2-H Weapons and realism
Adam van den Hoven
and a shield at the same time. Someone else pointed out that it was ok
since the sword was held in only 1 hand.
Clearly this makes no sense. The reason a 2-H sword works better is that
you get better leverage, therefor strength, using 2 hands. The reason the
bastard sword was created was so that you could fight normally with 1
hand and use your second hand for the killing blow, or other critical
points.
Also, how is it that you can use a bow and a shield. There is obviously
no logical way you could use both effectively at the same time. Imagine
trying to get your bow on target with this huge 15 lb shield on you arm,
pulling the bow down. Really, it can't be done.
The solution is to have bracers. These are small shields, barely wider
than your arm is thick, which strap to your arm (most shields require
that you use the hand to hold it up). They offer minimal protection but
allow the use of bows, you can also use them with 2-H weapons but you
suffer a penalty since they are designed for use with bows and as such
restrict the movement of the arm a tad.
I wonder if there really should be a shooting slot. If you think about
it, how realistic is it that you can have both your sword and you long
bow handy to fight with at the sametime. If you really want a realistic
situation, then there should be a requirement to physically switch
between your sword and your bow. This will lead to better realism in more
ways. I'm not sure but you usually don't find warriors who carry around
bows and such. Those are generally left to those classes who have trouble
with the hack and slash (mages, rogues etc).
This could be done in game play by adding another piece of information to
all wearable items - hands. Just list how many hands a particular piece
of equiptment uses and count up to 2. Things such as rings and most
armour would have 0 hands. Bucklers would also be 0 hands. Bows and such
would be 2 hands. Most weapons would be 1 hand. Just count the number of
hands used and prompt to remove items (say there is a 2-H sword that
wants to be used and a shield, you'd get a prompt asking which to remove.
You could allow for the shield and/or bow to be slung at the back and the
weapon to be put in a scabbard (thus leaving the backpack slots alone)
but they couldn't be used until they were called for.
You could also get rings and amulets of extra hands which allow you to
have more that 2 hands going. This would basically mean that your sword
and shield would float infront of you (being fully effective) while you
get your bow going. Since the extra "hands" still require you to
concentrate on what you are doing, you can't fight the troll next to you
and take out the novice mage across the room.
Also, how is it possible that I can take my crossbow, pop in a bolt, cock
the crossbow, aim it and fire it at the same speed it takes to fire off 1
arrow from my short bow. For that matter, how can it be done in 1 round??
There really should be a time necessary to load these weapons. Say 2
rounds for cross bows and 1 round for bows. You could make a new class of
great weapons missle weapons which can be fired with less time to reload.
Finally, shouldn't staves be wielded in order to be useful?? This makes
sense since a staff is essencially a quarter staff with magical
enchantments. They are also 5ft long. I dont see how they can be just
whipped out of the pack and used (wands and rods are different since they
are somewhat smaller).
This could be handled by making staves the only weapon that a mage can
use on top of 1H edged weapons. Staves must be wielded in order to be
used. They would be 2H weapons. You could have 3 types of staves -
lesser, normal, greater
This would result in the following staves of light (for example)
Lesser staff of light {5 charges} (1D5) [+0,+0] 1.5 lbs
Staff of light {5 charges} (2D5) [+0,+0] 3.0 lbs
Greater staff of light {5 charges} (3D5) [+0,+0] 5.0 lbs
An exceptional item might be
Mighty staff of light {5 charges} (3D7) [+0,+0] 10.0 lbs
Anyways, that's my .02 AU worth. As much as I'd like to put my money
where my mouth is, I can't program well enough to do the patches. I'll
leave it up to the rest of you fine folk to figure out if it is possible.
I'm sure many people won't like my ideas since they make things more
difficult, but they certainly do make things more realistic.
Adam
==========================================================================
H. Adam van den Hoven | Home: (403) 249 - 3161
Philosopher of Nature and Student of Physics | Work: (403) 220 - 5702
"A man, a plan, a canoe, pasta, heros, rajahs, a coloratura, maps, snipe,
percale, macaroni, a gag, a banana bag, a tan, a tag, a banana bag again
(or a camel), a crepe, pins, Spam, a rut, a Rolo, cash, a jar, sore hats,
a peon, a canal--Panama!"
-TScott
==========================================================================
Eric Oster
[Complex, reasoned changes deleted.]
>You could also get rings and amulets of extra hands which allow you to
>have more that 2 hands going. This would basically mean that your sword
>and shield would float infront of you (being fully effective) while you
>get your bow going. Since the extra "hands" still require you to
>concentrate on what you are doing, you can't fight the troll next to you
>and take out the novice mage across the room.
Yeah, but can we get a ring of extra ringfinger?
Useless unless enchanted, of course. :)
If you've played Hack, you'll understand the joke....:)
--
Eric Oster (eko...@u.washington.edu)
Walt Mazur
>I wonder if there really should be a shooting slot. If you think about
>it, how realistic is it that you can have both your sword and you long
>bow handy to fight with at the sametime. If you really want a realistic
>situation, then there should be a requirement to physically switch
>between your sword and your bow.
Yet that switch would be easy to forget in the game, while in life one
would never fail to drop the bow and draw the sword; thus, requiring a
manual switch is UNrealistic. The same argument applies to a digger
slot; it's more realistic because you would never forget you had a
shovel in hand instead of a sword. The switching is also
inconvenient--it isn't good user interface design. Requiring a manual
switch just causes annoyance, YASDs, and frequent abandonment of the
implement. I don't bother with diggers because they're simply too
much of a PITA.
If you're concerned about time-realism, then charge a turn for the
switch. I could live with that. But it opens a can of wyrms. You
ought to be charged for changing to a staff. Or even smaller items if
you don't have a free hand. Does that just add complexity or does it
add to the play of the game? And game it is, not a simulation.
Realism isn't the benchmark, fun is. For that matter, arguing realism
concerning a fantasy game is a bit of a stretch, no? :)
>This could be done in game play by adding another piece of information to
>all wearable items - hands. Just list how many hands a particular piece
>of equiptment uses and count up to 2. Things such as rings and most
>armour would have 0 hands. Bucklers would also be 0 hands. Bows and such
>would be 2 hands. Most weapons would be 1 hand. Just count the number of
>hands used and prompt to remove items (say there is a 2-H sword that
>wants to be used and a shield, you'd get a prompt asking which to remove.
I think this could work if weilding a two-handed weapon just
automatically unweilded the shield slot, if needed. I could live with
it, but I don't especially want it.
>You could also get rings and amulets of extra hands which allow you to
>have more that 2 hands going.
Retch. :)
>Also, how is it possible that I can take my crossbow, pop in a bolt, cock
>the crossbow, aim it and fire it at the same speed it takes to fire off 1
>arrow from my short bow. For that matter, how can it be done in 1 round??
What you're essentially asking for is to increase the time resolution
of the game, so instead of all operations taking one turn, some
operations would be slower, or maybe faster. This is something of an
alternative to the Extra Attacks or Extra Shots characteristics. So a
rapier might take 3 deciturns to lunge, while a two-handed sword takes
15 deciturns. But does it make the game funner? I don't think so.
Plus, we're stuck with a certain screen resolution. Deciturns might
work if Angand ran only under GUIs, and a room was 100 pixels wide.
But when it's 10 characters wide, you get into trouble: is that
monster two squares away going to take 11 deciturns to beside me--so I
better draw my sword now; or is he 19 deciturns away--so I have time
to pop him again with my bow?
(It is, perhaps, interesting to contemplate a high resolution,
graphic, roguelike game, but that's probably another newsgroup.)
>Finally, shouldn't staves be wielded in order to be useful??
Can of wyrms! Can of wyrms!! ;)
Shawn McHorse
>>Also, how is it possible that I can take my crossbow, pop in a bolt, cock
>>the crossbow, aim it and fire it at the same speed it takes to fire off 1
>>arrow from my short bow. For that matter, how can it be done in 1 round??
>
>of the game, so instead of all operations taking one turn, some
>operations would be slower, or maybe faster. This is something of an
>alternative to the Extra Attacks or Extra Shots characteristics. So a
>rapier might take 3 deciturns to lunge, while a two-handed sword takes
>15 deciturns. But does it make the game funner? I don't think so.
Ben has been gradually adding support for this, and should hopefully be
implemented relatively soon. Variable-length actions would also make it
possible to be a bit more realistic about the equipment. e.g. If the last
action you made was hitting a monster with a mace, then it should take a
bit longer than normal to fire from your bow (simulating the time it takes
to switch between the two). Lots of other possibilities.
>Plus, we're stuck with a certain screen resolution. Deciturns might
>work if Angand ran only under GUIs, and a room was 100 pixels wide.
>But when it's 10 characters wide, you get into trouble: is that
>monster two squares away going to take 11 deciturns to beside me--so I
>better draw my sword now; or is he 19 deciturns away--so I have time
>to pop him again with my bow?
I don't know about you, but I'm not stuck with a certain screen resolution.
I'm using 100x37 right now, but could easily change it. In fact, I often
play Angband at 100x37 just because I don't feel like changing it. Of course,
Angband only uses the upper left 80x25 of it. *grumble* *grumble*
And figuring out whehter you have time for another bow shot is part of the game.
:-)
>(It is, perhaps, interesting to contemplate a high resolution,
>graphic, roguelike game, but that's probably another newsgroup.)
Yup. Also consider this. Does everyone remember the incredibly popular
text-only Infocom adventure games? If you were using computers back then
(I was using CP/M on a Kaypro. I'm getting old...), then you had almost
certainly played Zork. I spent literally thousands of hours and who knows
how many all-nighters playing text-only Infocom adventure games. Then we
all started getting color graphic displays and lots of companies (Infocom
included) figured they could come out with graphic adventure games that
would be even more popular than these silly text-only things. But that
never worked (I think Leisure Suit Larry was probably the closest...).
A high resolution, graphic, roguelike game is not necessarily better.
>>Finally, shouldn't staves be wielded in order to be useful??
>
>Can of wyrms! Can of wyrms!! ;)
Can of drakes! Can of drakes!! :->
Shawn McHorse
smch...@ringer.cs.utsa.edu
Michael Searle
>>
> Yet that switch would be easy to forget in the game, while in life one
> would never fail to drop the bow and draw the sword; thus, requiring a
> manual switch is UNrealistic. The same argument applies to a digger slot;
> it's more realistic because you would never forget you had a shovel in
> hand instead of a sword. The switching is also inconvenient--it isn't
> good user interface design. Requiring a manual switch just causes
> annoyance, YASDs, and frequent abandonment of the implement. I don't
> bother with diggers because they're simply too much of a PITA.
My (old) version of Angband has only one slot for weapon/bow/digger but a
spare slot for a weapon to change between with X. This isn't ideal
especially if 3 or more are needed eg. weapon plus bow plus digger, but
makes more sense realisticaly than having more than one slot, giving bonuses
for all the slots and implying that weapon, bow and digger are being all
wielded at the same time. Maybe a better compromise would be to have 3 or
more weapon/bow/digger slots, only one of which was being used at a time.
This is an extension of the system used in my version, although a better
system for switching between them would have to be used. (1,2,3 ... number
keys?) To prevent attacking a dragon with a bow, etc. messages like 'Do you
really want to attack with a Short Bow? [y/n]' could be used.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
sea...@longacre.demon.co.uk
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
DarkAvgr1
Shields- 1 hand
Bastard Sword- 1/2 hands (If you're not weilding a shield, It should
switch to two hands, and do more damage)
Two-handed sword, Battle Axe, Polearms, etc.- 2 hands
Bows/Crossbows- 2wo hands
Rods/Staves/Wands- 1 hand
Wands, staves, and rods should have to be wielded to be used. And, how can
you fit some of this stuff (like a Glaive) in your pack? (Elastic pack? I
think not.) And, add in some new items. Fun stuff. (Nets, Blackjacks,
Molotov cocktails, etc.) And, put in flint and steel, or matches, or
something to light the torches with. (Make the game more of a pain in the
ass.) By the way: WHY THE HELL DOES WEARING HEAVY ARMOR DECREASE YOUR
MANA, EH?
A word to the wise: If angband had graphics, and a graphical inventory,
all of this could be solved.
If there are any Mac programmers out there who are up to redoing some of
this, I have a bunch of graphics (very well drawn!) that I could e-mail to
you.
-The Dark Avenger
------------------------------------------------------------------
"Ill probably go to Hell, that is my great reward...." -Ren and Stimpy
Aaron Mandelbaum
>Wands, staves, and rods should have to be wielded to be used. And, how can
>you fit some of this stuff (like a Glaive) in your pack? (Elastic pack? I
>think not.)
I'm convinced that you're carrying around a cart with 23 drawers.
>By the way: WHY THE HELL DOES WEARING HEAVY ARMOR DECREASE YOUR
>MANA, EH?
Lots of metal inhibits mana flow. But basically, warriors are too weak, so
the other classes needed to be weakened a bit.
--
Aaron Mandelbaum
Craig Lewis
>
>dark...@aol.com (DarkAvgr1) writes:
>
>>Wands, staves, and rods should have to be wielded to be used. And, how can
>>you fit some of this stuff (like a Glaive) in your pack? (Elastic pack? I
>>think not.)
>
>I'm convinced that you're carrying around a cart with 23 drawers.
:) You got that right.
>>By the way: WHY THE HELL DOES WEARING HEAVY ARMOR DECREASE YOUR
>>MANA, EH?
>
>Lots of metal inhibits mana flow. But basically, warriors are too weak, so
>the other classes needed to be weakened a bit.
Metal inhibiting mana flow: Gygaxian CRAP.
This was done in the original D&D for play balance reasons, period, amen.
The 'logic' was so much fairy dust, and it was NEVER consistent.
>--
>Aaron Mandelbaum
--
Craig Lewis cle...@psl.nmsu.edu
Romantic: "A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou."
Dreamer: "A baguette, Dom Perignon 75, and Cindy Crawford..."
