I know its not "era accurate"......but why shouldnt arrows be able to be poisoned? Ill bet you would see more templates with archery as a viable skill if you could.....
There are a bunch of earlier threads on this topic, or more specifically around potential "special hits" from archery, along the lines of crushing blow, concussion blow, and paralyzing blow. My favorite, and of course I am biased, was doing something like the concussion blow, but instead of temporarily lowering the INT of the recipient, it would lower the DEX.
Well I looked and I couldnt find a 40 page discussion on archery.....I did find one that was 11 pages or so. And the only thing I could see on it was that everyone disagreed with everything. I dont want to talk about 2342 different kind of special blows or anything like that,I want to talk about being able to apply poison to the blade of an arrow and shoot it out of a bow to have the possibility of poisoning what you shoot at. You dont hit with every arrow,so you lose whatever poison is on that arrow,you shoot way slower than almost any other weapon hits,you cant shoot while you are running. They used to have it on Angel Island,it was not overpowering but it did make archery a bit more viable as a skill.As it is can you name one person that uses archery in their PvP template? Not a char that they mess around with in PvP but their real go to PvP char..... So lets try to be a bit less full of rage and tell me why you think poison for arrows is a bad idea. Oh and if youre going to try to lock something how about that hair.......it looks like it escaped.....
I know of at least two players who run archers/archer mages as their main PvP toons. Obviously it's not a lot, but they are out there. Adding something (like this poison shot mentioned here) would be great...but the argument is always going to be made that archery already has a "special" attribute, that being range.
I don't like that argument. Macing already had stamina loss and armor damage, and still got crushing blow. Axes get Lumberjack bonus but still get concussion blow. Hopefully we can move past this particular argument.
Swords and fencing also have special attacks AND can be poisoned. As Dalavar rightly mentioned, macing has crushing blow AND stamina drain. Archery has range AND ..... And for those who are going to drum up the near shoot on the move, the accuracy and damage when both you and your target are moving is equivalent to Mongbat damage. Currently, archery is only good for standing there and shooting a static target either trapped or busy with something else (provoked). I would be up for making the wait time after moving 1 second again and adding a special attack instead.
Im not even talking about a special attack......you can poison fencing and sword weapons......why couldnt you dab the arrows blade in poison.....give any shot that hits the same chance to poison as a kryss or katana or whatever,any arrow that misses the target you just lost your poison on......really its a huge moneypit for archers because not only do you have to buy the arrows you have to buy the poison to put on them. It would be worth it to some people,not to others Im sure,I would just like to see it implemented. I cant claim to be unbiased but I fail to see the huge drawback of having this.Someone convince me what a bad idea this is!!
There is no weapon you can poison that can also do 60+ damage in a single shot. Combine that with two or three other archers and it's a recipe for disaster. Perhaps limited only to Bows, and only Lesser Poison but come on, warhammer level damage with range and DP? lol Don't get me wrong the logic of it makes sense but it would break the pvp field heavily.
As many times as a heavy cross misses and as slow as it shoots and as many times as the poison fails to go off.....if 1 in 10 shots hit for poison on a heavy I would be surprised... It didnt break PvP on the other shard I was on that had it,but then again they didnt have mounts there either.I dont know what the damage rolls for the bows were either......
Directed at Telamon & Staff... How difficult would it be to throw some of these concepts into the TEST server? A lot of these debates are anecdotal without hard numbers. Combat Log books on TEST with Poison Arrows/bolts would give real #'s & experience...
The combat log book wouldn't show anything different than what it shows right now for bows and arrows. It just records damage, armor, hit/miss, etc. The impact of poison arrows is not one of immediate damage, but rather tactics. A better way to test would be some kind of dueling system in which you can see how people perform with and without the ability. But that would take hundreds and hundreds of duels to see a long-term trend, and I suspect no one is willing to put in that kind of time. So we're stuck with knee-jerk reactions and theory crafting ideas being proposed. Seriously, "crippling blow" for dex loss... the code is already there for the concussion blow. It fits thematically with trying to fight with an arrow stuck in your shoulder. It fits strategically with archery by closing the gap between an archer's swing speed and a fencer's, for example. Allows an archer-fencer template to try to cripple their enemy, then switch to a staff to have their opponent chugging red pots every 3 hits instead of 5, or whatever. Reduces a stun mages ability to stun, and increases their reliance on red pots as well.
The other obvious benefit of poisoning that no one has mentioned... unless I missed it... It interrupts healing... you have to cure first before you can heal. While the Poison damage itself may be minimal, that interruption to heal add real tactical advantage. I LOVE the idea of poisoning an arrow, it fits with IRL history and just seems like it should be possible but I am leaning towards Dalavar's idea of a special. NONE of the weapons that do specials today can be poisoned. All the melee weapons that can be poisoned require you to be in your opponents face. Magery allows poisoning from a distance, but costs mana, so there are choices a mage makes in his spell combos. This idea/issue of poisoning arrows is definitely not as clear cut as one would hope it should be...
Just give bows a chance to ignore armor and I'm happy . Poison makes sense, but would cost a fortune for archers if you made misses count as a lost charge. Blaise had a good point make it lesser poison, but if you did that, it may as well be like any other weapon skill and give it a % chance to apply lesser poison without having to poison the arrows. Or heck just make it a fast ticking bleed that ticks 3 times for 5 dmg a tick, or have it do 10 damage over 5 seconds. Anything added to bows would make them better then they currently are.
I don't want to throw around other shards as examples but it was done on Angel Island and it worked great. There could be alot of different things that could be done on this shard as far as PvP to liven things up. Test server is underutilized IMO, making the PvP environment more dynamic would be one of the greatest things achieved by a UO free shard. Making the PvP field one in which there are multiple templates that are not only viable but competetive would be a serious undertaking but would be a much bigger reward in and of itself in the long run.
I'd take ignore armor shot over poison arrow, but dmg on the low end of weapons need to be removed/edited.
Regardless of whether or not bows get any love on this shard, the fact remains that PvP could be so much more than it is here. I know there is a tremendous amount of programming/coding know-how on this server. If any shard/free server knows how to make a truly kick-ass PvP system I believe this is the place it can happen. A little change at a time and test would be an awesome place to hang out. I believe that there are many on this shard that enjoy trying new things in order to see what works, what doesn't and what should or shouldn't be implemented.
Armore ignore would be nice,but I still like the idea of poison arrows....need something to keep those filthy umie mojokas on the run....Dismount from a heavy crossbow would be even better.......
