YAWP egoless ironman high-elf mage

[PowerDiver]

Now how can we make this impossible without making game impossible to mere mortals?

Another option is to change saving throws. IMO they are backwards currently, in terms of which class does well. Affinity to magic should make you more susceptbile to magic, not less susceptible.

I'd prefer saves so that warrior > paladin > rogue > priest > mage, and only a warrior should be able to achieve perfect save IMO.

[Derakon]

While an interesting idea, I suspect most players would find it wildly counterintuitive.

[Timo Pietilä]

While an interesting idea, I suspect most players would find it wildly counterintuitive.

I agree. Even if you don't understand weapons it doesn't mean you can't be killed by one. That's the basic logic. Understanding offense allows you to have defense (and vice versa).

[PowerDiver]

I agree. Even if you don't understand weapons it doesn't mean you can't be killed by one. That's the basic logic. Understanding offense allows you to have defense (and vice versa).

It isn't about understanding. It is about resistance to magic at a fundamental level. I'm not talking about casting protective spells. That's active defense rather than intrinsic defense.

It comes down to which books you read. It appears we have different libraries. My suggestion is neither better nor worse than the staus quo in terms of its place in fantasy stories. It is just different from what you are accustomed to. In these sorts of circumstances, I believe that the choice should be made based upon gameplay.

[Timo Pietilä]

It isn't about understanding. It is about resistance to magic at a fundamental level. I'm not talking about casting protective spells. That's active defense rather than intrinsic defense.

It comes down to which books you read. It appears we have different libraries. My suggestion is neither better nor worse than the staus quo in terms of its place in fantasy stories. It is just different from what you are accustomed to. In these sorts of circumstances, I believe that the choice should be made based upon gameplay.

I'm not saying you can't rationalize it either way, but without any knowledge of fantasy stories that's the way you will be thinking. Not understanding or knowing doesn't mean it can't affect you. Basic logic from real world. Basic logic in most of the fantasy also, unless using magic opens up some channel to malicious forces to affect you, but that usually requires that usage of magic, not just knowledge of it.

[Nick]

Because it feels very strongly wrong that someone is able to win ironman game without any ego or artifact help.

It doesn't bother me, given that it's Eddie that won; I'd be good at the game if I'd played it 12 hours a day for the last ninety years

[bron]

it feels very strongly wrong that someone is able to win ironman game without any ego or artifact help

I can understand that. I don't happen to agree with it, but I can understand it. All you would really need to do is to re-define what constitutes an "ego item". If Rings of Speed, along with the deep amulets (Trickery, Magi, Weaponmastery, Devotion, Resistance) were changed to become "ego items", that would probably make the game unwinnable without using ego items, without it having any discernible impact on regular games. Maybe throw in Dragon armor for good measure. But this will just tend to spawn a new set of challenges: e.g. if you have to use egos, what is the fewest/weakest you can get away with? "Egoless" is just a convenient tag to use. For example, Eddie eschewed Runes and ASC's in his game. That doesn't happen to have a nice in-game tag one can use to describe it, but it represents a challenge. For example, when I did a no-artifacts ironman (http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=2628), I chose to begin with no equipment and no inventory just to make it harder. Again, no real reason for that other than the challenge. There will always be the insane few (I include myself) who will try to do something in the least time, or without proper equipment, or with one hand tied behind their back. So I see no particular reason to make egoless ironman impossible: it won't stop people from doing it anyway; we'll just have to use a different name for the (same) thing.

[Timo Pietilä]

I can understand that. I don't happen to agree with it, but I can understand it. All you would really need to do is to re-define what constitutes an "ego item".

My problem is not so much in the equipment problem than the fact that he did it in ironman game.

I just figured out what makes it impossible without ruining game for everybody else: change OoD monster possibility to allow much much deeper monsters to be created in dungeon. That way with ironman you are forced to either avoid that area and if you stay in that level you eventually get to situation where you have to dive, because level is too dangerous to stay. Diving before ready is killer even for divers.

This affects early and just before stat-gain area most. If you survive that then you might survive rest of the game. Maybe also those gain one, lose one stat-potions should be removed. With Ewert changes consumables are no problem for maxing you stats even without those.

[buzzkill]

I've never really played a serious iornman game, but I'm assuming that with finite supplies, success come down to manic detection and avoidance (and escape), necessarily so. The problem arises when players employ these exact same attics in a non-iornman game with infinite supplies. If one choses to I'm guessing that if wouldn't be difficult to simply avoid 90% (if not more) of what you encounter/detect.

I see the problem as... if the player is properly equipped, then ANY and almost every fight is avoidable (except for the last two). Since the reward for killing anything is often completely useless, is more risk/reward beneficial to the player to simply avoid fighting anything that poses any risk at all.

Even so, some still consider it a hard game. Having thought about it some more, I have to disagree. It's a long game, not a hard game. It's impatience or eventuality that kills you, most often a unlikely string of unpredictable, rare events, not a monster.

On a long enough time line. The survival rate for everyone drops to zero. ~ Fight Club