When a mage or communer gets something up to 100%, it never fails. That should change. How often a learned spell or commune should fail I leave for another debate, but the concept is still true.

Ready ic explanations are infinite, pick your own. An easy one is that no matter how well one knows something, a person makes mistakes. Sometimes you bite your fork when chewing, sometimes you forget the name of someone you've know your whole life, sometimes you just say the wrong word, whatever. It happens because people (whatever race) are not infallible, not machines, not deities (who also make mistakes, I might add).

So every now and then, when a mage casts word of recall, or grease, or soften, or dispel, or anything else, something they have at 100%, they should still fail. Should get a message along the lines of "you mispronounce a word" or "the heat of combat distracts you and you skip a beat in the chant" or whatever.

Spell/commune classes don't do that much more to get 100%s than fighter classes. Indeed, most fighter classes are dumber so they are harder pressed to get there in the first place. And things they work so hard to perfect fail all the time. Which is fine. But it should be consistent for all classes.

Sometimes, the character should just get it wrong and lose the spell.

When a mage or communer gets something up to 100%, it never
fails.

You just don't lose concentration. That is.
Yes. When your spell is perfected you don't lose concentration.
Nothing more.

But will it have any affect on the target depends on many things.
And it is nowhere near "always working".
Some spells always have affect when casted, like detects or word of recall.
The same is for skills. There are skills that always work when perfected.
For example: 100% flurry never fails. or we should change it?
Some of spells inflict partial affect ( damage of spells may be reduced because of saves ).
Some of spells hardly work even when perfected.

Overall, we have similar picture for skills.
Some of them always work when perfect, others don't.


So every now and then, when a mage casts word of recall, or
grease, or soften, or dispel, or anything else, something they
have at 100%, they should still fail.

You can fail to cast a perfected spell.
For example if you under affect of immolation.

First, the point Jasmin was trying to make which you failed to see. I, as a player can easily create a warrior type that can basically shut down a spellcaster. You cannot, as a mage type or any other type, basically shut down a warrior. Sure you sacrifice some damage and hit points for save versus spell/paralysis/mind, but its very feasible.

Now take the above, and put in a 5 to 10% failure rate. No thanks. Most power from mages and communers comes from their prayers/spells. If they are not casting, they are pretty much nothing. This is true for all the classes except, arguably, conjurers or a well zombied out necromancer and shapeshifters (whose skills by the way do fall under warrior chance of failure). A warrior who fails a stun is still going to be dishing out seriously good damage with his normal melee attacks.

For example, invoker a comes upon warrior a. Invoker a tries to cast a spell and fails it, lets say cone of cold, so therefore he is doing nothing but absorbing damage straight out for at least 2 rounds. If warrior a is smart, he can stretch that to 4 rounds with any number of lagging techs. That change drastically changes the game balance, although you see it as just a tiny cosmetic change, its not.

Your argument about how people always make mistakes in real life holds no water what so ever. The mistake aspect of this game still exists, in the form of a player making decisions. And even if that can be argued against, there is still this argument, CF is not real life.

Next, there is Nepenthe's answer. Which you also didn't address in your reply. His basic answer to your post is this. Spells and skills at 100% work 100% of the time except for certain factors which take away from that 100%. For spells its spell save, for skills, its environmental factors, trying to stun an enlarged individual, save versus paralysis, size comparisons, speed comparisons, dexterity comparisons and checks, strength checks and comparisons, race oddities, intelligence checks, etc. You may not SEE it but its there. When you see, "You fail to stun so in so" you think to yourself, "####ing stupid, its at 100% it should work" but what you should see, which you don't, is this:

Vershelt skill at stun 100% = base chance to work 100%
Vershelt is size 2, Target is size 2 = -0% chance to work.
Vershelt has strength 24, Target has strength 23 = +5% chance to work.
Vershelt has dexterity of 16, Targer has dexterity of 21 = -20% chance to work.
Target has save versus paralysis of -16 = -8% chance to work.
Final net chance to work: 77% chance of success
RNG output: 84
Result: FAILURE

And yet again, as this ties in with the other points, you are still outputting damage.

