Shattered Kingdoms

I'd like to hear people's thoughts on tame. Here are some proposals of my own.

The lag on tame is an abomination. It can take upwards of hundreds of tame attempts to get it to work, please remove this or make it take less attempts.

Why is there no 'you can't tame this' message? That'd help a lot. I can tame something, have it take 200 tries, then find something I can't tame and I have no way to tell if tame is just being stupid or not.

Remove the 'unique' flag from tameable animals, so scouts can log in/out with their pets.

Clearly Dulrik hates scouts.

Did someone just try to tame/tame Vulpus?

With AP being more effective against arrows now. Scouts only have pets as an advantage against heavy armored foes. I think scouts need work, but not necessarily pertaining to tame.

QFT

The lag on tame is quite a pain, but if you're determined enough you'll get there. What I don't like is not knowing what I can and can't tame. I also do not like tha fact that scouts are stuck with master level pets and that the pets get weakened once they are tamed. Back when brown bears were not nerfed, a brown bear at master could tear people a part if they were alone but once you tamed the brown bear it basicly just became a thing a merc or barbar could 3-4 round, did very little damage and the scout is then looking someone in the face with no real hope of standing up against someone since they don't even have trip. Sure scouts are very versatile because of the wide assortment of herbs they can find, but if you're gather herbs for others (which is normally the case for scouts) that can take longer then consecrating/brewing. I also don't feel that scouts get the respect they deserve as users of bows. If you go to end game places with a scout, it's almost silly because a scout using a spear isn't as good as a barbar or merc, you can't put them front row, if they are using a bow, arrows don't do a lot of damage unless you're a giant and more then likely ambushing the target is impossible unless you're in a certain cabal but if you're out in some places where everything has true sight, scouts become a waste of space because do you really need pathfinding at that point?

Scout pets haven't performed well since it appeared that they were forced to conform to the standards that store-bought pets did during that great standardization. Maybe that's part of the issue?

I believe the issue came up when D put in a patch that made things under the "charm" affect weaker.

An interesting fix would be to make herbs work better for scouts than everyone else. Be it an extra skill or run off herbalism to increase the power of the spells from herbs. This would enable scouts to heal better and be protected better from herbs. Wouldn't be overly game breaking because most vets already know where to get strong or better vials but it would make scouts heal better from herbs in combat.

I recall on several occasions where I've been told scouts are a "pet" class rather than a ranged class; due to the mercenary being able to outstrip them in every way shape and form when it comes to ranged combat. Tame and skinning need a lot of work. Give scouts a champion or master skill that lets them teach their pet tricks, or give them traits. There is a whole world of ideas to pull from for helping a pet. What if scouts just got your basic animal-companion buffs you see on rangers or druids in D&D. Share spells, link, evasion, multiattack, improved evasion just being some of the basics.

Share spells: A scout has a spell cast on him? Pet gets the spell too. Eats an herb? Pet gets the herbs buff/healing too. (This applies only to buff/positive type spells and is only from the scout to the pet, not vice versa. Eat a branch that gives you sanctuary and tries to blind you, the pet just gets the sanc, no blindness. Not sure about AoE, like a heal brandish, does the pet get a double heal? Or healing rays, does the pet get double? I hadn't taken that into account yet.)
Link: Scout gets significantly reduced order lag with his tamed pet. (This excludes bought pets)
Evasion: Under normal circumstances this would be applied to reflex saves, it could be broadened to give the scout's pet bonus saves in general. We all know how easy it is to one round a scout-pet with a scroll.(+10/10/10?)
Multiattack: Just an extra attack, just like the sprite's bonus attack.
Improved Evasion: Champion/GM level prereq - the chosen tame gets even better saves. (+20/20/20?) Not sure on the actual numbers, but to really be competitive need more than 20 fort/will. The quantifiable factor of the buff is up in the air.


A friend of mine and I were discussing other methods for helping scouts. Unfortunately it took a turn towards "specialization" territory, similar to choosing a tree in an MMO, but maybe there are little spots of merit in some of them if not the whole. Note: I'm just copying this from a conversation we had a while back.

Survivalist: A scout who dedicates herself to survival in the realms receives a number of boons. First she is able to go longer without food and water. She is also able to determine her coordinates without the use of a sextant. A survivalist scout, once she has almost finished her training even learns how to adapt her camouflage while moving between terrain types, remaining unseen. ::: I thought about including a sort of expansion on camouflage like urban camouflage, so they could do it in a city but I never expanded on it. This idea needs a few more buffs.

Hunter: A scout who dedicates herself to being a hunter becomes one with the bow and spear. Increasing the speed and how accurately she can aim and fire her bow, or stab with a spear to a moderate degree. The hunter also learns how to fletch more types of arrows for use in combat. The hunter also gains better knowledge of trap use and creation, and becomes a master at ambushing her opponents.
::: Traps that poison, traps that hamstring, explosive traps, standard snare trap. The bow and spear buff I thought of as the same as specialization, just to a lesser degree, 50% maybe. That's to weapon types, not a singular weapon too. Flight arrow and blunt arrow. Flight arrow increases the room-range by one, blunt is "pound" type attack for when you know who you're fighting (a halfling maybe). Bonus to ambush damage.

Beast Tamer: The scout who dedicates herself to the taming of wild beasts learns the intricacies of training and taming the most ferocious creatures. The beast tamer can tame creatures more easily, and may even be able to tame those creatures who may not have been able to be before. Teaching the creatures is a long and arduous process, once finished a bond is created between master and beast. Both the scout and her pet receive bonus durability(HP) and physical energy. The beast tamer may also be able to teach some of her creatures a few tricks. (This might include the aforementioned pet buffs.)

In regards to skinning, I think the previous thread talking about giving innate runes to skinned creatures covered it pretty well.

TLDR: Dulrik halp skowts plz.