spikes

[Alamar]

This is now the second time that I have been killed because of spikes. In principle, this is fine... but the dropper of the spikes... Gen you might ask? Olrane? Izydor? No! It was Ezekeil and Rex...

Neither one of them has any skill in set traps (or at least none to speak of). The spikes are nearly infallible as far as I can tell, and evidently even with very high agility and relatively low armour I am stuck in place by spikes as surely as any heavily armoured warrior.

I will pass over the whole problem of honourable knights using tricky thief gear in combat (I'm sure that can be justified ).

Major problem: Infallibility - spikes ALWAYS work. I was amused to see that when I set them and was having trouble finding the command to retrieve them... Abharsair appeared in order to help me out.... and he was hurt by them! Have to admit that an item might be overly effective if it even works on immortal beings.

On a player level, it seems like characters with higher agility could jump over spikes or weave through them or something. If this is the case I have not seen it. One can run right through one's own spikes (that is if I set them myself), but it seems like I should have a chance at avoiding them if I know about them.

Here is my idea... spikes work just as they have, except make it a skill vs. agility contest. With a high set traps skill one knows exactly how to scatted the spikes to prevent someone's movement through them. He also knows how to scatter them to cover all the exits. The person who is in the room with the spikes, by the same token, must move through the field of spikes and must use agility to do so.

And by the way... spikes should definitely not be able to be dropped by a heavily armoured dwarf crusader while riding on the back of a galloping unicorn with perfect accuracy! I should at least get the chance to avoid it. I had less of a problem when Ezekeil did it, because he was at least on foot (all moral problems with clergymen using thief items aside)... but from horseback?

The truth is that Rex probably would have killed me with his gigantic lance and huge unicorn anyway (he got a solid crit early on)... but being able to also use thief gear with no skills for it in mid combat while mounted seemed a little overkill to me.

-Alamar

[Delia]

Sounds like the best way to cripple your fancy unicorn to me...You can outmaneuver the moral problem by replacing "thief-gear" with caltrops ( relatively common nasty little bugger used against cavalry, but against infantry also)or somesuch (if being a Thief is inherently evil and morally corrupt). I haven't envisioned the Crusaders or Taniels 100% auto-honourable either, such concept would certainly wuss both Taniel and Evren down to base goody-two-shoe gods. Crusties aren't paladins or knights as far as I can tell, and Taniels do have shown the dedication to remind me of the inquisition at times.(I like my good guys bit "bad", gives more room for the truly good to shine)
But as for spikes...if its indeed auto-success under any/most circumstances it does sound bit overtly powerful. Having ridiculously high agility and low encumbrance should help dodging things quite a bit in my opinion, and during intense combat "setting traps" shouldn't be a top priority , but I guess the things are just randomly scattered around anyways. Haven't encountered the things myself...Perhaps awareness should play a part too?

[Abharsair]

Actually those with a high awareness had a pretty good chance to escape the spikes, but you made some other valid points.

1) I added that looking at the spikes once they are dropped will give you a hint how to pick them up again. Ironically enough, the non-dropped spikes gave you a hint already, but that was kind of useless for the victim.

2) Your stats will now influence your chance to escape as well.

3) The one dropping the spikes will no longer automatically escape when running out of the room. He'll have a better chance than his victims, but he can also step into his very own spikes.

Especially the last part was imho an important change, because otherwise those spikes seem to have no risk or disadvantage whatsoever, and would have been a bit too powerful.

Last but not least I want to add (again) that Crusaders are no Paladins, and neither are they bound to be honorable when dealing with their enemies. They can use an ambush, poison, thief gear and whatever other means they have available to defeat their enemies, as long as it doesn't violate their rules. I think Delia pretty much explained it very accurately in her previous post.

[anglachel]

In my oppion is using poisons very suspect. Its nothing what is used by erveryone. But ambush and thief gear is something, that everyone can use.
You can call it 'smart tactic' and 'special equiment', if you do not like the word 'ambush'

[Alamar]

I was just raising the morality issue because sometimes anything "thiefy" can get someone tortured or burned at the stake, or if you're really really bad... lectured by a gigantic lizard (that's really painful )

Delia said it well, I'll follow her lead on not considering Crusaders honourable paladins of peace and justice (my character certainly doesn't). It's hard to make the disconnect between where the term Crusaders is like/unlike the medieval crusader who were often obsessed with anything that might impune their honour as a knight... though clearly the Geas Crusader and the Medieval crusader are very different, some similarities are bound to pop up in roleplay.

Thanks Abharsair for fixing those so quickly!

