Alright, in all the years I've played CF, I never did go for an antipal, so this view is from the outside of the class, developed over around seven years and spurred by some comments by Sabiene down below.
1st point/question: From what I understand, the AntiPaladin puts a bit of himself/his essence into a weapon when he converts it to an unholy one. Now this would, in my opinion, make it something of an extension of himself/while also tied to him through darker powers(thus the fine penalties when it is destroyed). One thing I have not understood is why the weapons are therefore not made no drop*. This would eliminate many of the, in my opinion, poor strategies developed over the years for destroying one of the weapons and would make them more of an extension of the dark knight himself. Now yes, this makes the weapons harder to destroy of course in some ways, but I have always thought to destroy a weapon you should have to kill the anti-paladin who wields it. Now here consider how painful and difficult it is for an evil to destroy/seperate a paladin from a Defiance even, which is not attuned to him. I guess I see it as he has worked hard to obtain all these charges, everyone should have to work just as hard to take them away, a nice challenge.
*The no drop would be limited to the anti-paladin himself, whereas to all others it would be just as it is now. And this would reflect the AP not willing to part with his weapon short of death, as opposed to these friendly ones handing them out to be Ided and all.
*Perhaps he would need a spell up for this ability, maybe even just the existing spell with those spirits that go into enemies. It could be seen as these spirits not allowing the tainted weapon away from the one it is tied to or somesuch. (Note: If it is a spell it should not be dispellable, as this leads back to cheap tactics and away from the actually killing the AP).

2nd point: A bit different here, but still off of the Dark Powers and Extension of one's self view. Just as the weapon feed's off the soul/mind of the victim, could there be a chance of the weapon feeding off the blood of the opponent during combat? This would be a chance of a minor healing due to the blows similar to a very toned down vampiric touch. A note on this one, I think the dark powers should have to bond with the ap significantly and perhaps it only be available after the ap has learned at least half of the controls for the unholy weapon.

Well, just a couple points off of the Ap's weapon as I've viewed it over the years. I'm sure some people won't like the idea of making it harder to seperate one from his weapon, but I always liked earning your due, not cheap tricking around it. And it would make the weapon more of an extension to the AP.

how about rather than let "blows" heal you, you actually let the ap heal extra if someone bleeds (on the tick) when he is in the room.

This would give extra utility to the faceslash and vault skills, as well as make a couple of weapons more prized by aps.

>1st point/question: From what I understand, the AntiPaladin
>puts a bit of himself/his essence into a weapon when he
>converts it to an unholy one. Now this would, in my opinion,
>make it something of an extension of himself/while also tied
>to him through darker powers(thus the fine penalties when it
>is destroyed).

I believe this to be accurate in some form or another.

>One thing I have not understood is why the
>weapons are therefore not made no drop*. This would eliminate
>many of the, in my opinion, poor strategies developed over the
>years for destroying one of the weapons and would make them
>more of an extension of the dark knight himself.

It seems to me that the main benefit of this is that it wouldn't be stealable. If you're wielding it, it isn't stealable, right?
Having multiple unholy blades can be beneficial but it also carries more risk.

>Now yes,
>this makes the weapons harder to destroy of course in some
>ways, but I have always thought to destroy a weapon you should
>have to kill the anti-paladin who wields it. Now here
>consider how painful and difficult it is for an evil to
>destroy/seperate a paladin from a Defiance even, which is not
>attuned to him. I guess I see it as he has worked hard to
>obtain all these charges, everyone should have to work just as
>hard to take them away, a nice challenge.

My feeling is that most anti-paladins, through common tactics, can avoid most of this problem. They just don't. Also, the issue with "controls" is designed to compensate for weapon loss, and I think many agree that it's the better part of unholy blessing.

To me, the weapon can get ungodly sick pretty fast, and if there wasn't a set of ways to lose it, the weapon would either have to be weakened or some other move would have to be taken to keep it balanced as an ability.


>2nd point: A bit different here, but still off of the Dark
>Powers and Extension of one's self view. Just as the weapon
>feed's off the soul/mind of the victim, could there be a
>chance of the weapon feeding off the blood of the opponent
>during combat? This would be a chance of a minor healing due
>to the blows similar to a very toned down vampiric touch. A
>note on this one, I think the dark powers should have to bond
>with the ap significantly and perhaps it only be available
>after the ap has learned at least half of the controls for the
>unholy weapon.

Vampiric bite as a control is IMHO an interesting notion. I have no idea how feasible it is. I do know that it would copy an effect of the necromancer guild, and that is a possible problem. It could be called something other than vampiric effect, but if it does the same thing, well, that's a concern.

