RFC: A less-annoying birth option
Seebs
a few things in V that are *annoying* to me. Yes, they provide challenge,
but mostly they provide annoyance. They are:
* Spell book destruction.
* Random inventory destruction in general.
* Disenchantment of artifacts.
I have been toying with this, and I think I've concluded that this might
make for a viable birth option. My proposed design, approximately, would
be:
* a single resist eliminates inventory damage
* spellbooks are all immune to everything
* artifacts cannot be disenchanted
* monsters have about 20% more health
That last option is there because the goal isn't to make the game massively
easier, but to make it less annoying. Running out of your first spellbook,
and/or having to carry a ton of spellbooks, isn't an interesting or fun
challenge; it's just a nuisance. Having the stuff you were planning to
sell in town destroyed is also not particularly interesting or fun; again,
it's just annoying to me.
So, looking for feedback: Would an option like this seem reasonably
balanced, or conceptually balanceable? What else in the game is Just
Plain Annoying? (Note: The lethality of hounds is not a fair example;
they're supposed to be hard to kill, and with careful play, you can usually
take them.)
-s
--
Copyright 2009, all wrongs reversed. Peter Seebach / usenet...@seebs.net
http://www.seebs.net/log/ <-- lawsuits, religion, and funny pictures
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Game_(Scientology) <-- get educated!
Paul Murray
> I've been wrestling recently with the fact that, fundamentally, there's
> a few things in V that are *annoying* to me. Yes, they provide challenge,
> but mostly they provide annoyance. They are:
> * Spell book destruction.
> * Random inventory destruction in general.
> * Disenchantment of artifacts.
>
> I have been toying with this, and I think I've concluded that this might
> make for a viable birth option. My proposed design, approximately, would
> be:
> * a single resist eliminates inventory damage
> * spellbooks are all immune to everything
> * artifacts cannot be disenchanted
> * monsters have about 20% more health
You could possibly lose the second one if you had the first, it would just
make fire restistance much more valuable for spellcasters.
If adding the third, I would also prevent artifacts being enchanted either,
otherwise it seems like having your cake and eating it.
I think difficulty scaling like adding monster health would be better as a
separate option. Is breath damage still dependant on monster HP? If so then
it could be a big rebalancing issue.
With those changes/questions, I would use this option if it were available.
> That last option is there because the goal isn't to make the game massively
> easier, but to make it less annoying. Running out of your first spellbook,
> and/or having to carry a ton of spellbooks, isn't an interesting or fun
> challenge; it's just a nuisance. Having the stuff you were planning to
> sell in town destroyed is also not particularly interesting or fun; again,
> it's just annoying to me.
>
> So, looking for feedback: Would an option like this seem reasonably
> balanced, or conceptually balanceable? What else in the game is Just
> Plain Annoying? (Note: The lethality of hounds is not a fair example;
> they're supposed to be hard to kill, and with careful play, you can usually
> take them.)
Food.
The entire food system is just makework, except for ironman characters. It
makes sense in Nethack/Crawl, where items are meant to be limited and you
are forced to always push onwards in the dungeon, but for non-ironman Angband
it adds nothing. It doesn't acts as any sort of forced clock, as you can buy
as much food as you want at the general store.
Eddie Grove
There's not much point in an option. The current maintainer is opposed to
adding even very popular options, and I doubt this would reach "popular".
Spellbook destruction is supposed to be a big deal. In the early game, for
low str casters, there are real tradeoffs involved in carrying multiple
spellbooks.
There is a middle ground on destruction. Currently, destruction is
proportional to damage applied, *except* that there is a high minimum chance
of something like 4% IIRC. If you simply removed the minimum chance, not so
tiny attacks against resistance might truncate [integer arithmetic] to 0%
chance of destruction.
I think the destruction mechanic is horribly broken, because an item in your
pack might be destroyed entirely, but if you wear it and expose it directly to
the attack then it takes at most minimal damage. I also think that there
should be no enchantment nor disenchantment of wieldables at all. So don't
take my comments as defending the status quo.
Eddie
Seebs
> You could possibly lose the second one if you had the first, it would just
> make fire restistance much more valuable for spellcasters.
True. I hardly ever make it to a point where I care about fire resist and
don't have it. And the spellbook thing was the hardest.
> If adding the third, I would also prevent artifacts being enchanted either,
> otherwise it seems like having your cake and eating it.
Yeah. Although... Hmm. I can only think of one artifact I've ever wanted
to enchant. The others were too plussy for me to get any mileage from
enchanting them -- unless they got disenchanted.
> I think difficulty scaling like adding monster health would be better as a
> separate option. Is breath damage still dependant on monster HP? If so then
> it could be a big rebalancing issue.
It would. But I sort of feel like SOMETHING would have to give to make up
for the genuine advantages given by disabling inventory destruction.
> Food.
> The entire food system is just makework, except for ironman characters. It
> makes sense in Nethack/Crawl, where items are meant to be limited and you
> are forced to always push onwards in the dungeon, but for non-ironman Angband
> it adds nothing. It doesn't acts as any sort of forced clock, as you can buy
> as much food as you want at the general store.
It is a thought, although I find it does affect my planning some -- I have
had to leave the dungeon because I ran out of food. But not often.
Seebs
> make fire restistance much more valuable for spellcasters.
True. I hardly ever make it to a point where I care about fire resist and
don't have it. And the spellbook thing was the hardest.
> If adding the third, I would also prevent artifacts being enchanted either,
> otherwise it seems like having your cake and eating it.
Yeah. Although... Hmm. I can only think of one artifact I've ever wanted
to enchant. The others were too plussy for me to get any mileage from
enchanting them -- unless they got disenchanted.
