Originally posted by Kura
the total amount of skill over several areas should be the determining factor in how often you get caught instead of the chance-of-getting-caught-while-stealing skill. say....

thieving+agility+stealth(just anything else related to stealing) / 3= X          

100-X= % of getting caught

yes im a genius i know hehe

stealth has little to do with picking a lock. i can arrange for ... say ulbernauts to come into the plaza, then while everyone is distracted, pick the locks on the doors and storage chests at the inn and make off with everything, stumbling around and making as much noise as i care to. such equations need to be tailored to the specific case.

and i don\'t care how good a pickpocket you are, i doubt you\'ll be able to lift a suit of armor while the person is wearing it, again, a different equation.

... need blowdarts with a sleeping agent...

--- keder maloy

The light is dim when keder awakens. She looks around and sees the small cave she cried herself to sleep in. \"Why can\'t i learn to trust?\" keder askes herself. She knows painfully well the answer, but not a way to change it.

keder crawls out of the cave and straightens up. \"Talking with Ayshe will help. Jityshe simply views this as a weakness in me, and i can\'t blame him. i agree. But his rather gruff \'Get over it\' answer doesn\'t help me.\" With that, keder begins walking back toward the city and the guild hall of the Feline\'s Lair.

It is well into the night when keder reaches the city. She stops and takes several deep breaths. Feeling a little calmer, she forces a slight smile to her face and enters the city, heading for the guild hall.

Before keder reaches the third building, she has lost her calm and dives for a shadow. Cursing herself under her breath, she then climbs to the top of the building and makes her way to the guild hall unseen from rooftop to rooftop.

On the roof of the Feline\'s Lair guild hall, keder finds the window to Ayshe\'s room. Remembering Hart\'s instruction, keder carefully lowers herself upsidedown above Ayshe\'s window and uses a small mirror to look around Ayshe\'s room. Seeing only Ayshe there, keder tosses a small stone with a paper wrapped around it.

Ayshe hears the stone hit the floor and shakes her head. \"Keder, will you ever use the main doors?\" Ayshe asks without even looking. \"Yes, i can talk for a bit. Come in. You and Hart, always keeping to the shadows...\" Ayshe chuckles. \"At least you have devotion to your skills.\"

keder releases the rope and turns a half circle as she falls, landing lightly on her feet, almost without a sound. Ayshe\'s ears twitch, \"You made sound? Keder, what\'s wrong?\"

\"Trust still eludes me,\" keder said flatly. Looking at the floor, she then proceded to tell Ayshe every detail of her dream, up to Ayshe hugging her and her flinching. Crying again, keder interrupts herself, \"Even in a dream i can\'t trust anyone... not even you Ayshe.\" keder looks up for the first time since she started her tail. Quite surprised by the look on Ayshe\'s face, \"Ayshe, you look like you\'ve seen a ghost. What\'s going on?\"

\"I had the same dream...\" is Ayshe\'s reply

--- keder maloy

\"Damn!!\" Keder swears as she awakens. \"Even in my dreams i can\'t fully conceal my lack of trust\"

Bitter, Keder Maloy climbs down from the tree and begins to make her way to the guildhall of the Feline\'s Lair, still cursing herself for her inability to trust those she is closest to.

She stops short, aware of something watching her. Carefully listening and feeling, she tries to discover her watcher without moving. After a few unsuccessful minutes, she shrugs, assuming that it is only her own fears getting the better of her again. However, in the brief pause, her mind also wandered back to her dream.

\"Something feels ... off ... about this dream...\" she mutters. \"Almost as if it wasn\'t a normal dream...\" Keder resumes her walk back to the guildhall. \"Perhaps i\'ll tell Ayshe about it. If nothing else, it will ease my mind. Trust or not, she\'s been a good friend and ally since i met her. i should trust her. She\'s given ample reason to trust her by her actions the first day we met. It has now been around six months and in that time she\'s never done anything to void that, and time and again give more reason to trust her.\" Keder drops to her knees crying. She screams to the heavens, \"WHY CAN\'T i TRUST ANYONE!!!???\" Then she turns and runs on all fours deeper into the forest.

A several minutes run past where she slept the night, Keder stumbles and colapses, still crying. Perhaps an hour later, she looks around herself. Still in the forest, it looks like any other part of the forest with one exception. There is a small cave nearby. Grimly, Keder gets up and walks to the cave. \"Appropriate,\" is the only thing keder mutters to herself as she enters the cave and curls up, still crying, and drifts to sleep.

--- keder maloy

it\'s been my experience that the players make or break the RP of any RPG. if all the numbers were stripped away and the code close so no one could look at what the code was doing, it is still the players\' choice if they hack-n-slash everything or if they roleplay. i\'ve played with ADnD groups that the only one who even saw the dice was the DM, she did *all* of the rolls and calculations and the rest of us *strictly* roleplayed. (in some cases to the extent that anything said out of character during play was penalized... one person\'s character ended up in the loony bin for a while ).

other groups i\'ve played with had calculators for each player and charts of weapon/spell/etc. stats so the player knew at a glance all the stats of anything found or purchased.

there were occasions that the group with the calculators roleplayed better, just depended on who showed up that evening. to them the calculators weren\'t a distraction but rather a tool. an advanced mage is going to have an almost instictive knowledge about the strength and value of a particular spell. all of us being ordinary humans don\'t have that experience to draw from, so to roleplay better, we need some kind of supliment to simulate that kind of knowledge.

at times it would be nice to turn that off. i don\'t need to know the precise percent of HP i have while having an idle conversation in the plaza, though if i came back to the plaza to recover from a particularly fierce battle, i would like to see near death, badly wounded, wounded, barely wounded, uninjured as i recover. were it real life, i could feel the recovery as my pain faded and my strength returned. it isn\'t.

