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A:EftP - New Races Ever?


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Originally Posted By: Flame Fiend
No, I'm saying that a bow and a tower would lose against a sword and armor because the guy in the tower only has a bow. A bow. As in no arrows. Did you really think I meant stabbing the guy with and arrow? I don't blame you.

Oh bravo. You have successfully mastered the technicality. You must be so proud of yourself. After all, it's not like an archer would think to bring arrows with him to use with his bow. rolleyes
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Originally Posted By: Necris Omega
Regardless of whether or not you believe a sword can practically or realistically bifurcate someone, there's still no debate as to which can cause more raw carnage - a sword can decapitate, dismember, disembowel, and a whole host of other very nasty things. An arrow, for all it's long distance piercy goodness, has relatively limited trauma potential compared to that. Under ideal conditions, a sword can arguably cut a victim clear in half, or at the very least remove their head completely. Unless you want to talk explosive variants, and no fair bringing rockets to a sword fight durnit, an arrow simply can't do that.

Either weapon strikes home, you're dead, but a sword to the arm is a whole lot worse than an arrow in the vast majority of cases.

Translated to a game, that usually means that the sword will have a much higher damage potential.

Swords can produce more gruesome injuries, but that doesn't make them more deadly. A nice, neat puncture can still be incapacitating or lethal.

Stab for stab, an arrow and a rapier are similar. Depending on the weapons and strikes, they can each penetrate with more or less ease and in different places. Slashing weapons, which produce those more impressive injuries, are actually much more likely to produce minor, superficial injuries that look bloody but don't incapacitate. You have to get through a fair amount of skin and fat before you hit muscle. A puncture with any force, on the other hand, is going to hit muscle, and even without permanent maiming that muscle group is out of the fight.

—Alorael, who finds the discussion ultimately impossible. Both weapons can kill. Both have been used to great lethal effect in warfare. The longbow ended the primacy of heavy cavalry, but it requires much more training and exercise than a sword. The sword can be used with more ease and much more rapidly at close range. Really, it's not inaccurate to think of arrows as similar to bullets. Yes, they moved slower and had more mass, but they still produced ballistic trauma, and comparing them to gunshot wounds should clarify why they're not inconsequential. Or are handguns also less dangerous than swords?
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Originally Posted By: Dantius
Originally Posted By: Trenton the dragon lord
May I have to remind you that the closest thing to a gun in avernum is a bow?


Crossbows, actually.


Of course, in A6, we discover that gunpowder is totally a thing and has been discovered/invented/whatevered in this world, so it's only a matter of time until somebody figures out how to make a bit of metal fly out a tube at high speed, and BOOM, puns like that become more popular.
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Originally Posted By: Alorophiliael
Avernum has crossbows in the first trilogy. The most notable, of course, is the Fury Crossbow, but there are others.

—Alorael, who can't remember any appearing before A3 either. It's possible that they're a one-game wonder.


I remember using a crossbow in BoA as well. Possibly not the best weapon for a solo slith to specialize in, but I had some fun with it.
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Originally Posted By: Nioca
Originally Posted By: Randomizer
Originally Posted By: Flame Blade
What a re-bolting development that was!
Oh god, not again...
You could just bolt from this topic.

I can't imagine why he'd have a quarrel with puns, though.
I think I get the point. You guys are good.
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Originally Posted By: MMXPERT

I'm also thinking ice resistant sliths.

Have you ever played E/A3?
Sliths are cold-blooded, and thus quite vulnerable to low temperatures. It's what makes them resistant to fire in the first place.

Making them actually vulnerable to, say, smite, or ice lances, etc, might not be a bad idea.

Or, if you're suggesting that there be more variation among the races, well... It would have to be very carefully implemented.
Generally, say, if you see a slith warrior, you expect that the generic sliths around it would be notably weaker. You make tactical decisions around this expectation: what kind of formation to draw into, which character attacks which enemy, whether or not your spellcasters hang back to heal and buff instead of cast offensively.
If you have an attacker who is randomly stronger than those around it, without any indication (generally, in this medium, some sort of visual cue), or warning (pop-announcement that Big Bad Bossssss has disguised himself as a normal Slith), it completely negates any tactical approach, and makes the game less fun.

EDIT: now that you posted again before I got in:
Variation of subtypes is not a bad idea, the issue here is in cannon, coding, combat balance, and in providing those aforementioned visual clues. While the visual clues are easy (we all know how fond Jeff is of hue shifting), adding new subtypes could potentially cause a lot of grief in terms of the already-developed world, combat in the already-developed areas, etc.
Cannon, while an issue with the fans is flexible. A4 retconned a whole lot of crap into the universe, presumably just so that Jeff could reuse some Geneforge graphics.

THAT SAID, I WANNA SEE CAVE WORMS IN THIS REBOOT! JUSTIFY IT, VOGEL! JUSTIFY THE RETCON!
_________________________
The Silent Assassin is in favor of Sliphils, and would like to submit the purring, alien Nephnatai for consideration.
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Would require a good bit of retconning, though, since giants and humans seem to pretty consistently hate each other. There have been a couple exceptions (e.g. Queen Ghaghk in A5), but even those have been basically short-term marriages of convenience. It seems pretty implausible for a giant to travel unimpeded through Avernite lands, or work for the crown without a great deal of suspicion.

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Originally Posted By: Harehunter
Quote:
Not sure if this was already mentioned as a new playable race... Giants.

Now that's an idea that would really go over BIG!


Okay, here's what you do. Once you've typed out your post, you read it back to yourself. If it's just offering a tenuous play on the post you're quoting, don't post. If you're staring at a single-line 'joke' that doesn't do anything other than letting us know that you know that words have more than one meaning, don't post.

If, on the other hand, you're making a valid point, offering insight, being interesting, or furthering the thread by asking new questions or opening new avenues of discussion, go ahead and post it. Go ahead and post it even if it has a silly pun chucked in there - heck, everybody has their own gimmick. But, everybody uses their gimmick as well as all that other stuff.

What I'm saying is lots and lots of posts that have nothing to them but a cheap joke is basically spam. I think Slarty made comments about this in a thread in General, and Dikiyoba certainly has, and it's kind of irksome to see each and every thread on these boards turning into a pun-fest. I'm not saying stop altogether, but you know how to post intelligently, and you know how to post responsibly, and I'm just not seeing it with all these puns.
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Originally Posted By: FnordCola
If the latter: why?
Rakshasa: They aren't that common and your party would be too popular and awesome so you would forget about the adventure.
Undead: Because the rest of the party will have nightmares when they rest.
Golem: They don't even have a mind of their own.
Demon: No sane person would talk to a demon roaming around the town.
Troglodytes: BCUZ DEY KAN NAWT SPEEK KOREKTLIE!
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Rakshasa: They would help awesomely, How would we forget about the quest?

Undead: If your party can take down giant woman headed snakes, Powerful demons, giants, vhanatai, undead, the empire, slimes, and countless other horrifying creatures, I do not think you will have nightmares by sleeping next to a simple liche or zombie.

Golems:Program them to fight by your side and yell orders of who to kill and who not to kill? And modify them to where they could have intellegence.

Demons:Well...Your actually right on that one, I wouldn't either

Troglodytes: They spoke correctly. They just cant write correctly. Havent you been paying attention to the text when they throw you in the cell of avernum 3, or when you speak to the king troglodyte?

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