> I think difficulty scaling like adding monster health would be better as a
> separate option. Is breath damage still dependant on monster HP? If so then
> it could be a big rebalancing issue.
It would. But I sort of feel like SOMETHING would have to give to make up
for the genuine advantages given by disabling inventory destruction.
> Food.
> The entire food system is just makework, except for ironman characters. It
> makes sense in Nethack/Crawl, where items are meant to be limited and you
> are forced to always push onwards in the dungeon, but for non-ironman Angband
> it adds nothing. It doesn't acts as any sort of forced clock, as you can buy
> as much food as you want at the general store.
It is a thought, although I find it does affect my planning some -- I have
had to leave the dungeon because I ran out of food. But not often.
-s
Seebs
> There's not much point in an option. The current maintainer is opposed to
> adding even very popular options, and I doubt this would reach "popular".
I could maintain it as a patch people could download.
> Spellbook destruction is supposed to be a big deal. In the early game, for
> low str casters, there are real tradeoffs involved in carrying multiple
> spellbooks.
I guess -- it just gets so annoying, so fast.
> There is a middle ground on destruction. Currently, destruction is
> proportional to damage applied, *except* that there is a high minimum chance
> of something like 4% IIRC. If you simply removed the minimum chance, not so
> tiny attacks against resistance might truncate [integer arithmetic] to 0%
> chance of destruction.
In my experience, even with a resist (but not double-resist), the chances of
losing SOMETHING to fire or acid are high -- I am basically guaranteed to
lose a couple of items to a small pack of fire or water hounds, unless my
inventory's nearly empty.
> I think the destruction mechanic is horribly broken, because an item in your
> pack might be destroyed entirely, but if you wear it and expose it directly to
> the attack then it takes at most minimal damage. I also think that there
> should be no enchantment nor disenchantment of wieldables at all. So don't
> take my comments as defending the status quo.
One thing my spouse suggested was a new inventory slot, called "pack", and a
good pack could hold more items, or reduce their effective weight, and
possibly give resists.
So a pack of resist fire would prevent fire damage to inventory (but perhaps
not to EQ), and so on.
That sounds fun, but it's a bit beyond the scope of what I wanted to look at.
Eddie Grove
> On 2009-11-19, Eddie Grove <eddie...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > There is a middle ground on destruction. Currently, destruction is
> > proportional to damage applied, *except* that there is a high minimum chance
> > of something like 4% IIRC. If you simply removed the minimum chance, not so
> > tiny attacks against resistance might truncate [integer arithmetic] to 0%
> > chance of destruction.
>
> In my experience, even with a resist (but not double-resist), the chances of
That is strange. Double-resist beats single resist only for significant
damage. Maybe you are playing more carefully when you double-resist. :)
> losing SOMETHING to fire or acid are high -- I am basically guaranteed to
> lose a couple of items to a small pack of fire or water hounds, unless my
> inventory's nearly empty.
That's because of the minimum 4% [IIRC] chance applied to every item,
including every item in a stack. It would make a huge difference if it could
drop below 4%. I believe I remember that fire hound breaths with resistance
would drop to 0%, but I haven't looked at that code in a long time. This also
extends to double resistance protecting your pack from attacks 3 times as
damaging as with single resistance and immunity protecting completely, simply
as a function of damage without casing on checking flags.
Eddie
Wally the Grey
> There is a middle ground on destruction. Currently, destruction is
> proportional to damage applied, *except* that there is a high minimum chance
> of something like 4% IIRC. If you simply removed the minimum chance, not so
> tiny attacks against resistance might truncate [integer arithmetic] to 0%
> chance of destruction.
I'd say make the minimum chance and the maximum dependent on resistance:
resistance level minimum maximum
none 4% 25%
single 0% 15%
double 0% 5%
immunity 0% 0%
and include acid erosion of armor pluses in this. (Still pick an
equipment slot from g to l, see if it's occupied by something giving
more than 0 to AC, and halve acid HP damage if so.)
Immunity stays the same. No resistance stays roughly the same. Any
resistance at all makes tiny attacks unable to damage items, and more
resistance makes the rate of destruction from larger attacks drop.
The damage can also be determined from the hp damage post-resistance
(but ignoring the acid-halving mentioned above), then scaled into the
above range. Supposing over 600 hp damage makes for the maximum, then a
hell wyrm breath with no resist does 1600 damage and 25%, with single
resist 533 damage and around 14%, and with double resist 177 damage and
around 2%.
Meanwhile an ordinary fire hound breath does maybe 50 damage without
resist, so the rate is about 6% (effectively multiplied by tending to
get hit with multiple fire breaths if you are careless around the
hounds). With single resist, it drops to 16 hp and 0%, so single resist
makes early hounds no longer very annoying OR dangerous, which is good;
annoying-but-not-dangerous is something most of us usually want to avoid.
As for disenchantment, I'd suggest getting rid of plus-erosion from
disenchantment completely and having it go for a random rod, wand,
staff, or activatable artifact that is charged/has charges and remove a
charge/make it have to recharge. Melee disenchant can maybe heal the
attacker a little if it finds a charge to drain, and possibly also
replace the touch to drain charges attack.
Seebs
> As for disenchantment, I'd suggest getting rid of plus-erosion from
> disenchantment completely and having it go for a random rod, wand,
> staff, or activatable artifact that is charged/has charges and remove a
> charge/make it have to recharge. Melee disenchant can maybe heal the
> attacker a little if it finds a charge to drain, and possibly also
> replace the touch to drain charges attack.
Ooh, I like that.
David A Justiss
The general store closes after reaching a certain character level
(maybe 20). Remove ?satisfy hunger from the alchemy store, and only
primary casters should get the satiffy hunger spell (and maybe raise
the mana cost).