Julian Bean
In article <42dvt6$q...@alamo.cs.utsa.edu> smch...@ringer.cs.utsa.edu (Shawn
McHorse) writes:
>Yup. Also consider this. Does everyone remember the incredibly popular
>text-only Infocom adventure games? If you were using computers back then
>(I was using CP/M on a Kaypro. I'm getting old...), then you had almost
>certainly played Zork. I spent literally thousands of hours and who knows
>how many all-nighters playing text-only Infocom adventure games. Then we
>all started getting color graphic displays and lots of companies (Infocom
>included) figured they could come out with graphic adventure games that
>would be even more popular than these silly text-only things. But that
>never worked (I think Leisure Suit Larry was probably the closest...).
>A high resolution, graphic, roguelike game is not necessarily better.
>
Of course not. But it could be :)
I have tried, on occasion. But I went back to a traditional ASCII because the
market is larger (its very easy to make it cross-platform).
Still, it is quite possible to have granular position combined with
hi-resolution time. My own under development Angband clone already has hi-res
time, and it works very well (Demon Lords are on average 2.5 times faster than
you, but actually their speed is normally distributed, with s.d. roughly + or -
0.3. Also, monsters can move very fast, but attack slowly, or vice versa).
Jules
>>>Finally, shouldn't staves be wielded in order to be useful??
>>
Shawn McHorse
>cle...@psl.nmsu.edu (Craig Lewis) wrote:
>I've always considered the loss of mana to be because the spellcaster is to
>encumbered to move freely, so spellcasting becomes more difficult.
>
>Early versions of the game based the mana penalty on the base armor class
>of the items your character is wearing. This had obvious problems: for
>example, a Cloak [1, +9] was better than a Shadow Cloak [6, +4]. The
>current weight-based system works a lot better, and seems a lot more
>intuitive.
I love the current method for the mana penalty. Not only is the penalty based
on whether the weight of your armor is above a certain value, but the decrease
in mana is proportional to the difference between the weight of your current
armor and the maximum. I think this is new to 2.7.8, unless I just didn't notice
it before. So if you are wearing one pound of armor over the max, it will barely
affect your mana. But if you try to put on Bladeturner, your mana will really
plummet. Makes sense to me.
One thing I did notice with the new stat tables is that the relative increases
still seem to have some huge jumps. My level 28 (or so) High-Elf Ranger quaffed
a potion of intelligence. He had no spell studies left before quaffing, but was
able to study about 10 spells afterwards until I ran out of books. Thought those
spell studies would never run out.
Is there any good reason why we can't make some of the stat tables floating-point
to even this sort of thing out a bit? The # of half-spells per level, # of half-
mana-points per level, and extra half-hitpoints per level tables are just simulating
this. Why not make them the real thing? Then you could have something like 1.5
spells/level for 18/50 INT, 1.625 spells/level for 18/60 INT, 1.75 spells/level for
18/70 INT, 1.875 spells/level for 18/80 INT, and 2.0 spells/level for 18/90 INT.
Instead of the direct jump from 1.5 to 2.0. Sounds easy enough to do. Just make
the code round off when figuring out how manu spells you should have at your level.
Any reason why this shouldn't be done?
BTW, Ben. It's great ftp'ing to a site and seeing "Welcome to the new Angband
site!" as the opening banner for the system. Muhahaha. Angband takes over the
world...:-)
Shawn McHorse
smch...@ringer.cs.utsa.edu
An Austin NorthCross-Dresser
Craig Lewis
>
>smch...@ringer.cs.utsa.edu (Shawn McHorse) wrote:
>
>>Ben has been gradually adding support for this, and should hopefully be
>>implemented relatively soon. Variable-length actions would also make it
>>possible to be a bit more realistic about the equipment. e.g. If the last
>>action you made was hitting a monster with a mace, then it should take a
>>bit longer than normal to fire from your bow (simulating the time it takes
>>to switch between the two). Lots of other possibilities.
>
>switching weapons (likewise to the proposed digger). But if this
>brings us to a situation where we have to memorize huge tables of
>this-takes-so-many-deciturns or, worse, to a situation where we can't
>really tell what's going on with the monsters around us because we're
>not sure how our move clock is "beating" against the monsters' turn
>clocks, I think we'll have a less fun game. One of its charms is that
>it's relatively straightforward to work out whether you can do
>something or not, like, can I get to that door before the orcs swamp
>me? If that goes away, I think the game will get an undesirable
>arbitrariness about it.
Mmm...good point. Simplicity is often a virtue. I would *think*
that most actions will take the same amount of time, with a few having some
longer or shorter periods (digging, for example, as long; switching
a weapon might be a bit shorter).
This is another example where the Angband vets will have it over the
less experienced players, the more so as it gets more complex. This may
not be desireable.
>>I don't know about you, but I'm not stuck with a certain screen resolution.
>>I'm using 100x37 right now, but could easily change it. In fact, I often
>>play Angband at 100x37 just because I don't feel like changing it. Of course,
>>Angband only uses the upper left 80x25 of it. *grumble* *grumble*
>
>Sure, and I could go to 1024 x 768 graphics or 128 x 96 characters.
>But if we're talking about that level of change, perhaps we're talking
>about another game.
I don't *believe* this is all that hard to change; at least in Moria,
i believe that all it required was changing the screen resolution constants,
then recompiling it.
Walt Mazur
>Ben has been gradually adding support for this, and should hopefully be
>implemented relatively soon. Variable-length actions would also make it
>possible to be a bit more realistic about the equipment. e.g. If the last
>action you made was hitting a monster with a mace, then it should take a
>bit longer than normal to fire from your bow (simulating the time it takes
>to switch between the two). Lots of other possibilities.
Even with the old turn system, a turn could have been charged for
switching weapons (likewise to the proposed digger). But if this
brings us to a situation where we have to memorize huge tables of
this-takes-so-many-deciturns or, worse, to a situation where we can't
really tell what's going on with the monsters around us because we're
not sure how our move clock is "beating" against the monsters' turn
clocks, I think we'll have a less fun game. One of its charms is that
it's relatively straightforward to work out whether you can do
something or not, like, can I get to that door before the orcs swamp
me? If that goes away, I think the game will get an undesirable
arbitrariness about it.
>I don't know about you, but I'm not stuck with a certain screen resolution.
>I'm using 100x37 right now, but could easily change it. In fact, I often
>play Angband at 100x37 just because I don't feel like changing it. Of course,
>Angband only uses the upper left 80x25 of it. *grumble* *grumble*
Sure, and I could go to 1024 x 768 graphics or 128 x 96 characters.
But if we're talking about that level of change, perhaps we're talking
about another game.
>And figuring out whehter you have time for another bow shot is part of the game.
>:-)
It is. And if you *can't* figure it out because the game doesn't give
you enough information to do so, that part of the game is handicapped.
>Yup. Also consider this. Does everyone remember the incredibly popular
>text-only Infocom adventure games? If you were using computers back then
>(I was using CP/M on a Kaypro. I'm getting old...), then you had almost
>certainly played Zork. I spent literally thousands of hours and who knows
>how many all-nighters playing text-only Infocom adventure games. Then we
>all started getting color graphic displays and lots of companies (Infocom
>included) figured they could come out with graphic adventure games that
>would be even more popular than these silly text-only things. But that
>never worked (I think Leisure Suit Larry was probably the closest...).
I played the predecessor to Zork, Adventure. ("You are in a maze of
twisty passages, all the same," or something like that.)
I think some of them did ok. In a sense, the Ultima series (and
others) were related, too; though they were perhaps more roguelike
than adventure-like.
>A game is not necessarily better.
Of course not, but I can only really think of one, and that was on an
Apple II. I meant by a "high resolution, graphic, roguelike" game one
that has the movement on a map at the full graphics resolution, not a
roguelike game with pretty graphics alone. IOW, if a monster had, in
Angband terms, a speed of 13, you'd see it move 13 pixels per turn.
That, I think, is necessary to a high resolution speed system: you
need to see movement with resolution that makes the speed clear.
Visual resolution has to be compatible with speed resolution.
Otherwise, monsters' movements will feel arbitrary.
>>>Finally, shouldn't staves be wielded in order to be useful??
>>
>>Can of wyrms! Can of wyrms!! ;)
>
>Can of drakes! Can of drakes!! :->
Can of mallards? Can of mallards?? :/
Walt Mazur
>My (old) version of Angband has only one slot for weapon/bow/digger but a
>spare slot for a weapon to change between with X. This isn't ideal
>especially if 3 or more are needed eg. weapon plus bow plus digger, but
>makes more sense realisticaly than having more than one slot, giving bonuses
>for all the slots and implying that weapon, bow and digger are being all
>wielded at the same time. Maybe a better compromise would be to have 3 or
>more weapon/bow/digger slots, only one of which was being used at a time.
I suppose bows do grant some additional immunities in the current
version. One option to automatically weilding and unweilding the
three would be to make bow and digger properties specific to those
functions. For instance, a bow might be acid or fire proof itself,
but it wouldn't protect the user; and it might have extra shots or
extra might or accuracy that applies only when used as a bow. I'm a
little unclear exactly how it works now.
Charles Swiger
>>> By the way: WHY THE HELL DOES WEARING HEAVY ARMOR DECREASE YOUR
>>> MANA, EH?
> Metal inhibiting mana flow: Gygaxian CRAP.
> This was done in the original D&D for play balance reasons, period, amen.
> The 'logic' was so much fairy dust, and it was NEVER consistent.
I've always considered the loss of mana to be because the spellcaster is to
encumbered to move freely, so spellcasting becomes more difficult.
Early versions of the game based the mana penalty on the base armor class
of the items your character is wearing. This had obvious problems: for
example, a Cloak [1, +9] was better than a Shadow Cloak [6, +4]. The
current weight-based system works a lot better, and seems a lot more
intuitive.
However, if anyone has suggestions for a better strategy that doesn't hurt
game balance, say so!
-Chuck
Ben Harrison
>In article <42n87j$i...@news.its.com> ch...@tertius.res.cmu.edu (Charles Swiger) writes:
>>cle...@psl.nmsu.edu (Craig Lewis) wrote:
>>I've always considered the loss of mana to be because the spellcaster is to
>>encumbered to move freely, so spellcasting becomes more difficult.
>>
>>Early versions of the game based the mana penalty on the base armor class
>>of the items your character is wearing. This had obvious problems: for
>>example, a Cloak [1, +9] was better than a Shadow Cloak [6, +4]. The
>>current weight-based system works a lot better, and seems a lot more
>>intuitive.
>I love the current method for the mana penalty. Not only is the penalty based
>on whether the weight of your armor is above a certain value, but the decrease
>in mana is proportional to the difference between the weight of your current
>armor and the maximum. I think this is new to 2.7.8, unless I just didn't notice
>it before. So if you are wearing one pound of armor over the max, it will barely
>affect your mana. But if you try to put on Bladeturner, your mana will really
>plummet. Makes sense to me.
>One thing I did notice with the new stat tables is that the relative increases
>still seem to have some huge jumps. My level 28 (or so) High-Elf Ranger quaffed
>a potion of intelligence. He had no spell studies left before quaffing, but was
>able to study about 10 spells afterwards until I ran out of books. Thought those
>spell studies would never run out.
>Is there any good reason why we can't make some of the stat tables floating-point
>to even this sort of thing out a bit? The # of half-spells per level, # of half-
>mana-points per level, and extra half-hitpoints per level tables are just simulating
>this. Why not make them the real thing? Then you could have something like 1.5
>spells/level for 18/50 INT, 1.625 spells/level for 18/60 INT, 1.75 spells/level for
>18/70 INT, 1.875 spells/level for 18/80 INT, and 2.0 spells/level for 18/90 INT.
>Instead of the direct jump from 1.5 to 2.0. Sounds easy enough to do. Just make
>the code round off when figuring out how manu spells you should have at your level.
>Any reason why this shouldn't be done?
Begone, vile creature! :-)
Wow, you hit me with three no-no's here in one post, long lines,
making fun of integers, and requesting floating point! :-)
I went to a small amount of trouble to *remove* the floating point
from Angband, there is NO reason for it, it is SLOW, it BLOATS the
code on many machines by adding in a huge FP library, and on a Pentium
it may confuse people. :-)
Seriously though, in general, floating point is NEVER needed in a
game, unless large amounts of 3D graphics or similar stuff is done.
Even trig functions can be done integrally if you are a sadist.
And the code speedup is nothing to laugh at, keep in mind that calls
to the RNG are one of the primary sources of slow-ness in Angband, and
it only does *integral* div/mod calls.
Oh, and floating point tables would take up (at least) twice as much
space, they would take up at least 4x as much, but I am just scared
enough of "unsigned auto-conversion bugs" (having encountered more
than a few) to be on the lookout against any "unsigned" fields that
are not actually necessary for space reasons. I know, each table is
only 80 bytes, but there are a lot of tables, and why throw away space?
>BTW, Ben. It's great ftp'ing to a site and seeing "Welcome to the new Angband
>site!" as the opening banner for the system. Muhahaha. Angband takes over the
>world...:-)
That would be the site "owner", not me... :-) I just make the
sub-directories and such, I have no idea where the banner comes from
(a dot-file, perhaps? never looked...)
Shawn McHorse
smch...@ringer.cs.utsa.edu
An Austin NorthCross-Dresser
--- Ben ---
ch...@its.com
> In article <42n87j$i...@news.its.com> ch...@tertius.res.cmu.edu (Charles Swiger)
writes:
>>of the items your character is wearing. This had obvious problems: for
>>example, a Cloak [1, +9] was better than a Shadow Cloak [6, +4]. The
>>current weight-based system works a lot better, and seems a lot more
>>intuitive.
>
> I love the current method for the mana penalty. Not only is the penalty based
> on whether the weight of your armor is above a certain value, but the decrease
> in mana is proportional to the difference between the weight of your current
> armor and the maximum. I think this is new to 2.7.8, unless I just didn't
> notice it before.
The change to weight-based mana penalty was done for Angband 2.5.0, with some minor
tweaking possibly done in later revisions.
