Okay so I realized in the chase scene I had vs. cory today that I have to stop every time I want to apply a focus, which I need to do for all of my ranged attack abilities.
This is very very difficult to do while chasing someone. Standing still = losing your target since the range on these weapons where they are effective is not the same as real bows, and our throwing weapons are made of foam and aren’t that accurate. Also IRL if you hit someone after aiming like that they just go right down, but IG it takes a few shots and that’s more than you get in standing still.
I don’t think that the focus rules were implemented specifically to have this effect on ranged weapons, so I am assuming that this is an unintended consequence that nobody ever thought of. I could be wrong. Let me know. As is, the focus rules make ranged weapons a poor choice to use while you’re running after a target that is trying to escape. Which feels counter intuitive, but that might be because I’m used to guns, whereas bows and thrown weapons may be primarily a stationary defense or stealth hunting tool.
I don’t think it makes much sense to have ranged skills that don’t require a focus, so that’s not really the concern. I think we may want to have two different kinds of foci: standard and stationary, where standard does not require you to stand still and stationary does. Even in that case, it may still make sense for ranged weapons to have to stand still to focus, it’s just important for both staff and players to know in that case that they are a bad choice for a chase.
I remembered the new rules half way through the chase scene and immediately stopped to apply poison and fell way way way behind. Luckly that’s when Cory hexed everyone so I was out of range, but I almost didn’t catch back up with him and when I did I just had to keep throwing my hatchet at him and it didn’t do much. I also was using 3 second counters instead of 5 because I didn’t remember the rules that well, and even with the reduced timer it was tough to keep up when I had to keep stopping. I loved the chase scene btw, I’m only posting this to muse over the impact of the new focus rules.
