Alternate Core Documents

[Viewing_Glass]

Alright then, let's pull out a calculator and see how much damage this trick actually does.

So, you can get this trick at level 10, which means you are multiplying by flight 3. You are looking at a 30 AP attack that does 60+9d10 damage. On average this will deal 109 points of damage to a target. DT is times three, which means in order to completely ignore the damage, you would need 40 DT. However, at level 10 I would expect your average DT range (from personal experience in several games) to be around 20 DT. This means you would be dealing with 60 DT vs. your 109 damage, netting you with 49 damage done.

However, I will also point out that the example was listed was just that, an example. If you don't want your pegasus to have to do that, don't. The pegasus magic system is intended to be free-form.

[Thanqol]

Unrelated question: Do two ranks of Clever Prancer give two 50% chances to ignore a crit, one 75% chance to ignore a crit, or 100% immunity to crits? My reading is that two sets of 'half chance to ignore a crit' means you're immune but other people suggest differently.

[Viewing_Glass]

We've been running it as a 75% reduction. So a pony that normally has a 12% chance to crit has a 3% against a pony with two ranks of Clever Prancer.

[TyrannisUmbra]

Unrelated question: Do two ranks of Clever Prancer give two 50% chances to ignore a crit, one 75% chance to ignore a crit, or 100% immunity to crits? My reading is that two sets of 'half chance to ignore a crit' means you're immune but other people suggest differently.

I would definitely like the description of Clever Prancer to be changed to be more clear, as well. The way it's written is very ambiguous.

(It could also be interpreted as half the crit bonus you gain from the perk, which was my original interpretation, and probably a hell of a lot more balanced than what everyone else seems to have interpreted it as!)

[Kkat]

I'm wondering if Clever Prancer should just be reduced to a 1 rank perk. It's extremely powerful even with just one rank, and the second can be excessive.

[Viewing_Glass]

You probably could with little issue. Though, it is one of the few perks that is incredibly defensive in nature, similar to Hit the Deck.

[TyrannisUmbra]

I might even suggest keeping two ranks, and going with 25% reduction per rank, which would solve both the "too powerful with two ranks" and "Still extremely powerful with one rank" problems.

[Thanqol]

If it's gotta be changed, I'd make it 1-rank medium armour only. It is literally the only safeguard a pony can get against critical hits so an actual nerf beyond that sits poorly with me.

[Night Light]

If it's gotta be changed, I'd make it 1-rank medium armour only.

We've had a conversation very similar to this discussing possible changed to Clever Prancer. Removing heavy armor from the options from Clever Prancer immediately makes heavy armor worthless to anypony who's trying to play more of a Tank character. Further, all the good heavy armors have a -2 Agility penalty, meaning for a heavy armor wearing pony must have an Agility of 8 to pick up and benefit from Clever Prancer.

I'll agree with Viewing Glass here, the system is incredibly lethal as it is, even moreso with the addition of pegasus magic, so I have a really hard time seeing how nerfing one of the few decent defensive perks in the game would be beneficial to it. Goodness knows we rarely see a combat in Kkat's game where one of us fails to take at least 200-300 points of damage, occasionally from just a single crit.

[TyrannisUmbra]

I'll agree with Viewing Glass here, the system is incredibly lethal as it is, even moreso with the addition of pegasus magic, so I have a really hard time seeing how nerfing one of the few decent defensive perks in the game would be beneficial to it. Goodness knows we rarely see a combat in Kkat's game where one of us fails to take at least 200-300 points of damage, occasionally from just a single crit.

That's a problem with the system though. Ideally what needs to happen is weapon nerfs across the board, and nerfs on all the bonus damage perks. One thing I've noticed is on the tiered weapon list, melee/unarmed weapons have both a SPECIAL-based damage bonus as well as a high base damage, to cite one issue. Ideally, pretty much every single weapon should have its damage cut by half, maaaybe a third for some of the weaker ones, on average. And the bonus damage perks need some kind of restriction to prevent them from giving rediculous bonuses when used with multi-hit and low AP weapons.

Either way, Clever Prancer DOES need a nerf. The fact that it's a must-have perk by such a wide margin if you can get it at all means that it's too good. As it is, Clever Prancer is just an incredibly overpowered band-aid.