> Is there any good reason why we can't make some of the stat tables floating-point
> to even this sort of thing out a bit?
That would be great in my opinion, but the Mac / PC people seem to be a lot more
concerned with added CPU load and memory usage for floating point operations than I
would be. YMMV.
-Chuck
--
Charles Swiger -- ch...@its.com | Information Technology Solutions, Inc.
--------------------------------+---------------------------------------
CrashCatcher Development, Systems and Networking Administrator
ch...@its.com
> I don't *believe* this is all that hard to change; at least in Moria,
> i believe that all it required was changing the screen resolution
> constants, then recompiling it.
But that dramatically effects how hard the game is to play, since players
with a larger screen get more warning and information about far-away
events. It also probably will effect dungeon generation. Changing such a
fundamental aspect of the game has some significant side effects.
Julian Bean
In article <BENH.95S...@linc.cis.upenn.edu> be...@linc.cis.upenn.edu (Ben
Harrison) writes:
>Above, In article <42nl8e$1...@alamo.cs.utsa.edu> smch...@ringer.cs.utsa.edu (Shawn McHorse) writes:
>
>>>I've always considered the loss of mana to be because the spellcaster is to
>>>encumbered to move freely, so spellcasting becomes more difficult.
>>>
>>>of the items your character is wearing. This had obvious problems: for
>>>example, a Cloak [1, +9] was better than a Shadow Cloak [6, +4]. The
>>>current weight-based system works a lot better, and seems a lot more
>>>intuitive.
>
>>I love the current method for the mana penalty. Not only is the penalty based
>>on whether the weight of your armor is above a certain value, but the decrease
>>in mana is proportional to the difference between the weight of your current
>>armor and the maximum. I think this is new to 2.7.8, unless I just didn't notice
>>affect your mana. But if you try to put on Bladeturner, your mana will really
>>plummet. Makes sense to me.
>
>>One thing I did notice with the new stat tables is that the relative increases
>>still seem to have some huge jumps. My level 28 (or so) High-Elf Ranger quaffed
>>a potion of intelligence. He had no spell studies left before quaffing, but was
>>able to study about 10 spells afterwards until I ran out of books. Thought those
>>spell studies would never run out.
>
Although, despite what Chuck suggests in a parallel post, FP isn't going to
slow down my Mac (the FPU in a 75 MHz 603 is actually rather speedy), surely we
can simply use fixed point - i.e. instead of using mana half-points per level,
use mana hundred points per level - a more efficient use of all the information
stored in the int anyway.
Jules
Craig Lewis
>
>cle...@psl.nmsu.edu (Craig Lewis) wrote:
>>>> By the way: WHY THE HELL DOES WEARING HEAVY ARMOR DECREASE YOUR
>>>> MANA, EH?
>> [ ... ]
>> Metal inhibiting mana flow: Gygaxian CRAP.
>> This was done in the original D&D for play balance reasons, period, amen.
>> The 'logic' was so much fairy dust, and it was NEVER consistent.
>
>encumbered to move freely, so spellcasting becomes more difficult.
Then shouldn't this be reflected in an increased spell failure percentage?
Mind you, I *don't* object to the heavy armor mana penalty...my
comment was based on the rationale that 'metal inhibits mana'. This
does allow for more differentiation between the classes, and the
rationale that the stiffer, heavier armors interfere with casting is
quite reasonable, IMO.
>-Chuck
Julian Bean
In article <42pngq$2...@alamo.cs.utsa.edu> smch...@ringer.cs.utsa.edu (Shawn
McHorse) writes:
>In article <BENH.95S...@linc.cis.upenn.edu> be...@linc.cis.upenn.edu (Ben Harrison) writes:
>>Begone, vile creature! :-)
>>
>>Wow, you hit me with three no-no's here in one post, long lines,
>>making fun of integers, and requesting floating point! :-)
>
>And long lines are what happens when I post from the X-Windows terminal at
>school. Sorry...:-)
>
>>Oh, and floating point tables would take up (at least) twice as much
>>space, they would take up at least 4x as much, but I am just scared
>>enough of "unsigned auto-conversion bugs" (having encountered more
>>than a few) to be on the lookout against any "unsigned" fields that
>>are not actually necessary for space reasons. I know, each table is
>>only 80 bytes, but there are a lot of tables, and why throw away space?
>
>already uses 16 bits, most of which is unused. In the adj_mag_study[],
>adj_mag_mana[], and adj_con_hp[] tables there is enough room for fixed
>point with three decimal places without even changing the size of the
>table. Seems better to me than the "# of half-hitpoints per level" style
>of hack to get more resolution. But maybe that's just me...:-)
>
Actually, # of halfpoints per level is fixed point. One binary decimal place -
15 bits integer part, 1 bit fractional part. So it's not a hack at all - just
a more limited implementation of fixed-point that you or I propose.
Jules
Cliff Stamp
In article <42ld50$v...@nnrp3.primenet.com>, w_m...@primenet.com (Walt Mazur) writes:
|>smch...@ringer.cs.utsa.edu (Shawn McHorse) wrote:
|>
|>>Ben has been gradually adding support for this, and should hopefully be
|>>implemented relatively soon. Variable-length actions would also make it
|>>possible to be a bit more realistic about the equipment. e.g. If the last
|>>action you made was hitting a monster with a mace, then it should take a
|>>bit longer than normal to fire from your bow (simulating the time it takes
|>>to switch between the two). Lots of other possibilities.
|>
|>Even with the old turn system, a turn could have been charged for
|>switching weapons (likewise to the proposed digger). But if this
|>brings us to a situation where we have to memorize huge tables of
|>this-takes-so-many-deciturns or, worse, to a situation where we can't
|>really tell what's going on with the monsters around us because we're
|>not sure how our move clock is "beating" against the monsters' turn
|>clocks, I think we'll have a less fun game. One of its charms is that
|>it's relatively straightforward to work out whether you can do
|>something or not, like, can I get to that door before the orcs swamp
|>me? If that goes away, I think the game will get an undesirable
|>arbitrariness about it.
|>
I don't understand what you mean here, with the new speed system and
monsters getting random speed bonuses you can never be sure of when
you move will they and such. I think that was a great advancement,
would you rather the old speed system?
I have a different view, I would really like to see this feature, I think
it would add a lot to the game. It would definately make combat a lot more
fun if reading scrolls, zapping wands, shooting a bow etc all took different
amounts of time, plus wearing armour etc.
It would make you think a lot more which is good as combat is very boring
now. (most of the time)
[cut]
--
Cliff Stamp
sst...@kelvin.physics.mun.ca
Shawn McHorse
>Begone, vile creature! :-)
>
>Wow, you hit me with three no-no's here in one post, long lines,
>making fun of integers, and requesting floating point! :-)
It's because integers are a countable set. Therefore, they must suck. =)
And long lines are what happens when I post from the X-Windows terminal at
school. Sorry...:-)
>Oh, and floating point tables would take up (at least) twice as much
>space, they would take up at least 4x as much, but I am just scared
>enough of "unsigned auto-conversion bugs" (having encountered more
>than a few) to be on the lookout against any "unsigned" fields that
>are not actually necessary for space reasons. I know, each table is
>only 80 bytes, but there are a lot of tables, and why throw away space?
Well then, why not use fixed point in a few of the tables. Each table
already uses 16 bits, most of which is unused. In the adj_mag_study[],
adj_mag_mana[], and adj_con_hp[] tables there is enough room for fixed
point with three decimal places without even changing the size of the
table. Seems better to me than the "# of half-hitpoints per level" style
of hack to get more resolution. But maybe that's just me...:-)
Shawn McHorse
smch...@ringer.cs.utsa.edu
An Austin NorthCross-Dresser
Aaron Mandelbaum
>In article <42n87j$i...@news.its.com>, ch...@tertius.res.cmu.edu says...
>>cle...@psl.nmsu.edu (Craig Lewis) wrote:
>>> Metal inhibiting mana flow: Gygaxian CRAP.
>>> This was done in the original D&D for play balance reasons, period, amen.
No, it was done for atmosphere. The image of a mage is a guy in a robe --
so since so many RPGers are munchkins, how can we make them wear robes?
>>I've always considered the loss of mana to be because the spellcaster is to
>>encumbered to move freely, so spellcasting becomes more difficult.
>Then shouldn't this be reflected in an increased spell failure percentage?
If that was the explanation, yes. That's why the metal thing is a better one.
Magnetic fields, you know?
>Mind you, I *don't* object to the heavy armor mana penalty...my
>comment was based on the rationale that 'metal inhibits mana'.
Magic is bullshit, so any explanations related to it will be bullshit.
Live with it or play a different game.
--
Aaron Mandelbaum
Craig Lewis
>
>cle...@psl.nmsu.edu (Craig Lewis) wrote:
>> I don't *believe* this is all that hard to change; at least in Moria,
>> i believe that all it required was changing the screen resolution
>> constants, then recompiling it.
>
>But that dramatically effects how hard the game is to play, since players
>with a larger screen get more warning and information about far-away
>events. It also probably will effect dungeon generation. Changing such a
>fundamental aspect of the game has some significant side effects.
I'm not saying it wouldn't impact game play; all I'm saying is that
it used to be relatively easy to do, at least in Moria. Yeah, it would
be a big change, seeing 25-30% more of the dungeon at a chunk, for *quite*
a few detection spells.
>-Chuck
>--
>
>Charles Swiger -- ch...@its.com | Information Technology Solutions, Inc.
>--------------------------------+---------------------------------------
>CrashCatcher Development, Systems and Networking Administrator
--
ch...@its.com
>> I've always considered the loss of mana to be because the spellcaster is to
>> encumbered to move freely, so spellcasting becomes more difficult.
>
> Then shouldn't this be reflected in an increased spell failure percentage?
That's an interesting idea. Maybe if Ben likes it, you'll see such a change in
future releases of the game....
Larry Craighead
>
>cle...@psl.nmsu.edu (Craig Lewis) wrote:
>>> I've always considered the loss of mana to be because the
spellcaster is to
>>> encumbered to move freely, so spellcasting becomes more difficult.
>>
>> Then shouldn't this be reflected in an increased spell failure
percentage?
>
>That's an interesting idea. Maybe if Ben likes it, you'll see such a
change in
>future releases of the game....
The problem is that spell failure increases are MUCH more important
than anything else. With a mage, I would hate my nice 3% GoI fail rate
to creep up just from extra armor. For my priest, I _WANT_ to be able
to wear Bladeturner and still get the P&H heal to 0% fail.
>-Chuck
>--
>
>Charles Swiger -- ch...@its.com | Information Technology Solutions,
Inc.
>--------------------------------+-------------------------------------
-
>CrashCatcher Development, Systems and Networking Administrator
Matt Craighead
Larry Craighead
>
>smch...@ringer.cs.utsa.edu (Shawn McHorse) wrote:
>>>of the items your character is wearing. This had obvious problems: for
>>>example, a Cloak [1, +9] was better than a Shadow Cloak [6, +4]. The
>>>current weight-based system works a lot better, and seems a lot more
>>>intuitive.
>>
>> I love the current method for the mana penalty. Not only is the penalty based
>> on whether the weight of your armor is above a certain value, but the decrease
>> in mana is proportional to the difference between the weight of your current
>> armor and the maximum. I think this is new to 2.7.8, unless I just didn't
>> notice it before.
>
minor
>tweaking possibly done in later revisions.
>
floating-point
>> to even this sort of thing out a bit?
>
a lot more
>concerned with added CPU load and memory usage for floating point
operations than I
>would be. YMMV.
Not I, on my Pentium 133 MHz, Angband runs too quickly. The borg is
insanely fast.
Michael Searle
>
>>> I've always considered the loss of mana to be because the spellcaster is
>>> to encumbered to move freely, so spellcasting becomes more difficult.
>> Then shouldn't this be reflected in an increased spell failure
>> percentage?
> If that was the explanation, yes. That's why the metal thing is a better
> one. Magnetic fields, you know?
If the explanation is the metal of the armor, then leather armor, DSMs, and
other armor that isn't made of metal should give no mana penalty.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
sea...@longacre.demon.co.uk
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Searle
>> That would be great in my opinion, but the Mac / PC people seem to be
> a lot more
>> concerned with added CPU load and memory usage for floating point
> operations than I
>> would be. YMMV.
> Not I, on my Pentium 133 MHz, Angband runs too quickly. The borg is
> insanely fast.
Angband always runs at full speed even on my old 25 Mhz Acorn, I even tried
running several copies at once (not very useful, but still full speed). But
as there was interest in a version for 8088/80186 PCs, for some users FP
could make a lot of difference to the speed.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
sea...@longacre.demon.co.uk
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Aaron Mandelbaum
>cle...@psl.nmsu.edu (Craig Lewis) wrote:
>>> I've always considered the loss of mana to be because the spellcaster is to
>>> encumbered to move freely, so spellcasting becomes more difficult.
>>
>> Then shouldn't this be reflected in an increased spell failure percentage?
>That's an interesting idea. Maybe if Ben likes it, you'll see such a change
>in future releases of the game....
No! Not more mage clobbering! Haven't they already been beaten into the
ground???
--
Aaron Mandelbaum
Cliff Stamp
In article <42qnui$q...@ixnews5.ix.netcom.com>, plug...@ix.netcom.com (Larry Craighead) writes:
|>In <42qlhb$c...@news.its.com> ch...@its.com writes:
|>>
|>>cle...@psl.nmsu.edu (Craig Lewis) wrote:
|>>>> I've always considered the loss of mana to be because the
|>spellcaster is to
|>>>> encumbered to move freely, so spellcasting becomes more difficult.
|>>>
|>>> Then shouldn't this be reflected in an increased spell failure
|>percentage?
|>>
|>>That's an interesting idea. Maybe if Ben likes it, you'll see such a
|>change in
|>>future releases of the game....
|>
|>than anything else. With a mage, I would hate my nice 3% GoI fail rate
|>to creep up just from extra armor. For my priest, I _WANT_ to be able
|>to wear Bladeturner and still get the P&H heal to 0% fail.
|>
Exactly, so you would not want to wear heavy armour, the mana costs
can be ignored but failure rates could not.
