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replace riposte with a SH bonus

PostPosted: Tuesday, 17th April 2018, 17:24
by bhauth
If we look at swords in history, they're usually used with shields.

If we look at swords in fiction, they're often used to deflect arrows and so on in fancy ways.

Every weapon type gets something unique, but nobody really understands riposte, and it leads to weird situations like mages holding a triple sword.

My suggestion here is to replace riposte with a SH bonus from long blades of (weapon_skill * dex / 40). That would give long blades a niche as a weapon for high dex characters with shields and/or heavy armor.

Re: replace riposte with a SH bonus

PostPosted: Tuesday, 17th April 2018, 18:21
by Plantissue
If you look at history, every 1 handed weapon are usually used with shields. Some two handed weapons as well.

If we look at shields in fiction, it is no longer history. "so on" isn't specific.

That said it's a fairly interesting idea. To tie the bonus with dex and weapon skill so the focus on dex is maintained. A problem is that whilst every other weapon has its bonus offensively, this is a purely defensive bonus, and that at 0 skill it gives no bonus, making it somewhat inelegant and out of character with the other weapons.

I don't see how it would be a niche for characters in heavy armour. Extra SH doesn't make different armours any more, or any less useful.

Re: replace riposte with a SH bonus

PostPosted: Tuesday, 17th April 2018, 18:51
by bhauth
Plantissue wrote:I don't see how it would be a niche for characters in heavy armour. Extra SH doesn't make different armours any more, or any less useful.

Heavy armor means lower EV, and low EV makes SH more valuable because both EV and SH are checked against to-hit.

Re: replace riposte with a SH bonus

PostPosted: Tuesday, 17th April 2018, 22:46
by Tumalu
A weapon with a defensive bonus is actually an interesting concept, I think. Effectively, riposte is replaced with parrying. It becomes an attractive option on species more concerned with their fragility, like those with racial HP detriments or armor restrictions. Small species especially, and octopodes, but anyone can enjoy the benefit of extra SH.

Re: replace riposte with a SH bonus

PostPosted: Tuesday, 17th April 2018, 23:44
by Shtopit
It's not weird that mages end up with LB. They wear lighter armour, so they have higher EV, so riposte is supposed to trigger more often, even when they are actually casting spells. Conceptually, riposte was a way to encourage using LB with lightly armoured characters. So that's what was meant to be.

I think that long blades could have both SH and riposte. Make it the default weapon you want for passives that help you while you are doing something else, like casting spells. The choice then is between LBs, stat enhancing unrand weapons, and enhancer staves. They also should be helpful for draconians.

The distinction from protection would be that protection isn't a passive any more.

The one thing I dislike about riposte is that it seems to generate special cases. So it apparently doesn't chop hydra heads off, which I only noticed today by looking through the website ( https://github.com/crawl/crawl/commit/4d40d61ba56a ). It also triggers constriction, and I think Duvessa once said that it changes the target you are constricting if you are a Naga. The other thing is just how hard it is to understand how much damage it makes, and how much influence it has, and how it compares to e.g. m&f or a lajatang. If there were numbers instead of !!! to tell the damage, it would be much easier, especially because of the influence of different brands on riposte damage.

Re: replace riposte with a SH bonus

PostPosted: Friday, 20th April 2018, 10:53
by Plantissue
bhauth wrote:
Plantissue wrote:I don't see how it would be a niche for characters in heavy armour. Extra SH doesn't make different armours any more, or any less useful.

Heavy armor means lower EV, and low EV makes SH more valuable because both EV and SH are checked against to-hit.

So what if it happens that they are both checked against to-hit? That doesn't make SH anymore or any less valuable. It remains just as valuable. I don't understand the logic here.

Re: replace riposte with a SH bonus

PostPosted: Friday, 20th April 2018, 16:34
by Tumalu
If you have a lot of EV, you are likely to dodge whatever attack you would otherwise be shielding. EV is even more effective, for that matter, because it isn't heavily penalized for number of dodges per turn. A shield is still nice, of course, because two rolls to avoid attacks is better than one. EV also still works while confused and asleep. (How do you dodge while asleep???)

