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

that would be a called shot, and should be rated high on the skill tree.

 

yup... rogues can also use poison, acid perhaps could corrode plate and force the knight to call his squire with some oil, who knows if a guy drops a vial of acid on your platemail it sure should restrict your movement a little, if not worse...

My imagination is too wild I'm going to get banned if I keep giving ideas... no kidding. People make a sport of reporting me now, and the game isn't even launched

 

LOL been there! acid could work!

 

I sure hope I'm going to see roleplay like this everywhere I go... how great would it be if a knight called their squire...

hopefully enough of us flag appropriately and manage to create a strong community like siege

 

If aiming for realism, not really. Any acid capable of corroding through armor at the speed needed for it to be meaningful at a tactical level is likely far more dangerous to carry and deliver than the danger it poses to the target, specially because something capable of going through armor obviously can't be stored in damage-resistant metal flasks.

Having a feasible delivery mechanism, by itself, would be already quite hard without causing huge issues with the setting; for use in combat you would need something that is sturdy when carrying, but that quickly releases all its payload when desired. Which is basically a grenade, and if you have a grenade I'm not sure why you would be bothering with blades.

Besides, the acid would do far more damage by going under the armor and affecting skin — something that would happen regardless of armor, though in real life it would be far worse for someone in plate mail than in lighter armor, because plate takes more time to take off.

Now, if you are not aiming for realism, anything goes, and rule of cool is your friend.

 

Nice points strider !

But to us the goal is having danger too, remember ? Use a lesser quality container, risk killing yourself in the most pathetic way ever.

Thieves and rogues are known to take risks, besides we had glass potions in UO, I don't see why we wouldn't have glass here ?

 

Acid could start a Damage over Time too just like poison but have an effect on armor. Poision can be applied to a weapon, but a vial of acid would have to be thrown.

What about darts? If they have asian cultures maybe even a throwing star. I think throwing stars are over rated, but there is a group that likes them. If I were a rogue I would rather learn how to use darts. Not only are darts good for applying poison in a ranged attack, but it is also a fun game that could be added in a Tavern.

Dart Throwing: Maybe they could do something different with dart throwing than other skills. Let it be a type of minigame instead of just a standard thow. When you select a dart or (any throw able object) you zoom in to the current First Person type view we currently have. Then you see an X mark or a red dot as you move the mouse to adjust the angle and elevation of the throw, and then use a button to choose how much force. Then when you let go, the force and elevation will send the dart flying in an arc toward the opponent (or the dartboard). This would be a fun game apart from just using it as a weapon. Then the only skill for dart use would be player based skill.

The reason I propose dart throwing in this manner is that rogues will usually be using stealth and may be completely undetected so that they would have time to aim and fire. Also anybody could learn to use darts by practicing against a dart board. Darts would become a fun game, as well as a combat tactic. The use of poisoned darts might require some poisoning skill so that you don't poison yourself with a dart. Anybody have any other idea about how that would work? This would also mean that it takes concentration and skill, it could be interrupted if somebody attacks you, and it could be something we can do outside of combat mode to play darts.

 

A glass flask could hold it. It is the perfect way to deploy the acid. Throw the entire flask. If it misses you lose it. If it hits you get a damage over time and possible item damage. Douse spell should be able to remove all effects of acid just like it does with fire.

Perhaps acid flasks could use the same aiming as the above mentioned dart throwing. Let it be based on player skill entirely, but aiming and throwing. Then anybody can throw an object, but they need to practice throwing to get use to the force and arc of a thrown object.

A miss could result in a temporary pool of acid on the ground. This could be useful in creating acid puddles to block enemy advancement. They would have to jump the puddles to keep from getting acid DoTs from walking through it.

 

As I said, depends on whether you are aiming for realism.

Carrying into combat dangerous substances in fragile glass vials, in a realistic setting, is asking for big trouble; I surely wouldn't want to be next to the rogue that is prone to explode if he tumbles the wrong way. And a glass vial that is not prone to breaking like that is unlikely to break when thrown too; try to break a champagne (or sparkling wine) bottle and you will understand what I'm talking about

And, if you are not aiming for realism, just go for whatever is more entertaining and fun.

 

Just to be clear, I don't have anything against acid vials (or other kinds of bottled menaces) being used in combat. I just don't think using them to justify being able to backstab a target in plate armor is a good idea. It's justifying something unrealistic with something even more unrealistic.