Its an excellent idea.
|>>-Chuck
|>>--
|>>
|>>Charles Swiger -- ch...@its.com | Information Technology Solutions,
|>Inc.
|>>--------------------------------+-------------------------------------
|>-
|>>CrashCatcher Development, Systems and Networking Administrator
|>
|>Matt Craighead
|>
--
Cliff Stamp
sst...@kelvin.physics.mun.ca
Sea Otter
>In article <adm4.1909...@po.cwru.edu>, ad...@po.cwru.edu says...
>>dark...@aol.com (DarkAvgr1) writes:
>>>By the way: WHY THE HELL DOES WEARING HEAVY ARMOR DECREASE YOUR
>>>MANA, EH?
>>
>>Lots of metal inhibits mana flow. But basically, warriors are too weak, so
>>the other classes needed to be weakened a bit.
>Metal inhibiting mana flow: Gygaxian CRAP.
>This was done in the original D&D for play balance reasons, period, amen.
>The 'logic' was so much fairy dust, and it was NEVER consistent.
Maybe, I'm missing something here, but what law of physics says that
metal shouldn't affect mana?
Larry Craighead
Stamp) writes:
>Exactly, so you would not want to wear heavy armour, the mana costs
>can be ignored but failure rates could not.
>
>Its an excellent idea.
Only if you like the idea of massacring high level spellcasters. They
SHOULD be this powerful IMHO.
>--
> Cliff Stamp
> sst...@kelvin.physics.mun.ca
>
Matt Craighead
William Tanksley
I think it would be appropriate to have gloves affect the spell failure
percentage, but not armor.
:No! Not more mage clobbering! Haven't they already been beaten into the
:ground???
Mage clobbering is fun! I like getting a whole crowd of gnome mages, and
clobbering them. They usually summon fun things like multi-headed hydras
and so on, so I kill the mages and switch to hydra clobbering.
Warriors are fun. I tend to do poorly playing mages :), except for crystal
dragons.
Next, I want to replace OoD with ShadowForm, so that the caster is immune to
normal damage AND unable to affect anything else with normal damage
(probably should temporarily increase stealth also). A quick and dirty way
to do that would be to have Shadow Form set a global flag (or counter), and
have the functions that administer normal damage not do anything when it
happens. A bit hackish, but since the player is the center of the universe
in Angband (which is the ultimate hack), why not?
My question would be, what would happen with hybrid attacks, such as
elemental brand? Should the damage only be *1 instead of *3 or 5? Or
should they not have any effect, since they are made of matter and thus have
nothing to attack a shadow with?
It would also be fun to make some creatures that are immune to normal
damage, but that's a little too Omegan (a new word!) or nethackish.
:Aaron Mandelbaum
-Billy
Jonathan Dean
>In article <42qnui$q...@ixnews5.ix.netcom.com>, plug...@ix.netcom.com says...
>>
>>In <42qlhb$c...@news.its.com> ch...@its.com writes:
>>>
>>>That's an interesting idea. Maybe if Ben likes it, you'll see such a
>>change in
>>>future releases of the game....
>>
>>The problem is that spell failure increases are MUCH more important
>>than anything else. With a mage, I would hate my nice 3% GoI fail rate
>>to creep up just from extra armor. For my priest, I _WANT_ to be able
>>to wear Bladeturner and still get the P&H heal to 0% fail.
>
>irrelevant at higher levels, or at least far less important than spell
>failure, and I would agree with that. But that implies that the heavy
>armor penalty, at higher levels, becomes insignificant. This is not the
>way it should be; you should ALWAYS have to think twice about the
>equipment you're going to wear.
Losing a handful of mana points at high levels, with 18/100+ stats
isn't going to be anything other than an annoyance (at best). The
situation is somewhat worsened as DSM doesn't affect mana nearly as
much as other armors (haven't tried Mithril mail or plate yet).
Its kinda like the to-hit penalty for bulky armors, once you get a
decent, or at least modest bonus to hit, it no longer is a significant
factor.
But, back to the mana issue. There are a few ways from the way I see
it, to make sure that the mana penalty is significant enough to be enforced:
1) Add the to-hit penalty to spell failure. It doesn't destroy the chances
to cast a spell, but still encourages spell casters to go with the lighter
armors, ESPECIALLY at higher levels where a failed spell can easily mean
death. DSM is still godly, but its hard to work arround that.
2) Make the mana penalty for total armor worn a percentage lose than a
fixed value lose. That way the higher level characters lose more to
armor than a low level character. Losing 10% of 200+ mana is something
to sit up and take notice of. Alot more so than -10 mana.
Or both. I think that these might make fighters more viable, or at least
more common...
--
Jonathan Dean | "I say we take off; nuke the site from orbit.
jd...@psl.nmsu.edu | It's the only way to be sure."
| -- Corporal Hicks, in "Aliens"
Craig Lewis
>
>Although, despite what Chuck suggests in a parallel post, FP isn't going to
>slow down my Mac (the FPU in a 75 MHz 603 is actually rather speedy), surely we
>can simply use fixed point - i.e. instead of using mana half-points per level,
>use mana hundred points per level - a more efficient use of all the information
>stored in the int anyway.
>
>Jules
Actually, doing things in FP *will* slow you down, even with a fast FPU.
Integer ops complete in fewer clock cycles than FP ops. Also, remember
that this game is played on a wide variety of systems, and add-on or
onboard FPUs are not always present.
Going to hundredths might have a problem if you're using *signed* integers...
max signed integer that you can safely assume is only 32767. At 328 mana
you would have an overflow. You'd have to go to longints, forcing them
to 32 bits. You *could* go to tenths, tho, with no problems (like the
way item weights are recorded).
Craig Lewis
>
>cle...@psl.nmsu.edu (Craig Lewis) writes:
>>In article <42n87j$i...@news.its.com>, ch...@tertius.res.cmu.edu says...
>>>cle...@psl.nmsu.edu (Craig Lewis) wrote:
>>>> Metal inhibiting mana flow: Gygaxian CRAP.
>>>> This was done in the original D&D for play balance reasons, period, amen.
>
>so since so many RPGers are munchkins, how can we make them wear robes?
'Atmosphere' and attempting to enforce a situation are 2 entirely different
things.
Nor is that particular image the only one in the literature or in the
world of FRPGs in general.
>>>I've always considered the loss of mana to be because the spellcaster is to
>>>encumbered to move freely, so spellcasting becomes more difficult.
>>Then shouldn't this be reflected in an increased spell failure percentage?
>
>If that was the explanation, yes. That's why the metal thing is a better one.
>Magnetic fields, you know?
I see...so how is it that clerics and elven fighter-MUs can wear plate mail
and cast spells, with absolutely no penalty? And what about potentially
non-magnetic alloys (elven chain mail is mithril...the concept stolen
directly from Bilbo's elven mail shirt from The Hobbit).
Also, why can't mages wear non-metal armors under this 'rationale'?
They're not even allowed to wear PADDED armor, which is just simple cloth.
>>Mind you, I *don't* object to the heavy armor mana penalty...my
>>comment was based on the rationale that 'metal inhibits mana'.
>
>Magic is bullshit, so any explanations related to it will be bullshit.
>Live with it or play a different game.
Magic is a premise, and you *can* work out a logical system for it
if that's what you want.
>--
>Aaron Mandelbaum
Craig Lewis
>
>In <42qlhb$c...@news.its.com> ch...@its.com writes:
>>
>>That's an interesting idea. Maybe if Ben likes it, you'll see such a
>change in
>>future releases of the game....
>
>The problem is that spell failure increases are MUCH more important
>than anything else. With a mage, I would hate my nice 3% GoI fail rate
>to creep up just from extra armor. For my priest, I _WANT_ to be able
>to wear Bladeturner and still get the P&H heal to 0% fail.
You're saying that the loss of a few mana points becomes, fundamentally,
irrelevant at higher levels, or at least far less important than spell
failure, and I would agree with that. But that implies that the heavy
armor penalty, at higher levels, becomes insignificant. This is not the
way it should be; you should ALWAYS have to think twice about the
equipment you're going to wear.
>>-Chuck
>>--
>
>Matt Craighead
Aaron Mandelbaum
>plug...@ix.netcom.com (Larry Craighead) writes:
>|>The problem is that spell failure increases are MUCH more important
>|>than anything else. With a mage, I would hate my nice 3% GoI fail rate
>|>to creep up just from extra armor. For my priest, I _WANT_ to be able
>|>to wear Bladeturner and still get the P&H heal to 0% fail.
>Exactly, so you would not want to wear heavy armour, the mana costs
>can be ignored but failure rates could not.
>Its an excellent idea.
It's a horrible idea. There is NO armor powerful enough to make up for an
increase in spell failure. It makes 9/10ths of the armor in the game useless
for 5/6ths of the characters. It'd be like changing the (-#)s in armor
to be a speed penalty (under the old system). Aren't there enough broken
skulls and swords for you already?
--
Aaron Mandelbaum
Shawn McHorse
>Actually, doing things in FP *will* slow you down, even with a fast FPU.
>Integer ops complete in fewer clock cycles than FP ops. Also, remember
>that this game is played on a wide variety of systems, and add-on or
>onboard FPUs are not always present.
Depends on the machine. On some machines, integer operations are actually a lot
SLOWER than floating point. In fact, there are some machines where in order to
do integer arithmetic you have to convert both of them to floating point, do the
operation, and then convert it back. Just letting you know how different
computer architectures can be...:-)
>Going to hundredths might have a problem if you're using *signed* integers...
>max signed integer that you can safely assume is only 32767. At 328 mana
>you would have an overflow. You'd have to go to longints, forcing them
>to 32 bits. You *could* go to tenths, tho, with no problems (like the
>way item weights are recorded).
I suggested three decimal places because the values in tables.c simply don't go
very high. Highest value in the half-something tables is 25 (corresponding to
12.5) and the lowest is -8 (-4.0). So with a 16-bit signed integer, you could
go up to 32.767 and down to -32.768. Plenty of room for what we're using it
for.
Shawn McHorse
smch...@ringer.cs.utsa.edu
Julian Bean
In article <431hql$4...@bubba.NMSU.Edu> cle...@psl.nmsu.edu (Craig Lewis)
writes:
>In article <adm4.1951...@po.cwru.edu>, ad...@po.cwru.edu says...
>>
>>cle...@psl.nmsu.edu (Craig Lewis) writes:
>>>In article <42n87j$i...@news.its.com>, ch...@tertius.res.cmu.edu says...
>>>>cle...@psl.nmsu.edu (Craig Lewis) wrote:
>>>>> Metal inhibiting mana flow: Gygaxian CRAP.
>>>>> This was done in the original D&D for play balance reasons, period, amen.
>>
>>No, it was done for atmosphere. The image of a mage is a guy in a robe --
>>so since so many RPGers are munchkins, how can we make them wear robes?
>
>'Atmosphere' and attempting to enforce a situation are 2 entirely different
>things.
>
>Nor is that particular image the only one in the literature or in the
>world of FRPGs in general.
>
>>>>I've always considered the loss of mana to be because the spellcaster is to
>>>>encumbered to move freely, so spellcasting becomes more difficult.
>>>Then shouldn't this be reflected in an increased spell failure percentage?
>>
>>If that was the explanation, yes. That's why the metal thing is a better one.
>>Magnetic fields, you know?
>
>I see...so how is it that clerics and elven fighter-MUs can wear plate mail
>and cast spells, with absolutely no penalty? And what about potentially
>non-magnetic alloys (elven chain mail is mithril...the concept stolen
>directly from Bilbo's elven mail shirt from The Hobbit).
>
>Also, why can't mages wear non-metal armors under this 'rationale'?
>They're not even allowed to wear PADDED armor, which is just simple cloth.
>
If we're going back to the original FRP rationales, I had always understood
that some training was required to efficiently perform such simple tasks as
walking without falling over, in heavy armour, and mages don't have this
training. Ditto why they can't use large "complex" weapons - they don't have
the skills.
Jules
>>>Mind you, I *don't* object to the heavy armor mana penalty...my
>>>comment was based on the rationale that 'metal inhibits mana'.
>>
>>Magic is bullshit, so any explanations related to it will be bullshit.
>>Live with it or play a different game.
>
>Magic is a premise, and you *can* work out a logical system for it
>if that's what you want.
>
>>--
>>Aaron Mandelbaum
>
Aaron Mandelbaum
>ad...@po.cwru.edu says...
>>No, it was done for atmosphere. The image of a mage is a guy in a robe --
>>so since so many RPGers are munchkins, how can we make them wear robes?
>'Atmosphere' and attempting to enforce a situation are 2 entirely different
>things.
Yes, one is the reason, the other is the method. Your point?
>Nor is that particular image the only one in the literature or in the
>world of FRPGs in general.
It's by FAR the dominant one, though.
>>If that was the explanation, yes. That's why the metal thing is a better
>>one. Magnetic fields, you know?
>I see...so how is it that clerics and elven fighter-MUs can wear plate mail
>and cast spells, with absolutely no penalty?
Well, in Angband, they can't. And THAT's what I'm trying to defend. You can
bash D&D all you want.
>And what about potentially
>non-magnetic alloys (elven chain mail is mithril...the concept stolen
>directly from Bilbo's elven mail shirt from The Hobbit).
I thought that WAS present in D&D...
>Also, why can't mages wear non-metal armors under this 'rationale'?
>They're not even allowed to wear PADDED armor, which is just simple cloth.
The heavier the armor, the more metal is needed for fastenings to keep it in
place. And the padding in padded armor is steel wool. :)
--
Aaron Mandelbaum
Aaron Mandelbaum
>But that implies that the heavy
>armor penalty, at higher levels, becomes insignificant.
Yes it does.
>This is not the
>way it should be;
Yes it is.
>you should ALWAYS have to think twice about the
>equipment you're going to wear.
