Report 653

Report #653
Skillset: Music Skill: Earwort
 Org: Cacophony Status: Rejected Jul 2011
Furies' Decision:
We will investigate adding some damage to earwort (that would stack with
herbbane).
Problem: There is currently little detriment to eating earwort while under the
effects of blanknote. This forces the bard to repeatedly halt their offense and
blanknote their target superfluously on the chance that deafness has
successfully been restored. This is problematic because bards only have a
limited time to perform their offense and must IMMEDIATELY be able to blanknote
their target once they become deaf, or else the build-up to kill conditions
(auric afflictions) is lost.
Solution #1: Add a new message that allows the bard to see that earwort has
 been eaten unsuccessfully (during earache), i.e. "Lothringen eats
 a piece of black earwort and cringes, holding his head."
Player Comments:
---[Enyalida on 7/14 @ 21:30 writes]:
I think there was call before for additional combat utility in octave, such as
thirdperson cure messages from allheale and other power cures when aurics are
cured through octave. I think that would be a good place for this. Faking
earwort is a decent (if perhaps accidental) strategy for disrupting bards, but
when they are trying to stack aurics it might be a little harsh.
---[Inagin on 7/15 @ 20:50 writes]:
I don't think this is necessary. You can figure out the range of earache and if
anyone eats earwort under that time period, don't BlankNote again.
---[Nydekion on 7/16 @ 00:03 writes]:
I, too, feel this is fairly unnecessary given that earache recovery has a known
window for when it occurs. Earwort consumption outside of this window can be
safely ignored already and bards, in general, are not hurting offensively.
---[Xenthos on 7/17 @ 05:51 writes]:
Given that it is quite possible for a bard to stand around in a gank and just
trigger eating earwort to blanknote... having a third-party indication would
just make it child's play to let your system keep perfect-fifth up without you
having to do a blessed thing. That said, I don't mind if it does some damage to
a person to be eating earwort while earache is up to discourage eating huge
amounts at once (say 200 damage), but no to a room-wide message.
---[Lothringen on 7/17 @ 21:24 writes]:
I'd've thought more damage would be more disagreeable than a failure message,
but hey, that's fine by me!
---[Nydekion on 7/18 @ 02:34 writes]:
Herbbane already causes damage for herbs eaten and is available to half of the
bard population. There's no reason to stack that on top of the additional damage
suggested here.
---[Lothringen on 7/18 @ 03:41 writes]:
Can it simply not stack with herbbane, in that case?
---[Talan on 7/18 @ 19:41 writes]:
I like the idea of a small amount of damage.
---[Xenthos on 7/19 @ 23:44 writes]:
I don't personally mind a -very small- amount of damage to discourage spamming--
it is then a tactical choice (do I want to eat this to fool the bard and take a
little extra, or not?). I'm adamantly opposed to it having a third party room
message though. Herbbane also isn't available to city bards. If you want it to
not stack its damage with herbbane I can see that.