Brawler Archive
Thread: Shields, good solution to melee vs ranged outdoors. balanced, read.
This is a repost from the fencer forum. I thought it might gather more attention here as opposed to a very closed and somewhat inactive fencer community.
Ever play Warcraft 3? Remember how footmen can shield themselves at the cost of moving extremely slow? It's an ancient tactic of sieging in a stationed, ranged opponent by sacrificing speed for high defense versus ranged assaults.
Fencers, and even brawlers in general, should get this. There should be some skill our item that allows us to shield ourselves against long range attacks as long as we move slowly.
Shields should cause long range shots to miss frequently (10% accurate), and accuracy increases the closer a marksman is to the shield (up to 80%). Damage is still taken if the shot is made after the accuracy modifier, but only minimal damage (10-30).This damage should increase the closer the marksman is to the shield.
This forces ranged players/npcs to come close to melee in order to deal any significant damage. It gives ranged an incentive to run TOWARDS melee, instead of kiting away. They could stay at a "comfort zone", but they would still be close enough to lunge or burst away the moment the shield is taken down.
The penalties of using a shield? 70% reduction of running/walking speed. Running should be as slow as walking. Shield should also not defend versus other melee (melee versus melee balance purposes, although this could be reconsidered if it adds to the game somehow).
Is this unbalanced? Would this give too much power to melee? No. Why?
It makes melee slow, yet impregnable only at short distances which melee should be good at. It forces ranged to play at fair grounds and minimizes their greatest asset: distance.
"This forces ranged players/npcs to come close to melee in order to deal any significant damage"
No, it wont force them to come close. They can kite on end since they never need to stop. Dont need to reload or anything. So they can continue to kite on end, allthough that might be boreing in the end but they'll still peel us down eventually since we cant close the gab between our selfs and our target and we'll continue to take damage.
Other then that some form of reflective shield that protects vs energy with a very high resistance is a nice idea on paper, but if it's to be worn in one hand you wont be able to attack the opponent if you're a heavyswordsman, unarmed, or polearm user. And you're attacks would be limited with fencing.
Morell Taesio