Sil: What are your least liked features of Sil?

[taptap]

This will become more important in the next version presumably after they nerf "song of sharpness", which reduces enemy protection and basically makes strength as underpowered as you say.

Sharpness will be nerfed? That is news to me. However, I doubt sharpness will be nerfed to a point where it forces you to high strength play, that many different builds are viable is the main strength of Sil and I don't see half changing that. Most likely there will be a slightly more difficult sharpness song with a slightly smaller sharpness effect, i.e. you may end with 35% where you had 27% now.

Anyone who believes strength is underpowered at the moment is invited to play 0 or -1 strength fighters. It is possible, but a pain until you get subtlety. And yes, quite a few enemies resist critical hits.

[BlueFish]

Sharpness will be nerfed? That is news to me.

I think half has mentioned something about toning it down and making it feel less mandatory.

However, I doubt sharpness will be nerfed to a point where it forces you to high strength play, that many different builds are viable is the main strength of Sil and I don't see half changing that. Most likely there will be a slightly more difficult sharpness song with a slightly smaller sharpness effect, i.e. you may end with 35% where you had 27% now.

Hopefully the song skill requirement will go down rather than up. It's a bad combo currently with it being so important to many builds and yet so high up the song tree that you have to be a partial "song" build to take it. Reducing its effectiveness (even as it scales with Song) and lowering the song requirement would seem to work well, IMO. Sharpness starts out at 50% protection reduction for normal amounts of grace and the requisite 10 song. It could start out at 20% reduction and still be quite useful - turning 5d4 prot into 4d4. But maybe they have more substantial changes in mind, I don't know.

[debo]

Speaking of throwing weapons, can we make sure the 'melee brands' (e.g. things that aren't gondolin, doriath, or nargothrond) get removed from them in the next version? Esp. the cursed ones, they have some weird effects.

I just found a stack of three (+1,2d4) {special} throwing axes, so I wield-id'ed one. It stuck, I have curse-breaking so I took it off. (I also have lore-keeper.) Then I had:

2 throwing axes (vampiric) (+1,2d4) {cursed}
a throwing axe (vampiric) (+1,2d4) {uncursed}

So I thought, ok I 'll just wield the other two and break their curses also so they'll stack. Now I have

2 throwing axes (vampiric) (+1,2d4)
a throwing axe (vampiric) (+1,2d4) {uncursed}

I suspect that uncursed throwing axe will never stack with anything ever again I can't seem to hand-edit the {uncursed} part of the inscription myself.

Beyond the stacking issue, you can also throw cursed weapons without invoking the sticky curse, which is sort of odd...

[half]

Thanks for the bug report!

[taptap]

Double block rolls for shields when you don't move? How can you ever do any damage or escape then?

... and ranged attacks regardless of movement!

[Philip]

Also, Focused attack and Controlled Retreat. Be well protected, and do loads of free damage when you move.

[taptap]

Also, Focused attack and Controlled Retreat. Be well protected, and do loads of free damage when you move.

Is anyone actually doing this? I mean resting a turn and only attack with controlled retreat? I like controlled retreat, but I never would bring myself to rest and retreat. It just feels wrong.

[half]

Is anyone actually doing this? I mean resting a turn and only attack with controlled retreat? I like controlled retreat, but I never would bring myself to rest and retreat. It just feels wrong.

Wrong as in strange or wrong as in cheating? It is certainly part of the intended use of Controlled Retreat, so it isn't cheating/exploitative.

[taptap]

Wrong as in strange or wrong as in cheating? It is certainly part of the intended use of Controlled Retreat, so it isn't cheating/exploitative.

As in strange. I use controlled retreat as "space consuming quickness effect" - but often get little work out of the blocking, that I take to get there. Having no shield with my strong melee characters doesn't help either.

[locus]

Yeah it's a little weird to have blocking as a prerequisite for stuff when it's totally useless if you don't have a shield. It makes the "Heavy Armor + 2Hander" build a lot less viable since you either have to take a meaningless ability or give up on the 1-3 protection you get from Heavy Armor Use.

[locus]

Heavy Armor Use is also weird in that it requires fairly sizable investment in Evasion, when one of the points of going the heavy armor route is to not need Evasion skill.

[taptap]

Heavy Armor Use is also weird in that it requires fairly sizable investment in Evasion, when one of the points of going the heavy armor route is to not need Evasion skill.

I imagine heavy armour use to be the ability to be still moving around fluidly and with less fatigue in heavy armour, although Sil gives you an armour bonus instead of reduced evasion / melee penalties. If you think of it as additional armour added, because you can handle armour so well, it makes sense.

One thing I may not like are the way war hammers work. Take a fairly common 4 lb 4d1 war hammer vs. 4 lb 3d4 battle axes. The average damage (let us disregard criticals, which are slightly larger on the axe although not more common), is 4 + 2*strength for the hammer, 7.5 + 1.5*strength for the axe. I.e. the hammer starts to do more damage on normal hits with effective 7 strength. --- Wait that isn't so bad, with 2 quasi-strength from two-handedness, 1 from power and 4 base strength and maybe 3 from charge.

[half]

I.e. the hammer starts to do more damage on normal hits with effective 7 strength. --- Wait that isn't so bad, with 2 quasi-strength from two-handedness, 1 from power and 4 base strength and maybe 3 from charge.

Warhammers are supposed to be pretty niche in Sil since they are not used much in the canon. (I'm pretty sure dwarves are said to use them in a couple of places). Note that you would need Momentum in your example, and that you didn't include the rather common +1 quasi-strength due to fineness (which is really nice on hammers). Your example does show that you really want your hammers to be at the heavy end though.

[mrrstark]

Is anyone actually doing this? I mean resting a turn and only attack with controlled retreat? I like controlled retreat, but I never would bring myself to rest and retreat. It just feels wrong.

Why is it wrong?

Controlled retreat + Polearm mastery is great, you get a free attack as they approach, then you step back, free attack, rinse repeat, and if they're moving at your speed, it's very deadly.

For more tanky approach, doesn't blocking + controlled retreat make some sense? Maybe not optimal, but I've never really understood the blocking mechanic requiring you to rest unless it's in conjunction with something like controlled retreat or focus.

[taptap]

Warhammers are supposed to be pretty niche in Sil since they are not used much in the canon. (I'm pretty sure dwarves are said to use them in a couple of places). Note that you would need Momentum in your example, and that you didn't include the rather common +1 quasi-strength due to fineness (which is really nice on hammers). Your example does show that you really want your hammers to be at the heavy end though.

Yes, I just was surprised that with fine bonus, power and two handed, you are almost even at 3 (real) strength (which is possible right at start), you only get past axes when you have momentum and more strength+weight/momentum or damage rings. However, with such an high strength you could probably take a mattock right away. Of course having an option for one handedness may be very helpful.

Controlled retreat:

Sure, controlled retreat + polearm mastery is great, but when adjacent to an enemy at a given turn before being able to retreat further I attack with polearm instead of waiting. And when did you last use one handed polearms anyway (blocking requires shield)? I do very rarely with slaying spears, such as Nargothrond or Spear of Boldog, but only in situations where I wouldn't want to reduce my damage output even further.