Preview Lionheart ph4t l3wt Feature #3

[Ausir]

Tags: Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader

You can find the third installment of the kewl Lionheart l3wt article at <A href=http://www.rpgdot.com/index.php?hsaction=10053&ID=541>RPGDot</a>. This time among the great magical divine uberweapons of megakewlness are the Bow of Icy Carnage, The Everlasting and the Serpent's Bile. Here's a bit:
<br>
<ul>
<br>
<b>Bow of Icy Carnage (Two-Handed)</b>
<br>
Originally created to fight Fire Drakes in the Fourth Crusade against the Storm Dragons in 1241, this bow increases the damage that its wielder does with cold by 25%. It also causes 60% more piercing damage than a regular bow. However, a Ranged Weapons skill of 85 is required to equip this item.
<br>
</ul>
<br>
Spotted at <a href=http://www.cdprojekt.info>CD Projekt</a>.

 

[Psilon]

WTF? Not even Tactics had minimum skill requirements for items. If you could lift the sucker, you could fire it... just not necessarily with any accuracy. That applied to everything from the Power Fist to Turbo Plasma Rifle.

This is equivalent to having one of the +8 Swords of Instant Gratification from BG2/IWD require three stars in Longsword proficiency.

Sigh. Another tenet of SPECIAL bites the dust, I suppose.

 

[triCritical]

Hey I am only moderately proficient with bows. So I can only use ones that aren't so ph4t. Not only is this stupid but its illogical.

 

[Mad_Dog]

60% more piercing damage probably means it's bigger, more curve or something, so you would need to be better at bows to use it. Putting something like that in the description would justify it.

 

[Section8]

You should be penalised if you aren't skillful enough to use it. Discourage it to the point where it's not a smart choice, but it's a choice that can be made.

 

[Psilon]

If they want to limit use of the bow, then they can either give it an intrinsic to-hit penalty or give it a stat requirement, say 7 ST. Weapon Handlers get to use it, the naturally strong get to use it, and those with a high skill can probably use it. It doesn't have to be strength, either; make it require AG or PE, but give us a Weapon Handling equivalent for that stat.

I will say, however, that making a non-secret weapon require a stat arrangement only available to certain Gifted folks is just stupid. Save the 9 PE, 9 CH, 9 IN stat checks for the hidden dialog nodes, m'kay?

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Yeah, I have to agree with Psilon on this. It's much better to limit based on attributes than skill. That's how SPECIAL typically handles things like that anyway.

 

[Eric Dallaire]

You should be penalised if you aren't skillful enough to use it. Discourage it to the point where it's not a smart choice, but it's a choice that can be made.

The choice can still be made. You can place skill points into ranged to use a weapon with a requirement.

If there were a stat based requirement, it's a bit harder to meet that requirement, as its easier to permamently raise skills than stats in Special.

 

[MF]

That's not the point of the requirements.
Stats should be IMPOSSIBLE to increment up to a certain degree. It didn't happen in only one spot in Fallout for nothing.

If you force the player to alter his character to use a certain item it's the wrong way around. Character development should be in the hands of the player. The deal is providing items for every character.

But I haven't played your game, so I could be wrong and you might have found another great way of bringin this to the player.

With Fallout, the only proper SPECIAL game to date, in my mind though, it doesn't compute.

 

[triCritical]

60% more piercing damage probably means it's bigger, more curve or something, so you would need to be better at bows to use it. Putting something like that in the description would justify it.

I probably couldn't hit a target with any bow. But I assure there is no bow made for humans on this planet that I can't use.

 

[triCritical]

The choice can still be made. You can place skill points into ranged to use a weapon with a requirement.

If there were a stat based requirement, it's a bit harder to meet that requirement, as its easier to permamently raise skills than stats in Special.

Hey Eric, stat requirements are nothing new to SPECIAL. Most rifles in FO2 at least, can't remember if this is true in 1, you needed to have a strength of 5. This does not mean someone with a strength of 4 could not use it. Of course someone with a 4 would be heavily penalized but they could still use it.

 

[Vault Dweller]

It does not make sense to tie an item to a skill level. Logically, the only reason why a person would not be able to use an item is due to 'stats' limitation, i.e too weak, too dumb, not fast enough, etc.

