What is the state of the thief in SotA? 7/20/14

A sneak attack might seem like a nessisary skill too. Maybe they should make the rogue skills synergistic or create dependencies between the rogue skill set? That way you can't just pick up a sneak attack skill without having to pick up some other innate skill that makes sneak attack actually do considerably more damage. So the skill points used to gain sneak attack might not be worth it for a swordsman who isn't planning on going deap into the rogue skill set.

Also with an improved jump skill, that might be a high level rogue skill, and it may also rely on an innate skill too. So for other types of characters that want to attain this skill they would have to spend a lot of skill points just to get this one move.

So the skills on their own might be desirable, but unless you really want to be a rogue maybe it isn't worth it. Also armor heavier than leather might cause all of these skills to fail anyway. So count out heavy armor if you want the rogue skills. So there is a way to create a give and take, it isn't like UO where you just pick a skill like hiding and poof you can disappear even though the rest of your skills might be mage related. These skills seem to have dependencies. So it is a classless game, but there are more efficient ways to spend your skill points. It's better to find a set of skills that work synergistic with each other. Although that doesn't mean you need to pick up every skill in the tree either.

 

Imagine for the sake of argument, that sneak attack is quite potent, but it works better with smaller items like daggers that have a high critical chance? (check the crit on daggers in the game). Now most players might not want to fight with daggers, but a person who is more patient and want to spend considerable time hiding in shadows waiting for a good opportunity to surprise their opponent. So they use their poisoned dagger, because that is the weapon of choice among those who want to strike a lethal backstab.

You really can't back-stab with a two handed sword. Long weapons are hard to conceal, and it isn't easy to grab hold of a person and stab their back with a long weapon.

A cool rogue type character would be to have a lot of precision and finesse rather than straight forward damage. In some games rogues do DPS, but in a game like this they have the opportunity to allow a rogue do considerable damage flanking a person that might stagger or stun an opponent, but much of the rogue's offense should come from planning and/or timing. They shouldn't be loaded down with equipment, and they shouldn't be carrying long cumbersome weapons which dangle around making noise and interfering with nimble movements.

Imagine a modern day spy. Do they carry the powerful riffles a soldier uses? Do they even carry powerful hand guns? I haven't met a spy nor seen one... maybe the reason we never see them is because they don't exist or they blend in very well. I think spies look like normal people. If they had a gun in a holster like a cop, they would be easy to identify. Maybe they carry no gun at all because metal detectors might spot them.

now imagine what a rogue in a medieval setting would do. If they carried a weapon at all it would need to be concealable. That's another good reason for a dagger. The first reason being that a long sword at your side might flop around while you try to tightrope walk or climb buildings and walls. A dagger should be perfectly viable weapon, and if you notice in SotA they already have a high crit chance! Also blow guns, and darts that can be easily concealed. Just like ninja's find the throwing star useful, I think a rogue would find a dart quite useful. If anything you might be able to use the dart as a tool to make a russel in the bushes across the way to draw somebody's attention.

 

I completely agree with you on both of your posts. I believe you are right about an innate skill that needs to be tied and a type of synergy I guess to make things work better. If daggers have an innate modifier that boosts damage from flanking or stealth would be interesting as well.

Of course, if the initial attack and poison do not work, a dagger is a rough way to fight someone with a halberd, verse as you said, a soft target like an unsuspecting lumberjack or mage. Especially Lumberjacks. Risk vs Reward.

I look forward to seeing how thief pans out!

 

I didn't think about that, but that might be a good idea too.

 

Hi Folkes,

What do you think of a thief being able to steal a skill off the victim's combat deck ?
The item that will be stolen will be picked randomly (perhaps weighted so that higher thieving skill will have better chances of stealing high level skills).
Once a skill is stolen, it does not re-generate until the victim's deck is reloaded.

This will simulate the effect of items or reagents stolen without causing actual loss of property.
This will also work with NPCs or monsters by reducing the victims's combat options (some of the skills on monsters should be unstealable).

Making thieves able to obtain and use stolen skill may be OP, as it will allow the thief to obtain specific skills from friends using customized decks.

 

"I think that's a great idea because it has great example in the art of Aikido" !

A Briliant idea for your first post! I can't wait to hear more of your ideas in the future John Markus!

~Time Lord~

 

• "Steal skill" must be performed from behind.
• Thief does not need to be hidden (however the victim might become suspicious if you approach from behind and then apparently do nothing).
• Only one skill can be stolen at a time, however multiple attempts can be made to steal additional skills.
• If "Steal Skill" succeeds, thief's cover is not lost.
• If "Steal Skill" fails, thief location may be revealed.

