise.

[/minor derail]

[theebie]

[...]

Visibility in the desert is ridiculously good

[...]

That made me laugh  :wink:

You havent been in the desert lately, huh ? Try reach RedStorm at night.

---theebie---

PS: rangers can sneak/hide/stuff very well outsides. So that's unrealistic and should be changed ?

[Anonymous]

Dunno kid. Why don't we have desert pickpockets?

Because Jozhal don't have pockets to stash 'sids in?

Visiblity in the desert may be good, if you're standing on relatively level terrain, at the top of the highest dune, and without a sandstorm. Realistically, deserts (as we can observe) are highly prone to sandstorms. This granted, the game is not entirely -all- desert. Therefore, saying that you cannot backstab in the desert because people are generally very wary, and visibility is good when you're atop of the tallest dune, on level terrain, without a sandstorm is fairly absurd. How many times is -that- going to happen?

Sa'alam,

Dirr

[Xamminy]

Sneaking UP on someone in the desert, unless it's in the middle of the night (and even then), is incredibly difficult to realistically pull off.

Sneaking up on someond and backstabbing them while outside is not twinky.

We have wilderness hide/sneak for a reason.

Backstabbing does not necessarily require the person be unaware of your presence, simply unaware of your intent to kill them.

Still, I'm still in the camp that says, "If you want to be a 'desert assassin,' play an F'ing ranger and get a surprise shot off from three rooms away instead of right in the room with the person where they can turn around and start eating your head."

[JollyGreenGiant]

"... where they can turn around and start eating your head."

"That happened once!"

[Ghost]

[...]

Visibility in the desert is ridiculously good

[...]

That made me laugh  :wink:

You havent been in the desert lately, huh ? Try reach RedStorm at night.

Red Storm is a special case.  There is a reason people call it Red -Storm(!!!)-  So it would be absurd if I saw a rainbow in the sky around there.

That said, since you are not surrounded by sight blocking trees, visibility is ridiculously good, plain sight.  IF there is not a storm around.

And one league is three miles?  I dont think it is that long.  If it is, then we should have bows shooting only one league.
Or we have magick bows, amplifying the speed of the arrow and arrows ignoring the air resistance, and the law of gravity.

[Tamarin]

*slaps the twit flag on theebie for starting this pointless thread*

[Rhyden]

*slaps the twit flag on theebie for starting this pointless thread*

*snatches the twit flag from Tamarin and snaps it in half for being a twit himself not allowing this GDB to have free speech and allowing everybody to speak their mind without insult or ridicule.

[Angela Christine]

And one league is three miles?  I dont think it is that long.  

Yes indeed it is.

Distance:
Short distances are measured in inches (which bear a strong resemblance to the English inch in real life). An inch was considered to be the length of the Emperor's thumb, but was long since normalised to mean a single unit of distance.

Longer distances use units called cords, which are 15 inches long. Such units as miles and leagues are also commonly used, descended from the Bendune conventions of the nomadic tribesmen, a mile being 5,333 cords, and a league equalling three miles.

The question isn't the length of a league, but the length of a room.  As far as I know, no where in the docs does it indicate what the usual length of a wilderness, city or indoor room is.  An indoor room is pretty easy, it's the size of a room.    I generally assume a city room is about the size of a city block, unless the description says differently.  The length of a standard wilderness room is tricky, it isn't at all clear if it is supposed to be a league or a mile.  When somebody asks how far away something is and I know it is 12 rooms, I never know whether to say 4 leagues, 12 leagues, 12 miles or 36 miles -- so I usually say "oh, not too far" or "not more then an hour away" which probably makes more sense anyway for people who don't carry tape measures or have road signs.



As for archery and travel times, it's best to just keep distances fuzzy when you think about it.  Even if standard wilderness rooms were only 1/10th of a mile, the standard movement delay probably wouldn't be nearly long enough for realism.  Wilderness movement is deliberately unrealistically fast for the technology level, because if it weren't many clan RPTs and HRPTs would simply become impossible.  It should probably take at least one day to get from either city to Luir's Outpost if you are a messanger going flat out at a dead run the whole way, and at least a couple days for a common caravan . . . but no one wants to spend 3+ RL hours just getting to the RPT location, because travel isn't all that much fun and players have real lives that require they spend some time off the computer.  Likewise, if missile combat were to work realistically for the distances involved, there would be NO human missile combat at all outside the cities, because Zalanthan materials and technology are unlikely to produce a bow, knife or spear that can fly even a single mile with any accuracy (except perhaps for half-giants).  Nobody would bother to use missile weapons if they could only be used on targets in the same room, because that would force them into melee combat unarmed.  If the only purpose of missile combat was for throwing daggers into taverns, there really wouldn't be much point.


I'm not really opposed to the idea of modifying the map so that a standard wilderness room was 1/10 of a mile (10 or 30 times more than it is now, depending on what you think it is now) despite the problems it would cause for long distance missions.  I just don't see it happening in my lifetime.  


Angela Christine

[Tamarin]

*slaps the twit flag on theebie for starting this pointless thread*

*snatches the twit flag from Tamarin and snaps it in half for being a twit himself not allowing this GDB to have free speech and allowing everybody to speak their mind without insult or ridicule.

The ranger is the outdoors assassin.  End of story.

[halfhuman]

I think that the best way to assassinate someone in the desert is to just engage them in convo, and then use backstab on them while you're talking. Just find a way. Point to the horizon with one hand and whip out a knife with the other. While they're straining and your standing next to them, BOOM, right in the spine.

Tapping Guy B on the shoulder quietly and pointing out to the far west, Guy A says in sirihish
    "Bug."

Guy B squints as he strains to look off into the western horizon.

Guy A carefully pulls out a dagger with one hand while the other remains point and stabs Guy B visiously in the gut.

Ta da! Trick accomplished!

Shooting stills your best way to go.

OR, you could be a warrior and just bash them to the ground/subduing them and putting a sword to their throat and saying "You move and you're dead."
Of coarse I've seen people just twink run from this, but heh? If you find the right person...

[Maybe42or54]

Or instead of using a knife to backstab them. "miss" and send that arrow through their head at close range?

[halfhuman]

Ooo. Sounds like my ex.

I think just about anything, as long as it's well RP'd is possible. When I make an offensive action toward another player (such as the pickpocketing) I always send out an emote first explaining exactly how I closed that distance, whether it's walking closely behind them in a small crowd or "tripping drunkenly into them"