Roleplaying Backstab

[Rindan]

Personally,  I think that going into a room with an NPC, back stabbing, fleeing, then coming back to backstab it again is twinkish beyond words.  It is as much code abuse as attacking something until you are almost dead, fleeing, sleeping, then attacking again once you are healed.  Clearly, even the stupidest beast is not going to sit there and let you walk over to it and slash it in the jugular more then once.  Just because the code is stupid doesn't mean that you should take advantage of it.

If backstab was supposed to be something you could do multiple times, then it would let you use it like kick where you can do it successfully during a fight.

That said, I think that backstab is utterly impossible to get really good at without twinking out, a lame character concept that lets you slaughter NPCs (animal or 'rinth), imm intervention, or learning from someone who has done one of the above.  I almost wish that the imms would simply lock the skill at the n00b level for everyone and simply only let people raise it through imm intervention.  If you can't practice it through some sort of coded mechanism in training, there is no other way you are going to do it enough times short of slaughtering a pile of NPCs to get good.

Learning backstab on scrabs is like a Ninja heading out into the forest and learning how to backstab on wolves.  It is lame, end of story.  I highly doubt that any decent assassin in history learned how to assassinate people practicing on forest creatures.  I imagine every single one of them practiced, practiced, and then practiced some more.

[RunningMountain]

Personally,  I think that going into a room with an NPC, back stabbing, fleeing, then coming back to backstab it again is twinkish beyond words.......

So is it twinkish to flee and just use kill? Honestly it's just a break in combat. And depending on how you view the backstab skill. Whether it's sticking someone in the ribs, the back, the femoral artery in the leg, or even the jugular, whatever. You're just breaking away from combat and trying again.

I say if they are doing it 5+ times on the same NPC yes that's fucked up. But on a PC I say it's fair game.

[Rindan]

So is it twinkish to flee and just use kill? Honestly it's just a break in combat. And depending on how you view the backstab skill. Whether it's sticking someone in the ribs, the back, the femoral artery in the leg, or even the jugular, whatever. You're just breaking away from combat and trying again.

I say if they are doing it 5+ times on the same NPC yes that's fucked up. But on a PC I say it's fair game.

Without question, backstab relies upon NOT being in combat.  This means that you need some element of surprise.  Maybe you can justify sneaking up in a barren wasteland on a wild animal once and backstabbing it, but twice?  That is just silly.  It is going to either flee from you or fight you the second it sees you.  That goes double if you are fighting a humanoid.  If the NPC behaved as it SHOUD, which is to instantly attack or flee, you would not be able to backstab.  The fact that it doesn't is simply because NPCs are stupid.  Just because and NPC is stupid doesn't mean you should use the code to abuse the hell out of it.  Again, it the same as fighting an NPC down until you are almost dead, fleeing, sleeping, then fighting it some more.  It is lame and twinkish.

PCs are the same way.  Unless you manage to hide and actually surprise them, it is lame, lame, lame to backstab more then once.  If they see you coming, they clearly are going to be in a fighting stance and ready for you.  They are effectively 'in combat', even if they have not codedly entered combat.  They might be trying to RP with you instead of instantly handing it off the code or they simply might have a slow connection and can't hit kill before the backstab lag is done.  Backstabbing someone who KNOWS that you are a danger is utterly twinkish.  It is roughly equivalent to the guy who pointedly points their hand on their sword and a twink pick pocket steals it anyways.  In my opinion, it is coded abuse of the worst kind, pure and simple.

If you could bust out a backstab against an opponent who was prepared for you, then you would be able to bust them out during combat.  The fact that you can't spam backstab in combat should be a pretty damn clear indication that it is a maneuver that you can not perform on someone who is staring at you and knows that you are going to try and hurt them.  If you want to backstab a person more the once, surprise them more then once.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Ok. Here's a plan.

I think that Backstab should be removed and replaced with Strike. The helpfile should be revamped and read something along these lines:

Code Select Expand


Skill Strike  (Combat)  


This skill is a generic term for 'critical strikes' against an opponent. If your character successfully 'strikes' someone, the target has been 'hit in a vital location,' and will be badly injured, the severity of the injury depending on your character's 'strike' skill level.


