Shattered Kingdoms

I think it is an issue, actually.

The Necro-A takes time to prepare his army of undead. He comes to my city and starts attacking my guards. I grab my master level (of course, I have higher level guards, but lets say master level since that is the example you used) guard, order him to start casting holy word, and walk into the room. Necro-A does not have time to react with anything useful because of the walk-in holy word bomb. His army of undead is now wrecked. They are severely damaged and, likely, dispelled. If I want to really hammer the point home, I flee and grab yet another master level guard and do the same thing. Necro-A couldn't run away (other than WoR) because he is still attacking guards (potentially, and probably. Almost certainly if Necro-A is giving chase). By the time my second holy word bomb goes off, Necro-A is completely ruined.

The issue is that I destroyed all of that prep time Necro-A did in a matter of 15 seconds.

If you were Necro-A, would you be frustrated?

Homework: The last time this was proposed.
Not so coincidentally, this thread is the response to the last set of necro changes. But let's not drag the necro nerfs into this thread. That has it's own topic.

Couldn't a necro prepare for the walk in bomb via staves or scrolls of fear? Most likely they are only attacking NPCs to begin with or they are preparing knowing that a priest/paladin is going to walk in with holy word.

HW bomb (or pre-cast chain lightning, *cabal room spell*, dispel magic, etc) seems to me to add a great tactical choice for engagements.

I don't love drive-by casting but I do love walk-in casting and one really necessarily leads to another. With the group combat changes, a walk-in holy word means you have to take some action other than just a direction to get out afterwords, making it a much more tactical choice than a true drive-by.

Potentially HW is too powerful a spell for NPCs to get now that there is true effort to balance necros a bit against solo PCs. I am certainly all for less in the way of mobwars and that seems like a decent compromise. Don't take away one of the real unique tactical features this game has.

For a solo player to manage to wreck a necromancer's wraith army (let's not kid ourselves here, that's what this discussion is about), it requires near inhuman levels of reaction.

-there's lag on order
-there's lag on retreat
-tribunal NPCs walk away when they see an outlaw

Holy word casts really fast. Sure a walk in holy word is cool and all, but I've botched so many of these they're not funny. Even having max charisma, holy word casts so fast that it's easy to screw up the timing. If you're not a mercenary you can even forget about this as you will have to either flee and screw your group formation, or quaff recall.

I've seriously fantasized about dropping 2-3 holy words from NPCs on an enemy group, but points 2&3, make this completely unfeasible (much like my attempt at fireball terrorism/this would be real drive by casting). The only way to actually successfully drop multiple holy words on an enemy group is to have several casters cast it at once. I've found this to be more frustrating than not as the average newb will stand there, do nothing, and [REDACTED] me off.

Personally I remember playing a necromancer back when Ayamao's and Taslamar's bounty hunter NPCs spammed holy word/bolt of glory, and I still managed to rape face with the class. This was back when there was literally no limit on the amount of animated undead a necromancer could have and I just elected to run around with 6 wraiths, no more. I also used unenchanted weapons on them. I know this may come as a shock to some of you players out there, but there is such a thing as *TRYING TOO HARD*.

The facts of the matter is that Dulrik made animated dead more useful now than they have been in the past, and the playerbase is crying about it.

So in the immortal words of an elitist: Cry more n00bs.

Also, Styles, you've got some issues.

"The facts of the matter is that Dulrik made animated dead more useful now than they have been in the past, and the playerbase is crying about it."




Prove it.



Don

Personally think all casting should be disrupted on movement.

Completely? Or a chance of it? Should there be a concentration check and should movement/speed of movement be considered into that equation?

Should some things of lighter concentration work, or should/could they be slowed down?

Could there be perhaps in addition to / instead of a loss of concentration the chance of over-exertion, whereby instead of losing concentration, something may take 1.5 * 2 times as long to go off (a chance of it, so you don't know it's coming) to screw up timing potentially the other way as well?

Here are some ideas so there could remain some chances of concentration holding, but not going exactly as currently expected, and a better better than 'you can't do that.'

I don't like this leap as an absolute.

Maybe it could be a thing where your probability of successfully casting while moving was dependant on both your level and your skill with a specific spell.

I don't consider holy word to be a fast cast. That is my opinion, though. I have also never had a problem ordering a NPC to cast holy word and then sprinting 1-3 rooms away.

I agree with you that it takes some effort for two players to coordinate on such a tactic.

I'm not sure I agree with removing holy word from NPCs, and I don't know how I feel about removing this type of tactic from the game, but I do think it is worth some consideration. I appreciate the discussion.