YASD: Mary Sue, the High-elf Munchkin Archeologist

[Therem Harth]

A Mary Sue walks into a black market...

The first thing she does, of course, is use her trust fund money to buy a heavily enchanted crossbow and some bolts. Then she heads right on out into the wilderness, and hunts Zephyr hounds until she's level 20-something. Then she goes to Camelot, and proceeds to lay utter waste to everything in her path...

Until she runs into this guy dressed all in red, leaning against the granite wall of some kind of vault and whistling tunelessly.

"Hi there," he says with a grin, "I'm Jurt the Living Trump! Here, have some Logrus!"

He snaps his fingers, and wave of electric technicolor randomness buffets Mary Sue around.

"Ouch. I don't think I like Logrus very much. Say, did I always have antennae?"

"No, but you'll get used to them. Here, have some more Logrus!" *snap*

"bluaaggghh. Urk. Sorry, I think I'm allergic to it."

"I think more Logrus will fix that." *snap*

"I'd shoot you, but my crossbow just turned into this grinning cat and bit my name off."

"Hair of the cat that bit you, then." *snap*

"Oh... the pretty colors burn..."

*snap* *snap* *snap*

The elf keels over and dissolves into colored sparks. Jurt claps his hands together and resumes his whistling.

A few hours later, a bloke in heavy black armor comes crashing into the vault.

"Hey," says the black knight, "Have you seen an elf around? About six foot six, carrying a huge crossbow, shooting everything she sees?"

"Yeah, she came this way. Want some Logrus?"

"Umm. What's Logrus?"

Jurt grins. "Why don't you find out?"

*snap*

[HugoVirtuoso]

Now, that's a nicely written narrative of PosChengband evens.

Edit: This one really made me laugh.

[Therem Harth]

(http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=17049 for reference)

The annoying thing is, this probably wouldn't have happened if I'd remembered to pack CCW potions. I got a bit carried away, I think.

BTW, for people who know PosChengband better than I do: what elements of the game make it so much harder than other variants I've played? I'd like to borrow some of the mechanics for Neoband, I think (since one of the complaints I've seen is that it's too easy).

e.g.
- The speed system is slightly randomized as in Hengband, right?
- There seems to be a higher likelihood of out-of-depth monsters
- There seem to be many, many more unusual rooms and lesser vaults than in most variants, and occasionally impromptu groups of harder monsters
- Melee seems to be less predictable. Sometimes my hits do a lot of damage, sometimes they do barely any. Likewise archery.
- Getting swarmed by enemies seems to be more dangerous. Does PosCheng not allow spreading blows like ToME 2, current Vanilla, etc.?
- Stealth seems to matter much, much more. You can actually sneak around monsters.

In general I feel like there's a lack of predictability compared to V, and that makes things much more fun. You can be cruising along, and then suddenly you run into a flock of Griffons and have to run for it, etc.

[debo]

I think the biggest macro differences are randomized energy, and no 0-fail anything (so no guaranteed escapes). The AI is quite a bit nastier also.

I still have trouble finding the very-late-game in poschengband to be "fun", but of all the non-sil variants I've played, it's by far my favorite.

[chris]

I can't speak too much about making things harder than other variants since I really don't have enough time to try other games out at the moment. But comparing to my old Vanilla memories, I think the following list makes the game more challenging. (Most of these were inherited from Hengband.)

* Teleport Other: Some monsters have resistance (i.e. get a saving throw). Other key monsters (especially the boss) are immune.

* Destruction and Genocide: Monsters get a save to resist. Occasionally, if they make the save, they become immune.

* Line of Sight Abuses: Code is symmetric. Monsters will splash the player with effects when possible.

* Dispel Magic: This is a huge leveler for the end game, removing all those munchkin player buffs in a single action. Monsters are very smart about when to use this (Code checks which player buffs are active at the moment).

* Breathe Disintegration: Again, a very huge, game changing monster attribute. There is special code to uncover the player with disintegration breath even when the monster does not have line of sight on the player. Combo this with strong summoning.

* Random Speed System

* No foolproof attributes. For example, Invulnerability can be penetrated, Dimension Door can fail, Reflection doesn't always work, etc.