Arks thread of tough love and abuse #8 parry

[Ark]

currently:
Parry/Avoid Blow – LP skill A Warrior may spend 1 Life Point to reduce the damage delivered from any single frontal melee attack that has a number in the call to 0. This includes Knockout, Crush, Vorpal, Poison, etc. In addition, they may also parry frontal Disarm attacks

what It should be:
Parry/Avoid Blow – LP skill A Warrior may spend 1 Life Point to resist a single frontal melee attack that has a number in the call. This includes Knockout, Crush, Vorpal, Poison, etc. In addition, they may also parry frontal Disarm attacks

this slight change removes so many silly cheesy ways around parry (0 vorpal knockout, 0 vorpal poison, etc.)

[Kaylan Chargeender]

actually all the GMs need to do is just realize that zero points does NOT hit life points and its fine. Change the add on effects to needing to do at least 1 LP damage to take effect. Stating that hiting(hitting?) something with zero points is still hitting it id simply idiotic.

"I dropped ZERO bombs on that city...look at the devistation!!!!'


its just sad really..

[Ark]

its two t's for some reason (hitting) had to google it to be sure

but yeah I agree, the wording and reasoning right now is silly.

[Phinkis]

I brought this up a while back because of the knock out works, which I hate by the way. Knockout works differently than poison and disease and such. Numbered attacks that contain poison and disease deal damage. That damage must affect your life points in order for the poison or disease to work. Thus a 12 vorpal poison that is parried, becoming 0 vorpal poison, will not poison you since you're life point total is unaffected by it. Knockout is not the same though. It doesn't deal damage to begin with so it can never affect your life points. So knock out has it's own special rules. Knock out has to equal or exceed your armor points to affect you. This means that a 12 vorpal knockout that is parried, becomeing 0 vorpal knockout, will work because the 0 knockout is equal to your armor since the vorpal bypasses armor.

[GM-Phil]

Understanding Special Damage Calls - PG. 84
Certain skills allow players to perform special actions. For example, the Barbarian can cause
Fear, the Swashbuckler can Disarm opponents, etc. When you are hit with any attack that is not
preceded by a number (i.e. “Fear” as opposed to “10 magic”) then you are affected by that attack
if it hits any part of you, your weapon, or your shield. On the other hand, weapon attacks
preceded by a number can be blocked by a weapon or a shield, and packet driven attacks
preceded by a number can be blocked by a shield, if blocked by your weapon you still take the
full effect of the attack. In addition, any secondary effects caused by the special call (i.e. Fear,
Poison, Sleep, Disease, etc.) when preceded by a number will not take effect unless this damage
hits your Life Points.

The above takes hitting your LP into account - Although after reading it again I would like to change the wording to

In addition, any secondary effects caused by the special call (i.e. Fear,
Poison, Sleep, Disease, etc.) when preceded by a number will not take effect unless
this effect damages your Life Points.

Just to be clearer.

[Ark]

so is this ending the 0 vorpal knockout silliness?

[cole45]

knockout

If your character’s current Armor Total ( this includes armor worn, Combat Reflexes and any other source of armor points) is equal to or less than the number called then the character is knocked out for 5 Minutes and can only be awakened by the “Awaken” call. This call is delivered by a number followed by the word "Knockout". For example, Robert the everlasting is in combat with 20 armor points, 8 of which come from combat reflexes while 12 come from regular armor. Robert is hit with a 9 knockout, but because his current total of armor points is greater than 9 Robert resists the attack. Later on Robert has taken 11 points of damage making his total armor points 9 and is again hit with a 9 knockout. This time Robert falls unconscious for 5 minutes because his current armor total is equal to or lower than the number called.

knockout doesn't count life it ONLY counts armor.

Armor cannot protect against Vorpal damage. This type of damage goes directly to the targets Life Points and the character is affected by any other effects attached to the call. Generally this is only a number call so if a character was hit for “9 Vorpal” any armor would be by passed and 9 points would be subtracted from the character’s Life Point total. If a character was hit with a “9 Vorpal Knockout” attack, the attack would bypass armor and the Knockout effect would be applied, and thus the character would fall unconscious for 5 minutes.

vorpal knockout treats youur armor as 0. (it must or vorpal knock out would never ever work.)

I don't disagree 0 vorpal knockout may be silly. it's just the math. (changing parry to just resist does actually fix it the easiest.

[Ark]

I don't really mind what option (or both?) gets done to fix it, but it would be nice to have things cleaned up.

on the topic of knockout. why not just change it to something like this:

the number on knockout becomes damage (slight adjustments to charge time or number may apply) and knockout joins every other skill in the game under the premise of "if it hits your life it takes effect" then simply remove "sleep" and replace it with a numberless "knockout" this would remove a superfluous call, simplify knockout, and make knockout itself more viable (it becomes a damage steroid with a chance to knockout the enemy)

combat example:
-you are hit with a "5 knockout" it does 5 damage, if it hits your life, you fall asleep.
-you are hit with "knockout" it surges and unless you can resist knockout, you fall asleep.
-you are hit with "3 vorpal knockout" it does 3 vorpal and hits your life, you are asleep (unless you can resist sleep, it would bypass the current parry though, and even the fixed knockout wording, the slight change to parry might need to be made)

[cole45]

Kookie suggested that before. They seem to want an all or nothing solution.

[Kaylan Chargeender]

simply remove "sleep" and replace it with a numberless "knockout" this would remove a superfluous call

thats incorrect, since making someone sleep...and knocking them out really isnt the same. Mythically, and elf is resistant/immune to artificial sleep...but could be skull basked and knocked out.

[Ark]

that's how you role play it. you see knockout as knocking someone over the back of the head (and you can RP it that way) or perhaps you blow knockout powder in their face, or conjure a spell that makes them light headed and knocks them out, who knows.

as long as the mechanics are solid I really don't mind (extreme examples excluded) how people RP there various abilities (as this is often what makes characters seem much more impressive then their stats allow)

[Kaylan Chargeender]

no actually, its not an RP thing. They are, in fact, very different states of unconsciousness.