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Halfing and Pixie Shadows?

 
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raginggnome



Joined: 11 Feb 2004
Posts: 135

PostPosted: Wed Jul 25, 2018 10:12 pm    Post subject: Halfing and Pixie Shadows?

Being the most dextrous races in the game, it would kind of make sense for them to be able to play shadows... Is it viable as far as lore and rp go?
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Olyn
Immortal


Joined: 23 Jul 2008
Posts: 3244
Location: Pennsylvania

PostPosted: Thu Jul 26, 2018 12:23 pm    Post subject:

I only associate roguish members of those races with the thief class. I can't picture Bilbo Baggins tumbling in with his pouch of blindness dust and whipping shadow shurikens at Smaug.
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Ergorion



Joined: 16 Mar 2007
Posts: 2156

PostPosted: Thu Jul 26, 2018 1:37 pm    Post subject:

So we use lord of the rings for some lore but then for other lore (a la orcs) we explicitly say not to reference lord of the rings. I can see why the player base gets confused about your standards.
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Olyn
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Joined: 23 Jul 2008
Posts: 3244
Location: Pennsylvania

PostPosted: Thu Jul 26, 2018 6:05 pm    Post subject:

Each imm is entitled to their own opinions and when new ideas are presented we're obligated to share those opinions. I don't share Nycticora's view of AR orcs, if that's what you're referring to. That viewpoint, or any other imm's comment on an idea, should not be confused with an sort of official stance when we're spitballing/discussing stuff. If you read my post in that thread, I downvoted orc for completely different reasons. Additionally, it's obvious our halflings originated from LotR roots. Just look at the Shire area that eventually became the Mudfall or the HELP HALFLING entry. The orcs in AR have more ambiguous lore.
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raginggnome



Joined: 11 Feb 2004
Posts: 135

PostPosted: Thu Jul 26, 2018 9:36 pm    Post subject:

My only thoughts on that is that it would be hard to picture Bilbo Baggins as a badass Halfling Warrior Warlord ripping peoples spines out and wearing them, but that can be a thing?
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raginggnome



Joined: 11 Feb 2004
Posts: 135

PostPosted: Thu Jul 26, 2018 9:42 pm    Post subject:

In regards to my post above, why couldn't a halfling tumble into room throwing shurikens and blindness dust. With the right backstory and rp it is totally plausible... Just because LoTR didn't have one, doesn't mean an entirely different world (where there have been mighty warlord halflings, epic Knight halflings, hard ass halfing justices etc...) can't have any? As far as pixies go, I don't know enough of the lore to really have much say in that haha
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Davairus
Implementor


Joined: 16 Jan 2004
Posts: 10344
Location: 0x0000

PostPosted: Thu Jul 26, 2018 10:54 pm    Post subject:

How about we just open everything and I Write a script to close whatever nobody rolled once a month and I'm sure you wont see a single pixie ninja
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Ergorion



Joined: 16 Mar 2007
Posts: 2156

PostPosted: Fri Jul 27, 2018 12:09 am    Post subject:

I'd kick ass with an illithid monk.
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Dogran
Immortal


Joined: 13 Jun 2009
Posts: 1794

PostPosted: Fri Jul 27, 2018 4:40 am    Post subject:

monk? i would make an illithid shaman haha.
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Ergorion



Joined: 16 Mar 2007
Posts: 2156

PostPosted: Fri Jul 27, 2018 4:51 am    Post subject:

Yeah dude. Be a giant-killer monk with that electric shocking well, not storm giant. Two parries. Mastered hand to hand. Shitton of health from 1 pracs. Leech to suck a spell out of a casters head. Hellstreaming squid monk, man. Fuck, if fireballe2 got a 25 str elf, how do I put in for a squid monk?
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Arunore



Joined: 05 Aug 2014
Posts: 200

PostPosted: Fri Jul 27, 2018 6:11 pm    Post subject:

When creating fantasy-fiction, a lot of the ideas are pulled from any movies, tabletop/gaming, and novels. Generally you have a theme and proceed to tap into these pools of ideas you have experienced. AR seems like a mix of dark and high fantasy, there are several other types but I don't think any of them fit AR. For example low fantasy (harry potter) where magic takes place in our world but the world is not entirely fictional. So essentially this is all preferential to the Immortals and developing team.

