This could make the combat less meaningful by being able to poison most people in time simply by placing poisoned food. If NPCs' Alchemy skill determined their chance at detecting poison and perhaps their Endurance affected their ability to resist the effects of poison, then it might be balanced.

It wouldn't tone down actual combat. When a bandit is running at you with a weapon I don't think he's going to stop all the sudden to pick up a poisoned apple you just dropped as he's chasing you. It doesn't make that combat any less meaningful. Poisoning food and placing it around stealthily is kind of a different combat altogether.

What I meant to suggest was that patient players could wipe an entire town by placing poisoned food everywhere. Now, you'd think a town would get suspicious once a few people die of poisoning, but that's the sort of thing that is never programmed in.

From what I posted already:

"NPCs should realize that there is poisoned food in the storage and empty it out and replace it."

I think what your trying to say is have non respawning containers which I agree with.

How easily should an NPC be able to detect it? It is not the sort of thing the average NPC would know. Will they check regularly for poison or only after someone they know has been poisoned?

The reason the poisoned apples were manageable in Oblivion was because there was a limited number (without "cheating"). So, though placing an apple was an outside-the-box approach to killing someone, it was a limited pleasure. I guess I'm just (sincerely) interested in hearing how you would resolve all the issues that could arise from allowing the player to poison any and all food items.

Good poisons aren't cheap you know :shifty:

EDIT: And yes players should DEFINITLY be able to poison ALL food

[quote name='pandaman77' date='Oct 2 2009, 12:29 PM' post='15144828']
Heh, I didnt even know where Balmora was when I started playing.
[/quot

right actually you didnt know but you had tht wicked ass map. which would be completely useless in OB. ths another thing i liked about Mw.

Personally, I'm all for giving other skills credence and making combat itself "less meaningful." Other skills than direct combat skills (blunt, marksman, h2h, and hopefully spear, axe, and long/short blade) should have some form of providing resolution to tense situations just as combat would. For example, someone skilled enough at speechcraft should have a decent chance at talking themselves out of far more given situations, yielding and swaying even bandits or marauders at really high skill levels. Being able to poison foodstuffs would be an amazing way for a deft and agile alchemist/sneak to eradicate a whole enemy population, and it would give a viable combat alternative to the main combat skills. And I'm all for more viable combat alternatives.

I am, too, but I feel its important to consider how much work comes along with adding an entirely new form of gameplay that can circumvent the current forms of combat.

True, balancing does come into effect. But most of that comes down to number tweaking and some extra scripting, even with the system already in place.

NPCs could detect poison based on their alchemy skill, combined with a luck factor. Also, specific categories of ingredient could be easier or harder to detect poison within. Unusual scents, different coloration, etc, etc.
Successful death-causing poisons could require high-level player alchemy checks, whereas unwittingly-created lower-level poisons would act as a lesser-effect poison that would leave its victim alive and able arouse suspicion. Further, NPC endurance should have an active role regarding how well they resist the effects of the poison.
Guards could have specific AI packages designed to have them search players (and other NPCs) in the event of poisonings or attempted poisonings, and if the player has any poisoned food, they would be implicated. Multiple poisonings would increase the frequency and radius of that search.
If the player is smart and ditches or uses up all their poisoned ingredients, then perhaps there could be a special alchemy-skilled member of the Legion. If they are the ones to search you (and they'd be rare), then they'd be able to identify poisonous residues on your equipment and implicate you.