 

Covered this in a bit in another thread, people would wrap flasks in a leather cover to keep them safe while carrying.



I was working a bit more on the magical reagents list btw.. There was one poison that was called Stygian water, collected from the dews off the rocks around the Styx river, and allegedly used to murder Alexander the Great. Ice cold, acidic, and black. However, it was said to quickly eat through metal, glass, quartz, and earthenware.. the only thing it could be carried in was a drinking horn made from the hoof of an animal.

 

What's wrong with backstabing/sneak attacks? Sometimes metal plates only covered the front of a person not their back anyway. If you wear plate you can still be attacked by a sneak attack. Backstab is a term used for sneak attack that comes from behind. The rogue doesn't need to stab the kidneys to kill a person, what if all they did was sever the artery in the upper inner thigh.

Don't worry platemail will offer the greatest protection regardless. It will have damage avoidance, and damage "resistance". So if a back stab is a multiplier added to damage, perhaps the damage resistance will also be multiplied.

So don't worry about backstabs with platemail. A person with plate is vulnerable to somebody coming from behind that he/she isn't aware of. They have less points of weakness but since they are unaware of the strike the person executing the sneak attack can hit in the unprotected areas. Those unprotected areas might not be as lethal, but possibly that's where damage resistance could help simulate.

 

in that case there would be a need for a splash attack too.

EDIT: I though Alexander the great got ill. Didn't he contract an illness?

 

In the Alexander romance, he was said to have been poisoned... someone put a drop of the Stygian water in his last glass of wine for the evening. Feeling like he had been "hit in the liver with an arrow," he tried to vomit in order to purge himself, but was given a poisoned feather.

Scholars today are suggesting that there's truth to this.. and the Stygian water had some type of deadly bacteria in it.

 

Glass is the universal container for Potions including acid.

 

http://taking10.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-best-alchemical-items-for-your.html

 

Nothing. It's just that the first post I answered about acids was, more or less, about using acid to enable backstabbing a plate-clad opponent, unless I misread something; that requirement stroke me as an attempt to justify something unrealistic (because stabbing someone with no exposed skin and either chain mail or leather covering the articulations isn't very realistic) with something that is even more unrealistic (bringing acid to a fight, and it affecting the armor fast enough to allow the backstab).

BTW, I'm not against breaking realism when it makes for a better experience. Backstabs and liquid dead on vials are a staple of fantasy combat because they are fun, despite often not being realistic, and that is enough to justify both for me.

The issue with this, from a combat point of view, is that making a vial safe while carrying tends to make it safe when throwing as a side-effect. Not what you want when attempting to make the vial unsafe for your targets...

 

Sure, unless you can take it out of the casing quickly, or, at least, with enough preparation to throw it. Or, an acid attack could be simply a splash.

I don't know what the thinking is behind in games like d&d where they have acid flasks. Its also in theory possible to carry a glass flask sturdy enough to carry if you aren't being thrown around violently, but which breaks easily when violence is applied. Seems like metal-eating acid would be dangerous in any case, though.

 

First rule for carrying vials into combat: don't get hit

My guess? Rule of cool. It's cool to think about it and makes for some extra fun and engagement, so the creators just handwaved the issues.

Because, seriously, think about what would happen if a rogue carrying a bunch of vials fragile enough to break on impact, each full of dangerous substances, ever took a good hit or tackle. Or even merely slipped and fell. It's not a nice image.

It's the old conflict between realism and fun. You will likely never find a game completely realistic, both because simulating reality is hard, and because it's often more fun to be able to ignore certain aspects of reality and do things that wouldn't work in the real world (or even in a world nearly identical to the real one except for the existence of magic).

 

Eh :> Well, if I had a rogue character who was given the task to carry around deadly acids in fragile containers to an alchemist who wanted them, and the GM/DM put dangers in my way that made it difficult for me to do that, I wouldn't complain. And if using an acid splash in battle gave you a chance of splashback, too, I wouldn't complain, either. It just creates a scenario that has a level of thought to it. It would create a game-world reason for my rogue's skills, that make them particularly valuable and which other players can't do because they don't have the right training or talents. Imo, these types of realistic elements become less fun the more you "roll-play" and the less you "role-play."