Goblin Squad Member
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Many tabletop games and MMOs have some version of critical hits. These often take the form of additional damage for a well-placed strike, but some include additional side-effects, such as bleeding, reduced movement, stun, blinding, etc. The quick question of this thread is to ask whether PFO plans to have some form of critical strike?
On a far more masochistic line of thought (role-players seem to enjoy thinking up ways to hamstring our own characters), I think it would be interesting to have very rare criticals that inflict longer lasting effects and need special care to correct. Most MMO combat inflicts what should amount to horrific injury to your character, but then, within a minute, you're back to full strength and back to it. Losing 90% of your HP in a fight should be incredibly traumatic, but for game expediency and player enjoyment, we all regenerate like Wolverine, with no lasting effects at all.
But what if, on the rare occasion, criticals occurred with a bit more realistic effect? What if that critical that would normally cause -25% movement for a few seconds in combat was permanent until a healer reset your broken leg? What if that critical arm strike that keeps you from lifting your shield over your head kept that arm at a -10% to your shielding skill until you saw the local physician? What if that claw to the face resulting in a -5% detection rating not only lingered but resulted in a permanent scare to your avatar until you had a chance to see the kindly cleric? Hey, maybe you like the scar - it's quite the conversation piece.
These would certainly be very seldom occurrences (we don't want everyone walking around maimed), but they could add flavor to combat and to your character. "I remember when I got this..." the big nasty barbarian says, pointing to his scarred cheek with pride as he begins his story.
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Goblin Squad Member
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This is already how they are planning to do critical hits. See It's Just a Flesh Wound!
Characters have a chance to score a critical hit based on their attack bonus, the defenses and armor of the target, the ability and weapon used to attack, and other such factors. If a critical hit is scored, the character suffers an Injury. An Injury is a long-term debuff that continues to affect the character until the character receives a certain amount of healing, with the amount depending on the severity of the critical. The specific Injury is determined by a random number modified by the weapon, ability used, etc and compared to a table based on the damage type used to inflict the critical. This means that bludgeoning weapons will tend to inflict different criticals than slashing weapons or fire attacks. It actually works a lot like Paizo's Critical Hit Deck accessory for the Pathfinder RPG.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Perhaps my interest in having a healing skill (nonclerical healing, such as physician skills) could be used to heal these critical debuffs. I could see it being the type of basic medic training that a seasoned fighter might spend a bit of skill training time on so that he can try to remove these debuffs himself, without having to locate a cleric to do it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There was a recentish dev blog I'm too lazy to find and link that said PFO was going to skip big burst damage from crits in favor of adding other effects when a target is hit with a critical. Their design goal being tactical, steady fights and avoiding gank rogues/warriors etc.
Edit: Well that's what I get for reading another page before replying to this one...
This is already how they are planning to do critical hits. See It's Just a Flesh Wound!
Characters have a chance to score a critical hit based on their attack bonus, the defenses and armor of the target, the ability and weapon used to attack, and other such factors. If a critical hit is scored, the character suffers an Injury. An Injury is a long-term debuff that continues to affect the character until the character receives a certain amount of healing, with the amount depending on the severity of the critical. The specific Injury is determined by a random number modified by the weapon, ability used, etc and compared to a table based on the damage type used to inflict the critical. This means that bludgeoning weapons will tend to inflict different criticals than slashing weapons or fire attacks. It actually works a lot like Paizo's Critical Hit Deck accessory for the Pathfinder RPG.
I would love to see the above system, and what Hobs describes but perhaps only when battling high level enemies, the really elite mobs like dragons, an especially difficult mob that's tougher then the rest. Opportune enemies would be escalation leaders like the Goblin boss described in the write up about the escalation system. Basically if an escalation reaches the point where a boss spawns, then the fight with that mob stands the chance of getting a character an injury that must be attended to before it goes away. Such an epic fight should result in good loot, which should come with the chance for an injury that needs to be addressed before it drops off of a character.
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If you're gonna have crits you need fumbles too.
If you're gonna have crits you need fumbles too.
Sure thing! :). I'm for that as well. It provided a greater sense of realism when I played PnP to have chances for fumbles, misses, all that.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Also: Gentlemen, You Can't Fight in Here! This is the War Room!
It's Just a Flesh Wound!
