Forgotten Kingdoms Forums

I see what your saying, but I have never once invited a thief to deal with thief NPCs. I personally love having thieves along for a myriad of other reasons. If this is the only significant reason people invite thieves to come along with them then that sounds like a problem in and of itself.

I'd invite more thieves, If I ever saw them online. My times no longer mesh with peak play time for a good number of players though so there's that.

I am yet to really understand what difference a thief will feel in a reduction to this feature's duration. We may have to agree to disagree that a time reduction will actually make thieves less powerful.

Strangely, I've never actually invited a thief t utilize this feature second hand. I just like that they do so much damage when backed up by a caster. Can pick locks, and can scout. makes things beyond easy.

Yemin wrote:If this is the only significant reason people invite thieves to come along with them then that sounds like a problem in and of itself.

Thieves do have their woes, but I never said this is the only reason they should be brought along. They can provide a decent damage output with circle stab in fact, and they have a few extra useful abilities, like disarming traps, picking locks, etc. some of which you rightly point out. However this is one reason that makes thieves particularly handy in dealing with some mobs, and this is undeniable.

Then if you prefer to go against thieves mobs alone, it's your business, as it is a thief's or fighter's business if they go against mobs that do acid damage without spells that protect against it. To each their own.

I'd invite more thieves, If I ever saw them online.

Actually there is often a decent number of thieves online, but when they are good thieves they don't reveal they are thieves so easily. As for myself, 90% of the time, if I am not online with a thief I am on a bard, so your mileage may vary.

Thief damage output is being a bit played-up here; A capped level thief can put out roughly half as much damage per round as a single fireball from the wizard he's traveling with. Traps aren't very prevalent, but even when they are, most groups run right through them because they don't know they're there, and don't suspect they are because - there aren't many of them, healing the damage afterwards. Lockpicking can be useful sometimes, too, except that to my knowledge, there aren't any pickable doors that you can't also use knock, pass door, or simply bash it down to get through.

Anyway. On-topic, I'd rather not see the one piece of the thief kit that's working properly(sans removal) be nerfed. Restoration should remove it IMO, but otherwise, you can prepare against it so I can't see it as that big of an inconvenience.

Well, its definitely working, but I believe this was poorly translated from table to here.

Almost all spells last either a longer or shorter time as to what is reasonable for a MUD, don't see why this feature should be any different.

And I don't know about that for sure Althy, the one time I worked with a thief to take down a level 30+ NPC, she took him from full hp to dead in two rounds after I blinded him. Remember that most wizards don't GM even their main spells. So I can neither really argue that thiees do insane damage. They surely do enough though when properly supported. They shine like any other class when in groups.

Yes, there are ways of dealing with it. But like any other tactic, those ways aren't possible all the time and doesn't really have any great bearin on whether something is ill designed or not. No problem will effect every person at everytime, but I hold the opinion that this one affects enough people to warrant change.

I mean, all I can offer is my experience as someone who's played a high-level GMed thief, and a high-level GMed wizard. Against the same target, I could with a single spell drop them into the 20% range, whereas my rogue might do to 80% on an exceptional roll. It's not that rogues are useless, when properly supported by the full range of other classes, it's just that you'd still be better off having someone else in 90% of cases(Unless you're specifically dealing with thief mobs). I'm only offering my two cents since it was brought up though, I don't want to derail too much from the thread.

I mean, your opinion is valued to me. It all helps me at least, understand the experience of playing a thief. I opted out of that particular method of self torture because the class has more class features missing or broken than nearly any other class.

So far though, the only thing I've been convinced of is that thieves are good at dealing with other thieves. Not that someone will atually opt for a thief in the party over buyin some throwing knives and mirror image potions if they can't dodge the initial sneak attack. I think the line of argument concerning the usefulness of thieves is only faintly applicable here. 10 minutes is still plenty of time for something like strength drain to become unbearable if an area is full of crippling strike capable NPCs. Any party of 3 or more characters will perhaps have to break for 5 every 15 or 20 minutes if the caster is experienced so I believe that 5 - 10 on this ability is still a reasonable deterant to not have some counter measure with you. Whether that be thief or throwing knife.

