Conform Needles to Conventions of Throwing

[bcadren]

Proposal: "Poison Darts" or "Conform Needles to Conventions of Throwing"


Summary:

• Reflavour needles as 'darts.
• Require no launcher to throw a poison or magical dart.
• Make 'blowgun' like items much rarer and change them to a 1H launcher using a different skill (Slings for Crosstraining or Bows for being completely different).
• For practical purposes, Throwing a needles will have -2 base to-hit before the skill bonus; while the launcher will have +4.

I arrived at this idea from the flavour standpoint, so I'll list the actual practical differences.

• 1 Standard action would no longer be needed to switch to and from using needles, unless using the rarer launcher.
• Ashenzari worshipers could use darts while having their weapon hand bound.
• Moving the launcher to a different skill would diversify the kinds of characters capable of using needles.

Practically minor change that will obliterate the 'how do mummies use blowguns' problem without removing the mechanic. Minor buff to Ash, basically.

[Did you realize the rarer needles (Paralysis, etc.) can affect Hell lords? I didn't.]

[tasonir]

I arrived at this idea from the flavour standpoint, so I'll list the actual practical differences.

You probably don't want to admit this

As for blowguns having their own skill, they used to long ago (I never played a version with this but apparently it was the case), but the trend has been to remove narrow skills and merge things into more broad skills. I don't think blowguns need their own skill - they're powerful, sure, but the ammo is pretty limited if you aren't with an ammo gift god, so it's fine. I tend to only use curare/poison myself, but needle stabbers are certainly a thing, even if I don't do it myself.

I don't think there's any concern over how a mummy uses a blowgun - they can breathe if they want to. They probably don't have to, but they have that power. Breathing is just caused by moving your chest* in and out - since a mummy can walk, I assume they have muscle control and can breathe. Flavor problem fixed

*diaphragm, lungs, etc. Embrace the hand waving. I guess this depends on how the mummies were created, if they still have lungs. If not, let's say they can flex their sternums and create the partial vacuum anyways.

[bcadren]

I arrived at this idea from the flavour standpoint, so I'll list the actual practical differences.

As for blowguns having their own skill, they used to long ago (I never played a version with this but apparently it was the case), but the trend has been to remove narrow skills and merge things into more broad skills. I don't think blowguns need their own skill - they're powerful, sure, but the ammo is pretty limited if you aren't with an ammo gift god, so it's fine. I tend to only use curare/poison myself, but needle stabbers are certainly a thing, even if I don't do it myself.

That isn't what I said at all...Moving the launcher to bows is not making a new skill.

[pickled_heretic]

The thought of mummies not being able to use blowguns had never crossed my mind. But now that it has, I am pretty sure my immersion has been ruined.

[Zooty]

The thought of mummies not being able to use blowguns had never crossed my mind. But now that it has, I am pretty sure my immersion has been ruined.

They use bladders.

[tasonir]

That isn't what I said at all...Moving the launcher to bows is not making a new skill.

What you said:

Make 'blowgun' like items much rarer and change them to a 1H launcher using a different skill (Slings for Crosstraining or Bows for being completely different).

I parsed this as "move blowgun to it's own skill, or move it to bows; blowguns crosstrain with slings". Granted this isn't the only way to parse it, the wording is not very clear. I don't know why you'd want to move blowguns to a skill which is "completely different", that doesn't make sense. Moving it to slings has the same problems, although if you renamed slings to "small launchers" or something it could work. But really throwing makes the most sense to me, maybe it's just because it's already there and I'm used to it.

[Zwobot]

Why not simply flat out remove blowguns?

You can rebrand needles as darts if you like, though throwing needles are a staple of fiction anyway. In either case no more switching, Ash gets a minor boost. Not sure why you'd want to move needles away from the Throwing skill though?