Barrier and Stun Drain

[Eloran]

Nah, keep the stun drain. Barrier's overpowered anyway.. the one skill that helps the most in keeping a 9-karma race from killing a 0-karma one. I don't find the barrier drain particularly annoying.

You're overestimating the usefulness of barrier, sir.

It is not overpowered: Any yahoo with marginal skill in contact can break a barrier max percentage-wise in two to three tries.

[Synthesis]

Nah, keep the stun drain. Barrier's overpowered anyway.. the one skill that helps the most in keeping a 9-karma race from killing a 0-karma one. I don't find the barrier drain particularly annoying.

You're overestimating the usefulness of barrier, sir.

It is not overpowered: Any yahoo with marginal skill in contact can break a barrier max percentage-wise in two to three tries.

And any yahoo with maxed barrier can put it right back up in one try.

[KIA]

I heart barrier.

[Eloran]

Nothing to see here.

Move along.

[Synthesis]

And any yahoo with maxed barrier can put it right back up in one try.

That's all well and good, until you become the victim of a team of somebodies who do something nasty.
But we're straying from the point of the thread.

Lame?  Sounds like strategery.

P.S. Smells like IC info, too.

[Eloran]

Lame?  Sounds like strategery.

Legal? Yes. Lame? Hell yes.

P.S. Smells like IC info, too.

I named no spell. Calm down.

[Synthesis]

Lame?  Sounds like strategery.

Legal? Yes. Lame? Hell yes.

P.S. Smells like IC info, too.

I named no spell. Calm down.

Sorry, but it's not lame.  Magick is scary and will pwn j00.  Deal with it.

[Eloran]

I love magick.

I just don't like it when people use ooc buds to break your barrier before owning "j00."

[Agent_137]

I love magick.

I just don't like it when . . .

you know what'll help? crying about it.

[Eloran]

lol youre so funny!

[Majikal]

I love magick.

I just don't like it when people use ooc buds to break your barrier before owning "j00."

It went from two pc's attacking your pc to ooc bastards fucking you over in the course of a couple posts, that's a pretty hardcore PoV change. 


End teh superderailing of doooooooooomz.

[SMuz]

Well, I wasn't able to break another person's barrier with around 5 tries (with only decent skill in contact, and that other guy probably didn't practice his barrier). Then I gave up.

Let's put it this way.. if you had a "block" command, where you could block 2 to 3 of someone's melee attacks, and that only resulted in a stun drain, that seems a little powerful to me. I've never had to go up against brainz-eating spells, but everyone told me that's what barrier was supposed to help against, and IMHO, just delaying a psionicist for 5 seconds as he slams my barrier while I slice into him makes the skill worth it.

[Eloran]

Well, I wasn't able to break another person's barrier with around 5 tries (with only decent skill in contact, and that other guy probably didn't practice his barrier). Then I gave up.

Decent meaning...what? 10 hours into a character? 10 days? Contact can and will override barrier between two characters with equal skill. Just trust me on this.

Let's put it this way.. if you had a "block" command, where you could block 2 to 3 of someone's melee attacks, and that only resulted in a stun drain, that seems a little powerful to me.

You already do have such a command:

Code Select Expand


>help shield use

Skill Shield Use                                                   (Combat)

   This automatic skill is invoked whenever your character is in combat.
All blows which are about to land on your character are checked against a
complicated system of relationships, including the "shield use" skill. A
successful shield use can get your shield up, blocking a blow from hitting
a more sensitive area of the body. Note that it may not negate all damage,
but it will reduce it from what it would have done.

Note:
   Wielding the shield (i.e., "ep shield") increases your character's
chance of success.

Delay: special

See also:
   skill parry


What's even better:

It doesn't drain stun!

[SMuz]

OK, fine, blocking melee attacks was not a good example. You win that one. Shield use does drain stun though, but only under a strong hit.

I don't think shield use works against fireballs (never tried it), but if it does, then I withdraw my statement But in a similar sense, I'd take it that mundanes would have a very low barrier cap. Much like you wouldn't expect a non-warrior type to have shield use. Now a psionicist.. he'd have awesome barrier. Probably enough to eat the mind of anyone who tries to get past it.

[Fathi]

OK, fine, blocking melee attacks was not a good example. You win that one. Shield use does drain stun though, but only under a strong hit.

I don't think shield use works against fireballs (never tried it), but if it does, then I withdraw my statement But in a similar sense, I'd take it that mundanes would have a very low barrier cap. Much like you wouldn't expect a non-warrior type to have shield use. Now a psionicist.. he'd have awesome barrier. Probably enough to eat the mind of anyone who tries to get past it.

There is a pretty huge problem that would arise from setting up the skill in the way you described. I'm not gonna go into details, but I imagine you can figure out why.

[Xygax]

Lame?  Sounds like strategery.

Legal? Yes. Lame? Hell yes.

P.S. Smells like IC info, too.

I named no spell. Calm down.

Yeah, that was IC info.  It's kinda too late to redact, so I'm leaving it as an example.  Don't do this.  And don't do it, then ask people to calm down.  You may not have affected Synthesis' play, but you most certainly have introduced a new concept to someone who otherwise might never have imagined it.  Totally unacceptable behavior.

-- X

[Good Gortok]

On that note, I think it might be worth revising the amount of stun reduction you suffer from psionics with low stats. It seems to depend on some combination of wisdom and endurance, and if you happen to have really low scores in one or both of these, barrier or contact will shear off as much as 40 points from your pool. This can be quite small to begin with if you rolled poor endurance, and I have had characters with a max stun of as little as 40-50ish when running a psionic ability. This is an almost unplayably small amount of stun to have at your disposal.

[Xygax]

This penalty is improved by improving your skill.

-- X

[Good Gortok]

Oh. Is that new? I haven't had a character in quite a while.

[Xygax]

Nope, not new.

-- X

[Eloran]

It's kinda too late to redact, so I'm leaving it as an example.

In a gesture of good faith then, I'll delete the aforementioned snip on my own.

Xygax: What are your thoughts on lowering the -max- stun taken off once one gets better at barrier?

[Xygax]

We already do that, too, or else I am misunderstanding you.  (let's not get more IC, email me about it)

-- X