Syntax:


strike (target)

Example:


> strike raider

Notes:


It is possible, though difficult, to strike fighting victims. It is much easier to open a fight with a strike, but once the foe is fighting, you can still use
a strike against him.

You must always use a 'stabbing' weapon, which is a subset of the
'piercing' category.

Strike is an excellent method of attack if one's presence ought to be
unnoticed by soldiers of city-states. (Of course, any ensuing fight can
attract attention.)

Your character does not need to be hidden for him/her to
attempt a strike. A person who has access to the skill of strike is
considered to have conducted at least rudimentery study on the vital
locations of creatures. Strike is seen to be a reflection of the aggressor
finding the vital locations on a foe and going for those areas, as opposed
to a typical warrior, who hacks and slashs his way to victory in a typically
uneducated manner.

Delay:


before


Strike would be a skill useable in a fight just like kick, bash, etc, but it's delay would be twice as long. This allows a fighter to get good at it without the need to twink it out. It should not be considered a spar-illegal move unless kick and bash and disarm are also illegal in that senario.

This brings us to the hide-attack skill which is so great for assassins and makes them feared. Here's the solution. Instead of backstab, we introduce the idea that hiding and attacking with any weapon at all can increase your damage by 4 times. Instead of saying that only a dagger can instakill you, a skilled hider who is good with his weapon can, instead of doing 20 damage to you, do 80 damage to you. This solves two problems. You can now be a killer with any chosen style, provided you have a good enough hide skill, and, there is no longer any way to classify an assassin from a fighter.

Several other notes are as follows:

Fighters will now have access to the strike skill, as will rangers and assassins. It is no longer solely an assassin talent. Assassins will have the highest cap in it.

The hide and attack feature is additionally available to anyone who has hide skills. However, assassins have an higher cap in hide than any class but thief, and a much higher cap in weapon skills than thieves. Assassins now have the added skills of disarm and bash at a very low cap.

[LoD]

There seem to be two camps regarding the backstab skill.

:arrow:  Backstab is a lethal strike that should only be done with proper amounts of surprise and anatomical knowledge.

:arrow:  Backstab is a strike that takes advantage of the character's training to initiate combat with a crippling attack.

There is merit to both arguements because, like many character skills, backstab is forced to cover so many possible scenarios.  It can be used on an open plain, sparsely wooded forest, shadowed alleyway, cluttered warehouse, immaculate hallway, crowded street and many more, each with their own unique set of conditions.  And just like every other skill, there is a certain degree of maturity, self restraint and patience that should go along with both its practice and use.

Let's address a few of the main complaints/debates:

:!: Backstab shouldn't be practiced on animals.

The main arguement to this point is that an animals behavior and anatomy is not similar enough to that of humanoid to justify learning anything from using the backstab skill.  There is some debate as to how specific the knowledge of anatomy needs to be; obviously eye, throat and head might all be considered universally vulnerable while other locations may depend upon the actual anatomy of the particular beast.

The problem is that backstab consists of more than simply knowing where to strike, it consists of many parts: approach, surprise, timing, aim, delivery, anatomical knowledge and proper application of strength.  Another argument might be that if the majority of these are being performed during the strike, something might be learned.

If backstab would not profit from an exchange with an animal, why would weapon skills (slashing, piercing), bash, kick, archery, etc... be any different?  The reason they do count is because every skill depends on more than one factor to be successful.  There are elements of each skill that can be honed without requiring either the exact target or most common situation for something to be learned.

:!: Backstab shouldn't be used more than once in combat.

The main arguement seems to be if you've already backstabbed someone once, the element of surprise is gone and they won't allow you the opportunity to backstab you again.  This may be interpreted different ways dependant upon the way you feel backstab works as a skill.  Do you need to surprise them with your physical presence (i.e. hiding behind a crate) or could someone surprise you by their movements (i.e. turning around quickly while you are chasing after them)?

There is both a delay before and after a backstab.  Another question would be if you have been backstabbed once, why are you allowing the character to backstab you again?  If your point is that you would engage them before they got another chance, by all means - do it!  If the reason you cannot do it is because the assassin is sneaking/hiding and using the environment to set up an ambush, then perhaps you should consider removing yourself from the equation to avoid getting backstabbed.

