On training backstab

[a foreign presence]

Hello. Yes, I'm bringing the dead horse up for another beating. I have wanted to play a guild_assassin PC for a while but I'm worried about one thing: practicing backstab. I'm fully aware that doing it while sparring is frowned upon (and generally impossible since sparring daggers aren't coded as stabbing weapons) and that backstabbing random NPCs for the purpose of becoming better at a skill is not much of a viable option either. Neither do I like the thought of learning this skill through using it on small game while hunting because the concept I had in mind is not to become a master at offing rats and birds. So unless I have overlooked something, this leaves me with two options:

1) Find a master assassin who will teach you. Well I have been playing for almost a year (not claiming that this is a lot, but still) in pretty much every part of the game - every location, most types of characters and most layers of societies - and I haven't really heard of any master assassin PCs, and certainly not any that would be willing to spend months training up somebody. That's not a problem but my point is that this option, in my book, is not really something you can rely on as a way to reach a goal.

2) Join a sparring clan such as the T'zai Byn and snail-pace your backstab skill up by using it once every other week or however often you go out on desert trips and actually meet viable targets (this is not a jozhal or a yompar lizard). Depending on how often you play it could take something like a RL year before you reach any kind of lethality.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not simply looking for the fastest way to become badass. What bothers me is that the way some of the skills are coded makes it very hard to train them without being very, very creative or balancing on the border of twinking. The argument I hear the most against practicing backstab while sparring is that people don't like it when you try to kill them, and backstabbing is an attempt to kill. Yes, a real full-blown backstab is an attempt to kill, but is practicing the skill the same? Not in my opinion, but there is only that one way to use backstab because of how it's coded. Why is it not possible to safely practice the moves, the stealth and the anatomical knowledge that pretty much makes up the entirety of the backstab skill, perhaps not to master it but to at least get to a point beyond useless, without having to use the skill in its true form?

So to highlight the point of my long-winded post: I don't like the way backstab and other similar skills are coded when it comes to practicing them, or how most of the arguments against training them are based on how they are coded.

What do you think?

[UnderSeven]

I think that a competant backstab is such a Friggin' terrifying skill that it makes me sleep better at night knowing that it is not something you can easily, or quickly improve with.

[Nameless Face]

Read over the extensive multiple discussions on this topic in previous threads.  You will find that the two options you listed are far from the only ones available for developing such skills.

What do you think?

A wealth of suggestions, options and debate is available from just about every angle on this matter, easily accessible to all.  

I don't like the way backstab and other similar skills are coded when it comes to practicing them, or how most of the arguments against training them are based on how they are coded.

I don't understand your opinion.  As far as I know, backstab is coded for learning in the same manner that every other skill in the game is.  The arguments limiting excessive training with backstab are the same arguments against excessive training with any other skill:  Is use of the skill realistic and appropriate to the environment and your PC?

[Mr.B]

Take it from an experienced player, that while backstab is a powerful skill it is by no means an assassin's sole track to become lethal. There are many tactics available to the seasoned killer that don't involve a single backstab, and imo the greatest asset to an assassin is it's ability to gather information. That being said, the staff position on working backstab is pretty clear, since a backstab is an attempt to strike vitals and deal damage to an opponent with the express intent to kill or cripple is at odds with the idea of sparring. You really do need to have a reason to use the skill, and even then it will be difficult to get lethal with it without dying somewhere along the line because use of such a skill usually tends to really tick some people off. My advice? Good luck, and play it smart. Even if you advance at snail-pace, you'll be one fearsome bastard if you stay alive. Welcome to Armageddon.

[Larrath]

The problem with backstab is that it's an all-out vicious attack - you can't 'practice' an eye-gouging maneuver against a friend during friendly sparring, because they could suffer permanent damage.

But on the other hand, if you're really feeling held back by your low backstab skill and you can't find a better method, you can always RP some practice and send a Skill Increase request.

Here are some things you can practice on:
1) Having a friend stand still for you to test the various attacks/methods of approach on, without actually hitting them.
2) Studying and dissecting a dead corpse, and learning from Physicians about the vital organs.
3) Practicing lunges and even some light acrobatics.
4) Stabbing stances and perfecting the grip on your chosen weapon.
5) Performing Katas.

