A few ideas
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I think defence can simulate "parry", at least to a certain extent.
Normally, defence models how much of an attack is absorbed by armour or other protection, or is just ineffective due to the nature of the attack and target.
But it can also model "what proportion of attacks are blocked/parried/dodged". The key is to differentiate the damage types carefully.
In the case of the Duelist, he's currently got negative resistance to impact, pierce, and blade, reflecting the fact that he's pretty much unarmoured. But, we could model "parrying 25% of (suitable) melee attacks" by giving him 25% more resistance to them. OK, it changes the damage-per-hit rather than the hits-per-round, but it comes to much the same result.
Specifically, this would only apply to a "blade" attack; it's the only one that can realistically be parried, and it's usually a melee attack (or in the case of a ranged "blade" attack (the Assassin's thrown knives?), we'll say it's "dodge" rather than "parry").
It's *probably* not possible to parry a "pierce" type attack such as a spear (maybe deflect it a bit?). Plus most physical ranged attacks are likely to be pierce (exception: Troll Rocklobber?). It's certainly not practical to parry "impact" attacks such as a mace using a rapier, so he remains vulnerable to those.
So, you could just specify some different resistance values for the Duelist; at present it shares the same values as not only the Fencer, but also the Thief and the Footpad! Indeed, improved resistance (modelling skill at parry/dodge) could be one of the significant benefits of levelling up from the Fencer
The current resistance table defined in game.cfg for all units of type "elusivefoot" is
[resistance]
blade=130
pierce=120
impact=120
fire=100
cold=100
holy=80
[/resistance]
(Note that it's actually specified as the percentage damage taken, thus 120 means 20% *above* nominal damage).
So you could just put this override into Duelist.cfg:
# Improved resistance for these units
# They've learnt how to parry/dodge
[resistance]
blade=80
pierce=100
impact=110
[/resistance]
and try it out!
Normally, defence models how much of an attack is absorbed by armour or other protection, or is just ineffective due to the nature of the attack and target.
But it can also model "what proportion of attacks are blocked/parried/dodged". The key is to differentiate the damage types carefully.
In the case of the Duelist, he's currently got negative resistance to impact, pierce, and blade, reflecting the fact that he's pretty much unarmoured. But, we could model "parrying 25% of (suitable) melee attacks" by giving him 25% more resistance to them. OK, it changes the damage-per-hit rather than the hits-per-round, but it comes to much the same result.
Specifically, this would only apply to a "blade" attack; it's the only one that can realistically be parried, and it's usually a melee attack (or in the case of a ranged "blade" attack (the Assassin's thrown knives?), we'll say it's "dodge" rather than "parry").
It's *probably* not possible to parry a "pierce" type attack such as a spear (maybe deflect it a bit?). Plus most physical ranged attacks are likely to be pierce (exception: Troll Rocklobber?). It's certainly not practical to parry "impact" attacks such as a mace using a rapier, so he remains vulnerable to those.
So, you could just specify some different resistance values for the Duelist; at present it shares the same values as not only the Fencer, but also the Thief and the Footpad! Indeed, improved resistance (modelling skill at parry/dodge) could be one of the significant benefits of levelling up from the Fencer
The current resistance table defined in game.cfg for all units of type "elusivefoot" is
[resistance]
blade=130
pierce=120
impact=120
fire=100
cold=100
holy=80
[/resistance]
(Note that it's actually specified as the percentage damage taken, thus 120 means 20% *above* nominal damage).
So you could just put this override into Duelist.cfg:
# Improved resistance for these units
# They've learnt how to parry/dodge
[resistance]
blade=80
pierce=100
impact=110
[/resistance]
and try it out!
I like that name! "Orcish Scorcher" sounds pretty good
But the fire (ranged) attack doesn't have to be more powerful than the pierce; it's so that it can be useful against units that have high resistance to pierce (skeletons etc) or are particularly vulnerable to fire (scuttlefoot units). Maybe at a hypothetical third level ("Orcish Incendiary"?) its fire attacks would become more powerful than the pierce.
Aside: in general I like the idea of units gaining more (flexible) attacks when levelling up, rather than a simple increase in damage (although that's obviously good too, for units that become more specialised in their chosen weapon rather than gaining extra weapon skills).
The torch (melee) attack sounds good. A fire-arrow-using unit would have to carry a source of flame with which to light the arrows, so that makes for a logical melee attack too.
But the fire (ranged) attack doesn't have to be more powerful than the pierce; it's so that it can be useful against units that have high resistance to pierce (skeletons etc) or are particularly vulnerable to fire (scuttlefoot units). Maybe at a hypothetical third level ("Orcish Incendiary"?) its fire attacks would become more powerful than the pierce.