Some players have compared backstab to other close quarter combat skills such as kick, bash and disarm, which don't seem to have any of the sames stigmas attached to spamming.  I don't know if some of you have been kicked by a character with a high percentage skill or not, but it's not exactly minimal and doesn't seem to require any surprise to do.  Even if you kicked 15 times in a row, that 16th one comes at me whether I feel my character would anticipate it or not.

:!: You can't increase the backstab skill without twnking.

If you are of the camp that believes backstabbing animals should profit a character nothing and are not in a position to have a line of humanoid adversaries lined up before you, then you may be of the opinion there is no way for you to effectively increase your skill without doing something taht you consider is "twinkish".

A more accurate statement is that backstab will progress slowly if you do not choose to target beasts or have any sort of immediate enemies.  I've made suggestions in past threads that if your character is going to be a trained assassin there are other ways in which to increase your skill (i.e. mentor, dummy practice sessions, preying upon an IC pool such as southerners if you're a northern assassin).

:!: Solution?

I don't agree that the solution is to change backstab to strike and give it to the warrior and ranger classes.  Warriors and rangers are already formidable foes without adding yet another ability to their impressive arsenal.

If multiple backstabs ever became such a problem that the Imm Staff were looking at ways to curb it, I would propose a limitation that was linked with the same flag that disallows you to quit when you've recently fought someone.  The idea that once someone is engaged they are in combat for the next 5 RL minutes.  Make it so that if someone has this in_combat flag on their character, they can only be backstabbed from someone hidden.

This would make it impossible for assassins to perform multiple backstabs anywhere but within the city and require them to sneak/hide if they wanted to make an additional backstab attempt, otherwise it may simply give them a message such as, "The massive, black-eyed man is too excited to approach."

Anyhow, just some points for consideration.

-LoD

[Ritley]

Personally,  I think that going into a room with an NPC, back stabbing, fleeing, then coming back to backstab it again is twinkish beyond words.  It is as much code abuse as attacking something until you are almost dead, fleeing, sleeping, then attacking again once you are healed.  Clearly, even the stupidest beast is not going to sit there and let you walk over to it and slash it in the jugular more then once.  Just because the code is stupid doesn't mean that you should take advantage of it.

If backstab was supposed to be something you could do multiple times, then it would let you use it like kick where you can do it successfully during a fight.

That said, I think that backstab is utterly impossible to get really good at without twinking out, a lame character concept that lets you slaughter NPCs (animal or 'rinth), imm intervention, or learning from someone who has done one of the above.  I almost wish that the imms would simply lock the skill at the n00b level for everyone and simply only let people raise it through imm intervention.  If you can't practice it through some sort of coded mechanism in training, there is no other way you are going to do it enough times short of slaughtering a pile of NPCs to get good.

Learning backstab on scrabs is like a Ninja heading out into the forest and learning how to backstab on wolves.  It is lame, end of story.  I highly doubt that any decent assassin in history learned how to assassinate people practicing on forest creatures.  I imagine every single one of them practiced, practiced, and then practiced some more.

Difference is Assassins aren't Ninja's, and the other difference is Assassin's are -not- always city based. Some Assassin's might've spent their whole life learning how to sneak up on animals and backstab 'em. Like some Burglars might've spent most of their time in the forest, learning to cut tree's down.  If a Assassin was like a Ninja who spent their whole life learning how to assinate people, then fair game, but if they are assassin's that hunt... e.t.c, then they should be able to backstab on animals provided they have the experiece.

[joyofdiscord]

Difference is Assassins aren't Ninja's, and the other difference is Assassin's are -not- always city based. Some Assassin's might've spent their whole life learning how to sneak up on animals and backstab 'em.

The problem is that the game already -has- a class for that kind of Assassin.  It's called Ranger.  Assassins don't have wilderness sneak, and therefore couldn't have been learning how to sneak up on animals in the wild, which, BTW is -really- -hard-.  There's a reason that no one in real life goes out hunting animals with a dagger; they use bows or crossbows or guns or thrown spears or slings.  Wild animals run away when they smell/hear/see/feel/psionically sense you coming.  Or, worse, they come after -you-.

I think backstabbing an animal could be appropriate in a -group- hunting situation, but running out there solo with a knife and expecting to backstab a duskhorn?  Sorry, that's just foolish.