I would like to share this with you, as it can be confusing on first glance. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong. Depending upon how deep you want to go, there are various races of Fiends. The most widespread being Demons, who are chaotic evil, created from filth and carnage to cause devastation. Devils on the other hand are lawful, more like a corrupted lawful, tyrannical, they're totalitarian. There are also Fiends found in the Underdark, not just the Abyss or Underworld. A Yochlol whiich use to be in the game, the Handmaidens of Lolth. A Fiend to me is any otherworldly (planes, I.E. dimensions) creature with malicious intent. Balrog is another

To me, this is where the lore of the game has to get established and it must be accurate. You told me Succubi are essentially bloodsuckers, which I strongly disagree with (no sour grapes) because the lore I have found almost always depicts them as hungering for soul energy, attacking from the dreams of a sleeping person in hopes of gaining their soul through temptation. Yes it can be argued that the Vampire has ecstasy, but that is the only thing a Vampire has that is relevant to Succubi. They do not feed off of blood, their temptation and captivation of the soul is intended to claim the soul, not to drain the body and lose out on the soul.
They also don't melt in sunlight.

I'd tell you what I would do. If I were you, I would have some catastrophic event happen and just redo all combinations publicly. Every race gets a racial legacy, every class that race picks gets a racial legacy.
Make one passive and one action, stop doing the racial legacies that disappear after 50, the battle is at 50, not pre-50. Every class gets specs, shoot for 3 with every class, and I'm not talking about changing 1-3 skills. See Forsaken Lands Ranger for help. They have Marksman, Survivalist, and Beastmaster. Those are three solid specs for a ranger and imo they did it flawlessly, each spec has a different set which makes up the skill list and they're all fun to play. It is possible to do this with every class and still retain a level of balance. Me and a few friends did this a few years back, when I was redoing some original rom stock areas for their MUD. Wish you would have at least taken a look at one of those areas though, it is where the wisp idea originated. There were sand pits that had about 6 different holes but it was a great ranking area. Problem is you would randomly sink in these holes if you lingered too long, much like the sand pit at the swamp. and each hole was different. One hole in particular, led you to an entirely different area called 'Underground Sea'. I think it was a ripoff of Magic the Gathering's dual land at the time. But the sand pits were a very small part of that area, it was huge.

I would change these:

1) Races. You now have sub-races in addition to main race. Dwarf can pick from hill dwarf, mountain dwarf, and boreal dwarf. Add them where it makes sense. Drows may have Drider, but that should be a player requested race that is seen more of a ritual ceremony transformation like Vampire is seen, but Drider just offers altered stats based off of a Drow's stat block. Not every race will have sub-races, but from a realistic standpoint you should be able to cover all the ones that do.

2)Half-elf. While remaining a popular choice when choosing a race, it should be renamed to Half-Breed. Pick offshoot choices that make sense to you, the game, the players. I can think of elf, drow, giant. Werebeast to get creative, and define the new differences between being a Half-Beast and a Werebeast. Maybe one can control the beastform while the other must walk in it at all times, without to mention altered stats etc.

3) Class specs. This is pretty straight forward. I used ranger above so I will continue to use that as an example. The beastmaster spec gave more control of your beasts, adding a 3rd beast for your control and having the ability to look through their eyes from a distance via mind link just to name a couple. Marksman gave you unique arrow skills, and Survivalist used traps and hiding behind beasts, think they also had pugilism as well as staff. But it creates diversity, so no 1 class will be the same be-all-end-all.

Druids should work the way they do now and remain decisive on what race you choose to determine the currently 3 spells they gain. Over time, increasing that to 5 when comfortable enough while reviewing/watching/balancing the class, and then to 7. This one is tricky because you are letting the races decide the build, which is different, and cool, and awesome, but currently hugely underwhelming based on the 3 spells you get. They have enough spells to build probably 4 specs, but by making them race-exclusive, you eliminate a lot of the fodder spells that is floating around the Druid guild, while also making each race enriched with it's own uniqueness.