Generally speaking though, you probably shouldn't worry about Backstab too much.  If you can't make friends with another backstab user that would be willing to teach you, just give it time and don't sweat.

[Pantoufle]

The arguments used to deter/prevent players from practising backstab are mere smoke screens contrived by the paranoid.  Backstab is a strike to the vitals, be that an eye, an organ, the groin etc., take your pick.  There is nothing unrealistic about painting a red dot on the armor of your sparring buddy, indicating "this is where his right lung lies" and then attempting to strike that target at the onset of melee.  When your WOODEN dagger strikes his WOODEN armor exactly on the mark (by typing 'backstab dude'), then you've achieved the desired result - and you've probably caused less pain or bruising than a regular sparring match does.  There isn't anything unrealistic about that.

If you want to prevent people from practising backstab because you're afraid they'll get too powerful too quick, then just say it.  But there's nothing unrealistic about training a strike upon someone's vitals by using (soft) mock weapons.  Draw a red circle on my shirt, right where my heart lies, and routinely try to strike me there with a leather handle.  What you're effectively doing is training the critical strike otherwise known as backstab.

As for the notion that "Backstab is eye-gouging, you can't practise that!"  Firstly, you can practise on inanimate objects to improve your strike and secondly, if I'm the backstabber in question, I'll decide if it's an eye-gouge, a strike to your kidney, groin, etc.  Not you.  Since I'm in control of the vital I am striking for, I can safely practise it on you without inflicting damage, using all of the examples above.  Let's be careful we're not trying to win an argument just to prevent people from doing something.  When you apply logic to your argument, you begin to realise real quick that practising a vital strike without inflicting real damage is both realistic and extremely easy.  From this angle, we can see that practising backstab is less painful than practising all out fighting.  You can hit the red dot painted on my breastplate all day and I'll be fine, but clobber me on the head with a club designed even for sparring and I'll start to get bruised real quick.

[Sokotra]

A good option, and probably your best bet, would be to simply train your assassin as a fighter that specializes in striking vital locations of the anatomy or pressure points, etc.  Train basically just like any other warrior might train, except you'd probably want to learn about being sneaky, climbing, and finding good places to hide to ambush an opponent or whatever... these should be fairly easy to practice.  Once you've become fairly decent in all of these things, (and not just focusing on backstab, like someone else said... you have many other tools at your disposal) then you'd actually probably have more chances to use backstab in an actual 'situation'.  You'd probably find a friend or someone that trusts you to use a not-so-lethal looking weapon to practice on... in the past I've always seen it role-played as just trying to get a surprise attack in and not actually trying to kill someone so I don't see the huge deal in practicing it during sparring or whatever if you role-play it properly and don't do huge amounts of damage yet or anything.  

But again, I don't think you need to worry about being an expert at it very quickly when you can get the job done in other ways.  A master is a master for a reason, someone that can nearly kill someone in one blow should not be easy to find.  It's already bad enough when there's people running around right now that can kill with a single command with poisons, majick, half-giant strength, uber-spar-trained warriors and everything else.

[Cuusardo]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with roleplaying it out, and sending logs of that to the IMMs.

[jstorrie]

I disagree with some of what you've said. There are master assassins in-game and not all of them are completely secretive about it (find out IC.) There are more ways to practice backstab that you aren't considering. And as Sokotra has pointed out, it is probably more realistic to practice and learn combat in general before you start working on The Death Touch.

Just be patient and creative and you should be able to figure something out without having to stoop to 'killing poor people in alleyways for backstab practice.' By the way, extreme negative kudos for anyone who does that (not that I am suggesting that you would, Pale Horse.)

[Hymwen]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with roleplaying it out, and sending logs of that to the IMMs.

But isn't there some rule that says you can only do that every 6 months? Or is that something else?

[Cale_Knight]

You're thinking about account notes requests.

