Re: CF: Attacktypes

[David Andrew Michael Noelle <dave@Straylight.org>]

> Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 14:07:20 -0700
> From: Mark Wedel <mwedel@scruznet.com>
> 
>  Some of how damage works can be hard to justify.
> 
>  Arguably, anything done with a weapon (compared to spell) should probably be
> adjusted at least some on armor.  Even if that fire sword is red hot, someone
> wearing a lot of armor is likely to reduce the affects some (won't get as much
> heat).

So, a fire sword would do either physical damage reduced by armour or
fire damage reduced partially by armour _and_ by fire resistance?
Then it would do slightly more damage if the creature had high armour
and no protection from fire, but it would only be a significant
difference against creatures who are actually vulnerable to fire.

Maybe if the fire damage were in addition to the physical damage, it
would make sense, but not with the current method of applying the
maximum damage instead of the total.


>  OTOH, is that really a problem?  Probably one reason so many of the tougher
> monsters have thousands of HP is because the amount of damage players inflict
> with these weapons which pretty bypass armor.

Not necessarily a problem, just something to keep in mind when
rebalancing the monsters.


>  As a note, with graduated protections, I would expecte to see few monsters with
> 100% protection against attacktypes.  Sure - dragons should probably be immune
> to firebreath, but hopefully you won't have creatures immune to half the
> attacktypes.

That works fine if the number of monsters with 6 or 7 different
attacks is reduced, preferably to zero.  Most will still have to be
either immune to their own attacks or smart enough to not hit
themselves.


>  Another method would be to adjust damage by how much the player hit by.  So if
> you hit by a lot, you do more damage.  I would probaly implement this like +1
> damage for each number above you hit by, but limited by the characters maximum
> damage value.

Sounds reasonable to me.


>  Drain of course takes exp, while depletion takes stats.  Interesting, in the
> game, depletion is usually reserved for the more powerful monsters, yet it is
> generally a less harmful attack since you can reverse the affects.

I'm working on that.  It's just a matter of adding an additional int
field to experience objects, to record the experience prior to drain.
Then a potion of restoration can bring your experience back up to that
level, and it will be most effective if you use the potion immediately
rather than after gaining most of the experience back normally.


>  If not done already, it would be nice for higher level spells to have great
> affects (slows down the creature more).  A monsters protection on this can then
> undo some of that (for example, a creature with 50% protection to slow would
> only be slowed down 50% of what the spell would otherwise do).  Slow should
> probably operate as a percentage of the creatures speed, and not absolute values
> (like 0.2 speed), since in that way it is useful on both very slow and very fast
> monsters.

I think it does work as a percentage of speed, probably 50%, but it's
hard to tell with all the complex and scattered speed calculations
throughout fix_player.  If the slowness factor was based on the
"damage" done, which could easily be added to the spell parameters,
then it would automatically be reduced by protection from slowness,
just like any other protection.

Paralysis is more of an all or nothing deal.  The "damage" there could
represent how hard it is to resist, with protection making it that
much easier.  Then you roll to resist paralysis, modified by your
saving throw and you either succeed and keep moving or fail and stop.


>  I wonder if a characters protection should protect his equipment.  And how do
> we deal with this in graduated protections?  If you are 60% protected from
> cancellation, what does that really mean?

In most cases, I'd say no, the character's protection doesn't extend
to equipment.  You don't usually keep your backpack inside your
armour.  If area effects are extended to attack inventories, protected
containers suddenly become extremely valuable commodities.

In the case of cancellation, maybe it shouldn't even be an attacktype,
so it shouldn't have a protection field.  If it does, then I would say
that it represents one of two things.  Either the character is
surrounded by a field of protective magic generated by an amulet
specifically to ward off cancellation, or the character has some
magical ability to nullify cancellation.  That latter strikes me as
something of a redundancy, like "scratch remover."


-- 
            -Dave Noelle,                 dave@Straylight.org
            -the Villa Straylight,  http://www.straylight.org
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