With all this being said, I truly believe alot of the choices of the current race/class combinations seem quite restrictive. But not all of these combinations should be just opened for the sake of opening, no. They must be carefully analyzed and see if it fits AR's lore.
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Arunore



Joined: 05 Aug 2014
Posts: 200

PostPosted: Fri Jul 27, 2018 7:23 pm    Post subject:

I apologize for the long text, but please refer to my post in Cabal Currency Generation, as I talk about some stuff happening based off Cabal items being captured. One thing I have been thinking about was related to race/class combinations. But they aren't playable race/class combinations, but what if there was a way to have one of these combinations appear for the playerbase based on the Cabal with the most minutes online while having all 6 Cabal items captured for that month. Enabling a random week somewhere in the next Month to allow Duergar Dark-Knights and Quasit Necromancers as playable races, but only for that week's length of time.

Just some ideas I have been thinking a lot about over time, tell me what ya think, its rough around the edges but makes perfect sense to me. Sorry if you don't get it.
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Nycticora



Joined: 09 Feb 2013
Posts: 2277

PostPosted: Fri Jul 27, 2018 10:49 pm    Post subject:

part of what makes AR feel more real than other games (especially MMOs) is that the developers are the real, actual gods of the game world and really, actually argue and fight over the changes they make to the world. The power structure and the amount of influence each immortal has over the game reality is a function of how much time they have to spend on the game and interacting with players, plus how persuasive their arguments and the quality of their output is. Some immortals have more power than others, but sometimes supposedly-weaker immortals will come out ahead in a clash.

I think the imms are in agreement regarding the succubus thing, I sent you a longer and more detailed message in-game about why a vampire is the best race for a custrace succubus than the reply Davairus made.
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Arunore



Joined: 05 Aug 2014
Posts: 200

PostPosted: Fri Jul 27, 2018 11:31 pm    Post subject:

I'm fully aware of the note. I read every bit of it, it's just not what I expected. I deleted the character a while back, but I'm grateful for having your words shared on the matter. Plus I kind of wanted to see where all your heads are at. Your route just seems an unlikely one, regarding Succubi as bloodseekers. This and the Orc pig monsters now seems very pre-AD&D to me. You guys gotta get passed that. It's 2018.
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Davairus
Implementor


Joined: 16 Jan 2004
Posts: 10344
Location: 0x0000

PostPosted: Fri Jul 27, 2018 11:36 pm    Post subject:

I've never played AD&D or know much about it so I'm not sure how I would get past it Arunore. I chose succubus to be unfocused aggressive bloodseekers based on some ex-girlfriends. I'm sure you heard art mirrors life.. right?
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Mikoos



Joined: 03 Nov 2012
Posts: 474

PostPosted: Sat Jul 28, 2018 1:58 am    Post subject:

I haven't read most of the above posts, but I can easily see a Warlord Halfling based on LOTR from this quote:

Code:
if you have ever seen a dragon in a pinch, you will realize that this was only poetical exaggeration applied to any hobbit, even to Old Took’s great-granduncle Bull-roarer, who was so huge (for a hobbit) that he could ride a horse. He charged the ranks of the goblins of Mount Gram in the Battle of the Green Fields, and knocked their King Golfimbul’s head clean off with a wooden club. It sailed a hundred yards through the air and sent down a rabbit hole and in this way the battle was won and the game of Golf invented at the same moment.
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Nycticora



Joined: 09 Feb 2013
Posts: 2277

PostPosted: Sat Jul 28, 2018 4:30 am    Post subject:



I think if you're going to be a succubus you have to cast ecstasy
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BlackWidow



Joined: 24 Apr 2014
Posts: 470
Location: Yes

PostPosted: Sat Jul 28, 2018 4:40 pm    Post subject:

Topic appears somewhat derailed, but to focus on the title...

A halfling shadow just doesn't make sense to me. A shadow used to be called a ninja, and they can be seen as killers-for-hire. It used to be that only races capable of being evil could play shadows (before half-elf was an option)... I don't see any of the halflings in Mudfall (the basis here) as the types to embrace the shadow's way of life. Even Thiel is more of a casual/retired thief.

As for pixie shadows, well the thing which comes to mind about them is stirges. But in general, a pixie is more likely to cause mischief or inconvenience than to deliberately cause harm repeatedly. Also, pixies are TINY and I don't see them grappling their opponents to the ground. Same goes with halflings upon reflection.
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Nycticora



Joined: 09 Feb 2013
Posts: 2277

PostPosted: Mon Jul 30, 2018 5:50 am    Post subject:

I agree with BlackWidow
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