No you shouldn't. At the highest levels, it's about which combination makes
your character most powerful, not "can I stand the horrible artificial
penalties that have been attached to everything".
--
Aaron Mandelbaum
Cliff Stamp
In article <adm4.1969...@po.cwru.edu>, ad...@po.cwru.edu (Aaron Mandelbaum) writes:
|>ch...@its.com writes:
|>>cle...@psl.nmsu.edu (Craig Lewis) wrote:
|>
|>>>> encumbered to move freely, so spellcasting becomes more difficult.
|>>>
|>>> Then shouldn't this be reflected in an increased spell failure percentage?
|>
|>>in future releases of the game....
|>
|>ground???
|>
No, mages are being modified to take them away from the figher types and
make them depend more on magic. This is a good thing and the spell failure
would be a large step in this direction.
As would many other changes that have been discussed, such as resistance
to genocide, modifications to GoI, weakness to frost/fire etc
The more distinct the classes are the better the game would be.
|>--
|>Aaron Mandelbaum
|>
--
Cliff Stamp
sst...@kelvin.physics.mun.ca
DarkAvgr1
>the skills.
I hate to break this to you, but it ain't that hard to swing a sword. (I
know. I've tried with a Sabre, Longsword, Katana, and Machete, and it
really isn't that hard.) Using one with skill, on the other hand, is
harder.
-The Dark Avenger
"If it's not nailed down, it's FREE!"
Jonathan Dean
>cle...@psl.nmsu.edu (Craig Lewis) writes:
>>>dark...@aol.com (DarkAvgr1) writes:
>
>>>>By the way: WHY THE HELL DOES WEARING HEAVY ARMOR DECREASE YOUR
>>>>MANA, EH?
>>>
>>>Lots of metal inhibits mana flow. But basically, warriors are too weak, so
>>>the other classes needed to be weakened a bit.
>
>>This was done in the original D&D for play balance reasons, period, amen.
>
>Maybe, I'm missing something here, but what law of physics says that
>metal shouldn't affect mana?
There is nothing in the laws of physics about mana. Fortunately.
The first, and most important part of this issue is not how magic
works, but what is balanced for the rest of the characters. If mages
could roam arround wearing and wielding whatever they want without any
limitations then there is little reason not to play a mage. Why be
a fighter when you could be a mage and do everything a fighter can do
and cast spells?
The game balance factor for Angband is a mana penalty for lots of
armor. Even with that, the game favors spell casters over the
dumb fighter.
Ideally when deciding how to balance things, there should be some sort
of theme to drive the limitations to limit the suspension of disbelief.
But this is only a computer game, not a movie or a book.
Anyway, mages could draw mana from the air arround them, and wearing
bulking (not necessarily metal) armor could impede the flow of magic,
thus reducing their overall capacity for mana. That would explain
why a mage wearing robes, and lots of accessories, could have a penalty
without needing to invoke Gygax.
It isn't a perfect explanation, but it works for me.
Julian Bean
In article <4356dj$t...@newsbf02.news.aol.com> dark...@aol.com (DarkAvgr1)
writes:
>>Ditto why they can't use large "complex" weapons - they don't have
>>the skills.
>
>I hate to break this to you, but it ain't that hard to swing a sword. (I
>know. I've tried with a Sabre, Longsword, Katana, and Machete, and it
>really isn't that hard.) Using one with skill, on the other hand, is
>harder.
>
That's what I meant though - the standard +0,+0 to hit and damage assumes that
you are using the weapons with skill (IMO, of course). I am sure that if I
took on a kobold with a longsword, despite the fact that I could swing a
longsword (only just, those things were bloody heavy for one hand) the kobold
would find it very easy to duck out the way and finish me off.
Jules
Cliff Stamp
In article <432gi4$p...@ixnews6.ix.netcom.com>, plug...@ix.netcom.com (Larry Craighead) writes:
|>In <431gta$4...@coranto.ucs.mun.ca> sst...@kelvin.physics.mun.ca (Cliff
|>Stamp) writes:
|>>can be ignored but failure rates could not.
|>>
|>>Its an excellent idea.
|>
|>SHOULD be this powerful IMHO.
|>
Yes, they should be powerful. They are my favorite class, *but* that power
should not come from weapons and armour. It should come from smart use of
powerful defensive and offensive magic. The thing I like most about mages
it the constant phase dooring, bolting, teleporting away, etc that makes
battles so much more fun than Hack and Slash. A mage wearing heavy Plate
using a two handed sword just seems really silly to me.
I just think a mage would have spent most of his life indoors and thus
would not be suitable to combat, so he would never even think to do it.
Play a mage with %3 GoI %14 Mana Storm, and lots of staves of the magi,
with genocide on reserve , now thats power.
But it should be really hard to get a mage to that level and because
mid-level mages can fight at a decent level its not and that is a major
imbalance.
(plus some small changes need to be made to GoI and genocide to make
play a bit harder, resistance to genocide does not make them unplayable
just less god-like)
Then you take a mage put on Bladeturner and weild Aule and you have become
absurd.
To each his own.
|>>--
|>> Cliff Stamp
|>> sst...@kelvin.physics.mun.ca
|>>
|>
|>Matt Craighead
|>
--
Cliff Stamp
sst...@kelvin.physics.mun.ca
Cliff Stamp
In article <432fn3$f...@nyx.cs.du.edu>, jsi...@nyx.cs.du.edu (Sea Otter) writes:
|>cle...@psl.nmsu.edu (Craig Lewis) writes:
|>>In article <adm4.1909...@po.cwru.edu>, ad...@po.cwru.edu says...
|>>>dark...@aol.com (DarkAvgr1) writes:
|>
|>>>>By the way: WHY THE HELL DOES WEARING HEAVY ARMOR DECREASE YOUR
|>>>>MANA, EH?
|>>>
|>>>Lots of metal inhibits mana flow. But basically, warriors are too weak, so
|>>>the other classes needed to be weakened a bit.
|>
|>>Metal inhibiting mana flow: Gygaxian CRAP.
|>>This was done in the original D&D for play balance reasons, period, amen.
|>>The 'logic' was so much fairy dust, and it was NEVER consistent.
|>
|>Maybe, I'm missing something here, but what law of physics says that
|>metal shouldn't affect mana?
|>
What law of physics says mages should have mana? How do you prohibit
an imaginary substance?
What happens if you put said mage naked into a big steel box 3 feet thick?
Can he use his magic? Would this be equal to wearing several tons of
plate?
:-)
--
Cliff Stamp
sst...@kelvin.physics.mun.ca
William Tanksley
:In article <431h3r$4...@bubba.NMSU.Edu> cle...@psl.nmsu.edu (Craig Lewis) writes:
:>Actually, doing things in FP *will* slow you down, even with a fast FPU.
:>Integer ops complete in fewer clock cycles than FP ops. Also, remember
:>that this game is played on a wide variety of systems, and add-on or
:>onboard FPUs are not always present.
:Depends on the machine. On some machines, integer operations are actually a lot
:SLOWER than floating point. In fact, there are some machines where in order to
:do integer arithmetic you have to convert both of them to floating point, do the
:operation, and then convert it back. Just letting you know how different
:computer architectures can be...:-)
...but nobody plays Angband on a Cray (which has only FP).
Seriously, we have to write Angband to fit as many people as possible, not
just the ones with the newest RISC chips.
:I suggested three decimal places because the values in tables.c simply don't go
:very high. Highest value in the half-something tables is 25 (corresponding to
:12.5) and the lowest is -8 (-4.0). So with a 16-bit signed integer, you could
:go up to 32.767 and down to -32.768. Plenty of room for what we're using it
:for.
Sounds reasonable. Looks like we'll have to write a fixed point operations
module.
: Shawn McHorse
-Billy
Jonathan Dean
>sst...@kelvin.physics.mun.ca (Cliff Stamp) writes:
>>plug...@ix.netcom.com (Larry Craighead) writes:
>
>>|>The problem is that spell failure increases are MUCH more important
>>|>than anything else. With a mage, I would hate my nice 3% GoI fail rate
>>|>to creep up just from extra armor. For my priest, I _WANT_ to be able
>>|>to wear Bladeturner and still get the P&H heal to 0% fail.
>>can be ignored but failure rates could not.
>>Its an excellent idea.
>
>increase in spell failure. It makes 9/10ths of the armor in the game useless
>for 5/6ths of the characters. It'd be like changing the (-#)s in armor
>to be a speed penalty (under the old system). Aren't there enough broken
>skulls and swords for you already?
If you simply transfered the mana penalty to a failure penalty then I
would agree as then spell casters would simply optimize to the correct
number and sit there, which doesn't solve many problems.
But, if you simply added the to-hit penalty to the failure rate, that
won't go beyond 4% anyway and typically would only run 1% or 2% anyway
which wouldn't be so drastic. If you REALLY want the minimum failure
rate than you will be stuck wearing robes, but if you are willing to
tolerate a 1% increase in failure, you can go as high as Leather Scale
Mail. At 2% you get DSM. Not bad, but certainly could make a characters
life more interesting.
Keep in mind that if you do run things to the wire, you are eventually
going to get burned with a non-zero failure rate. Increasing the
failure rate may shorten a characters lifespan, but the odds would
eventually catch up eventually, putting an end to the daredevil before
the end of the game anyway.
Also, the remaining 1/6th of the characters, da fighter, is so
underpowered when compared to the remaining classes that only people
who want an extra challance will play them. Increasing the failure
rate would make fighters more attractive as a character class.
Jumping the failure rate from 5% to 30% is excessive certainly, but
increasing it to 7% isn't that bad or noticable.
Larry Craighead
>
>The first, and most important part of this issue is not how magic
>works, but what is balanced for the rest of the characters. If mages
>could roam arround wearing and wielding whatever they want without any
>limitations then there is little reason not to play a mage. Why be
>a fighter when you could be a mage and do everything a fighter can do
>and cast spells?
Because it's not fun to play mage after mage after mage...
>--
>Jonathan Dean | "I say we take off; nuke the site from orbit.
>jd...@psl.nmsu.edu | It's the only way to be sure."
> | -- Corporal Hicks, in "Aliens"
Matt Craighead
Cliff Stamp
In article <4335hq$1...@news2.ucsd.edu>, wtan...@sdcc15.ucsd.edu (William Tanksley) writes:
|>ad...@po.cwru.edu (Aaron Mandelbaum) wrote to all:
|>
[cut]
|>
|>Next, I want to replace OoD with ShadowForm, so that the caster is immune to
|>normal damage AND unable to affect anything else with normal damage
|>(probably should temporarily increase stealth also). A quick and dirty way
|>to do that would be to have Shadow Form set a global flag (or counter), and
|>have the functions that administer normal damage not do anything when it
|>happens. A bit hackish, but since the player is the center of the universe
|>in Angband (which is the ultimate hack), why not?
|>
Excellent idea, are you going to change the mana cost, fail rate, level etc
since that is a bit drop in power? And how about spells to protect from
magical attacks?
|>My question would be, what would happen with hybrid attacks, such as
|>elemental brand? Should the damage only be *1 instead of *3 or 5? Or
|>should they not have any effect, since they are made of matter and thus have
|>nothing to attack a shadow with?
No affect as they only go over base damage (well monsters don't have plusses
as such) but you know what I mean.
|>
|>It would also be fun to make some creatures that are immune to normal
|>damage, but that's a little too Omegan (a new word!) or nethackish.
Yes! Let only the bonuses affect them, the base damage and multipliers
would not.
|>
|>:Aaron Mandelbaum
|>
|>-Billy
|>
--
Cliff Stamp
sst...@kelvin.physics.mun.ca
Cliff Stamp
In article <adm4.1994...@po.cwru.edu>, ad...@po.cwru.edu (Aaron Mandelbaum) writes:
|>sst...@kelvin.physics.mun.ca (Cliff Stamp) writes:
|>>plug...@ix.netcom.com (Larry Craighead) writes:
|>
|>>|>The problem is that spell failure increases are MUCH more important
|>>|>than anything else. With a mage, I would hate my nice 3% GoI fail rate
|>>|>to creep up just from extra armor. For my priest, I _WANT_ to be able
|>>|>to wear Bladeturner and still get the P&H heal to 0% fail.
|>>Exactly, so you would not want to wear heavy armour, the mana costs
|>>can be ignored but failure rates could not.
|>>Its an excellent idea.
|>
|>It's a horrible idea. There is NO armor powerful enough to make up for an
|>increase in spell failure. It makes 9/10ths of the armor in the game useless
|>for 5/6ths of the characters. It'd be like changing the (-#)s in armor
|>to be a speed penalty (under the old system). Aren't there enough broken
|>skulls and swords for you already?
|>
I did not mean huge fail rates, just small ones. That would not make the
armour useless just unattractive.
Handle it similar to priests using edged weapons (characters still use
them).
Cliff Stamp
In article <adm4.1998...@po.cwru.edu>, ad...@po.cwru.edu (Aaron Mandelbaum) writes:
|>cle...@psl.nmsu.edu (Craig Lewis) writes:
|>
|>>But that implies that the heavy
|>>armor penalty, at higher levels, becomes insignificant.
|>
|>Yes it does.
|>
|>>This is not the
|>>way it should be;
|>
|>Yes it is.
No it is not.
|>
|>>you should ALWAYS have to think twice about the
|>>equipment you're going to wear.
|>
|>No you shouldn't. At the highest levels, it's about which combination makes
|>your character most powerful, not "can I stand the horrible artificial
|>penalties that have been attached to everything".
|>
Thats the way it is, but it is not a good way.
You can easily think up reasons why the fail rates would go up. Put on
150 pounds on armour and try to make some of the elegant jestures that
mages are supposed to be doing.
This really is not necessary though as is is a decent Idea because
it keeps the game interesting at higher levels by making equipment choices
not automatic.
And again, making classes different.
David Sward
>Also, the remaining 1/6th of the characters, da fighter, is so
>underpowered when compared to the remaining classes that only people
>who want an extra challance will play them. Increasing the failure
>rate would make fighters more attractive as a character class.