If you DON'T have much EV due to heavy armor, a shield is more valuable because otherwise you're probably gonna eat almost every single hit to the face. Which isn't good, even with amazing AC, because stuff like juggernauts, crystal spears, iron shots, and just plain low AC rolls exist. I mean, yes, EV is still valuable here too, but the entire point is with heavy armor (and very possibly a negative dodge apt/bad dex) it's gonna be hard to get much. It's also harder for big lumbering species.

Re: replace riposte with a SH bonus

PostPosted: Friday, 20th April 2018, 20:34
by Midn8
I thought while asleep your EV was suppressed to 2 + your size bonus

Re: replace riposte with a SH bonus

PostPosted: Saturday, 21st April 2018, 20:35
by Plantissue
Tumalu wrote:If you have a lot of EV, you are likely to dodge whatever attack you would otherwise be shielding. EV is even more effective, for that matter, because it isn't heavily penalized for number of dodges per turn. A shield is still nice, of course, because two rolls to avoid attacks is better than one. EV also still works while confused and asleep. (How do you dodge while asleep???)

If you DON'T have much EV due to heavy armor, a shield is more valuable because otherwise you're probably gonna eat almost every single hit to the face. Which isn't good, even with amazing AC, because stuff like juggernauts, crystal spears, iron shots, and just plain low AC rolls exist. I mean, yes, EV is still valuable here too, but the entire point is with heavy armor (and very possibly a negative dodge apt/bad dex) it's gonna be hard to get much. It's also harder for big lumbering species.

As far as I am concerned, that just that means SH is just as useful irrespective of your AC or EV. More EV doesn't make SH any more or any less useful, just because there is a to hit check. You might as well argue that AC makes SH more useful because AC doesn't have a to hit check. Neither of you have explained why SH is more useful with heavy armour.

And no, you aren't going to get hit by every single attack in heavy armour. I think I have finished every 3 runer I have ever played with at least 20 EV as a normal size species. If you are wearing armour and shieldless, you got plenty of exp to train dodging. Just because you happen to be wearing gold dragon armour or whatever, nothing stops you from training dodging if that is the best way to spend exp to increase survivability.

Re: replace riposte with a SH bonus

PostPosted: Monday, 23rd April 2018, 21:32
by tasonir
Love the idea - I like defensive builds, and giving AC/EV is probably too strong, giving SH is just enough to be useful and make sense (parrying).

Plantissue wrote:... and that at 0 skill it gives no bonus, making it somewhat inelegant and out of character with the other weapons.

This can be easily fixed by making the formula ((Weapon Skill + 1) * Dexterity / 40). In fact if you don't want it to be very small initially and ramp up quickly, you could give it a larger constant, and then probably a slightly larger denominator to balance it out, something like ((Weapon skill + 5) * dexterity / 45). Exact numbers would be up to the dev team.

With the first (+1) formula a character with 20 skill and 20 dex gets 10.5 SH, with the +5 formula it's 11.1 SH.

Re: replace riposte with a SH bonus

PostPosted: Tuesday, 24th April 2018, 07:46
by nago
Shtopit wrote:It's not weird that mages end up with LB. They wear lighter armour, so they have higher EV, so riposte is supposed to trigger more often, even when they are actually casting spells. Conceptually, riposte was a way to encourage using LB with lightly armoured characters. So that's what was meant to be.


That is not the reason. There is a old thread lying around - by hellmonk? - which shows how little returns EV gives on riposte.

The reasons why 'mage' are encouraged to wield the biggest sword available - even if at 0 skill and while maybe having trained other weapon skill - is because riposte triggers even if they are casting spells when a monster is in melee range, so it is a free increase in damage output.

Which is a very stupid mechanism.

Re: replace riposte with a SH bonus

PostPosted: Tuesday, 24th April 2018, 08:55
by Shtopit
Supposed ≠ Definitely. There aren't that many players that can take advantage of Hellmonk's knowledge.

Re: replace riposte with a SH bonus

PostPosted: Tuesday, 24th April 2018, 16:25
by Tumalu
A mage past the early portions of the game will likely have found a staff that's far more useful than wielding a sword for ripostes. Especially since mages generally try to keep monsters from touching them as much as possible, so there's fairly few chances for riposte to trigger.

Holding a long sword pre-lair is currently not a bad idea, though.