New skill ideas for everyone (more or less)

[Angela Christine]

I can see a Leadership skill factoring into your ability to lead a "controled retreat."  As it is everybody has to flee individually, running in all directions and possibly leaving behind the guys with poor Flee skill who are frantically typing FLEE over and over again and going no where.  It would be nice if the leader could lead his troops out of combat.


Angela Christine

[amoeba]

I can see a Leadership skill factoring into your ability to lead a "controled retreat."  As it is everybody has to flee individually, running in all directions and possibly leaving behind the guys with poor Flee skill who are frantically typing FLEE over and over again and going no where.  It would be nice if the leader could lead his troops out of combat.


Angela Christine

This is one thing that can actually be trained (as in ingrained into the player) very well IG as is. In fact the very act of getting a group of untrained, raw recruits to act as one is a very OOC skill.  There is one group at least, if the leaders are doing thier job correctly, can get the group to behave as one cohessive unit.  I have witnessed it personally. IMHO to add this as a coded skill detracts from that goal.  It has to do with preperation, training, and more training.   This is one of those learned skills like manipulating plots that should be developed IG by real people, not code.

[Dalmeth]

Uh, wouldn't a good leader have had them learn how to flee in an orderly manner and then would only have to give them an order mid-battle to initiate the retreat?

[Ritley]

I can see a Leadership skill factoring into your ability to lead a "controled retreat."  As it is everybody has to flee individually, running in all directions and possibly leaving behind the guys with poor Flee skill who are frantically typing FLEE over and over again and going no where.  It would be nice if the leader could lead his troops out of combat.


Angela Christine

This is one thing that can actually be trained (as in ingrained into the player) very well IG as is. In fact the very act of getting a group of untrained, raw recruits to act as one is a very OOC skill.  There is one group at least, if the leaders are doing thier job correctly, can get the group to behave as one cohessive unit.  I have witnessed it personally. IMHO to add this as a coded skill detracts from that goal.  It has to do with preperation, training, and more training.   This is one of those learned skills like manipulating plots that should be developed IG by real people, not code.

Oh alright. How about the torture ability then? this would help alot.

[SewerRat_inTheOpen]

The jump skill: Those who posess will be able to leap up one space high. If the skill is low you will fall down, and hurt yourself. If your a mantis you will start off with the skill maxxed, and able to jump two spaces high.

Climb works pretty well.
How high up is a space? If you meant like climbing spaces, some of them are pretty high up, unless you're a ninja.

Torture skill: I think there should be a torture skill available to all Templars, and some master assassins. There should be three types of this skill.
One damages your health
One damages your stamina
One your stun
All render you helpless, and unable to move, depending on the skill of the Assassin/Templar.

Templars don't really need this, it can be roleplayed out in their single-roomed cells. If it's time to lose the hand or the life, it's going.

Not too sure how this skill is going to work out for assassins.

Or how this skill works. I understand subdue could be a half-giant easily picking up an elf by his neck or just bundling him up in his arms, or a bearhug.

Leader ship skill: This should be available to all Master Warriors, Master Merchants, and Templars. What this does, if there is any body following you, they get a bonus to all of there skills, the amount depending on the skill of the person leading.

Morale talks/boosters make soldiers feel brave, not make them stronger. It's a subtle difference. They may feel brave when a certain person is leading, but that doesn't mean they are going to become slightly more accomplished warriors or crafters.

I can see a Leadership skill factoring into your ability to lead a "controlled retreat." As it is everybody has to flee individually, running in all directions and possibly leaving behind the guys with poor Flee skill who are frantically typing FLEE over and over again and going no where. It would be nice if the leader could lead his troops out of combat.

Some sort of controlled retreat might be good. But.. in a fight, not everyone is in the same place anyway.

Maybe those who are being guarded can follow the flee of those guarding.

[Sokotra]

Leader ship troops

Leadership is one word.  Unless you are like talking about the flagship in a group of silt skimmers... then that might be the 'leader ship'... heh.  Sorry I had to point that out.. it was just really bugging me for some reason.  


I can see it now..

"leader ship troops"

You order your troops to begin loading up on a silt skimmer at the edge of the sea of silt, leaving you standing alone to face the fierce group of spice-raiders.

A sad day...

[Cenghiz]

Since I'm back, let me speak about my opinions..

1. Jump: We junked it already.. Didn't we?

2. Torture: Torture is one of the things which's pure RP.. People do not feel pain because their hp is lowered by 25 or their stun is halved. They fear the fire, the sharp edge of the obsidian and the biting swings of the whip. That's what torture is all about. An elementalist of the proper type to manage to create fearful mental illusions would be way more effective than a young hunter with a knife, even when the hunter maxxed the skill spending his time torturing.

