* BOOK II COMBAT OPTIONS *

[CrazyBernie]

Then there's the shield, and -possibly- dual-handling. Now I'm ready to believe that one could quaff a potion in ANY situation, as long as you have free hand! Not that you'd have to unequip your shield everytime (it's already annoying enough when you need to use a torch goddamnit) but its defensive bonus should be reduced. If you're very skilled with a shield though that penalty is reduced.

That one's easy...... As CrazyBernie trades blows with the vicious Mire Troll he suddenly yells out "Hold on!" The fight stops, and CrazyBernie hands his shield to the Troll. The troll takes the shield with a most quizzical look. CrazyBernie pulls a potion off his belt and drinks it down, tossing it over his shoulder with a flourish. He holds out his hand; still confused, the Troll hands back the shield. CrazyBernie bows to his opponent and says with a devilish grin, "Shall we?" Combat then resumes. I simply use my high Personality trait coupled with the Speech skill...

to CrazyBernie : spellcasters already have fancy bells and whistles. Spiderweb software noticed the repetitive aspect of melee and so decided to add 'combat spells' in their later Avernum games. Wonderful!

Perhaps, but you know how those spellcasters are; always whining about their squishiness and always complaining if you give another class some sort of perk without giving them something twice over.

[BasiliskWrangler]

That one's easy...... As CrazyBernie trades blows with the vicious Mire Troll he suddenly yells out "Hold on!" The fight stops, and CrazyBernie hands his shield to the Troll. The troll takes the shield with a most quizzical look. CrazyBernie pulls a potion off his belt and drinks it down, tossing it over his shoulder with a flourish. He holds out his hand; still confused, the Troll hands back the shield. CrazyBernie bows to his opponent and says with a devilish grin, "Shall we?" Combat then resumes. I simply use my high Personality trait coupled with the Speech skill...

I quite like this CrazyBernie chap!

[CrazyBernie]

Yeah, he's a nice enough fellow but sometimes I think he tries too hard...

That would be the secret Swashbuckler character class being portrayed in Book II. He starts with the Flourish and Devilish Grin skills (they're both feinting abilities that have a chance to lower the enemies' defenses) and has a bonus chance to charm any female NPC's (fear not, fellow female gamers, the charming has absolutely no effect on his stats or abilities... it's all in his head). ^_^

[The Noid]

It could be as simple as making a simple skip-turn-table.
You could make it a table of 12 turns for finer ajustment, and make the scale non-linear.

Or, even easier, each actorObject holds a float "actionProgress" and an int "referenceSpeed"
Whenever the speed of the fastest actor changes, every actorObjects get a new referenceSpeed.
Every tick, each actorObject does:

Code: Select all

actionProgress += speed / referenceSpeed;
if (actionProgress >= 1) {
    takeAction();
    actionProgress = 0;
}

If you're really cheap, you can even set referenceSpeed to a fixed number that is guaranteed to be higher then the highest possible speed, like 100, and never even bother to set another referenceSpeed.

[serenetempest]

One aspect that would not make a lot of sense is parrying with a bow. Not sure what to do in this situation, but we'll come up with something.

What if it it became a "dodge" ability that worked in a similar manner against ranged attacks? Being an experienced bowman making it easier to judge when to dodge so as to catch the shooter off guard.

[CrazyBernie]

Or, you can allow for parrying with a bow but have a chance to break the string... ^_^ I've seen a movie here and there with a bow being used as a melee weapon, but I wouldn't recommend it. If there was a dual wielding option you could allow for an offhand weapon to use for parrying but disallow the bow from being fired during that time.

My guess is that whoever has the bow in hand better switch weapons before the enemy gets close....

Any thoughts on allowing a small sized shield (aka buckler) to be used with a bow? Since bucklers were often strapped to the arm to allow free use of the off hand...

[VPeric]

I like the idea in general, but I'm not so sure about the parry option. Namely, it looks as if it's "tied" to a particular situation too much, and there's absolutely no reason you wouldn't want to use it in such situations; in that case, parry is just another button you have to press before doing X, making it redundant in a way. Of course, "run away" isn't the only situation such an option could be useful for: the poison thing you mention is one, as could be a scripted sequence where you're defending a gate waiting for reinforcement, or you're trying to draw attention of a particulary dumb creature (some sort of Mire Troll, maybe? ) to yourself. Still, what all those have in common is that you'll want to use parry and nothing else.

