Wed Feb 11 07:13:05 2009

At 1 o'clock PM, Day of Thunder, 3rd of the Month of the Grand Struggle
on the Theran calendar Rynald perished, never to return.

Race:	arial
Class:	thief
Level:	41
Alignment:	Neutral
Ethos:	Chaotic
Cabal:	BATTLE, the BattleRagers, Haters of Magic
Age:	26
Hours:	128

Taking knife(8) + bribe mercenary(1) + blackjack(8) + doubleback(2) + precision strike(5) + improved hide(4) + grapple(2) + separate(6) instead of acrobatics(32+12) + earclap(50+2) + prey on the weak(52+4)?

Boo to you too, but in a kind way :)

The last thief revamp happened in the middle of this character, really to his detriment. He was stuck with skills that used to be part of paths that he didn't want that became unpathed, and generally what he already had became more expensive.

The build I had in mind for him was doable before the revamp, and it's doable still with a fresh character rolled after the revamp -- but not one that has circumstances change this way midstream.

n/t

n/t

n/t

FTR

As an experiment I've decided to cop to playing Rynald.

I should have deleted him a month or two ago; during his life I changed jobs, and things related to that took up a lot of my time and energy for a while there. I thought I'd find the spark again, but I never did. Because of that, my memory's a little dull already on his life and times and these goodbyes will be less specific than they otherwise might be.

Playing Battle, as always, was a mixed bag. I definitely took some deaths I wouldn't have with any non-Battle character, but I generally had a good time doing it.

Battle: I'm sorry for hogging the Mageslayer spot dormant for a while there. Most of you were cool.

Everyone else: Most of you were cool, too.

It probably won't be today, but I'll see if I can post a few logs. Most of what I have saved isn't anything to write home about, but there are a few gems.

Solid Rager.

I know you (and other imms) have been coy about owning up to your past morts, but I speak for a lot of people when I say I love to know the "DMs" are playing too. Not only does it raise the game for the rest of us, but it reassures people that that writers and coders and empowerers haven't lost touch with why they started playing in the first place.

Keep on keepin' on, Nep.

I thought I'd save us all a lot of time by getting this out of the way. Thief change came because imm played one! I only died to you because you snooped me with your imm! Yay, I killed Nepenthe! You screwed my link over, so you could kill me. You secretly coded quad-backstab for this character. I was going to kill you, but the dog ate my password.

Good luck with the new job. :P

The thief revamp was really hard on me, mechanically.

I definitely took my time levelling, but I had a plan in mind for hero. If the thief revamp hadn't happened until after I heroed, I think I could have made it work. If it'd happened before I rolled, I think I could have made it work.

As is, I got to be level 40ish when it happened, with a bunch of skills I wouldn't have taken if I had had the choice, and the realization that, even if I heroed, my thief point tally would never become positive.

C'est la vie. Sometimes change is the elevator, and sometimes it's the shaft. Even I don't get to be exempt from that.

You rock Nepersauce.

From a player perspective, how did you find the new thieves? What do you think was underpowered versus what was overpowered?

I'll assume that you'll probably get a PBF (or someone else will for you), but as I didn't have any interaction with you, what path did you take?

Your playing style is different from a lot of other players', but as you have the unique perspective of the Wizard sometimes and being Dorothy other times, I'm curious of your thoughts. Share, dude.

This isn't my first 'new' thief, if new in this case is post thief skills split.

In this case, I was split pickpocket/thug, so, not as different as I could be from the way I played thief in the olden days. I don't know, it worked pretty well for me.

I don't think it lacks for power -- there wasn't a death I took that would have happened to me playing a non-Battle character, and with the exception of a death in the Rites, all of my deaths were without powers and involved in a fight that was, strictly speaking, not very smart trying to get the head back.

There are people you can't beat in a straight up fight on their terms, but you don't have to. Sometimes I'd kill someone and they'd bitch that I only could do it because I caught them beat up -- welcome to fighting a thief.

I do wonder now if what I had in mind would have worked out at hero the way I'd been hoping. The timing of the thief revamp dashed that plan and I wasn't as excited about trying to do it missing a couple skills I felt were really crucial to my strategy.

What I learned through playing Corticas was that knife was a crucial skill (or something that could open combat and either lag or last one round) and I was missing it. Had I had knife, I would have been able to do a lot nastier things.

Did you have anything to do with the coding of the new thief system?

>Did you have anything to do with the coding of the new thief
>system?

I don't think I did.

I chilled with Daevryn! On a side note though, damn was it annoying to have played my Magistrate Rywald the year before, and then try hanging out with a guy named Rynald the next year, heh.

Your roles are always a pleasure for me.

I always enjoyed fighting you. There was a few weeks when we were both on at the same time pretty much every night and had some good fights. It was 1-0 in my favor, but there was one fight you had me very close to death.

Were you really in the room after my scourge got you or did you just make that up IC when you said I looted your coins? I was mad at myself for taking the gold, and frankly not sure why I did.

When I knew you were on, I was always flying, so you cost me tons of gold :)

Noctrell

>Were you really in the room after my scourge got you or did
>you just make that up IC when you said I looted your coins? I
>was mad at myself for taking the gold, and frankly not sure
>why I did.

I was there. Yay, sneak.

Rynald was the kind of guy to seize on any reason why a guy like Noctrell couldn't be trusted, and it worked out pretty well in that respect.

Probably it was stupid of me to come at you that time on the water with no head, but I figured I wanted to get it back and I knew there wasn't any way that was happening without killing you first, so I rolled the dice on it.