Why change this at all? Why does everyone feel the need to make each
character class just as difficult/easy to play as the other classes?
Leave the mage alone as an early-difficult,late-easy class, and the
fighter as an early-easy,last-difficult class.
Sheesh.
--
David Sward sw...@clark.net
Aaron Mandelbaum
>ad...@po.cwru.edu (Aaron Mandelbaum) writes:
>|>cle...@psl.nmsu.edu (Craig Lewis) writes:
>|>>This is not the
>|>>way it should be;
>|>Yes it is.
>No it is not.
Yes yes yes! :)
>|>No you shouldn't. At the highest levels, it's about which combination makes
>|>your character most powerful, not "can I stand the horrible artificial
>|>penalties that have been attached to everything".
>Thats the way it is, but it is not a good way.
It's a LOT better than your suggestion. I liked the idea to reduce mana by
a %age instead of a flat number -- that way it's not entirely trivial
without going overboard like you would.
>You can easily think up reasons why the fail rates would go up. Put on
>150 pounds on armour and try to make some of the elegant jestures that
>mages are supposed to be doing.
They're HAND gestures. Who cares what's covering your body? I can type just
as well is a big poofy coat as a t-shirt.
>This really is not necessary though as is is a decent Idea because
>it keeps the game interesting at higher levels by making equipment choices
>not automatic.
No, it makes them completely automatic, because you can (HAVE to) reject
almost all the armor out of hand.
>And again, making classes different.
They're already different enough. That was taken care of by the change to
attack_blows.
--
Aaron Mandelbaum
Craig Lewis
>>They're not even allowed to wear PADDED armor, which is just simple cloth.
>>
>that some training was required to efficiently perform such simple tasks as
>walking without falling over, in heavy armour, and mages don't have this
>the skills.
Somewhat true, but again, how would this apply to lighter armor such as leather
or padded? And why *can't* a mage have learned a bit more effective weapon?
Initially, probably not, but throughout the course of his career? Not reasonable.
The D&D restrictions are completely draconian. Angband and Moria use a much
more logical (IMO) approach: the mage is spending time studying magic, and only
*some* time on the combat field. Warriors spend all their time fighting, so
they get more benefit.
BTW, so do more sophisticated FRPGs such as Ars Magica or Dragon Quest.
>Jules
Craig Lewis
>
>
>In article <adm4.1994...@po.cwru.edu>, ad...@po.cwru.edu (Aaron Mandelbaum)
> writes:
>|>sst...@kelvin.physics.mun.ca (Cliff Stamp) writes:
>|>>plug...@ix.netcom.com (Larry Craighead) writes:
>|>
>|>>|>The problem is that spell failure increases are MUCH more important
>|>>|>than anything else. With a mage, I would hate my nice 3% GoI fail rate
>|>>|>to creep up just from extra armor. For my priest, I _WANT_ to be able
>|>>|>to wear Bladeturner and still get the P&H heal to 0% fail.
>|>>Exactly, so you would not want to wear heavy armour, the mana costs
>|>>can be ignored but failure rates could not.
>|>>Its an excellent idea.
>|>
>|>It's a horrible idea. There is NO armor powerful enough to make up for an
>|>increase in spell failure. It makes 9/10ths of the armor in the game useless
>|>for 5/6ths of the characters. It'd be like changing the (-#)s in armor
>|>to be a speed penalty (under the old system). Aren't there enough broken
>|>skulls and swords for you already?
>|>
>
>I did not mean huge fail rates, just small ones. That would not make the
>armour useless just unattractive.
>
>Handle it similar to priests using edged weapons (characters still use
>them).
That's the general idea, yes. I was thinking about it over lunch;
were I defining it, the armor adjustments might be based on:
1) Armor weight
2) Armor *stiffness* -- certain forms of armor (lamellar, for one)
are much less flexible than other armors (even heavier ones)
3) Armor enchantment -- to an extent, enchanted armors probably
should be considered more flexible and easier to perform actions
in. Dunno, offhand, how much this'd factor in, but it'd be nice
to have it help *some*.
4) Dexterity.
5) Class. Mages and priests would have the worst problems,
while thieves, rangers, and paladins would have somewhat lower
problems.
The worst case would be, say, normal *HEAVY* armor, like Ribbed Plate...
this could impose perhaps a 50% casting penalty (DON'T bitch too much
at that number, there are LOTS of ways of cutting it down and I
haven't even *begun* to look at the number juggling to get it all to
work)...but, hey, we're talking full plate mail, with additional
reinforcement! STIFF and heavy!
And, besides, no one uses those armors anyway...pretty much by the time
you find Ribbed Plate, you're looking at DSM or some artifact armor.
And even if you do find some early on, it's just TOO heavy.
DSMs and the better armors would impose a MUCH lower penalty.
>|>--
>|>Aaron Mandelbaum
>|>
>
>--
> Cliff Stamp
> sst...@kelvin.physics.mun.ca
>
--
Aaron Mandelbaum
>slow down my Mac (the FPU in a 75 MHz 603 is actually rather speedy), surely
>we
>can simply use fixed point - i.e. instead of using mana half-points per level,
>use mana hundred points per level - a more efficient use of all the
>information
>stored in the int anyway.
Mana tenth points per level is good enough -- I changed the tables and still
had to shift by multple points in some cases.
Where is the half-hitpoint per level table, anyway?
--
Aaron Mandelbaum
Craig Lewis
>
>It's a LOT better than your suggestion. I liked the idea to reduce mana by
>a %age instead of a flat number -- that way it's not entirely trivial
>without going overboard like you would.
Wouldn't that depend on the percentages involved?
Losing 20% mana for a mage could easily be MUCH more severe than
a 5% spell failure increase.
>>You can easily think up reasons why the fail rates would go up. Put on
>>150 pounds on armour and try to make some of the elegant jestures that
>>mages are supposed to be doing.
>
>They're HAND gestures. Who cares what's covering your body? I can type just
>as well is a big poofy coat as a t-shirt.
Heavy armor isn't just breast-and-backplate; it covers arms and legs as
well. And hand gestures usually involve the wrist and forearm.
>>This really is not necessary though as is is a decent Idea because
>>it keeps the game interesting at higher levels by making equipment choices
>>not automatic.
>
>No, it makes them completely automatic, because you can (HAVE to) reject
>almost all the armor out of hand.
Again, doesn't that completely depend on HOW these penalties are applied?
C'mon, people, everyone is assuming the absolute WORST!!
Either that, or you're whining that your favorite "I can cast this spell
and win this fight automatically!" spell MIGHT not work. Awwwww...you
might have to *think* a bit more.
>>And again, making classes different.
>
>They're already different enough. That was taken care of by the change to
>attack_blows.
All that did was to shift the optimal weapon weight. It, by itself, does
NOT distinguish the classes enough.
>--
>Aaron Mandelbaum
Jonathan Dean
I disagree that a mage is difficult early on. At least not significantly
more difficult than any other character. The first five or so levels can
be a snap if you go to the white worm mass farm for some good old
fashioned fun. After you are done there you have lightning bolt and are
ready to deal with the rest of the dungeon at an appropriate pace.
Personally, I feel it would be nice if a player could pick any class and
know that it isn't any worse off than any other class. Right now about
five of the six classes fairly balanced against one another. The fighter
is so out of whack that it isn't even particularly funny. I don't
necessarily mind leaving it as the "challange" class. If it is left
that way then it should be documented as being more difficult than the
other classes.
The mana penalty right now is laughable. I think I'm down 6 mana out of
250+ on my ranger with a normal AC of ~145. If the game is to try and
keep mages and such to lighter armors then the penalty needs to be a
steeper than this. Right now, I have enough mana so that I do not feel
concerned about going to heavier armors than what I'm wearing currently.
--
Jonathan Dean | "If we do not succeed, then we face the risk of failure."
jd...@psl.nmsu.edu | -- Dan Quayle, then Vice-President of the United States
William Tanksley
:>you should ALWAYS have to think twice about the
:>equipment you're going to wear.
:No you shouldn't. At the highest levels, it's about which combination makes
:your character most powerful, not "can I stand the horrible artificial
:penalties that have been attached to everything".
Wait a sec. ALL of the things in this game, penalties AND bonuses, are
artificial. I can't let you get away with that argument.
And the combination which would make a mage most powerful SHOULD be
different from the combination which makes a warrior powerful.
:Aaron Mandelbaum
-Billy
Aaron Mandelbaum
>Yeah, but how well can you type in plate-mail so heavy that you can
>barely lift your arms?
You have to lift your arms to type? Nothing above my wrists moves.
--
Aaron Mandelbaum
Toddler Hiway (Ben Allen)
[snicker-snack]
>>You can easily think up reasons why the fail rates would go up. Put on
>>150 pounds on armour and try to make some of the elegant jestures that
>>mages are supposed to be doing.
>They're HAND gestures. Who cares what's covering your body? I can type just
>as well is a big poofy coat as a t-shirt.
>--
>Aaron Mandelbaum
Yeah, but how well can you type in plate-mail so heavy that you can
barely lift your arms?
--------
"In every jumbled pile of person there's
a thinking part that wonders what the part
that isn't thinking isn't thinking of" -TMBG
Dennis Andrew Blazewicz
: You have to lift your arms to type? Nothing above my wrists moves.
:
: --
: Aaron Mandelbaum
Uh-oh.. i sense impending carpal tunnel syndrome .. which i am in serious
threat of developing after the many hours spent playing this game.
Astinus
Sean Keogh
> Not I, on my Pentium 133 MHz, Angband runs too quickly. The borg is
> insanely fast.
>
How do you start up the borg? I've compiled it in, but I can't figure out how
to start it!
Sean Keogh - se...@posgate.apana.org.au - http://www.act.apana.org.au
Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change.
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.1
GU>CS>CS$ d- s: a--- C++ U-- P L E? W++>+++ N++ o? K- w++ O+ M- V PS+
PE- Y+ PGP-- t+>++ 5 X++>+++ R tv+ b+ DI? D+>++ G e->e++++ h!>h---
!r>r !y
-----END GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Craig Lewis
>>barely lift your arms?
>
Try it with a cast on your arm sometime. Or get some ankle weights
and use an Ace bandage to tie them onto your forearm (not your
wrist, that's obviously not a fair comparison).
Or, if you have friends in the SCA, try to borrow some of their
armor, then try to do something like basic drawing.
Aaron Mandelbaum
>Aaron Mandelbaum wrote:
>> If that was the explanation, yes. That's why the metal thing is a better
>> one. Magnetic fields, you know?
>If the explanation is the metal of the armor, then leather armor, DSMs, and
>other armor that isn't made of metal should give no mana penalty.
Dragon scales are metallic. Bronze dragons, anyone? Obviously, some of the
iron they take in makes its way to their scales which is why they're so
tough.
As for leather armor, it doesn't give you a mana penalty by itself. Only if
you wear lots of heavy leather things does the metal in the fixtures and
buckles and things start to add up. :)
--
Aaron Mandelbuam
Tony Podsiadly
>
> In article <432fn3$f...@nyx.cs.du.edu>, jsi...@nyx.cs.du.edu (Sea Otter) writes:
> |>cle...@psl.nmsu.edu (Craig Lewis) writes:
> |>>In article <adm4.1909...@po.cwru.edu>, ad...@po.cwru.edu says...
> |>>>dark...@aol.com (DarkAvgr1) writes:
> |>
> |>>>>By the way: WHY THE HELL DOES WEARING HEAVY ARMOR DECREASE YOUR
> |>>>>MANA, EH?
> |>>>
> |>>>Lots of metal inhibits mana flow. But basically, warriors are too weak, so
> |>>>the other classes needed to be weakened a bit.
> |>
> |>>Metal inhibiting mana flow: Gygaxian CRAP.
> |>>This was done in the original D&D for play balance reasons, period, amen.
> |>>The 'logic' was so much fairy dust, and it was NEVER consistent.
> |>
> |>Maybe, I'm missing something here, but what law of physics says that
> |>metal shouldn't affect mana?
> |>
>
> What law of physics says mages should have mana? How do you prohibit
> an imaginary substance?
>
> What happens if you put said mage naked into a big steel box 3 feet thick?
> Can he use his magic? Would this be equal to wearing several tons of
> plate?
>
> :-)
Aahh...I believe that there _is_ a law regarding this one. Isn't there a
law in Electromagics stating that if a source of electromagic radiation
is encased by a metal surface, that no electromagic radiation can escape
the shell???
Isn't that how a Faraday shield works??
> --
> Cliff Stamp
> sst...@kelvin.physics.mun.ca
Tony Podsiadly (a.k.a. Balthazar, the High Elven Mage)
'''
(o o)
+-----------oOOO---(_)--------------------+
| |
| c942...@alinga.newcastle.edu.au |
| |
+--------------------------oOOO-----------+
|__|__|
|| ||
ooO Ooo
Larry Craighead
Keogh) writes:
>
>
>> Not I, on my Pentium 133 MHz, Angband runs too quickly. The borg is
>> insanely fast.
>>
>
>How do you start up the borg? I've compiled it in, but I can't figure
out how
>to start it!
In v2.7.8, go into wizard mode, and then hit ^Z $ ^Z Z.
>Sean Keogh - se...@posgate.apana.org.au - http://www.act.apana.org.au
>
>Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change.
>
>-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
>Version: 3.1
>GU>CS>CS$ d- s: a--- C++ U-- P L E? W++>+++ N++ o? K- w++ O+ M- V PS+
>PE- Y+ PGP-- t+>++ 5 X++>+++ R tv+ b+ DI? D+>++ G e->e++++ h!>h---
>!r>r !y
>-----END GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
>
Matt Craighead
Aaron Mandelbaum
>The mana penalty right now is laughable. I think I'm down 6 mana out of
>250+ on my ranger with a normal AC of ~145. If the game is to try and
>keep mages and such to lighter armors then the penalty needs to be a
>steeper than this. Right now, I have enough mana so that I do not feel
>concerned about going to heavier armors than what I'm wearing currently.