This is how things might work.

During combat against other players, your fellow guild member managed to root an enemy spell caster.
The thief, who was circling the outer edges while hidden approaches the rooted spell caster from behind, executes "Steal Skill", disabling spell caster's high level spell that requires reagents. Since "Steal Skill" is not an attack, thief's cover is not lost. Thief will be able to see what skill he has stolen, however the spell caster is not notified of his loss.

Thrashing frantically to get loose of the root, spell caster fumbles through his deck for a spell to reverse the tide, yet the spell does not show. Noticing that something is amiss he goes into the menu to switch his deck, however the precious seconds are already lost.

Slashing bow string of a bow with a dagger can easily disable ranged attack. Even the small things like cutting belts and harnesses can make swordsmen fail to whirl their weapons. In case of PvP, "Steal Skill" is entirely plausible.
"Steal Skill" against animals and non-weapon wielding enemies is unlikely to work because such skills are not removable from their bodies.

Causing large damage via back-stab is not the only way for the thief to fight. Sabotaging enemies while staying hidden should also be possible.
For large scale combat, players will have to invest in good spotters, or choose to use sun spells to brightly lit the surroundings to counter hidden enemies.

 

"What is a Combat Thief, Which Buttons do we Mash and Why?"

"The Nieve and the Rogue in Sun Tzu"
Within our gaming worlds there are mostly the thieves that have the motive to gain gold or things of value. Though I have objections within the particulars, I enjoy the spirit of what our John Markus here is saying within his words. One of the less well known outcomes of what Sun Tzu was saying within his writings of "The Art of War", was to take and use those things that were left less guarded by your opponent. We can see within some of the early American Indian, that his thoughts were, "if you can't keep guard and protect it, it is not truly yours to keep and you are keeping too much if you cannot guard it". Many of our more righteous thinking people, cannot understand the thoughts of a true thief, where within the thief's mind, "there is no mine or yours, there is only if it is there or not". Thus the word of "righteousness" has come from having things by rite to them, and the word "nieve" has great similarities with the rite by might to keep it, take, or poses whatever it is... a nieve meaning literally that of "a closed fist", which could mean an empty hand, or not. So we can see that a true "rogue", lay in judgement balance between what is the righteous and what is the nieve.

"What is real and what our perceptions see as real, can be very upsetting to find out"


"Reflections in the Art of Aikido"
To reap what we sew, or to have that reflected back to us is in the spirit of full loot, yet without the $ or even the precious weapon. Whether or not a weapon can be "jacked" from an opponent and then used against him is a question of "blessed weapons", yet the damage inflicted by the weapon can be deflected back to it's wielder, such as in Aikido. It is my thoughts that here within the spirit of what our member John Markus has said, that reflects a skill which could become a very fun styled skill set in the flavor of the Rogue and the Thief.

So what about an Avatar skill set that could reflect another Avatar's aggression back to them?
Stealing could be a sward, or weapon, or a spell that is cast back to the caster...
Such a skill set brings to mind the word "Diabolical Indeed!"
Any reflected thoughts out there on such things?
Good Spirit John Markus, well said indeed !
~Time Lord~

 

"Spell of the Thief and Enhancing Activity"
The more I think about this subject and what all has been said here and within all the other threads about it, the more I come to realize that the solution is not in whether we have a Thief Class or not, it's more about whether we can think of melee skills or magical spells that would be "thief like" or enhance that activity.

We have a classless system here where the only classes are "to melee or magic" and even those are mixed with each other. So, what and how we can achieve our gaming desires, will probably depend on what "skill cards" we choose to go after. In the example of Aikido, this is not a simple art or skill to be achieved in real life and thus I would believe that such reflective skills or deceptive skills would be higher forms of either melee or magic. Then it becomes a matter of stacking our deck with such skills that would achieve whatever goal the player wishes the Avatar to have and play with. It is then up to the player how and what his Avatar will be able to accomplish. Thus the question of, "is my Avatar a thief" is not the motive of the skill, yet is or is not the motive of the player for their Avatar to engage in. The class becomes the chosen activity, instead of a chosen class preset.

So, instead of asking for a "new class" to be created, it's a matter of asking for a skill that is either melee or magic to become included.
I think that the Ninjitzu, Aikido or actually taking something from another player is a higher form of skill than we have seen so far.
How we choose to use those skills, then could become the thief...
~Time Lord~

 

Or they could go into disguise like a bush or tree or rock, like in Divinity (the new one) to us it will look like a tree or a rock without detection then "blam!" sneak attack back stab whatever!

