Bonuses For Useless Skills

There are now two recent threads (in the past week) talking about parry and archery ideas and suggestions. My advice would be to read through them and weigh in with your thoughts in those threads. There's also a couple of archery buff threads, and would suggest the same there. I think many good ideas have been presented, but certainly room for more.

Yes, already seen a couple of them but not have some solid suggestions as of right now, maybe later. And by saying "reworked" I actually meant by staff's end.

Improve skills without inbalancing anything is not "WoW'ing".
I would call it completion of the game.

My Cooking ideas

I vote for the need to eat. Give cooking an economy. For example very low buffs on Stats like +2Str OR +2Dex OR +2Int for 15min.
Buff-Food - yes - and only with pick-up stuff in world or in monster loot.

Buff-Ideas:
Being hungry: -10% skill gain chance, -10% hit chance, -10% spell success chance
Buff food ideas - only one buff can be active at once
+2 Str
+2 Int
+2 Dex
+10% Skill gain chance (relative -> skill gain chance 10% means its 11% in total)
-10% spell fizzle chance (for example if 80% success rate this means 82% success -> 20% fizzle minus 2% fizzle)
-10% weapon miss chance on NPCs (on 75% success this means 25% miss -> +2,5% success = 77,5% success)
-5% tailor miss chance and -5% tailor non exceptional chance (see weapon/fizzle)
-similar smithy
-similar fletching
-similar alchemy
-similar poisoning
-similar carpentry
-similar mining
-similar all skills i forgot
+HP Regenaration food (+1HP/sec) (only active if not fought a Player character last 2minutes)
+Mana Regenaration (+10% Reg rate) (only active *see above*)
+Stam Regenaration (+1Stam/sec) (see above)

Pet food to buff tamed animals (also only one can be active)
+ 5% melee dmg (only PvE)
+ 10% magic dmg (only PvE)
- 10% melee miss chance (see Player buff food)
+ Pet AR

Taste Identification

Your first hand knowledge of foods, potions, and poisons brings some benefits.

Detect Poison

Your finely tuned sense of taste allows you to identify whether food is poisoned.

10 identify whether a food item is poisoned
25 identify the level of poison

Healthy Appetite

Your expert digestion when combined with a knowledge of healing allows you to gain health from eating regular food (as well as stamina)

At 60 healing heal (tasteid / 20 + healing / 20) when eating any food item. Ex: At 60 / 60, you would heal 6 health from eating a loaf of bread, at 80 / 80, 8 health, at GM / GM 10 health.

Although some food items are stackable, a character may only eat so many items before they become full.

Potion Enhancements

Your exposure to potions and their digestion enhances the effects of drinking them.

Heal: You heal (tasteid / 10) more points when drinking a heal potion.
Cure: Potions cure (tasteid/ 30) higher levels of poison.
Refresh: You gain (tasteid/ 10) more stamina for lesser refresh, (tasteid/ 5) for regular refresh. At 90 skill, total refresh potions increase your stamina regeneration by (tasteid/ 20) per second over 15 seconds.
Agility / Strength: increase by (tasteid/ 20). At GM, you gain 5 more str/dex points from drinking agility / strength potions.

Healthy Cooking

Your knowledge of nutrition amplifies your cooking ability, giving the ability to create special recipes

(Cooking skill / taste id required)

50 / 50 magic muffins
60 / 60 mana loaves
70 / 70 spicy meatballs
80 / 80 blessed buns
90 / 90 regenerative ribs
100 / 100 roast beast

Eating these foods will benefit any character, but those with a knowledge of nutrition (taste id) and human physiiology (anatomy) will benefit even more:

Magic muffins: These food items heal those who eat them for (tasteid / 3) + (anatomy / 2) + 5 points. A GM taster will heal 25 points of health when eating them. A character with 0 skill will heal for 5 points.

Mana loaves: These bread loaves restore (tasteid / 20) + (anatomy / 20) + 5 mana. At GM these muffins will restore 15 mana. A character with 0 skill will restore 5 mana.

Spicy Meatballs: Intended to take the place of trapped pouches to break paralyze, consuming one of these meatballs creates a tiny explosion that saps 5 stamina and 1 health and also breaks magical paralysis.

