Yeah, the affs are all the same, but instead of having a maximum of 25 shadows you can slap down on one balance, you only have a max of 3.

I like the shadow cost. It imposes a simple and effective limitation on spamming. Large-group battles mean the caster needs to consider which targets to save their shadows for.

I cannot help but feel this suggestion is both immensely complicated and not entirely neccesssary (the 10 effect manipulation one).

People are reaching far for things instead of looking for the simple, retain it as a variation of aeon or we are talking huge amounts of changes all at once. So far I see Choke changed to a skill with 10 parts, brumetower/flight/and penumbra are up which are entirely unrelated and the changes requested have nothing to do with offense. So I would say they are unrelated and should be envoyed.

Current suggestions are far reaching and asking that we declare tomato is not a fruit and then promptly creating a whole fruit salad. Is that awkward? It should be. Stop and examine how much is going into some of these ideas, even a seperate report thread has sprouted from it. We should be focused on balance not adding shine to current skills. Make it functional instead of skill flattery.

My suggestions for choke (take pick, not all):
- Aeon that passes quicksilver for power if shadows are present, but consumes them.
- Make choke ala Deathmark, does several things as the shadows choke you but should nto need new curing.
- Admit that current choke is better than most of these ideas and leave it be.
- Admit current choke is better but has a flaw, fix it for groups. Perhaps "Shadows impede your efforts as you seek to strike at $target." Which could either slow down all attacks on target by 2s. Maybe bsaed on numbe of attacks coming. Or make it be an attack stack, where only the last person to try to attack goes through.

Funny how we are making sap the new choke and trying to remove choke outright........

Actually, the reason why no one has really considered aeon is because of one of Estarra's directives: don't make it a waning clone.

Which is why the proposals so far are not simply 'hey add aeon', we're trying to give Night users a mechanic that they can use in place of aeon.

Furthermore, they already said they're going to delete choke, saying 'hey let's not' seems counterproductive to that.

And personally, I think the manipulation idea is the best one yet, since it gives powerful affs but aren't unbearably so. All without needing aeon.

I think this shadow balance with high potency afflictions sounds like a nightmare.

Especially with some of the random things you can break out. Bal-less blackout, sleep, leglock? wtf?

I sitll think adding 10 effects and then adjusting several unrelated skills that are suddenly within the reports scope is going a bit far. They said its easier to delete, and not to feel limited to aeon, but not to clone waning. So far I am hearing alot of intricate changes that will be a nightmare in a group. "reloading" will not be super easy but you do not really need to have constant levels of it. You could offtarget it too, for instance leglock the warrior while attacking the guardian. I could be raving but before I would sign off on such a complicated and convuluted series of changes I would like to see someone TRY to break it and see if it works.

Mal, the other Night skill changes Alacardael is suggesting are not part of the report, but instead ideas to be envoyed once Choke is removed.

That said, he does have a point. Perhaps have these "Shadow Points" that recharge stack on the target's shadow instead of on the SD in general, to limit the SD more to a single target with this.

That's fine with me, being able to gather charges only once you have a shadow stolen.

Sojiro:

That's fine with me, being able to gather charges only once you have a shadow stolen.

And usable only against the person who's shadow you have, and only gathering charges against that shadow?

(ex. Druken steals Malarious' shadow. Druken uses Nightkiss against Malarious. Malarious' shadow now has 1 charge on it, that Druken can only use to Manipulate Malarious' shadow)

I would even be cool with allowing Night users to hand off charged shadows.

Yeah, that's what I mean.

Incidentally, offtarget already can happen, but doesn't because it's usually not very effective at all. Speaking about mages here.

I like it as long as lash charges shadows, too. Otherwise, the whole thing is defeated by lackoftrans.

edit: or nature curse with an athame.

To address what Malarious was saying (re: leglock the warrior while attacking someone else), perhaps the various afflictions would only open up after a certain amount of "building" the stolen shadow.

For example, steal shadow. At level one, you can sleep and manadrain. When you perform various acts against the target whose shadow you've stolen (lash, nightkiss, etc.), the shadow "builds". At level two, you can blackout, bleed or addiction, level three, so on and so forth.

This way, the most potent afflictions aren't immediately available and at least require some work to achieve. Overcomplicated? Dunno, just tossing this into the list of possibilities.

As I understand it, that's how the design is already set up.

DeathShadowLevels! Couldnt resist. Teehee.

Ytran:

As I understand it, that's how the design is already set up.

Sorta, though I don't see any mention of limiting afflictions by level in this way unless I've misinterpreted.

It's already how it's set up.

Using an example limit of 3 shadow charges total, the affs will be spread out such that the minor ones like sleep and mana drain cost 1 charge, while the strong stuff will cost 3 charges. Once you deal the aff, the charges leave your shadow and you'll have to build them up again via lash, scourge, etc.

So yes, the potent affs are -never- immediately available.

In fact, if we add in fools' change, you'll never even be able to pre-build charges until the actual pk happens, to limit its gankability.

Ah, I misinterpreted it then. So, it's 3 shadows from the specific target you're afflicting, and not 3 shadows in general?

What I'm getting at is, if cauldrons hold 25 shadows, could you 3-shadow-afflict 8 different people in succession? Or would you have to steal Malarious' shadow, lash him three times, then do the 3s afflict, steal Lothringen's shadow, lash him three times, etc.?

The shadow charges are independent of cauldron anythings, and are instead based on stealing another player's shadow - so long as you have a person's shadow, you build charges on that, which allow you to afflict. (This is what I've gathered from reading the discussion; I have no idea how Night works, so if I'm wrong ignore me).

I really should just post version 2 so we're on the same page, I'll do that after I get some food!

The cauldron thing will no longer be in effect. Cauldrons will be left alone.

You're right, if you want to afflict different people with this new mechanic, you'll have to steal Lothringen's, Malarious' and whoever's shadows, then build up shadow charges on each one. So if you stole the shadow from 3 different people, you'll need to hit each of them 3 times in order to hit them with the strong stuff.

Or, now that I think about it, we can just limit you to stealing one person's shadow at a time. TBH, that sounds much simpler.

If we need to steal someone else's shadow, maybe we can add a syntax (unforceable) that will destroy the shadow you're currently holding.

Edit: Ytran has the right of it, have a gold star.

Okay, cool. Thanks for clarifying!

Nifty idea so far.

Reminds me of vodun.....