lichdom is not to be used as a life-saver but as a way for reaching .. erm.. 'lichdom' ?

you know..it's when your stats are modified and you have the cool honours title.. rrraww

i just wish that lichdom would be permanent, once the choice was made

Lichdom....hmm. Crappy really, in my opinion, which is why I only use vitae. I'd much rather have the other variants for coming back to life, especially the coven version where the person is dead and can be raised in .2 seconds - not even enough time to get the corpse and make it so they can't come back.

I get to use 20 power to get killed again if it is a fight, losing even more experience, and because you are stuck as a soul for about 15 seconds there is more than ample time to drop an eye sigil so you can't escape, you come back with no defense, and no power so you can't just ghost off...

And in the arguement it is only for becoming a lich, it still sucks. You may get +2 at night, but it is -2 at day....and there is always more day than night. Apparently, the planet we reside on isn't a sphere, because even during winter months, there is the same amount of day as in summer.

Maybe it's just me, but wasting 20 power and experience to have negative stats most of the time isn't exactly a great skill in general, much less for trans.

So Stop bitching about lichdom - especially when you don't even have it.

even if lichdom did not lose any exp it would still not need any fixing. You have to get very lucky and have perfect timing and stupid enemies for you to get no loss from it. its not just "20 power" its 20 power, your defences, your time, and if you don't want to die again you need to be able to run away real fast.

i wouldn't say the skill is crappy but it does not need any "fixing"

I disagree, Daganev. I'm hardly going to repost the exact same thing, so, my reasons are already obvious. I still think Lichdom is crappy.

although I posted after you, your post wasn't up when I hit reply.. so blah.

After thinking about it, I realize the reason I don't think its crappy, is because I have so much fun RPing that I'm actually smarter at night. Go figure.

What would you think if you happen to see a man constantly trying to fit a cube into a round hole which diameter is inferior to a side of this cube.

Maybe that he should trans some skill so that his IQ level might raise a bit.

Or is it, that transing a skill has nothing to do with the ability to bitch.. about something that is so plain obvious.. hmmm?

Anyway, i'm with Daganev on this one.. the RP edge of Lichdom and generally of the undead status, should be improved.. and magnified.. so that some of us could set our imagination loose on the dark thema of the undead..

Everyone will agree here that 'lichdom' is lacking a stronger and more defined personality.. lacking something to wash away the bitter taste of having defiled oneself body and sold oneself soul for a cheap price.. lacking the taste of absolute and corrupted power

Yeah...let's compare the main secondary trans skills of Lusternia...

Lichdom:

Gives -2 strength and -2 intelligence 60% of the time, +2 str and +2 int 40% of the time, you get to chill your target and breathe the just massively downgraded contagion for 3 power instead of 6. Costs you 20 power and the only way to become a lich is to heartstop, cause in a fight there's no way you're gonna survive after becoming a lich.


Drawdown:

Gives +1 intelligence, mana regeneration, a LARGE boost to cutting and blunt resistance and the skill moonburst, which does massive, intelligence-dependant and 100% magical damage, usable with rage so you can blast down anyone in the continent. Costs only 10 power.


Stagform:

Gives +1 dexterity, health regeneration, another boost to cutting and blunt resistance and the skill gore, which does massive physical damage and will impale your target if it's below 50% health (mind, it used to be an instakill if below 50% health). Costs only 10 power.


Trueheal:

Heals all your limb wounds, fully heals your health and boosts it above max, fully heals your mana and boosts it above max, heals all your afflictions, and finally surrounds you with an impenetrable prismatic barrier. Costs only 10 power.



If you're just a little objective you'll stop wanting to nerf lichdom now, it sucks, if anything, it needs upgrades or major changes.

Ahh...I did want to know the precise stats on daytime there.
The way I understood it, lichdom is actually WORSE than you make it out in that respect, because as far as I can tell from testing w/spiritbond moon, night only applies for 25% of the time. (Unless that got changed, 'cause Lucidians started regenerating just after midnight, but before dawn.)

Plenty of people get away during a fight though. That with the (I thought) no experience loss was what annoyed me. Like I say though, since that was changed, it isn't near as good as I thought.

You've just made me really depressed, Thorgal. When you only know to drink water, you don't miss the wine until you taste it.

Why not rework lichdom into a curse that would last for five minutes or corrupt the vitae defence for a longer period. Its effect would be any attempt of ressurection while cursed would end up in creating a lich or a zombie .

A lich would lose the fluency of any living tongue safe for magnagoran's language which would be close to what an undead may speak and it should affect every channel. For a celestine , a new zombie would just moan annoyingly.. while a magnagoran would hear , "Help me! Help me.. it's me, Shiri!.

