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Cutlass question


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Neville

Tue Jun 07 2011, 12:58am

Registered Member #32

Joined: Sat Apr 16 2011, 07:40pm
Posts: 27

My ship's weapon is the cutlass. According to rules set 2.1, a cutlass "has a natural Modifier of â€“3 to your swordsmanship and a wielders swordsmanship may never exceed 18 regardless of modifiers."

How does this 18 cap mesh with the rules regarding having a score higher than 20, and the effects upon battle? If the limit is 18, does that mean that a skill higher than 18 now counts as "over the maximum" and starts increasing the crit chance?

What happens on a natural roll of 19 or 20? I would think these would not be considered automatic misses regardless of skill level, for that would be an unbalanced disadvantage when one is not allowed to increase to the limit of the die roll. Do 19 and 20 count as a roll of 18? (I.e. if your skill is less than 18, a miss, but if your skill is 18, then a hit?)

Neville

Tue Jun 14 2011, 12:39pm

Registered Member #32

Joined: Sat Apr 16 2011, 07:40pm
Posts: 27

Now that orders are coming due, I have specified my training for the month, but I would still be interested in a reply, so I could better plan future training.

Thank you.

Andy_Scott

Wed Jun 15 2011, 12:02pm

Registered Member #4

Joined: Fri Feb 18 2011, 11:30pm
Posts: 12

Neville,

The modifier of the cutlass as you state is -3 to your swordsmanship.
Your swordsmanship may be in excess of 20 but when you choose to use a cutlass after and including ALL other modifiers it is capped at 18.
This means a a 19 or a 20 is a miss.

When using a weapon other then a cutlass then your total modified skill can increase beyond 20 and therefore make it more likely to critical and in fact this is exactly the reason the cutlass was capped as advanced knacks of the cutlass have the ability to kill people outright it was felt that having ways to increase that to a more then 1 in 20 chance wasn't on.

At the end of the day the cutlass was designed as a simple cleaver for untrained seaman to do the most damage to the enemy with, it was never intended as the blade os a master swordsman.

Hope that answers your questions,
Andy

Neville

Mon Jun 20 2011, 02:14pm

Registered Member #32

Joined: Sat Apr 16 2011, 07:40pm
Posts: 27

It answers the question, but then I guess I would ask/suggest that the cutlass be revised.

Rather than post a long analysis, I'll simply suggest that balancing an inability to hit with a chance to end another character's game is counterproductive, unless a high level of character-lethal PvP is desirable in a game. EG! has always seemd to me to be intended to be a war of skill, influence and planning, rather than the 5% autokill.

Andy_Scott

Sat Jun 25 2011, 10:43am

Registered Member #4

Joined: Fri Feb 18 2011, 11:30pm
Posts: 12

Neville,

I get it, you don't like the new system. Fair enough. Personally I detested the old system. It's great face to face for which it was designed but had many flaws for use PBM or PBEM.

If you want to use superior skills of swordsmanship then use the rapier the choice of the gentleman, if you want to do large amounts of damage use the cutlass.

And as for the 5% autokill chance you have a minimum 8 weeks of study to get to that remarkably slim chance. Oh and let's not lose sight that a person employing that knack obviously wants their opponent dead! How does that not qualify as skill and planning?

Neville

Sun Jun 26 2011, 12:58pm

Registered Member #32

Joined: Sat Apr 16 2011, 07:40pm
Posts: 27

"I get it, you don't like the new system." Absolutely true, though irrelevant to analysis. I did not trivialise anyone else's comments; a polite person would not trivialise mine. However, rather than simply making a long diatribe, I attempted to point out a flaw and made an effort to point out that theis partiicular part was counterproductive to "playing well with others", something that can occur even in a competitive game.

Your point about freedom of choice of weapons would be valid if all weapns were equally trainable. Since cutlass is made the default weapon of ome ships, and therefore the only one which may be trained for "free" (a salient point should characters not start off rich), there is a definite weighting.

However, I have always been of the opinion that the owner of the sandbox gets to select the toys with which the participants will play, and so I wish you well and hope that all enjoy the system.

Thank you for your time.

Aquazoo

Sun Jun 26 2011, 02:29pm

Registered Member #7

Joined: Sat Feb 19 2011, 01:33pm
Location: Kensington
Posts: 229

The thing to remember about these rules discussions: We will change something quickly if it's a typo, a disparity or a need for clarification. Other changes will take some consideration. The dueling system was developed with a lot of thought and analysis, and to some extent will be a matter of seeing how it plays out.

Andy_Scott

Sun Jun 26 2011, 04:29pm

Registered Member #4

Joined: Fri Feb 18 2011, 11:30pm
Posts: 12

I'm sorry to see any one leave the game because of the duelling system. I realise that to a lot of you it is new but it is based upon a system used in another game in which I play called TPT.
In this I believe it generally works very well and have used this as a base for the Briny variant.
In writing these rules I ran over 500 practice duels between all styles and variants in an effor tot find holes and weaknesess.
In fact the restart was somewhat delayed because I found a rather large issue that needed correcting and then the testing needed redoing to check the fix worked.

In short these are not just rules thrown together and I hope that as people get used to playing with them people will see their full potential.
That said I completely expect to have to alter them at some point and as such comments are welcome but please bear in mind I have tried to build in checks and balances to encourage people to use different styles. Capping the skill level of the cutlass is very much a part of that, the compensation is the extra damage it tends to do.

Yes you can only train in your ships weapon for free but after a period of time you may well have moved on to another ship with a different weapon or indeed amassed the funds to learn another type.
Not everything is open to the starting player but there are ships which have a different weapon then cutlass open to the lower levels.


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