The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, like many RPGs, includes the concept of critical hits, where each attack has a small chance of doing dramatically more damage than average, allowing for the sudden reverses and underdog victories that are so often parts of the fiction that inspired RPGs. With a Game Master and a mostly PvE environment, wild swings in damage output are pretty easily dealt with; no one really feels bad at the gaming table when a player one-shots a powerful villain due to a lucky critical. (Well, okay, maybe the Game Master feels bad if he spent all week prepping that fight...)
Video games and MMOs have adopted the critical hit idea without really changing the core concept much, despite the many problems it can cause. Having unpredictable and large spikes in damage output in PvP situations can be extremely annoying, since players can be killed off by crits with little warning or ability to do anything about it. Building characters for crits becomes a viable if not favored combat plan, relying on abnormal spikes of damage to suddenly eliminate opponents. Given the PvP focus of Pathfinder Online, we didn't feel that was an ideal, but we do want to keep critical hits, so we came up with a new plan...
[Cont'd]
Thanks for the infos. Had not read much about PFO until now. PVP focus and long lasting crit effects? Now I don't have to ask myself if I should try it out when it's finished.
Also: Gentlemen, You Can't Fight in Here! This is the War Room!
It's Just a Flesh Wound!
The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, like many RPGs, includes the concept of critical hits, where each attack has a small chance of doing dramatically more damage than average, allowing for the sudden reverses and underdog victories that are so often parts of the fiction that inspired RPGs. With a Game Master and a mostly PvE environment, wild swings in damage output are pretty easily dealt with; no one really feels bad at the gaming table when a player one-shots a powerful villain due to a lucky critical. (Well, okay, maybe the Game Master feels bad if he spent all week prepping that fight...)
Video games and MMOs have adopted the critical hit idea without really changing the core concept much, despite the many problems it can cause. Having unpredictable and large spikes in damage output in PvP situations can be extremely annoying, since players can be killed off by crits with little warning or ability to do anything about it. Building characters for crits becomes a viable if not favored combat plan, relying on abnormal spikes of damage to suddenly eliminate opponents. Given the PvP focus of Pathfinder Online, we didn't feel that was an ideal, but we do want to keep critical hits, so we came up with a new plan...
[Cont'd]
Huh, I wonder how this will effect backstab damage?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Huh, I wonder how this will effect backstab damage?Also: Gentlemen, You Can't Fight in Here! This is the War Room!
It's Just a Flesh Wound!
The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, like many RPGs, includes the concept of critical hits, where each attack has a small chance of doing dramatically more damage than average, allowing for the sudden reverses and underdog victories that are so often parts of the fiction that inspired RPGs. With a Game Master and a mostly PvE environment, wild swings in damage output are pretty easily dealt with; no one really feels bad at the gaming table when a player one-shots a powerful villain due to a lucky critical. (Well, okay, maybe the Game Master feels bad if he spent all week prepping that fight...)
Video games and MMOs have adopted the critical hit idea without really changing the core concept much, despite the many problems it can cause. Having unpredictable and large spikes in damage output in PvP situations can be extremely annoying, since players can be killed off by crits with little warning or ability to do anything about it. Building characters for crits becomes a viable if not favored combat plan, relying on abnormal spikes of damage to suddenly eliminate opponents. Given the PvP focus of Pathfinder Online, we didn't feel that was an ideal, but we do want to keep critical hits, so we came up with a new plan...
[Cont'd]
I expect sneak attack to still be in the game, but toned down quite a bit. That huge spike of damage is just counter to the low power difference between character that is the design goal. It will also be limited to rogue weapons, I believe. I just hope that the combat engine doesn't actually require someone to be behind a target to use it. The best addition of 3e to the game was removing the requirement for facing.
Hmm.. Maybe instead of bonus damage dice, a sneak attack does an automatic critical hit and bypasses armor resistances?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Most MMO combat inflicts what should amount to horrific injury to your character, but then, within a minute, you're back to full strength and back to it. Losing 90% of your HP in a fight should be incredibly traumatic, but for game expediency and player enjoyment, we all regenerate like Wolverine, with no lasting effects at all.
