make riposte chance depend on armour encumbrance

[luckless]

As a starting point to discussion, I suggest the following formula:

  Code:

riposte chance (%) = 50 - min(0, 2*(body armor encumbrance penalty - 4))

Thus, robes (ER 0) and leather (ER -4) would each give you the maximum 50% chance; scale mail (ER -10) would bring it down to 38%, plate (ER -18) to 22%. Fire/ice/pearl dragon scales would get you 36%. Crystal plate or gold dragon scales (ER -23) would all but negate ripostes entirely. Fencing gloves would double your chances as normal. So, light armor users would get more ripostes; medium armor users about as many; heavy armor users users a lot less.

I am pretty sure the impact of this scaling (combined with the limited but real impact of light armor's extra EV) would be significant enough to make armor choice a strategically relevant consideration for long blade users, as the mechanic suggests but (as hellmonk's riposte post shows) is not actually the case. Naturally, this doesn't address the other issues hellmonk raises. Still, for people (like me) who (a) think the riposte mechanic is cool in principle, and (b) like the idea of weapon choice bearing on other aspects of a character's build, this sort of change might help.

[duvessa]

Just what riposte needs, more variables

[luckless]

eh, fair enough. obvs the hope was to make it a more obvious choice, but I now realize the more variables would have the opposite effect in practice.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Is it interesting to make Long Blades require body armour with ER < 10 to wield?
You would automatically unwield long blade after changing body armour to more heavy one, similar how holy weapon is unequipped after casting Necromutation.

[bel]

I am not sure if I understand the proposal correctly, but the proposal does not add more variables to riposte; it simplifies the riposte chance formula. Currently the amount of ripostes you do depends on your EV and monster to-hit, which is a very opaque and complicated thing. If the riposte chance is based on a much simpler and transparent measure (ER and nothing else), it would help, not hurt this aspect.

I am not sure if it's a good idea, but it sounds interesting.

[luckless]

Alas, that wasn't the proposal (though maybe it should've been?). Rather, the proposal was to limit ripostes to misses as normal, but replace the current 1-in-3 chance to riposte on a miss with a chance that started at 50% with robes/leather but decreased as your armor got heavier.

[Elitist]

Alas, that wasn't the proposal (though maybe it should've been?). Rather, the proposal was to limit ripostes to misses as normal, but replace the current 1-in-3 chance to riposte on a miss with a chance that started at 50% with robes/leather but decreased as your armor got heavier.

That works.

[luckless]

Thanks; I thought so too, but as duvessa implies it would make for a lot of really annoying and opaque calculations in practice. (Suppose you're wearing ring mail but find some nice randart chain. If you switched to it, how much offense would you be giving up? If the chain happened to have slaying, would it be enough to offset the rarer ripostes?)