Illarion.org

I dont think you understand people, the needle is for crafts work. even if you had no parry skill all you have to do is um, sidestep. the needle would attack much slower, they way it attacks now is like someone is standing poke poke poke poke poke really fast. but that would be impossible, even if you did not have a shield. The "poker" would screw up going that fast, or break an arm/strain a muscle. the needle is a flaw as a weapon, but is nessecary for craftswork. get it?

Spears are Throwing weapons. As it seems, the puncturing skill, since it has no "real" weapon function, can simply be used as powergamer-detector.

@Astral : Nice discussing, but if you argue that way, here's your answer: Try it out. Give a round Shield with a diameter of about 1m to your friend. You will KNOW that your friend has NO parry skill at all. But he simply needs to hold the shield in front of him, in your direction, and you will NOT be able to hit him with that needle of yours. For a "bigger" needle you could simply use a stick. Have you ever worn such a shield ? I did, and even a person with a Dagger (in my case a rubber dagger hehe) is totally UNABLE to hit you. Okay, he must jump around and hit your back or your side, but you simply have to TURN, and you block his needle or Dagger WITHOUT MUCH SKILL. Nonsense discussion.

The other, important fact : Try hitting someone or something with
a) your fist
b) a needle
c) a dagger
d) a sword

You will realize certain things :

a) With your fist, it will be almost impossible to hit a person with one shield, and if the person wears an armor, it is EXTREMELY hard to hit unprotected parts. You will simply cause no damage. In a moving fight, you WON'T do quick damage too (as with the actual system) since your opponent moves a little. He will not react like a punching ball that you can hit more than one to three times a second ( Illarion characters without parry still are such punching balls ).

b) The needle will be about as fast as your fist, but the chance to hurt your own fingers because of the lacking handle is extremely high. Except if you use gloves. Hitting a somewhat hard target, like a shield or a tree, will automatically destroy the needle.

c) With the dagger, your attacks will NOT be slower as with the needle or with fists. You will not be able to punch around a SINGLE shield too, and damaging the shield will still be a problem. You MAY hit the person with the dagger, but if he uses a shield AND a weapon, you need great Agility and trained movements not to get hit by his shield or his weapon when trying to run around his shield.
A dagger might be a little quicker than a sword, but it is almost useless against a worn shield. And totally useless against chain armor and plate armor ( Except for a special, long and thin type of dagger, translation from german : Mercy-giver. Those things were able to pierce through cheaper chainmail (less, thinner, or bigger rings) or in between armor plates(very hard to hit, only if you sneak attack AND surprise your target so you have time to aim), but they were STILL useless against a shield).

d) With a sword, a long and somewhat heavy thing ( compared to the dagger, you WILL need a little training just to swing it effectively ), you will attack a little slower than with dagger or fists. If you are a little trained, you will have some techniques to swing it in BOTH directions. Katanas, for example, have only one blade, but are agile and useable with one and two hands, with the right technique and both hands used (no shield) you will be able to swing it much faster than a broadsword or longsword, and block blows with it too.
A saber is fast, but you can only attack with one blade (and the tip), and since the handle is only for one hand, it's not as agile as a Katana.

After all, you will only have a chance to hit someone who is equipped with a single shield (if it's not a very small one), if you use a longer weapon. Even shortswords may not be long enough for that. With a very long weapon, like a halberd or spear, you can attack above (head) or below the shield (legs and feet), but IF the guy with weapon and shield comes too close (especially a quick short sword and shield) you can only defend with the pole weapon, your attacks are ineffective then - if you don't get some distance quick, you're dead.
In medieval times, a special Shield type was used to "break" front lines (with spears, pikes or halberds, or archers). People were equipped with a shorter broad- or shortsword (or something in between, not too long), a second short sword or parry dagger in the belt, and a very heavy, thick large (often round) shield. A storm shield. With this shield, people ran into the enemy's lines, being front-protected by the huge shield. With the weight of the shield, they ran down several people, dropping the shield and then - tadaaa!!! drawing the second short weapon and standing short-distanced in a group of people with long weapons who still needed time to prepare for close fight (change weapons if possible, but still without shield).

With a two-handed or bastard sword, people needed place around them. Of course it is not good if you hit an allied person. With these large swords, people had a great range advantage. Even persons with one handed weapons and a shield had to come close first, and since a two handed, heavy weapon can be quite painful if crashing against your feet or helmet, or even against your shield ( it WILL hurt in the arm and damage the shield ), the situation is somewhat tricky.

Morning stars, these iron balls with spikes that were mounted with a chain on a handle, were constructed to hit persons BEHIND their shield. Of course their handling is a little more tricky, and there may be the risk that the chain gets stuck or held by the other person ( who can attack, too ).

Maces and war hammers, as well as axes, were able to damage the shield with time, and sometimes hurt the arm of the shield wearer. Of course the shield wearer's arm grows more and more tired / aching with the numbers and strength of the blows he must block, resulting in slower shield movement and an increased hit chance, and often shield destruction too. Very stable shields that can take many blows and only get a scratch from it, were of course extremely heavy, resulting in less agility (moving more mass) and faster exhaustion of the wearer's muscles. Light shields, made with less wood and less metal, were better for faster movement and less arm exhaustion, but can break more easily.

