Warlock Ability Idea: Blood Detection

The harnessing and manipulation of nether.
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jerc
Posts: 80
Joined: Sun Feb 13, 2022 3:26 pm

Warlock Ability Idea: Blood Detection

Post by jerc »

IC description: Using a blood sample, the warlock can perform a targeted version of the Soul Detection spell. In its most basic form, this will simply tell the caster if the target is living and awake. With more skill, additional information may be able to be gleaned, such as whether they are idle or in motion, distance, and direction. This requires the lightest touch on the blood sample, and as such, it is not consumed as part of the spell.

OOC description: (The ability to use the sdetect spell on a blood sample to provide some information about the target. Additional ranks provide more information. First Rank: dead, alive, logged in, Second Rank: Idle or moving based on time they've been in the current room, and attentiveness (afk status), Third Rank: distance, Fourth Rank: direction)

Prerequisite Abilities:
Blood Signature / Echoing Whisper
Soul Detection
Prerequisite Skills:
Sorcery: 150
(This ability can be learned up to 4 times, at most once every 150 Sorcery skill.)

This idea is born out of frustration with the state of Echoing Whisper. Since the blood sample is consumed, and there's no way to tell if the character is even logged in before casting, it tends to be a costly shot in the dark. I think Cacklackian has attempted to whisper my character at least twice now while I've either been at the account screen or logged into another character. This ability would let warlocks test the waters and see if they should even bother with a full whisper and potentially waste a blood sample.

It being completely non-destructive, even at full investment, feels a bit overpowered though. Having some sort of "blood sample case" that would let us subdivide samples, with differing blood costs for each spell that uses them would be ideal. For now, limiting it to the first two ranks with it being non-destructive would provide a lot of benefits without feeling too OP.
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Lexx416
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Re: Warlock Ability Idea: Blood Detection

Post by Lexx416 »

I understand the intent behind this, but I don't really like the idea of people being able to tell if my one of my specific characters is online and/or afk, without my consent. It feels like it could be cheesed in a way that could be very disruptive and meta at worst, or at best make people feel OOCly uncomfortable.
"You hear the Woses, the Wild Men of the Woods... Remnants of an older time they be, living few and secretly, wild and wary as beasts."
jerc
Posts: 80
Joined: Sun Feb 13, 2022 3:26 pm

Re: Warlock Ability Idea: Blood Detection

Post by jerc »

Lexx416 wrote: Tue Dec 27, 2022 4:44 pm I understand the intent behind this, but I don't really like the idea of people being able to tell if my one of my specific characters is online and/or afk, without my consent. It feels like it could be cheesed in a way that could be very disruptive and meta at worst, or at best make people feel OOCly uncomfortable.
In some ways, that's kind of the point. To be clear, I don't think it should be 100% free - just cheaper than making full bidirectional contact. And it probably shouldn't come without some sort of message on the other end to let them know that someone is snooping.

Right now, blood samples are 99% benign to hand out willy-nilly. The only way they can really be abused ICly is to maybe evesdrop on a conversation from afar. Some ability like this would lend some credence to characters' hesitancy to let random warlocks take a sample outside of sorcery-is-spooky RP.

I've seen similar ideas tossed about over Discord for nightblades to be able to stalk targets, so this isn't exactly a novel idea. And I kind of like it being a warlock thing rather than a nightblade thing to encourage collaboration if stalking-and-killing is required.
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Lexx416
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Re: Warlock Ability Idea: Blood Detection

Post by Lexx416 »

jerc wrote: Wed Jan 04, 2023 10:16 am
Lexx416 wrote: Tue Dec 27, 2022 4:44 pm I understand the intent behind this, but I don't really like the idea of people being able to tell if my one of my specific characters is online and/or afk, without my consent. It feels like it could be cheesed in a way that could be very disruptive and meta at worst, or at best make people feel OOCly uncomfortable.
In some ways, that's kind of the point. To be clear, I don't think it should be 100% free - just cheaper than making full bidirectional contact. And it probably shouldn't come without some sort of message on the other end to let them know that someone is snooping.

Right now, blood samples are 99% benign to hand out willy-nilly. The only way they can really be abused ICly is to maybe evesdrop on a conversation from afar. Some ability like this would lend some credence to characters' hesitancy to let random warlocks take a sample outside of sorcery-is-spooky RP.

I've seen similar ideas tossed about over Discord for nightblades to be able to stalk targets, so this isn't exactly a novel idea. And I kind of like it being a warlock thing rather than a nightblade thing to encourage collaboration if stalking-and-killing is required.
My issue isn't with IC activity, antagonism, or even discomfort. I think IC conflict is great. I do think there should be spookier things that people should be able to do with blood (for example, using it to improve one's ability track a specific target). My issue specifically is with someone being able to tell, without my consent, if one of my specific characters is logged on while I'm online, and whether or not they're idle/afk. As it stands, someone could use the Aura command if I choose to make my PC's presence known to do so, or they could try to send them tells if I have tells enabled, but those are both things that require consent on my part to be viable. Even with the tracking idea I suggested, it would operate off of the "Track" command, and so it would have limited usage in giving out meta/OOC information.

And I want to say that I don't believe the intent of this suggestion IS to have a way to learn OOC/meta knowledge - but I am very cautious when it comes to giving Players those kinds of tools, as there are historically a number of very bad actors in the MUD (and overall gaming) community, and tools that give out meta/OOC knowledge tends to increase the aggregate harm they can do while making it easier for them to hide amongst people using tools like that in good faith.
"You hear the Woses, the Wild Men of the Woods... Remnants of an older time they be, living few and secretly, wild and wary as beasts."
Ephemeralis
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Re: Warlock Ability Idea: Blood Detection

Post by Ephemeralis »

A better approach would be to not make blood whisper consume the sample (or do so at a low chance, which scales downward with higher Sorcery) and to have blood samples naturally expire a certain amount of time after they're harvested. Maybe using whisper more causes the samples to accelerate their decay quicker. I dunno. It's a cool skill generally speaking but it's extremely hard to use often for what feels like no real good reason.
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