And the new trans necromantic skill would be Control of the Undead.. -grin-

Lichdom really is a flawed skill. It's either horribly frustrating and overpowered, or costly to the point of worse than uselessness (as it is now).

Frustrating and overpowered:

Dude fights Licher for a while, and finally gains the upper hand and gets the kill. Licher goes poof, gets away, and loses no experience. Sucks for Dude - he earned a kill but Licher got away scott-free. It may have cost Licher some power or whatever, but that doesn't matter from Dude's perspective. He didn't get anything from Licher even though he won fair and square.

This is a pretty crappy situation. So, to balance things out a few ways to combat it are put in:

Now Licher works hard (or just links) and collects the power to put lich up. He goes out and fights Dude, and loses again. However, this time he loses experience. Also, Dude quickly drops eye sigils in all of the adjacent rooms and kills him again when he pops up without any defenses. So Licher loses even more experience praying, and ends up down a lot of power and more experience than he would have had without lich existing.

The first is like soulcage/blackwind in Achaea a little while ago - utter crappiness for Dude. The second is like current lichdom - useless for Licher. The problem is, there -is no middle ground-. If Licher can escape, it's crap for Dude. If Licher can't escape, it's crap for Licher. There's no way to have Licher have a chance to escape, Licher's dead and can't input complex commands. He either dies again or escape (nearly) without penalty.

I think that a good trans skill would be Lich without the double-dying. You do 'transform undead' for 10 power and get the +/- 2 stat thing. There is slightly more day than night, but you also almost always pick when you are fighting so it balances out in the end. Being able to pick fights with +2 str/int with special attacks is pretty comparable with having +1 int, regen, and a special attack, or any of the other skills listed.

It doesn't balance out in the end. By that logic, if I got those bonuses 1 minute out of the day and the penalties the rest of the time, it would be okay becuase I could choose to fight during that 1 minute, hope I was never raided, jumped, or called to battle another time, and all would be well. That also ignores hunting, where as it is, I have crap stats for 3/5ths of every day.

If I can in any way help it, I am never a lich.

And where did that weak in the day, strong in the night thing come from? I sure as heck don't see it in the histories. Ladantine didn't seem slowed down by the sun at all. Hmm...and in the histories, this kind of undeath is described as making them smarter and resistant to pain. I see the intelligence boost (well, 2/5ths of the time), but where is my resistance? Maybe I will build it up from all the extra hits I take in fights because my intelligence is shot and I can't deal damage without a lucky critical.

With drawdown I gain +1 intelligence, which puts me on the level with an Imperial Merian as far as intelligence goes. Furthermore Moonburst has double the equilibrium time of any other attack, such as cosmicfire, blast, cudgel, staff, etc. I do more damage over time with nature curse. Moonburst reminds me of stormhammer, only doing a lot less damage, and not ricocheting off of multiple targets.

It does balance out since it close to 50/50. If you can control the timing of 20% (1/5th) of your fights, then it works out to your favour. 80% will break 3 to 2 against you, and the remaining 20% will break completely for you In my (albiet limited) experience in Lusternia, players actually choose the timing of more like 75% of their fights assuming they fight for their city, order, guild when called upon. It seems pretty good to me. Bashing of course hurts that, but you don't have to lich when you know you will be bashing.

That's the same logic you used last time.

How do you choose when someone raids something you protect, or tries to jump you?

And you are right. When I hunt as a Lich, I usually sit there and let something kill me. It's more efficient that way.

Argh! Why does every second thread have to turn into bitch fest about under/overpowered skills.
This has really gotten off topic, when the topic was made about hearing the guards of other cities/commune dying.
I don't suppose it's possible for a forum admin to move all the off topic posts to a new topic?

I guess it really bothers you, doesn't it?

Well you don't. You do choose the times that you raid other people, or you jump other people. Between the two you choose some percentage of fights that you participate in, which is the point.

Regardless, that isn't my main point. You know a lot more about how the +/- stats thing works out. My point is that the lich-when-dying side of the skill is a hopeless concept that the admins should dump, then consider other ways to make the skill useful.

I was referring to fear mostly, also blocking other exits and attacking, forcing them to run into the city. Tackle is definately out... pooka is a tough one, as is force follow. I'll have to leave that to the Gods to elaborate on.

There are legitimate methods available to discourage an enemy sitting outside the city, which I think is a rather silly tactic anyway. I don't know about the other cities, but as soon as someone steps inside Serenwilde, we can wisp them to very dangerous places, so running in/out wouldn't be safe at all.

Last I heard, -any- method of making someone move, aside from blocking all but one exit, is illegal if used to move someone into a city. Specifically, I think it was Lisaera that warned us against using fear to do it, so I'm assuming it applies to anything.