Not well thought-out, but I think it could work.
Wally the Grey
I doubt it. It will generate more annoyance and tedium, without adding
real danger.
It's always perfectly possible to avoid starving in Angband (or running
out of lamp fuel for that matter): park on a staircase going <><><>
until food (or oil) is generated within view, and grab it. (Well, in
preserve with connected stairs on, which is how most people play. I'd
also recommend having esp down deep so you can tell if there's any
nasties nearby before moving off the stairs. If there are you go
up/down. If there's a Q, you move, it summons, you tele level before the
summons can act; should happen too infrequently to make you starve.)
The key here being that using stairs doesn't use up time, and therefore
food (and fuel).
Eddie Grove
> Meanwhile an ordinary fire hound breath does maybe 50 damage without resist,
I think that should be around 12.
Timo Pietilä
It is. Fire hound has only 35HP with some variation and 1/3 of that is
(basic element) breath weapon power (until cap is reached).
Note that Water hound is nastier even that it does breath one of the
basic four: 68 HP. Same as Air hound which breathes poison.
Timo Pietil�
Timo Pietilä
To do what exactly? Of course you can remove sources of food, but
without telling us what your goal was in doing that we don't know what
did you want to happen with that change.
I would oppose that, because food should be something that should not be
a problem to anyone. Of course there should also be semi-guaranteed
method of getting *food* in dungeon (preferably in many forms) so that
you would not need the spell of satisfy hunger. _then_ you could remove
it from others than pure spellcasters (priest and mage).
Maybe satisfy hunger could be so high mana value or so low nutrition
value that you hardly gain anything from it if you spend your time
resting for full mana after casting it. You would need to hunt for food.
Maybe. Maybe not.
When playing ironman warrior I eventually end up using Elvish Waybread
as my primary source for food (there is a lot of it in deep dungeons, is
light and it cures poison and some damage), but early game anything
goes, even potions that have no real use, and starving is real
possibility. Regen-items are bad thing and slow digestion is highly valued.
Timo Pietil�
Wally the Grey
Eh. I thought all the regular elemental hounds breathed comparable
amounts of damage, and noted the damage water hounds did. The other
three basics do less? Strange.
Timo Pietilä
> I've been wrestling recently with the fact that, fundamentally, there's
> a few things in V that are *annoying* to me. Yes, they provide challenge,
> but mostly they provide annoyance. They are:
> * Spell book destruction.
> * Random inventory destruction in general.
> * Disenchantment of artifacts.
>
> I have been toying with this, and I think I've concluded that this might
> make for a viable birth option. My proposed design, approximately, would
> be:
> * a single resist eliminates inventory damage
Make that double-resist, then I would accept it. Single resists are too
easy to get for all classes.
OTOH you could just remove minimum % chance for destruction allowing it
to reach zero, and count that _after_ resistances have been counted
(IIRC item destruction chance is currently counted before resistances,
and immunity is just special case).
> * spellbooks are all immune to everything
Don't like it. Spellbooks being vulnerable to elements makes you think
twice before attacking certain monsters. In fact I think they should be
vulnerable to acid too, and not just fire. And then give that "double
resistance prevents destruction".
> * artifacts cannot be disenchanted
Maybe instead make items repairable from disenchantment damage. Some
rare scroll, or maybe just *enchant* -scrolls could do that.
OTOH, I do like that proposed "drain charges instead" alternative more,
but I don't think that is nasty enough. Maybe something else too (drain
mana? reduce stat? cause you to lose ability to cast spells for some time?).
Disenchantment is as it is currently "very scary" because it can do
irreversible damage to items you are using, and I think it should stay
that way. Scary I mean.
> * monsters have about 20% more health
This would make some monsters too nasty.
> That last option is there because the goal isn't to make the game massively
> easier, but to make it less annoying. Running out of your first spellbook,
> and/or having to carry a ton of spellbooks,
Maybe make them slightly lighter? 3.5 lbs instead of 5 lbs? That would
make three of them 10.5 lbs instead of 15 lbs.
Timo Pietil�
The Wanderer
> On 2009-11-19, Paul Murray <pa...@murray.net> wrote:
>> If adding the third, I would also prevent artifacts being enchanted
>> either, otherwise it seems like having your cake and eating it.
>
> Yeah. Although... Hmm. I can only think of one artifact I've ever
> wanted to enchant. The others were too plussy for me to get any
> mileage from enchanting them -- unless they got disenchanted.
One possible approach to this would not be to forbid changing bonuses on
artifacts, necessarily, but rather to forbid disenchanting any bonus
which is higher than could be re-enchanted back up to.
More specifically, any artifact which has one of the three "direct"
magical bonuses (to-hit, to-damage, and AC) at a level above what can be
reached via Enchant spells and scrolls - which I believe max out at +9 -
could not be disenchanted *on that specific bonus*, but could still be
disenchanted on others.
There's plenty of room for problems with that, of course...
--
The Wanderer
Warning: Simply because I argue an issue does not mean I agree with any
side of it.
Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny.
Timo Pietilä
> On 11/19/2009 02:04 PM, Seebs wrote:
>
>> On 2009-11-19, Paul Murray <pa...@murray.net> wrote:
>
>>> If adding the third, I would also prevent artifacts being enchanted
>>> either, otherwise it seems like having your cake and eating it.
>>
>> Yeah. Although... Hmm. I can only think of one artifact I've ever
>> wanted to enchant. The others were too plussy for me to get any
>> mileage from enchanting them -- unless they got disenchanted.
>
> One possible approach to this would not be to forbid changing bonuses on
> artifacts, necessarily, but rather to forbid disenchanting any bonus
> which is higher than could be re-enchanted back up to.