Blessed buns: These buns confer a bless spell on the consumer for (tasteid / 20) + (anatomy / 20) + 5. A GM taster/biologist will bless for 15/15/15 points, a 0 skill character will bless for 5/5/5.

Regenerative Ribs: These ribs increase your health regeneration by ( ( tasteid + healing + anatomy) / 50) + 1 per second for 10 + ( ( tasteid + healing + anatomy) / 50) seconds. At GM tasteid & anatomy you heal 3 per second over 13 seconds, for a total of 39 healing. A 0 skill character would heal 1 health per second over 10 seconds, for a total of 10 healing.

Roast Beast: Heals tasteid / 2 + 15 health, meal fills the character's stomach fully. Max healing at GM = 65 health. A 0 skill character would heal 15 health.

The benefits of these food items is balanced by the size of your stomach. You must be hungry to consume these and benefit from them. These items would not be stackable.

Poison resistance.

From tasting poisons you develop a partial resistance to poisons.

- You take tasteid / 20 less damage per poison tick. At 20, you take 1 less damage per tick. At 80, 4 less per tick. At GM level, 5 less damage per poison tick. (Minimum 1 damage).
- At 80, 90, 100 the level of poison that affects you is downgraded by one level.

At 80 skill, there is a 50% chance that poison will be downgraded 1 level. Thus, you have a 50% chance not to be affected by Lesser poison. Deadly would affect you as Greater, etc...

At 90 skill, there is a 75% chance that poison will be downgraded 1 level.

At 100 skill, there is a 100% chance that poison will be downgraded 1 level and a 50% chance that it will be downgraded 2 levels. Thus, you become immune to lesser poison, and there is a chance that a deadly will affect you as regular poison. This also means there is a 50% chance that normal poison will not affect the character (being downgraded to 0 from 2, this negating the poison).


Healthy Constitution

Knowledge of healing, anatomy, and nutrition (taste id) contributes to a greater general health and stamina.

Stamina regenerates at:

( ( tasteid \ 100 * ( ( anatomy + heal) / 200) ) ) * dex/100) per second

Example 1: (100 dex, 100 tasteid, 100 anatomy, 100 healing): additional 2 stamina / second
Example 2: (100 dex, 100 tasteid, 100 anatomy, 0 healing): additional 1 stamina / second
Example 3: (100 dex, 0 tasteid, 100 anatomy, 100 healing): additional 0 stamina / second
Example 4: (100 dex, 80 tasteid, 80 anatomy, 80 healing): additional 0.6 stamina / second (1 stamina point every 2 seconds)
Example 5: (90 dex, 80 tasteid, 80 anatomy, 80 healing): additional 0.57 stamina / second (1 stamina point every 2 seconds)
Example 6: (45 dex, 100 tasteid, 80 anatomy, 80 healing): additional 0.36 stamina / second (1 stamina point every 3 seconds)

To get the high stamina regeneration benefits of 2/sec, the character must have 100 dexterity.

Hunger Awareness

Using taste identification on yourself will let you know what your level of hunger is. In this way you can know your capacity to eat a meal.

You are very hungry
You are a little hungry
You are full

Templates

Sample 'pure' tasty warrior template

100 Weapon
100 Parry / Poisoning / Archery / Herding / Whatever
100 Tactics
100 Anatomy
100 Healing
100 Resist
100 Taste Identification

This warrior would be at ease in dungeons where there are many poisonous creatures while enjoying enhanced tanking ability with well-timed food consumption. Able to counter nox mages to a degree, as well as poisoners. A well planned 'meal' could help the warrior survive a dump, but of course once they are full, they lose that advantage until they feel hungry again.



Tasty Heal Mage

100 Magery
100 Eval
100 Meditation
100 Anatomy
100 Healing
100 Resist
100 Taste Identification

Has no disrupt, no stun, but is very resilient to poison plus has increased healing benefits.

I know this could be a game changer for PvP, but I think it makes the "pure warrior" more viable. I'm also aware that adding more items and skills to the game complicates and may unbalance it. So, feel free to point these out. It does provide a rather significant counter to a Nox mage, or poisoning dexxer, but at the cost of 80+ skill points.

