Post by Kitsunenotsume on Jul 18, 2017 19:28:30 GMT -5
Earlier today, a large discussion cropped up on Discord regarding the apparent superiority of Marksmanship to most other combat styles even when at no ability investment. The general observation is that the penalty for opting to use ranged weapons is not role-impactful. While using ranged weapons in melee can indeed become a disastrous idea (unless negated with Iron Sights or Targeting Lamp), ideally a ranged character will not be in melee if their team or hireling is working well. Meanwhile, characters in the back are capable of applying damage as effectively or better as the ones in the front, with no apparent trade-off to the individual (presuming we are ignoring the impact to the team of the melee taking more damage each). Additionally, the penalty of shooting in melee is easily overcome by just switching to melee-weapons or flat out running for the transition, thereby making the penalty a non-issue.
Basic D&D (and most RPGs I have played) provide a counterbalance to this sort of strategy by imposing an accuracy penalty to targets further out - remaining safe and far away from the fight makes it harder to shoot at the smaller target or into a pitched battle. This is already a factor with grenades, so it's a mechanical hurdle than an ideological one.
I can see two methods to implement the idea, though I doubt they are the only options:
- While it would be complicated as NWN2 apparently decided that range-increments were ignorable, if distance between a creature and its target can be calculated prior to an attack then weapons could be calculated to impose an attack penalty dependent on either a fixed drop-off or weapon's individual profile (Such as rifles VS pistols for range).
- It might be impossible to check on individual attacks, in which case an alternative might be checking the target shot at last round, and if it is alive applying the range penalty - this would allow an initial volley at full accuracy (presumably you sight in) and subsequent barrage fire would suffer scatter from range. (An interesting tradeoff here is that kiting tactics -moving other round and shooting in between- would not be affected as static fire under the method I described).
Iff implemented, this could allow for some alterations to existing ability lines and mods that otherwise deal with ranged accuracy. One of the Marksman passive lines could be altered to increase range-increments by some percentage or otherwise reduce the penalties for distant targets. Sniper-Scopes could offer a penalty within close increments and a accuracy/damage bonus at longer ranges rather than the sneak-bonus (which currently only works at short range in contradiction to intent). Variable scope could offer a boost to range-increment instead of the crit portion.
Basic D&D (and most RPGs I have played) provide a counterbalance to this sort of strategy by imposing an accuracy penalty to targets further out - remaining safe and far away from the fight makes it harder to shoot at the smaller target or into a pitched battle. This is already a factor with grenades, so it's a mechanical hurdle than an ideological one.
I can see two methods to implement the idea, though I doubt they are the only options:
- While it would be complicated as NWN2 apparently decided that range-increments were ignorable, if distance between a creature and its target can be calculated prior to an attack then weapons could be calculated to impose an attack penalty dependent on either a fixed drop-off or weapon's individual profile (Such as rifles VS pistols for range).
- It might be impossible to check on individual attacks, in which case an alternative might be checking the target shot at last round, and if it is alive applying the range penalty - this would allow an initial volley at full accuracy (presumably you sight in) and subsequent barrage fire would suffer scatter from range. (An interesting tradeoff here is that kiting tactics -moving other round and shooting in between- would not be affected as static fire under the method I described).
Iff implemented, this could allow for some alterations to existing ability lines and mods that otherwise deal with ranged accuracy. One of the Marksman passive lines could be altered to increase range-increments by some percentage or otherwise reduce the penalties for distant targets. Sniper-Scopes could offer a penalty within close increments and a accuracy/damage bonus at longer ranges rather than the sneak-bonus (which currently only works at short range in contradiction to intent). Variable scope could offer a boost to range-increment instead of the crit portion.
