Poison weapons
 

Recently I've noticed just how powerful weapons with a poison secondary effect are, particularly missile weapons. It seems that as long as they hit they deal their poison damage, regardless of whether they penetrate armour or even get parried by a shield. So you have a case where poison bows like those used by sauromatia are actually ideally suited to killing tower shielded heavy infantry and stuff with impenetrable protection. This really doesn't make much sense to me. I modded some blowpipes with poison for my lizardman nation and they were ripping through heavily armoured guys far too fast.

Would people here support a change so certain poison damage is only inflicted if the initial mundane damage punches past armour and parry? Obviously for stuff like poison slings it doesn't need to get past the armour - fair enough. But getting poisoned by a poison arrow bouncing off your shield or a blowdart pinging off your stone skin is pretty ridiculous.

Re: Poison weapons
 

It also has the added bonus of stripping glamour along with the hitpoints.

Which also doesn't make alot of sense.

Re: Poison weapons
 

Screaming and writhing from the pain of the poison just isn't very glamorous. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I was pretty sure that the weapon has to deal at least 1 point of damage for the poison to take effect.

Re: Poison weapons
 

No, it doesn't. The poison from arrows affects the unit even when no damage is taken.

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Definitely seems like a problem to me then; doesn't make sense, and too powerful.

Poison bow archers are awesome enough as it is. If they were supposed to be this powerful, up the poison damage IF it ever gets through, but not if it boinks off your shield or armor to begin with.

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Why doesn't make sence? Arrows with small pouches of poison which explodes in clouds after hitting the ground.

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That'd be like shooting stones with crossbows or something. Slings have -3 precision, and shooting arrows like that should have at LEAST the same malus.

It's even worse for blowpipes, and I'd be willing to pay to see someone blow a water balloon through a straw.


Is the poison #secondaryeffect or #secondaryeffectalways? If it's the latter, the fix can be modded in. If it's the first, it's a bug in regards to ranged weapons and #secondaryeffect.

Re: Poison weapons
 

It's secondaryeffect afaik.

The theory that the arrows are tipped with poison gas or exploding liquid or something,... well I guess you can explain anything away if you try hard enough. To me that seems really silly though. You might as well say a wizard did it. It's clear that some weapons work that way, like the Skaven poison globes, like poison spit attacks or Ctisian poison slingers,.. but blowdarts, sauromatian arrows, poison daggers etc are obviously poison tipped and logically should need to do at least a point of mundane damage to work.

In gameplay terms it's problematic mainly in terms of modded units with poison ranged weapons, but in basegame it's part of the reason the sauromatian archers are so nuts. If they were required to do at least 1 point of mundane they'd still be great but wouldn't be capable of mowing down heavy infantry like they do now.

Re: Poison weapons
 

I thought that 1 p dmg was needed. Does the same apply to other secondary poison effects, or is this just a mistyping on the poison bow data?

Re: Poison weapons
 

I'm 90% sure this applies to all weapons with a poison as a secondaryeffect. Give me 5 minutes and I'll test it though.

-5 minutes later-

I can say for sure that weak poison as a secondaryeffect on a missile weapon works even if it's parried and even if the missile weapon does 0 actual damage. I can't imagine the other poisons are different, nor stuff like flaming arrows damage.

Regarding poison as a secondaryeffect on melee weapons,.. I'm not sure. I'll test that next and post up my findings.

Re: Poison weapons
 

Ok judging for a quick test, melee weapons DO require at least one point of damage to be dealt before the secondaryeffect of poison will be applied.

So I have no issue with how they work at all, only with missile weapons.

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We should also discuss the hit chances to targets with shield.

Its nearly impossible to hit a commander with a parry 8+ shield.

There should be a malus for other every arrow hitting the field. Something like the -2 defence in melee per attacker beyond the first.

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I don't follow that logic. There are lots of poisons that only need to touch skin to work, or do the tiniest scratch, so I see no reason why even one HP of damage needs to be done. I mean, who says that the Sauromatian arrow isn't designed to shatter spectacularly and if even a tiny sliver scratches you or works its way into your armor then you are poisoned.

Re: Poison weapons
 

I'd love that, massed xbows would become a valid SC counter

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Against enemies with normal heavy armour (such as chainmail hauberk or plate cuirass) the chances of doing 1 damage with massed missile weapons is actually not that bad. To my mind that already simulates the poison somehow managing to get to an exposed spot. Against a cyclops with skin of granite, ulmish warriors encased head to toe in full blacksteel armour and the like, I see no reason why poison from an arrowhead would get to a vulnerable spot where melee weapons can't.

