Priest pointy penalty

[Timo Pietilä]

I read from other thread in ...vanilla that priest pointy penalty is going away. How is it compensated? Mage gauntlet penalty is negligible compared to priest pointy penalty so that is not an answer. Without penalty priest is überpaladin.

Priest is already easiest (not fastest, easiest) class in entire angband, we really don't need to make it even easier.

[Nick]

First thought - cut them back to 3 blows. Or make it harder for them to get to 4.

Another thing - what happens to blessed weapons now? Just removed?

[Magnate]

First thought - cut them back to 3 blows. Or make it harder for them to get to 4.

Another thing - what happens to blessed weapons now? Just removed?

We are still musing upon what to do with Blessed weapons - one idea was to make paladins do more damage with them, but there's no real urgency to find a special use for them. They're still interesting weapons with a random power and a WIS bonus. I daresay someone will come up with something good sooner or later.

I have to say, I'm ambivalent about the pointy penalty. I wasn't agitating for its removal, even though I merged and committed the change. I think the thematic objections are sound, but I agree that it does leave things a bit blander and less well balanced. Personally I think it moves us very slightly towards a significant overhaul of the spell system (which has been brewing for some time in numerous threads), which is a good thing, but it's possibly premature for 3.3. We're looking to release 3.3 in the next few months, and I'm not sure if it makes much sense to release after removing the pointy penalty and before making any other related changes to casters. I could cope with all casters having CUMBER_GLOVE in the meantime, even though that's not as significant as the pointy penalty (which itself wasn't significant enough to make a real difference, IMO).

I could also cope with priests getting a real combat nerf, as suggested by Nick. That would make them quite challenging, as OOD does not compare with melee damage in the endgame.

Other people's mileage varies, of course.

[Timo Pietilä]

So there isn't real compensation, only bad suggestions? Why on earth did that change get thru then? Don't fix something that isn't broken.

[Antoine]

So there isn't real compensation, only bad suggestions? Why on earth did that change get thru then? Don't fix something that isn't broken.

It does seem an odd change to make at this point.

A.

[jens]

It does seem an odd change to make at this point.

A.

+1

Bah, stupid messaging system, I can just post '+1' need to add extra text...

[Magnate]

So there isn't real compensation, only bad suggestions? Why on earth did that change get thru then? Don't fix something that isn't broken.

I think it was considered broken by many. Eddie has always been vehemently opposed to it, and his influence is still significant. So have others, and takkaria - while not vehement - said they would be happy to see it removed.

As with so many changes, somebody put the effort into making it, so we made use of it. That doesn't mean it won't get reverted before 3.3 - this is the whole point of nightlies - we can test it and see how people feel about it when they actually play it, instead of exchanging lots of heated debate about what it might be like.

[Timo Pietilä]

I read from other thread in ...vanilla that priest pointy penalty is going away. How is it compensated? Mage gauntlet penalty is negligible compared to priest pointy penalty so that is not an answer. Without penalty priest is überpaladin.

Priest is already easiest (not fastest, easiest) class in entire angband, we really don't need to make it even easier.

OK, so we all agree that priest pointy penalty doesn't make any sense (thematically), but also that it is important factor to game balance and fun.

So what we need is suggestions to replacement penalty. Preferably something to do with weapons because hindering melee-ability of priests unless they use weapons specifically made for them does make sense.

Weapons are better in this than mage gauntlet penalty, because gauntlet AC is pretty meaningless, and those egos/artifacts that gauntlets have make that penalty even more meaningless (you wear them regardless of penalty, or they do not have penalty). There is only one weapon slot, but many armor slots.

My suggestion: any weapon that originates from temple or has blessed-flag is an allowed one, and temple offers wider variety of weapons. Maybe introduce some rare base object type that has blessed-flag.

Other suggestion would be restrict priests from using heavy bodyarmors unless armor has blessed-flag (there is no reason to restrict that to weapons, right?). This would make armor selection a bit trickier. Best soft armor is Thalkettoth and only Caspanion gives WIS-bonus (it should have Blessed-flag IMO). We could add blessed-flag to some other armors too, like elvenkind armors and elvenkind-like artifact Belegennon.

[Antoine]

OK, so we all agree that priest pointy penalty doesn't make any sense (thematically)

I don't agree... it may not be historical or Tolkien-based, but it is consistent with D&D which is a major source for Angband.

A.

[Magnate]

Other suggestion would be restrict priests from using heavy bodyarmors unless armor has blessed-flag (there is no reason to restrict that to weapons, right?). This would make armor selection a bit trickier. Best soft armor is Thalkettoth and only Caspanion gives WIS-bonus (it should have Blessed-flag IMO). We could add blessed-flag to some other armors too, like elvenkind armors and elvenkind-like artifact Belegennon.

Ooh, now this is a really interesting idea. It would be easy to implement too, since OF_BLESSED can be put on anything. Definitely worth some more thought.

[Prismatic]

I don't agree... it may not be historical or Tolkien-based, but it is consistent with D&D which is a major source for Angband.

A.

(historian hat)

The concept of priests using hammers to avoid shedding blood does in fact derived from history... sort of. It comes from one source, the Bayeux Tapestry, where Bishop Odo was shown wielding a rod or club.

However, it is more properly read as a symbol of authority, as Duke William has one too, and certainly nobody ever objected to any number of priests who joined the Crusades, some of which fought as knights, or more mythologically, Archbishop Turpin (who was said to wield a legendary sword, Almace).

D&D never got the message, though, so now we have mace clerics. IMO it can definitely be dropped as a thematic thing. I personally kind of like the 'blessed armour' suggestion.

[Derakon]

My only concern with the blessed flag is with randarts, because the flag is impossible to assign any reasonable value to. It is invaluable to priests and everyone else couldn't care less. Requiring them to wear blessed armor sounds like a reasonable idea but I want to make certain that this aspect is playtested (and I would of course help with that).

[Magnate]

My only concern with the blessed flag is with randarts, because the flag is impossible to assign any reasonable value to. It is invaluable to priests and everyone else couldn't care less. Requiring them to wear blessed armor sounds like a reasonable idea but I want to make certain that this aspect is playtested (and I would of course help with that).

My plans for themed randarts should handle that quite nicely: some themes will be priest-orientated and include OF_BLESSED, others won't (but will have a small chance to be blessed anyway, so that priests get to use at least some of the non-holy randarts). So the actual power rating of OF_BLESSED should be irrelevant - which is handy, since it will be set quite low for pricing purposes. A blessed sword (+x, +y) shouldn't cost noticeably more than a non-blessed one with the same mods.

[Zyphyr]

One option would be for items with +Wis to automatically count as Blessed.

Though if the proposal to give Paladins bonuses for using Blessed items were to be implemented, Wis should only count for blocking penalties and not for granting bonuses.

[JohnCW9]

Ooh, now this is a really interesting idea. It would be easy to implement too, since OF_BLESSED can be put on anything. Definitely worth some more thought.

Its done in TOME and other variants and if you implement items getting cursed when cursed at the Blessed would be able to resist it.

John