[Derail]What's next? A MUDsex skill?
>mudsex woman
You have some hasty monkey sex with the blue-eyed, buxom woman.
She's deeply satisfied.
>think OOC: I guess I've maxxed it.
[/Derail]

3. Leadership: I.. I don't think we should quickly bash this idea. You know, in time some additional coded effects may be added.
.....
A helper gith has arrived from west.
A helper gith has arrived from west.
A helper gith has arrived from west.
A helper gith heroically joins the fighting gith's fight.
A helper gith heroically joins the fighting gith's fight.
A helper gith heroically joins the fighting gith's fight.
Fear tingles in you as your foes hoarde around you.
>stat
....
....
....
You are affected by:
  Fear
....
....
....
>emote shudders slowly backing off, wildly swinging his swords.
.....
Maybe in time there can appear coded effects of fear, exhaustion and... leadership for folks who do not like to play these out themselves. Just a tiny coded effect to help the RP, eh?

Storm Navigation: Err... Let's not. I know a friend who can max his parrying, two weapon skills and bashing in a few OOC days. A skill usually means abuse.
Your warrior/guard suddenly shifted his goal in life and became a duskhorn hunter, living in the plains for days before coming to the city? Wish up, explain the situation and let them leave a note in your account. As you become more and more experienced, let them decide if you should navigate in storms with ease or not. Let the staff decide if there's enough sand in your arse hole.

Being back looks entertaining.

[Hexxaex]

The suggestion for a torture and leadership command, to me, takes away from roleplaying and introduces us into a code-dependant playing type.  If we want to keep Armageddon as the best roleplaying-enforced experience there is out there, then we should be straying away from suggesting new coded commands for things that you can roleplay out, and get the same result.

Of course, it can be all up to the players to decide if they twinkishly dodge the templar's sword in the half-giant's grip, leaving their hand on, as well as deciding whether they emote their fighting with more pride and courage when their leader leads them.

[Morrolan]

Storm Navigation: Err... Let's not. I know a friend who can max his parrying, two weapon skills and bashing in a few OOC days. A skill usually means abuse.

Yikes.  Send in the RP police.

[Sokotra]

I don't think the answer is to stop implementing skills/commands.  The greatness of Armageddon is the RP which is SUPPORTED by coded realism so we don't end up turning to mush.  There's always the argument that something will be abused, which is a poor excuse in my opinion.  I think it goes without saying that when a new idea is implemented, you will want to put some sort of limitations in the code so that abuse isn't profoundly easy or something that will be done constantly.  All the commands and skills that we have now can be abused... heck.. emotes can be abused.  Sure, there's different levels of abuse but let's not let that excuse be the end of some possibly great ideas.  Given the chance to grow beyond the initial idea, some of them might end up being worthwhile.

[Ritley]

I don't think the answer is to stop implementing skills/commands.  The greatness of Armageddon is the RP which is SUPPORTED by coded realism so we don't end up turning to mush.  There's always the argument that something will be abused, which is a poor excuse in my opinion.  I think it goes without saying that when a new idea is implemented, you will want to put some sort of limitations in the code so that abuse isn't profoundly easy or something that will be done constantly.  All the commands and skills that we have now can be abused... heck.. emotes can be abused.  Sure, there's different levels of abuse but let's not let that excuse be the end of some possibly great ideas.  Given the chance to grow beyond the initial idea, some of them might end up being worthwhile.

Thank you Sokotra -exactly- my point. You can emote you are doing better in fighting, but the opponent might disagree and say he's doing better. You can torture someone but the someone might emote he dodged your whip.

[Earendur]

My two cents..

To hard-code a tortue process would be to remove all player input on how their characters would actually respond in a situation.  Any time someone is getting tortured, their willingness to betray the information in question would depend vastly on what they are trying to keep secret and who they're hiding it from.  So to have a skill like:

torture bob

You press the hot dagger firmly to the man's arm and trace shallow cuts.

Then have Bob see:  You would reveal your information at this point.

Would just kills any possibility of Bob's player make a responsible choice.  What if the information will endanger Bob's last living relative who he'd rather die for than see harmed?  I realize that some players might play out the unwavering victim of steel who laughs in the face of gut-wrenching pain, but hopefully most people realistically portray their character's limits.

As to if you succeed..typically torture victims are typically subdued somehow, which tends to remove all possibility to avoid getting tortured.  Anyone that's pulling Superman dodges when they've been neglected and malnourished for any length of time is blatantly disregarding realism.

