Lots of times people will play a class and not know what the skills/spells really do. The help files are vague, and I realize that's intentional.

So, what they'll do is grab an IC buddy and use said skills on him, then have him report (either IC or OOC) the effects of those skills. If done the "right" way, IC, this usually involves some really contorted speech in order to express "-9 STR" in IC terms.

My solution: allow people to use skills/spells on themselves with no penalty.

Want to know what it feels like to be hamstrung? Hamstring yourself. Etc.

Unlike putting this info in the help files, doing it this way means you must actually *have* the skill in question in order to experiment with it. So you'd still need to roll and rank a dagger spec in order to experiment with dagger spec moves.

Perhaps the guildmasters could offer a service that the guild member could purchase which allows them to fully comprehend the scope of a skill or spell. Similar to "identify", but with skills/spells/songs instead of objects.

There are so many variables that affect all these things, I don't see that being feasible.

Yeah I'm not necessarily opposed to being able to do something LIKE that in principle, but it seems like a lot of work for something that's more easily addressed in easier ways.

In my head, I would think of it as only being available for some of the higher-level abilities, which would drastically cut down the work. Let me also say that I have no idea just how much work it would be since I would have no idea how to implement it, so forgive me if I'm a little cavalier with other folks' time. :)

For example, I wouldn't see the guildmaster taking the time to explain the effects of "dirt kicking" or "kick" to a young fighter. Perhaps the "explanations" could even be sold as reading material within the guild rather than an interaction with the guildmaster.

In my head, I would think of it as only being available for some of the higher-level abilities, which would drastically cut down the work. Let me also say that I have no idea just how much work it would be since I would have no idea how to implement it, so forgive me if I'm a little cavalier with other folks' time. :)

For example, I wouldn't see the guildmaster taking the time to explain the effects of "dirt kicking" or "kick" to a young fighter. Perhaps the "explanations" could even be sold as reading material within the guild rather than an interaction with the guildmaster.

Dirt kick is precisely the sort of skill where a newbie needs the benefits explained.

Otherwise they think KICK is better because it does caps damage.

In my head, I would think of it as only being available for some of the higher-level abilities, which would drastically cut down the work. Let me also say that I have no idea just how much work it would be since I would have no idea how to implement it, so forgive me if I'm a little cavalier with other folks' time. :)

For example, I wouldn't see the guildmaster taking the time to explain the effects of "dirt kicking" or "kick" to a young fighter. Perhaps the "explanations" could even be sold as reading material within the guild rather than an interaction with the guildmaster.

My first thought is, there's a reason why there's a penalty for using offensive spells on yourself (e.g., to prevent backstab). Granted, the direction the game has evolved in over the years has made this less of a concern than it once was, and there are other (although typically less convienient or more situational) ways to accomplish that.

My second thought is that roughly 0% of the offensive skills in the game are written in a way that this would actually work without taking the time to rewrite or at least add code to every one of them individually.

I don't get it. Why would you backstab yourself? Or are you saying they're written the way they are to prevent you accidentally backstabbing yourself? I guess that makes sense.

Didn't know it would be such a pain to code. I agree that makes it not so worthwhile.

Was just thinking of various skills that do "something" to their target, but where the caster/singer/communer/user can't really be sure from the echo what "something" really is. Without doing it to an ally and having that person tell them wth it does.

You INJURE yourself, and thus make yourself too hurt for backstab.

The penalty ie. percentage loss in a spell/skill for using it on yourself hails back to the days when assassins had hellfire and you could assassinate/backstab and perform some other skills on opponents where the only limitations to such were their current degree of health. So you'd have assassins popping themselves with a hellfire now and again to keep from getting insta-gibbed by fellow assassins or dualbackstabbed into oblivion etc.

Would it be possible to remove the percentage skill loss? I know I've been honing lowbie skills moving from room to room and doing c 'insert spell' 2. and had a mob happen to walk in just then and eaten a little damage but lost out on some points in said skill. That being said, I'm also fine with the argument that if you wanna be lazy like that you have to eat the consequences if that happens...

>My first thought is, there's a reason why there's a penalty
>for using offensive spells on yourself (e.g., to prevent
>backstab).

There's lots of ways to take a little damage if you want to. Logs from the frigid wastes is one obvious one.