In an earlier thread of mine I was bitching about the changes to weight/str and when you are trying to flee and folks mentioned they'd like to see it made harder to word from combat for some reason. I've played plenty of backstabbers and after some consideration I can see SOME merit to this so I came up with this following idea.

The 'Suprise' hidden variable.

What this would do is determine the amount of lag a person trying to word or flee out of combat should receive on an INITIAL encounter with an enemy attacking them. It would mostly benefit hidden classes.

I don't know jack about pulses and all that junk so I'll keep this simple.

The way I look at it is that to a varying degree a person should depending on HOW they are attacked sustain a chance that they are completely 'suprised' by the attack and thus take a moment to respond to the attacker.

To a degree it should act like 'stalk' but it is just there accumulating in the background. If I can see a person coming on where then its less effective. If I am an elf and I notice an orc in the area on where it is MUCH less effective because not only can I see you as coming but there is a large chance due to align and racial choices that the only thought on the orcs mind is to kill me. No 'suprise' there in other words.

However if I am a thief and have been following you from Hamsah to Tir-Talath without being seen and you finally stop to buy a potion at the mages tower there, I should have a chance that the suprise of my backstab is so jarring (or if assassin my assassinate) that it takes you a moment (whatever a moment is in pulses that is deemed fair) to respond.

This is so folks as mentioned can still word out of combat but at the very least the attacker has a chance to use a lagging move before the person immediatly words away the moment they are attacked as most often is what happenes now.

...getting attacked while blind or while being unable to see your opponent had a decent chance to lag you an addition round? Just enough to get another round of attacks in but depending on the attack you used not always enough to get another move in before they flee.

This way it wouldn't just be a straight benefit to hidden classes or a death sentence to the blind.

In many cases.

Eg you've been spelled up by a Necro and are running blind.

You get summoned, and hit a wall since you are blind. Then they attack and lag you and their zombie army does 800 hp of damage.

that the player might have known (via unrelated means, say a warning by a cabalmate) he was going to be attacked, yet the character is still surprised?

Massively tone down damage and death blow.

nt

nt

n/t