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Formerly Dead Aim, morphed into other ideas
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Varius Offline
#1 Posted : Saturday, April 04, 2009 1:06:50 PM

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Rules wrote:

Dead Aim [Physical/Combat 9]: You may call 'Stun' with a successful shot from a bow or crossbow that has a maximum damage of 5 or more. Using this skill costs 9 Physical Stamina.


Should this include Firearms?


Dwayne
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Jesus Rodriguez Offline
#2 Posted : Saturday, April 04, 2009 2:03:26 PM

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Handy skill
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ArthurMacBride Offline
#3 Posted : Saturday, April 04, 2009 8:06:16 PM

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My feeling is yes - if you can use a fowling blunt in a bow or crossbow, you can use rubber bullets in a firearm or sandbag rounds in a shotgun. Agony works from a pistol, I think Dead Aim should as well.
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Varius Offline
#4 Posted : Saturday, April 04, 2009 10:27:11 PM

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Arthur MacBride wrote:
My feeling is yes - if you can use a fowling blunt in a bow or crossbow, you can use rubber bullets in a firearm or sandbag rounds in a shotgun. Agony works from a pistol, I think Dead Aim should as well.


Hmmm... I don't imagine that the Sheaf of Arrows item looks like Green Arrow's quiver with that special 'Boxing Glove' arrow. Nor do I see any rubber in the recipe for an Ammunition Pack...

All sarcasm aside, I think it has more to do with where you hit your target than what you hit them with. I do understand how it is difficult to imagine a piercing/penetrating simply knocking someone out and the 5 minutes later they wake up with no ill effects...

I think that a Skill called Dead Aim should be either a Death effect or an automatic hit. Auto-hit can be done with the call "By my Gesture..."

Making Dead Aim a Death effect would increase the cost, IMO to at lease 10th level as well as the pStam cost to 10. It would be a very powerful skill. Perhaps it should be as costly and difficult to do as Avoiding certain death, like the new Dodge skill, and cost a point of Karma instead of pStam as that skill does.

On the other hand...

Making Dead Aim a 'Gesture' effect could make it a 'modifying' skill like 'Called Shot' meaning that it could be used with damage and other skills, giving us things like "By My Gesture, Agony by Weapon." If that were the case, the the cost would, of course, need to come down to a level that only disallows the more devastating (and thus difficult) maneuvers. In my opinion, the highest damaging effect (with basic equipment) used with 'gesture' should be six: "By My Gesture, 6 Damage by Weapon." That would make the skill a fourth level skill that costs 5 pStam. This means a well fed physical character with 11 pStam wielding an Apprentice quality Iron Pistol can, at most, call "By My Gesture, Agony by Weapon!" You can replace 'Agony' with 'Maim' or '5 Damage' or anything else that costs six or fewer pStam.

Personally I'd like to see both skills available and called 'Dead Aim' and 'Perfect Shot' but if I had to choose one, I'd go with the 'Gesture' option.

JMO


Dwayne
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Salvadore Offline
#5 Posted : Sunday, April 05, 2009 7:43:11 AM
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I don't like any weapon ability being by gesture, or giving someone a death effect without multiple karma expenditure.
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ArthurMacBride Offline
#6 Posted : Sunday, April 05, 2009 8:53:31 AM

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I was using the blunt-and-sandbag analogy as an example. I think Dead Aim - whether or not we change the title of the skill - is a viable effect. It may be that you could not use it with firearms - unless special ammunition were constructed, perhaps? Fiber instead of Metal?

But I think the concept of a ranged Stun is workable. I'm just not sure what would need to be done, if anything additional.

Gesture skills in general make me nervous. Anything that does not require contact seems difficult to manage. If this skill is used in the dark, for example...

If a Death effect were allowed for players - I don't know of one yet that is - I would expect a combat skill to require contact to deliver the effect.
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Varius Offline
#7 Posted : Sunday, April 05, 2009 9:39:38 AM

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Salvadore wrote:
I don't like any weapon ability being by gesture, or giving someone a death effect without multiple karma expenditure.


I remind you that a "Death Effect" can be survived by expending a point of Karma, but nothing can save you from a Death Blow (which anyone can do).

Gestures must be seen (if I am not mistaken) and are a standard Accelerant effect.


Dwayne
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Zhinn Offline
#8 Posted : Monday, April 06, 2009 8:22:18 PM
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I cannot say for certain why, but I will give my guess below,
but I do know that Dead Aim was intended for bow / crossbows only - not for firearms.

In game mechanic terms - there needed / needs to be reasons to have bows and
crossbows be worth using in game. They do not get a damage bonus, so the benefit
they get is a skill-use bonus. The original intent was that guns would be the big
damage dealer for missile weapons, and bows / crossbows would have the ability
to do other things.

If you want a small bit of real-world consideration :
(which, by the way, I really, really don't like doing - it's a LARP, not real life ...)

Consider that they make a version of an arrow designed with a hard rubber tip,
designed to knock down small game birds. A little harder to do with a firearm -
altho, yes, I am very aware of rubber bullets ... But still, one could argue that
it is easier to stun a target with an appropriate arrow, than with a pistol or rifle round.

Yes, I know they make bean-bag rounds for riot control ...

It is what it is - a game mechanic. I don't see the rule changing, sorry.

