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Devs and all players: To value Role Playing, let us revise the name of "Life Steal"
ianthewizard2012
Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 2,142 Arc User
Hi, Developers and all players,
In a role playing game, things can be confusing if it were named subjectively. It would be more pleasing to see things being presented in a equitable and impartial way. In this thread, we will be talking about the naming of one of character stats, "Life Steal".
While all other eight character stats were named fairly unprejudiced, Life Steal was not.
It is a universal value that "stealing" is not a positive act, or at least people do not say it is fine without doubt. Especially in a role playing game, naming things with it can easily cause problems if not much role playing aspects were took into account.
In this game, there are many cleric gears which have this stat. So the problem occurs. A holy cleric steals others' life? That can't be serious;
And by invoking, players occasionally get a buff called Righteous Boon, which grants bonus Armor Penetration and Life Steal. Still, it's hard to say that stealing others' life is anything righteous.
Players who play neutral-ish or evil-ish characters might not have any problem with this naming, but it surely is a frustration to players who play good-ish characters.
For this reason, and for more and more gears with this stat being introduced into the game, I sincerely suggest that we have the name of this stat be revised.
Because this stat in effect does not actually "steal" life from your targets, it can be simply renamed to, for example, Life Regaining or Life Replenishment.
By renaming it to Life Regaining or Life Replenishment, it will then be ideally unprejudiced. And role players can then give the full rein to their imagination to define the stat themselves. Players may either define it as stealing foes' life, as its current definition, or define it as, say, absorbing spiritual energy from the nature to replenish their hp.
So if you too value role playing and have found this issue frustrating, or you are okay with it but are also fine to see it being given a fairer name, please support this petition. Thank you very much.
Sincerely,
A role player
In a role playing game, things can be confusing if it were named subjectively. It would be more pleasing to see things being presented in a equitable and impartial way. In this thread, we will be talking about the naming of one of character stats, "Life Steal".
While all other eight character stats were named fairly unprejudiced, Life Steal was not.
It is a universal value that "stealing" is not a positive act, or at least people do not say it is fine without doubt. Especially in a role playing game, naming things with it can easily cause problems if not much role playing aspects were took into account.
In this game, there are many cleric gears which have this stat. So the problem occurs. A holy cleric steals others' life? That can't be serious;
And by invoking, players occasionally get a buff called Righteous Boon, which grants bonus Armor Penetration and Life Steal. Still, it's hard to say that stealing others' life is anything righteous.
Players who play neutral-ish or evil-ish characters might not have any problem with this naming, but it surely is a frustration to players who play good-ish characters.
For this reason, and for more and more gears with this stat being introduced into the game, I sincerely suggest that we have the name of this stat be revised.
Because this stat in effect does not actually "steal" life from your targets, it can be simply renamed to, for example, Life Regaining or Life Replenishment.
By renaming it to Life Regaining or Life Replenishment, it will then be ideally unprejudiced. And role players can then give the full rein to their imagination to define the stat themselves. Players may either define it as stealing foes' life, as its current definition, or define it as, say, absorbing spiritual energy from the nature to replenish their hp.
So if you too value role playing and have found this issue frustrating, or you are okay with it but are also fine to see it being given a fairer name, please support this petition. Thank you very much.
Sincerely,
A role player
Post edited by ianthewizard2012 on
0
Comments
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?466251-CW-Introduce-a-magical-item-for-players-to-optionally-replace-Steal-Time
I'm currently roleplaying netural evil. I can't help it.
it's one thing to be sarcastic and stabby with your friends... that's a mutual understanding. but this really isn't the place for that. and it also makes unnecessary work for the mods because they will eventually have to clean up the mess.
Our characters are no thieves, but we are all murderers.
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
Great Weapon Fighter: Because when is today not a good day to die?
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So it isn't ok to steal life but it's ok to kill the thing you were stealing life from?
If you see a stat called Life steal, you know *exactly* what it does.
Clarity is more important than RP. Sorry.
To up the absurdity a little more, what about all those quests that ask you to "kill" things? Is killing not a bad act? Should it be changed to "defeat"? Oh wait, killing is fine as long as the consensus is that the victim deserved or needed killing.
Same for "life steal".
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
Life permanently borrowing.
Besides, since those acts have already been defined in black and white as stealing, it's hard for me to fool myself into thinking that they aren't stealing and are something else.
Dont use it then?
and also the featured satirical comedic adventure "A Call for Heroes".
Thanks for the consideration.
It may be hard for you, a single person, but not for majority of the other players out there who are more comfortable with clarity in naming. One person's aesthetic preferences will never merit the change which you're asking for.
A better solution would be to steer clear off these "dishonorable" and "evil" things. Just don't use gear with Life Steal. Gear with Life Steal may suit your playstyle, but they're evil. Don't use them no matter how powerful they are. Seeing as you're this devoted to role-playing, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't have any trouble remodeling your character's overall build to something that doesn't Steal HP or Steal Time. Maybe better to stay away from Oppressive Force as well since to oppress is what tyrants do.
