Subdue idea

[Marc]

Since I'm doing it anyway... Subdue ideas:

Subdue, as it is now, is as deadly, if not more so then a good backstab.  That seems wrong to me so here is what I suggest:

Make subdue work similar to how it is now for success/failure with a small downgrade for size/strength.  Half-giants are just to good at it naturally for a slow, lumbering beast.

Once subdued keep it so the subduee can't dodge, evade hits but remove the damage bonus.  A subdue hit should do no more then a normal strike, it is just garunteed to land (and a garunteed hit from a half-giant/mul is still very scary)

Feedback?

Instead of toning down the whole strength part of the equation, I would just tweak it here and there. The attempt would have to rely more on skill and speed, holding, more on strength.

This method by the way, wasn't thought up by me, but somewhere else, where I'm too lazy to look.

[Marc]

As it is now a mul has a very good natural chance to subdue from strength and elves/half-giants from size (and strength for hg's too).

Strength, like you said, should really only effect holding onto them, not grabbing them, and size, while it should matter, shouldn't be so extreme.

[EvilRoeSlade]

Right now, agility affects almost all aspects of combat.  Why should it affect subdue too?  Right now, after playing both dwarven and elven warriors I can safely say that agility alone is far better to have than strength and endurance combined.  That being as it is, I don't really think that transferring subdue to agility would make things any better.  It would just make desert elves that much more deadlier, As they would suddenly have the power to subdue that half-giants once did.  A desert elf could grab you and another could attack you with two maces before you even got a chance to type flee self.

I find this highly unrealistic.  Why?  Because fast movement depends mainly on how much muscular force you can put behind that movement, therefore a strong person to hit could move and attack (especially with a heavy weapon), though he might not be exceptionally graceful.  A half-giant might not be able to aim well or manipulate fine objects, but they have to be able to move mindnumbingly fast to do all the damage they are able to.  Sure, it probably takes them a bit to raise their huge axe over there head, but once they're passed that, you are screwed.

I don't think of half-giants as slow, just clumsy.  In fact, I would go as far as to say that a half-giant could outrun an elf over short distances because of the superior muscle mass in their leg and their much longer legspan.  They would lag behind in an endurance race, just because when it comes to running nobody can preservere as long as an elf.  

All this being said, I really can't understand why people want to make half-giants less powerful.  They are gigantic individuals.  It makes sense for them to be powerful!

As for the damage issue, I'm fairly sure that it doesn't give any direct bonus to damage, it just makes a hit to the head considerably more probable, which in turn increases the damage drastically.  But consider this.  Once a half-giant has you in his grip, why shouldn't he be able to kill you?  Your talking about an individual whose muscle and bone mass combined is probably triple what you weigh.  Somebody who is capable of folding your spine in half, or just lying down on you and crushing you under their one and a half ton girth.

[Fedaykin]

In the alternate:  How about if you attack someone you are subduing they get another saving throw chance to automatically break free, because you'd be looseing or removing one or more hands to carry out the attack anyways.  The chances of breaking free could be increased based on whether you're attacking with one or two weapons, and also on the weapon type, for instance knives which should be better for close combat and require less of a swing it going to allow less of a chance of your subduee breaking free then if you have to rear back with a giant greataxe.

[Marc]

You break free automatically already.  And half-giants would still be vicious through subdue because of their insane strength.  The reason I say subdue does more damage is this:  I've seen subdued people get hit in their feet, arms, legs, hands etc for unspeakable damage by non-muls/hg's.  Maybe it was just a lucky hit or a very strong attacker for their race, but thats why I assumed subdued hits do more damage.

And why SHOULDN't agility be taken into account more?  If the height/weight bonus for success is lowered significantly, elves would be similar to where they are now.  Personally, I have no problem with elves being good at subduing people (they are already insanely good at it if you haven't noticed).  They are fast and lanky.  Can grab you quicker then you could react.  Their disadvantage is being so weak; they wouldn't be able to hold onto their quarry for any length of time.

[Fedaykin]

You break free automatically already?  Do you mean afte their initial attacks?  

With my idea they'd have a chance to auto break free right when the initial attack occured something like:

Mul subdues man.

Mul types kill man.

Mul loosens his grip on man and swings at him...
Subdued attack succeeds.

or

Mul loosens his grip on man and swings at him...but man breaks free!
Regualr unsubdued combat insues.