Sure you can say "who says the sauromation arrow isn't X or Y" in order to explain the way things currently are. Like I said earlier, you can pretty much explain anything away if you try. But an equally valid argument would be "who says the sauromatian arrow /is/ X and Y". Not KO, judging from his response. It appears he intended the poison from the missile weapons in question to activate only with a minimum 1 mundane damage.

I find the idea of some spectacularly exploding shrapnel arrow a hell of a stretch too. In terms of recruitable troops without magic weapons specifically mentioned in the descriptions, Dominions follows pre-gunpowder armaments. To my knowledge there has never been a shattering, armour piercing poison flechette arrowhead used in the history of warfare, probably because it's way too complex. There are plenty of examples of regular or barbed arrows dipped in nasty poisons, excrement and so on,.. but those wouldn't do much unless they got past armour.

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"To my knowledge there has never been a shattering, armour piercing poison flechette arrowhead used in the history of warfare..."

Laughed out loud.

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In some cases, there'd also be grounds for giving a penalty to the shield that lasts more than just that turn. It's going to be a bit more unwieldy to use a shield if there's a large spear or throwing axe embedded in it, for instance.

Re: Poison weapons
 

This doesn't only apply to poisons. It also applies to the aging effect from skeletal archer banefire bows, insanity from the black bow, etc.

Question: does air shield protect from missile weapons' secondaryeffect?

Re: Poison weapons
 

So secondaryeffect is only suppose to activate if damage is done? And secondaryeffectalways activates even if they do not hit? Or does it activate if they hit but cause no damage?

If you change ranged weapons so it would only use the secondaryeffect if 1 HP of mundane damage is done, wouldn't that make Woodsmen Blowspipe virtually useless?

Would that make the Botulf and Banefire bows less useful as well?

Also with the shield blocking boulder's problem; I was wondering if it could somehow use the shield's protection if the shield was used to parry.

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For that matter, should javelins (and boulders) have a break shield ability? They were used by Romans to penetrate shields and make them impossible to use. Presumably this would not work on magic shields.

For boulders, maybe make them Area 1 effect, but with a nerf of a Defence roll to dodge the huge, slow, heavy, incoming lump of stone. Or treat them like a melee blow where the shield can add protec but not negate the blow.

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I think boulders need to ignore shields entirely. When you have a boulder thrown at you you need to dodge, not hide behind a flimsy piece of wood.

I always imagined the blow darts not needing to deal real damage to afflict posion. If a typical human has 9-11 HP, would ten blow darts kill a human? most likey not. My point is that Blow darts are meant to deliver poison not to damage people's bodies. And they have a nasty way of finding chinks in armor, esp ring mail.

Arrows and bolts do need to be changes but If I had my way darts would remain unchanged.

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Blowdarts probably couldn't even pierce through the leather or padding worn under ringmail, realistically speaking. I don't see why their poison should ignore armour and shield parries when they have even less penetrative properties, accuracy and mass than arrows.

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I agree with sheild parry, but I would need to see some evidence about leather armor. I belive they could pierce leather, for the same reason stiletto blades could pierce plate mail; Namely, highly focused pressure. I could easily be wrong, I further admit my sources may not be the most accurate, mostly pnp rpgs.

From a game balance point of view, Blow guns are very weak as it is. They will be nearly worthless with a nerf. They will only be useful against unarmored opponets. I really want to like the indy blow dart guys, but they just suck.

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No. As far as I know, nothing does. Not luck, not mirror image, not air shield, nothing. Which makes magic bows with secondary effects (black bow, vision's foe, etc.) rather unfair against many foes. (Poison you can protect against with poison resistance, at least.)

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hehe visions foe or black bow with attack commanders would be sweetish

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My uncles and I were able to, with a 4' blowgun, put a target needle (basically a sharpened wire) through two sheets of dry wall... I'm pretty sure that a little bit of leather isn't going to do squat. A true hunting/war blowgun would be longer and thus have even more power & range.
Just thought I would throw that out there...

Re: Poison weapons
 

Remind my units not to use drywall armour. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Poison weapons
 

thanks, that is what i had read, but I dont have any real experience. Only fired home made blow guns.

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Just so I'm clear, I'm not saying nerf blowguns or nerf poison archers. I'm just saying the way it works now doesn't make much sense. In my opinion it's best to fix the mechanic /then/ worry about the balance.

Re: Poison weapons
 

I disagree, issues of balance should always take precedence over mechanics. If something is currently balanced, than changing the mechanic is very likely to imbalance something and this needs to be accounted for. Otherwise, you're stuck with an imbalance until the next patch, unless the developers have other priorities at which point you're stuck with it indefinitely. For a competitive MP game, its the only way.

P.S. Bugs are worse than imbalances, squash and avoid those at all costs!

