Now Manacles has been a topic of hot debate for a long time. The problem is that it is desinged to basically #### over anyone who gets hit with them and well people don't like that. I have played several tribunals as well as several people who fought against tribunal. My outlook on manacles is that it does need to be changed but not neccesarily toned down, just made different.


as it stands right now manacle works 100% of the time, it negates spell casting, severely drops dextereity, halves ability to parry, and makes moving suck.

That partially cripples fighters, does nearly nothing against clerics, and destroys mages.

My suggestion is to make manacles more dynamic. In real life manacles are used in 3 ways. To manacle wrists to each other, to manacle legs together, and to manacle a criminal to an oficer or object. They also are very difficult to put on a victim unless they are subdued.

My sugestion is to make manacle work in 2 ways.

Manacle <victim> <wrist or leg or arm>

If manacle of wrist is done it joins the tribunal and the victim. All movement then becomes a power struggle. You can even have it so that you have an affect on one of each others arms. So you can cause them to mess up a blow or a block or even a spell. This would be primarily strength based in this regard. Movement for both characters would be more difficult, but it prevents victims from fleeing from the special guards. The manacles can break.

against a sleeping foe a tribunal can attempt to manacle their hands and legs. Manacling arms makes it near impossible for the victim to parry or to strike or do any casting. Manacling legs makes sneaking impossible as well as any move using feet or moving quickley. The weight of manacles can possibly cause flying victims to fall to the ground.

What this essentially does is makes manacles a very powerful skill, with giving everyone a chance. though to be fair with the wrist manacle you would need a timer on special guards otherwise a healer can just sit there as they call guards.


I know this is not well written cause I am a little drunk but I hope it gets the idea across. It would make manacles need to be improved upon, and not instant death for everyone. Though I would hate to be the rank 20 that got manacled to a rank 51. Or The gnome mage tribby who tries to manacle a cloud giant and gets dragged out of town.

There are could be different versions of manacles.

1) Weakest version - only partially hinders Criminal.
For example could make all skills/spells/communes fail X% of time (Say 20%).

Can be applied by any Tribunal on any criminal within protected area & Spire. These manacles work 100%, cant be removed. Short duration.


2) PK only version of manacles: Work like artery - can be used in fight but you miss - you get hit. Have lag on use.

These manacles could have a variety and would try to hinder different aspects of criminal abilities like casting/communing/melee fighting/fleeing/hiding.

These have long duration but can be removed like bindings (sawn off) given sufficient time.


3) Strongest version of manacles (bloody shackles) - are given to Vindicators and Judiciars(spelling?).

Would do all of 2) but could only be used to initiate combat on unaware/knocked-out target (cant engage, flee and spam 'shackles X') and have huge cost associated with them.

These cant be removed.

===
I used manacles as a general term.
All these types could be different skills given to different ranks in Spire.


My $0.02

-=NNNick=-

PS Allow special guards on Outskirts of Galadon. You cant flag people there but can kill/chase criminals off from there.

nt

"New payment options w/ Iron Realms"

Manacles only work on wanted people. Manacles only work on wanted people. Manacles only work on wanted people. Manacles also only work in the city. (Except bloody manacles, those work anywhere and bloody hurt, BUT STILL ONLY ON WANTED PEOPLE.)

Other powers which I'd put ahead of manacles on the power list such as black shroud, and deathblow work everywhere, on anyone. Sure you need a healer to get blackshroud, but theres almost always at least one imperial healer.

Thank you.

A serious point of the Outlander cabal is to raid the tribunals. Retrieving isn't a warrant, but raiding is. Mages should not be almost utterly shut down by a skill that a level 15 inductee can use on them.

Sincerely,
Timmy

.. and they're not.

I know, I know, you don't agree. That's fine. I just really don't care and I'm damned tired of hearing it.

It's more the fact that it's so horribly unbalanced in terms of how powerful it is, dependant on class, and also the fact that it's such a low level skill.

As for your examples of other cabal powers...
1) Black Shroud is lvl 40. It's something HIGH LEVEL healers can use to help anyone. Also, manacles is more an offensive power, in that it stays on the criminal as a malediction. Black Shroud, is defensive.

