Backstab idea

[TripleX]

I've copy/paste the backstab help file:

SKILL_BACKSTAB

This skill is a generic term for 'critical strikes' against an opponent.
The victim of a backstab is not necessarily 'stabbed in the back'-- the
attack could be from any direction. If your character successfully
backstabs 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
backstab skill level.

My question and idea is this:  Why can't an assassin backstab during a fight? -- Assassin is familiar with all the vital locations, right?  Why can't he stab a vital location during a fight? -- In my opinion it's possible, perhaps not code wise, but it is possible.

What do you think?

[Carnage]

Because that would completely overpower assassins and take away any real need to use strategy. They would be able to just take anyone out within a few rounds using head to head combat and backstabbing during it, including warriors.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Hrmph....

It has merit, but maybe should not be called backstab...or rather, the messages should certianly be changed. I would think that perhaps you might see a message like this:
PC lunges, driving ~weapon into %opponent groin

Also, max damage would need to be halved at least, to reflect that it is NOT a clear shot. Assassins can kill you in one blow with a clear shot...

I'd say because even though an Assassin does not need to be out of sight to perform this "critical strike", they have to be at least able to make a clear attack with the attackee unsuspecting. I.E. not with their guard up and fighting, an aware target makes such a critical strike near impossible, as the strike is not one to penetrate defenses, only flesh.

Now, as far as the idea of backstab-like damage during a fight... I would say that pretty much sums up a badass warrior with excellent weapon and offensive skills. Three well-placed hits from such a warrior can kill even the hardiest, and you won't find many better ways to kill an actively defending target.

[Rindan]

If you could launch a critical strike during combat, wouldn't you simply try and make every strike a critical strike?

I think people miss the point of backstab.  The hard part about backstab is NOT finding a place to stick a knife.  Any idiot recognizes that slashing someone's throat or snapping their spine with a blow will kill a person.  Any moderately trained fool can recognize an opening in armor or a weak spot over a vital location.  Finding the actually spot to hit is easily the easiest part of the skill.  Any warrior would know ever single location that an assassin would think to stab.  Perhaps a truly skilled assassin might be able to pick out a weakness in armor better then a complete novice or might know that the liver is a nice organ to hit too, but truth be told, the picking of the spot is the easiest point.  Further, going for someone's throat or some other open area is not something just an assassin does.  Any person locked in combat is going to go for weaknesses in armor and aim for vital locations.

The hard part to a backstab is the surprise part.  The real magik behind a backstab is that you can launch your attack against that vital location without your victim noticing that it is coming, and thus keeping the victim from defending themselves.  As soon as the victim knows it is coming, then it is just a regular swing at a vital location, and anyone who could parry one of your blows normally should have no problem doing it to your 'surprise' attack that is without the surprise.

If I were to split up what the backstab skill is when you are learning it, I would say that it is 70% the act of surprising your victim, 20% how to swing that weapon, and 10% where to hit.  The where to hit is obvious.  A child with a knife could slit my throat and kill me.  The actual skill in swinging the weapon is generally simple, but things like armor might make slipping the knife through into flesh a little more challenging.  That said, if I don't defend myself and you have time to line up, a child could find a hole and push a knife through.  The real skill in backstabbing is getting to the point where you can observe the location to strike, and get the knife to that location without anyone noticing.  A child can't do that on an aware person.  For that reason, backstab is a not a skill to be used in combat against an aware opponent.

[Anonymous]

Only if 'backstabbing' during a fight had a drastically reduced chance of success and reduced damage from the backstab.

I've had people flee come back and backstab me multiple times during a fight.  Is this ok then?  At the time it felt cheesy.

[Drayab]

Fleeing and then coming back in to backstab a second time seems cheesy to me, but disengaging and then trying a backstab doesn't seem as bad. For example, say it's a two on one fight and one of the two knows how to backstab. It seems like a pretty reasonable tactic for the first guy to keep the opponent busy while the second guy tries to sneak around behind the opponent to stab him in the back.

For balance, I think you should not be able to backstab while actively engaged in combat.

[hammie2]

So the cross hilted bastard sword wielding warrior who is 10 times better than you in combat can stand still and wax you?  I say thee nay.

Flee and come back in when he doesn't see you and backstab away.  Perfectly legit to me.  Balance is also not a krathian dropping a 100 hp blast on you when you have only 90 hp.  Assassins need to be able to do what they do best which is backstab away.

[Lazloth]

I've had people flee come back and backstab me multiple times during a fight.  Is this ok then?  At the time it felt cheesy.

