[Maul] Balance Suggestions

I hate this idea. I like the random element, and I hate arbitrary caps like this.

If your character has such crappy dodge, why would I stop mauling you after 4 hits!?

I could see a cumulative penalty to accuracy (is this already there). Maybe just needs a little more tweaking.

Agreed. Tweak the ability. Don't cap it.

Why 4?

Why not 3 or 5 or 6, but only every third season when playing as Capitar?

Okay, what's your suggestion for countering Maul?  Right now the only ways feasible, is casting Blindness (mostly from the Darkling Cloak, or being Empire with Death Disciple), or having very high dodge or armor, both of which is not feasible in the early game where bears are common, and make it really easy with high accuracy to smash everyone when you get a Maul weapon.  I get the feeling the reason people don't want to change Maul is that they want to regularly get 10 or more hits per attack when they get a maul weapon.  Maul is so powerful with high accuracy that one Maul weapon can decide combats against much more seemingly as powerful (or more powerful) foes.  This does seem OP.

So, what's your solution for Maul deciding combats against way more powerful enemies in the mid to late game?

I think someone suggested a decreasing chance per hit.  Eventually the chance would have to = 0 but you could make the theoretical max number of hits larger, even though it would be unlikely in practice to get that number.

Of course, the devs might have to make a seemingly arbitrary reduction for each hit, but maybe there is some other comparable buff, spell, or ability where you could make some sort of average dps comparison.

A larger accuracy reduction for every hit is my solution. -4 accuracy worked in the old game when accuracy wasn't a rough percentage indicator. I would say minus 10 to 15 accuracy per hit now.

How about just a flat decrease without messing with the stats, which can get screwy. Every hit has half the hit chance of the previous one.

Assuming you have an 80% chance to hit, that would mean that second hit has 40% chance, third a 20% chance, then 10% and so on.

Totally in favour of a cap. 4 sounds feasible but scaling with monsterlevel is agreeable too.

I am in favour of putting in some mechanic I can use against maul instead, I think having to play around the wilderness, choosing a tactic that is better against maul is much more interesting than just nerfing it...

Just a thought...

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

I think a cap is reasonable, if you are assuming each turn represents a certain amount of time (though that's not consistent with moving once your guys can cover 6+ tiles in a turn), but some testers like the (slightly) unrealistic mechanic to represent the "open up a can of whoopass" type of move--that is a pure gamer joy/nightmare mechanic (vs being justifiable by realism).  Never mind that most old school (D&D) gamers are conditioned to appreciate the randomness that represents the complexities of life which cannot all be quantified.  This is why a Maul cap feels arbitrary/stifling, IMO: it becomes more predictable, less feared, and less able to be developed (though I doubt anyone is going to argue for keeping it as one of the main "I win" moves).

There is a little evidence in the game that the designers have toyed around with changing the per-hit penalty (I saw a -10 in one of the tooltips), and I believe that is the best compromise--it makes the attack less powerful in the early game while not killing its randomness or its ability to be built up.  It's not like you can buy a maul weapon from any vendor, which I consider to be a balance to its ferocity (and one of the few things that makes the beastmaster skill so viable in the early game).  Maybe the solution includes having several versions of Maul (including one that's a rare warrior training option).

The cap isn't the best solution.  One of the only reasons to get accuracy-boosting abilities is specifically to get a higher rate of maul, and capping maul will end up nerfing an already underpowered ability.

I think the accuracy penalty per hit should just be increased.  Instead of -4, make it something like -12.  After 4 hits, that is already 48% penalty.

Right now, maul is functionally super haste. If that is intended, then a limit on the number of attacks able to be executed doesn't make sense. If it is not intended, then there should be a finite limit to the number of attacks that can be performed. Perhaps that limit could be increased based on dexterity or something.

I like the idea of chance to hit halving after each successful hit.  (And obviously, if you have say 120 chance to hit, second chance to hit would be 60 etc, so there is some advantage with having an accuracy advantage over 100.)

How is the maul ability underpowered

Sincerely
~ Kongdej

Even D&D would have limits on this.  I'm for a reduction penalty for every hit after the first one as others have mentioned.

I would not be in favor of a hard cap.

I still think Maul is pretty easy to counter since Blind and Evade are pretty common spells and Maul already has a reducing capacity to hit.  Maul weapons also seem to be lower damage already but some other suggestions:

Item based immunity---such as spears, one handed clubs, shields.

Other side of the coin---let maul give the opponent the oppurtunity to counter attack regardless of weapon.  Successful hit stops the maul.

Swords---let swords counter for each successive hit of maul.