Slime Squisher
Posts: 392
Joined: Sunday, 11th September 2016, 17:21
Arcane Marksman
Also, ammo dependency severely limits the choice of deity to pretty much just Okawaru, as Gozag is not a reliable source of ammo and Trog is incompatible with the "Arcane" part of this background. Being practicably locked into a single god choice is not conducive to replay value (and sometimes a player has to survive to D:9 to find their choice of altar, which isn't realistic for archers that don't find ammo, exacerbating the luck vs skill issue).
I can think of a few possible remedies:
1) Start Arcane Marksman with a melee weapon (a +0 dagger would be fine). However, this doesn't really open up alternate choices of deity.
2) Start Arcane Marksman with a larger stack of ammo to compensate for the lack of melee weapon. This would just mitigate the issues rather than solve them.
3) Remove arrows and bolts from the game. When there was some variation in the enchantment levels / brands on these ammo, there were meaningful choices in selecting which ammo to use, but now that the choice is limited to simply using a bow/crossbow to kill an enemy or not, that choice only exists against weak enemies in isolation, and even then it's not an interesting choice. Is there any good reason why these ammo should still exist?
4) Reduce (or remove) the mulch chance on arrows and bolts. Same reasons as #3, but makes ranged weaponry a little more difficult to get started with for backgrounds that don't include them, in case that's desirable.
5) Add a spell to the Book of Debilitation to allow ranged combat without expending ammo. Ex: ["Mana Missile" level 1 Hexes/Conjuration, power cap 50. When cast MMsl status is gained. Each bow, crossbow, or sling attack while Mana Missile is active does not consume ammo and deals slightly increased damage based on spell power. Each such attack consumes 1 additional MP (checked after Portal Projectile); if you run out of MP, your ranged attacks use ammo as normal until you regain MP.] This option seems the most interesting to me, as it adds another factor to consider when deciding how to allocate skill points between ranged combat skills and magic skills, as well as adding a 3rd option to conserving ammo, and not only relieves Okawaru from the burden of being the only viable deity choice, but also gives some addition incentive to consider choosing gods that restore MP as an alternative strategy.