As a time traveler who has access to the many parallel universes we traverse, I feel it prudent to copy/paste an IRC conversation from one such universe, circa late 2016:

UOR_Player_8852 has joined the channel.
~Telamon: Welcome UOR_Player_8852.
UOR_Player_8852: Thanks! Excited to be back playing UO after 12 years.
UOR_Player_8852: What is the community like here?
~Telamon: UOR has a variety of playstyles it supports, from PvM to PvP to crafting to roleplay, and we have players in all areas.
~Telamon: It's the UO Renaissance period you remember, just with a few added perfections.
UOR_Player_8852: That's awesome. Mostly a crafter myself, but I might venture into the world of PvP here. Maybe a fencer or something.
Mes: I wouldn't advise a fencer. In fact the best template is probably the Tasty Heal Mage.
Russell: Your mom is a Tasty Heal Mage.
Russell has been kicked by DarkWing.
Mes: There's a forum thread right now with a poll about nerfing them; they're dominating factions.
EriZ: Buying 10xSpined Male BOD!
Russell has joined the channel.
Mandevu: They're good, but not as good as the Paula Deen template.
UOR_Player_8852: Huh?
Mandevu: I dropped Anatomy on my Stun Tamer in favor of Cooking. Now I feed my nightmare a steady diet of high-fat, high cholesterol food like Regenerative Ribs and Blessed Buns, and it rips people apart.
Russell: Your mom has blessed buns.
Russell has been kicked by DarkWing (see you in 24 hours).
UOR_Player_8852: So I should create a Tasty Heal Mage for PvP, but watch out for Paula Deens?
Mes: In a nutshell, yes.
Tabius: Accepting donations for the church project!
Mes: Oh and don't forget to get some spicy meatballs for when you're farming. Helps keep you from getting para-ganked.
UOR_Player_8852 has left the channel.

LOL brilliant!

My tongue is firmly in cheek when I make these suggestions, I know it can get silly

However, I think the pure warrior has always been at a disadvantage in UO. If anything would change, I'd like to see something to that end. I find it slightly comic/appropriate that a warrior have a food-based benefit system. Food=fuel for strength and stamina.

As I started writing it, I realized you indeed tee them up for me. It was way too easy

There are a few other threads in which I detail why I think warriors on this shard are at a disadvantage. The short version of it is: barbed leather armor is overpowered, swing speeds are a bit nerfed versus the historical UOR time period, and parry/shields are bugged.

I constantly try to beat the drum of "what if someone comes here having not played UO since 2001", which incidentally seems to be the case for about 10-20% of the population. Huge changes to skills like this, IMO, make the shard less appealing for such players, and many others. Unfortunately I don't have any good suggestions on how to make Cooking and Taste ID useful without altering gameplay significantly, so I chose to wisecrack instead.

Well taken, mate, well taken

One of the things I hated about AOS on Siege was the fact that I had to have 147 items in my pack just to be on par equipment-wise, all of which would be lost if you get looted. That's a lot of restocking. The guild crafters worked hard to keep us supplied for PvP. Petals vs poison, must have them, etc...

I longed for the days when you grabbed a spear, a few bandaids and run out and actually compete. To fight at the highest level, you need to have the basic gear kit - regs, pots, pouches. Adding a dozen or so more items makes the game more complicated.

The food idea was intended to be comic-semi-serious.

Poison resistance is an area where a 'pure' warriors can become more viable. With a heal every 10 seconds that can be interrupted by a poison cast... either carry massive amounts of potions, or add magery. The nox mage can still poison them, but the regular mage cannot always poison. Is that balancing?

Potion enhancement... not earth-shattering, but a boost.

Stamina regen - the warrior's med. Since we have refresh pots, it isn't a game changer, but it adds something extra for the dex-monkey - at 100 dex.

I like Russell.

Dalavar wins this thread.

LOL @ http://www.uorenaissance.com/?page=m_player&id=70745

wow... @swiftfeet There is a name I haven't seen in a long time.

Just waiting on runic bows....and not satellite internet 7 years and counting. Till then refresh

Parrying- Fire Breath resist
Spirit Speak - Increase power in sumoned mobs, allowing to heal them without getting grey.