Report 244

Report #244
Skillset: Tracking Skill: General
 Org: Serenguard Status: Completed Aug 2009
Furies' Decision:
Bloodthirst will reduce damage taken by dog.
Problem: Tracking, compared to the other tertiary options available to knights,
is a barren skillset. It lacks the defensive, utility, and active offensive
options of any of them, being based around fire-once-on-entry traps (save for
darts), but largely pit traps (which were themselves limited with the
implementation of rockclimbing). In addition, the frailty of the hounds and
wolves makes them largely unsuitable for real combat. They can be rather
quickly dispatched, even without critical hits involved, and cannot be speedily
replaced. The net result of this in combat is a knight that plays without a
tertiary, and in its place, the often gimmicky pit mechanics.
[A: 0 R: 0] Solution #1: Allow hounds and wolves to be armoured in the same
 fashion as familiars from the Ecology skillset. This
 would be an easy change that would address several
 issues at once, without trying to give trackers
 anything new mechanically wise, instead, just making
 what is currently technically possible, practical to
 do. Allowing this would give trackers a bit of
 single target hindering (through clamp) that would
 work to make up for their total lack of
 defenses/DMP/active skills relative to other knights,
 while remaining different from those tertiaries. It
 would also allow for trackers to more realistically
 use their bond in combat, providing a more unique and
 interesting element to play, as well as allowing for
 more diverse strategies. Finally, in this scenario,
 the tracker would face more of a tradeoff- is it
 better to hide the wolf in the area so that they may
 "bond unite" to get away from a bad situation, or
 employ it to assist with their offense?
[A: 0 R: 0] Solution #2: As above, but do not allow an armoured wolf to seek
 or be moved to using "bond unite". This would
 amplify the tradeoff discussed above by making the
 tracker choose in advance to either have a useful
 escape, utility or search tool, or a bit of
 additional hindering. This could be facilitated by
 making the command to armour or unarmour having a
 long equilibrium or balance recovery.
Player Comments:
---[Xenthos on 8/12 @ 23:32 writes]:
I dislike solution one, simply because it does allow slightly more potential for
abuse. Currently killing the wolf is "required" when it's being used for
seeking / uniting. Maybe make it so that it can't seek either (on top of
solution 2), so you're choosing between "combat companion" and "tracking
companion". Tie in the long balance time for switching and you've got a perfect
balance with being able to go one way or the other, I think. Maaaybe let
forgers make the armour suits that the tracker gets to affix, maybe not. If
it's forger-made it shouldn't take too many comms.
---[Akui on 8/13 @ 05:10 writes]:
That would work as well. Altering solution 2 to incorporate Xenthos's
suggestion regarding seek.
---[Ceren on 8/29 @ 21:55 writes]:
I like solution 2 over solution 1 for the reasons Xenthos said. I also
personally think that invincible pets shouldn't be able to listen, but the
armoured ecology pets can do it, so cheers. However, I have a major problem with
this report, and I don't know if I'm the only one but I find the idea of an
armour plated dog to be extremely... unappealing. I suggest taking the currently
110.1% useless bloodthirst skill, and making it into what this report is
suggesting. In other words, your bloodthirsting dog is so pumped that he isn't
phased by blows, but he's too frenzied to do the careful tracking stuff. I know
at least one tracker who would absolutely love to have a strong, stupid dog.
---[Akui on 8/30 @ 03:04 writes]:
You mean just the flavor of an armoured dog Ceren? So long as it operates the
same as being armoured, that's great. And so long as clamp is retained, which
is part of the attempt here- to give trackers a bit of hindering that isn't
going to be dispatched in a few rounds to help make up a bit of their relative
fraility compared to the other tertiary options for knights. Also, the flavor
of actually continually using the dog/wolf, which gives a more unique aspect to
the skillset.
---[Ceren on 8/30 @ 04:56 writes]:
Correct. None of the old bloodthirst stuff would stay. It wouldn't get boosted
damage nor would it lose clamp.