Re: Ideas for Mundane Skills

[Delirium]

I'd like it more if it wasn't so terribly boring to watch from the sidelines.

Edit: Well, that's probably not 100% true. I do find it difficult to take any sort of magickal accomplishment seriously. It always feels.... forced and contrived, somehow.

I can understand that frustration. In my experience, the fault lies not with the players of mages but in the lack of flexibility and strategy in many coded mundane skillsets.

If we approach this from an additive standpoint instead of a detracting standpoint, it becomes clear that adding more facets to mundane skills will allow them the flexible utility that currently belongs to most of the mage skillsets and the ubiquitous ranger. You can't change human nature (go with the easiest solution) but you can change the code.

Examples of things that have been added:
Stealthy guilds can open/close containers and open/close doors silently, so they are now able to spy on people more effectively

Examples of things we could use:
- blindfolds
- restraints
- a wider selection of poisons and cures which interact in various ways

[MeTekillot]

-Molotov cocktails

[RogueGunslinger]

-traps

[MeTekillot]

A snare string trap in a room that will break if someone passes through the room and you have to come back with trapping skill to find it and check if it's broken or not. Doesn't even need to do anything beyond that.

[Ender]

-Constructible and destructible barricades.

[Ender]

-Traps that when triggered make a lot of noise echoing to the surrounding area.

[MeTekillot]

-Electrical generators

[Delirium]

I split this from RAT so as not to clutter it up. Origin of the topic: http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,31255.msg903024.html#msg903024

[Delirium]

- blinding, muting, and deafening poisons
- poisons that make you wobbly-legged (you fall down frequently)
- poisons that sap your strength or agility
- more readily available Loosetongue
- cures for all of these poisons - but maybe there's side effects from those cures, as well.

In general, a more complex poisoning and curing system would solve a lot of the woes of mundanes.

Also,

- bolas actually trap you until you successfully break free on a flee attempt

[Malken]

-Constructible and destructible barricades.

That's what half-giants guarding east are.

[Armaddict]

I'd like for trap to have wilderness and city versions.  Both can be used in either place, but different sorts of mechanisms and functions.

i.e. Door traps vs snares and hunting traps.

[MeTekillot]

-Any mundane way to light a motherfucker on fire
-Any mundane way to blind a motherfucker
-Any mundane way to send someone flying through the air. Catapult, maybe? Half-giants get a special 'fling' verb? Short-lived flight.

[MeTekillot]

Assassins could get pouches of ground glass/obsidian that they can expend to fling into someone's eyes.

[LauraMars]

A mundane way to involuntarily take away someone's psionic ability.  Poison I guess.

And ladders.  For fuck's sake, ladders.

[Armaddict]

Assassins could get pouches of ground glass/obsidian that they can expend to fling into someone's eyes.

Also Caltrops.

[Dresan]

These are not skills but an idea that have been suggested before:

LOOK (glance vs study) :

glance <someone> :shows you what they is wearing but does not show you the main description. Has no delay.
Someone glances at you.

Study <someone>: Shows you what they are wearing and their main description. It has a small delay which can be cancelled before the action is taken.

study bandit
Amos begins to study bandit (You can notice someone study you if you have decent watch skill)
Bandit says: You better keep those eyes on the ground
stop look (some command to stop)
emote looks down on the ground, avoiding staring at the bandit.

[Alesan]

These are not skills but an idea that have been suggested before:

LOOK (glance vs study) :

glance <someone> :shows you what they is wearing but does not show you the main description. Has no delay.
Someone glances at you.

Study <someone>: Shows you what they are wearing and their main description. It has a small delay which can be cancelled before the action is taken.

study bandit
Amos begins to study bandit (You can notice someone study you if you have decent watch skill)
Bandit says: You better keep those eyes on the ground
stop look (some command to stop)
emote looks down on the ground, avoiding staring at the bandit.

I prefer LOOK being a hemote and cloaks and such hiding main desc.

[RogueGunslinger]

-throw torch east
-throw rope down

Disguise skill.

