Shattered Kingdoms

I predict that change would end in tears.

One change I'd like to see to stun, is to allow the stunned person to talk. Not tell or gtell, just speak naturally. The problem is once you detain someone by stunning, you can't have any real conversation before he can start evading you again. It's simpler to just kill the guy than to try roleplay under such circumstances. At least you can converse with a ghost.



The problem here is largely ill-motivated faction wars. Faction leaders really need to step up and make sure wars make sense. That groups have opposite alignments, or that occasional skirmishes take place, is not cause enough for war. Wars come about because a group has a goal and organized military action is a solution. That's a plot that naturally creates roleplay as well as PK.

There always will be skirmishes based on individual roleplay and opportunity. Hopefully, the more peaceful or neutral groups can create spaces where enemies are better off talking to each other than hacking at each other. IMO, that's largely what Zhenshi is for, and I wish that a group could do something similar in Uxmal.

I'd like to see unconscious people talk too...wait...no I wouldn't.

It might be a good thing for stunned to mean "dazed" rather than "unconscious". They'd be able to hear and see, but not talk back. Then some post-PK RP could occur on the part of the attacker. This would also let them see and report crimes of theft taking place.

I know you're excited about the theft of belongings code but let's not get carried away just yet. So far you've gotten two nerfs to city pk. One being that bounty NPCs now spawn a whole lot more inside the city, the second being that once you've killed people there's bound to be a lot of witnesses in the city to see your theft of their belongings. I would say that the inn recall is a nerf since it allows defenders to easily get to the point of defense, but that's more of a double edged thing since the attackers will probably be hoping they recall into the inn anyway. I'm personally hoping that this turns Teron into the battleground it once was. I would suggest we let the code run for awhile and see how the player base feels about it once we've had some time to adjust to it and see it in action before you expand on it. We've all asked for ways to reduce jail time, and the offline jail timer was a brilliant move and I know we all thank you for it, but there's also been the addition of more ways to get jail time. Patience is prudent.


Also, you can just as easily rp with a stunned person after the tick is up as you could while they are stunned...or, heaven forbid, before hand.

While we're talking about making "mode stun" more effective, arms need to become useless in the process.

MODE STUN
>You will now fight to stun.

AIM MID
>You now aim at the midsection of your foes.

CLEAVE HAMMER NEWB
>You give a hammer newb a knot on his elbow.

Completely off-topic now, but mode stun + bind is what we need here. Truss 'em up and then reveal your evil schemes. The bound then have chances to wriggle free with a bonus to rogues and swashies.

If it were a viable form of attack then I'm sure that lighties would use it far more often.

However, at this point it is far to risky to fight on stun when mode kill offers far more benefits.

I've always wanted the reason to have a character go around on mode stun constantly. I've also wanted the ability to go through the game without ever having to aggressively attack a NPC, unless that NPC was say an undead or 'creature' that could decidedly not be reasoned with and especially have the ability to make it to GM without ever having to make an aggressive action period, mostly by questing. Generally, when playing a Fist, I really like the idea of incapacitating an opponent, in order to allow them some form of reformation to their actions in the future. Victory never comes from winning the fight if you have created an enemy for eternity. It's give and take in the world of SK and I liked Hatonka's precedent toward this, but I know the sentiment is people would tell you to just play a MUSH in that case. By the description and understanding of a principled character, I always thought they would not fight unless absolutely necessary and certainly not kill without even more necessity.

Pushing40 is correct that mode stun does limit the damage inflicted by a character. Also, by the code, if you stun a NPC they continue to attack if they see you again or report you if leave in a law area. It seems to me that it would definitely upset someone if you beat them up, but if you spared them their life, they would think twice and consider changing something about themselves if they faced you in the future. I think the reason why no one ever really takes death seriously in the game is because it's never been roleplayed to any extent to actually take death seriously and not run around killing everything all the time. Maybe add a code change to certain NPCs that they're not hostile to you if you do spare them?

I think maybe this should be split off into a different thread now?