*shrugs*

most likely the debate will rage on with the majority both sides not happy. this is why i suggest the ability to set thresholds of numbers vs worded approximations. some would set it to conceal all numbers, some would set it to reveal all numbers. most would find a balance in the middle, comfortable to the individual using it.

i also don\'t see this as coming soon. each level of adjustment in this threshold idea would be it\'s own set of code and dialog, meaning each area it is used would have to have at least adjustments to accomidate each setting available.

i am greatly impressed with the devs\' progress on the technical aspects of writing the game. the balance of playability, in everything from how much information is available to things like there being no sword on the rogue\'s body when he is clearly wielding one while he hits me, is something that will come in time. there is no good way to rush balance. numbers vs. words is one of those matters of balance that will come in time and i hope will come with variability since each play has her own comfort levels.

--- keder maloy

postscript: thank you DivineLight. i take that as a compliment, and i especially like the edict from the Octarchs.

actually, i\'m pretty sure some of the effects (and the plaza in general) already go beyond the min specs listed. and i for one don\'t want people shut out because they have min spec computers but can\'t play if it rains.

*shrugs*

now, i need to find some cover... i see stormclouds coming and i don\'t like getting wet.

--- keder maloy, enkidukai of the feline\'s lair

apprenticeships i\'ve had, i got paid for. it was a very low rate, based on the master\'s evaluation of my skill, plus a reduction since i was specifically learning from him rather than truly working for him. as my skill improved, so did my pay and i began to take on projects that were for clients rather than \"learning assignments\" (ie: thrown away after). to cover the costs of paying me and learning materials before i started to take on client projects, i also got the \"shit work\" (sweep floors, wash walls, etc.). things that need to be done, but no one wants to do. and it is hard to justify hiring someone for it, but very easy to have an apprentice do it as \"disiplinary training\" (learning to follow the master\'s orders).

some of this would translate very well into PS, other parts not so well. it is certainly an idea worth examining. PS limits could run along the lines of the master can\'t train any higher than 3 below her own ranking. there probably should also be a master/trainer skill for it, to teach the basics of how to break a skill down and teach the pieces to a student.

perhaps:

trainer skill = (skill - 3) = max able to train someone else to

so someone ranked 4 in training and 11 in sword would be able to train an apprentice only up to 4 in sword.

with 11 in training and 11 in sword, she would be able to train an apprentice up to 8 in sword.

outside of it being a PC rather than an NPC that does the training, i don\'t see any other changes. (still need progression points, still need to practice what you learn before learning more, etc.)

more to think about...

--- keder maloy

Originally posted by DaveG
You shouldn\'t be able to turn off bad weather.  It would be like cheating.  (want to see better, turn off the rain!)  I just don\'t think it should be implemented unless they can make it more efficient.  (aka. not kill my CPU)

distance haze can be substituted for bad weather with much less CPU drain and still keep the reduced visibility.

--- keder maloy

Originally posted by Ecolem
Agreed Ary...numbers suck, words rule  

numbers may suck, but they are a reality. for example, if my dagger\'s blade is 10 cm from hilt to tip, i\'m only going to piss of an ulbernaut who\'s hide is sometimes up to 20 cm thick no matter what angle i use. also, my katana has a 15% angle for it\'s cutting edge and the edge itself is 3 microns. my dagger has a 40% angle edge and is 10 microns at the edge. that tells me that i can easily slice through leather armor with the katana, but should really look for a gap in the armor or count on strength alone to force the dagger\'s blade through.

all of this can be measured with numbers. so can your strength. if you don\'t believe it, go to a gym and ask one of the regulars how many reps she can do on a particular set of free weights. that gives 2 numbers. beyond that is endurance. at the start of the day, she can do (example only) 50 reps with 40 kilo weights. if she\'s working out all day, she\'s likely to be tired at the end of the day. perhaps at the end of the day she can only do 25 reps. or she can still do the 50 reps, but it has to be with the lighter 20 kilo weights. either way, that is a 50% strength reduction for being exhausted. all of this can and is measured in numbers all the time. having a single number to represent strength is a tremendous simplification of reality, not a drift away from it.

yes, i would love to have the realism of being able to pierce my enemy\'s armour, thus making it less effective. or better yet, target the straps that hold the armour on (these straps, even on the strongest plate steel, are usually leather) causing it to fall off and possibly tripping up my enemy. do you realize the complexity of the programming that would be needed to do that?

after simplifying life enough to be able to fit the various actions into a computer simulation without requiring a multimillion dollar supercomputer to run it, having only one number for strength is reasonable, and giving us this number is a courtesy i appreciate.

if someone is interested, i can try to post a breakdown of the typical strength numbers measured at the gym by the regulars.

besides, haven\'t you ever roleplayed from the point of view that this is what life is like there? that can be quite entertaining in it\'s own right. especially if you do it from the point of view of being torn from our realm (RL) and dumped into this new world where things are so strange.

--- keder maloy