Being
Valtiel's suggestion for how DAC should work.
If you have DAC, call "Negate" to any call you receive from a weapon blow, unless the call contains the word "Through". Doing this uses up a point of DAC.
You may not use DAC when you are under the effects of Freeze, Halt, Blind (unless you have Blindfighting), or if you are restrained, unconscious, or otherwise incapacitated.
Brawling, touch attacks, thrown weapons and arrows all count as weapon blows. Targetted calls, mass and wide calls, and Lay On Hands do not count as weapon blows.
So, the big problem with Negate is that you destroy peoples one-shot weapon buffs and venom by dodging the blow. This isn't actually as bad as it sounds - Smite Body is all Through, and Venom is normally delivered by arrow (also Through) or Backstab, which might be available as normal damage call plus Through at low levels, under the new subterfuge system. The only things that really lose out are the high-level Magic one-shot weapon buffs like Illusory Onslaught.
- I like this. It does what I want to do with DAC, which is get rid of the evil evil Blocked call, and doesn't do what I didn't want DAC to do, which is give global armour. Hmm. How about a bolt-on to potions delivered by blade: +2 levels: THROUGH is added to the call? --Pufferfish
- Ooh, that's a really good idea. I would like, in addition, blade venoms to be used up to no effect on armour, or when striking the head (for Weird Alchemical Reasons IC, and because otherwise we strongly encourage headshots OC), and this would rather reduce the horrific nerf this would otherwise be to blade venoms. --NT
- Yes! Yes! Yes! --Pufferfish
- The alternative to adding Through as a bolt-on effect to blade venoms is to make it easier for WilderFuge? characters to get through-damage-by-blow. This might be more popular with people who don't want to pay a fortune for actually useful blade venoms, but it sucks for Warriors who want to use blade venom. --Valtiel
- Doing this would make it quite difficult for alchemists themselves to use their own venoms without being multiclassed, which I consider a rather large bug. --Pufferfish
- This seems like a reasonable way of doing it, and it would not be hard to improve/decost IO and its ilk to compensate. Obviously, it would make DAC much better, so we'd need to look at rebalancing that too. --Jacob
- I'd see it more as making venom worse, and that can be rebalanced when we do alchemy. --Lmm
- Thought: Is this "You may call NEGATE to N weapon blows per combat" or "You may call NEGATE to the first N weapon blows of a combat"? The latter is closer to current DAC; the former is quite a significant buff. --NT
- I would make it first N blows to keep it as close as possible to the current formulation. I also agree with Lmm that it mainly just makes Venom worse rather than overpowering DAC. --Taxellor
- People who can use venoms currently: Wildnerness, Subterfugers and Alchemists. Wilderness characters get through by bow, subterfugers by backstab. If you gave alchemists a chance to talismance themselves some kind of dagger with a one shot through style ability on it (similar to Maelstrom's thirsting blades) then everyone who can currently use venoms would also be able to deliver them without worrying about the venom rubbing off. -- Flying_O
- It definately needs to be "first N blows" because the latter makes one-shot effects far, far worse. --Jacob
- I had intended this to be "first N blows" because otherwise it's broken. --Valtiel
This doesn't make venom worse, this makes venom better, as long as you combine it with through damage. --Tristan
- Note that under the proposed bolt-on system, if it's an automatic through the venom itself isn't as nasty as two of its levels have been taken up in making it THROUGH. But I take your point. --Pufferfish
- Yes, sorry, I meant combined with backstab/archery. --Tristan
A slight problem with this approach has occurred to me. If we make DAC better, we also need to make it more expensive - a "negate first non-through blow of each combat" ability probably needs to be 9-10, or at a pinch 8, points a quarter, I would think, because of all the applicability to ghouls, miracles etc. This will make light fighters who rely on lots of DAC rather than hits or armour for their protection in normal fights rather less viable, which I think is a shame. Can anyone suggest anything that could be done about this? --Jacob
- I don't think this makes DAC that much more powerful. Ghoul FREEZE's are still going to work provided something else hits the warrior first. --Taxellor
- This DAC proposal does not stop ANY miracles apart from the first-level Valour miracle. All the others are either ranged or Through by weapon. --Valtiel