If you limit the size of melds and want the protection scroll to = rebounding. Then dissolve should = raze. Strip protection and shield and love potion for that matter. Druids and probably mages get raped by love potion more than they get raped by protection scroll.

Dissolve doesn't need eq, but it does require balance and consume it. So you can be off both on each dissolve.

I do agree though that melds are far to decisive, the problem is druids have nothing else. Any attempt to give them something singular like mages and pscionics has met with rejection and failure. They used to have ecology(not that it stood up to the level of ability as telepathy or telekineses), then bards got it. Runes is on the refusal to specialise list and ecology has been ignored for such requests.

So before you gut melds to solve a problem, fix the complete reliance on melds that druids have.

It was on the long list of things.

So much to do, so little time. D:

I really like the second half of that idea (the bolded part). It'd certainly make melding and changing a lot less frustrating (says the casual druid player).

TinyFugue is also a cross-platform client, which is what I have been writing my system in for nearly a year. On my Mac. But TF is not graphical, so it likely wouldn't appeal to most people.

Possibly a set of stupid ideas, but what if the following changes where made:

Melds do not recieve a decrease in room size, but instead receive major changes to what they actually do.

NOUNCAST EFFECT DEMESNE stops existing as a command.

NOUNCAST EFFECT is unchanged.

NOUNCAST EFFECT ME creates an effect that follows the melder around, effecting only the room they are in and adjacent rooms. It does not require a demesne to function, but does require the melder be standing in the correct terrain type.

Pathtwist, specifically, functions whenever someone tries to exit the melder's effect radius and sends the pathtwisted person to the melder.

The Pollute, Regrowth and Flashflood now have a steep mana cost, but will auto-forceterrain upon entering a room and on a 10 second tick.

Melds/the skillsets in general get some stuff added to bring them up to par, now that the backbone of the skillset has been majorly nerfed.

New skill in the melding skillsets, Distortion, which prevents everyone (except allies?) from teleporting inside the meld. Sort of like the discresionary.

Meld influence extends to allies as well. This is so it still has some point in a village revolt.

Dissolve now works like raze, as seen above. Protection scrolls work like the did, except against the melder's room effects.

Not really avoiding all of it but I'm not sure if you do this. Writhing impales takes no writhing balance. If you are impaled (crucified, impaled, pinned), you can send a writhe every prompt you get that shows you have balance. Meaning if person A pins you twice, you can send two writhes within 1 second of each other (once and once again when you regain balance) instead of waiting to writhe out of one before writhing the other.

This would be another great way to streamline combat.

Replace the need of the scroll of protection and just making smoking faeleaf protect against both melds and warrior weapons.

I'm sure there are other things which can be combined which serve no real purpose for being two different items.

Why not just replace your long post with saying Vibes instead of manses?

This would require ground sap or a druid overhaul. I personally think ground sap wasn't a big deal, but it offended a lot of other people's sensibilities, so...not likely.

Backtracking, I see and note: Love potion, Lust, and Lovers are three separate afflictions that do three separate things. Love potion gives an affliction that causes you to have a 50% chance to lust or be lusted 2-3x a minute. Lust affliction is an active affliction skill in Tarot (Lust)/Stag (Parade). Lovers cure stops a target from attacking the person whom they love.

Let’s not let this digress into a thread where we cry about afflictions we’re unable to cure. Streamlining combat really has little to do with afflictions and more to do with making the overall process easier. Using some past examples: smoke coltsfoot vs. smoke pipe127485, rub mercy vs. rub312313, enemy , forging update to make it less time consuming, etc.

The only afflictions that really need looked at are just complete copies of the same affliction with different names (same means they have the SAME cure too!) such as peace/pacifism or afflictions that literally do nothing or almost nothing (trembling, mangled tongue). It’s also worth noting a lot of skillsets are built around the more powerful afflictions. For example, removing blackout would make Dreamweaving require a whole new setup as active Blackout is the hallmark of the skillset. Downgrading Waning in Moon to make Aeon easier to cure is going to make Moondancers very ineffective as a class. The idea isn’t to simultaneously break multiple classes and then require additional coding to re-fix what is already fine.

Not true. Several of the bards are irontongue viscanti, even my own alt.

For RP reasons, not for combat reasons. Celina can vouch for the crappiness of Irontongue Viscanti when she played one since her cha was never as high or would be as high as any other org counterparts. I believe Narsrim avoids irontongue viscanti as well, as did Malarious (who also hopped to a variety of other bard guilds and can probably vouch as well for the charismatic abilities of irontongue).

I don't think races and streamlining combat are separate issues. I know the complaints about merian still stand. I think it was Grego who said in another forum that people should always opt to pick the RP race over other races but thats not the case because of lame stats or weaknesses.

Yes, Irontongue is pretty awful in terms of useful bard races. Dwarf brewmeister tanks better and human has better damage. Really no combat reason to be an irontongue.

Viscanti is, however, a solid race with amazing resists for geo/nihilist/warrior. Great tanks.

I thought focus spirit was guaranteed. Holy pants in a bottle, that sucks.

It seems there is no agreement on what "streamlining" means to people. Some think it means reducing complexity, some think it means eliminating simple things that don't add much, some think it means better balance.

There is at least some agreement on that allies/enemies lists could be improved.

I disagree. Dwarf brewmeister would be a better tank, but for non-brewmeisters, you just can't beat irontongue for tanky bard. Good con, good resists, 14 int and 16 charisma by just deffing up. 17 charisma is just a karma blessing away.

Who cares about being a tanky bard. You either go dwarf for absolute tanking beastliness, or you go anything not irontongue so your damage isn't crap. Incidentally, dwarves will have 12/15 which is STILL better than irontongue.

When you are competing in a damage archetype where shadowsingers are base 16/17, base 14/12 is pathetic.

As opposed to a human who will have 16/13. So at demi that's....16/14 vs 18/15, still have good con and actually have dex worth using.

The +3 cha from vileblood means squat, since it's really +1 after throne/netzach/beauty/bardic presence.

Yeah, max buff with irontongue is base Shadowsinger charisma, if I remember right.