Proposed: Longer melee ranges for large creatures

[CamDawg]

This came out of a Discord discussion; I thought I'd propose it here first. If you don't think it's a good fit for SCS then I'll take it for Tweaks (which I may do anyway for the games that SCS doesn't cover).

Dragons--with the exception of Nizidramanii'yt (3)--have melee weapons with range 1. By comparison, party weapons melee ranges go from 0 (daggers) to 2 (two-handed swords and spears) with pretty much every one-handed weapon in between with range 1. There's really no reason why Thaxll'ssillyia shouldn't be able to lean over your front line and swipe at your back line, but with range 1 they have to derp around to get in range.

So what I'm thinking is to set melee weapon range in relation to the animation used. Here's a proposal to kick off the discussion:

I'm not actually in favor of the large humanoids getting a fixed range of 2, but I thought I'd include it for discussion.

[Lord_Tansheron]

While it makes logical sense, I fear this might effectively invalidate much of the advantage longer-range melee weapons have. It also makes positional play less relevant.

I'm not sure that a change like this would ultimately lead to more interesting gameplay, because it takes away more choices than it adds dimensions to combat mechanics.

[subtledoctor]

Where is it measured from? The edge of the selection circle? Some of those creatures already have very large selection circles, a fair amount larger than their animations. I’m going off vague memory, not actual examination, but I feel like the edge of the selection circle is often, visually, about where you might expect a melee attack to take place. 

Contrast with humans, which have fairly tall and skinny animations and can hold long skinny weapons, but have fairly small selection circles. One of the main innovations in humans’ tool use is the ability to project damage outside the range where we are in danger. Thus things like halberds and spears. With some rare exceptions, animals using natural attacks do not benefit from this innovation. 

If it was me, I would reduce that range to maybe 1-3, instead of 2-5. 

Alternatively I would pair the increased melee range with reduction in the size of selection circles. But that would likely be more finicky and require more testing against unintended consequences. 

Edited January 13, 2022 by subtledoctor

[Jarno Mikkola]

Spears, and halberts... they should have effective range longer than large humanoids, set it to 3 and we have a good table. Not that I ever use them, but whatever. Also, we need to see this live, before I can make my own mind up.

[morpheus562]

I'm a big fan! I'd like to include large humanoids as 2 as well. Reason being if a human monk has a range 2 with fists and feet, why can't a much larger creature?

For additional complexity, would you be able to reduce enemy attack range by 1 (but not less than 1) if they are being attacked by a shield user? Reason being it is harder to get an attack over a shield and to make shields more of a viable option over dual wielding.

Edited January 13, 2022 by morpheus562

[CamDawg]

Unfortunately, range isn't something that can be adjusted via spell or scripting; it's set in the melee header so it can't be adjusted on the fly. You could try cloning melee headers and try to swap between weapon abilities, but I'm skeptical you could script it without it constantly interrupting/preventing other actions.

[morpheus562]

Ah, okay. Thank you!

[suy]

I want to add something that I've mentioned on the other discussion (I think), and it's that my idea was actually to boost by 1 probably all weapons usable by players or more mundane enemies. The rationale was that it's quite often that I find that "kiting" is too effective against enemies (and cheesy), but also frustrating when they do it against you. I often try to hit an enemy, specially when backstabbing, and the walking of some creatures makes it silly. You seem to be visually very close, but a tiny movement ruins your attack. It looks silly that they move away, often showing you their back or their side, and instead of having an easier attack you just fail because they move faster than the animation. That feels really silly. I don't know how well a range increase would work, though.

[CamDawg]

3 hours ago, suy said:

I want to add something that I've mentioned on the other discussion (I think), and it's that my idea was actually to boost by 1 probably all weapons usable by players or more mundane enemies. The rationale was that it's quite often that I find that "kiting" is too effective against enemies (and cheesy), but also frustrating when they do it against you. I often try to hit an enemy, specially when backstabbing, and the walking of some creatures makes it silly. You seem to be visually very close, but a tiny movement ruins your attack. It looks silly that they move away, often showing you their back or their side, and instead of having an easier attack you just fail because they move faster than the animation. That feels really silly. I don't know how well a range increase would work, though.

I strongly suspect that increasing range would mean they'd so the same thing, one step further out.