[Ritley]

Difference is Assassins aren't Ninja's, and the other difference is Assassin's are -not- always city based. Some Assassin's might've spent their whole life learning how to sneak up on animals and backstab 'em.

The problem is that the game already -has- a class for that kind of Assassin.  It's called Ranger.  Assassins don't have wilderness sneak, and therefore couldn't have been learning how to sneak up on animals in the wild, which, BTW is -really- -hard-.  There's a reason that no one in real life goes out hunting animals with a dagger; they use bows or crossbows or guns or thrown spears or slings.  Wild animals run away when they smell/hear/see/feel/psionically sense you coming.  Or, worse, they come after -you-.

I think backstabbing an animal could be appropriate in a -group- hunting situation, but running out there solo with a knife and expecting to backstab a duskhorn?  Sorry, that's just foolish.

I'm sorry, but I'd have to say you're wrong. People do it all the time.  And Assassins can still sneak in the wilderness just not as well. The ability to sneak indoors and outdoors are connected to a certain extent.

[Maybe42or54]

Desert Elves don't get a chance to pick the assassin guild, so I disagree with you Ritley. Any assassin would learn quickly in their career that trying to sneak up and jump on any animal is going to be 10 times harder than using a bow and an arrow, or throwing a sword at the damn thing.

It's possible, but any independant hunter is soon going to correlate to this thing.

The closer you get to the animal, the closer it gets to you.
The closer it gets to you, the better chance it has of biting you and inflicting any type of wound.
Wounds take time to heal.
If you hunt again, and get hurt, (a 50% chance of getting hurt, since you are already hurt) then you can't hunt anything worthwhile for a longer time.


Any hunter is soon going to realize that getting close enough to kill something has a lot more risk than attacking from a distance. More chances to fuck up, more chances to get nothing, more chances to get hurt.

And dead is dead. If it came there from an arrow at 5 feet, or slipping on 45' High dive only to land on the diving board 3 inches from the water. A dead animal is a dead animal.

Hunting close range is a whole lot harder than hunting with a bow.

[Ritley]

Desert Elves don't get a chance to pick the assassin guild, so I disagree with you Ritley. Any assassin would learn quickly in their career that trying to sneak up and jump on any animal is going to be 10 times harder than using a bow and an arrow, or throwing a sword at the damn thing.

It's possible, but any independant hunter is soon going to correlate to this thing.

The closer you get to the animal, the closer it gets to you.
The closer it gets to you, the better chance it has of biting you and inflicting any type of wound.
Wounds take time to heal.
If you hunt again, and get hurt, (a 50% chance of getting hurt, since you are already hurt) then you can't hunt anything worthwhile for a longer time.


Any hunter is soon going to realize that getting close enough to kill something has a lot more risk than attacking from a distance. More chances to fuck up, more chances to get nothing, more chances to get hurt.

And dead is dead. If it came there from an arrow at 5 feet, or slipping on 45' High dive only to land on the diving board 3 inches from the water. A dead animal is a dead animal.

Hunting close range is a whole lot harder than hunting with a bow.

Then I will just stick with using throw then  

[RunningMountain]

Screw it just rename backstab to critical hit. Heh. Backstab is just the 10 year old word that never got changed.

[Rindan]

Difference is Assassins aren't Ninja's, and the other difference is Assassin's are -not- always city based. Some Assassin's might've spent their whole life learning how to sneak up on animals and backstab 'em. Like some Burglars might've spent most of their time in the forest, learning to cut tree's down.  If a Assassin was like a Ninja who spent their whole life learning how to assinate people, then fair game, but if they are assassin's that hunt... e.t.c, then they should be able to backstab on animals provided they have the experiece.

Burglars who spend all their time cutting down trees don't get good at lock picking.  Assassins that spend all their time trying to sneak in the wilderness don't get good at sneaking inside of a city.  If you really want to play an outdoorsy character, why on earth would you pick an assassin?  Of all the character classes you could possibly pick, assassin has the most city only skills out of them all.

