Tra Hari on 4/6/2002 at 22:14
Greetings,
Does anyone have any idea what the Shield effect actually does? As far as I can tell, it does nothing. The manual says the magnitude is added to your armor rating, but it doesn't appear to make you more difficult to hit. The armor rating displayed in your inventory is not modified (although I didn't expect it to), and I still got my ass kicked by people with swords with the effect active.
I can't really verify if it absorbs damage since this particular character only has 30 hp (though I suspect that it doesn't), so I thought I'd ask all you lovely people if you have any positive experiences with Shield effects.
BTW, I was using Dragon Skin to test the effect, so I don't think it's that the effect is too subtle, since Dragon Skin is 50 points for 60 seconds. :)
Any ideas?
- Tra'Hari Vandaette
Kilana on 4/6/2002 at 23:55
Shield reduces the damage you get per hit... the magnitude of shielding might be the percentage of damage taken off... but I don't really know... I never use shielding, :erg:
Tra Hari on 5/6/2002 at 01:06
A friend of mine experimented with the TES Construction Set, and even with a Shield of 200, he was still taking damage from foes' attacks.
Blegh.
Fortunately, there is a patch on its way. According to one site (the URL of which was posted on the morrowind.com forums), the patch is due June 10. Here's hoping...
- Tra'Hari Vandaette
Bleda on 5/6/2002 at 04:53
Your never not gonna take damage if the thing hits you, but you will take a heck of a lot less. You really expect to have a spell that lets you get hit with out getting hurt?
Tuco on 5/6/2002 at 06:00
Yes.
Sanctuary and Reflect.
Tra Hari on 5/6/2002 at 07:42
Bleda:
Compare Ancestor Guardian (Sanctuary 50 points for 60 seconds) to Dragon Skin (Armor 50 points for 60 seconds). If you've used it, there's certainly a _very_ noticeable difference with Ancestor Guardian; enemies hardly hit you at all. Dragon Skin, conversely, doesn't seem to do anything. You'd think an ability that is supposed to be comparable to something like Ancestor Guardian would be noticeable, at least in some way.
Now, if Shield subtracts damage directly from enemy's hits, and my opponent happened to have a Warhammer that does 1 - 30, with a big damage bonus from Strength, it's conceivable that I didn't notice because I was taking 5 - 10 damage. That might mean that I wouldn't notice the effect the weapon was having, especially if he's fast.
Hence my asking other people what their take on it was. :)
- Tra'Hari Vandaette
Alamar on 5/6/2002 at 11:49
I think Dragon Skin does nothing.
Evidence? Start a new Breton Mage (battlemage if you like), buy a bit of nice armour and a weapon, then toddle along to the 'starter' dungeon (you know, the one with the fighter, the mage, the thief, the rat and the three slaves in, just north of Seyda Neen). Use Dragon Skin and attack the fighter. When successful, go out, rest until you can use the ability again, return to the cave and take on the mage. Repeat for the thief. And the rat. But you won't get that far. You won't survive.
By contrast, my (custom) Redguard fighter cut through all of them like a hot knife through butter. Took about 4 damage, total. And that was without Adrenalin Rush.
I don't think Shield is working properly. ;)
Kilana on 5/6/2002 at 13:03
Caster's have an obvious difference in combat than fighters. Fighters specialize in combat abilities, so they can hit harder and take more damage. Mages (even battle mages) suffer some sort of disadvantage when in close combat.
Tra Hari on 5/6/2002 at 17:48
Kilana:
Right, but you've completely disregarded my original point: you'd expect that a spell like Dragon's Skin would make a difference. A spell like Dragon's Skin or Ancestor Guardian is supposed to be some manner of temporary equalizer.
It's supposed to add 50 to your armor rating, for god's sake. With a Medium Armor skill of ~50, that's a bit less than what Orcish gives you (54, I believe?). The people in the first dungeon shouldn't be that badass such that you wouldn' t notice a difference between an armor of 52 and 2.
Your statement about spellcasters being disadvantaged in combat is not necessarily true. While it might hold true for most games, Morrowind's class creation system is much more fluid, and breaks a lot of the traditional stereotypes about character classes.
Switch a Battlemage's specialization from Magic to Combat, and what's the disadvantage while in close combat with a warrior type? All the combat skills are there. Effectively, you're just switching out the Combat skills that you care less about for the Magic skills that you want.
The short and simple answer is that there isn't any intrinsic disadvantage in close combat. Obviously, there's more to it, but at least for the purposes of this discussion, it's a good enough answer.
Bethesda designed their system very beautifully, and I applaud them: they designed the races, skills, birthsigns, and classes to balance themselves. As a result, they can avoid such kludgey rules as 'mages can never wear armor and always suck at combat.'
- Tra'Hari
Tuco on 5/6/2002 at 17:58
Actually, in most games the caster types can hold their own due to incredibly powerful spells.
In Morrowind, a pure warrior can outdamage a caster...
Normally the extra crap you have to do to cast a spell is balanced in that it's more effective than a sword, but in morrowind, the melee are more deadly.
It's a good thing I'm a melee!