 

that's how I picture it too. Somebody should be able to blend in.

If there are enough shadows you don't have to be a perfect rock, but rock enough that a standard glance tell's the other persons brain that is rock ignore it. Although if you are partially hidden "behind" a rock (or any other object) then your hide chance should increase significantly. Just like archery will have greater difficulty hitting a person partially hidden by an object so should a person's perception be inhibited by being partially covered. Although we should still be able to hide in front of a rock too, but no special bonuses.

 

Here's one way you can mix system (game skill) protection for the thief, and visual (player skill) protection for the other players.

1. When a thief is hidden, he appears as visual distortion (light bent oddly) to other players. In this mode, thief cannot be directly attacked (how to handle AoE spells needs to be considered).
2. When other players finds the thief visually, he can click on the thief and attempt to break cover.
3. When break cover succeeds, thief becomes completely visible, thief can be attacked.
4. When break cover fails, thief becomes completely invisible to that specific player for some duration. Thief can either relocate or choose to attack the player.

This allows both thief and other player to use player skill to either detect, or move stealthily.
This allows both thief and other player to use game skill, so that the player with higher hiding/detection ability will prevail.

The distortion around the thief should be small when stand still. Distortion should become larger when thief moves (thief should not be moving around when other players are looking at him anyways!).
The thief can be alternately be detected using wide area spotting skill.

 

or in order to hide there needs to be something to hide in, Forest trees, tall grass, ect.., Shadows in the street and behind buildings etc..., in dark corners of dungeons, shadows and such. BUT i do not think the thief should be able to disappear with nothing around them (like in UO)! that's just dumb. I also think another skill set should be made "Shadow Skill" based on the moon or night or something like that. i also think that two handed weapons should not be able to be sneak attacked with, and if the thief has anything but leather or cloth, he should not be able to hide or surprise attack.

 

Agree!

 

oh sweet UO... should leave a few crumbs here, its beautiful.

Guys what about not attempting to balance everything ? I say yes rogues should have special attacks that can make them very dangerous, and thats why any great lord should hire mages to protect them by casting reveal spells and using REAGENTS to create colorful revealing clouds for the rogues so good they can defy magic reveal etc... mages that can create local protections around people too, especially when focusing on one person only become very useful.

Ah we get all exited about this stuff but really the structure of the game is not heading anywhere that type of fun, at least not in the scale we see it since not many people will chose to be "open" to these types of interactions

I'm a strange player, but an ever stranger game master... I think I should be able to PvE and die many times with the penalties proposed... but I also think that on a given earth day, if I choose to flag "roleplaying / FULL LOOT/ full pvp" if I die I die only to reapear the next day. That probably means I will roleplay with people I know most of the time, that also means I wont fight everyday anyways because that makes for extremely boring stories, if theres no strategy and plots and murders that make you think before drawing the sword...

If I die thats it, better luck tomorrow you played your role.

There needs to be lore after my death as there needs to be a science to rogues... we can't just throw another set of skills in there, the person needs to be dedicated as you guys have been detailing, and thus be quick but frail and easy to kill if surprised.

To complete the knot I will repeat the main premise of my vision... if we attempt to balance every skill set so people can have fun in arena PVP, we remove all the fun from true roleplaying.

Well not all the fun, ah I'm so used to roleplay grandiose characters I overthink myself sometimes, ha.

P.S. - given a certain science of focus and mentalism (angle and momentum) I don't see anything wrong in the magic fantasy setting that a great master rogue can vanish in the middle of time square, David Blayne did it didn't he ?

In a real fantasy world some mystical rogues need to be feared, thats the way its played my friends !

 

Thanks John Markus, welcome I like your ideas very much too

 

We've talked about some good rogue skills, but what about helpful items? I don't think super powered items are great, but some simple things like having a cloak that aids the inate stealth skill.

Also there are knight cloaks and helms that are enchanted as a permanent light source. However a rogue definitely doesn't want a light source so an item permanently enchanted with night sight would be more valuable to them. That might be more valuable in general.

What about the grappling hook and rope? That may have been mentioned.

Sent from my Galaxy S5 using Tapatalk.

 

smoke bombs, flash bang ? all made by rogue alchemists of course...

purple pots hehe

 

OK but how would you back stab attack a full plate armor guy? Not arguing with you but just putting that out there no dagger or sword can puncture plate, so maby you need high back stab skill to hit an open part of the armor,a called shot if you will.

 

There are always weak points. Just stab underneath the armor, or in the spots that are jointed.