>
> More specifically, any artifact which has one of the three "direct"
> magical bonuses (to-hit, to-damage, and AC) at a level above what can be
> reached via Enchant spells and scrolls - which I believe max out at +9
Max is at +15, but chances of getting that is very very small.
> - could not be disenchanted *on that specific bonus*, but could still be
> disenchanted on others.
>
> There's plenty of room for problems with that, of course...
Somehow doesn't sound logical that high enchantments cannot be
disenchanted. It feels that it should be just opposite. But in world of
magics you can "invent" rationality behind that.
Timo Pietil�
Timo Pietilä
> Yeah. Although... Hmm. I can only think of one artifact I've ever wanted
> to enchant. The others were too plussy for me to get any mileage from
> enchanting them -- unless they got disenchanted.
*thancs, Rilia, Pain, Calris, Aglarand, Holcolleth at least. I think
there are item or two in polearms and ...maces? priest-allowed weapons
too, but can't remember their names offhand. Might be some armors too
(Holcolleth I remembered only because I was enchanting it recently).
Timo Pietil�
Seebs
> Make that double-resist, then I would accept it. Single resists are too
> easy to get for all classes.
I've had a really hard time getting double-resist, though. Hmm.
> OTOH you could just remove minimum % chance for destruction allowing it
> to reach zero, and count that _after_ resistances have been counted
> (IIRC item destruction chance is currently counted before resistances,
> and immunity is just special case).
That could do it.
I think maybe just making it possible to get down to zero, possibly even
only with single resist (but then only for pretty low damage amounts) might
do it.
> Maybe instead make items repairable from disenchantment damage. Some
> rare scroll, or maybe just *enchant* -scrolls could do that.
> Disenchantment is as it is currently "very scary" because it can do
> irreversible damage to items you are using, and I think it should stay
> that way. Scary I mean.
I think the problem is that it's scary, but also just plain obnoxious.
I think I'd mind it less if it could do only reversible disenchanting -- no
loss of stats you can't enchant again. Then it would be like level drain --
sucky but reversible.
Timo Pietilä
68 HP means 32 damage. Still off by 18. Poison and acid can really kill
you, while fire, cold and electricity rarely does.
IIRC in old days when elemental damage reduced your stats, acid affected
only your CHR while fire affected your STR, electricity CON and cold DEX
(IIRC) so that might be why acid hounds are nastier than other three. A
relic from ancient times.
IMO those stat-reduce effects should be re-introduced, because obtaining
sustains are so easy now. It also would increase value of sustains. I
think reason why sustain-rings were practically useless at one point was
just because those reduce stat-effects were removed.
Timo Pietil�
Timo Pietilä
> On 2009-11-20, Timo Pietil� <timo.p...@helsinki.fi> wrote:
>> Make that double-resist, then I would accept it. Single resists are too
>> easy to get for all classes.
>
> I've had a really hard time getting double-resist, though. Hmm.
For fire and cold there are potions that alchemist sells, priests and
paladins get resists fire and cold from third book, mage, rogue and
ranger gets all of them from Resistances and finally there are rings of
acid, electricity, fire and cold that activate for double-resist.
What is left is early elec and acid double-resists for Warriors.
>> OTOH you could just remove minimum % chance for destruction allowing it
>> to reach zero, and count that _after_ resistances have been counted
>> (IIRC item destruction chance is currently counted before resistances,
>> and immunity is just special case).
>
> That could do it.
>
> I think maybe just making it possible to get down to zero, possibly even
> only with single resist (but then only for pretty low damage amounts) might
> do it.
Agreed.
>> Maybe instead make items repairable from disenchantment damage. Some
>> rare scroll, or maybe just *enchant* -scrolls could do that.
>
>> Disenchantment is as it is currently "very scary" because it can do
>> irreversible damage to items you are using, and I think it should stay
>> that way. Scary I mean.
>
> I think the problem is that it's scary, but also just plain obnoxious.
>
> I think I'd mind it less if it could do only reversible disenchanting -- no
> loss of stats you can't enchant again. Then it would be like level drain --
> sucky but reversible.
If you think disenchant without unnecessary feelings it isn't that bad,
it just feels bad. I think disenchantment teaches you valuable lesson
without being straight out deadly: don't fight everything you see. Water
hounds and some monsters that shoot acid as melee attack make that same
for lower levels.
Timo Pietil�
Eddie Grove
> Wally the Grey wrote:
> > Timo Pietilä wrote:
> >> Eddie Grove wrote:
> >>> Wally the Grey <hpar...@usa.net.nospam.invalid> writes:
> >>>
> >>>> Meanwhile an ordinary fire hound breath does maybe 50 damage without
> >>>> resist,
> >>>
> >>> I think that should be around 12.
> >>
> >> It is. Fire hound has only 35HP with some variation and 1/3 of that is
> >> (basic element) breath weapon power (until cap is reached).
> >>
> >> Note that Water hound is nastier even that it does breath one of the basic
> >> four: 68 HP. Same as Air hound which breathes poison.
> > Eh. I thought all the regular elemental hounds breathed comparable amounts
> > of damage, and noted the damage water hounds did. The other three basics do
> > less? Strange.
>
> 68 HP means 32 damage. Still off by 18. Poison and acid can really kill you,
> while fire, cold and electricity rarely does.
68 => 22, off by 28. For acid, if wearing armor in the randomly chosen slot,
that is cut in half to 11, off by 39. Basically the same as a fire hound
breath, for the vast majority who wear armor in most slots. Then single
resist drops either below 5.
The air hounds are far more dangerous since you don't get the 1/2 for armor
and you are unliklely to have poison resistance when they start showing up.