I think whoever's idea of having it be a percentage instead of a fixed value
was good. Of course, 15 mana out of 250 isn't much either... but you'd think
before going 30 lbs over.
--
Aaron Mandelbaum
Dennis Andrew Blazewicz
: As for leather armor, it doesn't give you a mana penalty by itself. Only if
: buckles and things start to add up. :)
Whoa.. Severe Reaching Batman!
:)
Astinus
Cliff Stamp
In article <439o9g$6...@clark.net>, sw...@clark.net (David Sward) writes:
|>In article <436qkn$q...@bubba.NMSU.Edu>, Jonathan Dean <jd...@nmsu.edu> wrote:
|>>Also, the remaining 1/6th of the characters, da fighter, is so
|>>underpowered when compared to the remaining classes that only people
|>>who want an extra challance will play them. Increasing the failure
|>>rate would make fighters more attractive as a character class.
|>
|>Why change this at all? Why does everyone feel the need to make each
|>character class just as difficult/easy to play as the other classes?
|>Leave the mage alone as an early-difficult,late-easy class, and the
|>fighter as an early-easy,last-difficult class.
|>
This was not intended to make classes the same level of difficulty but to
promote different classes using different armours as now different classes
choose different weapons.
|>Sheesh.
|>--
|>David Sward sw...@clark.net
|>
--
Cliff Stamp
sst...@kelvin.physics.mun.ca
Cliff Stamp
In article <adm4.2011...@po.cwru.edu>, ad...@po.cwru.edu (Aaron Mandelbaum) writes:
|>sst...@kelvin.physics.mun.ca (Cliff Stamp) writes:
|>
|>>|>No you shouldn't. At the highest levels, it's about which combination makes
|>>|>your character most powerful, not "can I stand the horrible artificial
|>>|>penalties that have been attached to everything".
|>
|>a %age instead of a flat number -- that way it's not entirely trivial
|>without going overboard like you would.
|>
Mana loss is trival, even a large amount like %20, a high level mage
has a large number of staffs of the magi and restoring potions so this
would not really matter.
Overboard?
|>>You can easily think up reasons why the fail rates would go up. Put on
|>>150 pounds on armour and try to make some of the elegant jestures that
|>>mages are supposed to be doing.
|>
|>They're HAND gestures. Who cares what's covering your body? I can type just
|>as well is a big poofy coat as a t-shirt.
|>
Lift your arms in the air, straight out from your body, now hang a 10kg
weight from each elbow and do the same gestures. Then hand a 10kg weight
from each wrist too and repeat.
But of course a 18/*** mage would laugh at 100 pounds of armour right? No
because said mage starts to slow down at 180 (?) so that much weight must
even be effecting him.
But I like the idea of letting strength offset the armour weight to an
extent.
|>>This really is not necessary though as is is a decent Idea because
|>>it keeps the game interesting at higher levels by making equipment choices
|>>not automatic.
|>
|>No, it makes them completely automatic, because you can (HAVE to) reject
|>almost all the armor out of hand.
|>
No, I would give say a 3% extra fail rate for resist poison and nether. Maybe
even 5%, throw in resist disenchantment.
I was only talking about a ~5% max negative, with a decent strength, and dex.
And wearing really heavy armour , Bladeturner.
|>>And again, making classes different.
|>
|>They're already different enough. That was taken care of by the change to
|>attack_blows.
|>
Made little difference to me.
I played Fangband, and won with a fighting mage (silly I know) and I had
max 3(?) blows.
Stephen S. Lee
Cliff Stamp <sst...@kelvin.physics.mun.ca> wrote:
[snip!]
>|>>You can easily think up reasons why the fail rates would go up. Put on
>|>>150 pounds on armour and try to make some of the elegant jestures that
>|>>mages are supposed to be doing.
>|>
>|>They're HAND gestures. Who cares what's covering your body? I can type just
>|>as well is a big poofy coat as a t-shirt.
>|>
>
>Lift your arms in the air, straight out from your body, now hang a 10kg
>weight from each elbow and do the same gestures. Then hand a 10kg weight
>from each wrist too and repeat.
>
>But of course a 18/*** mage would laugh at 100 pounds of armour right? No
>because said mage starts to slow down at 180 (?) so that much weight must
>even be effecting him.
>
>But I like the idea of letting strength offset the armour weight to an
>extent.
One thing I think people are forgetting is that well-designed armor does
not restrict the motions of its wearer very much (thus, little effect on
mana :-). A person wearing full plate (provided that he was strong
enough to wear it) still had good freedom of action ... in addition, one
could say that enchantments in armor make the armor even lighter for its
wearer.
So I think a restriction on failure rate should apply only in extreme
circumstances (when you don't have enough strength to wear the armor).
--
Stephen S. Lee (le...@fas.harvard.edu)
If love is chemistry, and sex is physics, then what is biology?
David L Evens
: On 13 Sep 1995, Cliff Stamp wrote:
: >
: > In article <432fn3$f...@nyx.cs.du.edu>, jsi...@nyx.cs.du.edu (Sea Otter) writes:
: > |>cle...@psl.nmsu.edu (Craig Lewis) writes:
: > |>>In article <adm4.1909...@po.cwru.edu>, ad...@po.cwru.edu says...
: > |>>>dark...@aol.com (DarkAvgr1) writes:
: > |>
: > |>>>>By the way: WHY THE HELL DOES WEARING HEAVY ARMOR DECREASE YOUR
: > |>>>>MANA, EH?
: > |>>>
: > |>>>Lots of metal inhibits mana flow. But basically, warriors are too weak, so
: > |>>>the other classes needed to be weakened a bit.
: > |>
: > |>>Metal inhibiting mana flow: Gygaxian CRAP.
: > |>>This was done in the original D&D for play balance reasons, period, amen.
: > |>>The 'logic' was so much fairy dust, and it was NEVER consistent.
: > |>
: > |>Maybe, I'm missing something here, but what law of physics says that
: > |>metal shouldn't affect mana?
: > |>
: >
: > What law of physics says mages should have mana? How do you prohibit
: > an imaginary substance?
: >
: > What happens if you put said mage naked into a big steel box 3 feet thick?
: > Can he use his magic? Would this be equal to wearing several tons of
: > plate?
: >
: > :-)
: Aahh...I believe that there _is_ a law regarding this one. Isn't there a
: law in Electromagics stating that if a source of electromagic radiation
: is encased by a metal surface, that no electromagic radiation can escape
: the shell???
: Isn't that how a Faraday shield works??
Faraday Cage, actually, and yes. The magnetic flux through an
isopotential must be zero, according to Maxwell's Equations.
This assumes that magic works according to that set of rules, of course.
--
---------------------------+--------------------------------------------------
Ring around the neutron, | "OK, so he's not terribly fearsome.
A pocket full of positrons,| But he certainly took us by surprise!"
A fission, a fusion, +--------------------------------------------------
We all fall down! | "Is his name 'Dick Earth'?"
---------------------------+--------------------------------------------------
"I'd cut down ever Law in England to get at the Devil!"
"And what man could stand up in the wind that would blow once you'd cut
down all the laws?"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
e-mail will be posted as I see fit.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Julian Bean
In article <43n11m$l...@decaxp.harvard.edu> le...@fas.harvard.edu (Stephen S.
True, but...
As I was arguing earlier, this freedom of action requires a certain amount of
expertise on the part of the wearer - i.e. training to act freely in full
plate. And warriors have that training, mages don't.
Jules
azathoth
reaching for the caps-lock key! But no...
Look, everyone, could you please stop lynching mages?? So what if they
are s bit easier in the long run?? That's the way Angband is, it's a
game in which mages are slightly easier in the long run. And furthermore,
how come the same people are agruing that:
1--Penalties for mages would make the classes vary more.
2--All classes should have equal power.
AND EVEN FURTHERMORE, I like to play the most powerful class. It saves
time and I happen to hate warriors anyway. THAT'S why I play a PRIEST --
because they are more powerful than mages.
So next time you see a mage walking sadly through the streets of
Angband village, don't just shout at him and throw vegetables. Offer to
carry some of his equipment -- those chain mails early on are heavier
for a mage than you might think. Maybe carry his books a little way --
after all, he has to give 4-9 inventory slots up for them all the time.
You could even smack a few urchins for him -- don't forget he has a base
combat skill of 2 and an attacks-per-round penalty.
Yes, a little kindness to a mage goes a long way... try it! You'll
be glad you did, when he's 49th level... :>
THIS .SIG IS TEMPORARILY IN AN UNDECIDED STATE OF EXISTANCE.
Larry Craighead
We could assume that mages, by level 30 or so, have finally learned how
to wear plate.
Also, maybe low-level mages should get a speed penalty in the heaviest
armor? I mean, a level 1 mage should not know how to move effectively
in full plate.
>Jules
>
>
>>--
>>Stephen S. Lee (le...@fas.harvard.edu)
>>
>>If love is chemistry, and sex is physics, then what is biology?
>>
>
>
Matt Craighead
Cliff Stamp
In article <Pine.SUN.3.91.950918...@alinga.newcastle.edu.au>, Tony Podsiadly <c942...@alinga.newcastle.edu.au> writes:
|>On 13 Sep 1995, Cliff Stamp wrote:
|>
|>>
|>> In article <432fn3$f...@nyx.cs.du.edu>, jsi...@nyx.cs.du.edu (Sea Otter) writes:
|>> |>cle...@psl.nmsu.edu (Craig Lewis) writes:
|>> |>>In article <adm4.1909...@po.cwru.edu>, ad...@po.cwru.edu says...
|>> |>>>dark...@aol.com (DarkAvgr1) writes:
|>> |>Maybe, I'm missing something here, but what law of physics says that
|>> |>metal shouldn't affect mana?
|>> |>
|>>
|>> What law of physics says mages should have mana? How do you prohibit
|>> an imaginary substance?
|>>
|>> What happens if you put said mage naked into a big steel box 3 feet thick?
|>> Can he use his magic? Would this be equal to wearing several tons of
|>> plate?
|>>
|>> :-)
|>
|>Aahh...I believe that there _is_ a law regarding this one. Isn't there a
|>law in Electromagics stating that if a source of electromagic radiation
|>is encased by a metal surface, that no electromagic radiation can escape
|>the shell???
|>
|>Isn't that how a Faraday shield works??
Close, a Faraday Shield keeps electric fields from outside a conductor from
affecting what is inside, however put a charge inside the conductor,
and you will have an electric field outside, due to the charge inside.
|>
|>> --
|>> Cliff Stamp
|>> sst...@kelvin.physics.mun.ca
|>
|>
|>Tony Podsiadly (a.k.a. Balthazar, the High Elven Mage)
|>
|> '''
|> (o o)
|> +-----------oOOO---(_)--------------------+
|> | |
|> | c942...@alinga.newcastle.edu.au |
|> | |
|> +--------------------------oOOO-----------+
|> |__|__|
|> || ||
|> ooO Ooo
|>
|>
|>
|>
--
Cliff Stamp
sst...@kelvin.physics.mun.ca
P.R.R.Scheele
azathoth <azat...@zippy.spods.dcs.kcl.ac.uk> wrote:
>Argh, I'm just THIS far away from breaking the rule of a lifetime and
>reaching for the caps-lock key! But no...
>
>Look, everyone, could you please stop lynching mages?? So what if they
>are s bit easier in the long run?? That's the way Angband is, it's a
>game in which mages are slightly easier in the long run. And furthermore,
>how come the same people are agruing that:
>
> 1--Penalties for mages would make the classes vary more.
> 2--All classes should have equal power.
>
>AND EVEN FURTHERMORE, I like to play the most powerful class. It saves
>time and I happen to hate warriors anyway. THAT'S why I play a PRIEST --
>because they are more powerful than mages.
YES! It had to be said. Mages being powerful is a lot of garbage. Sure,
they rock at level 50, but until they get genocide, they're pretty
helpless. Let's have a show of hands of people in this discussion
who aren't angband or moria veterans. I'm just trying to say you
shouldn't just judge how hard a mage is by you own expertise, because
people who play for the first time won't have that experience. Heck, they
might even try to roleplay their character, instead of autorolling for
perfect stats, farming wormmasses, stairscumming in town to buy
necessities etc. Without spoilers or reading this newsgroup, you're
pretty much lost.
= ranting ends here =
Sorry, just had to get that off my chest. Here are some ideas i'd like
to see:
1) To reduce the power of genocide (and make the game more fun in the
proces), how about letting monsters wander around more freely. If they have
no idea where the player is, why should most of them be asleep? Any character
can just walk up to a vault, cast detect monsters and start genociding. You
can rest up to full after every genocide. I'd like to see the abillity to
always rest up to full hps be severly reduced by having monsters walk around
and noticing you when they get near. Of course, game balance would need to
be readjusted, but it would be worth it i think.
2) A different way to reduce the power of genocide would be to have the
game ask for a direction, instead of a a monster-letter. It would then
genocide the monster-type standing next to you in that direction.
3) Changing all the explosive breeders to do at least 1 hp damage every
hit would stop that abuse. You could also have only the original breeder
be worth any xp.
4) Make some of the "useful" spells more useful. Spells like sleep and
confusion don't work on any high level monster i know. Recharge I and II
suck, because the scroll is better then recharge II. With the new tracking
code, how about some illusion spells instead? Make the monsters think you
went that-a-way instead of just standing around the corner. Or maybe have
them aiming their spells on an illusion of you, projected over an ancient
dragon :).
5) How about 'Tensers floating disc' spell? It would allow you to
temporarilly increase your carrying capacity or maybe even carry more
objects. But you better get them out before the disc disappears! So it
would only be useful after big drops.
