Tackling people

[SekoETC]

I started thinking about this while reading the restraining topic again. That even if you got your hands bound behind your back, you could still toss yourself upon a person, possibly throwing them out of balance and making it easier for others to attack them.

This would naturally be possible also when you're not tied up, in fact it would have a higher chance of success if you had your hands free. But anyway, it would work just like a regular attack exept that instead of dealing damage, upon success you would lower the person's shield rating for a short length of time. Since it would count as an attack, you couldn't attack them yourself during this period but if you had allies they could use the chance of hitting the target when he's down. But (of course there's a but) you would also be off balance and vulnerable to attacks for approximately the same length of time that your victim is. This would also happen if you failed (you would just throw yourself on the ground).

When a person is tackled, they couldn't enter buildings or go to a road but I think it should only last for a few minutes.

Now why is this thing needed? Because if someone has an iron shield, they could block your attack totally even if you were an expert. Hitting past the shield depends on random chance and I seem to remember it's not bound to skills or tiredness. And since a defender doesn't gain any damage it doesn't matter how many people are attacking him, the chances are still very low if you can't get through the shield. My suggestion would make it possible for a well-organized group of poorly armed people to wound a person carrying an iron shield.

[Zanthos]

as for blocking, i have an expert fighter with a wooden shield, he blocked 7/8 attacks by an awkward fighter, and 1/8 attacks by a skillful. Now, this could be total luck on behalf of the skillful, but skill probably does have something to do with combat. And as for the effect lasting for a few minutes, the tackle would require high cooperation between players and would pick up the pace of combat, which would put some players at severe disadvantage while definately benefiting powergamers.

[Racetyme]

I don't like this actually. I think iron shields are rightly powerful. If you want to kill the person, drag them away to somewhere thats isolated. Thats why dragging is there, in my opinion.

[SekoETC]

Consider it anyway. What if there are no places to drag a person to? It should be possible to hold someone down. Maybe having it last only a few minutes is too short but imagine if it took a hour, a lot of things could happen and all these two people could do was watch. It sounds exaggerated. We must think about balance.

Maybe if it was just the paralyzing effect that stops the person from moving but not from defending themselves? Thus blocking chance would remain the same, the only difference is that an active person could stop a hit and run pirate etc. even if they couldn't kill them with one blow.

If it worked like that, it would only be a remedy against active people and couldn't be used to get at sleepers (although in some cases it might be needed to ensure that an inactive person doesn't suddenly jump up when people are trying to hit him or her).

We could say that the holding project times out in an hour if the tackler doesn't cancel it, but the person who was tackled could choose to struggle free. The chance of success would be affected by the strength and tiredness of both parties. Failed attempt would raise tiredness of both parties, thus making them vulnerable to attacks of a third party.

Also a person who's being held/tackled could not be (successfully) dragged until the tackler gets off, so there would be a small chance of escaping as (s)he releases his or her grip.

Also it should be possible for a third party to drag off the tackler, but this is also possible through functions in the game (drag from project).