R9: What to do about Roots and Stuns

Here's one of my examples above....

So the "fail rate" is based on how many times you swing your sword at air.

 

Well - you can take the same concept and expand it to heavy weapons / bludgeons ... and ... on a miss they themselves stumble and turn their back to their opponent

I would much prefer these style of fights - they would "play out" more realistic

 

YES! You've got it, we could apply this to everything and it bakes strategy into the cake.

Now instead of rushing people, you're taking steps in and out trying to get them to swing at air so you can get free attacks on them as they look stunned!

Now your opponent is trying to use a feint to lure you into thinking that he's been stunned when in reality he's just made a trap for you and soon you will be swinging at air! Ha ha!

 

But this strategy would play in the favor of locking cards / to ensure that you have the action you need at the time (for example tumble with light armor)

I like it - it would make a light build more apt to survivability

But I think that combat movement needs to be changed dramatically - in order for some of these strategies to play out well in the game -

I would love to have a "feint" card - or "Possum" card .. you get the gist / at the moment there is no room for deception

 

Yeah, you'd have to change a lot of the current stuff, but the core system is the exact same. Really you'd just move stuff around and then as you said look at the way players move in combat to balance out the "timing" of combat. This is a problem because of latency regardless of my ideas above though.

 

Latency is a big issue - but if the "move" is card generated and controlled - it may diminish the concern somewhat

 

That makes much sense... In combat you usually guard your vitals so unless a fighter fails a movement and creates an opening, it's not usually that easy to "stun" an opponent. I wouldn't mind a couple "active stuns", a great blow from a big warhammer, for example, but those kind of skills should carry great risk, as the movements needed can leave you either with a big opening or even stunned yourself should it fail to connect or deflected (active defenses needed!).

Now, magical root... that's a bit different... a good idea, already mentioned somewhere in the forums, is that the caster needs to mantain the spell, requiring absolute concentration. that, however, minimized its defensive potential. Instead of requiring the caster to be still, we can instead:
-Make the caster able to walk slowly while maintaining the spell, but any other action or being hit cancels it.
-Make the spell consume focus (a considerable quantity) while it's maintained
-Both!

Magical stuns are another thing... I don't think it makes sense to "mantain" a stun. Instead, an option could be the same as with active physical stuns... there could be a couple of spells that could stun a foe but with a good chance of fizzling and stunning yourself. That way people would be more hesitant to use them and would put some thought into it.

 

I like that idea, since it's mine.

That's good too.

Yeah, I don't like that solution because it almost makes me say "what's the point?" It's like the reagent argument. If we make casting spells without reagents so painful no one will want to do it and then it will be balanced! So ok, why not just make it so spells require reagents then?

 

Stun powder: a throwable agent, like a potion.

 

Speaking of stuns - I've be much more happy with "spikes" that I can thrown on the ground and would make the player grab their feet for 1 second and decrease run speed for the following 2.5

 

like caltrops?

 

yup - didn't know the name - seems to fit and there would be a market for it

 

ohno . Margard wants ninjas!

 

ah ha nah ... I mean people used them in the times right? or was that strictly used by "ninjas" (in the real world)

 

Thieves use those too.

Today I was playing around with a guy in leather with two swords....man did I die a lot. But it was fun and made me want to run around stealing and hiding all day. Caltrops would've been great.

 

:>

Caltrops, and smoke bombs, and ropes, and grapples, and all sorts of roguish stuff.

 

Thats what I'm getting at

 

Yeah, if I could do all that stuff (and steal) then who cares what the combat system is like...I could just run from everything and never fight.

 

They could be used as potions / one or two slots / possible a trade off

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Caltrops, or legos?