Aside: in general I like the idea of units gaining more (flexible) attacks when levelling up, rather than a simple increase in damage (although that's obviously good too, for units that become more specialised in their chosen weapon rather than gaining extra weapon skills).
The torch (melee) attack sounds good. A fire-arrow-using unit would have to carry a source of flame with which to light the arrows, so that makes for a logical melee attack too.
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Casual User
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Someone ressucitated this thread! As far as the "fiery" orc archer, people seem to like this idea and it seems in character. Good! They shouldn't do more damage with fire than with pierce, maybe even a tiny bit less. The idea is that they usually just fire arrows, but when faced with say skeletons or heavy infantry, they would light their arrows afire to set fire to grass and scorch the skeletons. For instance, instead of 6-3 and 9-2, say 6-3 and 8-2 àla axe vs hammer for swarves.
As for the idea of giving the duelist resistances to blade, it sounds out of character. See, the idea of parry came because I like the idea of hiring duelists, but they're not that useful. They don't do enough damage to be mainstay units and their frailty more than makes up for their defense (which is only something like 10% more than a normal unit... not a huge difference). I tried to find a "niche" for them and I thought: in real life, you would hire fencers as spies, bodyguards and assassins. This could work in Wesnoth too. As spies (i.e. scouts) they aren't that good, but at six moves + skirmisher, they can do. The skirmisher ability gives them a bonus as assassins... but they can't do enough damage to be effective. As for bodyguards, forget it... But, if they had the parry, they wouldn't be tougher, but fights with them would drag on and on unless the ennemy has archers because they would lose an attack otherwise, hence good bodyguards, and since many mages have 1 or 2 hand to hand attack, they would be deadly against mage-kings. I seem to have convinced Turin it's a good idea! By the way, you can parry a mace with a rapier, just not the way you would parry a sword: You wouldn,t try to stop the attack because it would have too much momentum. Rather, you would hold your rapier firmly and slanted downwards away from you, using the mace's momentum against it (the mace would hit the rapier, push it back a little but also slide down the rapier; unless the maceman stopped his movement, and sometimes the momentum would be too great, his mace would be down and blocked, unable to reattain momentum, he would be in an undefensible position and might soon be seriously dead); as for spears, it wasn't excessively hard (for an experienced fencer) not to parry the spear but to keep the spearhead away from you unless you were close enough for the spear to become a little inefficient. Some weapons were un-parriable (a huge club swung by a troll might have too much momentum, a flail or morningstar, some poleweapons such as a hallberd or bill hooks, etc... I will defend my idea of parry, but it's only a suggestion.
Thanks for reading and sorry again about the long post!
As for the idea of giving the duelist resistances to blade, it sounds out of character. See, the idea of parry came because I like the idea of hiring duelists, but they're not that useful. They don't do enough damage to be mainstay units and their frailty more than makes up for their defense (which is only something like 10% more than a normal unit... not a huge difference). I tried to find a "niche" for them and I thought: in real life, you would hire fencers as spies, bodyguards and assassins. This could work in Wesnoth too. As spies (i.e. scouts) they aren't that good, but at six moves + skirmisher, they can do. The skirmisher ability gives them a bonus as assassins... but they can't do enough damage to be effective. As for bodyguards, forget it... But, if they had the parry, they wouldn't be tougher, but fights with them would drag on and on unless the ennemy has archers because they would lose an attack otherwise, hence good bodyguards, and since many mages have 1 or 2 hand to hand attack, they would be deadly against mage-kings. I seem to have convinced Turin it's a good idea! By the way, you can parry a mace with a rapier, just not the way you would parry a sword: You wouldn,t try to stop the attack because it would have too much momentum. Rather, you would hold your rapier firmly and slanted downwards away from you, using the mace's momentum against it (the mace would hit the rapier, push it back a little but also slide down the rapier; unless the maceman stopped his movement, and sometimes the momentum would be too great, his mace would be down and blocked, unable to reattain momentum, he would be in an undefensible position and might soon be seriously dead); as for spears, it wasn't excessively hard (for an experienced fencer) not to parry the spear but to keep the spearhead away from you unless you were close enough for the spear to become a little inefficient. Some weapons were un-parriable (a huge club swung by a troll might have too much momentum, a flail or morningstar, some poleweapons such as a hallberd or bill hooks, etc... I will defend my idea of parry, but it's only a suggestion.
Thanks for reading and sorry again about the long post!