Note that HP are an abstraction that don't necessarily reflect serious injury. It could just be a sort of fighting readiness that reflects how weary, battered, scratched, etc. you are. In a magical setting, it could even represent things like luck or vitalism. While there's no reasonable evidence for the various 'energies' that pseudomedical practices like chiropractic, acupuncture, homeopathy, etc. posit, it apparently exists on Golarion as the "positive energy" that Cure _ Wounds spells infuse you with.
If a strike misses so badly that it took no significant effort to avoid, no HP damage is done. If there's a non-fatal 'hit', then it took some effort to avoid a serious injury, and you can only do that so long before you're too tired and sore to defend yourself well. Then you take a hit that incapacitates you, and you may lay there bleeding for a while unless help or favourable circumstance stabilizes you. Maybe your opponent finishes you off, maybe you bleed out, or maybe the final hit was so serious that it took you right past the incapacitated state. Either way, it's only the last strike that necessarily counts as a literal wound.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Personally, I've always disliked hit points representing anything but your body. If you want to reduce the chance that your opponent inflicts meaningful damage, then have parrying and dodging skills. Creating abstractions seems a less realistic way to represent such skills and clouds the meaning of hit points.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Personally, I've always disliked hit points representing anything but your body. If you want to reduce the chance that your opponent inflicts meaningful damage, then have parrying and dodging skills. Creating abstractions seems a less realistic way to represent such skills and clouds the meaning of hit points.
Extra rolls are fine when a computer is handling the mechanics (if the animation budget can handle the dodging and parrying), but abstractions are necessary for the tabletop game. If you take HP as literal blood loss, then how is the 20th level barbarian holding litres more than the 1st level rogue?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Personally, I've always disliked hit points representing anything but your body. If you want to reduce the chance that your opponent inflicts meaningful damage, then have parrying and dodging skills. Creating abstractions seems a less realistic way to represent such skills and clouds the meaning of hit points.Extra rolls are fine when a computer is handling the mechanics (if the animation budget can handle the dodging and parrying), but abstractions are necessary for the tabletop game. If you take HP as literal blood loss, then how is the 20th level barbarian holding litres more than the 1st level rogue?
Which is why I always preferred GURPS to D&D combat, even though I almost always end up playing some variant of D&D because it's just so much more common, at least in my area.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I expect sneak attack to still be in the game, but toned down quite a bit. That huge spike of damage is just counter to the low power difference between character that is the design goal. It will also be limited to rogue weapons, I believe. I just hope that the combat engine doesn't actually require someone to be behind a target to use it. The best addition of 3e to the game was removing the requirement for facing.
Hmm.. Maybe instead of bonus damage dice, a sneak attack does an...
If sneak attack is toned down, I hope it is still one of the most powerful alpha strikes/raw damage outputs in the game. It sounds like rogues are already being gimped with respect to theft, so to have sneak attack nerfed as such will really put a downer on the archetype.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Keovar,
The barbarian doesn't have any more blood, he should just be harder to hit because he's a more skilled fighter.
That means the HP are an abstraction, not directly related to the body's capacity to sustain damage. The barbarian can keep fighting longer before weariness and battering wear him down enough to leave him open to a significantly-damaging wound.
A 30-damage warhammer hit that caves in the skull of the first level rogue could have done the same to the barbarian. His skull is just bone like anyone's, but he's trained and fought long enough to duck a lot of incoming strikes but when he can't get out of the way, he and roll with the impact rather than following the wrong instinct that tells people to brace against it. He's also better at catching incoming swings on his weapon, shield, & better-armoured areas. It's a grab-bag of defensive techniques and the conditioning to keep employing them for longer before getting too worn down and vulnerable.
There are cases where it makes less sense (falling damage, for example), but to treat HP as literal increased body toughness pushes the whole system into cartoon physics territory. You really would need Wolverine's adamantium-laced skeleton, as well as his regeneration, in order to survive if every hit meant a literal wound.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It sounds like rogues are already being gimped with respect to theft
You're not nerfed. Do you regularly go around pickpocketing the other players in tabletop games? How long does it take before they disinvite you?
There's a human behind every PC in this game too, but they can't kick you out. Instead, the code and the devs behind it are the GM of the game, and they impose consequences for actions as befits the setting. If you're a pickpocket, you'll have a bad reputation in societies which frown on such things. Your actions will tend to make you align with the powers of chaos, since in this fantasy setting alignment elements are objective energy states.|
Goblin Squad Member
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Keovar,
I would rather have saves for dodging, for parrying the blow, for reducing the incoming damage in some fashion, all of which are based on skill rather than using increasing hit points to represent a reduced percentage of damage in relation to how much damage your body can take.