Maybe you can justify backstabbing an animal once.  I still think it is twinky because of the fact that most animals would either try and stomp you or run, but let's suspend disbelief and say that Zalanthas animals tend to not fear humans.  Doing it more then once is flat out coded abuse.  Further, if this is the manner that you train backstabbing, sneaking through the desert to whack an animal probably larger then you are, you have not learned how to do this in a city better then any idiot warrior who walks through the desert and tries to slash an animal across its neck.  So, if someone is going to "train" backstab in the desert, I hope that they don't turn around and use it in a city, as even though their skills might allow it, they have no real IC training as to how to sneak through a crowd and whack a human.

Assassins learn through practice, practice, and practice.  They don't learn by creating a mountain of bodies.  Even if you can justify in your mind taking your Tuluki to Allanak and randomly assassinating the denizens, you still are going to have to create a horrifically unrealistic mountain of corpses to ever get decent at backstabbing.  The trail to being a skilled assassin should not involve a few hundred dead NPCs, animal or otherwise.  With the rules on using practice weapons being what they are for backstab, the only realistic way to ever get good at backstabbing is imm intervention or for the stars to align and to find a master.

[LoD]

Assassins learn through practice, practice, and practice.  They don't learn by creating a mountain of bodies.  Even if you can justify in your mind taking your Tuluki to Allanak and randomly assassinating the denizens, you still are going to have to create a horrifically unrealistic mountain of corpses to ever get decent at backstabbing.  The trail to being a skilled assassin should not involve a few hundred dead NPCs, animal or otherwise.  With the rules on using practice weapons being what they are for backstab, the only realistic way to ever get good at backstabbing is imm intervention or for the stars to align and to find a master.

Rindan, usually you have some great and wonderful insight to offer on every subject you take the time to disciss, but for some reason this whole backstab issue seems to irritate you to the point of being ridiculous.

You don't have to wade through bodies in order to achieve some small measure of success in your training.  I imagine some combination of work on animals, RP with targets or anatomy and natural conflict within the MUD should provide you with enough material to improve the skill.  Most of your desired alternatives propose some kind of way to practice backstab without ever getting into a real fight (i.e. practicing on allies).

And why not?  Warriors do it.  Well, the damage potential for backstab can far outweigh commands such as kick, bash and regular combat.  And because of this difference in potential, the skill should reside within the same realm as skills like archery and sap, spells that inflict damage and situations in combat where you deliver a blow to someone in a subdued position.  

No one in their right mind should ever volunteer to serve as practice for these kinds of activities.  And so that leaves the alternatives people have mentioned as methods by which you could improve the backstab skill.  You may not be comfortable with them, but claiming that immortal intervention is the only way someone can advance in the skill is both incorrect and a bit outrageous.

There are ways to improve.  They may not be swift.  They may not mirror your opinion of how it should be, but they are present if you simply put forth a little effort and accept some playability over realism here and there.  I'm not telling you to go backstab rats like people do, but I'm also not against using the skill occasionally in environments that at least present a somewhat rational explanation.  Why don't I see threads from you on magickers who flamestrike themselves or shooting their friends with "blunted arrows"?

There is advancement beyond Imm intervention.  Whether the situation you create for yourself allows you to take advantage of that advancement is a personal issue, not a code nor playability issue.

-LoD

[Kalden]

It's a little iffy, but I can see it.

The assassin stabs (either from the crowds or from the shadows). He immediately backs off and sprints off into the shadows, then sneaks up again and does the same thing. It can happen. The 'rinth is a very shadowy place. The streets of 'nak is a very crowded place.

[Supreme Allah]

Maybe you can justify backstabbing an animal once.  I still think it is twinky because of the fact that most animals would either try and stomp you or run, but let's suspend disbelief and say that Zalanthas animals tend to not fear humans.  Doing it more then once is flat out coded abuse.  Further, if this is the manner that you train backstabbing, sneaking through the desert to whack an animal probably larger then you are, you have not learned how to do this in a city better then any idiot warrior who walks through the desert and tries to slash an animal across its neck.  So, if someone is going to "train" backstab in the desert, I hope that they don't turn around and use it in a city, as even though their skills might allow it, they have no real IC training as to how to sneak through a crowd and whack a human.

Believe me, if an animal can see/hear you, they're gonna try to stomp you or run away. That's where the sneak and hide skills come into play.

A: "That jozhal right there, he's PISSED and he's coming back for more. Led him this way after that first run, though, so I'll duck behind this dune here until he draws near, and..."

