Weapons and opponent distance

[Mingus]

From brawling to the longest pole arms, each style of weapon has its own range and effective fighing area. take a spear, if you're too close you'll be using it more like a staff and not be using the head much for the lack of room. Does it sound impossible to make an addition to the fighting system and allow the size of the weapon dictat if you are too close/far and make little or no damage or at the right distance. With dodge riposte and parry(and what ever other skill deemed good) one can move closer or farther away during battle. And given the oppertunity when your foe misses. Right now you can bring a dagger to a sword fight or even be toe to toe with a spear. What I'm aksing is not neccesarraly for a new skill but an addition to the weapons when you train them, automatic and only listed in the help.(if at all) So if a knife is your perferd weapon, you will know more than well that the close is deadlier, where as a spearsman would tend to stay as far as his weapon allows for a good thrust. And this would somewhat halt the use of a short blade while mounted, leaving only polearms and long versions of weapons for that use.

Taking the two extreams as an example, a spearsman fighting knife wielder. the knifesman will want to move closer versly while the spearsman would want a gap between. The knifesman will do little or no damage if he stays put and doesn't move foward al while takingfull damage from the spearsman thrusts. The spearman would have to retreat if the gap is closed if he would like to do damage. This all would be automatic during the battle and use misses parries repose and dodges as oppertunities for advancemet and/or retreat. Bashes stuns and trips would allow with out a sucsessful die rool in dodge, parry, ect. Also bashes stuns trips won't work too well if you are too far away.

Second. If you use polearms especially with man catcher type protrusions it might be easier to keep an opponent at bay. Not just to do full damage but keeping them(unleess the too wield a polearme simular in length) from advancing as in a skin that pins the opponent down, as bash, stun, trip or maybe automatic. This could be use with more effectively in groups as the polearm wielder will keep the target pinned and the others can go for some easy hits.

Third. These two would compliment group fights since the back and middle members can wield polearms more effectively. But any parries reposte and weapon blocks(beat?) would not benefit the wielder as much as the buffer in the group.(front ranks) As long as you're not the one buffing your defensive manuvers will benifit the human shields at the front. Also without a polearm of proper length even engaging from the middle and back rows in a group formation will be all but impossible since you won't have a clear line of sight and only with a polearm could you reach the battle over your friends shoulders. So dagger wielding mages in the rear will be of little use once their spells and bullets(sling) run out. As it should be. Even a full blown battle cleric of Tempus in the middle rank, if other as taking up all the front, would not find much leeway to hitting with his hammer unless it was a lucern or other polearm.

Too hard to implement? I've seen other muds that used simular tactics but had commands that made you retreat and advance. Now this is fine but it did lead to an unfare advantage to those with less lag or faster connections. I'd say let the code decide and just give proper echos so as to make RPed PvP fights easier to coordinate with the advencments/retreats.

[Tempus]

While there are some valid points and good ideas in your post, I am not sure that they are workable within the current formations system that we use.

One thing I do think could be added that would enhance group dynamics would be a 'protect' command. This would allow someone in the front rank to protect one chosen person in the middle or rear ranks of the group. When entering melee, the protector would give up initiative in order to make a pre-emptive interception of any hostile npc/pc attempting to hit the protected member of the group. Protecting a person in the middle rank would require a straight roll against rescue skill. Protecting a person in the rear rank could give a bonus to the skill check, as long as the attack is coming from the front.

This would allow 3 people in the group to be protected, if you assume there are three spaces in the front rank, or three people to protect one other designated person if desired.

[Tip for people posting ideas - your idea is more likely to be read in full if you pay some little attention to speeling and grammer]

[Stayne]

I do love the protect idea Tempus. Many times my Tempurian fighter has been wanting to keep people out of trouble, but because of my slow link, and sometime lag, it can be dangerous as lag at the wrong time can get another weaker PC killed, when really, my char would have interveened (or at least tried).

As for the range problem in comabt in one room, I personally can see no easy solution. I would love to see one as I do believe high level mages will never sit toe-to-toe if they can fly, teleport etc to any vantage point and cast from there. I have seen similar things to what Mingus has described, especially in PK muds, but never liked them due to, as you said - having a modem connection - the speed would cost me any fight quite easily. Its also the main reason I will never let a RP that might involve a killing go to code (that and it ruins the RP anyways).