Is a trained fighter physically tougher? Certainly. Is a berserker caught up in battle rage using adrenaline and the ability to ignore how much his wounds hurt? Yep. Both might equate to fractionally more hit points, but the majority of their ability to take less damage is due to skill. I would rather have that represented by dice rolls (for shielding, parrying, dodging, etc.) that mitigate damage, and had such rolls when I GMed tabletop games, rather than using the abstraction provided by inflated hit points. When I GMed, your HP score was a combination of CON and STR and only increased if those scores increased, but I also had armor reducing hit points of incoming damage before it was applied to the character.
Backstabbing to me is critical to how I play the role. Often I find myself alone, way far away from any group or guild members. Either exploring or scouting, or just enjoying the thrill of slipping through an enemy held area. The ability to select a target and quickly drop that target is often the difference between life and death based on the way I play my character. Taking away any portion of the initial damage my opening attack does, unless its carefully thought out and evaluated in both PvE and PvP, means that the role isn't viable aside from as "extra" damage in a group combat sense.
Now due to the reduced level curve if all roles are given say a 20% decrease in damage output per X amount of time or over the course of a battle then it may work out fine, I trust GW to not hamstring thieves thoughtlessly by just nerfing backstab. I always trust the Devs in a game that's being made (yes I'm that crazy :p).
My view of the rogue/thief role is a hybrid between the classic perception of a thief, stealing, breaking and entering sort of operations, which won't be in the game but I'm ok with that. And a character like Garret from the Edios game Thief, as well as a scouting, trap laying, first strike type character that goes in and preps the combat area by placing traps and obstacles that direct the initial course of a battle by positioning enemies, leading them to positions and movements that aid my side before the battle is even joined. An example of this is say my character and 4 others are getting set to face 5 or 6 enemies that are unaware of us. I would go in, survey the area and report back to my group. Then I would lay a trap or two to hinder the enemies and slow or incapacitate a couple of them. Slip behind one of the casters or healers and drop them (or severely injure them) will a well placed backstab. Now the enemies see me, so I hightail it away, leading the enemy right into my traps and into the arms of my waiting group members.
So a slash to backstab damage that's not mirrored with equal slashes to the other roles most damaging attacks would be like slashing a Rangers damage they inflict with their bow. (I play Ranger when the Rogue class is made unplayable).
If instead of massive raw damage that insta-kills a target, a well placed (good attack roll) backstab were to incapacitate an enemy for a certain amount of time as well as doing a good amount of damage, perhaps allowing a couple of "free" strikes on the wounded character. Or a strike that stuns, disorients them for enough time to allow me to either put a lot of distance between me and the wounded enemy, or focus on another enemy. I feel fairly confident that a compromise could be worked out achieving the desired change from a massive amount of initial damage to a first strike that damages an enemy and wounds them in the manner described above by the blog "Tis only a flash wound".
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Goblin Squad Member
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It sounds like rogues are already being gimped with respect to theftYou're not nerfed. Do you regularly go around pickpocketing the other players in tabletop games? How long does it take before they disinvite you?
I do if they are the enemy or aligned against me in some way.
There's a human behind every PC in this game too, but they can't kick you out. Instead, the code and the devs behind it are the GM of the game, and they impose consequences for actions as befits the setting. If you're a pickpocket, you'll have a bad reputation in societies which frown on such things. Your actions will tend to make you align with the powers of chaos, since in this fantasy setting alignment elements are objective energy states.
This is what I find odd about rogues in online games. People prefer to have a large half-orc barbarian smash their face in with a great-axe than have a thief 'try' to pick their pockets.
It is being nerfed in my opinion. A staple of the rogue since the days of AD&D first edition is generally never available to characters, and now there is talk of sneak attack being toned down.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I would like to see the current MMO expectation of going into every fight with 100% resources be examined. Maybe the determination willbe that fully healing in 30 seconds or so is the desired outcome, or maybe burning a refresh is absolutely required to get back to 100%.