B: "That jozhal right there, he's shook up after that, and he's got a close eye on his surroundings. Gonna take off if he sees anything come near. I'll keep my head low and see if I can get a good angle on him. Then.."

If I know how to masterfully slink through the underbrush and jump out from behind a far more paranoid, alert and aggressive gortok with better sight/hearing than a human, for example, I don't think I'm gonna have a terribly difficult time at least attempting to slink through a bunch of noisy, chattering tavern patrons and planting a knife in some drunkard's back.

Through some part of their methods, the city just suits the assassin like how the wilderness suits the ranger. Just because my ranger hasn't ever left the city doesn't mean he should be disallowed the use of his listen skill when he finally does. Just because it's storming out and they've never fought in a storm before doesn't mean my character should sheath his weapons and let themselves be massacred because I haven't fought in those conditions. There are coded penalties to the use of those skills, but if my character is good enough to overcome these penalties, then I guess they're just plain skilled enough in what they do to supercede the fact that there is a better, more efficient rangerly/assassinly way to go about my business in the wilderness/city. The ability to move silently or strike a vital location (at least on another mammal) is not mutually exclusive to whether or not city streets are present or not.

I'm not sure I'd have an assassin attempt to backstab a giant beetle or something, because beetles don't have necks or obvious vital spots other than right in their heads, and I think that's where they could see you from. But at the same time that doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to try doing just that. I do think it might be good if some sort of penalty was assessed for attempting to backstab certain insectoid creatures, silt horrors, or anything with well-concealed vitals.

Assassins learn through practice, practice, and practice.  They don't learn by creating a mountain of bodies.  Even if you can justify in your mind taking your Tuluki to Allanak and randomly assassinating the denizens, you still are going to have to create a horrifically unrealistic mountain of corpses to ever get decent at backstabbing.  The trail to being a skilled assassin should not involve a few hundred dead NPCs, animal or otherwise.  With the rules on using practice weapons being what they are for backstab, the only realistic way to ever get good at backstabbing is imm intervention or for the stars to align and to find a master.

I'm pretty sure creating a mountain of bodies will learn you a little something along the way, Rindan. How do you think these "masters" initially learned how? Granted, it's likely the slower and more risky way to go, but it also may be the most reasonable being that these masters are so rare that the stars must align for you to find them, no?

But it'll also draw ire from places you don't likely want ire from. If you start just murdering citizens in the streets, there WILL be reactions and I think you know this, Rindan. Anyone who chooses this way to learn such a craft will likely meet a very quick end and a mantis head not long after. If this same guy sticks to poking hapless, unaffiliated wanderers that stumble into the wrong alley where he thinks they'll bleed the most, keeps a low profile and doesn't piss anyone off for a long enough time, I don't think it's ridiculous to think they might just learn a thing or two on their own.

I'm getting a little sick of all the self-imposed limits folks are told to have to place on themselves. The assassin is probably the skillset with by far the least flexible overall application to begin with, and is also likely the most difficult to ever grow to a point beyond utter uselessness where it really outshines anyone at anything at all, and even then with a very limited array of unique strengths.

[Rindan]

Most of your desired alternatives propose some kind of way to practice backstab without ever getting into a real fight (i.e. practicing on allies).

The code is built to advance assuming that you use backstab with a hack and slash mentality.  In other words, it advances the way you expect it to advance if most people train it by going out into the forest and pwning wolves, camping orc spawns, and terrorizing the smurf village.  It advances the way you expect a skill that is used a hundred times would advance.

Unless you make up lame excuses to take your silk clad city based assassin to wander the forest and pwn wolves, you can never expect to slaughter enough NPCs to advance the skill through coded use.  The skill is designed with the idea that you will advance by killing a mountain of NPCs, not that you carefully employ it five times against living and breathing humans.  You need to set out with the intent to murder more times then anyone could ever consider even vaguely realistic unless you are making up excuses to go out and slaughter NPC animals (pwning wolves in the forest).

No one in their right mind should ever volunteer to serve as practice for these kinds of activities.

