Shattered Kingdoms

Emperor Palpatine didn't use a cloak to cover his phat energy armor - he used an ordinary robe (worn on body) which he in this scenario would have to cover with his cloak - while casting.

The casting time penalty and the combat penalty would be to avoid having the entire player base running around with cloaks covering their equipment (naturally, there would be a toggle so you could wear a cloak without covering your equipment).

At the moment, I see only a few real uses for RP-only hoods:
* Cabals making public statements without identifying members.
* Cabals dealing with potential members without identifying members.

Maybe we could find another way to encourage these?

The first could be changed by allowing group leaders to post notes in the name of the group. The author would be "The Midnight Council", instead of a person.

The second could be changed by creating eyeless hoods. Wearing one would blind the user. The wearer could remove it at will, but a cabal should be able to handle betrayers.

I'm not sure the benefits are worth even this much bother, but this seems a better solution than hoods. For while I agree PK-capable hoods are bad for the game, hoods aren't very exciting otherwise.

This idea is the answer to cabals speaking to the world. I was thinking of something similar to this last night.

Can someone please give an example of the RP a hood could create because I am not really seeing any that could not be achieved a different way. Polymorph, disguise, invis, hiding even darkness.

Cloaking an item with a robe is not that powerful if there are ways to get around it. There is already a way to make items worn invis. Having it defeated by detect hidden, peek and only useable with some items and on a few slots of EQ is limit enough to make it useful but not over powered. Not to mention better than having people running around in the empires new cloths to everyone but those with detect invis.

I like the hooding idea - where you give recruits a hood (like a falcon) and they can't do much. And yes, Emperor Palpatine wore a CLOAK. Not a robe. He removed the hood, and suddenly people think he's a benevolent senator. He puts on the hood, and suddenly he's sinister.

I like the idea of moving war into country versus country and putting cabals into the background as sekrat societies (some more than others).

It sounds like it has far more potential than the cabal raid system had in the past.

I, however, don't think that cabals need the ability to wear cloaks and hoods. Somehow, this also reminds me of putting on a robe and wizard hat. I never had trouble keeping some members secret. There's always going to be the cabal uninduct command to deal with unruly cabal members that can't keep their mouth shut.

Absurd thread that I just found, sorry to bring it back from the dead but...I'm not sorry.

Wtf happened with this idea? Was it decided this was a bad idea?

Anything to promote cabal secrecy is a good idea in my mind.

Wow, c rez 1.5 year old thread? =/

I agree with Gilgon's last comment though.

Many problems with this idea.

Hey. Let me cast mimic. Oh wait.
Cabal were declared 'no longer secret'
Even if you toggle your name not to show on who lists, if you use cabal speech, people can still OOCly identify you in careless posts.
Robes are imba like whoa. Remember Russia's scorched earth campaign. It's like that.
Combat would suck. HEY BASH THE DAMN...MAGIC GUY...CLOAK.6....WTF MAN?

I got more. But I'm bored, and these problems are all very evident.

I've never heard of this idea before. But it seems like a very good one.

I somehow missed this topic as well when it first came up, but I really like at least the first part of that by putting cabals back in secrecy. The cloak is entirely too OP, just make it destroyed on first damage and it'll be good. As long as you don't try to fight someone with it on, you remain anonymous.