-Chris
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JD Winterborn Offline
#9 Posted : Monday, April 06, 2009 11:39:09 PM

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For instance, the biggest benefit that the bows and crossbows have is rate of fire. There is no 10-second-per-shot rule.
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Varius Offline
#10 Posted : Tuesday, April 07, 2009 1:20:00 AM

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I have suggested that 3 Units of "Clay" be added to an Ammo pack (as rock salt) to allow the master bonus of "Agony" to the Ammo pack. I hope to perform an experiment this comming event.

What do people think of that idea?

Dwayne
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Varius Offline
#11 Posted : Tuesday, April 07, 2009 1:22:51 AM

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...er, just to be clear:

Rules wrote:

Agony [Physical/Combat 3]: You may call 'Agony' with any weapon strike from a weapon with a maximum damage of 2 or more. Using this skill costs 4 Physical Stamina.


That does include firearms, yes?

I ask because in the descriptions of other skills, "Missile Weapon" and "Melee Weapon" are differentiated but "any weapon strike" seems to include both.

Dwayne
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ArthurMacBride Offline
#12 Posted : Tuesday, April 07, 2009 6:04:02 AM

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My understanding, and how I have played, is that Agony does include firearms.
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Zhinn Offline
#13 Posted : Wednesday, April 08, 2009 10:52:25 PM
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Correct - as I understand "any weapon strike" means any hit by a "weapon" -
be it melee, packet - arrow, thrown weapon, or 'bullet'.
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Varius Offline
#14 Posted : Thursday, April 09, 2009 1:23:11 AM

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Zhinn wrote:
Correct - as I understand "any weapon strike" means any hit by a "weapon" -
be it melee, packet - arrow, thrown weapon, or 'bullet'.


Cool, so what are your thoughts on:

Varius wrote:
I have suggested that 3 Units of "Clay" be added to an Ammo pack (as rock salt) to allow the master bonus of "Agony" to the Ammo pack.



Dwayne
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Zhinn Offline
#15 Posted : Thursday, April 09, 2009 10:28:19 PM
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I'd rather keep things clean, and leave things as they are.

If we did this, would you then have to keep a second ammo pack of 'regular'
ammo if you wanted to do a non-agony attack ?

I don't think so, personally.

I am also not sure about reducing the stamina cost on a ranged skill attack,
in general you all have a significant advantage with the whole firepower aspect ...

Not sure we need the extra item ...
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Varius Offline
#16 Posted : Thursday, April 09, 2009 11:28:05 PM

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Zhinn wrote:
I'd rather keep things clean, and leave things as they are.

If we did this, would you then have to keep a second ammo pack of 'regular'
ammo if you wanted to do a non-agony attack ?

I don't think so, personally.

I am also not sure about reducing the stamina cost on a ranged skill attack,
in general you all have a significant advantage with the whole firepower aspect ...

Not sure we need the extra item ...


The idea is to keep a 'load' of rocksalt handy to be used in conjunction with an ammo pack as a seperate item.

As for the idea that causing Agony to a target at range for a reduced Stamina cost, I can only point to the Psi ability "Pain" which requires only 2 Semiprecious Gems (10SU) to use at extremely similar ranges at a cost of 2 mStam or 2 Precious Gems (14SU) if you can get a 'Jesus Special' and reduce it to 1 mStam per use.

In contrast, the Rocksalt idea would cost 3 Clay (6SU) and only reduce the pStam cost by one (I can't imagine 'Master' crafted rocksalt - it's rocks!). PLUS you have to have a gun PLUS you have to have an Ammo Pack which can run you from 53SU to 80SU. Now, granted, you get to do straight damage with that gun/ammo when not using it for Agony, but I figured it was a good balance (10:53 up to 14:80 AKA: 1:5.3 up to 1:5.7).

I think people have neglected to look at the numbers.

As for not wanting or 'needing' an extra item, I don't mean to be rude, Chris, but are you serious? Not counting the myriad weapon, armor and psi-foci (with 3 or more variations on each), we have 125+ different Tinctures, Compounds, Essences, artisan items, tools, etc...

I really think this should be more carefully considered.


Dwayne

PS - For the record, I rarely use Agony with my gun as Varius. I don't need to. I can do it Psionicly and save the pStam for other things.
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Varius Offline
#17 Posted : Tuesday, April 14, 2009 2:17:03 AM

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Another idea I had was:

Marksman (Mental/Other 3/5/7) This skill allows the user to pay one less Physical Stamina per level of this skill whenever using a ranged weapon (bow, crossbow, thrown, firearm). This skill costs one (1) Mental Stamina per level to use.

Mechanically, this skill would allow a character using a bow, crossbow, thrown weapon or firearm to spend up to three (3) Mental Stamina instead of Physical Stamina for whatever they are using the item for.

As an example, it it would cost an Expert Marksman 6 Physical Stamina to shoot for 6-damage, they could, optionally, expend 3 Physical Stamina and 3 Mental Stamina instead.

Another option I toyed with allowed an unlimited number of Mental Stamina to replace Physical Stamina but an Amateur Marksman would need to spend 3 mStam for 1 pStam, a Competent Marksman would need to spend 2 mStam for 1 pStam and an Expert Marksman would spend 1 mStam for 1 pStam. But I believe that that would necessitate a rise in the levels for the skills from 3/5/7 to 5/7/9.

Dwayne
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