Re: Poison weapons
 

Given that KO wasn't actually aware that poison missile weapons work the way they currently do, it might well be considered a bug and have nothing to do with balance considerations. I'm saying if it is then it's best to fix this before looking at balance rather than saying "If that bug/issue is fixed then it will nerf woodsmen blowpipes and they don't need a nerf so I'll leave it".

As to whether you'd have to wait between patches - there's no reason a bug can't be fixed and then the balance looked at, all ready for the next patch. Generally though the devs don't go into balance that much, leaving it more to mods like CBM.

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On another note, wouldn't the one damage thing really reduce the efectiveness of flaming arrows? I'm not sure if thats a good thing or a bad thing.

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I think Flaming Arrows should be secondaryeffectalways? Flaming arrows should not need 1HP damage to be activated.

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flaming arrows are strong enough as is thank you.

btw a flaming arrow caught in armor won't do much good either... actually a flaming arrow really isn't that much worse than a regular arrow anyway unless you are made of straw or soft wood IMHO

Re: Poison weapons
 

Says right there on the poison bow description, and I'm sure blowguns as well... anyone WOUNDED by the weapon will be struck by this effect.

EDIT: Just tried it, and it seems to me that you definitely don't need to take a wound to get affected by the effect. It's not beyond the realm of possibility that this might get looked at within the next few patches, but at the same time, there's good reasons to keep it as it is too.

Re: Poison weapons
 

So would this make flaming arrows less useful against high protection units? Since they would have to do 1HP damage before the fire damage is activated?

So #secondaryeffect is supposed to only be activated if they wound the target? #secondaryeffectalways seems to be activated even if they do not hit?
It would be better if there was a #secondaryeffectonhit so it can be activated if it hits but does not wound.

Re: Poison weapons
 

Yes it would! If this bug will be fixed in future illwinter should consider to rebalance the arrow hit calculation.

Re: Poison weapons
 

Possible solution to the poison bow problem is this:

Create a new poison bow ranged weapon with poison as the damage type
Add the mundane damage weapon ie ‘shortbow’ as a secondaryeffect

This should at least allow people with shields to parry the arrows – you still have the problem of armour not helping against poison when it should though (ie when you’d expect the poison only to apply if the projectile actually causes damage). You would however if the poison damage wasn’t automatically armour negating, which could be the case. I need to test this. You could then make stuff like poison blowpipes into an armour piercing weapon with a secondaryeffect of 1 capped mundane damage, if you felt that they should be able to hit unarmoured spots more often than arrows etc

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As I remember, poison blowpipes just never got used in regions where medium armor was in common use... So if they'd become useless it wouldn't be far from truth. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif I agree they are useless enough currently but just can't see them on regular battlefield in any case. Probably should be replaced with something else?
And yes, if poison bows, etc. work regardless of armor & attack roll, it should be fixed.

Re: Poison weapons
 

I like the way poison bows work. I don't think they need fixing. Just because you don't like that the fumes from the poison smeared on the shield is a enough to poison a person does not mean I don't. The fumes are not burning them to ashes just making them feel bad which is quite common in the real world.

The poison works so long as the arrow bounces off the armor and leaves a mark. Sounds a lot like the US army manual dealing with chemical warfare.

Re: Poison weapons
 

But the description of poison bows and KOs reaction to this thread suggest they aren't working the way they're supposed to.

As I've said numerous times - you can explain away just about anything. If your explanation was at least reasonable I might say 'yeah ok fair point'. But it isn't. It's silly. There's a clear difference in dom3 between stuff like poison spit or ctisian poison slings which produce aoe poison gas,.. and arrows/blowpipes with poisoned tips. For one thing, if an arrow or dart works the way you describe, why don't poison melee weapons? They can be parried by shields just fine without poisoning anyone.

And what's common in the real world? Feeling bad from fumes or these gas producing poison smearing arrows you refer to? Because I've never heard of anything like that being used in warfare. The only poison arrows I've heard of would require at the very /least/ contact with the skin. Additionally if you actually check the kind of damage done by 'weak poison' you'll see it's considerably worse than 'feeling bad'. That's the reason sauromatian archers can tear apart heavy infantry.

Ultimately this discussion is pretty pointless because, again, you can explain away just about anything. The key points here are that poison arrows don't work the way they are apparently intended to, don't work in an intuitive way, don't work like their real world historical counterparts and are limiting modding to an extent because we haven't figured out how to make 'if hurt then apply poison secondary' missile weapons.

I'm sure you disagree on all these points and that's fine. You can't make a thread about a change to dom3 without someone arguing the other side because they like things the way they are :]

If I can figure out a mod to 'fix' poison missile weapons then I will. Changing them in basegame is up to KO and seems unlikely to happen.