[Dresan]

These are not skills but an idea that have been suggested before:

LOOK (glance vs study) :

glance <someone> :shows you what they is wearing but does not show you the main description. Has no delay.
Someone glances at you.

Study <someone>: Shows you what they are wearing and their main description. It has a small delay which can be cancelled before the action is taken.

study bandit
Amos begins to study bandit (You can notice someone study you if you have decent watch skill)
Bandit says: You better keep those eyes on the ground
stop look (some command to stop)
emote looks down on the ground, avoiding staring at the bandit.

I prefer LOOK being a hemote and cloaks and such hiding main desc.

The problem is some people would never take those cloaks/masks off unless forced. The glance/study idea hopefully strikes a balance.

[bardlyone]

These are not skills but an idea that have been suggested before:

LOOK (glance vs study) :

glance <someone> :shows you what they is wearing but does not show you the main description. Has no delay.
Someone glances at you.

Study <someone>: Shows you what they are wearing and their main description. It has a small delay which can be cancelled before the action is taken.

study bandit
Amos begins to study bandit (You can notice someone study you if you have decent watch skill)
Bandit says: You better keep those eyes on the ground
stop look (some command to stop)
emote looks down on the ground, avoiding staring at the bandit.

I prefer LOOK being a hemote and cloaks and such hiding main desc.

The problem is some people would never take those cloaks/masks off unless forced. The glance/study idea hopefully strikes a balance.

I would rather deal with those people as they come up, than have look no longer give you someone's mdesc. That would not only be inconvenient and unintuitive with the way it works with everything else in the game you want the mdesc of, it would also just irritate me on a personal level.

[zealus]

These are not skills but an idea that have been suggested before:

LOOK (glance vs study) :

glance <someone> :shows you what they is wearing but does not show you the main description. Has no delay.
Someone glances at you.

Study <someone>: Shows you what they are wearing and their main description. It has a small delay which can be cancelled before the action is taken.

study bandit
Amos begins to study bandit (You can notice someone study you if you have decent watch skill)
Bandit says: You better keep those eyes on the ground
stop look (some command to stop)
emote looks down on the ground, avoiding staring at the bandit.

I prefer LOOK being a hemote and cloaks and such hiding main desc.

The problem is some people would never take those cloaks/masks off unless forced. The glance/study idea hopefully strikes a balance.

What I have seen in harshlands, which really works well in my opinion is that you can look at someone, but if they are wearing cloaks ect, the mdesc is hidden, while study would reveal it, with a slight delay. I have to agree that this is something i'd like to see in game, since right now, being a 'secret' raider only works if you just straight up kill your victims.

[Alesan]

These are not skills but an idea that have been suggested before:

LOOK (glance vs study) :

glance <someone> :shows you what they is wearing but does not show you the main description. Has no delay.
Someone glances at you.

Study <someone>: Shows you what they are wearing and their main description. It has a small delay which can be cancelled before the action is taken.

study bandit
Amos begins to study bandit (You can notice someone study you if you have decent watch skill)
Bandit says: You better keep those eyes on the ground
stop look (some command to stop)
emote looks down on the ground, avoiding staring at the bandit.

I prefer LOOK being a hemote and cloaks and such hiding main desc.

The problem is some people would never take those cloaks/masks off unless forced. The glance/study idea hopefully strikes a balance.

I would rather deal with those people as they come up, than have look no longer give you someone's mdesc. That would not only be inconvenient and unintuitive with the way it works with everything else in the game you want the mdesc of, it would also just irritate me on a personal level.

Eh, those people never take off their hoods anyway, and we're still generally supposed to RP that we don't recognize a hooded figure, even if we can see the mdesc. The fact that we CAN see the mdesc just makes it possible to metagame knowing who you're dealing with. Either way, I'm not a heavy advocate. But I would really, really like if LOOK was made hemote.

[Delirium]

Polite reminder to stay on topic, let's throw ideas out there instead of getting too caught up in debate over one particular idea.

[BadSkeelz]

-Ability to parry spells

[Delirium]

Actually, I would like to see dodge and block rolls for aggressive spells and creature scripts.