For spells its more like:
Necromancer casts weaken on Vershelt who doesn't have the head.
Necromancer % with weaken = 100%
Necromancer % with spellcraft = 84%
RNG output on spellcraft: 58
Level of necromancer weaken spell: 51+5
Level of weaken spell cast on Vershelt: 56
Level of Vershelt: 51
applied negative spell save to Vershelt for difference in level: +10
Vershelt save versus spell: -67
Base chance of weaken working: 100%
As adjusted for save versus spell: 43%
RNG output: 56
Result: FAILURE

At this point the mage has done no affect what so ever on you. While you are still beating on him despite failing your stun.

The chance of failure is in there. And if you decided to add on an additional 5 to 10% failure for spells, it leaves mages dramatically weakened when you apply the statistics. You would have to raise the percentage chance of non damage offensive spells working by 25 to 30%. Thus throwing the whole save versus spell situation into termoil like back in the beginning, when -20 save versus spell made you immune, to when -90 save versus spell did nothing.

All your posts recently have been directly from the "battlerager berserker warrior" perspective. And each post you have thrown out have a detrimental affect on all those you fought, and thus make "battlerager berserker warrior" better. Your objectivity is utterly lost. With the change you are asking, you would lower the percentage chance of a mage getting a spell off AND affecting you by 25% or more. This does not even take into account spellbane. Next time, weigh the pros and cons of the point you are trying to make. I would think you would do that every day being an attorney.

Maybe I'm just tripping, but I think I remember back in the day, that mages could lose concentration even with a perfected spell, and the imms changed it so that if you had a spell perfected, at the very least you wouldn't lose your concentration casting it. Combat spells still fail, perfected or not, they don't always achieve their purpose. Utility spells failing when perfected, would suck yack balls. I can't imagine trying to shield my group as an invoker with the failure rate being ~5% as you suggest.

My 2 cents old pal? Don't try to change the way the game is, unless you want to Imm, don't worry about how others play the game, just focus on being the best at it that you can be, and as some of Vershelt's better moments showed, I think that'll take you a lot further down the way on funstick road.

You know, I seem to remember lots of ragers resisting my sleep spells. Way more than resisted kotegaeshi.

Spells and skills both "fail". They just have different styles of failure.

Another example is this.

What happens when you fail a sleep/blindness/curse/faerie fire etc spell on someone (lose concentration). Or even if you succeed (ignoring sleep). You get hit with counterattacks. Does that happen when your dirt kick misses? I think not.

You are comparing apples and oranges and coming to the conclusion that because oranges have thick peels that apples should too, imho, without taking account of the fact that there are other pros and cons to each.

What you didn't account for is that most offensive spells/communes have saving throws; most offensive skills don't.

I don't really see a change as you're describing taking place without mages etc. taking a big jump up in power in other ways at the same time. Warriors are doing plenty fine.

>What you didn't account for is that most offensive
>spells/communes have saving throws; most offensive skills
>don't.
>
>I don't really see a change as you're describing taking place
>without mages etc. taking a big jump up in power in other ways
>at the same time. Warriors are doing plenty fine.

I thought about that. First, as you note, it only deals with offensive. There are a whole host of spells/communes that aren't. Frankly a 5% chance of misspeaking a spell when putting up shields, stoneskin, etc. seems barely a burden, but more realistic and balanced. Likewise on things like teleport or word of recall. If it has that inherent "every now and then it fails" quotient, then a mage might die what, two? three more times in the course of a character, when it fails at just that critical moment? That seems fair as well, considering all the bashes and throws and everything else that just misses, despite being "perfect" at it.

Also, for the offensive spells, many of them are just damage spells and even saving doesn't stop the spells, you just take less damage.

The remaining ones, like poison or other work/notwork spells, many of the warrior counterparts are equally "saveable" by gear or other methods.

If you want, why not make it for those non-offensive spells? I think it should be for all, but compromise is compromise, as they say. And warriors may be doing plenty fine, but so are mages and communers. Warriors and fighter classes spend a lot of time trying to get those skill up. But their 100 is a lot less meaningful than the mage/communer. Making them a bit more alike seems both fair, and good for the game. Why should the mage/communer have an automatic machinelike ability? Characters are are still mortal and can make mistakes. They shouldn't be outside that.

And now most of the time, I can just shut a spellcaster down, because they can't land anything. Now I know you mentioned teleport, and word. I really don't begrudge anyone their ability to get away. They spend enough time getting pounded or dying, if those spells aren't perfected. I think of it like this, no matter how hard I'm getting beat on, I could still say "home". And when a mage has said it over and over and over, it would be on a level of that familiarity. If nothing else you could just think of it as their guildmaster saying "your going to learn to finish these two spells no matter what condition your in: Dying, plagued, bleeding out etc etc."

