Binder/thug used to seem viable as an option but nowadays I am met with this:
You hit the bard in the back of the head with a blackjack.

13320tnl (civilized)> hid
sn
You step out of the shadows.
You stuff a gag in the bard's mouth.

13320tnl (civilized)> You grab the bard's legs and begin wrapping rope around his ankles.

13320tnl (civilized)>
Your rope breaks as you try to cinch it about the bard's legs.

13320tnl (civilized)> You wrap a blindfold around the bard's eyes.

13320tnl (civilized)>
You are hungry.
The bard wakes and stands up.
The bard rubs the lump on the back of his head.

13320tnl (civilized)> He isn't sleeping... he'll catch you!

OR

You attempt to hide.

13320tnl (civilized)> You hit the valley elf in the back of the head with a blackjack.

13320tnl (civilized)>
You are hungry.

13320tnl (civilized)> You step out of the shadows.
The shoddily done gag falls out of the valley elf's mouth.
13320tnl (civilized)> You grab the valley elf's legs and begin wrapping rope around her ankles.

13320tnl (civilized)>
You are hungry.
The valley elf wakes and stands up.
The valley elf rubs the lump on the back of her head.
13320tnl (civilized)>
She isn't sleeping... she'll catch you!

These are just two example of what appears to happen to me more often than not. Now truss and cheapshot were seen as overpowered and thats fine because the thief points made it impossible to have them now without immortal intervention but the reduced timer on blackjack reduces the effectiveness of your thief tremendously. As a thief you are not the strongest combatant so need either your bindings or scrolls or steal or cheapshot invariably. With this short timer, I cant even get the bindings on, let alone steal a return/teleport potion or sleepingdisarm. It just appears to have made thieves limp. Any chance it can be put back to normal????

-----Abernyte

More binder skills = longer blackjack timer.

.

Splntrd

But they shouldn't need blackjack to rob someone blind, either.

In your eyes, what is so dangerous about a decent length blackjack? Other than thug (for pk) and city ties (for stealing), most thieves have a lot of trouble in combat when they can't put their adversary to sleep, and yet still their sleeping effects are usually short lived.

Now add in something like an A-P, who when played right can kick a lot of ass, even without charges, and oh yeah, they get a 6-8 hour sleep to add onto their skillset. Not to mention, A-P sleep seems pretty damn reliable lately. If thieves only "need" a two tick blackjack most of the time, why do A-P's need a 5+ tick sleep?

Ever seen mastered blackjack on a high-dex race? You fail maybe 1 in 30 times?

Not to mention, its a skill, so it cuts through spellbane and other such defenses, and on top of this, thieves are the only hiding class to have a reliable way to put you to sleep.

I imagine if ap's could hide, their sleep would be nerfed as well.


Blackjack is an amazing skill even with a 0 timer.

Make a list of ways in which you can beat sleep.

Make a list of ways in which you can beat blackjack (assuming a victim who can't see hidden).

The sleep list should be many times longer than the blackjack list. Some of the items on the sleep list will seem stupid, yet don't appear on the blackjack list, such as "be fighting" or "gear for spell save". Therein is most of your justification.

Additionally: I can't think of any save at the moment that's generally easier to make than the A-P sleep save. (That is, sometimes it's as easy/hard as most things, other times it's easier, and A-Ps never have spellcraft... it doesn't really get better for you as a victim than that.) If you're routinely failing that save, every spellcaster in the game in competent hands can probably tear you a new one.

When all the sleep timers were reduced, I noticed bards sleep was still circa 10 hours long. One of the reasons I thought that sleep was reduced to a more 'as little as needed' timer, was to avoid the rampant knock-out ganks that there were at one time (though mostly using blackjack). At the time I had a dwarven paladin (Kaerdil, one of Grurks earlier pallies) and I had hoped that having bards sneak in and sleep/gank me were long over. Was I shocked when I got knocked out in the past and had time for a 4-man imperial gank to come upon a weaponless, distorted and fiended dwarf.

So why the thief nerf without the bards?

Yhorian.

Two things come to mind immediately:

1) Bard sleep goodfulness swings a fair bit on instrument, repetoire, and some other factors. It can be very good, but is not universally good for all bards at all times.

2) See my post above. Take the A-P sleep list, cross off Eyes of Flame and one or two other choice items, but then tack on another half-dozen things off the top of my head.

has always been a sore point with me.

It's bad enough that PC's don't aggro, but its (as far as I know) one of the few area attacks that doesn't trigger aggro.

I am guessing this is for game balance reasons? Maybe Nepenthe or someone can comment?

1) As mentioned by Tac, bard sleep does not initiate combat.

2) It is an area affect sleep, that is you can both sleep multiple targets, and targets that you cannot actually see to target.

The one thing I don't mind about bard sleep and why I don't think it would need less of a timer in general is in 1 vs 1 situation, I find bard sleep easier to survive then necro/AP or a skilled thiefs blackjack. Not saying they are easier to kill just easier to live through being sung up then spelled up or completely binded IMO.

I was that bard!

I still find that I cannot use my arsenal of skills until the upper 30s or low 40s, when I would much rather be using them earlier.

The solution I see is to power rank to 40, stopping only to spam blackjack. Then maybe I can get a chance to attempt a tie.