That would also have implications in open PvP.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Keovar,
I would rather have saves for dodging, for parrying the blow, for reducing the incoming damage in some fashion, all of which are based on skill rather than using increasing hit points to represent a reduced percentage of damage in relation to how much damage your body can take.
Is a trained fighter physically tougher? Certainly. Is a berserker caught up in battle rage using adrenaline and the ability to ignore how much his wounds hurt? Yep. Both might equate to fractionally more hit points, but the majority of their ability to take less damage is due to skill. I would rather have that represented by dice rolls (for shielding, parrying, dodging, etc.) that mitigate damage, and had such rolls when I GMed tabletop games, rather than using the abstraction provided by inflated hit points. When I GMed, your HP score was a combination of CON and STR and only increased if those scores increased, but I also had armor reducing hit points of incoming damage before it was applied to the character.
People do all kinds of things with their home games, but you can't expect anyone else to know what you changed and judge how those changes interact with the list of other things you're likely to have changed. I usually go with Pathfinder Society rules as a default assumption for most systems because it tries to be as consistent as possible from one session to the next.
Again, those defensive skills are abstracted into the HP (and AC) systems. Any level of detail you try to add will still have some measure of abstraction, so the point isn't to make a system that is impossibly realistic, but to find a point at which you're comfortable with the ratio of detail to abstraction. If you want to make a half-dozen rolls to resolve each action, then Palladium and Rolemaster may do that, but Pathfinder generally doesn't.
Either way, Pathfinder mechanics will not be used in PFO, because the licensing that made it possible to develop the PFRPG out of D&D does not extend into electronic media. There's also the problem that PFRPG's assumption of a few hours of play per week wouldn't stand up to playing that long many times a week, and there's less need to worry about bogging a system down in detail when a computer is calculating everything.
I'm actually in favour of health, mana, and similar resources being represented as percentages, so everyone has 100 of each, but skills and items reduce damage or costs via percentages. Someone with 100 HP and 50% damage reduction is basically the same as someone with 200 HP and no damage reduction. Since the player is looking at the results but not calculating the formulae used to get them, it makes sense to keep the visual representations simple while the computer handles the maths.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Keovar,
Did I mention I translated all my AD&D stats to percentage based...and did the same to attack rolls when I GMEd? ;)
But then, I can't expect anyone else to know what I changed...
*chuckles*
As a side note, Keovar and I chat often on Team Speak, so this is less an argument on the forums than banter among friends.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It sounds like rogues are already being gimped with respect to theftYou're not nerfed. Do you regularly go around pickpocketing the other players in tabletop games? How long does it take before they disinvite you?I do if they are the enemy or aligned against me in some way.
There's a human behind every PC in this game too, but they can't kick you out. Instead, the code and the devs behind it are the GM of the game, and they impose consequences for actions as befits the setting. If you're a pickpocket, you'll have a bad reputation in societies which frown on such things. Your actions will tend to make you align with the powers of chaos, since in this fantasy setting alignment elements are objective energy states.This is what I find odd about rogues in online games. People prefer to have a large half-orc barbarian smash their face in with a great-axe than have a thief 'try' to pick their pockets.
It is being nerfed in my opinion. A staple of the rogue since the days of AD&D first edition is generally never available to characters, and now there is talk of sneak attack being toned down.
You didn't answer how long your 'friends' let you get away with stealing from them. Even if none of them will openly tell you to knock it off or boot you from the group, many players will eventually stop coming if the GM won't deal with it.
I don't think anyone has said that they'd rather have their character killed than pickpocketed. Murder tends to shift you to evil while theft tends to shift you toward chaos. Both are actions that good societies outlaw, so it's no wonder that there are consequences for committing those crimes. Do you complain to real-world authorities that their rules against theft are 'nerfing' you? In a game that is supposed to simulate the settling of pioneer communities, you're likely to get away with much more in the game than out of it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Actually, in a thread where thieving was brought up before, several posters said they would prefer losing goods to a looting PKer who had killed them than risk having thieves steal the same goods. Their argument was that at least they had a chance to fight back against the PKer, but without detecting the thief, they had no chance of countering the theft.
In several threads I've made the argument that if unthreaded items are going to be the possible targets for the PKing killer, then why not make a random selection of those same unthreaded items for the thief. You could make it more difficult by limiting the size/weight of the item being targeted for theft, and have not only your detection skill, but that of nearby players and NPCs factor into the detection process. With all those added factors and increased chance for gaining a visible thief flag, the number of practicing thieves might be very few indeed...but those who love the thrill will still have the chance.
