Poison weapons

[Sombre]

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.

[Sombre]

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

[Forrest]

"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.

[Forrest]

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.

[Argitoth]

Forrest said:
"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?

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.

[Saulot]

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.

[Argitoth]

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.

[Endoperez]

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.

[Sombre]

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.

[capnq]

Saulot said: 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.

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