Mods (open discussion)

[John Hogg <johnhogg@expert.cc.purdue.edu>]

Hmmm,

I seem to be seeing a good number of posts dealing with mods of late ...
or more to the point, dealing with utility of weapon skills compared to
mods.

examples:
the slew of defense skill posts citing precise attack as a counter for a
larger defensive value (or penalties for range during missle attacks, but 
I think the range penalty to hit was pretty well nixed).

It still begs the question:

If I'm a warrior, why would I spend the eps to buy up my weapon skill for
precise attack, when mods are much cheaper and apply to ALL weapons?

(granted, one buys the weapon skill for quickdraw and additional attacks)

This is the same reason few warriors wear armor as they rise in level.
Why suffer the movement penalties of armor (as well as resistance check
penalties) when an opponent's combat mod of 5 (3000 eps) or so will offset
the benefit the armor gives the wearer?

Further, mods have no limiting stat.

There are skills to increase every mod of the user (combat weapon, missle
weapon, and wrestling), and a growing arguement in favor of some form of
defensive skill.  In addition, it seems that, from many descriptions of
the way people want to defend against missles, the Dodge skill would be
really popular if the few points of DV it incurred for a successful use
would, again, not be offset by a missle mod of 5.

As we seem to be in favor of a warrior's skill being what determines his
success (a popular POV in both the archery and defense skill threads),
pending passage of a defense skill or subskill, should mods be removed
from the game as unbalancing*?

*Granting players that have them a pool of eps equal to what they spent on
them, or some other (for sake of arguement) ACCEPTABLE compensation, and
keeping the racial bonuses for orcs, elves, and dwarves as is.

Other than creatures and items that grant DVs above, say 19-20 that would
need to be tweaked,

Upsides:

1) armor regains utility
2) the warrior becomes skill based vs. mod based

Downsides:
1) may REALLY give magic a boost in relative power (ex, the fire spells
that tweak DV's)
2) may make combat more lengthy

Again, this isn't a proposal, but a discussion (I don't even want to BEGIN
to think of the overhaul that would result from this)

Whadda you guys think?

John Hogg					johnhogg@expert.cc.purdue.edu
I'll tell you what I've learned today!  I've learned Nature can be cruel ...  
BUT I CAN BE CRUELER!!!!!!    BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
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