I am fairly sure any person, skilled or otherwise, can modulate between driving a dagger with all of their might into someone's back, and tapping someone on their spine or giving them a moderately forceful whack over a piece of armor.  You can train without the intent to murder.  In the same way we assume a warrior isn't going to intentionally try and gouge out his opponents eye during training, you can assume that an assassin wouldn't intentionally try and cripple his target.  He would hit hard enough to make the blow known and call it a day.  The current code represents this pretty well, even if it is not used.  Backstabbing someone with a training weapon doesn't kill them.  It doesn't even do serious damage.  It whacks off enough HP to say that you got a hit, they felt it, and maybe at the end of the day they will have a bruise as bad as any other sparring injury.

And so that leaves the alternatives people have mentioned as methods by which you could improve the backstab skill.  You may not be comfortable with them, but claiming that immortal intervention is the only way someone can advance in the skill is both incorrect and a bit outrageous.

I never said you couldn't advance backstab.  I am pretty sure I could jack up my backstabbing skills fairly quickly.  I could take my assassin out into the desert and wander around hunt the NPCs for the sake up upping my skills.  You might consider it narrow minded, but that is not how I envision "RPing" the training of my super elite city assassin - murdering animals in the desert.

Why don't I see threads from you on magickers who flamestrike themselves or shooting their friends with "blunted arrows"?

Spells can be practiced using 'nil'.  Archery is a skill that someone can expect to use many times in their life time.  If you are a hunter and you kill a few hundred creatures in your life time, you are probably playing the role properly.  That said, I DO think that you should be able to learn archery to a certain level using a target.  A militiaman should be able to learn how to use a bow without ever leaving the city.  He might not ever be as good as a hunter, but he can figure out which end the pointy end is.  Backstab has no 'nil' way of being trained and few people set out with the intent to murder using backstab dozens, much less hundreds of times in their life.

There is advancement beyond Imm intervention.  Whether the situation you create for yourself allows you to take advantage of that advancement is a personal issue, not a code nor playability issue.

Here is my real problem.  I can play a mercenary or a military man and spend the next 30 days worth of play time training.  He might see a dozen or so instances of action in his entire life.  The vast majority of his time will be spent training and guarding things that never come under attack.  You can play out the mercenary or military life style without slaughtering hundreds of NPCs and in the end find that when you do enter a real life or death situation your training has paid off.

If you have ever seen the movie Jarhead, that is exactly what I am talking about.  You can do what happens in Jarhead.  Train, train, and train some more, probably be pretty competent at what you do, and never once see action.  Hell, this is the very foundation of most modern militaries.  Most modern militaries never see actions, yet somehow the soldiers have some level of competence that far exceeds an untrained civilian.

This is not the case for assassins.  You can play out the assassin lifestyle in a realistic manner that never once involves leaving the city, but when it comes time to employ your skills one of the half a dozen or so times you can expect to employee it, you will be whacking at them with a n00b backstab skill.  Why?  Because instead of going out scrab hunting or murdering NPCs, you role played training, training, and more training.  Unless an imm intervened and upped your skills or you had a master to use teach at you, you never once made your backstab skills go up.

I would rather people role play and practice in a realistic manner, rather then go find excuses to murder NPCs.  Role play and practice should be the realistic manner of advancement, not stalking the desert.

[LoD]

I would rather people role play and practice in a realistic manner, rather then go find excuses to murder NPCs.  Role play and practice should be the realistic manner of advancement, not stalking the desert.

Why is it so difficult for you to imagine a scenario where a PC might have cause to murder PC's and exact some manner of practice out of the real thing in addition to whatever "training" they do in private?  You continue to perpetuate this kind of narrow view that there are no legitimite scenarios in which any PC might actually engage other NPC's or PC's in actual combat without "stalking the desert" or going on "murderous rampages".  You should know better than most from experience that conflict is a very easy thing to find in this game, even moreso when you have cause to seek it out.

I am fairly sure any person, skilled or otherwise, can modulate between driving a dagger with all of their might into someone's back, and tapping someone on their spine or giving them a moderately forceful whack over a piece of armor. You can train without the intent to murder.

While I don't agree the code supports a way to train backstab that differentiates between the will to murder and the will to train, perhaps you could champion the cause to institute a 'nil' version of certain skills to allow for the style of training you want.  Something like a "mock" arguement that stops the skill at the point of initiating combat with the same penalties to advancement the magickal counterpart carries.

