Shattered Kingdoms

If someone is in the third row, the people in front of them are providing enough cover to stop you from stabbing them. Why is it that firing a bow seems to ignore that you're behind things? The arrows should be missing, or hitting the positions in front of the third rank person no?

Or is the archer shooting the arrows upwards in an arc and letting them come down? If that's the case, the person being shot at has much more time to move or raise their shield, I would think, incurring an accuracy penalty.

Thoughts?

I imagine more that formations are not entirely linear. The person/people in front are still moving around stopping melee attackers from getting at them allowing the archer to get a good vantage aside from melee to shoot straight at them.

That said I do not entirely disagree either. Hence the wobuffet answer to the poll. The same could also be said about most spells as well though.

I thought there was an accuracy penalty when kicking dirt at the third row (maybe I'm wrong), and I assumed there was one with bows but not a significant one. Anyway, that's the advantage of bows, isn't it?

OOC consideration: If this were implemented, it might just be buff to your character to protect him from a major weakness. This would require a whole re-balancing of missile weapons. I wouldn't mind seeing missile weapons do -more- to close, heavy targets, instead of existing just to kill soft things.

IC considerations:

1) The relative size of the archer, the target, and the defender. A giant shooting another giant over a sprite will have no problems. A sprite might have trouble shooting around a giant to hit another sprite.

2) The aggressive / defensive mood of the defender, their prone status, and if they have a shield.

3) The angle of the shots. If you attack a cabal HQ whose door opens to the west, and you come in to the east, it will be assumed that the formation is 'facing' west. If the target gets shot at from the north or the east, the target will be less defended by his minions which are to the west of him. The direction opposite to the direction that the group entered from would need to be considered to be the direction the formation is facing, or, if in battle, facing the opposite way of the orientation of the battle group most recently arrived on the field? I see problems with this from coding, but all in all, I think this would be cool to implement. Getting 'shot in the back' provides a rogue-like opportunity for tactics.

Such a change would help balance missile weapons vs casters against missile weapons vs fighters, since it currently overwhelmingly wins against casters, partially because they are almost just as easy to hit. However, missile weapons would need to be categorically rebalanced to make this something more than just a buff to woahboy's arrow fearing character.

Something like, X's shot misses Y and hits Z would be cool. Also, shots which are 'missed' in the sense of 'XXX misses you.' should have a roll to hit someone else, friend, foe or bystander.

Edit:

While we're talking missile weapons, I'd appreciate some clarification on the accuracy or damage penalties for shooting at ranges, if any, due to either formation distances, room distances, or both.

I was under the impression Scouts were already hurting as it was as a ranged combat class, why make them suffer more?

I don't think adding directional facing is any good. I would be cool to add flanking into the mix, but not worth the trouble. If anyone was to get protection from ranged due to the front row defenders, it would be the cabal with formation based combat skills.

Flight would also need to be considered. A flying archer will have a much easier time shooting 'around' obstacles. A giant will have an easier time shooting a human over another human.

I think that these are all great ideas, but if implemented, missile weapons would need to be re-balanced. I see no reason not to implement this, re-balance it so that mages are affected just the same after considering formation issues, but change it so that front row fighters, and mages getting flanked, are more exposed than they are now.

I think that the cabal with formation based combat abilities is a great candidate to receive formation missile defense, but when and only when it doesn't screw up game balance.

No reason to not to implement it? Maybe cause you aren't coding it.

At distances of less than 20 meters, an arrow flies with enough velocity, and carries enough force to penetrate plate mail.

Most of the loss of accuracy with ranged weaponry comes from heightened fight and flight responses. The average response of police in the current day with their firearms is roughly a 12% accuracy shot in high stress scenarios. In that regard, archers in SK are far above and beyond the shots of your modern police force. Small arms fire can also be repelled (Ned Kelly) by armor plating.

With the speed that projectiles are launched versus the reaction time of the average combatant, I don't see why "being in the way" would be an issue.

A lot of the combat in SK is highly romanticized to fit action movie tropes. Fights don't actually go the way of Jackie Chan, or Bruce Lee movies. If someone is close enough to you that they can touch you with your hand you have already been punched, should they decide to go that route of action. The same concept is in play here. You cannot react to the velocity of the arrow. The only thing that would affect the shooter is if he didn't have balls of steel. If anything the hapless newb in the third row that has no martial combat training would be standing straight up, and be an easier target as stances in martial arts tend to lower the fighter to the ground for increased stability from lowering the center of gravity. The only way I can see it going the other way is if there's a giant or centaur in the way in which case they'll take up more space by merit of being larger.

Unless their target is black, right?