Eddie
Wally the Grey
> Seebs wrote:
>> and/or having to carry a ton of spellbooks,
>
> Maybe make them slightly lighter? 3.5 lbs instead of 5 lbs? That would
> make three of them 10.5 lbs instead of 15 lbs.
Maybe 1 or 2. Even 3.5 lbs is rather heavy for a book.
Wally the Grey
> Wally the Grey wrote:
>> Timo Pietil� wrote:
>>> Eddie Grove wrote:
>>>> Wally the Grey <hpar...@usa.net.nospam.invalid> writes:
>>>>
>>>>> Meanwhile an ordinary fire hound breath does maybe 50 damage
>>>>> without resist,
>>>>
>>>> I think that should be around 12.
>>>
>>> It is. Fire hound has only 35HP with some variation and 1/3 of that
>>> is (basic element) breath weapon power (until cap is reached).
>>>
>>> Note that Water hound is nastier even that it does breath one of the
>>> basic four: 68 HP. Same as Air hound which breathes poison.
>>
>> Eh. I thought all the regular elemental hounds breathed comparable
>> amounts of damage, and noted the damage water hounds did. The other
>> three basics do less? Strange.
>
> 68 HP means 32 damage.
That does not make sense. If the previous post meant the damage is 68
HP, then 68 HP means 68 HP. If it meant the hound has 68 HP, then that
means the basic element breath damage is 22 HP.
> Still off by 18.
I don't think I care for your tone, mister.
Timo Pietilä
> Timo Pietilä <timo.p...@helsinki.fi> writes:
>
>> Wally the Grey wrote:
>>> Timo Pietilä wrote:
>>>> Eddie Grove wrote:
>>>>> Wally the Grey <hpar...@usa.net.nospam.invalid> writes:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Meanwhile an ordinary fire hound breath does maybe 50 damage without
>>>>>> resist,
>>>>> I think that should be around 12.
>>>> It is. Fire hound has only 35HP with some variation and 1/3 of that is
>>>> (basic element) breath weapon power (until cap is reached).
>>>>
>>>> Note that Water hound is nastier even that it does breath one of the basic
>>>> four: 68 HP. Same as Air hound which breathes poison.
>>> Eh. I thought all the regular elemental hounds breathed comparable amounts
>>> of damage, and noted the damage water hounds did. The other three basics do
>>> less? Strange.
>> 68 HP means 32 damage. Still off by 18. Poison and acid can really kill you,
>> while fire, cold and electricity rarely does.
>
> 68 => 22, off by 28.
Heh. First is typo and second was calculated based on that typo. Smart no?
> For acid, if wearing armor in the randomly chosen slot,
> that is cut in half to 11, off by 39. Basically the same as a fire hound
> breath, for the vast majority who wear armor in most slots. Then single
> resist drops either below 5.
Forgot about that armor having damage. You are correct, damage is
usually pretty much same as with other basic 4 hounds.
> The air hounds are far more dangerous since you don't get the 1/2 for armor
> and you are unliklely to have poison resistance when they start showing up.
In fact when I was playing my non-ego non-artifact priest poison was
worse than all others even that I had no resistance to other 4 (except
with spells).
Timo Pietilä
Matthew Vernon
> IIRC in old days when elemental damage reduced your stats, acid
> affected only your CHR while fire affected your STR, electricity CON
> and cold DEX (IIRC) so that might be why acid hounds are nastier than
> other three. A relic from ancient times.
>
> IMO those stat-reduce effects should be re-introduced, because
> obtaining sustains are so easy now. It also would increase value of
$DEITY, no. Z's are far too annoying/dangerous already.
Matthew
--
Rapun.sel - outermost outpost of the Pick Empire
http://www.pick.ucam.org
Timo Pietilä
22 is correct. Did typo with that 32 and later added "off by" with 68 -
32 calculation. And did mean HP of the monster, not the damage.
>> Still off by 18.
>
> I don't think I care for your tone, mister.
Perceptions can be misleading. Don't trust your intuition. That's all.
No reason to get offended, I'm just as harsh to myself and I usually
skip the softening and get straight to the point. I have noticed that in
some cultures that is perceived very offending. It is not supposed to be.
My sister has a husband that has lived in Canada for some time and when
she asked him to "proof read" one of her posts to customer that they
need to pay the bill with wording that would not have been offending to
us, he told her that "if they read between lines, they get an impression
that if they do not pay this instant, next thing they notice is couple
of very big guys with shotguns in their doorstep" :-)
Timo Pietil�
Timo Pietilä
> Timo Pietil� <timo.p...@helsinki.fi> writes:
>
>> IIRC in old days when elemental damage reduced your stats, acid
>> affected only your CHR while fire affected your STR, electricity CON
>> and cold DEX (IIRC) so that might be why acid hounds are nastier than
>> other three. A relic from ancient times.
>>
>> IMO those stat-reduce effects should be re-introduced, because
>> obtaining sustains are so easy now. It also would increase value of
>
> $DEITY, no. Z's are far too annoying/dangerous already.
<evil grin> If I ever get my variant done it will have that effect. And
a lot more gray hair causing effects.
If anyone remembers Frog Knows, it is much much much much harder than
current vanilla, but also more fun. Too bad that game UI is so bad. My
variant would be cross between current vanilla and Frog Knows.
Fun becomes from the fact that it is less "balanced" and there are
things that make a) you a demigod compared to monsters, b) situations
where you have very little hope to survive.
There are also things that aren't so good, but you can ignore most of them.
Timo Pietil�
The Wanderer
Depends on the kind of book.
