JEDI Comport

What about level four just knocking 'back' instead of down... and level five having a knockdown at a 10% chance every second? That way, at level five, there's a 65% chance someone is knocked down after ten seconds of constant fire.

Arendur wrote:What about level four just knocking 'back' instead of down... and level five having a knockdown at a 10% chance every second? That way, at level five, there's a 65% chance someone is knocked down after ten seconds of constant fire.

That's a good idea.

As for the charging, maybe the person can move around while charging the power? 2.5 secs max?

No. Calculating chances of knock down based X level of X power rolled against Y level of bla bla is unneccesairy. This is a skill based game, and a fairly simple one at that. Leave it at that.

4/5 is KD if catching the user without abosrb or his defense up. You just need a charge-up/warning instead of the instant cast that is now. The power off a full force blast would knock anybody down if they were unexpectant of it. Leave it.

When I faced Delmi and Agitt in a simulation with Storm 4, I had a bind along the lines of ::His hands begin to cackle with light as he formulates a bolt of energy:: and would wait a second or so before blasting them. In the situation, when I did it, they would run and hide when they saw it.

So I think a charge up is ... alright, but it should be nowhere near four seconds. In four seconds you can drag eight swings through a person and chop them in half three times over.

Especially Consulars.

With the last two posts, coming from Dixo and Tomoran, I think that we have found what we need. Make lightning chargeable for a second (or two at the most), both for levels 4 and 5. You can still move, but if you do, the charge resets. Want to disable the charge? Lower the power to lvl 3 or less! That makes this fair enough and gives both duelers the chances to react depending on the situation.

That all noted, you're talking about altering a power to suit your own OOC criteria, and failing to take into account the fact that this is not how it works ICly. The books, the movies, the games ALL have Force Lightning/Storm as a power that can be tapped into instantly, all with the same ease as standard Telekinesis, and requiring only a higher level of concentration and the invariable input of emotional energy keyed with a decent understanding of the Force itself.

Seriously, I'm against this, because you guys have NO IC basis for the change, and are simply asking because you see it the skill as overpowered and/or unnecessary. I note nobody's thought to consider altering Defense 3+ or Absorb to balance the counter to the skill, such as not to render this completely useless by your suggestions, either.

Given some more thought, I think we can possibly attribute the perceived necessity of balancing Lightning by the sheer force of its power when it is used to the maximum. When used in short bursts, which is more common in our little fake world, I see less of an issue.

This might be a subject that incorporates personal decisions after viewing the circumstances, in that a Lightning user would judge the appropriate voltage in which to use based on the difficulty of the friendly opponent. With the right defensive powers and stances, Lightning can become little more than a tickle, and when used sparingly against weaker opponents, a fair deterrent.

Could go on about the philosophies and documented uses of the power and its many perceptions, but I'm not as smart as others (in addition to having the appeal of a plank of wood), so I'll leave that for the eternal jury to fight on about. Point is, with the right trust in users not to go full-on with this ability in every possible instance, I'll go ahead and waffle and say I find no dire need for this change.

I don't see a need to change -how- storm works, but rather how much Xp it costs to obtain it. But I'm fine with whatever you guys decide.

Perhaps, instead of having a startup charge to be able to us it, perhaps make it so the knockdown isn't immediate. Have it so you need to be exposed to the lightning for 4-5 seconds before hand before you get blasted to the ground.

I suppose something needs to be altered, judging by this discussion. I think Ergo's sounds reasonable.

Ergo Stomi wrote:Perhaps, instead of having a startup charge to be able to us it, perhaps make it so the knockdown isn't immediate. Have it so you need to be exposed to the lightning for 4-5 seconds before hand before you get blasted to the ground.

This is what I proposed above but at a slightly higher time limit. And I know the coding for it is pretty simple (because lightning is already set on iterations so adding a random value in before the end of the iteration is one line of code).

Aslyn wrote:That all noted, you're talking about altering a power to suit your own OOC criteria, and failing to take into account the fact that this is not how it works ICly. The books, the movies, the games ALL have Force Lightning/Storm as a power that can be tapped into instantly, all with the same ease as standard Telekinesis, and requiring only a higher level of concentration and the invariable input of emotional energy keyed with a decent understanding of the Force itself.

Ravensoft pulled Protect, Absorb, Rage, and Drain out of their gaming rear-ends, yet we totally accept those powers without question.

There needs to be a balance between "aw sweet, this is just like the movies and books and blah blah blah" and "I'm playing a game, this is so cool blah blah blah".

Maybe make it so that when you absorb the lightning you get that sprat rebound effect, maybe make it so that they hit the ground and leave burn marks =D and possibly hurt you if they stop it sucessfully =D

Phillip Braden wrote:Maybe make it so that when you absorb the lightning you get that sprat rebound effect, maybe make it so that they hit the ground and leave burn marks =D and possibly hurt you if they stop it sucessfully =D

What about those of us who don't have/want Absorb?
Am I just SOL because I don't want a specific power?

Or to balance lightning, if it's absorbed by levels 4-5 you can do what Yoda does and shoot it right back (Giving you temporarily the same lightning level as whoever used it on you), which mean if you try to lightning someone there's a chance of getting zapped yourself.