Changing Leaping

[Philip]

I like the idea of the leap attack, though I don't think it should necessarily be that much stronger than a normal attack. Instead, it could allow you to avoid using a turn to move next to a monster. It might not be strong enough, but it's still better than standard Leaping, and standard Leaping isn't exactly hopeless. Maybe it could stack with Charge and Knockback or something?

[wobbly]

Well I've taken leaping on my current archer. It's not so bad as an archer-smith where I can save pts by putting it on my boots. I suspect it's going to be annoying latter on if I find artifact boots & have to swap-in & out. Already found a minor use for it, I can seperate Uldor from his pack. Not a huge deal, considering I could probably have just belted them anyways.

[locus]

My preferred option is #2, merge it with another skill (Dodging seems like the obvious choice). I will never be happy to take an ability that doesn't help me in combat and doesn't do anything at all unless a somewhat rare dungeon feature appears and even then it's a situational effect. Leaping isn't worth the XP on its own.

You could make it a prereq to something worth taking, but Dodging already is that.

[Scatha]

If you added rocket launchers to sil, you could just remove leaping and let us rocket jump. I think that would solve the problem entirely.

This has certain advantages, but there are balance issues. In particular, it's favourable to characters with high Constitution. Since Con may already be the best stat, I'm reluctant to give it any boosts.

[Narvius]

The answer is obviously ghost rockets that drain Voice instead of HP.

[Patashu]

The answer is obviously ghost rockets that drain Voice instead of HP.

The rocket is you shouting REALLY LOUDLY

[Tarrant]

Use Horn of Blasting pointed at your own square (or one behind you, perhaps) to rocket jump?

[Infinitum]

Using a Horn of Force on an adjacent wall. Newton's third hells yeah.

[BlueFish]

Probably the safest way of going about the change is to merge Leaping and Dodging and change nothing else. This will cause nearly everybody to experiment with the ability, and the gameplay effects will become more apparent to the community.

It's a shame edit file changes aren't more common; it would have been nice to see more players change their games s.t. leaping was reasonable to take (removing prereq or whatever). But I know that breaks the ladder, so people are reluctant to do it. But nobody needs to wait for a next minor revision to check out a Leaping without a prereq. Personally I changed mine to be a prereq of sprinting, which is a slightly weaker version of combining it with dodging. I took Leaping every game and was never impressed with it, though clearly that is build dependent.

I'd love for Leaping to be a counter to falling through false floors, but I suppose that would seem overpowered to most others. The effect of Leaping away from the falling floor could be combined with a "more dangerous creatures" effect for the rest of the level, as the level below was alerted by the noise.

[phaethon]

I'd love for Leaping to be a counter to falling through false floors, but I suppose that would seem overpowered to most others.

Hmm... I'm pretty sure I've lept over traps before. You just have to be walking toward them before they trigger. Lately I've kept perception high enough (for loremaster too) that I usually just see traps.

I just saw this thread and wanted to add my 2 cents. I think Wobbly mentioned that having a chasm cut you off from the 2nd forge is a game killer for that character, and I agree. I love playing smiths. Smiths have to commit to their build at the first forge. Missing the second forge means you probably die before you can get to the third, and it's such a stretch to get all the skills you need for smithing, buying two skills for leaping also means you don't have enough experience to craft what you need to survive. Removing the prereq would help, or making it so that chasms appear after the 2nd forge (or that they don't cut off the 2nd forge) would help (but also weaken the importance of leap).

I like chasms in general. I love the special rooms that require leap, and would actually like to see more of them. Do any of the mobs have the leaping skill? If so, it would make more thematic sense that they hide their treasure behind chasms. It would be sick if they used chasms against you too to escape or fire arrows from safety.

Making boots of leaping more common and/or making them appear earlier would also be cool. My inventory gets pretty full and/or heavy, so there is some trade-off between keeping a pair of leaping boots just in case and having room for other stuff.

Taking away the prereq for Leaping and making it an alternate prereq for Sprinting would be my vote. That would make it more accessible for Smiths that need it in the early game, and anyone getting sprinting without flanking would probably consider leaping over dodging to try it out. I think it would push the adoption a lot closer to 1 in 3.

[debo]

You can leap over pits. I don't know about the rest.

[kzer_za]

I like the idea of making it an alternate prereq to Sprint.

[wobbly]

I like chasms in general. I love the special rooms that require leap, and would actually like to see more of them. Do any of the mobs have the leaping skill? If so, it would make more thematic sense that they hide their treasure behind chasms. It would be sick if they used chasms against you too to escape or fire arrows from safety.

I quite like the idea of orc thieves having leaping, though I think some people will hate me for suggesting it.
Perhaps easterling spies also make sense.

Edit: Double hilarity if the thief steals your leaping boots first.

[half]

For now, at least, there are no monsters with Leaping as it seems like it would require some serious changes to the pathfinding code.

[debo]

I quite like the idea of orc thieves having leaping, though I think some people will hate me for suggesting it.
Perhaps easterling spies also make sense.

Edit: Double hilarity if the thief steals your leaping boots first.

We could also have Tevildo leap into your lap and start purring while you're resting.