Yes, I think their fire damage should be kept quite low; so that it's less useful than pierce against human or elvish units with "normal" resistances, but much better against those with high pierce and low fire resistance, specifically skeletons and woses. I've suggested elsewhere (http://www.wesnoth.org/forum/viewtopic. ... fire#69636) that the high damage caused by fire attacks generally is because it's mostly magical fire, burning at an extremely high temperature; and that plain old non-magical fire (burning pitch and such) should have a lower damage rating (and before anyone argues about drakes, I'll add that I consider them to use "high-temperature" fire too).Casual User wrote:Someone ressucitated this thread! As far as the "fiery" orc archer, people seem to like this idea and it seems in character. Good! They shouldn't do more damage with fire than with pierce, maybe even a tiny bit less. The idea is that they usually just fire arrows, but when faced with say skeletons or heavy infantry, they would light their arrows afire to set fire to grass and scorch the skeletons. For instance, instead of 6-3 and 9-2, say 6-3 and 8-2 àla axe vs hammer for swarves.
Here are some numbers: existing Orcish Archer (5-3 pierce) does an maximum 15 damage against a Spearman, but only 6HP/turn against a Skeleton (60% resistance to pierce) or against a Wose (also 60% resistance). The Orcish Crossbowman (8-3 pierce) increases these numbers to 24 and 9 respectively: still pretty ineffective against the Skeleton or Wose. But, even a 6-2 fire attack would give up to 14HP/turn against the Skeleton (-20% resistance) and a very useful 18 against the Wose (-50% resistance). So, I'd that the Scorcher's attacks could be as low as 6-3 pierce/6-2 fire and still be a viable alternative to the Crossbowman, if the enemy includes undead and woses. Of course, if you're only fighting humans and dwarves (or worse still, drakes), there'd be no reason to choose it.
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Dragonking
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The Crossbowman's 8-3 pierce gives a maximum 12 against 40% resistance, and so does the Scorcher's 6-2 fire against -10%. So it's no better, just no worse in these terms. But you'd generally go for the higher number of attacks when the max damage is equal, so there's still a marginal preference for the crossbowman.Dragonking wrote:What about Heavy Infantryman?CyberJack wrote:Of course, if you're only fighting humans and dwarves (or worse still, drakes), there'd be no reason to choose it.
So, archer would gain a fire attack also, or not? 
I'm just trying to get clear what the idea is, so I can perhaps propose it to the mailing list...
I'm just trying to get clear what the idea is, so I can perhaps propose it to the mailing list...
Actually, IMHO when fighting against a unit like the HI, which has low defences, you should trust luck and go with the one with less strikes, hoping you hit every time...CyberJack wrote:The Crossbowman's 8-3 pierce gives a maximum 12 against 40% resistance, and so does the Scorcher's 6-2 fire against -10%. So it's no better, just no worse in these terms. But you'd generally go for the higher number of attacks when the max damage is equal, so there's still a marginal preference for the crossbowman.Dragonking wrote: What about Heavy Infantryman?
For I am Turin Turambar - Master of Doom, by doom mastered. On permanent Wesbreak. Will not respond to private messages. Sorry!
And I hate stupid people.
The World of Orbivm
And I hate stupid people.
The World of Orbivm
No. No changes to the Orcish Archerturin wrote:So, archer would gain a fire attack also, or not?
I think the proposal is for a single new unit, the Orcish Scorcher, as an alternative level-2 upgrade from the Orcish Archer. Attacks areturin wrote:I'm just trying to get clear what the idea is, so I can perhaps propose it to the mailing list...
- torch melee (fire, 5-2)
bow (shouldn't that be arrow?
) ranged (pierce, 6-3)
flaming arrow ranged (fire, 6-2)
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Elvish_Pillager
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I think that it's a good idea to give the Archer a 5-2 fire attack, and the Crossbowman an 8-2 fire attack, not an alternate advancement.turin wrote:So, archer would gain a fire attack also, or not?
It's all fun and games until someone loses a lawsuit. Oh, and by the way, sending me private messages won't work. :/ If you must contact me, there's an e-mail address listed on the website in my profile.
At 70% CTH (e.g. on grassland), there's a better-than-even chance that you will not hit twice with two strokes. On the other hand, not hitting at least twice out of three strokes is around 4/1 against. Go for the threeturin wrote:Actually, IMHO when fighting against a unit like the HI, which has low defences, you should trust luck and go with the one with less strikes, hoping you hit every time...
OTOH, it makes a difference if there's a chance getting a kill earlier with fewer but bigger attacks, because you may avoid some of the counterstrikes.
Oooh yes, and let's give them a 6-2 cold attack too, and a 9-1 club to swing in the other other hand, then they'll have something for everybodyElvish Pillager wrote:I think that it's a good idea to give the Archer a 5-2 fire attack, and the Crossbowman an 8-2 fire attack, not an alternate advancement.turin wrote:So, archer would gain a fire attack also, or not?