So they'd have a chance to auto break free before the initial subued attack lands.

[Marc]

Oh.  Sorry Mr Magistrate  :lol:

I like that idea a lot too.

[one man posse]

Just a quick point you should know. I do understand your pain, the combat
system makes it hard for the game to be very realistic chasing-wise and
in certain other things. The Immortals of Armageddon know this, and likely
haven't addressed it because they don't want players who are going to be
concerned about pking in nearly the least. They will not change it. Give up.
At least, that's the way I felt. You might find yourself in the wrong mud if
you're going to worry about these things.

[Armaddict]

Wait a minute, let me get this straight.  You want to make subdue -less- useful for half-giants?  I'd like to see -you- win a wrestling match with a guy twice your size and ten times your weight.  He's got longer reach, too.

Also, -why- tone down the only thing that makes half-giants anywhere NEAR where they should be?  Ever read the fantasy books where ogres and the like have five or six humans around them trying to take them down?  The reason is this:  One blow from that flailing club is going to kill you or seriously maim you.  Not only from the blow itself, but you'll very likely get some air with a not-so-soft landing.  Now, code-wise, half-giants AREN'T that impressive in combat.  They are hit often, with good damage no matter what their armor is (unless it's top-of-the-line, gift from the nobility type shit) because of their huge agility penalties.  Not only that, but they rarely get in their own attacks, and they're far from guarunteed to hit, no matter how hard it would be to parry an attack of that sort of momentum.

Sorry, I don't share your views here.  At least in the view of half-giants, subdue needs to stay as is, or the big beasts will be even more helpless than they are now.  Don't force half-giants to find a -different- shortcut to still be effective, please.

[Delerak]

What the hell is it with you and half-giants.  They are not ogres.  They are 12 feet of flesh, bone, and muscle, lumbering idiots.  Plus they are immune to subdue/bash already.  It isn't possible to subdue them codewise and if you try to bash you get reversed everytime.  You want to a race that is strong in the beginning? There are none, you just need to work at making them skillstrong.  They are fine as is.

[Armaddict]

Ehehe, Dan, Ogres -are- 12 feet of flesh, bone, and muscle.

[Delerak]

Take a half-giant out of creation and a human out of creation, equip them both with the same weapons, who do you think is going to win?  They are fine, you're trying to compare a race to other PCs or NPCs?  Why should the race half-giant be made any stronger, muls are strong why can't they get random bashes from their strikes?  Or a really strong dwarf swiping at your legs that would make you go down?  Altering the code to make a race stronger really is a bad idea.  Even if you think it is realistic.  You have to keep the balance in the mud or things will get out of hand, there is already enough banter about subdue itself, and bash is strong enough for half-giants, they can bash anything they want even without the skill, straight out of creation.  Please make a point for your idea, besides that it would make sense.  Lots of things would make sense, but putting them in the mud will just create a lot of chaos and more problems, IMHO.

[Cyrian20]

I currently train in some light weight wrestling. I'll tell you from my experience. Speed matters. Albiet very little. I would go as far as to say not enough to worry about codewise. When you subdue a guy you aren't reaching out grabbing air then giving up, If this was so there would be no lag. It would be the same as an attack. It is you using your entire body to pretty much trap them. I wrestle with guys bigger than me cause I am the smallest in my class. And when we lock up they just trap me everytime. It is only through skill I win the matches I do. I.E. have a high skill in subdue. Other wise me versus an equally skilled person speed matters a helluva lot less than strength. I can think of nothing else this is really true for except locking up a guy....

Plus balance wise I have played teamates with a HG once with a runaway D-Elf. through a funny rp we got stuck together. I had 3 days to his 8 ranger vs warrior and his strength did crap for him cause when we sparred I hit him a good 20 times then he might get one hit in for 30 damage or so. But 20 hits later he would have to flee. Battle wise they are shock troops to take out bahamut and the such. Let them keep the one thing that have going for them. In RP they get screwed over by anyone who wants to steal thier cheese already and they need someway to get it back anyways.

[Delerak]

Good points Cyrian, I wrestled in high school 3 years in a row.  Subdue isn't nearly as advanced as wrestling techniques go, but it gets it right.  Bigger people can just grab you much easier.  And the only way you're going to get away really is either speed/agility, or using other techniques and slipping away, there is also reversals you can do, so the list goes on with how "advanced" subdue can really become.  They fleshed out disarm, I think subdue does need work too.

