This post is mostly about my experience getting into disarming/lockpicking while using Drums. As you all probably know, while disarming can be done while holding my bones (with the box either on the ground or in my other hand), lockpicking simply cannot be done while playing the instrument.

This problem confuses me, from a playability perspective. Yes, I know using a fancy lockpick requires two hands (for two separate pieces). But the current system seems like it encourages one of three things:

1. Disarm and pick the boxes one by one. Stow the bones after disarming and try to pick during the cooling off period, while the bonus is still there, praying I don't lose it and have to restart the enchante.

2. Disarm all the boxes first, taking each out and stowing it again when done, then stow the bones and take the boxes out one by one to pick them.

3. Dump all the boxes onto the ground, disarm them all while playing, then stow the bones and pick them all.

Options 1 and 2 seem like they would create an awful lot of scroll (as I'm taking each box out twice), Option 1 especially as I stow and pull out my bones. These two options may also pose problems with experience (from overfilling a pool by doing all actions for that pool at once), although this has never happend to me personally. Option 3 creates a lot of junk on the ground.

I guess my point is, it seems a little sad to me that my best option is either to use a worn instrument (do these exist for percussion?), or pick between the three options above.

With regard to worn/waterproof instruments in general, I am also a little sad that in order to best utilize enchantes, one has to resort to these. It seems like a step toward making everyone cut from the same mold, because there are fairly few available, and many beautiful festival instruments just sit around gathering dust.

One solution would be to make many more kinds of these special instruments (so I don't feel forced, for example, into playing Dwarven instruments as an Elothean), and make them more widely available.

Another solution would be to give Bards a simple way around these kinds of problems. For disarm, perhaps a special technique we could learn, maybe something that would let us stow our instrument only during the actual picking roundtime. This would effectively make picking a one-handed job, just for Bards, and just when using an instrument. We'd still have to drop the box, but it would be doable. It's clear that playing an enchante doesn't have to be 100% of the time, so it makes sense that a Bard could learn to time these things right.

Anyway, if anyone has any picking solutions I haven't thought of or heard of, I'd love to know about them.

-- Player of Niieth

That's a lot of hassle for a short boost.

A couple of points/thoughts on the suggestion:

-Worn instruments don't work with enchantes while worn. Thus, this isn't even an option so don't expect finding a worn instrument to fix your woes. And to answer your question, yes there's zills, castanets, etc. which can all be worn. They're basically different versions of finger cymbals.

-The lingering effect is there specifically to allow lockpicking while under the effect of the enchante. Its already the exception that was put in to allow us to do this.

-Boxes are a survival prime thing. It'd be hard to get a box perk for a survival tert through to development.

-Its not worth the effort of coding for the neglible benefit it would provide.

-Evran

Crackling with unspent rage since 386A.V.

The one thing I'm noticing is that he keeps talking about the scroll and/or junk on the ground which is the very stuff that the GMs seem to complain about causing strain on the system. I think if they could help reduce a little bit of that by making it so we could simply use one hand to pick it'd be awesome! Because if I was playing my bones I could stop long enough to stick them under my arm, hold the box in one hand and then pick away with the other and set the box back down and go back to playing on my bones again. Just a thought to throw out there as well. Whats he is asking for helps Bards as much as it helps the system and with all this janitor junk and putting so much emphasis on getting him coded down well for the purpose of helping the system run smoother it'd make sense to make a change to this.

WTB enchantes that work with worn instruments


- Terra

Unless a box is really difficult to pick, I usually don't have a problem picking it before the lingering effect wears from Drums wears off. If I'm being stubborn and I wanna pick a box I have no business picking, I just pick with it on the ground instead.

"Allow percussion enchants to be done via Vocals skill. A la "beat-boxing""

Good justification. I'll talk to the powers that be, and see what reactions they have to this.

(And if Bobby McFerrin were in game, he should be able to do ANY enchante vocally. Guy's got serious skills.)

-V.

"Reject me not, sweet sounds! oh, let me live,
Till doom espy my towers and scatter them.
A city spell-bound under the aging sun,
Music my rampart, and my only one."
-Edna St. Vincent-Millay

Hmm...

-V.


"Reject me not, sweet sounds! oh, let me live,
Till doom espy my towers and scatter them.
A city spell-bound under the aging sun,
Music my rampart, and my only one."
-Edna St. Vincent-Millay