Shattered Kingdoms

Hello, I was just thinking about how powerful taunt is. People say it's not but I think it is overpowered. Back when I played Xull, a character with a 25 int, taunt rendered my character all but unable to function. I could do nothing, literally, besides sit there and watch my character get killed.

You might say well what about staves? Or scrolls? Or wands? Can't you use those? Most of that stuff doesn't work well against pc's, but yea if you have something good you might as well use it because you are sure as [REDACTED] gonna loose it.

I was looking over a log yesterday of Delear being murdered by a group of 6 because taunt totally removed his ability to do anything at all, even though it's not supposed to work well when there is a vast difference in the number of people in the groups, so I thought up an idea to make taunt a far less overpowered ability.

Basically, I think that Feeblemind should affect cha as well int. It's a slight but senseable buff to feeblemind that would weaken taunt and all those seemingly unresistable bard songs out there. I mean really, who likes a person who is totally Effing stupid? A drooling dullard doesn't have much appeal in my mind. I think what ever int minus you take for being feebleminded should be applied to cha.

I mean lets face it. Necro's aren't all that bad [REDACTED]. I've seen a good tank with a priest behind him wipe out a necro and twenty wraiths while fighting undead sentinels at the gates of Krychire. Holy word for the win.

I don't think this tweak will dramatically overpower necro's but what it will do is reduce the rediculous power of taunt and also provide balace against bard songs like the horrendously overpowered songs of sleep.

Comments?

Problem is by the time you can cast feeblemind, you're already taunted/song of sleeped and boom, no dice.

Perhaps w/ the new system, add a few rounds of taunted i-can't-flee-lag and force the swash to choose between taunting again or disarming/dirting/tripping. But ideally in this all? A single player should never, ever, ever, ever be taunted even with 0 wis against a group of 6.

I think the saves of the skill need a relooking-over. I realize Dulrik wants it to make it harder to avoid people from not-dying, but all this is doing is encouraging Cyra-style group v 1's with the magical I-win buttons.

Having played a sorc who got taunted on a regular basis and a shaman with 20 int that got taunted a few times. The int drop from taunt is not that big, a deep-elf could still keep up charm person, which is I believe one of the higher concentration spells in the game, and a 20 int shaman who gets taunt can keep Spirit Aura up if they don't have Sanc up, if they have sanc up, they drop both.

The overpowered part of taunt is the no getting away. The skill just needs to go back to how it was before the changes. Or you need to change the skill so that even in 1vs1 it has a less than 50 person chance against anyone with 10 or more wisdom. What kind of idiot is going to fight to their own death(killing the other person I can see, but because they called me a name or something I can't tell when I'm about to die and need to make a hasty exit?) because someone made fun of them? And yes, Hellions and Paladins who do that are idiots.

But, to tell the truth, the funniest and stupidest part about taunt is what I'm going to give an example of.
Here goes.

Joe's sharp tongue causes Sarah to charge him in fury!!!(or whatever the message is)

Round of combat1

Round of combat2

Sarah quaffs a delicate vial of word of recall.
Oh Noes, she's taunted! Joe called her ugly, which somehow makes a magic potion not work!

Seriously come on, taunt is [REDACTED], it needs to go back to how it was before the changes.

You actually might be able to get off feeblemind if you release all your spells. You might also have a chance to use a wand of feeblemind or scroll of it. I'm not trying to ruin taunt so it's guarenteed you will be free of it's affects or make it so you can sure fire protect yourself from it but there should be ways of coping with it.

It won't lessen the taunt time. Once taunted, that affect is applied to you and lasts xxx number of battle seconds.

Get your story straight - that's not how it works. If you try to quaff an escape potion, you get "Not until you finish off that smart aleck." You never actually use the potion - it's still in your inventory.

I thought it used the potion, sorry.

Taunt, no matter the little changes that happened after the big change, was, is and will be(if it remains like that) completely overpowered. And the coding doesn't seem to work as intended either. Of course people like Ardith will say that taunt sucks, but then again they play a swashbuckler.

The 6 vs 1(make it 2, he had a store bought pet with him) gank with the instant taunt that happened 2 days ago was just another proof of how overpowered taunt is.

One modification I'd consider is based on the group sizes of the swashbuckler and the target. If the swashbuckler's group outnumbers his foe's by more than 2:1, taunt shouldn't work very well. That's less a challenge than an invitation to suicide.

Without such gross numerical advantage, I think taunt is fine. Sure it's bad for sorcs and necros, but they don't need a buff.

While I don't really care one way or another about the feeblemind change, I have to say that any necromancer who feels they can't get away from taunt might want to take another look at their spells list. Barring the concentration being higher than I think it is for a certain spell that is not used nearly enough, they should never really die to the one skill.