>Would it possible to get an orc mob of the village that
>could identify or otherwise tell you the properties of a
>warbanner? ... You could have the orc mob do ID's of regular
>items too, similar to Alduk, and I wouldn't complain.
>
>I have some ideas from the village, but these don't feel very
>orcish to me. Real orcs test things by smashing their enemies
>and paying attention.
>
>It's such a lost art.
>
>valguarnera@carrionfields.com


While I can understand that having an ID'ing mob isn't very orcish, I don't believe that identify is so much an IC mechanism as one for players to be able to make informed decisions. While I can understand figuring out the finer points of a skill by trial and observation, it just doesn't seem that easy with these two skills and I've played quite a few orcs with war banner. For instance:

'FASHION WAR BANNER' FASHIONWARBANNER
Syntax: fashionwarbanner <PC corpse>

By using this skill, an Orc uses a fallen foe as the source of materials for a banner used in declaration of war against a given race. Although the target corpse is not destroyed when this skill is used, some of its possessions will be used to empower the banner itself. When carried by a group leader, the banner confers beneficial properties to all Orcs within the group so long as they are with the banner's bearer. The banner raises morale, is useful to other Orc skills, and provides increased savageness to the bearer against the race for which it was fashioned.

Inspired by the drive for war beneath a bloody banner, the banner's bearer also gains an extra attack with their weapon.

From the helpfile I know that it takes items from a corpse, gives a group of orcs benefits, raises morale, is "useful to orc skills", gives an extra attack, and provides "increased savageness".

From observation I know that it gives something like an extra vuln worth of damage to the race you warbannered, increases savage feeding damage (which may be part of the same thing), and generally seems to make you fight better.

Now, I've stated before that I'm not 100% convinced that warbanners are always better than dual wielding, even against the right race. Part of the reason for that is that I have no quantifiable information on what a warbanner does for me beyond +1 attack. Yes it increases damage, but by how much? I know a second axe adds +6 dam and +4 hit and 28 avg and 1-3 dual wield strikes. That is much more quantified than "more damage", but is still better than say... smear:

SMEAR
Syntax: smear <PC or NPC corpse> <armor>

Orcish berserkers may use the innards from a corpse of a fallen foe to ritualistically decorate a large item of armor, such as a full helmet, a shield, or something that can cover the torso, arms, or legs. Eviscerating a corpse in this manner spills many of the internal fluids, rendering the corpse useless for Exsanguination or similar actions which require them.

Smeared innards enhance the armor in question, with the side effect of making it so that only another orc familiar with this ritual could bear to wear it. More powerful foes, especially adventurers of repute, inspire the most satisfying and potent 'artwork' from orcs.

In addition to enhancing morale and related benefits, orcs gain additional protective value from the unholy power of Smeared armor.

From the helpfile I know orcs gain "additional protective value" from smear. Now I would have assumed (before you posted the information on announcements) this was pretty much anything but AC, and give the relative uselessness of the armor skills, this may or may not be any sort of factor. That leave "enhancing morale and related benefits", which quite frankly, means very little especially given the lack of information in the morale helpfile and the general lack of understanding from the playerbase at large of it's usefulness.

I'm not saying you should spell out exactly what a new skill does, far from the contrary, however, there should be a way to figure it out. For the vast majority of items, that is identify. For the majority of skills/spells it is trial (possibly with an ally) and observation coupled with helpfiles. For war banner and possibly smear, it seems like neither method will give you any solid information. It's not like random elf warrior gets an affect like skill: warbanner increases damage by +33% when you are fighting them, and ID is useless.

I like playing orcs, I really want them see be playable at higher levels, but I can't find a reason to waste the time with out again when I don't even have a solid clue what some of their skills really do.

I apologize in advance for any offensive tone, it is not my intent, just want to spark a discussion.

The combined impact of that, even at a low Smear skill, is worth the practice slots in my opinion.

If I'm reading this correctly, the potency of the smear skill is affected by your skill %. I'm going to also assume that it can only improve when you use it.

Now the good part is that it you can use it on NPC corpses, but chances are you aren't going to be perfected a level 48 skill as a dumb as brick (which orcs are). Thus is a skill, much like desecration/desecrated hide, rendered of dubious usefulness by the restrictions on using it/the difficulty in improving at it.

>Now, I've stated before that I'm not 100% convinced that
>warbanners are always better than dual wielding, even against
>the right race.

One on one, I agree. The extra attack is something I added to war banner at some point so it's a better match for dual wielding in that case. Using a war banner was never meant to be the clear win there.

Where war banner really shines is if you've got any other help at all that can benefit from it, such as another orc PC or a decent enslaved NPC that can benefit from it.

Can we make them weight a slightly less ridiculous amount? If they aren't a definite win one vs one (+ slave or no) against the race they are designed to target, then using it against any other race is (I think) obviously a poor choice.

Being that they weigh 30(?) lbs or so, it isn't like you can carry around one for every race, which seeing as they aren't all that powerful, seems like an unnecessary restriction, given all the other restrictions applying to their creation/rotting etc.

I hadn't been playing an orc and saw some Sick sick warbanner action that made we think Day-um!

I'm just not going to reveal it though.

I would say that only the largest orcs warbanner in a group should function and you can't pass them to other orcs.

I would like to be able to drop them in a room where they could act like a weak fire vuln mob that couldn't move and that could be killed but allowed the orcs to benifit and dual wield.