For this to work, you would only get the thief flag if you were detected.
I would also like to see the thieving skill work for NPCs - that a player thief might steal from NPCs and risk the same detection and flagging.
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Goblin Squad Member
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You didn't answer how long your 'friends' let you get away with stealing from them. Even if none of them will openly tell you to knock it off or boot you from the group, many players will eventually stop coming if the GM won't deal with it.
Quite a while. Of the friends I played with in the mid 80's, there are still four of us that catch up (or try to dependant on real life) each month. Effectvely half our playing group from when we were teenagers. Remember though, this only pertains to when we are playing against one another. That is not that often.
In an online game where open conflict is the norm, it is different. You always have a human pitted against you, trying to kill you, trying to steal your resources in some way, trying to undercut you in the marketplace, making war against your settlement, raising undead armies to crush you, undermining your politically...except rogues are not allowed to use their pickpocket skill. It just seems odd to me.
I don't think anyone has said that they'd rather have their character killed than pickpocketed. Murder tends to shift you to evil while theft tends to shift you toward chaos. Both are actions that good societies outlaw, so it's no wonder that there are consequences for committing those crimes. Do you complain to real-world authorities that their rules against theft are 'nerfing' you? In a game that is supposed to simulate the settling of pioneer communities, you're likely to get away with much more in the game than out of it.
Nobody may have stated that being killed is a preference to being pickpocketd, but it is implied. It looks like there will be no pickpocket skill (and there is no gold to steal anyway) yet there are many many many skills that can be used to kill someone. There are whole threads on these forums talking about how 'good' v 'evil' are going to try to kill one another in a myrid of ways. Yes, killing people will change your alignment to evil eventually, and stealing from people will change your alignment to chaotic eventually, but that is not the discussion here. My point is thieves do not even have the chance to use the pickpocket skill. It looks like the only way to steal is using SAD. That is the brute force way of stealing and not the stealth way - a bandit and not a sneak thief. While it is a legitimate tactic to use, it will probably not be limited to rogues. Much better to play a fighter, use SAD and kill the victim way more more effeciently than a rogue ever could in open combat if they refuse the trade terms. Doubly so now that people are mentioning that sneak attack should be 'toned down'.
This is my pet topic and I've regressed into a bit of a rant, but those two facts (no pickpockets and a toned down sneak attack) really make it seem to me that the rogue is being hit with the nerf bat.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm not sure where you're getting that sleight-of-hand (the skill used for pickpocketing) will not exist in the game. I'm not arguing that it shouldn't exist, just that you should expect consequences. At the very least, you slip toward being chaotic. That happens even if no one notices you, because alignments are objective energy states in this fantasy setting, and they attach to you based on your actions. Reputation is based on public opinion, so losing that would require that others know that you have stolen.
As to sneak attack, I would guess that it's about equivalent to a strike from a strong fighter with a good weapon, just an alternate way to achieve similar results in a direct numerical sense. Beyond that, it could also apply debuff conditions like slowed movement and attack speed, a DoT bleed effect, temporary stat penalties, etc. Those sorts of things end up being more valuable in taking down an opponent with many HP than just adding a couple extra d6 of damage since they leave the target more vulnerable to continued attacks.
This is my pet topic and I've regressed into a bit of a rant, but those two facts (no pickpockets and a toned down sneak attack) really make it seem to me that the rogue is being hit with the nerf bat.
We'll have to wait and see if they give thieves abilities to balance out the lack of PP and the nerfed Backstab. I sure hope so cause this is what happened to rogues in EQ AND in DAOC. My rogue was only 8th or 9th level in EQ when they defanged the class, so I never got the chance to play a powerful one, in DAOC they nerfed the infiltrator classless fairly early in beta so I switched to a Hib champion only to have them nerf them next!
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Goblin Squad Member
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I realise I may be getting emotive over this topic and may have read something that is not yet cast in stone into it all.
