Multisquare players, was Re: CF: Long term experimental ideas

[Mark Wedel <mwedel@scruznet.com>]

Hwei Sheng TEOH wrote:
> 
> Also, while we are on the topic of size, how about implement footprint sizes
> instead? So a hill giant could still occupy only one square, just that its
> icon uses two spaces. I notice some tall buildings are positioned next to
> walls based on their footprint, so you get a nice overlay effect of a tower
> extending over a wall. This topic has been discussed before, I just don't
> recall any consensus on it.

 A monsters footprint, while and interesting idea, creates some different
aspects which may not work so well.

 Lets take the hill giant - a 1x2 creature.  If we assume its footprint is its
feet, then what appears to be its head is just there for image purposes.

 But now what happens when you attack its head?  Nothing at all - the spell
flies through or you walk through the space, since it isn't really there - that
is just for drawing.

 That may create a lot of confusion.  Remember that the maps themselves are not
really an isomorphic view - they are a true top down.  Yet most images
(Certainly monsters) are drawn fairly flat.  The new images David Sunqvist did
are not quite as flat and certainly look three dimensional.

 That said, technically speaking it may not be hard to change to a footprint
model - for multipart objects, you just need to add a flag or something for the
parts which are not footprint so the game knows to deal with them properly.

 The actual foot (called head within the program) can in theory be any space. 
Generally, it is actually the head, but if you look at the way the arch is done,
it can either support, or be trivially modified, such that what appears to be
the feet appears is the control aspect of the monster.

 For 1x2 monsters, this may fix some problem.  For things like 2x2 monsters,
where there is more than 1 space in the logical footprint, some option for the
player to shift what footprint is the control option would need to be done,
becauase otherwise, as someone stated, you have all sorts of areas on maps that
might not be accessible.

 Big objects also have the significant problem that many maps have only single
wide passageways or the like.

 while a neat idea, I would certainly put the multisquare monster idea pretty
far down on the list of things to do.  There is still many aspects of monster
players that can be added (you do have the small beholder, small troll, ogre,
etc).

 And while it may seem like a lot of fun to play big races (like hill giants or
whatever), also remember that any races have to be balanced with the other
races.  So if that hill giant has +4 strength, he is losing a lot in his other
stats.  And you still need to be careful on that - a +4 str, +4 con, +4 dex with
-4 int,wis,pow makes for a pretty awesome fighter - the amount of those bonuses
in themselves, even though the net sum is 0, may have unbalancing aspects.
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