[Nao]

putting all the silly skill ideaas aside... I'd like to see a torture command, not a skill that depends on skill level though. Command meaning that if someone is getting hurt/killed through rp and emotes, there would be a way to reflect that codewise so nast templar fancypats doesn't have to call two guards that take an game-hour to kill some buff but already near-dead warrior by code... Just because he's not near-death by code yet, even if he's in a more dead than alive state rp-wise.

there would even be a way to stop all potential abuse of this so we wouldn't have to restrict this to templars and chars that are closely watched by the staff at all times - make it work on yourself only. so if I play buff warrior bob that just got three fingers cut off by templar fancypants underlings, I use that command and substract some hp and/or stun from myself to reflect the damage code-wise. Lord templar fancypants emotes slitting my throat- voila, time to kill off my beloved warior bob and take away the remaining hp from myself and the char dies, without having to do any coded fighting that wouldn't really fit the situation.

the only possible way this could be abused is suiciding unwanted characters for ooc reasons... But that's already easy enough in a way that is less noticable to the staff, so I think that potential for abuse wouldn't damage the game.

[Bogre]

I'd love a hurt self command.

emote looks fearfully down at the crushed bone of his pinky, raising his wavy-bladed dagger +2 of pinky-dismemberment high!

hurt self dagger

You forcefully wound yourself, doing frightening damage.

[bloodfromstone]

I would also love the ability to wound your own character. I've played a character who was fairly self-destructive at times, and it would have been very nice to be able to reflect some coded damage on my poor unstable PC during some of these scenes.
It would have to have a selectable range of damage, though. I wouldn't want to emote running a dagger's blade over my palm and then deal half my health in damage. Then again, unless it's a major injury, it probably wouldn't warrent anything more than emoting. *shrug*

[SewerRat_inTheOpen]

I don't think the answer is to stop implementing skills/commands.  The greatness of Armageddon is the RP which is SUPPORTED by coded realism so we don't end up turning to mush.  There's always the argument that something will be abused, which is a poor excuse in my opinion.  I think it goes without saying that when a new idea is implemented, you will want to put some sort of limitations in the code so that abuse isn't profoundly easy or something that will be done constantly.  All the commands and skills that we have now can be abused... heck.. emotes can be abused.  Sure, there's different levels of abuse but let's not let that excuse be the end of some possibly great ideas.  Given the chance to grow beyond the initial idea, some of them might end up being worthwhile.

Agreed. That's why we are discussing it and we are stating our reasons as to why we think they are or not. Never played a mush before, but I think they have someone like a DM to determine if hits lands or not when fighting..

Thank you Sokotra -exactly- my point. You can emote you are doing better in fighting, but the opponent might disagree and say he's doing better. You can torture someone but the someone might emote he dodged your whip.

I don't agree with this torture scene. When a person is being tortured, most likely he is immobile. If he emoted dodging it.... get your people to hold him down with something, like a big boulder or with templars, those chains of bone. well, since he is being tortured, it implies he is unable to move much.*

*a scenario came to me as I typed the line before. Wrestling moves like figure of 4... which might be the kind of torture the Orginal poster was thinking about. I see someone being tortured as someone who has been somehow immbolised. It is probably both.

[Rindan]

I don't think the answer is to stop implementing skills/commands.  The greatness of Armageddon is the RP which is SUPPORTED by coded realism so we don't end up turning to mush.

I don't think anyone is against supported coded realism.  What people are against are things that detract from RP by throwing a number at something that is in truth is far more complex the a few dice roles.  For instance, making torture a skill ignores the fact that any idiot can take a dagger poke your eye out with it.  There is no skill required.  If someone wants to harm you and there is a big old half-giant holding you down, there is nothing you are going to do to stop it.  Making it some sort of skill doesn't increase the realism.  It detracts from the realism when I emote jabbing you in the gut, but I am only able to knock off 5 hp because my torture skill is low.

The same thing could be said about leadership.  Leadership is far more complex then a dice role.  RP is a MUCH better way of dealing with leadership abilities then slapping a new skill into the game.  Leaders don't give people hit point boosts are make them hit any better.  Leadership is about communicating to everyone what to do when the time comes, your underlings trusting in your orders, and your underlings being able to carry out those orders.  RP already handles these complexities far better then code ever can.  If you take five recruits, train them, drill them, and get them to trust you, you will trounce another guy with five recruits who are not trained, drilled, or trusting.

There is support for coded ideas that improve the realism of the game.  A new crime code that is more complex would be a perfect example.  I highly doubt there would be many people against giving the crime code a good once over.  The same could be said for the combat system.  I highly doubt anyone would shed many tears if a new and more complex combat system was implemented.  People are not anti-code, they just want code in places where it makes sense.  Of course, the other half to this is that the best code suggestions are ones that are easy to implement.  Everyone would like a new combat code, but I doubt you will have programmers lining up to tear out the guts of the games source code to get at it.