[Lizzie]

The whole "log the RP and send it to the IMMs" doesn't sit well with me at all. This is a coded skill we're talking about, that is coded to improve upon use (and failure). Instead of actually using the "ride" skill, why not have people who don't have it, just RP it out and send a log to the staff? Instead of actually using their crafting skills, why not just send logs to the staff? In fact, since we can just send a log to the staff to get our skills boosted, why bother sparring, or using the coded commands for any of our skills at all? My answer, is that this isn't a MUSH. Most of our skills are coded, and those that are coded, -are- coded, so that players can actually use them. I think it's very sad to see someone tell a player trying to figure out a way to incorporate a coded skill into his character's life, to just "pretend" and send a log to the staff for a skill boost.

Personally I like the idea someone mentioned a few posts back. About focusing on a mark on someone's armor and attempting to hit that mark with their sparring weapon. Perhaps certain areas (sparring rings, certain "rooms" in alleys and other appropriate places) can be coded, so that if someone is trying to use a sparring weapon, in that designated area, with the backstab skill, it will place a single hit on the target with minimal (if any) damage, and not engage the pair in combat at all.

This way people who want to actually use that coded skill their character's skillset comes with, will have some appropriate and logical means to do so without having to try and track down a master assassin whose player may or may not log in at the same time or may or may not even live in the same city, and won't have to resort to "faking" the backstab routine and sending it to the staff for a skillboost.

I don't play a PC with that skill, but I've seen a couple who have it in action. Personally I think the echoes look really really silly when someone jumps out at a tregil with the backstab skill. I wouldn't mind seeing that changed too, so that characters with that skill, who choose to go hunting at times, can use their skill as an "aimed critical strike" rather than its current way, which results in that echo which may or may not be accurate for certain non-mamallian critters.

L. Stanson

[Cyrian20]

Take a few moments and (god I love google) research how some assassins trained, your 'vital strike' is one of the last things you will ever train, and if you make an assassin and play for a while you will find youself with plent of chances to train it.

To an earlier post about the red dot on the armor... you're kidding right, because that is basically what all pcs are trying to do when they spar. Backstab is more the study as well as what to do when the knife is already sunk in. Plus we have to deal with the fact it needs to be hard to train or 80hp backstabs will become an everyday accurance. Play a long lived assassin and you may even learn a few other ic things about backstab that will make you appriciate that it isn't easy to max with a 1 day old character.

[Sir Diealot]

Play a long lived assassin and you may even learn a few other ic things about backstab that will make you appriciate that it isn't easy to max with a 1 day old character.

[a foreign presence]

I don't think I implied that I wanted to become a master of backstab in a hurry. My point was that training the skill is such a problem because of how it's coded. The obstacles are more OOC than anything IMO, and the potential power of a skill should not be what determines the methods of training. You don't tell magickers who can kill people in one spell that they can only practice it against certain targets and never in safety. If I was to come up with a solution, I'd make it possible to practice backstab up to a certain point, let's say 30% of its full potential, in sparring. This should be slow, not something that you'd train up as fast as kick or shield use or whatever, but it should be possible to get some training in the skill without having to actually go out and make an actual attempt at murdering something every time.

Sending in logs is not what I'd call a solution. I seem to remember being told that it's for situations where you can't raise the skill because of OOC issues such as being in a sparring clan but playing off-peak so you only get to spar vNPCs. It should never be the primary way of working on a skill.

Finding a teacher is not possible for everyone. There might not even be a master assassin in the game while you have your character, and then comes obstacles such as playtimes, living in opposite ends of the world, and the fact that they're probably not very likely to want to teach you at all. Even if you manage it, I've never had any luck with the teach skill. I've had my 1day recruit PC taught a skill by a 40day sergeant who was obviously up there skill-wise and got the message "they don't know any more than you".

So if the skill's potential power is what worries you, the solution is slowing down the progress, not taking away realistic methods of practicing it. Opinions obviously differ, but I refuse to accept that because a skill is meant to be deadly, training it without actually attempting a murder shouldn't be possible.

[Eternal]

I honestly think Vanth said it best.

There's a number of skills in game which are not easily practiced.  This is just another one of them.

Makes sense to me.

[Sokotra]

So if the skill's potential power is what worries you, the solution is slowing down the progress, not taking away realistic methods of practicing it. Opinions obviously differ, but I refuse to accept that because a skill is meant to be deadly, training it without actually attempting a murder shouldn't be possible.

