Discussion: PVP

[Skro]

Skro...I'd like to be able to do subdual damage with any weapon, not just bare fists.

*beats the peasant with the flat of his sword* sort of thing.

Yes, I know but, this way you may avoid the "I buff up my weapon to +5 +fire +keen +some more and then fight". Making the idea of subdual damage a ridiculous idea: "I hit you with the flat of the sword who is flaming fierce and does you divine damage because I buffed the sword with divine favor".
I don't know, is my conception of this anyway, my sword is +0 but have a +2 magic damage, so, if I do subdual damage y will unintentionaly kill him because I do +2 magic damage.

PD: I have manuals but never played or DMing on PnP, so, tell me if this is wrong.

[Ula Fey]

Good point there. I don't know what the PnP rules are myself. Maybe you could limit it so that only physical damage is subdual, so in the example above you might inadvertently kill them. Or, only bludgeoning weapons can do subdual damage. Or...probably half a dozen other possible options I guess, including your fist-fight example above.

[Skro]

Good point there. I don't know what the PnP rules are myself. Maybe you could limit it so that only physical damage is subdual, so in the example above you might inadvertently kill them. Or, only bludgeoning weapons can do subdual damage. Or...probably half a dozen other possible options I guess, including your fist-fight example above.

Yes, because my impression of non lethal damage with a buffed sword, makes me think the things like im in a Robin Hood's comedy movie, who doesn't matters with what thing Robin Hood hits the bad guys (A candle, A torch) they don't die, and when he fights with the sword, disarms them and makes him fall to the nearest fountain of water.

[Haroshia]

The rule on dealing Subdual damage with a bladed weapon in PnP, if I'm not mistaken, is you take a -4 on the attack and smack em with the flat of your blade.

[ThePaganKing]

PVP Possible Fixes

Hello,

I am new to Sundren and may not know the full story, but I have read through this thread and I have gone through similar problems on a couple NWN1 worlds. Here is how I would suggest you can fix the problem (if there is one) and still have RP and PVP.

1. UMD
a. Make it a check/roll. It should be based on the level of the spell vs. your UMD skill. You can even make it so that you may have negative consequences for critical failures.
b. Make scrolls very hard to find and drop only occasionally. Also, limit the amount of higher level scrolls, say level 5 and above, to very rare for drops.
c. Limit the number of scrolls you can buy in a store to say five a day. That way a person can only buy five scrolls max per day.
d. Increase the price of scrolls tremendously, so that only those wizards that really need the scrolls to memorize will buy them.
e. Make higher level scrolls, such as level 5 and above only available from a Wizard tower/school/building that only wizards or sorcerers can access.

2. PVP
a. All PVP, except for DM roleplay events and factions must be consensual for all parties. If one person states that they want to have no part in PVP, then there should be no PVP, period.
b. Faction PVP is considered open in that if you are a declared member of a faction, then it is always open season for members of an opposing faction. Race is also considered in this, e.g. drow are hated and hunted by most people, so they are open for PVP at any time. That is the cost of being a drow. Conversely, the drow can then PVP others at any time.
c. PVP frequency - you can only PVP a particular person once per server day. You cannot continually kill someone. However, the person that is killed cannot just go back and fight again also. There needs to be a server day interlude for cool down and RP opportunities.
d. PVP duels - One of the worlds I was on had a great PVP element. There were a group of us that PVPd on a regular basis but had strict rules concerning heals, spells, weapons, styles, buffs, etc. These rules were strict and if someone went against the rules, then they were excluded from our duels. We also held dueling matches with prizes where people that love PVP and pitting themselves against other players could go into the ring and fight. The PVP rules were stated before the tournament.

3. Areas
a. Another option would be to have non-PVP areas throughout the world that you can go into so that you don't have to worry about looking over your shoulder or someone coming to take you out. It also helps with stealing in that you can have places that rogues cannot pickpocket, so you can kind of let down your guard, talk to people or lounge about without worrying about getting pickpocketed or accosted by some evil smelling half-orc. Sometimes have low level areas as non-PVP works also.

3. DMs
a. The DMs need to be a part of this process and ensure that everyone clearly knows the rules and that there will be dire consequences if the rules are not obeyed. Only then, IMO, will everyone be able to enjoy Sundren and all its nuances.

