Follow-Up Question on Piercing Weapons & 'Feats'

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IJBall
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Follow-Up Question on Piercing Weapons & 'Feats'

Post by IJBall »

Hey, BW - I've got a question for you!

A while back, when piercing weapons were discussed, you said the following:
BasiliskWrangler wrote:The Short Blade skill is now called "Piercing Weapons" which incorporates Knives, Daggers, Spears and Picks. Now I know knives could be thought of as a "slashing weapon", but the majority of its damage comes from stabbing. So the thing about all Piercing Weapons is that they are generally lightweight and designed for use in fast and frantic combat, and although they don't do the same devastating damage of a Hammer or Long Sword, a skillful piercing weapons user can strike multiple times per round. So, at level 10 you get two strikes per round, and at level 20 you get three strikes per round. Yes, in Book II a very skilled character using Piercing Weapons can deliver serious damage when all the rolls go their way.
But, more recently, you said this about 'Feats' (including with Piercing Weapons):
BasiliskWrangler wrote:The first build of this new system, on Monday, had automatic Feats that were based on a chance of occurrence. It worked well enough, but it lacked strategy because you could not choose to use the Feat when you needed it. There is no greater frustration than to have a "Critical Pummel" used on a lesser creature when a large boss is moving in behind it, and then you don't know if you'll see another feat in 3 rounds or 80 rounds. Also, our original setting of 5% at level 10 (1 in 20 strikes) was way too high and would have cause a sort of "inflation" in terms of enemy Hit Points to maintain game balance.

So yesterday we changed this to give you a notification when the feat was ready to use, then when you want it, you hold down the left-shift while attacking. The feat occurs, and begins the count down until the next available usage. Right now at level 10 with the current settings, this is once every 80 rounds. The wait between feats then drops by about 3 rounds per skill point after that (expect these numbers to change as we continue to balance).
So, my question is:

Does this mean that during Alpha development, the 'Piercing Weapons' skill has been modified somewhat, so the player won't get a chance at 3 strikes per round at Level 20?

Or does this mean that the 'Feat' the player would implement at Level 20 in Piercing Weapons would involve 3 strikes in that round instead of just 2?

TIA! :)
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Re: Follow-Up Question on Piercing Weapons & 'Feats'

Post by BasiliskWrangler »

Good question! Well, it turns out that the idea for "multiple strikes for piercing weapons" worked really well, and it was clear that all weapon skills should have some sort of "special ability" tied to them. So from the original multi-strike piercing weapon idea came the Skill Feats idea.

The Piercing Weapon's multi-strike ability was altered slightly to behave more like the other Skill Feats. Rather than being an automatic ability based on a chance of occurrence (which is how all Skill Feats were originally implemented), it is now a feat that "recharges" between uses, and can be used at will rather than randomly or automatically.

As for two or three strikes- right now it is set for two (Double) strikes and as it is, a double-strike Piercing Weapon can be extremely powerful. An example would be a Dwarven Steel War Spear, striking twice- if by chance you get a critical roll on both To-Hit checks (damage x2) , and high damage rolls, you can deliver a ridiculous about of damage to a target. It's rare for all the rolls to go just perfectly, but when it does it is devastating to an enemy. Based on this observation, it has not yet been determined if we will raise this back to allow for triple-strikes at level 20 or not. More balance testing will be needed.
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Re: Follow-Up Question on Piercing Weapons & 'Feats'

Post by Kreador Freeaxe »

BasiliskWrangler wrote:Good question! Well, it turns out that the idea for "multiple strikes for piercing weapons" worked really well, and it was clear that all weapon skills should have some sort of "special ability" tied to them. So from the original multi-strike piercing weapon idea came the Skill Feats idea.

The Piercing Weapon's multi-strike ability was altered slightly to behave more like the other Skill Feats. Rather than being an automatic ability based on a chance of occurrence (which is how all Skill Feats were originally implemented), it is now a feat that "recharges" between uses, and can be used at will rather than randomly or automatically.

As for two or three strikes- right now it is set for two (Double) strikes and as it is, a double-strike Piercing Weapon can be extremely powerful. An example would be a Dwarven Steel War Spear, striking twice- if by chance you get a critical roll on both To-Hit checks (damage x2) , and high damage rolls, you can deliver a ridiculous about of damage to a target. It's rare for all the rolls to go just perfectly, but when it does it is devastating to an enemy. Based on this observation, it has not yet been determined if we will raise this back to allow for triple-strikes at level 20 or not. More balance testing will be needed.
Very cool. And also I note that in two recent examples we've heard about "Dwarven Steel" weapons. Perchance we'll be seeing more of these dwarves in Book II.
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