Re: Poison weapons
 

Unfortunately it seems damage type poison = AN automatically, so my mod idea won't work.

Re: Poison weapons
 

"don't work like their real world historical counterparts"

Can you tell me what history book to look up intelligent magic using lizards trying to take over the world at the command their risen God in that I may compare their poisons to ours?

This is fantasy. While I want you to be able to mod what you want I don't want to be forced to play your "politically correct" poison weapons fantasy.

In my world the police/military are testing crowd control rubber bullets that are coated with a substance that smells so bad that you will vomit and run for something to wash it off with. People are not be able to stand next to you because of the smell of the mark it leaves on your clothes.

The only thing that is unusual about it is that you don't end up in the hospital from it. Things that can do that are rather common but something that can do that and not hurt you has cost millions to find.

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Just to expand on the idea.

The bullets had to be made in a way that the product is not released until impact so the cop does not need a gasmask to shoot the gun. The arresting officers have to wear gasmasks to take you in. They make pepper dust bullets to blind, choke and cause vomiting but they have to hit in the upper chest for the dust cloud to reach your head. Unless they go fullauto in which case you are in the center of a dust cloud that will take down a several elephants. God help anyone downwind of you.

In my world people are laid out from the fumes that the ink used to print the book they are reading puts out. People end up in the hospital from the fumes off of hairspray, perfume, candles and these are the "safe" things. Go to a military surplus store and page through the infantry manual on dealing with chemical attacks. Skin contact is not needed by the good stuff.

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So why should your claim of "because it's fantasy" be more relevant than the claim of "because it's realistic"? Basically what you're saying is that we should keep everything as unrealistic and fantastical as possible just because Dominions has magic lizards. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smirk.gif

Re: Poison weapons
 

Far be it for me to interfere with a man arguing with himself... but I have to say, "because it's fantasy" is a perfectly fine argument to make, and so is "because it's realistic". This aside, the way poison works is unlikely to change, (as most things in Dom are unlikely to change)... and the ranged poison weaponry isn't really a glaring imbalance, just quite effective, and perhaps not intuitive (particularly how the arrows which bounce of shields cause poison damage).

While I'm no poison expert, (as I don't live in Australia /jab ), what's most strange to me is all the poison in dominions is extremely potent compared to the real world. We are talking death in seconds (unless it's not a human). Perhaps if we had other poisons in the game, (poisons which lower your att/def/ap), or poisons which kill you after the battle, or poisons that made you hallucinate (confusion effect)... then this wouldn't be such a big issue.

Re: Poison weapons
 

Poison works the way it works because of balance or practicality issues.

Poison arrows on the other hand works the way it works because it's a bug. See the difference? One was intended, the other was not.

Anyway, real-world poison can render you helpless within minutes. However, let's not try to point out every little thing in Dominions that isn't realistic. There's a lot that isn't realistic, but then there's a lot in Dominions that was intended to be realistic. A human can't trample a giant, for example.

I bet if the boots of behemoth allowed any sized unit to trample any sized unit, and then I complained that it isn't realistic, some of you would argue that it's magic, it's fantasy, it's not supposed to be realistic. But maybe... just maybe... realism in this case would be better, and thus boots of behemoth does not allow a human to trample a giant, thank goodness we don't have to argue about that. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Re: Poison weapons
 

But... Boots of Behemoth are made from Construction, so they're kind of like machines, and in real world there are those HUGE trucks for carrying earth and ores and whatever (== EARTH! like the Boots!), so logically Boots of Behemoth should make the wielder trample like it was size 6.


http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Re: Poison weapons
 

Saying "It's fantasy don't bring realism into it" and then using real world examples of high tech police and military chemical weapons as evidence is silly.

There's no point in me arguing with Forrest. He likes things the way they are for whatever reason and will bring up just about anything to try and justify it. Including painting me as some political correctness tyrant trying to ruin the game. Same stuff we hear every time anyone suggests a change to the game. When it was Vans people were busting out "I don't want to play a game where every nation/unit is exactly the same" hyperbole. Same deal essentially.

If poison arrows are working as intended then the descriptions should be fixed. I'd also suggest changing the name to 'poison gas bow' and putting an extra line in the description about how the poison will work even if the arrow is stopped. Because just about everyone who thinks poison arrow or poison dart will imagine the poison will only apply if the arrow does damage. Why? Same reason people can safely imagine spears are longer than swords, longbows fire farther than shortbows or lightning negates armour, without having to look it up.

Re: Poison weapons
 

In Dominions, we only see the "military-grade" poisons; the less lethal ones aren't as useful for large-scale warfare.