Flee/stab is the basic method of damage employed by virtually any rogue class on any H&S.  With the built-in delays to both movement and backstab on Arm, I doubt anyone is complaining about an issue with balance; so this discussion strictly revolves around describing someone 'leaving' the area and returning?   Well, shit, how do you treat it when someone flees from a sparring ring..?  The stabber disengages from close combat, maybe squats to scrape together a handful of sand before rushing again?

I don't see this as a problem, personally, either in mechanics or 'realism' per se.  How different is this from the guy that joins flee/hide/sap in an effort to get away when being chased down, or any other myriad of un-emoted combos?

Anyway, as to the original notion:  thumbs down.  Leave backstab right where it is.  I've played on muds where you can only stab non-injured targets, and I've played on muds where you can crit strike during combat.  Where backstab sits on Arm is pretty fine.

[flurry]

But backstab is supposed to be based on surprise, no?   So fleeing and coming right back to stab, especially repeatedly, to me seems like code abuse.    Unless it would be for some reason realistic to keep surprising the same person who's standing in one spot, being surprised over and over.

[hammie2]

Thing with backstab is that, do you know how hard it is to raise that skill?

Warriors raise their skill mighty quick, but a backstabber takes hell long to raise that skill.

[flurry]

I sympathize about that, completely.   I had a character who got sap once, and I had no idea how to practice it.   So I pretty much didn't.

[Summer]

So it takes a long time..... and? Something that can massacre someone in one hit and you want to get good at it quickly? How is that balanced?

I think backstab is fine the way it is. When you pull it off it is very, very nice maybe one more hit and the thing dies. As others have said, it is more about sneaking up on someone and slipping the weapon in unnoticed. Look at the failure message when you try it. It isn't about hitting someones throat or whatever. Everyone knows it is good to hit someone there, it's about actually hitting them there, either by sneaking up on them and getting in unnoticed or by being so good you can just run straight at them. Machine gun as opposed to sniper rifle.

[hammie2]

Perhaps we never really defined how long it actually takes to get good at backstab.  Hella Long imho is defined as maybe 10 ic years etc.

[Angela Christine]

Thing with backstab is that, do you know how hard it is to raise that skill?

Warriors raise their skill mighty quick, but a backstabber takes hell long to raise that skill.

Yeah, I guess.  But what is your point?

Some skills, like backstab, clothworking and archery, seem to take a long time and/or money to become good.  Other skills, like ride, seem to improve a little faster.  

The skills you use most usually improve the fastest.  A warrior who spends half his time sparring will become good at sparring faster than a warrior who spends 5% or 10% of his time sparring, and much faster than a warrior who never fights at all unless someone else attacks him.  If you join an organization that spends 3-4 hours of the 9 hour day sparring, your basic combat skills will improve fairly quickly, as an independant or member of a smaller organiztion it could take quite a while.  It usually isn't practical or plausible to spend half your time backstabbing or shooting arrows, and few people could afford enough matirials to spend half their time crafting even if they had the patience.  There aren't any well-known organizations that will give you a way to practice archery or backstab 3-4 hours a day.  Maybe you could start one, a group of sneaky folk who stand around trying to backstab eachother all morning.  

I suppose if you could find a way to backstab more often, backstab would improve more quickly and be more useful.  Was that your point?

AC

[Summer]

From my experience it wasn't that long to get ok at it. And I was playing a dwarf. I still don't see what the issue is. Assassins can get scarily good and yet somehow people want to have an assassin critical hit all throughout the combat? It's like having a 2 day old warrior and wondering why you still get killed by a gith. Because they are better than you. It takes a long time to get good at something. They don't churn out SAS members do they? It takes a long time to get someone that skilled at killing people.

[Anarchy]

Im not sure about everyone else, but im tried of hearing about the Asssassin and Warrior complaining so this is all im going to say  Warrior's have places like the byn to train there people killing skills - Assassins have nothing, i would sugguest - having corpses able to be "backstabbed" twice before its usless (IE - The part in Gangs of New York - where Bill
the Butcher is stabbing the pig, and showing the kill and wound locations) That would solve alot of problems, and would also be ICly done, would of course need to be done on humanoid corpses - that way i cant see how this it can be abused. I dont know many people who have rampaged killing NPC people and lived very long.

the corpse of so and so is crumpled here
*emoting*
backstab corpse
- You stab the corpse of so and so in the armpit, and note how much blood seeps out.
Look
The corpse of so and so is crumpled here, a wound in its armpit
-Backstab corpse
You stab the corpse between the ribs, probing for the lungs and heart
Look
The bloody corpse of so and so is here, several puncture wounds on it.

Or whatever, would solve problems at least

[some backstabber type]

Backstabbers don't have "nothing"
Well..in most cases there's no clanned training area for backstabbing since its considered a bad thing to use dummies for that in most cases.