The power/finesse abilities could work just fine, though I doubt the numbers as you put 'em will be appropriate (as mentioned already, the ToHit bonus is preferred in most encounters) - of course, that's a thing for beta testers to... well, test. I also doubt bonus differentiation by weapon would be a good decision, simply because it adds needless complexity (not to say such differences are a bad idea, they're just more suited for a game with a slightly different focus).

[Nevermore]

What do you think about Two Weapons Fighting?
Dual-Wield options for example sword\axe, knife\one hand axe?

[Gesion]

Then there's the shield, and -possibly- dual-handling. Now I'm ready to believe that one could quaff a potion in ANY situation, as long as you have free hand! Not that you'd have to unequip your shield everytime (it's already annoying enough when you need to use a torch goddamnit) but its defensive bonus should be reduced. If you're very skilled with a shield though that penalty is reduced.

That one's easy...... As CrazyBernie trades blows with the vicious Mire Troll he suddenly yells out "Hold on!" The fight stops, and CrazyBernie hands his shield to the Troll. The troll takes the shield with a most quizzical look. CrazyBernie pulls a potion off his belt and drinks it down, tossing it over his shoulder with a flourish. He holds out his hand; still confused, the Troll hands back the shield. CrazyBernie bows to his opponent and says with a devilish grin, "Shall we?" Combat then resumes. I simply use my high Personality trait coupled with the Speech skill...

to CrazyBernie : spellcasters already have fancy bells and whistles. Spiderweb software noticed the repetitive aspect of melee and so decided to add 'combat spells' in their later Avernum games. Wonderful!

Perhaps, but you know how those spellcasters are; always whining about their squishiness and always complaining if you give another class some sort of perk without giving them something twice over.

Unfortunately for CrazyBernie it doesn't work, and the Mire troll smashes the shield down on CrazyBernie's head while he is trying to drink the potion.

[CrazyBernie]

Hey! Don't be crimpin' my style! It was a perfectly played scenario... honest...

[Gesion]

Hey! Don't be crimpin' my style! It was a perfectly played scenario... honest...

Keep your head up, it is shielded now.

[Randomizer]

What do you think about Two Weapons Fighting?
Dual-Wield options for example sword\axe, knife\one hand axe?

Spiderweb Software's old Exile series had dual weapons or as we sometimes called it the buzzsaw effect. When fighters got multiple attacks for haste, it became deadly. It depends how you handle it with lower chance to hit for the second attack or some restriction on the weapon sizes when you use two weapons.

[Getharn]

I think the extra combat skills would be great to liven up combat a little, rather like feats made the fighter (in particular) a much more interesting class in 3rd edition AD&D.

My thought on parry is that it sounds like something that everyone will just have enabled all the time they're not attacking anyway, so why bother making it selectable? My personal preference would be to have it automatically enabled, but only when the character stands still doing nothing in a round - i.e. they're concentrating solely on defense and nothing else.

Things like knockdown are all good fun, but I think too many things like that can dilute the combat experience a bit. What about adding a single "dirty fighting" skill, which adds a new combat mode (used to the exclusion of the others, as normal). This has a similar damage penalty to "finesse" mode, but instead of a to-hit bonus, there's a small chance per attack of dealing some temporary non-cumulative combat penalty to the opponent's rolls. This chance would increase with the points in the skill, just like with the dodge skill.

[JamOne]

What about parry + riposte? The riposte could be a "weak" attack (weaker even than the finesse mode), but adding a riposte would make parry mode more than purely defensive, hence more interesting.

Or, what about having parry tied to weapon skill level, so it's automatically applied (like you have an X percent chance to parry if your weapon skill level is Y)? Since parry is a basic aspect of sword fighting, it might make sense to do it this way and to have the character's parry improve as his/her skill with the sword improves.

[realmzmaster]

If you are going into a Fully Defensive mode you should not be able to attack, because you are placing all your concentration and skill into not getting hit or minimizing the effects of a hit. Your attack rating should be halved when moving to attack from the Fully Defensive position because your sword is not positioned properly for a full attack.