I have no issues whatsoever with sleight of hand/pickpockets having consequences. Alignment impacts, flags, reputation hits, bounties...I'm fine with all that. It's all part of being a thief and being a skilled thief. I even advocated a justice system a few months ago. Something where PC 'police' can hunt criminals down and use non-lethal force to apprehend them and maybe fine them when brought back to 'prison'. I just want the skill there in the first place :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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I would expect that there will be some form of critical hits in PFO. I'm more hopeful that there will be some form of critical success and failure in all skill checks in PFO.
This would include the instant killing strike, that could be inflicted by anyone against anyone, regardless of skill level differential. Even if there is only a 1:10,000 chance, everyone would still think it could happen in any battle versus any foe. This I believe would lead to a very positive nervousness anytime we enter combat.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Bluddwolf,
I too like the idea of critical success and critical failure for all skills, the chance of which should increase and decrease respectively with increasing skill.
With it, I would like to see minor magic items that boost skill success (thus increasing the chance for critical success) and/or mitigate the chance for skill critical failure. Could you even have the option of learning a subskill that does the same?
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I'm not sure what the point is of a feature where once every two hours you get a "you win" message and once every two hours you get the "you lose" message. How is that more fun than not getting those random additions?
If it only happens (or happens more often) when the victor is overwhelmingly better than the loser, what does it add then?
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Goblin Squad Member
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As I look back on my posts in this thread, I'm really only pitching special effects during criticals in combat - not extra damage. Critical damage tends to toss in that 1 in 100 great shot, but what player wants to be on the receiving end of that dice roll when it happens?
I rather have critical success or critical failures resulting in events that help to add interest to the game. Whether that's a lingering debuff that can even help your character become more unique (scarring for example) or a critical success when crafting that results in a new discovery (maybe a new variation of a current recipe).
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm not sure what the point is of a feature where once every two hours you get a "you win" message and once every two hours you get the "you lose" message. How is that more fun than not getting those random additions?
That isn't the model. It is a vanishingly small chance that it will happen every time that attack is initiated. Each time is all that counts for that vanishingly small chance.
If you did measure for several hours you might find it not happening at all, or happening twice at long intervals or twice in succession. The duration of the sample is irrelevant. What matters is the chance in the single action.
If it only happens (or happens more often) when the victor is overwhelmingly better than the loser, what does it add then?
Greater likelyhood. The vanishingly small chance became less vanishingly small.
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Goblin Squad Member
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For this to work, you would only get the thief flag if you were detected...I support this idea.
And by the way I also support an unnerfed sneak attack. This signature Thief/Rogue skill should not be made meaningless.
I support an unnerfed sneak attack in proportion to the narrower power gap between characters that will exist in PFO to PnP. Sneak attack as written can hit for the same damage as a fireball with no save multiple times per round. That's fine for 20th level rogues fighting critters with hundreds of hit points. It's not when in a open pvp world where a newbie of a few weeks should be able to have some chance vs a veteran of a year or two.
The ability should absolutely be in the game, and it should be a signature ability. But it will need adjustment to be balanced with the power level and combat systems in the game. We as a community will have plenty of chances to give input on where the balance should be once we have actually seen more of the combat system. Hopefully we'll be able to test it during the Pit Fight.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I'm not sure what the point is of a feature where once every two hours you get a "you win" message and once every two hours you get the "you lose" message. How is that more fun than not getting those random additions?That isn't the model. It is a vanishingly small chance that it will happen every time that attack is initiated. Each time is all that counts for that vanishingly small chance.
If it's a "vanishingly small chance" then it amounts to a lottery, which is a pretty lousy game mechanic. Especially since you're not going to remember the times when you crit some random goblin which was going to die in 2 hits anyways, but you'll certainly remember when it happens to you in those close nail-biter fights where you think you're coming out on top but suddenly the RNG craps all over you at the last second. And it won't happen in your favour in a close fight nearly so often because people who are on the losing end of a close fight will be trying to change their tactics (up to and including running away), since hoping to get that "vanishingly small chance" crit to swing things in your favour is sheer folly.
Is the complete fluke in a combat situation realistic? Sure, there's numberless stories of the lucky break that saved someone's life in real-life combat or war (and you generally don't hear the stories about the other side of the lucky coin because often those people are dead). Does it make for a fun game? Not really.
For crits to matter, they need to be something that you can count on happening regularly on the scale of a normal combat, if not necessarily each individual opponent (statistically, at least - there's always outliers, in both directions).
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For this to work, you would only get the thief flag if you were detected...I support this idea.