Maybe instead of the progress of skill advancement being slow, it could be fairly fast because of the inability to train it easily.  *shrug*  I'm not sure if that is the case, but compared to the power of the skill itself I imagine that it is okay how it is.  I do understand where you are coming from and have been frustrated as well when I feel like I have no way of training certain skills that would fit my character, but I don't think you need to attempt murder to train backstab.  From what Vanth said, I guess the skill isn't meant to be 'easily' trained... it is made that way for a reason.  I still think you have some completely viable options out there for training it without that much trouble.  I think you could use plenty of the options that 'borderline on twinking' as long as you RP'd the situation properly and with good IC reasons... that is the fine line between twinking and RP'ing.

[Cuusardo]

I'm not saying that RPing out lessons is the only way to practice backstab.  No one should feel obligated to do this.  My point is that it is a valid option that should be kept in mind, rather than feeling that there is no way to train it.  If you don't want to do it this way, don't do this and go and find a coded way to practice.

[Flaming Ocotillo]

I may be wrong, but sparring weapons don't come in the "stabbing" variety anymore, and I'm pretty sure that's why we no longer see backstab being practiced in sparring.

If you want to practice backstab, just backstab everything you want to fight with, as long as you're aware of the major lag after a backstab (backstabbing an NPC that may kill you in ten seconds is a bad idea). If you were going to fight a large rat, an insect-like scrab, and a stooped elf during your game session, then open up with a backstab instead of "kill <target>". Now you are raising backstab, just like everything else. What's the problem with this? There's so much talk about backstab being complicated to raise, but if you follow this system, you'll be raising as consistently as every other combat skill.

Now that I've spoiled the secret, may the 80 dmg backstab assassins fill up the game! It really isn't that hard a skill to raise, once you bury all the superstition surrounding it being a "twinky" skill. The only reason it's tough to raise is because of the long lag time after a backstab, which means hidden opponents or unexpected changes in combat can kill you dead during the lag time. This is a danger with the backstab skill in general, and isn't only limited to the raising aspect. An assassin with max backstab skill can still get massacred by a large black beetle because of the backstab lag. It's a dangerous skill to use against a target that you can't reliably kill in combat, and newly made assassins tend to have difficulty killing anything reliably. Fight weaker things, and you'll have a better chance of surviving to improve your skills. It's the same truth that applies to every other combat skill in the game.

[Pantoufle]

Not that this is a stabbing weapon per se (maybe it is) but I'm sure "a crude, dull bone knife" would, realistically, be less damaging than a pointy-tipped wooden training sword.  So, theoretically, you can still spar backstab if you find an item described as being so shabby it couldn't possibly do any more damage than any other training sword.  There's lots of pisspoor weapons around.  It doesn't have to have the keyword "training" to be used in a sparring match.  I could spar with a branch or broken shovel handle if I really wanted.  Get inventive, I say.

[jmordetsky]

So if the skill's potential power is what worries you, the solution is slowing down the progress, not taking away realistic methods of practicing it. Opinions obviously differ, but I refuse to accept that because a skill is meant to be deadly, training it without actually attempting a murder shouldn't be possible.

Agreed.

Edit: I realize this sort of contradicts what I said in posts after the fact. What I agree with here, is that it should be possible.  See below for details.

[Pale Horse]

Just be patient and creative and you should be able to figure something out without having to stoop to 'killing poor people in alleyways for backstab practice.' By the way, extreme negative kudos for anyone who does that (not that I am suggesting that you would, Pale Horse.)

...Oh, but you are, my friend. Take care that you don't become said 'poor person in the alleyway'...

[ThirdEye]

How about this then, a command that is exactly that, a non-lethal backstab. The thing is, it develops much slower than a proper backstab. Set the cap where you like, this is something I just thought up.

Something like this?

stab victim
You drive your dagger towards victim's ribs, stopping just short and pulling back.

Not sure for a fail, maybe the same message we have now.

Meh, just throwing out ideas.

[Moofassa]

It wouldn't be the same, Tri-clops. There is a difference when sparring, and fighting. While it would raise the skill a tiny bit, it's in the practise of the actual move where you make mistakes, and get better based on those mistakes.

[ThirdEye]

Aye.