In the interest of making battles more diverse, and less of one, shot, one kill, waiting for the random number generator to fall you way, I am wondering what the populous would think of limiting the number of times a person can be attempted to be put to sleep before they are immune to such for 10 to 15 hours (ticks).

Reasons for it:
1. Encourages people to fight necromancers one on one. And therefore encourages a more dynamic and enjoyable fights, which require more strategy on both parts besides the victim doing 'dirt 1." or "murder 1." and the necromancer/anti-paladin doing "sleep %target;flee;!:!;!".

2. Forces individuals to increase their understanding of the class. A necromancer may have to utilize scourage in battle instead of banking on the sleep.

3. One hit dominating skills that require little or no effort (assassination being one that does require effort and is more balanced) distracts from the game and actually makes people not want to fight the certain individual unless they can gang that person down, with little or no risk.

4. Personal experience. After a necromancer had failed sleep on me 12 times, and then finally got it on the 13th time, I vowed to myself I would never fight this person again unless I could gang them down. I survived the encounter, but only on sheer and absolute luck.

5. I personally do not believe that this kind of limit would take away the spirit of the spell. Its a viable and deadly spell, yes, but it should not be a all encompassing way of fighting someone. I believe 3 attempts at basically winning the fight is a good number, and that the victim deserves to force the necromancer into other tactics if he has geared successfully to survive a spellcrafted sleep spell 3 times.

Anyway what do you think? I don't see it as anything but a good change.

But then I've always thought sleep was stupid.

Another solution would be to simply reduce the duration of the sleep spell - to like 1-2 hours.

It's pretty reduced already, honestly.

When I started playing CF it lasted hours = caster level.

I vaguely remember that maledictions did not wake you when you were severely hurt, either. Did anyone survive?

They used to sell a drink in the village that would poison you weakly. Ragers would drink it to wake themselves up if they got slept.

Man, I miss those long as hell duration sleeps. I would sleep, and spell someone up with curses and blindness and ####, then just leave them there.

Horrible Idea, thumbs down.

There are MUCH more annoying methods of forcing a state of "sleep" on someone that the spell given to necromancers and anti-paladins. Stun, for instance, is on the top of my list of "annoying as hell" abilities. Repeat jackings are just as bad. All forms of sleep should fail for a GOOD, LONG amount of time after they fail once. Why? Because the person is now alert. It would be like trying to sucker punch someone who is staring right at you, ready to take action to defend against the assault -- it just doesn't add up.

Blackjack has a 3 tick timer if it fails and a 5 tick timer if it succeeds. That person can't be jacked until the timer is up. I'd say that's plenty long.

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I'm not taking anything away from them except doing the same thing over and over and over. Maybe move it up to 5 times. They can always disengage if they really want to, but spamming it over and over because you have a better link than someone else doesn't serve anything but be a "Fun hatin'" spell. They have a whole boatload of other spells that can be utilized IN BATTLE. I bet 90% of all necro maladict spells are cast on sleeping people. Is that the original intent of the immortals? To make a class a one hit wonder? When was the last time you saw a higher level necromancer cast scourage in battle? I have not seen it since Zorszaul.

You're right. They should stand toe-to-toe with a pincering warrior and use their "in battle" spells.

because the outlanders repeatedly attack people from chameleon and when they are getting beat they chameleon again instead of using their in battle skills and spells. Why they chose to use such an advantageous ability is just stupid to me.....stupid I say!

-----Abernyte

I cast it on a cloud giant outlander trying to retrieve, and he died from it. It was the only spell I cast.

I will dispel the defense that if I had 13 sleep attempts on me I'm not doing anything right, but sometimes, the RNG makes you miss a dirt kick as well as someone's link being better and slipping in between spamming dirt 1. and/or murder 1.

I am also under the belief that just running from these kind of battles not only is dumb (makes it less fun for everyone involved) but it is also not a viable solution to making a mud enjoyable. More fighting means more fun, but less fighting and more instant fight enders (which sleep is) is not fun. There is a certain level of tactics which is enjoyable, but at some point, it takes away from a very fun part of the game, actual combat. Thanks.

You are aware that dirt is a two round lag command, right? The necromancers weakness is that they are fragile. Just lag them somehow.

Or be a necromancer yourself and see how easy it is.