The Tavern

I've been playing for close to 4 years, and I've always loved the game.
I, while making no claim to game design expertise,and particularly fond of RPGs and the level of balance put into this game is commendable.
THAT SAID!!

I feel like scarves for RC should offer two pips of resistance.
Considering there are cloaks that offer the exact same 1 pip, along with potentially 3 AC, scarves should have something that makes them stand out as a mid/late game choice.
Also, on a lesser note, No-cloak classes should reasonably be able to wear a scarf.

Essentially, my idea with bucklers is the same, though there are a lot of reasons to argue for/against it.
Considering they offer less defenses than other shields, shields that only offer 1 of a specific resistance should also offer 1 extra pip in comparison to the bigger shields. In exchange, the reflection ego could be taken away from all bucklers. (sans wizards mirror) This should give people incentive to use the smaller shields/scarves in rounding out their kit. ALSO!! It will make monsters who have these equipment more difficult to kill with 1 school of magic, granted the resistances match.scarf dcss

I will however admit that an early find for items of these nature could grant a huge boost to survivability against specific monsters of the same element as the resistance-thought i feel like this is more a hedge issue rather than a huge one.

I think the resistance egos are only on scarves as placeholders, there's no way the resistance ego (let alone cold resistance) is anywhere close to the value of spirit shield or rmsl.

I still haven't seen an explanation for why scarves exist.

Rast wrote:I still haven't seen an explanation for why scarves exist.

Once they have a tile, you'll know why. They're stylish and cute!

I believe scarves are supposed to be the way to preserve the powerful effects of charms, and are supposed to lead into charms retirement. It's not far. All we'd need to do is turn Harm into a Scarf of Slaying, Regeneration into a scarf, and maybe make Spectral Weapon an artifact? I don't know.

But why not just have repel missiles as a cloak brand

it still wouldn't be as good as invis or MR+ cloaks so it's not like it'd be busted

It'd definitely be better than MR+ cloaks...

Repel missiles only exists as a scarf brand and Qaz passive right now, so I'm pretty sure we could balance the power level to the point where it's OK on a cloak.

It's also OK if some cloak brands are better than others.

Rmsl is also on the Amulet of Air and as a t3 scales facet.

I think mr+ cloaks would only be better than rMsl ones before endgame. Vault sentinels especially are such a pain. But there aren't many dangerous monsters that require you to have at least three pips of MR to survive them in endgame and beyond, so I would rather wear a rmsl cloak than a mr+ one at that time.

EDIT: Now that I think about it, MR+ cloaks would only be superior to rMsl ones in Vaults. Everywhere else, I don't think getting slowed, paralyzed etc is as big of a deal as getting shot to death. Heck, these days, I hardly even care about getting teleported in Snakes anymore.

Any thoughts on the buckler suggestions?

Buckler's are already the best shield type because they have such low skill investment. I would think that large shields would be more appropriate for that kind of buff.

So the thing with comparing the different shield sizes is that there is almost no overlap in the characters that want to use them.
Characters without spells typically want to wear the largest shield possible while their weapon is not a 2-hander, and shouldn't train shields skill until quite late in the game, if at all; they certainly should not be training shields to 25.
On characters with spells, the SH and ego benefit of a non-buckler is almost never worth the spellcasting penalty, and training shields to a level that gets rid of that spellcasting penalty is usually even less worth it. The result is that bucklers and large shields are almost never relevant for the same character, and the plain "shield" item is only used if you're a large species, or are a spell-less character that hasn't found a large shield yet.

The conclusion this gives me is that shield sizes will remain incoherent unless Shields skill is made a less awful skill, or shield spellcasting penalties are greatly reduced.

Is there a way to work in a Spell School differential on the shield penalty? eg the penalty is halved for schools that are not Conjurations/Elements/Poison?

duvessa wrote:So the thing with comparing the different shield sizes is that there is almost no overlap in the characters that want to use them.
Characters without spells typically want to wear the largest shield possible while their weapon is not a 2-hander, and shouldn't train shields skill until quite late in the game, if at all; they certainly should not be training shields to 25.
On characters with spells, the SH and ego benefit of a non-buckler is almost never worth the spellcasting penalty, and training shields to a level that gets rid of that spellcasting penalty is usually even less worth it. The result is that bucklers and large shields are almost never relevant for the same character, and the plain "shield" item is only used if you're a large species, or are a spell-less character that hasn't found a large shield yet.

The conclusion this gives me is that shield sizes will remain incoherent unless Shields skill is made a less awful skill, or shield spellcasting penalties are greatly reduced.

Could just make large shields cost 20 and medium cost 12. The values can remain the same for large races, and everyone's happy.

Wouldn't allowing shields to be the only armor that can be swapped quickly make the whole skill better? Then you can swap tactically between shield and 1-hand, and 2 hand weapon or launcher, or casting without the shield defense.

You make a solid point.
I feel like the shield skill in its entirety is pretty off skew- The penalty shouldn't be so massive, because right now its become more of "can i wield it and still fight" rather than "this is the type of shield I need".
At this point its bigger shields that need love, but ideally a small shield would be the magically beneficial one and the big shield would be the defensibly reliable one.

Elitist wrote:Could just make large shields cost 20 and medium cost 12. The values can remain the same for large races, and everyone's happy.

seems good to me, considering 25 is a ceiling that nigh impossible for a regular 3 rune.

Bigger shields don't need love, they're already really damn good(definitely "defensibly reliable"). The secret to shields is, if you're not a spellcaster, you really really don't need much shields skill(or any with medium shields). The benefits of having SH outweigh the penalties unless you are relying on spells. The only point this becomes not true is when you find a decent 2H weapon, but it's still very viable to use shields.

That said, shield skill should be better because it is almost never worth investing in shields as someone who does actually cast beyond bucklers. I would honestly go as far as to say it should be 10 skill for normal shields, 15 for large. 20 is still really high, when would you do that outside of extended?

I think there would be room for 4 kinds of shields, and also for shields to be more frequently found.

Something like buckler requires 3 to delete penalty, targe requires 9, kite shield 17 and tower shield 25. So you would have two shields that are almost only attractive for melee users, but also two shields with varying investment for casters.

Shtopit wrote:I think there would be room for 4 kinds of shields, and also for shields to be more frequently found.

Something like buckler requires 3 to delete penalty, targe requires 9, kite shield 17 and tower shield 25. So you would have two shields that are almost only attractive for melee users, but also two shields with varying investment for casters.

Quite agree with this. I almost always want spell support, but am pretty much done with the pure "cast and run" wizard style. So I basically want a buckler and 4 skill and then I stop thinking about shields for the rest of the game. Something between buckler and medium shield would make me think about the priority of level 6 spells vs reducing the danger of taking hits.

The Tavern

About Scarves, and Bucklers

About Scarves, and Bucklers

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