-poAlamar

[Abharsair]

It's hard to make the disconnect between where the term Crusaders is like/unlike the medieval crusader who were often obsessed with anything that might impune their honour as a knight... though clearly the Geas Crusader and the Medieval crusader are very different, some similarities are bound to pop up in roleplay.

Err, you might want to look into the history of the Crusades. Yes, there probably were "honorable knights" who took part in them, but most of the historical Crusaders had other motives than "defending the occident and freeing the Holy Land". The Crusades themselves are a dark mark on western history. Putting a large portion of Jerusalem's population to the sword, or sacking the city of Constantinople (a Christian city, former capital of the East Roman Empire and center of the Orthodox church) are just two of the committed atrocities. That being said, "honor" doesn't really pop into my mind when I think of the RL crusades, and compared to the historical Crusaders ours are extremely tame.

[adanath]

Being able to drop spikes or caltrops in a room logically and quite obviously requires no skill.

[tarlon]

droping spikes should be especialy nasty for horses. If a horse steps on a spike and it hurts the soft parts of the hoof or it get stuck in the hoof either the soft or hard parts of a hoof it should at least cripple the speed of a horse dramaticaly or even force it to shy and throw off his rider

[rex]

I like the changes, thank Abh.

If the person stepping on the spikes was wearing plate metal boots compared to a person wearing leather boots it should hurt them less, or maybe not even slow them down at all. Maybe if the person is wearing no shoes, or think leather, the spike could get stuck in the foot and have to be pulled out?

For horses stepping on the spikes I think the rider should be thrown off. However, i was wondering if horsehoes on the mount would protect them at all?

[chara]

From real-world experience, I doubt horseshoes on a mount would help much, if at all. The majority of a horse's foot is not covered by a shoe; when riding on rocks, for instance, you can expect that your horse is likely to get a rock bruise. Plus, remember that the average warhorse weighs a good bit more than a ton, even unarmoured and without a rider on his back. A thin metal shoe is not going to be much protection, even if the sharp part of the spike landed squarely on the shoe.

I guess it's theoretically possible that some kind of special shoe might historically have been crafted to provide some small amount of additional protection to mounts, but I think it's not really necessary for Geas.

[adanath]

Yes but the problem lies in if it can get stuck in a horses foot..then it should get stuck in a pc's as well. If that happens then people will be complaining about it being more powerful than before .

[Alamar]

Probably an iron horseshoe would not prevent damage. Horseshoes really only prevent the edges of the hoof from getting worn down by riding on hard surfaces (roads, etc.). The center part of the horse's hoof is actually quite sensitive and that is where the caltrop would likely stick.

Caltrops (or variations on them) were used in two situations historically.
First against cavalry to slow horses down.
Second against samurai... the spikes would go right through their nifty little sandals (it had to hurt like crazy).

One would think that a person wearing iron shoes might have a greater chance to simply crush spikes, but perhaps the greater weight would only make it worse... hard to tell on that as I have no experience or knowledge of any historical situation either way.

-poAlamar

[adanath]

They were used historically on human infantry, camels, and war elephants as well. However, history does not always fit in with muds. I can see why everyone complains and everything yet, some of these things are sure asking for a lot of checks with no definitive idea of it.

Right now, their code allows them to be used in game, be evaded by someone highly aware and agile and stepped on by everyone around. A lot of the reason they would use them in battle especially against calvalry is because warhorses and war-camels etc were taught not to fear anything so they would charge on regardless straight over top of humans if neccessary. This was to the advantage of Caltrops because though such animals are normally pretty wary of their surroundings when walking at full charge they would hit caltrops and then fall immediately breaking their limbs usually since the accident happened at a high speed. Horses and mounts with broken legs were absolutely useless.

This concept actually does not fit into the mud quite as well. Their current uses, advantages, and disadvantages, however do.

Caltrops are four pronged spikes very easily dropped by anyone and that have a chance to stop anyone or slow them down. I'm not really sure what the problem is here, its not like they are an often used item anyways.

[Alamar]

I agree... they work well on everything right now. I was just replying to Rex's point about horseshoes. There is a very very small chance to avoid them for an aware and agile character, but now spikes also work on the person who dropped them, which in my opinion is a good change. Now people have to be careful when they drop them or they might end up spiking themselves in the foot instead of their intended prey.

-poAlamar

[Olrane]

Not having had any chance to ever get my slimy fingers on some spikes, I can't say that I'm talking from experience. All I know is that they don't seem to need any "set traps" or other skill in order to set, which is understandable to some degree considering that they're pretty intuitive, but must be annoying to anyone who actually is experienced with traps. What experience I do have is that "set traps" is insanely difficult to have work against PCs (I've been lucky sometimes if 1. my stats weren't in the gutter 2. my skill was 60-ish and 3. the victim was a newbie or a tshahark) and using spikes takes no real training to have work to much more devastating effect.
I like what I'm hearing about the spikes now being more dangerous to use, but I think that they could use being influenced by the "set traps" skill (if they are already, forgive me). Perhaps also real traps could be made easier to use, since they do require a lot of skill and practice which can almost only be used against monsters, at least in my experience.