Even one pound is fairly heavy for a trade-paperback style of book, but
our "twelve volumes in two" copy of the OED weighs at nearly ten pounds
per volume. I wouldn't find three and a half pounds, or even necessarily
five pounds, to be excessive for some types of e.g. college textbook.
The question then is what sort of book we would expect the spellbooks to
be. On the one hand, I can easily see rationale for having a grimoire
(or book of holy writ) be on the "large, heavy and bulky" side - but on
the other, given how few actual spells are in each of these books, it
doesn't necessarily make a lot of sense for them to be quite that type
of spellbook.
How heavy they should be depends on exactly what, thematically, you
decide they are, in terms of what you would expect to see if you stepped
through a door into The Town and went to browse in one of the shops. For
a change, I don't actually have any strong opinion on this one way or
another; all I would insist on is that whatever rationale is chosen be
consistent.
(Which doesn't, automatically, mean that all spellbooks should weigh the
same... you could, for instance, argue either "the Beginners book is an
instructional tome and needs to be bigger to fit in all that extra
getting-you-started for-the-layman information, but the advanced volumes
are for people who already know what they're doing and don't need to be
so big" or "the Beginners books and other store-sold books are barely
more than pamphlets and contain only the bare information necessary to
cast the spells, but the advanced books are handwritten grimoires and
contain lots of extraneous information which is useful for theory and
further research but doesn't contribute directly to the spells
themselves". The latter could be argued to be more consistent with the
advanced books having been enchanted to be immune to elemental damage,
but...)
Eddie Grove
> The question then is what sort of book we would expect the spellbooks to
> be.
The idea of taking your spellbooks into the dungeon is crazy. It follows from
the idea of casting out them, also crazy. It is a mechanic for game balance,
nothing more. That means, IMO, that the weights and destructibility should
thus be about game balance, and nothing more.
I'd prefer a components system to a spellbooks system, but that's serious
variant territory.
The D&D magic system was based off of Vance's dying earth stuff, where a mage
spends a long time with a book cramming a spell into his brain and later lets
it out quickly to take effect. A great mage in Vance's work might manage 4
spells in his head at one time, no more. We've left the original inspiration
behind entirely.
Eddie
Wally the Grey
> (Which doesn't, automatically, mean that all spellbooks should weigh the
> same... you could, for instance, argue either "the Beginners book is an
> instructional tome and needs to be bigger to fit in all that extra
> getting-you-started for-the-layman information, but the advanced volumes
> are for people who already know what they're doing and don't need to be
> so big" or "the Beginners books and other store-sold books are barely
> more than pamphlets and contain only the bare information necessary to
> cast the spells, but the advanced books are handwritten grimoires and
> contain lots of extraneous information which is useful for theory and
> further research but doesn't contribute directly to the spells
> themselves". The latter could be argued to be more consistent with the
> advanced books having been enchanted to be immune to elemental damage,
> but...)
In that case, wouldn't it make more sense for either an introductory
tome or a grimoire full of research note stuff to be left at home, and
the quick-reference version be what's taken with you? :)
Otto Martin
As any medieval weapon enthusiast will tell you, the weights of Angband
items have absolutely nothing to do with reality...
(One explanation sometimes given is that the weight is an approximation
of the item's unwieldiness, but that could certainly apply to big books
as well.)
Otto Martin - that is, anything over 5kg
--
I can be tactful. I just generally don't see the point.
http://www.diggercomic.com/?p=215
Billy Bissette
news:87k4xlr...@linux.site:
> The Wanderer <wand...@fastmail.fm> writes:
>
>> The question then is what sort of book we would expect the spellbooks
>> to be.
>
> The idea of taking your spellbooks into the dungeon is crazy. It
> follows from the idea of casting out them, also crazy. It is a
> mechanic for game balance, nothing more. That means, IMO, that the
> weights and destructibility should thus be about game balance, and
> nothing more.
And the time (not) required to cast from a book is crazy as well.
In Angband, it takes a turn, or a few seconds. In that time, a mage
has to get the right book out of his pack, open it to the desired
pages, cast the spell itself, and put the book back in his pack so
that he can be able to do something else next turn.
That is without even getting into his ability to do all that, while
keeping sufficient light from his lantern, all while a hound is
chewing on his leg and an orc is trying to hit him in the face with
an axe.
> The D&D magic system was based off of Vance's dying earth stuff, where
> a mage spends a long time with a book cramming a spell into his brain
> and later lets it out quickly to take effect. A great mage in Vance's
> work might manage 4 spells in his head at one time, no more. We've
> left the original inspiration behind entirely.
The Vance system just doesn't work for an action oriented game.
You wouldn't be playing a spell caster, you'd be playing a bad
fighter who could do two or three really powerful things before he
had to go on vacation to recover.
I'd argue that it honestly didn't even work that well in D&D
either, though it pretty much forced wizards to work with a group.
Ray
> The Vance system just doesn't work for an action oriented game.
> You wouldn't be playing a spell caster, you'd be playing a bad
> fighter who could do two or three really powerful things before he
> had to go on vacation to recover.
> I'd argue that it honestly didn't even work that well in D&D
> either, though it pretty much forced wizards to work with a group.
Agreed. Pretty much every AD&D campaign I played in, way back in
the day when that was popular, changed the magic rules for house
rules something more like the mana/spell-points system that appears
in most roguelikes. You needed your books for an hour at the
beginning of each day when you were studying, but not thereafter
until the next day, so you could go on a short adventure without
'em.
In Angband, I think the books are mainly there for game balance;
their purpose is to restrict inventory space and weight carried.
This is because casters need less scrolls, trinkets, and charged
items than other classes to make up the "standard set" of abilities.
I will stand by my claim that mages are the weakest offense and the
weakest defense in the whole game, though. Penalizing their inventory
slots to make up for supposed extra power means something is wrong.
