Shattered Kingdoms

"Voodoo is cheap."

I submit to you the author Heinz Meyer, who notes that, "The bow, the long-range weapon characteristic of the vast steppes, was hated by both the Greeks with their agonic attitutde to combat, and the Germanic heroes."

The ideal of sportive context expressed in the word agon to a large extent determined the Greek view of combat, even in war. Similarly the Teutonic attitude to battle - namely that even though battle was a matter of life and death, it was primarily an honourable struggle between two heroes charged with defending or asserting their own or their tribe's repute - prevented the European warriors from adequately assessing the bow's worth and from deploying it effectively. In both cultures it was considered unfair, dishonourable, unmanly and even cowardly to deliberately evade honourable hand-to-hand combat by resorting to the long-range bow, anonymously shooting arrows (possible even from an ambush), and making use of a horse for a quick, often only feigned escape, and then suddenly attacking again, equally perfidiously in new formation and from a different direction. For the Greeks and Ancient Germans the bow thus only played a role in mythology - a very marginal one in the latter case.

Voodoo ~ Bow in terms of philosophic approach to warfare.

Except for the fact that the greeks could pick up a bow at any point and time and employ it, it was their outlook that was the issue. Outlook aside my sorc can't pick up voodoo and use it against the dastardly coward with little skill.

If you want voodoo gimped again, get together with like two or three friends, roll a set of voodoo cannons and just lay waste to the masses. Takes just a tad over 20 hours to get to master.

My shaman cannot charm a barbarian and use it against your sorc, neither can he go ethereal. Come to think of it, he cant do a lot of things a sorc can. Seems like a weak argument.

My sorc can't cast final strike on you while you are in Exile and I am out in the middle of the ocean.

I can't charm you in exile while I am in Nerina.

I can't acid blast you in exile while I hide in the wastes.

The argument against the bow is pretty sound. I can't pick up the gurrila tactic to use against another PC unless I am a shaman.

Man, you can't argue that the Greeks were very talented in anything. I mean they got walked to death by the macedonians (although the macedonians walked a bunch of people to death).

Also the bow was never really effective at long ranges against heavily armored opponents. The arrows had lost enough of their initial velocity against targets more than 20 meters away that it simply deflected off of armor. That's actually not that far away from a target.

And SK already has bows and crossbows and they're almost as cheater as voodoo.

If you want to compare voodoo to a weapon, compare it to an ICBM. It's as impersonal as it gets. Knights being shot at by horse archers are at least chasing the archers. We have all manner of devastating attacks in this game that an unprepared opponent will die instantly to, but at the very least, you need to catch them in a room to do it. So in this way voodoo really stands above and beyond the most basic ideals of combat. If you want to say "war is hell and all's game, so scroo it" then I suggest you also move to remove any balance that might exist in this fantasy game.

That being said I don't really care whether or not it's taken out, but there is a certain lameness to it that is really unique to voodoo. Actually, I guess summon comes in at a second place but that's been hit with enough nerfs and at least sometimes people escape (or more hilariously, kill their summoners)

I really like the idea of a farsight spell, although even that could be too much power...

Astral projection.

[quote="Legion"]My sorc can't cast final strike on you while you are in Exile and I am out in the middle of the ocean.

I can't charm you in exile while I am in Nerina.

I can't acid blast you in exile while I hide in the wastes.

The argument against the bow is pretty sound. I can't pick up the gurrila tactic to use against another PC unless I am a shaman.[/quote]

Cant voodoo in the ocean since its non gateable.

You can gate to me though once you survive my voodoo and do all those things to me.

Voodoo is seriously not powerful. Krewt at Grandmaster, couldnt voodoo kill a master level barbarian. He was hurt sure, but within fifteen minutes he had found me because I still couldnt move and killed me. Voodoo is nt overpowered in the least. You have to realize, that once you cast it, you are prone for a good 15 minutes, with no spells at all to protect you.

I seem to recall shamans voodooing over the ocean, however, you can gate to them there.