Thanks,
Olrane

[adanath]

I myself, am not sure how effective traps are against pc's. If they are indeed very uneffective I believe they should be much more for it would increase a need for teamwork. Rangers working together with others, and thieves, or trappers or whomever. Then a good trapper and another character could string out teams and it really I believe would make a more well rounded team system when you look at hunting and fighting etcetera. Of course this is to Adan's downfall, but I don't care about that, I have played muds in which traps were very effective and it added to teamplay and the necessity to work together rather nicely.

[Alamar]

I suppose the major inhibition against using traps effectively (from a player standpoint) is the relatively small number of moving monsters. One of the exciting parts of hunting moles, apart from being able to mine decent gems and metals, is the fact that moles amass and move. Moles, in other words, are one of the few monsters that a player can playtest traps and see how they work.

I think that as new regions are added that there will likely be more moving monsters and that will probably help trapsetters to practice their trade more effectively. At present a character can improve his/her skills by playing with traps, but there are not many situations for a player to really see trap mechanics. One can ask another PC to help test them, but it's a pretty hard sell to say "will you put your foot right here? Please?!"

There are many other factors involved that would be giving a little too much away, but suffice it to say that when comparing spikes and traps, spikes seem more effective.

-poAlamar

[tarlon]

Orcs in the orc tower and hobos both follow you so they are fairly good victims for traps. Espicialy as the orcs seem to have a very low awareness. So you have a chance to trap one of them

[Blizt]

I have used and have had spikes used on me on numerous occassions.
I have also walked into a trap, where it caught my foot, and I was stuck inside of it for hours with no way to escape (it seemed like a bug, but the wizard checking the report was not able to recreate it, so it possibly wasnt a bug)

This said, if this wasnt a bug, traps are very effective, and considering the damage it did, possibly a bit overpowered, much more than spikes were.
Since traps damage you severely, and keep you trapped where you can not move at all. Just because you have a mediocre skill, does not mean it should work all the time.

Also, I dont believe spikes should rely on your set traps skills. There is a huge differance in the two. When you set a trap, you are "setting a trap".
You are taking your time, adjusting the weight, placing it in the room, and hopefully hiding it enough so that your target will not see it, and you are not in the middle of combat.

When you drop spikes, most of the time, you are in the middle of combat, and you are throwing spikes on the ground, in hopes that no one can run away, and from what I understand this goes for anyone trying to exit the room. This takes no skill, anyone with the ability to "drop something" could use it. Or maybe it could use the "aim" skill, to make sure you hit the ground?

As for Alamar saying spikes are more effective, the incident where Alamar had spikes used against him, he stepped right over them, and they didnt stop him from leaving at all. The reason he died was because he had fallen into a trap that he didnt expect, where the Crusader was not on his unicorn, and the Crusader and Unicorn had both been hunting Alamar, and the Taniel Cleric had a smite prepared on ground in his favour, and released it as soon as Alamar backstabbed. Alamar stepped on the spikes once, then ran immediatly south. He then died of bloodloss from the melee damage he suffered in the room where the ambush was. If he would have stepped into a set trap, he wouldnt even have been able to flee at all. I was actually a bit annoyed at this time, as seeing how Alamar fled from the spikes quicker than anyone I had ever seen, and I thought he had escaped.

From my point of view, it seems that traps were more effective before the change, and since the change, even much more effective now since spikes dont work near as well as they did. Perhaps higher than an average skill in set traps would make them work better, because they seem very powerful when they do work.

I will add however, I have noticed many traps set in rooms, and did not step on them, but I dont know the reasons for this, perhaps the person setting them had very low skill.

These are just my personal experiances being on both the recieving and giving ends of the topic, and my personal experiances show that traps are very powerful, since if you get caught in one, its much more deadly than the spikes, where you had and have a chance to escape, also traps seem to do alot of damage when you activate one.

[rex]

After these changes I have tested out the spikes several times. I've used them just under 10 times in total. so far, it was worked 0 times and one person, a person who was not ment to step on the spikes, stepped on them. This was a one day old character.

I get the fealling the maybe spikes are a little underpowerful now, unless this is what the goal was for? I will add however, the people who were ment to step on the spikes were all very fast characters with high agility and awareness. It may just be bad luck for me that thye didn't step on it.