[Tlaloc]

Just a brief note about half-giants:

I did some math because I was bored and figured the following tidbits on Half-giants:

Assume that a 6 foot man has an average walking speed of 4 miles per hour, and a sprint of about 15.

Taken this into account, and assuming human proportions, a 12 foot tall half-giant walks at 10 miles per hour (making them -just- at parkinglot speedlimit speeds), and sprints at a nasty 30 miles per hour.

Now, and 80 ten-stone half giant comes in at 1763.7 lbs. So, getting bashed by a Half giant at full tilt would be the equivalent of getting smashed into by a pretty good sized vehicle at 30 mph...10 miles per hour above the legal speed limit for school zones.

Here's an image of a souped up Chevy half-ton truck, and keep in mind that an 80 ten-stone half giant is bigger still by almost a another half-ton.



As for grasping things: My hands span (from thumb to pinky) roughly 9 inches, spread out. Assuming that a Half Giant is roughly proportional to a human, and a 12 foot tall giant (which is over twice my size) has hands proportoinally the same size as mine (more or less), that leaves them with a hand-span of 18 inches, or a foot and a half. This makes dwarves only three hand-spans tall to a half-giant, humans 3.8 hand spans tall, the tallest elves 5 hand spans, and average sized halflings comming in at a puny 2.5 handspans tall. This means a halfling grasped by a half-giant by both hands would be almost completely covered up by the giants hands. Dwarves almost the same, but you have to remember dwarves are about as big across as they are tall, so they've got alittle more meat on them...

This probably makes half-giant fingers roughly twice the size of human fingers (imagine two of your fingers together, and double the length, and add girth).

Finnaly: if your arms spread out equal your height, then, again assuming human proportions for a half giant, this equals 12 feet in the case of many half-giants.  Assuming a conservative 3 foot shoulder-span (I think it would actually be closer to 2 feet, give or take), this still leaves the half-giants with a whopping nine foot reach.

This is a reach that is longer than the length of my car.

I'd figure out the math for throwing things, but...I'm too lazy. Still, this sort of puts things into perspective eh? Note: this really has nothing to do with code, but its some things to think about in-game. Also, the speed here should not be equated with agility. Just because a half-giant sprints at 30 miles per hour, doesn't mean he won't trip on the way out the door.

-Tlaloc
Who is just throwing in random information for shits and grins.

[creeper386]

Also, people need to take into account that half giants wouldn't be walking at one step for five of a humans, at a good walk I have a step of about 3 feet, half giants as some people think don't walk at four or five human steps, I'm thinking it's less then two, they may be twice as tall but they also have ALOT more girth, which would lesson how far they can step, if they tried to stretch passed 5.5 feet I'd say most would be more likely to fall over.

Hmm... With subdue, I think it's acctually pretty good how it is. SURE half giants could abuse is as in your on this side of the room they are on the other and they instant subdue you, but if the subdue is roleplayed correctly, a large half giant, WELL be quick because they have alot of muscle behing it, they may not have the speed for running or anything, but if a half giant lunges at someone, they have the muscle to do it quickly and the reach to effectively wrap someone up in one arm let alone two.

If anythings over powered, it's going to be kick alot more then subdue once a battle takes place, but I don't think a newbie half giant would be able to subdue that well, if they do, perhaps something needs to be changed alittle bit, but not too much. Lets up it this way, pick any large animal that has little finesse or cordination, like say a kodiak, it still can move really quickly. It's strong and powerful if you get close enough to a kodiak that doesn't want you going anywhere, you aren't going anywhere. I'd say this is somewhat like half giants and subdue, if there is a pissed half giant or one that wants you for some reason, better hope you don't be going to close.

Ooh, like with the length of step, I think Tlaloc's numbers of just doubling the speed is going to be off. My understanding is even skinny half giants are bulky/chubby in proportion to a human, and that'd take things into effect. If the half giant was skinny, perhaps so, but even a starving half giant I think would have alot more body fat then a human would thereful shorter step, and probably a slower speed.

[Gorobei]

I agree with creeper.  For instance, my twin brother is 6'9" (we aren't identical) and I'm just over 6 feet.  I can run far faster than he can.

Doing math for half-giants is tough anyway, since they're purely fantasy creatures.  If a HG lived in our world, with our physics, it would be dead in a month.

[one man posse]

Would that souped up Chevy happen to be yours, Tlaloc?