I look forward to meeting all of you on the server and I hope this helps in some small way. I do not have all the answers to PVP; however, the above stated "rules" helped keep the server civil and gave people that love PVP and RP a place. It also gave the PVP people an actual opportunity to RP.

[ThePaganKing]

Subdual Damage

You could also agree at the beginning of a fight/duel or put it in the PVP rules that once you have 1/4 of your hitpoints left you are considered "subdued" and pass out. However, this would be very dependent on RP since some classes would probably fight to the death if they were fighting a much hated enemy.

Just a thought. Most of the time, if you RP it right and have consent from the person you are RPing and PVPing, you can come up with some very cool and fun rules that benefit both parties and the server as a whole.

[--chupacabra--]

Use Magic Device

Just a note about this skill; there is a reason it exists, and a reason why it is a class skill for the classes who get it. Balance.

A rogue going up against undead or other sneak immune creatures will have a very hard time of it indeed if they are denied the use of certain scrolls, wands, or gear. Warlocks use UMD to add a little flavor to an otherwise very limited arsenal. Bards...well, they were truly the red headed stepchild of NWN1. Thankfully they got a little boost. Still and all, they never reach the spellcasting abilities of other magic users, and while they can make good fighters, a real bardy-bard is never going to be god's gift to front line melee.

I don't mind hard core style rolls for UMD--it is a skill like any other and deserves it's DC's, but making scrolls cost the earth will actually seriously hurt more than a few characters.

As far as using high level offensive scrolls in PvP, well, that's a bit cheezy, I suppose. Using a bunch of them to buff up like mad for a dual is a bit silly as well. Reading a darkness scroll or something like that and running away seems perfectly acceptable to me, though.

[CrimsonTears]

I understand Chup's points. Although the skill can be abused, it also is one of the strengths of the classes supposed to have it. I haven't come across that many scrolls (much less level 9 ones), but apparently many have... the fix is tweaking the drop tables, which is already going to be done, I believe. Raising the cost of scrolls will just make people farm for gold if they depend on scrolls.

The skill already has a pretty feeble use on Sundren (there are few, if any in the diablo-esque items now, magical items restricted to alignments or classes, and even fewer ones that are actually desirable... I never saw a single wand of anything around and the only charged staff I saw was DM-given in a plot), penalizing everyone who has it will just make these classes as a whole a lot weaker than they already are in a low magical items setting.

[InquisitorFury]

Maybe I am stepping on some toes here... but...

I like to hear opinions from new players, thats all fine.. however personally... I think you should at least play on the server before commenting on the status of whatever in this server.

That, and conflict is good people. Maturity as a community just needs to shine through.

[undeadsteak]

The Pagan King,the part about pvp and how you can refuse to be in it, in my opinion, is horrible. A person can do so much things to you, like annoy you, throw rocks at you, punch you, and then when you wish to pvp them, they get to say no. PvP doesnt just happen at random, when somone provokes another person, they should know that theyre going to usually have to fight.

[Sirspam28]

I second undeadsteak in that opinion...however, and I dont know if it has been proposed before, but doing away with the challenge ratings. This adds another element of danger to pvp, thus making it less frequent and only used in dire circumstances. Plus it promotes more RP and planning. Say someone insults you or pesters you to the point of PVP, you can attack them right away, but not knowing there lvl, its a big risk, that only volatile characters wil take, which is fine because it fits there characters. But for the characters that still want to kill the other person, but dont want to die, your gonna have to RP. This means asking around to other characters about your target, shadowing them to see what areas they go into, and generally just being interested in them for a while, all just to gather info on how strong they are. This will add a significant amount of RP to PVP, and will make kills that much more enjoyable, knowing that you have been setting it up for days, or even weeks.

[Baculus]

I actually think the challenge rating serves an IC purpose(at least for warriors vs warriors; or spell casters vs spell casters) I think certain aspects of a person is pretty easy to see- and by those things you can see around their power level.

Like for my character Alexander(who's a fighter), within moments of seeing Kai(I don't know what he is- but he kicks but goot') knows that he's absolutely dead if he messes with him to much. From whatever way he stands, to the way he holds his blade- a warrior should be able to look up at another warrior and see how powerful he is.

Though when Alexander sees a mage(unless their a necromancer) of any level- he's usually somewhat afraid of them. Because IC he does not know of a way to sum up the person based on his own skills(He has 0 spellcraft. -.-). So he stays away from mages(or he makes fun of them without inhibitions) and waits till he sees how big of an explosion that fire spell makes to do anything else.

