3 vorpal poison knockout vs Parry

Post by **GM-Taki** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 1:00 pm

No worries, Tim. We all hate it when we shell out good money for something that gets taken away. This time, however, I'm sure you'll keep your item. The mechanic may change, but you'll keep your item.

Should the change be drastic enough to warrant it, just talk to the GM's about a refund of some sort. They've always been very fair (a little indulgent, even) when it comes to allowing players to review their options when the rules change around them.

cole45 · Post by **cole45** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 1:18 pm

excatly.

could just change from

1 evade,

to

: One use of this item allows you to negate a single melee attack.

or something like that.

Post by **GM-Mike** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 1:20 pm

We do make an effort not to screw anybody when we change things.

The 360 parry is broken. At the very least it should allign with the paladin self-awaken and cost two life points instead of one.

We are not balancing skills against items. The parry versus vorpal knockout debate has nothing to do with kandium armor, in my opinion. It has to do with a confusion of how things are written and the intention of skills. Desiring to get rid of kandium armor has nothing to do with the skills but with the belief that it fosters cheating as it is often used incorrectly and is difficult to enforce. I would give an example but am not interested in calling anyone out and do not want to start a debate about cheating. But people do it, you know who you are, chances are we know who you are, and eventually you'll be gone. The point is that kandium armor was intended to be pretty lame. Since everyone has it, something is wrong.

And saying parry does not stop a vorpal knockout is not a rule change. It's simply reading the skill and interpreting it correctly.

Atreus · Post by **Atreus** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 1:22 pm

Cool guys thanks, I guess I will have to wait and see.

Kalphoenix · Post by **Kalphoenix** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 1:43 pm

My issue is generally with grandfathering. As long as everything remains consistent across the board, and no one gets a "special" because they/their item existed before the change, I'm generally ok with it.

GMs are generally pretty good about resolving issues like this in some way though.

And on upkeep, if an item is balanced, you still got to use it in it's existing form for "x" amount of time, which doesn't negate it's usefulness in that time period.

Ark · Post by **Ark** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 2:15 pm

Samuria issues, dont really hate Samurias 360 parry, i hate how good all its skills are, and i dont care that it buggered assassins, its a master level skill, same as man at arms, like i siad its just got some of the best skills in the game.

parry not stoping vorpal knockout, Nelkie and Reid said it was broken, and thats all i have to say on that.

balancing by upkeep, will ALWAYS hate this idea, dont care, will always hate it.

Post by **GM-Mike** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 2:58 pm

Nelkie and Reid did not say that parry not working against vorpal knockout was broken. They said the assassin skill was broken if it could get by parry AND be attached to other things, like a channel or whatnot. I don't think they would have any issue whatsoever if it could just get by parry.

Of course, without the assassin skill as is, then they have a utilize poison skill with little hope of ever utilizing poison, unless they are an archer or willing to break their weapons every time...

Post by **GM-Mike** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 6:03 pm

Has anyone else come to realize that Reid has never chimed into this conversation? Man, the Nelkie/Reid merge is finally complete. They really are one person now

Ark · Post by **Ark** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 7:02 pm

turns on the Reid Nelkie signal on the roof of the Finalhaven building

dier_cire · Post by **dier_cire** » Fri Oct 23, 2009 7:44 am

I guess I can weigh in here. I've stayed away from posting for so long now though...

Anyway, more or less agree with Mike. And yeah, I don't believe I said *anything* in this thread unless somehow I've become a Nelkie (which may also be true).

Would Parry work on vorpal knockout? No. However, we have/had for many years used it otherwise from lack of paying attention. Honestly, I'm quite sure I've never been hit with a vorpal knockout since the change to assassin. So we are talking maybe one or two infractions over 3-4 years.

Is this a problem? Currently, meh. Assassin 4 is kinda cool, but I'd have to look at it more to be sure one way or the other. If Assassin 4 went back to just 'Sleep' or 'Vorpal Knockout' (no number), it'd probably fit better. Poison skill is slightly worse but still useful. And if you really want poison someone either break a weapon or be a swash.

As for the Kandy armor and Samuari, yeah, not touching it or many of the potions, spells, etc that blossomed in that era.

Onimaster · Post by **Onimaster** » Fri Oct 23, 2009 10:54 pm

I wanted to offer my opinion.

I think the rules on vorpal knock out are pretty clear. I agree with most of what Chris said, and I remember talking about this when we made the change to assassin. Vorpal Knockout = Sleep (only you need two skills to make it work rather than 1).

I do not feel Samurai is broken at all. To get the 360 degree parry you need a Master Level Path AND a master level discipline, and samurai can't use a shield or else none of their samurai abilities work. That was built into the discipline specifically to tame the parry. Yeah, they can take some big hits from the back, but they are wide open to anyone swinging 1's from every direction. And, any person with a packet is WIDE OPEN.

Kalphoenix · Post by **Kalphoenix** » Fri Oct 23, 2009 11:15 pm

Onimaster wrote: I do not feel Samurai is broken at all. To get the 360 degree parry you need a Master Level Path AND a master level discipline, and samurai can't use a shield or else none of their samurai abilities work.

I'm with Matt on this one (

) I don't feel it's broken for the same reason as above.

HOWEVER, I didn't believe Paladin's self awaken needed "fixing" either to a 2 LP cost (It was in a similar boat, you had to have a specific build...you had to be a level 4 Paladin AND have awaken to get self-awaken ala an immunity, unless I have no idea what I am talking about). Again, I feel Samurai is less broken BECAUSE of what it requires/penalties.

I hate FH rule discussions. I'm going to go now. Have fun.

Crist0 · Post by **Crist0** » Fri Oct 23, 2009 11:23 pm

The main reason why i don't like samurai is because it gives a master path skill as a 4th lvl discipline. I don't like it. For example, I'm a master warrior who has a discipline that gives me greater channel, or mimic, or mass heal, take your pick. I think that all disciplines should have lvl 4 abilities that aren't master path skills. With hidden disciplines like samurai around means that you could potentially take a full path like empath, and then get mass heal from healer! I know these don't exist and they don't exist for that reason. That's what I think. Just statin my oppinion though.

Onimaster · Post by **Onimaster** » Fri Oct 23, 2009 11:38 pm

Combat Reflexes is a Master Path skill... Should we remove all other access to that skill too?

How about all abilities and items that replicate any one else's skills?

We work with what we can to create interesting combinations and diversity within the scope of the game. The discipline has an intrinsic factor to make it less valuable than the Path skill.

Ark · Post by **Ark** » Sat Oct 24, 2009 2:00 pm

Onimaster wrote:Combat Reflexes is a Master Path skill... Should we remove all other access to that skill too?

-Thats just adding soak to the warrior, but i have no problem making everyone weaker so the warrior is stronger, lets do it

How about all abilities and items that replicate any one else's skills?

-I feel all items all together should go

We work with what we can to create interesting combinations and diversity within the scope of the game. The discipline has an intrinsic factor to make it less valuable than the Path skill

-but parry is still one of the best skills of the game, and if you made a discipline that had master channel as its 4th skill, even if you couldnt wear armor or use a shield, and made it available, you would se ALOT of people take it, and a drop people playing empaths, same if it was the rouge Critical Strike, there would be almost no rouges, and everyone would have the discipline, it would be sick.

i will once again point out, that i agree with Reid that items, spells, and potions are all broken