[Jarno Mikkola]

18 minutes ago, CamDawg said:

I strongly suspect that increasing range would mean they'd so the same thing, one step further out.

But they wouldn't be able to kite the melee characters so much as they would need to cover more area which they can hit yes, but won't be able to not allow the player characters to pass through. Well, the enemy has the same counter to the players kiting tries, but it won't be too cheesy. Well, unless the player would just throw in more demons... there's that. You know, when the second rank of demons die, there's always the third, and while the forth of course is being summoned. ... 

Edited January 15, 2022 by Jarno Mikkola

[Endarire]

Are you saying melee reach is about 1 per 5’ in DND 3.5 terms?

[polytope]

On 1/15/2022 at 6:40 AM, suy said:

I want to add something that I've mentioned on the other discussion (I think), and it's that my idea was actually to boost by 1 probably all weapons usable by players or more mundane enemies. The rationale was that it's quite often that I find that "kiting" is too effective against enemies (and cheesy), but also frustrating when they do it against you. I often try to hit an enemy, specially when backstabbing, and the walking of some creatures makes it silly. You seem to be visually very close, but a tiny movement ruins your attack. It looks silly that they move away, often showing you their back or their side, and instead of having an easier attack you just fail because they move faster than the animation. That feels really silly. I don't know how well a range increase would work, though.

Agreed, daggers are particularly bad in regard to range because you can't attack unless your characters circle is actually touching the enemy.

In contrast, two-handed weapons have a speed factor that is much too slow compared to average movement rate. If an enemy is armed with a two-handed sword (non-magical, not a kensai and no bonuses for dexterity or style) you can run up and hit him with your fists then back out of range before he swings.

Yeah, try that in real life.

[subtledoctor]

2 hours ago, polytope said:

If an enemy is armed with a two-handed sword (non-magical, not a kensai and no bonuses for dexterity or style) you can run up and hit him with your fists then back out of range before he swings.

It's probably worth considering dragons from this perspective, as it touches on a point I tried to make with regard to creature circle sizes. I'm just focusing on dragons for purposes of discussion, but that same issue is there for any creature with a large selection circle - giants, rhinocerous beetles, etc. The dragons in BG2 are huge compared to people, suitably dramatic in a game that shipped at 800x600 resolution 20 years ago. Their selection circle is even bigger than their somewhat slender animations, meaning that with a range value of 1 on their natural weapons, they can strike any target more or less within the apparent visual range of their animation's claws. And with such a big selection circle, they can be in 'contact' with many enemies at once, so all those enemies are in danger of being hit. So far so good for the dragons.

The problem lies with the ability of those enemies to strike the dragon in return. Anyone with range 0 daggers can freely stab a dragon whenever they are near tht big selection circle, which is actually kind of far away from the dragon's body. So the choice made by the devs about selection circle and weapon range, which is reasonable on its face, ends of being a liability for some of these creatures.

Unfortunately this makes me think the best solution is to both reduce the selection circle size and extend the weapon range of these creatures. That way someone with a dagger or a sword will have to get well inside the reach of the dragon's claws in order to strike; which would nicely reflect the narrative of all manner of fantasy stories about heros battling large beasts.

The problem is, this would require a fair amount of experimentation and adjustments by hand to get it just right. And who has time for that? (Would that Demi were still here and working on his planned "Creature Revisions" mod...)

Edited February 7, 2022 by subtledoctor

[Awachi]

Are we going for realism as the goal, or realism in furtherance of another goal that might be achieved more easily? 

[subtledoctor]

It's not a question of realism, it's just: do we want dragons to effectively have a permanent version of Spiritual Hammer, where they can hit you with an invisible weapon from halfway across the room? It'd just be weird.

I'd write a quick mod to test different changes, but I have no idea how to change a creature's selection circle size.

EDIT - drop these two files into your override folder and pick a fight with Firkraag, see if it seems better or worse than the vanilla version. I reduced the circle size from 72 to 54, and increased his claw weapon range from 1 to 4. (Though, even with range=1 it seemed to me like he could hit things pretty far from the new selection circle. Maybe that's not where the weapon range is counted from? I'm no expert in this stuff.)

I don't know how to change the animation circle sizes with Weidu, else I would Weidu-ize it.

dragon_size.zip

Edited February 7, 2022 by subtledoctor