>And now most of the time, I can just shut a spellcaster down,
>because they can't land anything.

They can do similar things about warrior abilities, in a "save" like way. The warrior "saves" against the weaken? The enemy "saves" by wearing +str gear. The warrior saves against some spell? The mage can "save" himself from being bashed or tripped by reducing or flying or whatever. Everything has a counter. But warrior/fighter skills still just don't work sometimes, because you miss, you fail, you make a mistake. Even at 100. Which is fine. It should be the same for the mage. And let's be honest, you can't really shut a spellcaster down. And if you really could, you've forfeited on other things.

>Now I know you mentioned
>teleport, and word. I really don't begrudge anyone their
>ability to get away. They spend enough time getting pounded
>or dying, if those spells aren't perfected. I think of it
>like this, no matter how hard I'm getting beat on, I could
>still say "home". And when a mage has said it over and over
>and over, it would be on a level of that familiarity. If
>nothing else you could just think of it as their guildmaster
>saying "your going to learn to finish these two spells no
>matter what condition your in: Dying, plagued, bleeding out
>etc etc."

They spend enough time getting pounded or dying, if they aren't perfected?? How is that any different from a fighter? I don't get my pincer or disarm or something perfected, I get pounded plenty. How many fights do you see go the other way because someone fails three or four or five times on some skill? It's common.

And why is it any different for a mage that says "home" over and over than for a warrior who pincers over and over? It's not. Frankly, a giant who bashes with inherent ability should be able to do it better than any mage at 100 in anything, because it's inherent, it's not even something to be practiced. But he misses sometimes anyway. He has a greater familiarity. But he misses sometimes anyway.

It's all exactly the same. The fighting classes "learn to finish these skills no matter what condition your in!" the same way the mages do. But sometimes they fail, regardless. It should be the same for mages. Let them fail that word of recall sometimes. Let them fail that teleport sometimes. Nobody is saying make it a 50/50 shot. But there's no way it should be this ultimate reliability that it currently is.

If you haven't figured out how to shut a spellcaster down, as a BattleRager....then you really haven't figured things out.

You're missing the point entirely. By a mountain-range size amount.

Sneak.
Hide.
Camo.
Creep (race dependant).

And when someone successfully camos, no one that can't see camo can see them. If we made this equivalent to magic, everyone would get an "awareness" check, and have the chance to see the camo'd person, despite camo having been used successfully.

Why should every skill operate identically? Why should sleep, strange, choke, stun, blackjack, spinebreak etc all have the same method of operation?

Some of those fail.

As for the rest, you're mistaking the point. Either they do it or they don't. If they do it, it works. If they don't, it doesn't. If a mage casts a spell or a communer does a commune, either they get it right and it then goes as it always has, or, as I'm suggesting, it has a small chance of just not getting off in the first place, for whatever ic reason anyone wants to include. A missed word, a bug flying by and distracting, whatever.

Man do you ever admit that you are wrong or what?

Listen how many communers/mages have the ability to lag you out as warrior. You can lag them out.. they get some perks like having spells that never fail when perfected. Its just one of those finer game balance issues. In a fight even if every single warrior skill doesnt work you are still beating the holy hell out of the spellcaster/communer. A communer/spellcaster doesnt have that luxury. The immortal staff has spent years tinkering and adjusting game balance issues and a change like this would just throw everything out of whack. Maybe this would be fair if they took away lost concentration completely and immortals just implemeneted a small chance at the spell not working every now and then. Try and not figure out ways to make your already succesfull char be more badass, specially when he is dead and gone.


Anyway you still rock in my book. But we can't be right everytime, just learn to live with it dude.

Much love
kads

>Man do you ever admit that you are wrong or what?