Bear
Eddie Grove
> I will stand by my claim that mages are the weakest offense and the
> weakest defense in the whole game, though. Penalizing their inventory
> slots to make up for supposed extra power means something is wrong.
>
> Bear
There are four aspects to the game.
Detection
Evasion
Offense (damage dealt)
Defense (damage absorbed)
That's the list in order of importance for the most skilled players, and in
reverse order for the least skilled players. Just IMO of course. Beginners
playing mages are doomed, but mages are powerful in the hands of those who
know how to use them.
Eddie
Timo Pietilä
That list depends what do you count as defense. I would put offense last
into list, because that is the last thing you consider before deciding
to fight. IOW "can it hurt me too bad" comes before "can I hurt it fast
enough". And of course those both come after "is there anything
dangerous/lucrative around" and "can I avoid that thing there".
Of course offense and defense are not quite black and white, but good
offense can sometimes be best defense (reducing heavy breather HP fast
enough that it doesn't pose any danger), and good defense affects how
good offense you need (immunity to fire against fire-based monsters
means that you can fight them with broken stick and still win).
Timo Pietil�
Magnate
> Seebs wrote:
>> I've been wrestling recently with the fact that, fundamentally, there's
>> a few things in V that are *annoying* to me. Yes, they provide
>> challenge,
>> but mostly they provide annoyance. They are:
>> * Spell book destruction.
>> * Random inventory destruction in general.
>> * Disenchantment of artifacts.
>>
>> I have been toying with this, and I think I've concluded that this might
>> make for a viable birth option. My proposed design, approximately, would
>> be:
>> * a single resist eliminates inventory damage
>
> Make that double-resist, then I would accept it. Single resists are too
> easy to get for all classes.
Don't like this
> OTOH you could just remove minimum % chance for destruction allowing it to
> reach zero, and count that _after_ resistances have been counted (IIRC
> item destruction chance is currently counted before resistances, and
> immunity is just special case).
This is a much better idea. I'd like to see what Takk thinks of this. It's a
fairly small change, with a potentially high return in terms of improved
enjoyment.
>> * spellbooks are all immune to everything
>
> Don't like it. Spellbooks being vulnerable to elements makes you think
> twice before attacking certain monsters. In fact I think they should be
> vulnerable to acid too, and not just fire. And then give that "double
> resistance prevents destruction".
>
>> * artifacts cannot be disenchanted
>
> Maybe instead make items repairable from disenchantment damage. Some rare
> scroll, or maybe just *enchant* -scrolls could do that.
>
> OTOH, I do like that proposed "drain charges instead" alternative more,
> but I don't think that is nasty enough. Maybe something else too (drain
> mana? reduce stat? cause you to lose ability to cast spells for some
> time?).
>
> Disenchantment is as it is currently "very scary" because it can do
> irreversible damage to items you are using, and I think it should stay
> that way. Scary I mean.
I agree with you. Making artifacts immune to disenchantment completely
removes the scariness, and the importance of the resist. Leave as is.
>> * monsters have about 20% more health
>
> This would make some monsters too nasty.
>
>> That last option is there because the goal isn't to make the game
>> massively
>> easier, but to make it less annoying. Running out of your first
>> spellbook,
>> and/or having to carry a ton of spellbooks,
>
> Maybe make them slightly lighter? 3.5 lbs instead of 5 lbs? That would
> make three of them 10.5 lbs instead of 15 lbs.
This is a good idea too. IMO both spellbooks and scrolls are way too heavy.
CC
Eddie Grove
> "Timo Pietilä" <timo.p...@helsinki.fi> wrote
> > Maybe make them slightly lighter? 3.5 lbs instead of 5 lbs? That would make
> > three of them 10.5 lbs instead of 15 lbs.
>
> This is a good idea too. IMO both spellbooks and scrolls are way too heavy.
Except for the fact spellbooks are currently 3 lbs, which is 6 * weight of
scrolls. All other weights are too high as well. If you just assume a
scaling factor to make the other weights work, books might seem reasonable to
you. Or not.
Isn't the weight there primarily to make the lives of beginning mages difficult?
Eddie
Timo Pietilä
> "Magnate" <n...@receiving.here> writes:
>
>> "Timo Pietil�" <timo.p...@helsinki.fi> wrote
>
>>> Maybe make them slightly lighter? 3.5 lbs instead of 5 lbs? That would make
>>> three of them 10.5 lbs instead of 15 lbs.
>> This is a good idea too. IMO both spellbooks and scrolls are way too heavy.
>
> Except for the fact spellbooks are currently 3 lbs, which is 6 * weight of
> scrolls.
It is? ...It is. Well, in that case maybe 2 lbs instead of 3? That makes
three of them weight same as two weights now.
> All other weights are too high as well.
Compared to reality, yes. For game balance I'd say no.
> If you just assume a
> scaling factor to make the other weights work, books might seem reasonable to
> you. Or not.
>
> Isn't the weight there primarily to make the lives of beginning mages difficult?
I think beginning mages are difficult enough without that much weight
penalty. It is later in game when mage gets few levels and some
additional spells when mage start to get powerful.
OTOH this same does not apply as well to priests. Priests are not that
bad in combat and their start is relatively easy. Also classes
traditionally used as priests do not have STR-penalty, quite opposite
(Dwarf, Dunedain, Troll).
In contrast halfling or elf mage gets severe STR penalty and book
weights are serious problem to them early in the game.