The other thing is that word gets around- rumors are circulated... so if someone can rip people into confetti wit' their bare hands- that is going to be well known. And so in theory you could surmise you know who the strongest people are from rumors.

My personal feeling on PVP is that it shouldn't be permadeath or unrevivable... just a timer of like 12 hours. Though if there is a good reason for PVP- the person should still let the other people know(like putting there thing to hostile and stuff) but unless the other PC starts backing down, sobbing for mercy, and offers to pay them to not slaughter 'im- the PVP should still happen.

Ultimatums are a very very good thing in this regard- since they give a clearcut no frills way out of PVP. And honestly if a pack of drow wretches jump from the trees and tell me to do anything- chances are I will do it without another thought. (And you know with drow you can have alot of fun doing what they want you to do.

Oh, and if you managed to get through that statement and are not totally confused- I applaud your skillz. Since, I'm quite... addled at the best of times. ^_^

[CrimsonTears]

CRs are completely OOC.

Stances and looks can be faked or hidden. False rumors can be spread easily. Tales of when Bob killed an ant farm become him saving Faer?n from baatorian ants in a matter of weeks. If your character sees Kai being "uber", your character can think Kai is over his league. Else, it's just assuming and CRs leave no room for assumptions. The staff has declared before CRs would go (unless there was a change on their minds), which is a good thing.

[Lockindal]

I have to ask, even though in a way GBX already answered.

Why do you need PVP?

Before you say, "because that person is clearly evil!" or, "because I'm a drow, and I kill people!" think about this: if that's the reason to have PVP, then PVP rules are just pointless. You get situations like the above posts have mentioned: "Oh, I'll leave him alone - because he's a low level" or, more commonly I'm sure "Well my ideals are definitely in contrast with him but he's stronger (CR says so {or his glowing weapon, or obvious stature}) so I wont cause the conflict" - to be honest, as a player, I avoid conflict at all times. Because I know my character wouldn't back down from any fight, but at the same time, would never choose a fight that he knew he would lose (and considering how obvious everyone dresses (or is constantly surrounded by powerful magics) ) it's kind of hard to start any sort of conflict (and conflict isn't usually brought to me because of how I rp - he's quite persuasive and deceiving).

If PVP didn't exist, I would start conflict, and the conflicts could just be RPed. You said it yourself - god mode characters shouldn't exist. I also read in another post, about RPing conflict without the use of NWN's "PeeVeePee" functions - rolling strength checks, describing feats you have, rolling skills that would be applicable to combat, things like that. Those combats are A LOT more interesting than just blasting someone away with scrolls and all the other garbage you're going to pull out just to win a e-peen fight (and yes, IMO, all PVP is a epeen fight).

And, this is someone who played on Bastions of War, the biggest PVP server out there in NWN1. And I loved it. And I still enjoy PVP.

But that doesn't change that PVP is NOT roleplay. It decreases RP value, if you ask me. It makes it impossible to RP an evil character, or any sort of character that has a brain from the get-go. They have to wait the 4 months (or whatever) to catch up to everyone else. That's anti-fun.

I was a DM on a server (Dusk Haven) for a short period of time (the server essentially died from lack of content pushing - our server admin became busy with real life) and PVP essentially killed the server. It came to the point where everyone was just always killing each other, and nothing else really mattered. It was also pointless to do so - since everyone thought their character was a god. I'm still new, but I hate to see good roleplay communities die to stupid shit like this.

PVP can exist on a RP server, but you're going to see problems - like building for CVC instead of what the character would have. Something this server was against (or at least I thought it was ^^)

Does everyone do it? No. For the most part, the players I have met have been awesome.

Are some of the players doing it? Based on the posts I just read and some of GBX's comments, I have to assume yes.

Even the greatest RPers have a dark side - constant PVP will bring it out, trust me. Limits should exist (strong limits) or it just shouldn't exist at all (and you can still RP "i killed you" situations - I saw many good RPers do it as both a DM and a player {before it broke out into engine PeeVeePee situations due to a few characters..})

I realize I'm still new, but I'm far from inexperienced. And I would like to help make the (already great) server better, and avoid what happened to my favorite world in the past.

- Lock

[Kaldaris]

I've flipped to the first, second, third, then the last page, and I've come to the conclusion this topic is about permadeath and powerbuilding.