But if youre with a clan that goes out on patrol you can use it on a critter once everyone else has gotten the critter half dead, that way the chance of it killing you while you fail miserably and stand there unable to do anything else is lessened

Unfortunately backstab is meant to be a "sneaky" kind of thing and if youre trying to be a "sneaky" kind of character youre not going to want to let your clan know you can do it. So it can be difficult. Just gotta find the right people to hook up with.

I wouldn't know about assassins being all-powerful once they hit some magic mark, since I have almost 30 days on my PC and still can't kill anything using backstab, or even get a good dent in anything with it. At almost 30 days I wouldn't even try on most of the stuff out there unless I had someone WAY more offensively powerful than I am going at it first. Maybe I'll get better, who knows. At least we have other combat skills we can get fairly decent at in the meantime, plus we have non-combat skills we can use, especially if we pick non-combat sub-guilds.

But yeah that one skill..its frustrating especially when everyone says how great we're supposed to be and I can't even make a "little" critter's throat gurgle after 27 days, 12 hours of play.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Someone pointed out directly after my post that the crit strike during combat is really kinda over-achieving, so I have to say that that changed my mind on that matter.

However, this is where I stand on this. ATM, backstab is a very difficult skill to raise at -all- without generally taking your character out of character to do it. Just about any kind of coded method of training is frowned upon, as far as I know, other than another person teaching you or backstabing critters. Backstabbing critters is kind of abuse to me, because an assassin, if that is why he took the guild in the first place, should be learning to kill people, not animals. Animals are far different than people.

What I believe should perhaps be done is to link the backstab skill to the piercing weapons skill, offensive skill, sneak skill, and hide skill. There would be no way to train backstab, but instead, it would be an skill which takes the numbers of those four skills and divides the sum by four in order to determine the final skill in backstab.

********************************
Example:

90 = Piercing weapons
37 = Sneaking skill
50 = Hide skill
81 = Offensive skill
---------------------------------------
258 is the sum.
4 skills to divide it by.
---------------------------------------
64 = is your final backstab skill (64.5 rounded down).
********************************

I think this would eliminate a lot of this arguing and so forth, and would force people to focus more on what they would IRL focus upon. It would also eliminate a vast amount of the twinkiness that is almost forced upon players who wish to become killers.

Currently, however, I would mention that there are probably a few master killers in the world who might teach you were you to seek them out through the proper channels. Also, assassins do not HAVE to have backstab to be killers. If you haven't trained backstab a bunch, but have done some of the other things that an assassin can do (whatever they are, I am no authority on this), I am sure that you could be quite deadly. I know rangers who can not fight hand to hand can still do some hurt to you, in at least two ways that I know of...maybe more.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

But yeah that one skill..its frustrating especially when everyone says how great we're supposed to be and I can't even make a "little" critter's throat gurgle after 27 days, 12 hours of play.

I would like to say, however, that you are still alive after 27 days and 12 hours of play. Being weak in the physical department means that you had to pay more attenttion to your limitations. Many folks do not make it to 27 days.

[some backstabber person]

It isn't just getting good at backstab though. Without getting into OOC mechanics that people shouldn't know about..

A general reminder that some skills branch from other skills. And you can't branch until you're good at something else. If you're looking for that OTHER thing..if that's the part of the coded skill stuff that you're trying to RP...

So you see what I mean? I'm not necessarily even trying to be good at backstabbing, for the sake of using the backstab skill.

Therein lies the frustration.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

True enough. For the sake of that skill, however, I would still propose the branch system works, but that it follows my guidelines. And that skill would also follow some criteria.

[Rindan]

Claims that there exist no orginizations where you can learn to be an assassin is kank shit.  Saying that there is no place as easy as the Byn to learn to be an assassin might be true.  The Byn is not a place to learn to be an assassin.  There are however a lot of other places where you can learn.  I know of two for sure, and I would assume that all other major houses noble and merchant can find room for an assassin.  Everyone needs someone who can kill in such a manner.  It might take work to get in as an assassin.  You can't just show up and say "hey, I want to be an assassin!!!!".  If you really want to play an assassin, I suggest considering what places would happily take such a person, and figuring out how to achieve such a rank in that orginization.

[hammie2]

The topic was getting backstab up to par there which you  totally missed.  at any rate, I like venom's idea about tying all of those skills together.  Then again we have absolutely no idea if that is already the case.

[Carnage]

The topic was getting backstab up to par there which you totally missed.

Ironically enough, the topic was about using backstab during combat.

As either Venomz or someone else said in this thread or another, the three fighting classes are well balanced. A warrior takes someone down with straight up toe to toe combat. A ranger takes someone down with a bit of poison and maybe some archery. An assassin takes someone down by watching, waiting, and planning. If you want to be able to take people out in a straight out fair fight, be a warrior.