Feature request: hold life & rNether preventing xp drain

[Donald Jonker]

This issue was brought up in the Faangband 036 thread (and it makes sense there), but it applies to all *bands, including vanilla (unless I'm severely mistaken).

It seems strange to me that if a character has the Hold Life and rNether resistances, he/she is not immune to all xp drain attacks. This seems to be the only resistance that has exceptions, and I don't really understand why it should be so. As far as I know, there's no indication in the monster memory which attacks are exempted from being checked against the resistances, which makes things somewhat frustrating.

I can't think of any reason why the resistances shouldn't fully live up to their names.

[Magnate]

This issue was brought up in the Faangband 036 thread (and it makes sense there), but it applies to all *bands, including vanilla (unless I'm severely mistaken).

It seems strange to me that if a character has the Hold Life and rNether resistances, he/she is not immune to all xp drain attacks. This seems to be the only resistance that has exceptions, and I don't really understand why it should be so. As far as I know, there's no indication in the monster memory which attacks are exempted from being checked against the resistances, which makes things somewhat frustrating.

I can't think of any reason why the resistances shouldn't fully live up to their names.

Er, I think you have it backwards. The general rule is that resists give protection from binary effects (fear, confusion, blindness, paralysis) but not from variable effects. Apart from rblind and rfear, which have no equivalent damage elements, resistances only ever give partial protection to an attack type. Hold life is no different in this.

CC

[Donald Jonker]

Er, I think you have it backwards. The general rule is that resists give protection from binary effects (fear, confusion, blindness, paralysis) but not from variable effects.

So would an example of another variable effect be stat draining attacks? Because sustains always prevent those.. Or, say, poison, sound, and shard? Because those resistances prevent the secondary effects, which is what I would expect from Hold Life.

Apart from rblind and rfear, which have no equivalent damage elements, resistances only ever give partial protection to an attack type. Hold life is no different in this.

I understand that it makes sense that attacks which would drain experience would still damage players with Hold Life.. but I don't see why it should still drain xp. If that's what you're saying (maybe not ).

It just seems silly to me to have a binary resistance called Hold Life, which seems to belong with the likes of confusion, sound, shard, and poison, (none of which have exceptions that I can think of) when there are so many exceptions to it. Maybe I'm still not getting the bigger picture here.

[Magnate]

So would an example of another variable effect be stat draining attacks? Because sustains always prevent those.. Or, say, poison, sound, and shard? Because those resistances prevent the secondary effects, which is what I would expect from Hold Life. I understand that it makes sense that attacks which would drain experience would still damage players with Hold Life.. but I don't see why it should still drain xp. If that's what you're saying (maybe not ).

It just seems silly to me to have a binary resistance called Hold Life, which seems to belong with the likes of confusion, sound, shard, and poison, (none of which have exceptions that I can think of) when there are so many exceptions to it. Maybe I'm still not getting the bigger picture here.

Your position is perfectly consistent - we're just seeing xp drain differently. You see it as an effect to be prevented, like fear/blindness/confusion, stunning from sound, cuts from shards, etc. I see it as not a binary effect at all, but more like damage, to be reduced but not eliminated. The current behaviour of Hold Life is consistent from my perspective, but not from yours.

CC