I'm fairly certain we'll just have to agree to disagree on most of the points regarding backstab since our arguements haven't changed between multiple threads, and I don't wish to continue the same discussion in a new environment.

I'll leave it to say that backstab has been as it is for many, many years without any real need to see it redone.  In the few characters I have had over the past 5 years, there have been precious few that have met the unfriendly point of a knife in my back, and I can't say I'd like that to change.  A smart and well trained assassin should be a valued and rare thing.  If that ever changes, then I'll have the same issues with them as I have with sorcerers being capable of amassing a great amount of power without having to risk life and limb in order to attain it.

-LoD

[marko]

Unless you make up lame excuses to take your silk clad city based assassin to wander the forest and pwn wolves, you can never expect to slaughter enough NPCs to advance the skill through coded use.  The skill is designed with the idea that you will advance by killing a mountain of NPCs, not that you carefully employ it five times against living and breathing humans.  You need to set out with the intent to murder more times then anyone could ever consider even vaguely realistic unless you are making up excuses to go out and slaughter NPC animals (pwning wolves in the forest).

You know, there is a basic problem to this argument.  It implies that when someone is starting out they actually _kill_ their intended victim.  The reality is - the assassin will likely fail at everything and run away.  To make the try another day.

It is only when an assassin becomes skilled that you'd actually start seeing bodies piling up.

I really don't understand this whole set of arguments.  It is very realistic to make an attempt at someone and to fail - then to get the hell out of dodge.  Or, perhaps, to circle back around and try again.  

You can even make a case for an assassin fleeing from combat, running back into the room, and trying for another backstab - backstab is not directly linked to sneak and / or hide.  There is no requirement to be hidden to backstab.  There is no requirement to be sneaking to backstab.  There is a delay before and after backstab - plenty of delay for an alert PC to either move or make the first attack.

Fleeing against non-aggressive npcs and re-backstabbing is a lot like standing in the room next to some wild beasty and tossing knives at them or shooting them with arrows.  So, if someone considers re-backstabbing lame then I hope they consider shooting at a living target a few times the same way.  Some self restraint is probably a good idea.

Backstabbing against animated npcs or PCs - go nuts.  The code handles those last few steps and you can imagine them to be anything you like - from someone up on their tippy-toes to feinting in one direction to lure a person to expose a weak spot.

I don't see much wrong with backstabbing animals - you are going through the basic movements of the attack.  It is the same as kick being used on a gith, halfling, half-giant, scrab, or bahamet.  The basic mechanism of the kick is the same although where one kicks differs.  

I just don't understand the basic crux of the arguments here - why is backstab being treated so differently for the sake of this discussion from any other combat skill?  The fundamentals are similar no matter the target one makes use of the skill.  This is the same with archery, throw, kick, bash, disarm, and any of the weapons skills.  

If arm had a more robust combat system where it took into account one's proficiency against creature types I can see people using the argument to great effect.  But arm's combat system does not differentiate between fighting a human versus fighting a mekillot.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

At the same time, why not:

1. Make backstab obsolete.
2. Implement a combination of the hide skill and a weapon skill, which simply amplifies natural damage, and give assassins the best possible results, if not the only results.

I really think that this would be the best all-around solution.

[Agent_137]

because that would be too far from the norm.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

What?

[spawnloser]

I dunno, V.  I'd rather it were a skill so you can get better at it.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I understand that.

But, then again, wouldn't the same thing still be happening, since you'd be using a combination of the weapon skill being used and the hide skill to create situational results, and the higher your skill in, say, slashing and hide, the better multiplier you get for your end damage...

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

For number's sake:

You have hide at 10.
You have sword at 10.

You get a final damage total of 8. Shiiiity damage.

But ... hide and sword are added together for a total of 20. Your damage total of 8 is divided by 20 for a result of .4. 0.4 means that the initial damage will be multiplied by 4, for a total of 32.

By the end of this equation, your newbie assassin has landed a hit, from hiding, at 32 damage.

Someone will argue that suddenly, assassins will be overpowered. But how? They still won't hit a warrior 99 percent of the time, or a ranger 70 percent of the time. But geez, they really should be able to scar a fucking merchant right off the bat. Let's be realistic here.

[Maybe42or54]

I agree.
Let's fix it by making backstab easy to do, hard to learn?