And by the way I also support an unnerfed sneak attack. This signature Thief/Rogue skill should not be made meaningless.
I support an unnerfed sneak attack in proportion to the narrower power gap between characters that will exist in PFO to PnP. Sneak attack as written can hit for the same damage as a fireball with no save multiple times per round. That's fine for 20th level rogues fighting critters with hundreds of hit points. It's not when in a open pvp world where a newbie of a few weeks should be able to have some chance vs a veteran of a year or two.
The ability should absolutely be in the game, and it should be a signature ability. But it will need adjustment to be balanced with the power level and combat systems in the game. We as a community will have plenty of chances to give input on where the balance should be once we have actually seen more of the combat system. Hopefully we'll be able to test it during the Pit Fight.
It does need to be adjusted for the different level gap, but kept on par with the level of damage vs. the level of skill so it wll have the same effect. I see it as an ability that defines the archetype/role and use it 95% of the time when on my own in any type of combat situation.
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Goblin Squad Member
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...For crits to matter, they need to be something that you can count on happening regularly on the scale of a normal combat, if not necessarily each individual opponent (statistically, at least - there's always outliers, in both directions).
It sounds to me like you are wanting a power attack rather than a critical hit. A power attack is when you, for example, exert an extreme effort in order to invest yourself in a devastating strike.
Critical Hits, as far as I know, are from the days when you rolled a twenty-sided die. If you rolled a natural 20 it was a critical hit.
When you really need one, 1:20 seems a vanishingly small ratio.
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Goblin Squad Member
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For this to work, you would only get the thief flag if you were detected...I support this idea.
And by the way I also support an unnerfed sneak attack. This signature Thief/Rogue skill should not be made meaningless.
I support an unnerfed sneak attack in proportion to the narrower power gap between characters that will exist in PFO to PnP. Sneak attack as written can hit for the same damage as a fireball with no save multiple times per round. That's fine for 20th level rogues fighting critters with hundreds of hit points. It's not when in a open pvp world where a newbie of a few weeks should be able to have some chance vs a veteran of a year or two.
The ability should absolutely be in the game, and it should be a signature ability. But it will need adjustment to be balanced with the power level and combat systems in the game. We as a community will have plenty of chances to give input on where the balance should be once we have actually seen more of the combat system. Hopefully we'll be able to test it during the Pit Fight.
Agreed -it needs to be proportional to the minimised power gap in the game. Not sure how this would work, but I'm not a dev :)
One comment though. While sneak attack CAN be as powerful as a fireball, remember that the thief has a not so good BAB and they need to be next to their foe and either flank them or catch them flat footed. This means the thief needs to spend a few rounds positioning themselves and putting themselves in harms way, as opposed to the mage sitting 300 foot away lobbing fireballs. SA is powerful, but it is also conditional.
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Goblin Squad Member
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...For crits to matter, they need to be something that you can count on happening regularly on the scale of a normal combat, if not necessarily each individual opponent (statistically, at least - there's always outliers, in both directions).
It sounds to me like you are wanting a power attack rather than a critical hit. A power attack is when you, for example, exert an extreme effort in order to invest yourself in a devastating strike.
Critical Hits, as far as I know, are from the days when you rolled a twenty-sided die. If you rolled a natural 20 it was a critical hit.
When you really need one, 1:20 seems a vanishingly small ratio.
I guess I simply didn't understand what you referred to as vanishingly small. 5% to me is quite significant and would work perfectly fine. Vanishingly small, to me, meant something like 0.01% or less, and that was reinforced your suggestion that it might only happen once every few hours. A 5% crit chance on the other hand will happen quite often, if combat is as common as it is in most fantasy MMOs. So I think we actually agree, and I unwittingly set up a strawman :) This is why choice of words is important....
And just to be clear, it's not that I want crits or power attack, or don't want them - I have no attachment to any specific combat mechanic. I merely want to avoid having combat mechanics that will make combat less fun, like a crit chance of a tiny fraction of a percent.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I do hope that crit chances depend on both skill and weapon type. Variable crit chances was a great addition to the game. Having rappers, kukris, scimitars, and falchions have a greater crit chance, but having picks and scythes have a low chance to crit but do massive damage when they do was a meaningful choice. I hope that is something that can be translated to PFO.