So in regard to the Bow of Icy Carnage (how do they come up with these names?), if a PC does not have a high bow skill, but able to use it, the lack of proper bow skill is a penalty by itself.

In Fallout there was a huge difference between using a weapon at skill 50 and 100, and I would not even bother equiping a weapon if I have less then 35, no matter how uber-powerful it is. So what's the point of fixing what was not broken in the first place?

EDIT:

probably couldn't hit a target with any bow. But I assure there is now bow made for humans on this planet that I can't use.

What he said.

 

[Psilon]

Agreed, MF. The actual stats are difficult to augment. Besides a few conversations in FO1 and the 1-point perks in FO2/FOT, you can't pump up your stats permanently, though you can get an effective Strength enhancement with Weapon Handling.

I once beat Fallout with a non-combat-skilled character who ran around with large weaponry. Good tactics let me clean out the Military Base with a Turbo Plasma Rifle even though my Energy Weapons skill was in the high 30s. Someone with a low Big Guns skill could still clean house with the Browning M2 in Tactics. It sounds like Lionheart won't let you do that sort of thing.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Good tactics let me clean out the Military Base with a Turbo Plasma Rifle even though my Energy Weapons skill was in the high 30s.

Good tactics? You mean 50 reloads a minute?

Someone with a low Big Guns skill could still clean house with the Browning M2 in Tactics

With M2 all you had to do is point it in the right direction

 

[Psilon]

Good tactics? You mean 50 reloads a minute?

Close. I instead lured the muties near the entrance and then left the area practically every turn. Only my skills were non-combat; the Perks were focused around insanely high initiative and APs. Admittedly, better tactics would have been "run away," but I wanted to see if it was possible. Took most of an afternoon to empty the base, but it worked. Note that I don't recommend this approach.

With M2 all you had to do is point it in the right direction.

True, and I hope they don't put in a ranged weapon like that. Melee, possibly, but giving that kind of Middle-Finger-O'-God power at range is just ludicrous. Fun for Bloody Mess types, but impossible to balance.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Vault Dweller and TriCritical are on the money here. It's the attributes that are what's important here. I think anyone can figure out how to use a bow with even the most basic of skill levels. They probably won't bull's eye most of the time, but they are going to be able to notch and fire the thing. Of course, this assumes they're strong enough to pull that string back, but strength is an attribute after all. Being smart enough to know which is the business end of that arrow should probably be a minor factor, but we're not talking about something inately confusing or complex.

Skill would just be their proficiency with that item, not if they can use it, but how well they can use it.

 

[Section8]

The choice can still be made. You can place skill points into ranged to use a weapon with a requirement.

I don't necessarily agree with this approach for a game such as Lionheart. It's great for games like Diablo or Revenant, where the ability to use bigger and better l3wt is an integral part of the carrot they dangle in front of the players nose. But for Lionheart, I would expect the weapons to be there so that someone who has already invested in said skill has something appropriate to use. That said, we may be on the same page here already.

However, what I believe is important is that the player is able to pick up that bow and use it (badly) if they want to. If their skill level is not up to par, then penalise their chance to hit, not with any kind of additional scripting, but assign the bow's base accuracy so that a character with a ranged skill of 85 can use it to whatever standard you deem effective.

Anyone with slightly less skill can still use it but is likely to miss the mark more often. They're likely to need to purchase more arrows, but since their characters skill points are allocated in areas other than or ideal 85+ ranged character, then they should be able to compensate for that. With less points in ranged, you can assume that the character has other means of combat in case their arrows run out, or that their non combat skills are more effective. Better barter means more arrows for less, and better diplomatic skills I would assume allows for more NPC support.

Anyone with a low bow skill can use it and rarely hit the mark, so they're not likely to choice to use the bow. But you shouldn't deny that. Let the player make their own decisions

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Really, about the only way I could even see skill entering it is if the bow is enchanted with a persona, and is so egotistical it refuses to be wielded by someone it doesn't deem worthy enough to use it. Even then though, that would imply the bow has control over it's workings, and we're talking about a fairly simple mechanism, here.