When it happens, of course.
>

>Listen how many communers/mages have the ability to lag you
>out as warrior. You can lag them out.. they get some perks
>like having spells that never fail when perfected. Its just
>one of those finer game balance issues. In a fight even if
>every single warrior skill doesnt work you are still beating
>the holy hell out of the spellcaster/communer. A
>communer/spellcaster doesnt have that luxury. The immortal
>staff has spent years tinkering and adjusting game balance
>issues and a change like this would just throw everything out
>of whack. Maybe this would be fair if they took away lost
>concentration completely and immortals just implemeneted a
>small chance at the spell not working every now and then.
>Try and not figure out ways to make your already succesfull
>char be more badass, specially when he is dead and gone.
>

When's the last time you played a hero fighting class? Tell me how you lagged out your hero level communer/mages. I'm very interested to know. You can lag some of them, some of the time. Every mage and communer class (except paladin) has the ability to prevent bashing entirely. They can all fly either as a class ability, racial ability, or with potions. So bash and trip are out. Fine. That leaves spec skills. Name for me a spec skill that lags out the enemy. Alone. Can't toss in cheap shot there (even if they weren't flying, which they are). I'm waiting. Still waiting. The point is no warrior is going to be lagging out anyone. The mage/communer will pretty much always have plenty of rounds to do things.

And what are you talking about with this whole beating the hell out of them crap? Did you not see the fights Pelgor put up on dios? Or others? At hero range, most fights are against people with significant damage reduction. Hell, communers have sanc just to begin with, and most mages that fight have two out of three when it comes to a/b/s, if not all three. If not also invoker shields. If not also stone skin. If not also protection.

You really need to try the other side and see the joke you refer to as "beating the hell out of" the mage or communer while all your skills fail. While all my skills are failing they are doing everything without needing to worry that their commune or spell fails.

>
>Anyway you still rock in my book. But we can't be right
>everytime, just learn to live with it dude.
>
>Much love
>kads
>

Although you cannot permalag them, I have been able to limit commands where a spellcaster/communer may only get one spell/prayer out in four to six rounds of combat with almost any lagging warrior skill. If you put in failure, especially as a battlerager, mages would be utterly useless against you.

Pelgor coning you once every 6 rounds while eating 6 full rounds of mostly unparried combat including deathblows. Even with 1000 hit points that wears does quickly. You do damage not only through your directed attacks but also just from round combat. An invoker/communer who is not doing directed attacks is not causing any kind of melee damage, and thus is losing, fast.

Sneak and hide never fail at 100%.

Camo never fails at 100%.

Creep never fails at 100% unless you are of one certain race or enlarged.

This is my personal experience. It is possible that now creep can fail right after a fight or something, but the others definitely do not.

You are being deliberately obtuse. Even if I'm wrong about one skill, I'm correct about the other three and my point still stands. I could give blackjack as another example. You never "miss" with your blackjack. The victim either resists or he doesn't. Sound familiar? Sound like... a spell?

Which is just another form of practice.

>Sneak and hide never fail at 100%.
>

Yes, they do. Not often. But sometimes. Happened to me. Asked an imm. Said that's how it's supposed to be.

>Camo never fails at 100%.
>
>Creep never fails at 100% unless you are of one certain race
>or enlarged.
>

Which means sometimes it fails, even at 100%. Haven't played a ranger in a long time so I won't talk about camo and creep. But hide and sneak fail sometimes, even at 100%.

>This is my personal experience. It is possible that now creep
>can fail right after a fight or something, but the others
>definitely do not.

You're wrong, as far as hide and sneak go.

>
>You are being deliberately obtuse. Even if I'm wrong about
>one skill, I'm correct about the other three and my point
>still stands. I could give blackjack as another example. You
>never "miss" with your blackjack. The victim either resists
>or he doesn't. Sound familiar? Sound like... a spell?

That's funny. "Even if I'm wrong, I'm right." The point is, there's no reason communers/mages should have the complete reliability they do. Fighting classes work just as hard to get as good as they can, and sometimes things just get missed, don't work, etc. Same should be with those communers/mages. Sometimes, a person will just misspeak, will say the wrong word, will freeze up and forget something he knows perfectly well, etc etc etc. The mage still gets to do everything it always could, just now it has that small chance of having to do something twice, of having the bad luck that the rest of the classes have when they want to do something, something they've worked to get as good as can be, and it doesn't work.

I've only ever known these to fail when you have enlarged yourself, unless you are going to be pedantic and start talking about being faerie fired, or underwater, or wearing gear that impedes sneaking.

I don't really count it if you fail because you are enlarged. That's equivalent to losing concentration on a spell because you are immolated.

The fact is, some skills do not "fail" when perfected. People have to do some sort of resistance check against them if they even get that!

Love ya big guy