Now don't get me wrong, I admire your devotion to role-playing! It's just that it's hard to see this happening just for the preferences of one person. Better to just work around it and play with what you have.
these are actually some great alternatives.
weren't robin hood's deeds righteous even though he was "stealing"? so stealing life from evildoers isn't necessarily a negative thing. it's just part of being an adventurer in the d&d realms.
So "oppressive" here actually means "intense" instead of "tyrannical".
My god. Give it a rest. lol
Its the same thing as the last thread he made about changing the name of "Steal Time"
I'm a full time roleplayer and I find this just beyond silly.
First of all I commend you for playing Neverwinter and participating on the forums here, role players in general are the original computer gamers.
HOWEVER, this has got to be one of the silliest posts I have seen since the last Olympics. Here's my take, and this is from someone who started playing D&D in '76.
In my opinion, life-steal in and of itself is not evil. I mean you're already stabbing the guy to death.
I can see where you're making the leap of logic when it comes to life stealing. It's a common one, however lets look at it through the mind of neutrality...
Negative Energy is, in and of itself, not inherently evil in any way. It is the opposite of life, and serves a perfectly natural function in the great wheel of existence, clearing away the old so that the new may take its place. Negative Energy is functionally like fire. It can be used for bad things, but that does not mean the stuff itself is bad. Killing someone with a sword of life stealing is no more evil than killing that same person with a chair leg. If you then turned around and raised the guy's corpse as undead, that IS evil, not because you're using negative energy, but because you're essentially dooming that guy's soul simply to get yourself a servant to wreck havoc on others. It's your malicious nature that makes it evil.
If you look at energy drain and life stealing in the rulebooks, they are NOT death effects, and they are not a guarantee of evil status. Hey how about when killing is not good enough, when you need to destroy an opponents life force to prevent them from coming back and engaging in worse evil?
Again, it's not the source of the power, or the kind of power, it's what one chooses to do with it, even if it's not much of a choice. An evil priest who runs around curing the wounds, and raising the fallen members, of the evil horde under his/her command is doing evil. In fact, he/she is doing far greater evil than the foes of this horde who run around killing them with cause wounds, and poison.
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Thank you. I agree with you that things like Negative Energy itself is not inherently evil. However, I'm still not convinced that stealing can be a positive act. Sorry about that.
This is how I review it:
If one kills evil mobs who endanger the innocent, he is a hero; if one steals others' things, he is a petty thief (at least at the moment when he steals, he is.).
I think you missed the point, it's not what you use but why or how you use it that makes something evil or unlawful. Seriously you need to get over the word "steal" as being negative because there are many connotations of that.
Do you pick up the loot they drop? You killed something and took what he owned. That's stealing.
So what's next? We shouldn't get loot drops because that's stealing?
How about a person who steals a loaf of bread to feed his family? Is that evil? He stole it! How dare, he he's going to hell!
Really, Ian, what makes this whole fascination you have with the word "stealing" so irrational is that you're completely overlooking the fact that you are killing another living creature. Next to the light of killing a creature the means of how you killed that other creature is really, really irrelevant.
You stole time from the other creature to slow them and speed you up! That's unforgivable. Forget the fact you killed it, you stole from it, how dare you!
Could there be a more political correct term for "Life Steal?" Sure but it would also be much more confusing.
Honestly in my life I have never met anybody who has truly fought to make things PC. Literally everybody in my life draws a line of being respectful or not but thinks anything to do with Political Correctness is a load of baloney. Do you also argue that Garbage Men should be called Sanitation Workers and American Indians should be called Native Americans?
So in conclusion, yet again, if the effect isn't evil then it isn't evil. If you don't want to steal the life force from another creature then don't because a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet.
Thanks for the example of Robin Hood. He surely is a good-ish guy.
I think he is okay if his alignment is chaotic good. To my lawful good character, stealing really isn't his style.
You literally STEAL the targets health for your own gain. Even fit for RP.
If you do not wish to STEAL life force than don't spec into life steal.
What defines lawful?
Well Superman is lawful stupid for sure. Thank you for killing him in the Dark Knight Returns DC!
But what about Batman himself? He's a vigilante. He goes outside the law. He kicks butt and doesn't take names. He tortures. He terrifies. He maims. But he's good? He tortures people and he's good? Well at least he is certainly chaotic?
Nope. Actually many on this debate claim him as lawful because the law to him is what he defines it. His moral code is law. What he says is right and wrong is final. He doesn't follow the law of society but he follow his law to a tee and that law is held true in every situation he is in.
This isn't a mud hole, it's an operating table!
So brutal. So right. So within his law. He is a lawful character.
But hey, you did it again...
Are you against the effect of life steal?
Think about the answer to that...
Because if it is anything besides no the argument ends there.
Changing the name won't change the effect. Unless you don't want the effect there's nothing to be gained from changing the name.
You want my opinion? Forget the PC garbage known as life steal and call it "Vampiric." It's already been changed to be PC, there's no need to change it anymore unless it's back to referencing the true word for feeding off the life of another creature.