Board Thread:Off Topic/@comment-70.116.77.207-20130429054018/@comment-70.116.77.207-20130429221959

Thanks y'all. I knew it couldn't be just me.

BTW, @Chlwhitby, I didn't mention the Shamans because I found a tactic for dealing with them early on: take a really classy arrow, dose it up with the nastiest paralyzing poison I can brew, and hit him with that first. Then, while he's doing the fishstick (a very delicate state of mind!) I turn him into a pincushion as fast as I can, or sprint up and whale on him while he's picking his tuchas up off the ground. A well-timed fus can work too. You're right, though, they do suck. And you can't spend this kinda coin on their grunts, so you have to tediously hack through them the hard way.

Look, I get what they were going for here. I saw The 13th Warrior and Centurion (both good movies) so I know what they wanted the Forsworn to be. Bethesda did a good job of laying the groundwork storywise, and character-design-wise, but they implemented the idea very poorly when it comes to actual gameplay. Instead of breaking all the rules of their own game world, they could have made them weaker, as their history and equipment suggests,  and then tried a different tactical approach, such as:

A) Have them attack in greater numbers. Hey, it works for wolves, it works for skeevers, it can work for the Forsworn. (Come to think of it, there should probably be a chance of disease from those nasty weapons too.)

B) Give them some crazy magical abilities I can't get. There are a number of references to them learning  "the old magic" from the hagravens. Heck, they are called the Witchmen of the Reach! So where's the witchery? Everything I've seen them throw is straight out of Miranda Goshawk's Standard Book of Spells. A few weird lights and effects, and I would have no complaint about their nutty super-powers.

C) My favored approach would be to have all their strongholds and redoubts shrouded in mist or blizzards. Then have them attack you out of the fog Silent Hill-style. Now THAT would be scary. And arrows coming from unseen opponents would leave you no choice but to rush forward to come to grips with them... right into their well-prepared traps and ambushes. That would represent using their  greater knowledge of the local terrain to their advantage, which would be consistent with their backstory, and give us a different gameplay challenge. It would also make the Clear Skies shout more than a one-shot wonder.

But just amping up their stats without any explanation why? That's just lazy.