Yes?

I'm very impressed by the admins' responses to the feedback on the karma system, and the changes they are implementing. Bravo.

My question is, if someone declares on you, can you attack them as soon as they've declared? Or do they have to commit an aggressive act first?

This would fix any complaints I have against Karma, then.

It only works after the initial hit from what I understand.. so they have to commit.

Rather belatedly, I'm in favour of this.

Go Declaration!

Immediately.

Are you alerted to the fact that you've been declared against?

I'm pretty sure they said no at the start of the thread. Might be wrong.

No.

You won't get warned. In most cases people would just declare and then immediately attack. The warning wouldn't do you much good. I suppose they could later create a dangersense skill if that really becomes important.

Actually it might be interesting if a Champion could sense the attack, rather than waiting for the help cry or the kill to show up on deathsense.

I realized that may not be completely clear, so to clarify: I meant that when I declare my intent to kill Fain, at that point Fain may attack me without worries of getting suspect if he wins. It's considered self defense since I declared my motive to kill him.

I sense a pyschic skill later that allows you to see when they've declared thier hostile intentions...

I hope not. That would just suck.

I knew you'd say that. Psychic powers, ya know?

The idea that Boulderblast only hits people in the room that you declare against makes it about 10x as powerful...

Imagine, 10 geomancers boulderblast into a large scale battle at the same time, killing only their enemies. It doesn't make a lot of sense for it to be discriminate in its destruction.

To put that into perspective, I believe Achaea's version of hailstorm already does just that. Is it a problem there? If not, what makes it different here?

Hailstorm isn't a ranged attack, for one...

Mmm I really dislike a skill like boulderblast being so specific about who it hits. I guess I could think of the boulders as enemy-seeker magick boulders that simply refuse to hit friends...but it seems so tacky.

Hailstorm and boulderblast are extremely useful since you can coordinate and hit from afar with a group of 4 or 5 people at once. It would be nice if it only hit enemies, but it should be balanced out by the fact that it shouldn't be used from another room since Magi/Druid already have staff/cudgel as range attack already.

Maybe one option to solve the problem with room attacks is to allow for people to generally DECLARE without specifying a target... Meaning, during those 5+ minutes the declare lasts, they can attack anyone. (Provided their target isn't allready on their bullies list, I imagine?)
Though this general declare should probably have a shorter timer.
Maybe even make that a requirement for casting room attacks?

I agree that having to DECLARE for a room attack to hit that person could be a very potent tactic, since (at least IMO) a major balancing factor of room attacks is that they do hit everyone, including allies, so they're only of very limited use in group combat.

Also, regarding the comparison with Hailstorm, I think hailstorm is a much weaker attack than for example boulderblast. It takes quite a bunch of Mages hailstorming you to really get you into trouble, Boulderblasts are quite a different matter, I'm told. And as Olan pointed out, hailstorm isn't ranged.

Overall, I think this sounds very interesting, as with Karma I'm saying wait and see... Implement it and give us some time to test it, then ask us again