6) Give mages only 1 attack with any weapon. It would force people to use
spells instead, making things a lot more fun. Having some very good
attackspells would be vital then though. Manastorm just doesn't cut it,
doing a lot less damage then my current mage does with 3 attacks from
deathwreaker. (rings of damage +18 are _fun_ :)). These days i don't even
carry around that book. The damage would be ok if the mana cost would
be a lot less. The destruction of objects is nasty as well, making the
spell unuseable in situations like vaults, monsterpits (as soon as 1
orc/troll dies, there will be objects) etc. I know this sounds like a
whine, but just for once i'd like to be able to go into battle and
impress a monster with my spells, instead of beating them to pulp with
my weapon. Giving mages a spell with even half the power and useability
of orb of draining and limitting them to 1 attack per round would
make them a lot more fun to play.
7) Maybe make the uniques more unique. It seems to me a lot of uniques
use very similar spells and tactics against you. Most of them are also
very good in both combat and spellcasting. For once i'd like to see
a unique with globe of invulnerability using all kinds of magic against
you, but be pretty easy to kill if his invulnerability ran out. Maybe
some uniques could bash you half the time so you'd stay stunned while they
used their weapons.
Oh well, just some ideas. Thanks to everybody involved in keeping Angband
alive though, it's still a great game!
Patrick
Larry Craighead
(P.R.R.Scheele) writes:
[snip]
>1) To reduce the power of genocide (and make the game more fun in the
>proces), how about letting monsters wander around more freely. If they
have
>no idea where the player is, why should most of them be asleep? Any
character
>can just walk up to a vault, cast detect monsters and start
genociding. You
>can rest up to full after every genocide. I'd like to see the abillity
to
>always rest up to full hps be severly reduced by having monsters walk
around
>and noticing you when they get near. Of course, game balance would
need to
>be readjusted, but it would be worth it i think.
No way. What's so evil about genocide? Yes, you can get rid of
monsters with it, but so can you with WoD equally effectively as
another class. Plus you get no experience or treasure either way.
However, WoD doesn't even hurt you.
The one thing about genocide that's a problem is that its damage can be
stopped by GoI. It should be unstoppable damage.
>2) A different way to reduce the power of genocide would be to have
the
>game ask for a direction, instead of a a monster-letter. It would then
>genocide the monster-type standing next to you in that direction.
>3) Changing all the explosive breeders to do at least 1 hp damage
every
>hit would stop that abuse. You could also have only the original
breeder
>be worth any xp.
Farming worms is abuse? Whatever. It's boring, I don't do it. Plus
mages can't do it effectively.
>4) Make some of the "useful" spells more useful. Spells like sleep and
>confusion don't work on any high level monster i know. Recharge I and
II
>suck, because the scroll is better then recharge II. With the new
tracking
>code, how about some illusion spells instead? Make the monsters think
you
>went that-a-way instead of just standing around the corner. Or maybe
have
>them aiming their spells on an illusion of you, projected over an
ancient
>dragon :).
Well, the scroll _costs_ more than recharge 1 or 2. And the tracking
code is pretty buggy still.
>5) How about 'Tensers floating disc' spell? It would allow you to
>temporarilly increase your carrying capacity or maybe even carry more
>objects. But you better get them out before the disc disappears! So it
>would only be useful after big drops.
Weird.
>6) Give mages only 1 attack with any weapon. It would force people to
use
>spells instead, making things a lot more fun. Having some very good
>attackspells would be vital then though. Manastorm just doesn't cut
it,
>doing a lot less damage then my current mage does with 3 attacks from
>deathwreaker. (rings of damage +18 are _fun_ :)). These days i don't
even
>carry around that book. The damage would be ok if the mana cost would
>be a lot less. The destruction of objects is nasty as well, making the
>spell unuseable in situations like vaults, monsterpits (as soon as 1
>orc/troll dies, there will be objects) etc. I know this sounds like a
>whine, but just for once i'd like to be able to go into battle and
>impress a monster with my spells, instead of beating them to pulp with
>my weapon. Giving mages a spell with even half the power and
useability
>of orb of draining and limitting them to 1 attack per round would
>make them a lot more fun to play.
Mages get no holy orbs, it makes no sense.
Mana storm needs to be reduced to 30 mana, it sucks.
Why should mages only get 1 attack? It puts them way out of balance
with other classes. I mean, if priests get 5 and mages get 1, which do
you play? I wonder... Anyway, remember that these mages getting 4
attacks have stats well beyond our wildest imaginations. A hefty
bodybuilder in our world would not have 18/75 strength. A character
with an 18/*** strength could rend a person in two with a slight yank,
or crush a block of solid steel with a fist. The only way that their
equipment survives this torture is that it is artifact...
>7) Maybe make the uniques more unique. It seems to me a lot of uniques
>use very similar spells and tactics against you. Most of them are also
>very good in both combat and spellcasting. For once i'd like to see
>a unique with globe of invulnerability using all kinds of magic
against
>you, but be pretty easy to kill if his invulnerability ran out. Maybe
>some uniques could bash you half the time so you'd stay stunned while
they
>used their weapons.
Some high-level monsters should get Globe of Invulnerability. I'm
adding this into my variant. Fistandantilus, Raistlin, and Takhasis
may be nearly unbeatable.
>Oh well, just some ideas. Thanks to everybody involved in keeping
Angband
>alive though, it's still a great game!
>
>Patrick
>
Matt Craighead
DarkAvgr1
>adding this into my variant. Fistandantilus, Raistlin, and Takhasis
>may be nearly unbeatable.
Replace Saruman with Dalamar. (Nothing wrong with that, is there?)
-The Dark Avenger
"Your god is DEAD, and no one cares..."
Thomas R. Kimpton
azat...@zippy.spods.dcs.kcl.ac.uk (azathoth) wrote:
# Argh, I'm just THIS far away from breaking the rule of a lifetime and
# reaching for the caps-lock key! But no...
#
# Look, everyone, could you please stop lynching mages?? So what if they
# are s bit easier in the long run?? That's the way Angband is, it's a
# game in which mages are slightly easier in the long run. And furthermore,
# how come the same people are agruing that:
I've been meaning to post this for a while, but haven't had the time,
so here it finally is. NOTE - this isn't exactly a bash against
mages, it's just that I like playing warriors, and I think we're
being short changed in the game.
Here's what I see as the advantages of mages over warriors (note
this could be extended to clerics, but I've never played clerics,
and I used to only play mages). If I, as a warrior, want to have
the same 'arsenal' as a mage has in his 4-9 books, here's what
I've got to carry:
Mages Warriors
* Beginners Magic *
------------------ ----------------
Magic Missile Wand
Detect Monsters Rod of Detection
Phase Door scroll
Light Area staff/rod
Cure Light Wounds staff/potion
Find Traps/Doors staff and scroll
Stinking Cloud wand
* Conjuring and Tricks *
------------------ ----------------
Confusion scroll/potion?
Lightning Bolt wand/rod
Trap/Door Destruct staff
Sleep I wand
Cure Poison potion/mushroom
Teleport Self scroll/staff
Spear of Light wand/staff
Frost Bolt wand/rod
Turn Stone to Mud wand
* Incantations and Illusions *
------------------ ----------------
Create Food food/scroll
Recharge Item I scroll
Sleep II -
Polymorph Other wand/rod
Identify scroll/staff/rod
Sleep III staff
Fire Bolt wand/rod
Slow Monster staff
* Sorcery and Evocations *
------------------ ----------------
Frost Ball wand/rod
Recharge Item II scroll
Teleport Other wand/rod
Haste Self potion/staff
Fire Ball wand/rod
Destruction -
Genocide scroll/staff
* Resistance of Scarabtarices *
------------------ ----------------
Resist Fire ring/potion
Resist Cold ring/potion
Resist Acid ring/potion
Resist Poison ring/potion(slow poison?)
Resistance -
* Mordenkainen's Escapes *
------------------ ----------------
Door Creation -
Stair Creation -
Teleport Level scroll
Earthquake staff
Word of Recall scroll/rod
* Kelek's Grimoire of Power *
------------------ ----------------
Detect Evil staff
Detect Enchantment -
Recharge Item III -
Genocide scroll/staff
Mass Genocide scroll
* Tenser's Transformations *
------------------ ----------------
Heroism potion
Shield scroll?
Berserker potion
Essence of Speed -
Invulnerability -
* Raal's Tome of Destruction *
------------------ ----------------
Acid Bolt wand/rod
Cloudkill wand (?)
Acid Ball wand/rod
Ice Storm -
Meteor Swarm -
Hellfire -
Thus in the mages grimoires he carries the equivalent of 44 items
that I as a warrior have to carry (ok, several could be rings, but
that takes away some other thing I may want to wear...). Plus
once the mage has 'Create Food' and 'Recharge II' (Recharge I
too often destroys the staff/wand), he only comes back to town
when he wants to, when my food/scrolls/whatever are gone, it's
back to town, and woe-betide me if my last WOR got fried... (Yes
I have starved to death :-().
AND, some mage spells have no equivalents (maybe if I could
dig down...:-).
I'll admit that as a warrior, I'd probably not care to carry
all the equivalent stuff, but I've got to carefully pick and
choose my equipment to cover the most bases, and realize that
I can't cover everything. Ever try to clear a room of fleas/lice
without a wand of Stinking Cloud or major speed?
Here's my basic equipment list, when I'm down deeper in the
dungeon:
Food
Potions of Speed
Potions of Cure Light Wounds
Potions of Healing
Potions of Restore Life Levels
Scrolls of Phase Door
Scrolls of Teleport
Scrolls of Recharge
Rod of Detection
Rod of Perception
Wand of Teleport Away
Wand of Sleep Monster
Staff of Teleportation
Scrolls of Word of Recall
Good/Excellent digging implement
missile ammo (average/good) (depends on how deep I am)
missile ammo (good/excellent) (depends on how deep I am)
(I think there's more, but my deep characters are at home.)
I'd like to carry more stuff, but if I carry stuff, I can't
pick up stuff (and too much slows me down). Really deep in
the dungeon I don't pick up anything except to ID it for
artifacts I'm hunting for, or to replace anything I have
with something better (ROS,Slaying) (actually with the new
identify code I don't have to pick up anything, yow!).
Anyway, I like playing warriors... I'd just like a pack, or more
inventory slots (And my digger slot back!) :-). My $.22.
Tom.
--
Tom Kimpton t...@jlc.com
Jostens Learning Corporation
(801) 223-3228
Cliff Stamp
In article <1995Sep20....@alder.cc.kcl.ac.uk>, azat...@zippy.spods.dcs.kcl.ac.uk (azathoth) writes:
|>Argh, I'm just THIS far away from breaking the rule of a lifetime and
|>
No one wants to.
|>are s bit easier in the long run?? That's the way Angband is, it's a
Thats the way it will still be.
|>game in which mages are slightly easier in the long run. And furthermore,
|>how come the same people are agruing that:
|>
|> 1--Penalties for mages would make the classes vary more.
Because they would, and the different the classes are, the different the
game becomes so the same game can provide more enjoyment.
|> 2--All classes should have equal power.
What? This was never brought up at all in the recent arguements.
|>
|>AND EVEN FURTHERMORE, I like to play the most powerful class. It saves
|>time and I happen to hate warriors anyway. THAT'S why I play a PRIEST --
|>because they are more powerful than mages.
Ha, of course they are :-)
Never played a high level mage? I have a 50 level mage and priest both
at about 4900 (just waiting for resist disenchantment), the mage enters
a level, genocides all monsters except for a few that has nice drops,
and uses GoI and mana storm (or bolts) to take out the few remaining.
Or may genocide all, depending on the feeling.
A priest will take much longer to do the same level as has a much better
chance of dying, whereas the mage rarely loses 1 hp.
I play both, and warriors as well. I enjoy all classes, I just want them
to grow apart more as they get higher and not look for the same weapons
and armour.
--
Cliff Stamp
sst...@kelvin.physics.mun.ca
Dennis Andrew Blazewicz
: Anyway, I like playing warriors... I'd just like a pack, or more
: inventory slots (And my digger slot back!) :-). My $.22.
Now THAT would be a cool artifact. a bag of holding or something.
Doubles your backpack. (ie another page of goodies) How hard to program
though i wonder? This has probably been suggested many many many times
before anyway..
Bigcrunch
The Big Bad Half Troll.
Julian Bean
>>3) Changing all the explosive breeders to do at least 1 hp damage
>every
>>hit would stop that abuse. You could also have only the original
>breeder
>>be worth any xp.
>
>Farming worms is abuse? Whatever. It's boring, I don't do it. Plus
>mages can't do it effectively.
>
Now *that* I take issue with. Personally, I sometimes (particularly if I've
just lost a high-level char) get very bored between levels 7-11 (I.e. up to
identify). And that's when mages are the KINGS (and queens, I guess) of worm
farming.
1) Find a long corridor (complete with worm mass, preferably a highish level
worm mass):
######################
.........w...........@
######################
2) Wait till worm mass comes with two spaces of '@'
######################
..w.....ww.www..w..w.@
######################
3) Cast Sleep I. Wait for other worm masses to fill corridor:
######################
wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.@
######################
4) Cast spear of light. XP bonanza.
5) Sleep nearest 'w'. Rest. Return to step 2
That gets me to level 11 whenever I can't be bothered to do it the long way.
Then I take out Wormy, and (hopefully) dive a bit.
Jules
>
>Matt Craighead
>
Cliff Stamp
In article <1995Sep19.2...@ssd.loral.com>, millik...@ssd.loral.com (Ross Millikan) writes:
|>In article <43mih6$3...@coranto.ucs.mun.ca>
|>sst...@kelvin.physics.mun.ca (Cliff Stamp) writes:
|>
|>> Mana loss is trival, even a large amount like %20, a high level mage
|>> has a large number of staffs of the magi and restoring potions so this
|>> would not really matter.
|>probably saw three or four in an entire game (2.7.6). Restore mana
|>is more common. But you can always teleport away and rest.
|>
Naw the monsters heal too fast, basically I buy every one I see, and refuse
to use them until +2500. With recharge 3 they usually last a while, every
now and again I run out and have to bolt away but I usually have them for
the most part once I get Raals (I don't need them before then anyway(.
|>Ross Millikan
|>
--
Cliff Stamp
sst...@kelvin.physics.mun.ca