You see, the actual System in illarion has very few to do with a realism. It still is a temporal system. The needle is in NO WAY realistic, and it is not PURPOSELY supported in the game as it can be used now.
It is a Glitch that belongs to the actual state of the system. It cannot be changed without causing problems and a lot of development time. It is illegal to use it. THAT are the facts, and NO wanna-be-Argument can stand against those.


(Edited by Damien at 4:37 pm on May 3, 2002)

I am not against it being illeagal to use a needle as a weapon, I just doubt some of the technics here.  Is there any rule in combat that your free hand cannot grab the opponent's shield?  If you use a needle in one hand and nothing in the other, one hand could restrain the shield, and the other coule be used to jab with the needle.  If the opposing person used two shields, that would result even worse, two shields would become clumsy if they keep hitting each other.  Your opponent could not be that co-ordinated to be able to block with the shield and slash with a weapon at the same time, that would get them both killed.  I cant even imagine somebody walking around with a shield on each arm.

About turning around to block attacks:  very few people are that good.  All it takes is one false move, then once the needle hits, there is no means of stopping it.  If you got stabbed by a needle, would you be able to just put yourself together again instantly and start using the shield so well again?  I think not.  Shields are no miracle weapon, they make you slow and they muffle your senses.  If shields could do all this, why did some people still use daggers?  

About the friend having no parry skill:  impossible, everyone has SOME parry skill, it is called common sense.  The only people that you could argue this for are people who cannot use any of their senses.

yes there is a rule, its called honor. back then, men fought with honor and love. no t by cheap tactics. Think of it as unwrittin, but its still there.

My question remains:
Why is the skill there? Why not take it out? Why not make the needle do no damage at all, like a fishing rod?
They managed to make the fishing rod unable to attack, and raw gems, why not needles?
(Yeesh, calm down Damien! It's a needle, after all!)

@Erdrick
The skill is not for the needle. I have try it out with a chr without the skill puncture weapon.
Also is a needle only to push the parry up.

GMcFly
you ended you sentence with a period, it is clearly a question.
a needle is for craftswork, just simply make it unable to attack, or implement something similarlar to my idea, problem sovled.
Damien ever consider writing a book
"Needles For Dummies"

=) =) =)

To Damien's extremely long and boring argumentative post-


Ok ok, you made your point and blew everyone else's arguments out of the water....but was it really worth ALL that typing?  I don't think that I would take the time to type like 2 pages of info on why the needle is "illegal and unrealistic" in usage of a weapon.    Honestly ask yourself Damien....Was it worth it?

hey man, dont put down damien!
of course it was worth it, hell blowing everyone else out of the water is always worth it!

Yes, there is honor, but does everyone in Illarion have to be honorable?  Since there is no way of choosing a fighting style in this game, I guess we all have to be honorable.  Even those of us who think of themselves as dishonorable.  But if you are wanting to fix all this, it is a waste of time; there are better things that you could be doing.

not a waste of time....
but there is better things....

#me looks down at his model spanish galleon he found on junk day on the sidewalk...

time to cleam and measure you!

I think the initial question was something like "what is powergaming?".
The answer is:
Everything that you do that
a) rises skills  AND
b) makes no sense for a medival person with the character, equipment and background of your character.

What is the reason for needle training?
a) raising parry

b) Two persons stand in the shop of a small village. Both wear plate mails and shields. Both have a fierce grin in their face and are almost troll siced muscle-mountains. They meet at dawn in the shop and fight till the dusk, without any break to eat, without talking a word .... They fight with a four inched needle in their hand.

Judge yourself if this makes sense and would be any option for a knight. The Situation DOESN'T change mainly if you take a few minutes break between the fighting, talk while fighting or meet in the woods - just for those smart asses who will now say "ok, I'll talk while fighting, so its allowed"

I don't see any reason for a wizard or peasant to train at all (at least not more than 5% of his time, to get trained agains robbers, and I doubt that many peasants train agains robbers at all).
Imagine a peasants life:
Perhaps 15 hours of work on the acre or the stables. Heavy physical work. He needed the working time to earn the money that his feudal lord forces him to pay. If he gets to sleep 7 hours and eat and relax for one hour a day that gives him 2 hours of spare time. I doubt that he will use this whole time for more physical training when his back is aching and his hands are wounded from the work on the acre.

I totally agree with you, Bror. In the past I saw many people training with needles or fighting at the cross. It's just normal nowadays. I think, like you said, it shouldn't be like this. The most people smith/carpenter/whatever the whole day, after they made 20 Ingots again, they take their weapons and go for some monsterhunt. Its nonsense to do like that. I hope there will be something like "stamina" which tolds you how much you can still work, without dieing. Yet its normal for many people, I don't think it's very clever. Bror gave a good example I think, no need for more words.

training is needed because life in the town is becoming more and more dangerous due to PKers a newbie i knew was PKed about three times in one day. Some people train just so that they will not be killed. but  needle training although i have never used it sounds like it should not be used by a true warrior because training should be hard work and not gained that easily.

Quote: from Ifrit on 5:34 pm on May 28, 2002
Some people train just so that they will not be killed.

So they may do - this way, they would not be killed, but may only be deleted

It was a really big thing in the past, because there was never something direct like this telling that needle training is not allowed.  Most newbies then didn't even know that powergaming wasn't allowed.  I think that having a post that directly states that the needle training is not allowed has stopped alot of it.