Oblivion already had shield bashing, it was a perk for block level 50 (journeyman). It wasn't optional when you wanted to do it, your character just did it sometimes. The Deadly Reflex mod let you Shield Bash as much as you want though. Just thought I should add this

Is that so? I never realized that.

i dont see why you need to block to shield bash. they could make just as deadly a weapon as a sword. have you ever swung a shield? lotta momentum behind it.

and longswords, they DONT cut through heavy armor. back in the middle ages they would use longswords to dent armor and hopefully knock them down, then they would kill them with a stab to the stomach while they are on their backs. and i should know, because the middle ages i like better than tes itself..... and if they had argonians and khajiit back then.... :drool:

and leveling was dumb in OB. you might just get a 1/2+ to your attributes, or you might over-level, which if that happens too much, it will prevent you from getting 100 in that skill.

there should be holidays/celebrations in tesv. "Thank Akatosh the Oblivion Crisis is over! Now get back to work." or "All else is put aside to celebrate our deliverance from evil! By now, I'm going to celebrate! *goes back to work*"

and holidays: "Ma! Pa! It's Khajiitmas!" "So?"

if there is celebrations there should be dancing and wine and music, or maybe a funeral... if you die you should be able to watch your funeral

"O Akatosh and the Divines, please guide his noble soul to Aetherious!"
*cast risen flesh on self*
"BRAINS!"
*thirty seconds later*
"O Akatosh and the Divines, please guide his ******* of a soul to Aetherious, and keep him there!"

ok well not really but... *cough cough*

and if the setting is in skyrim (i hope it isnt) DO NOT MAKE IT ALL SNOW LIKE IT ALREADY IS

perhaps the main quest could be skyrim is melting and elsweyr is freezing over, and valenwood is burning, and argonia is losing its diseases, akavir blew up, and summerset isle got vaporized

oh and P.S., shield throwing in tesv too. but that should only be used as a last result, because it was by far one of the riskiest things anyone could do, and likely ment many people's death

:facepalm:

It. Is. Not. All. Snow. And. Ice.
Please stop misconstruing it to be so, as it's getting rather annoying.

I. DO. NOT. CARE.

and what really annoyed me in oblivion is that youd always do right-handed style melee but youd always do it left-handed style with a bow. i cant do left handed, so i dont want to do left handed shooting

I think many people round here take it for granted that Bethesda has done an amazing job at keeping horrible, disgusting and malicious DRM's and CP (such as securom :shakehead:) from their awesome games. For this Bethesda we are very grateful and hope TES:V will follow suit.

Just to say that I'm 100% behind the idea of some form(s) of non-lethal combat being included within TESV. A thief who might find himself discovered and forced into a combat situation is not likely to want to get into futher trouble for commiting the act of murder. It's also bad for roleplaying in genral that all combat must resolve in death.

...No, you shoot a bow correctly in Oblivion... The bowstring is pulled back by your dominant arm so that a greater tension can be applied to the bow, allowing for that much greater of a release of energy when the arrow is shot. :slap:

im not talking about that, i mean the arrow is always on the left side of the bow, and frm what i know that is what leftys use. i always pull back the string with my right with the arrow on the right. maybe i do it wrong but i dunno, when i try it OB way the arrow flys sideways, so i want to do it my way

EDIT (since we are nearing the 200 mark ill just edit this post): on the posion food topic, the poison would only last for so long, balancing out the ability of just surrounding someone with poisoned cheese for an automatic kill. also, if an npc wakes up, and ALL his food is gone, why the hell would he eat that one apple that got left there? shouldnt he become suspicious? it doesnt happen like this: "doo dee doo, hey, all my food is gone! what ever shall i eat? oh, hey, an apple! why would the thief just leave this ominous apple here on the table instead of just taking along with all my other stuff? oh well, mmm, poison, i dont feel like seeing a healer or telling a guard so ill just take a nap!"

The sneak shot style attack in Oblivion would be impossible if the arrow was on the right side (bottom) of the bow.

You should be able to choose to be right or left handed. It's as simple as that

i dont care its fine that way, i mean just over all plain sight every day shooting


wonder how many times ive said that... wait, only once, damn...

I hope there are tattoos (including woad). That was one of the reasons why Nords in Oblivion were fail. And for that matter, there should be freckles option too (ESPECIALLY on Bretons). :icecream:

Yep and I don't mean this to sound wierd or disgusting but maybe brandings, Like really evil creatures may brand their slaves.