I'm not sure I'd even factor in a skill mininum with difficulty ramping like Gareth suggests, because we're talking about a bow here, not something complex like a tank.Put in the arrow, pull the string, let go of string. It's dirt simple, really.

 

[DrattedTin]

Uh, Saint, you should try actually HITTING something with a bow and arrow in real life, if you've never done it before.

It ain't simple.

 

[Trash]

Somehow the idea of dratted with a bow just scares me. That is, if you're the dratted from the arcanum inn. :wink:

Trash ducks

 

[Vault Dweller]

Uh, Saint, you should try actually HITTING something with a bow and arrow in real life, if you've never done it before. It ain't simple.

We aren't talking about HITTING, we are talking about USING and the restrictive approach Reflexive took. But you're right in a sense that hitting ain't simple, and that's where a bow skill comes into play. There are only 3 scenarious in regard to the bow skill.

A character who specializes in bows, who can use any bow effectively.
A jack of all trades who has a moderate bow skill which gives 50% chance to hit something - a penalty by itself especially in a real time combat.
A character who has no or minimal bow skill and who has no use for any bow whatsoever.

There. Very simple. Those who can, will. Those who can't, won't. There is no need for anything else that forces or restricts a player. Choices, even bad ones, are always welcome in a role-playing game.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Uh, Saint, you should try actually HITTING something with a bow and arrow in real life, if you've never done it before.

It ain't simple.

The bow we're discussing is the one mentioned in the news item, where you have to have at least a 65% skill just to use it. My point was that anyone can use any bow if they have the strength to pull the string, basically, assuming they know what a bow is. Hitting something is after the fact, we're talking not being able to wield it here.

 

[Azael]

Well, I could understand the reasoning behind having the weapon be less effective if used by a person with a low skill. To make a golf analogy, I think it's safe to assume that Tiger Woods' forged Nike irons are a lot better clubs than my Wilson set, but if put in my Hcp. 36 hands they would be way to unforgiving and I would probably play a lot worse with them. I assume the same could be true for some weapons.

Of course, I would still be able to use Tiger's clubs.

 

[Sabotai]

We aren't talking about HITTING, we are talking about USING and the restrictive approach Reflexive took. But you're right in a sense that hitting ain't simple, and that's where a bow skill comes into play. There are only 3 scenarious in regard to the bow skill

I definitely agree with this, if you can lift a bow and pull the string you should be able to use it even though you have more chance of shooting yourself in the foot that hitting a cow 5 feet away.

On a somewhat similar note, I would love to see a skill system in which only the actual use would make you better in a specific area whether this be archery, swordplay or diplomacy. In most games it always feels artificial that (after leveling up) you can become better with a bow just by allocating some skill points to archery, even though you never picked up a bow. Okay, you can say this skill increase is deserved because you have encountered a lot of enemies using bows, but it's not the same. I loved the way some skills were handled in Wizardry 7. Especially the swimming and the firearm skill. You only got better with practice. I remember the first time I took my party for a swim, most of them drowned instantly; then I discovered the pool for the Polar Monks were I could practice my swimming only at the expense of some hitpoints due to the cold damage.

So make a system in which all skills are only increased by practice. That's how it's done in real life. If you never use a sword, your swordplay will never improve. It reminds me of Dungeon Master, they used a similar skill system with four different categories, Fighter, Ninja, Priest and Wizard. If you hit something with a sword or axe, with time you got a fighter level and became a better fighter. If you threw a dagger or shuriken, you got some ninja experience. And why not implement the same thing for diplomacy? If you never talk with anyone, why can you become better in this skill area just by allocating some skill points?

It might be nice to link the speed of leveling up to one or more "base" statistics which are important for this skill. Someone stronger gains fighter levels more quickly. But maybe wisdom can influence fighter levels as welll. Having a high Charisma and Intelligence will make your character level up more quickly in diplomacy than a character with average levels in Int and Cha, even though both have had the same amount of conversations.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

On a somewhat similar note, I would love to see a skill system in which only the actual use would make you better in a specific area whether this be archery, swordplay or diplomacy.

Try Prelude to Darkness, it has that. It probably has one of the better versions of that as well.