Shield Evasion penalty

[galehar]

I think it's a bit silly that the penalty completely goes away past a certain level. Here is a proposal:

Instead of EVP = base_evp - skill / 5, how about EVP = base_evp * 27 / (4 * skill + 27)

Which means that training to level 27 divides the penalty by 5. Here is how it looks like. If you make a copy, I believe you can tweak values and see the graph updates if you want to test some variation. I've only done normal size for now.

[Bloax]

On the topic of silliness, something like size related minuses that increase as your skill grows should probably remove the EV penalty from bucklers at some point.

Because bucklers are small and all.

[evilmike]

I also think it would be best if shields worked more like armour did... which is to say, the skill decreases but does not eliminate the penalty, and does not use magic breakpoints.

I am only talking about the evasion and casting penalties, though. Shields also add a melee penalty (more than armour gets)... being able to completely eliminate this is very nice. If shields always carried a melee penalty (based on current ones), I suspect even fewer people would use them. This is something to think about.

In my opinion the melee speed and damage penalties should simply be removed. Make shields give you an accuracy penalty, like heavy armour does. Perhaps add a str requirement like armour gets too.

[palin]

Are you looking at my proposal on the other shield thread? This and that seem to go toward the same general direction, even if people are arguing my proposal is wrong based on what character they prefer to play.

[Lasty]

Man, I'm pretty sure shields don't need to be nerfed. If any of these nerfing proposals happen, they would also need some large corresponding buffs.

[sanka]

Man, I'm pretty sure shields don't need to be nerfed. If any of these nerfing proposals happen, they would also need some large corresponding buffs.

It's not necessary a nerf, because early skill levels give you more gain. It's not very important to completly eliminate the penalty.

My problem with these kind of graph is that skill levels that cost more and more gives less and less result. It would be nice if high level of shield skill would actually give you some benefit.

[Davion Fuxa]

Are you looking at my proposal on the other shield thread? This and that seem to go toward the same general direction, even if people are arguing my proposal is wrong based on what character they prefer to play.

I don't know about Galehar, but I stopped reading your thread. Too much discussion occurred outside of your proposition or even relating to the concept of reforming shields, and the thread degraded in a revolting mess.

As for the concept - I like it but dislike it. I like how it makes Shields and Large Shields more feasible early on as you train up your skill, but I think that this idea would cause more ignoring of shields in general since you wouldn't be able to get rid of those spellcasting penalties from evasion or make up for the loss of offense for defense gained.

How I might suggest improving it is altering the formula so that you retain cut off points where if you trained shields up enough you negate Evasion penalties entirely; but also include the rapid improvement with using Shields from 0 skill, so that people might be more inclined to start using them before or near too the cut off point where you negate the Evasion penalites.

[galehar]

My problem with these kind of graph is that skill levels that cost more and more gives less and less result. It would be nice if high level of shield skill would actually give you some benefit.

That's the point actually. High level of shield skill still gives higher SH, it's not just about the penalty. It works for armour. The fact that the armour skill doesn't eliminate the penalty doesn't turn off people from training it to high level to get a lot of AC.

[Davion Fuxa]

My problem with these kind of graph is that skill levels that cost more and more gives less and less result. It would be nice if high level of shield skill would actually give you some benefit.

That's the point actually. High level of shield skill still gives higher SH, it's not just about the penalty. It works for armour. The fact that the armour skill doesn't eliminate the penalty doesn't turn off people from training it to high level to get a lot of AC.

The problem though is that Shields are inferior to Armor and this won't really help encourage people to use them, and for those who might use Shields while Spellcasting this suggested formula is more of a detriment then the current formula.

The thing about Armor is that its benefits far outweigh its penalties with low Armor skill. Players therefore will wear armor to benefit their characters, unless the penalties are too severe for how they are playing (like casting spells). The reason players train the Armor skill initially to a decent level (Let's say 15 Armour) is to get the most out of their armors benefits in reducing damage to their characters or to quickly offset penalties that might be prohibiting their characters from playing effectively. Continuing to train the Armor skill to higher levels (15 Armor Plus) really has more to do in reducing the armors penalties in reducing spellcasting failure or lacking skills to dump the rest of their experience into; but almost never will you see someone suggest or play their character raising their Armor skill past their primary weapon/spell schools.

Shields are different though in that their benefits are outweighed by their penalties with low Shield skill. Primarily players don't wear Shields because it would be a detriment to most playstyles apart from Stabbing or doing one of the few activities that the Shield Penalty won't hurt or really inhibit (Invocations, Evocations, using a Blowgun and running away really fast). Most serious players who plan to use Shields only begin to wear them after or nearing the Shield level needed to eliminate the Shield Penalties on the Shield type equipped to their character for accommodation of other playstyles. Most don't train Shields much higher then that because the benefits start to diminish as you progress in the game outside of a few sparse scenarios.

[crate]

Would this include a change to how armour aevp works also? This suggested formula for shields sounds ok to me (it's certainly more intuitive, I would have to actually try it in-game to see how it works out gameplay-wise) but it still does not work the way armour aevp penalties work, so there would still be confusion.

From looking at the chart my first impression is that this would be pretty bad for spellcasting and shields would need some buff to go along with it, but I'm not particularly good at converting from looking at AEVP numbers to how that would actually affect my character.

[sanka]

Altough we should try it in practice, I feel that these formulas would be a buff to spellcasters actually - at least on large shields. -2 AEVP is possible to counter with a few spell skill levels, and one will only need 10 shield skill to reach that point with a large shield instead of 15.

In practice I always felt that training shields a little and spell skills also works better to get my casting rates back than to eliminate the penalties completly. More spell power is generally more useful than some more SH anyway. The new formulas are even better if you follow this approach.

This is true only if you wear robes tough - I'm not sure, but I think armour penalties and shield penalties are added somehow. That's why maybe we should also think on the interaction of armour and shields for the new formulas.

[galehar]

I think armour might receive a similar change yes. I'd like the skill to have a more significant effect at reducing heavy armour penalty.

[KoboldLord]

In that case I don't like it. Only conjurers would ever train spell skills past 15 or so if training armour had a big effect on spell success.

On the other hand, the penalty could start higher at 0 armour skill, and the larger reduction is applied from that higher starting point. That way, you still have to over-train your spell skills and also train the armour besides, and choosing exactly how to balance both skills is open to player choice.

[Psieye]

Then why not split off the penalty adjustments? The current spellcasting penalties are left more or less unchanged (at least, for buckler use) and it's weapon delay and EV penalties that get reduced more?