The only suggestions I ever made to maybe make a difference is to modify some kills to add to defence or offence depending on how they were used. My best eg. was that Fly should give a mage an ability perhaps similar to dodge. I know many will say that outdoors, just fly around the player or mob, but since its supposed to be 30miles for each room, this to me seems entirely unrealistic. In RP I cannot walk that 30miles but someone can shoot an arrow that far?? When does RP stop and code abuse begin (harsh term, but you get the point).
Somtimes I think its just because I heavily play a mage that I do not like the toe-to-toe style, as mages have a limited range of high level spells (I don't think we have anything spell level 5 or above do we?) that don't do enough damage based on mage level (ie. The more experienced a mage is the greater their powers are) and my thoughts tend towards fixing that. Though the simple problem is that a person who RP's 1000 hours, cannot hope to code beat a person who has trained 1000 hours, yet I would always have respect for the former more. I can see no easy solution, and by that I mean no solution that would not require a good amount of forethough, planning and massive code changes.
Though perhaps a few skills to, or skill modifications would give us an added depth of reality.

Plenty there to go out - enjoy

S

[Andreas]

I definitely like the idea of a "Protect" command as described by Tempus. Would certainly make such efforts more "natural" for certain characters rather than needing to rely upon the rescue skill, being able to sort out all that battle spam, typing the rescue whomever command quick enough and praying that your connection doesn't lag or hang up

Expanding upon the idea some, the base skill of Rescue would need to be trained and then a PC could train Protect. Using the Protect skill would, like any form of fighting, improve not only the Protect skill, but also the Rescue skill since success would also be checked against that just as weapon attack success is checked against both the weapon and the attack skill (i.e. second attack etc.).

[Mingus]

[Tip for people posting ideas - your idea is more likely to be read in full if you pay some little attention to speeling and grammer]

Speeling/grammer?? but really, I thought I caught them all. I apologize for any typos here and in any new post.

Protect sound great but what of the other points. The effective distance would allow for more RP since not all weapons would be usable everywhere. And hence PvP and PvNPC would allow for greater range of style. Protect still doesn't resolve the issue od melee combat as I stated. A knives man vs spear man or a knives man on a mount can still go toe-to toe with out any penalties. If the knives man and spear man do damage to each other in the same round, that does not mean they each moved to an effective distance and then allowed the other to do the same. I can see:
Round 1 - missed knife thrust and the spear man taking a few steps backward after the dodge;
Round 2 - the spear man reaching the effective damage range of his short spear gives two hits misses with the third, the knives man roll around the spear and draws closer to the spear man;
Round 3 the knives man then has the attack opportunity and so on and so forth till one is killed or surrenders.
With the combat modes and feats to tweak the scenarios and allow for less or more moves of engagement or retreat. ie the spear man might stay in close in order to punch or kick or trip the opponent in order to flee the fight, or the knives man might want to stay put and not advance in order for the next round to retreat even further so as to let loose a spell with out interruption.

I have not been in a group of more than 3. So I cannot comment on the effectiveness of non-polearm weapons from the middle and back ranks. But it does seem logical that if there are three bulky fighters blocking you from your target that swinging your sword or flail about in the middle/back ranks would do nothing but maybe injure the buffers(front rank if your in the middle, middle rank if your in the rear) So maybe it would be impossible to pass on any defensive maneuvers to the buffers but at least the middle ranks would not be allowed to inflict damage with out a properly lengthened weapon.(polearm) And unless its the most extreme of of polearms(length) and the tightest of formations, in truth I could not see a rear rank do melee damage at all.

As Staynes mage would not likely stand toe-to-toe with a fighter. Maybe add another killmode/combatmode that if toggled it will set the fighter(mage in this case) not to engage in melee. But still be able to shoot/cast with out pausing. And if the distances are coded, trying your best through the code to stay out of your opponents reach. As well as fly would add a considerable bonus to the rolls and to a point it could be seen as flying above the heads of of the opponent, since hence you are staying as far from your opponent as his weapon can reach. With dodge the only roll active since parry and riposte would not even come into factor.