Maybe no change to book weight or just minor change (3 -> 2.5 lbs)
BTW I have always wanted some temporary boosts of stats in game. Berserk
strength should really raise your STR for a while. There could be some
for INT, WIS, DEX maybe CON too, so that for short period of time you
could play as if you had your stats several levels higher than they
really are. (get your CON high, heal, fight like you had billion HP, get
that CON -boost disappear and die :-)
Timo Pietil�
Eddie Grove
> BTW I have always wanted some temporary boosts of stats in game. Berserk
> strength should really raise your STR for a while. There could be some for
> INT, WIS, DEX maybe CON too, so that for short period of time you could play
> as if you had your stats several levels higher than they really are. (get your
> CON high, heal, fight like you had billion HP, get that CON -boost disappear
> and die :-)
I agree, although instead of a CON boost perhaps a straight +20% mhp boost
would be better. +5 con on a base of 11 would not be noticeable. Stories of
berserkers taking excessive damage and later dying of their wounds when the
fit ends are common enough, but whether those stories reflect anything real I
do not know.
Also, in the current game mechanic, losing a con boost does not cost hp. Were
you in favor of my not-well-received proposal that any additive change to a
maximum stat (such as hitpoints) should affect the current value equally?
Eddie
Timo Pietilä
Yes, definitely. To me raising your CON and not getting equal amount of
HP didn't make any sense ever. After all you are not hurt by getting
more CON so why doesn't you get benefit from it immediately?
Timo Pietilä
Timo Pietilä
> Yes, definitely. To me raising your CON and not getting equal amount of
> HP didn't make any sense ever. After all you are not hurt by getting
> more CON so why doesn't you get benefit from it immediately?
Urgh, me bad english.
Stupid spellchecker doesn't correct bad grammar. "..so why don't you..."
(was previously before "fixing" wording "...so why doesn't it affect...")
Timo Pietilä
Matthew Vernon
> In contrast halfling or elf mage gets severe STR penalty and book
> weights are serious problem to them early in the game.
Yes, this. I often find mages carrying STR boost until at least
mid-game, just so they can carry enough spell-books to survive fire
attacks. Trading-off between more armour to get more resists and more
spell-books is One Of Those Things.
Dave_Smith354
> Timo Pietilä <timo.piet...@helsinki.fi> writes:
> > Wally the Grey wrote:
> > > Timo Pietilä wrote:
> > >> Eddie Grove wrote:
>
> > >>>> Meanwhile an ordinary fire hound breath does maybe 50 damage without
> > >>>> resist,
>
> > >>> I think that should be around 12.
>
> > >> It is. Fire hound has only 35HP with some variation and 1/3 of that is
> > >> (basic element) breath weapon power (until cap is reached).
>
> > >> Note that Water hound is nastier even that it does breath one of the basic
> > >> four: 68 HP. Same as Air hound which breathes poison.
> > > Eh. I thought all the regular elemental hounds breathed comparable amounts
> > > of damage, and noted the damage water hounds did. The other three basics do
> > > less? Strange.
>
> > 68 HP means 32 damage. Still off by 18. Poison and acid can really kill you,
> > while fire, cold and electricity rarely does.
>
> 68 => 22, off by 28. For acid, if wearing armor in the randomly chosen slot,
> that is cut in half to 11, off by 39. Basically the same as a fire hound
> breath, for the vast majority who wear armor in most slots. Then single
> resist drops either below 5.
>
> The air hounds are far more dangerous since you don't get the 1/2 for armor
> and you are unliklely to have poison resistance when they start showing up.
>
> Eddie
Possibly a reason why Dal-i-Thalion are not junk (not at that level) -
their activation for cure poison every 5 turns. They have helped my
warrior survive numerous packs of Air hounds (admittedly I hid round
the corner and killed most of them one at a time).
Martin Bazley
> On Nov 20 2009, 6:56�am, Eddie Grove <eddiegr...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > The air hounds are far more dangerous since you don't get the 1/2 for armor
> > and you are unliklely to have poison resistance when they start showing up.
> >
>
> Possibly a reason why Dal-i-Thalion are not junk (not at that level) -
> their activation for cure poison every 5 turns. They have helped my
> warrior survive numerous packs of Air hounds (admittedly I hid round
> the corner and killed most of them one at a time).
My current character is a kobold - I'm rather enjoying not having the
prospect of hanging around 1950' hoping desperately for Caspanion to
show up. :-)
Does anybody else actually play kobolds? I mean, they're not
High-Elves, but they're interesting in their own way...
--
__<^>__ Red sky in the morning: Shepherd's warning
/ _ _ \ Red sky at night: Shepherd's delight
( ( |_| ) ) Mince and potatoes: Shepherd's pie
\_> <_/ ======================= Martin Bazley ==========================
Timo Pietilä
> The following bytes were arranged on 5 Jan 2010 by Dave_Smith354 :
>
>> On Nov 20 2009, 6:56 am, Eddie Grove<eddiegr...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>> The air hounds are far more dangerous since you don't get the 1/2 for armor
>>> and you are unliklely to have poison resistance when they start showing up.
>>>
>>
>> Possibly a reason why Dal-i-Thalion are not junk (not at that level) -
>> their activation for cure poison every 5 turns. They have helped my
>> warrior survive numerous packs of Air hounds (admittedly I hid round
>> the corner and killed most of them one at a time).
>
> My current character is a kobold - I'm rather enjoying not having the
> prospect of hanging around 1950' hoping desperately for Caspanion to
> show up. :-)
In modern versions there is no point waiting at 1950' for poison
resistance. JLE moved poison breathers deeper (and also
dracoli(ch/sk)s). Just keep diving, and you get poison resistance.
Actually there is only one monster that is very dangerous at those
levels: Drolem, and that is because it doesn't show on detect evil or in
ESP. AMHD is easy to avoid and deeper heavy poison breathers are so deep
that they never pose any danger.
Timo Pietil