- Sabs

I wasn't looking so much towards making the weapons unstealable to avoid loosing multiple weapons, but I was looking to avoid strategies where a sleeping ap(magically sleeping maybe) would be made to loose a weapon that they spent weeks making. I just always thought it was horse crap that they have to go through so much to make them, and others can take them so very very easily. (once again this was based off of scenarios I saw a few years back) I just never thought an aps weapon should be accessable to destruction till he died.

And I figured the vampiric like touch like control would have a different name and be a bit touchy, but every control is basically based off of the invoker guild anyways, so I don't see why it would be such a bad thing. It would give the ap a control that would not be invoker shieldable too, which I think would be nice. (once again not sure if they get to make the weapon defileable or something, obviously not wrath since that would make no sense). And it could even be not so much a control, but something like that ghostly flame I've seen in some logs, just a little something that occurs every few rounds, the weapon drinking deeply of its victim's blood or something.

Thanks for the comments though, and I can see how loosing the weapon multiple ways can be seen as a balance, but I just don't see how seperating an AP from something tied to/imbued with their essense should be easy(which it at least used to be).

APs can make themselves grip onto their unholy weapon using this spell, but they don't gain the power until a higher level than required to just do unholy blessing.

Iron grip so you get no disarm yes, still there are several ways to get around this easily in very cheap manners, unless this was changed over the years. The weapon still can be passed to others(which makes no sense to me) and or stolen with merely quick fingers. This does not mention the simple dispel/disarm/fumble. I would think if you took time, a dark pact, and a part of yourself to imbue a weapon, you would be damned before letting it out of your grip, rather than a simple weapon you pick up off the ground. Iron grip does cover this, to a what I have seen in the past, flawed degree. It does not make it so to destroy what should be an extension of the ap you have to destroy him as well, which was the whole point of what I was saying earlier. To get a decent weapon takes a lot of time, effort, and killing, I do not see why to destroy one should not take killing the ap as well, it would only seem fair/balanced.

Iron Grip of Azazel does more than it used to, and I agree with Incognito here. See the Announcements board from about a month back.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

Thanks for clearing it up some, I don't play anywhere near as I did the past bunch of years, nor keep up on the announcements well, but the helpfile seemed unchanged. Thanks to DWE too, helped clear some things up in my head too. The only other point I question is, shouldn't it be made so aps can't just hand their weapons off to be ided? (once again maybe it has been and I dont know it) It just doesn't seem like something that should be possible, it is after all tied to the person through darker powers and cruel acts as it grows in power.

The only other point I question is, shouldn't it be made so aps can't just hand their weapons off to be ided? (once again maybe it has been and I dont know it) It just doesn't seem like something that should be possible, it is after all tied to the person through darker powers and cruel acts as it grows in power.

No, because one day some sucker AP is going to hand it off to an evil (not Team Evil (tm)) character for that, and the blackmail possibilities amuse me far too much.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

.

Bizarro I'm helping!

You asked me to email you about deathtraps, but I have never ever had any acknowledgement to indicate that any emails have reached any imm, on the half-dozen or so occasions I've tried over the years.

Link to my reply to you and others:

http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=6&topic_id=795&mesg_id=848&page=


valguarnera@carrionfields.com

>Iron grip so you get no disarm yes, still there are several
>ways to get around this easily in very cheap manners, unless
>this was changed over the years. The weapon still can be
>passed to others(which makes no sense to me) and or stolen
>with merely quick fingers. This does not mention the simple
>dispel/disarm/fumble. I would think if you took time, a dark
>pact, and a part of yourself to imbue a weapon, you would be
>damned before letting it out of your grip, rather than a
>simple weapon you pick up off the ground. Iron grip does
>cover this, to a what I have seen in the past, flawed degree.
>It does not make it so to destroy what should be an extension
>of the ap you have to destroy him as well, which was the whole
>point of what I was saying earlier. To get a decent weapon
>takes a lot of time, effort, and killing, I do not see why to
>destroy one should not take killing the ap as well, it would
>only seem fair/balanced.

There have been changes. An AP of sufficient skill gets
something like the protection you're talking about. No, it
isn't available by default, you do have to earn it, but it
it's there, and seems both fair and balanced.

My suggestion would be that if there isn't a chance for +STR off
a charge, that would be cool to have. -STR completely boned me
when I tried my last AP. Maybe the chance is there and I had an
unlucky streak with the RNG.

Didn't know such a change had been made, you don't see it in the helpfiles, and it was one thing that always bothered me about aps since seeing some loose their weapons, of considerable power, to cheap tricks.