Always been curious about a few these, figured with Umiron's new found love for answering, might get some love :)

1) Does the Locksmith skill add any skill to lockpicking? I'm assuming it's not required for the Locksmith edge or Duergar Locksmith edge.
2) Can you make keys for things above your maximum or current ability to lockpick? (like if you're missing Locksmith)
3) Does binding success take into account dexterity?
4) Does binding success take into account intelligence?
5) Does anything affect the length of time of bindings? (like skill, stats, or those ropes sold in guilds?)
6) How good is boogeyman?
7) How good is tormenting bully?
8) Does dual backstab still almost never work? It always seemed to fail, either because it just never procced or that the first hit did enough damage that the second wouldn't (guessing it would fail the "high enough hp" threshold for backstab).
8a) How do the strongarm/swiftarm/etc edges affect the 2nd backstab?
9) Does Disorienting Isolation mess up their directions or is it just a feint?
10) Is Two For Flinching a full hit?

I know it's a lot but thanks ahead of time!

>Always been curious about a few these, figured with Umiron's
>new found love for answering, might get some love :)
>
>1) Does the Locksmith skill add any skill to lockpicking? I'm
>assuming it's not required for the Locksmith edge or Duergar
>Locksmith edge.

It does not, and your assumptions about the edges are correct.

>2) Can you make keys for things above your maximum or current
>ability to lockpick? (like if you're missing Locksmith)

In theory, yes.

>3) Does binding success take into account dexterity?

Yes. Skill is most critical, though.

>4) Does binding success take into account intelligence?

No.


>5) Does anything affect the length of time of bindings? (like
>skill, stats, or those ropes sold in guilds?)

Skills and level.

>6) How good is boogeyman?

I'd take it.

>7) How good is tormenting bully?

If I thought I was going be using some thug skills against people I'd tied up I would definitely take this.

>8) Does dual backstab still almost never work? It always
>seemed to fail, either because it just never procced or that
>the first hit did enough damage that the second wouldn't
>(guessing it would fail the "high enough hp" threshold for
>backstab).

It's better if for whatever reason you don't think you're going to drop them below the threshold in one shot.

>8a) How do the strongarm/swiftarm/etc edges affect the 2nd
>backstab?

In as much as a better, harder hitting backstab is going to increase the odds that you won't get the opportunity for a second.

>9) Does Disorienting Isolation mess up their directions or is
>it just a feint?

The former.

>10) Is Two For Flinching a full hit?

Looks like it.

>I know it's a lot but thanks ahead of time!

You're welcome.

that theres been a change to the VIS command recently, making people unable to "step out of the shadows" while sleeping/knocked out? So we can finally use SHADOW DRAG?!

It says so on the Code Changes forum.

I did not realize that "vis" worked while asleep. It wasn't a bug or a form of abuse, per se, since I have no reason to believe it wasn't working as designed. However, it struck me as dumb and after a handful of other staff agreed I decided to change it.

What about other commands that take you out of the shadows? I'm sure I dont know all of them, but you can type kill soanso while unconscious, yell, flee, all standard combat commands (kick, flurry, etc), Drink and a whole swath of other ones.

Can you comment on the logic that goes into deciding whether a given command takes a hiding class out of the shadows?

From what I recall, some skills do and some skills don't. Having a skill nuke hide (even when the target isn't in the room) prevents the user from spamming it (in order to catch a passer by) and generally creates an incentive to use triggers.

To use the assassin class as an example, I can imagine potentially wanting to spam the following commands (while hidden) in order to catch someone walking by:

trip
assassinate
strangle
nerve
poison darts
mark of the prey
sigil of pain
phoenix brand

Is there any reason that spamming these when the target is not in the room should cause the assassin to step out?

So much so that I usually alias it so that it gets sent to the mud as "who pk" correctly as intended.

More or less when a character evades a skill that the performer wasn't actually able to do anyways. That situation always came down to the order the MUD checked to do things, and evade came first since it's a blanket option on everything.

I'd assume that the game is first just checking the flags on whether the command is a "public/no hide" command, or if it's a subtle one. THEN it checks if the target's in the room.

1. How much is scroll use affected by intelligence over just skill%?
1a. Does anything change the effectiveness of the scroll or just failure to recite?
1b. Assuming Arcane Lore just removes the thief-to-mage penalty for failure?
2. Hypnotize went through several rounds of loving... any thought on its viable these days?
3. Can you still not use Hypnotize to initiate combat or even outside of combat? (say against a bound target with no blindfold)
4. Are there any locks that only a duergar could pick? Assuming someone takes adv picklock and the locksmith edge with the best lockpicks.

And lastly a fun one: what do you think is the most unused thief ability/edge that you're surprised hasn't been used effectively yet?

>1. How much is scroll use affected by intelligence over just
>skill%?

Skill(s) matter more than intelligence, but intelligence helps. If I were using scrolls primarily to prep I probably wouldn't be too concerned about a few points of int, but if I was going to recite on people offensively I'd probably aim for a higher int race.

>1a. Does anything change the effectiveness of the scroll or
>just failure to recite?

Not sure what you mean. The level of the spell being cast via the scroll isn't affected by anything relevant to being a thief, just how often you fail.

>1b. Assuming Arcane Lore just removes the thief-to-mage
>penalty for failure?

Thieves have a different branch of logic for their success roll on reciting. AL sometimes provides an addition bonus that can (under the right conditions) scale up the success rate a regular mage would enjoy.

>2. Hypnotize went through several rounds of loving... any
>thought on its viable these days?

I know almost nothing about it. The various affects it can have on victims look pretty annoying (though sometimes in subtle ways), but it looks like one of those skills that is going to shine against someone with ####ty saves but be pretty ineffective against the not so low hanging fruit.

>3. Can you still not use Hypnotize to initiate combat or even
>outside of combat? (say against a bound target with no
>blindfold)

You must be fighting.

>4. Are there any locks that only a duergar could pick?
>Assuming someone takes adv picklock and the locksmith edge
>with the best lockpicks.

In theory. I can't say for sure because it's a lot of math and area authors can pick from a range of values. That said, it would be difficult for most area authors to know exactly what value to use in order to make a lock pickable only by characters with certain permutations of skills and edges.

>And lastly a fun one: what do you think is the most unused
>thief ability/edge that you're surprised hasn't been used
>effectively yet?

I'm not sure. My experience with thieves is pretty limited. I know that in general we've seen some interesting (and often, most likely, unintended) things done with poisoners.

Off the cuff, I'm going to go with the two Veils and LotA from the Mystic path. They're not flashy and you can certainly make an argument for how and why the points could be better spent, but I think they provide some interesting (and unique) utility and safety.

(EDIT: Less so LotA, and more so the Veils.)

Seems that there's a new restriction on discuss guildmaster "prereq" and you can't do it at level 1. Any idea what level you can do it on? Would be really helpful to get this at level 1 so we can make a char and not ask these kind of questions here...

I was trying to figure out the requirements for Master Kidnapper, Tormenting Bully, Boogeyman, and Two for Flinching without having to level and get attached to a char.

Also aren't the veils combined just equal to scarab robes :)

nt

asd

nt

>>10) Is Two For Flinching a full hit?
>
>Looks like it.

Checking through the feedback on the other forum, some are saying this doesn't land much - same for Made You Blink. Is that because say a svirf/duergar would do better than human or is it just a small chance?