I find anything over that simply malicious as no other effect in the game puts you down for quite so long. Not even death or the time spent regaining xp from energy drain, should you be unlucky enough that you didn't get to a cleric in time to restore it.

Having the heal or restore spell remove it would be a good bandage / fix but honestly, its just poor taste to effectively handicap anyone to a degree where they can't pursue the gameplay they want to do, for a length of time that would effectively result in a waste of time logging in. Doubly so for those who don't have all day to mess around on here.

Your arguments invalidate each other, Yemin.

If it is true that you have alternatives that let you face thieves mobs with crippling strike without a thief PC, then this is not a problem and it should stay as it is.

If it is true that thieves mob with crippling strike are capable of making an area unbearable without a thief PC, then this is not a problem and it should stay as it is.

My argument has sort of mutated I agree. But my point is that yes there is a legitimate way of dealing with this. But for those who do not know, or cannot for some reason. The way crippling strike is now is in poor taste and its extremely long duration does nothing positive and has only negative outcomes. Any positive traits attributed to it can and I believe are accounted for because of other factors.

I.e. there is a legitimate way to deal with illusory pit, but if you don't know about it or cannot manage it. Its poor taste to use it in a spar. Considering it still lasts way longer than its supposed to. Perhaps not absolutely everyone will bare the irritation of its ahem, pit falls, but enough will that the design of the spell / ability itself is inherently unfavorable if your aim is to increase the fun had by all, Not just the wizard / rogue using the ability.

I don't deny and, never had actually, that some features of crippling strike are not something I like, in particular the extremely long duration and more importantly the lack of any legit way to heal it.

Who plays a thief has many more inconveniences than any other class, except maybe poor old rangers. If there is a single thing that incoveniences everybody except for thieves I do not see the logical reason to remove it. For example warriors and rogues, unless they are water genasi, cannot access underwater areas alone or without potions of waterbreathing.

But this is not a good reason to remove the need for waterbreathing in underwater areas.

Vaemar wrote:I don't deny and, never had actually, that some features of crippling strike are not something I like, in particular the extremely long duration and more importantly the lack of any legit way to heal it.

My mistake then, we're actually in perfect agreement in that case. I had nothing against any other facet of the ability other than its duration. I don't think it should be so short that it only lasts one or two combats but it shouldn't be so long that it overshadows death. We could quibble over the exact times all day, but somewhere on the short side of that margin would see me satisfied. I.e. 10 minutes.

I think, on the other hand, that to preserve the inconvenience, it should be on the longer side. I.e. an hour or absolutely nothing less than half an hour.

It's just a little weird to see someone who referred to playing a thief as a form of "self torture", lobbying to nerf one of their only properly working class abilities, especially in a thread whose OP only wanted an unrelated aspect of the feature clarified in its helpfile.

If it's NPCs, don't go alone; That shouldn't need to be said really, the game is meant to be played that way at mid-to-high levels. There are far more dangerous areas you can accidentally wander into, that you can't flee out of, with mobs that will one-to-two round murder all but the most buffed up fighter. The game world comes with a certain level of lethality that longtime players should expect, and for the most part don't complain about with this one, strange, exception. (As an aside, thief mobs aren't even that common. Not nearly as common as they're made out in this thread, and certainly not enough to warrant changing a PC class feature)

If it's a PC, they literally have nothing else to defend themselves with. It's an anti-bullying deterrent at best.

I've never had cause to bully any characters, especially the rare thieves I come across. Things like that should be left to be covered under help harassment. So far, I've never seen any form of bullying occur for very long at all when its been highlighted.

We'll have to agree to disagree if you don't see a problem with putting someone down for more than an hour regardless of capability to deal with the situation or not.