2) Deathblow gets more powerful as the person gains levels. Again, no super-nasty power from it til hero-range. Also, even less out-of-pk problems as it's a combat skill. No level 45 healers making life miserable for lvl 15 Fortress, and no lvl 15 Tribunal making life miserable for lvl 45 Outlander.

As to manacles itself, it's as everyone said. It utterly destroys two classes, substantial hampers about four-five others, and has utterly minimal effect on...another four to five. Personally, this is what I would generally like to see -

A) Try to give a little more balance one way or the other as to messing with all classes. Perhaps remove the spellcasting negation, and turn it into something like the immolation or pillar effect (whichever it is), where you have a certain chance that manacles will impede your attempt to do something, and you fail. Perhaps allow the character a better chance at success the more times they've been wanted/manacled, counted in strict numbers, or time.

B) Keep manacles usable out of PK, however possibly also add a timer to manacles and a chance to escape or break free of them, based on perhaps level or again somewhat the frequency of criminality. If I'm this hero warrior, I think I'd know a few more tricks than some new Tribunal recruit. Let a Tribunal immediately manacle once the past ones wear off like it is now, but if they fail, give it say a 2-3 tick span before they can try again.

These thoughts are generally to keep manacles how they are, but possibly address the issues people seem to be commenting on of low-level characters so drastically affecting high level ones, as well as balancing their effect. I think the Imms could manage to determine percentages and scaling effectively enough that the relative power stays the same, though with it being weakened in some situations, I could see new criminals, and hero tribunals becoming more effective with the skill than current to compensate.

Now, this is just my thoughts on one thing that seems reasonable. Hopefully it will prove to be constructive rather than complaints, or perhaps it will be tossed as useless. Perhaps the Imms have *already* figured out what they want to do with it, whether leave it the same or modify it and are just trying to get the work done. Anyways, I'm done for now, feel free to comment on anything constructive you want to.

I can see some arguable flaws with it though. For example, a necro or ap. Manacles may make them fail sleep a few times, but when they succeed, manacles are not going to stop them spelling someone up.

That said, I would be in favor of giving manacles some power against communers say, and less against magi. That might redress the issue of druids being able to effectively ignore manacles whilst magi have to take big steps to fight with them on. Maybe give manacles a percentage chance to stop most skills or spells, equal to the level of the magistrate whose manacles they are, and a 2x level of manacler chance to prevent recall or teleport casting (but potions still work).

i.e. a lvl 50 char gives a 50% chance of manacles preventing a skill being used, if the skill is something like pincer, but no penalty to a skill like bash. A 15% penalty to communing or casting if manacled by a lvl 15 trib, but a 51% chance if manacled by a hero.

>I can see some arguable flaws with it though. For example, a necro >or ap. Manacles may make them fail sleep a few times, but when they >succeed, manacles are not going to stop them spelling someone up.

So?

>That said, I would be in favor of giving manacles some power >against communers say, and less against magi. That might redress >the issue of druids being able to effectively ignore manacles >whilst magi have to take big steps to fight with them on. Maybe >give manacles a percentage chance to stop most skills or spells, >equal to the level of the magistrate whose manacles they are, and a >2x level of manacler chance to prevent recall or teleport casting > but potions still work).

>i.e. a lvl 50 char gives a 50% chance of manacles preventing a >skill being used, if the skill is something like pincer, but no >penalty to a skill like bash. A 15% penalty to communing or casting >if manacled by a lvl 15 trib, but a 51% chance if manacled by a >hero.

That said, let's just think up a different power.

The concept I had would work on any player. *ANY* inputted skill would have an X% chance of failing. Spells, skills, songs, communes, even stuff like walking/where/etc.

As for seperating out bash, pincer, etc, I've never been a coder sort, but considering the number of various abilities there are, it's not effective to break things out by individual skills unless it's a small few (like transportation spells).

though to be fair with the wrist manacle you would need a timer on special guards otherwise a healer can just sit there as they call guards.

Guards have timers. Guards have timers. Guards have timers.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

reading for comprehension and retention? Cause all of these posts about special guards not having timers is beginning to make me think that the playerbase is either profoundly retarded or has a reading disability.

Make something for the CF-store that says "Guards have timers." It'll have to be something like a mouse pad or something so you won't be getting weird looks all of the time, but something to remind people that guards have timers would be nice.