Rethinking Free Action

[Derakon]

There are two primary ways to get paralyzed in the game: through a spell of some kind, and through a melee attack. Spells are dangerous but not instant death; your opponent gets several free turns but probably won't recast the spell, so you're unlikely to get chain-paralyzed. Melee attacks are a guaranteed death without Free Action, though, unless you get very lucky and/or have an incredibly high AC to prevent the paralysis hits from getting through reliably.

The upshot of this is that there's a big sign hanging around level 20 or so saying "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here without Free Action". The Carrion Crawler, Gorgimaera, Basilisk, Spectator, Ghoul, and Ghost all show up in the 20-30 range and have melee paralyze attacks; trying to fight those in melee is suicide (the Homunculus also has one and shows up at 15). However, if you have Free Action, then those same melee attacks are a complete non-issue. It bothers me that something can go from absolutely deadly to not remotely dangerous with a single flag change.

And before you say "Well, just avoid those monsters then", keep in mind that the only way to find out that those monsters have melee paralyzing attacks is to get into melee with them. Unless you're advocating that everyone read the monster spoilers or have years of experience playing the game.

I'd like to see Free Action get de-emphasized, so that not having it isn't instant death and we can stop putting it on half the egos and artifacts in the game just to make certain the player doesn't have to worry about it when rearranging equipment. Ideally, I'd like to see Free Action become important not at 20, but at around the 40-60 range. It should of course still be useful to have earlier, but not required. So here's my proposed changes:

* Change all melee attacks with the PARALYZE attribute to SLOW instead. There are not currently any melee attacks that cause slowing, I note, so this would probably require some code changes to support it.
* Free Action should prevent being slowed in addition to preventing paralysis
* Make paralysis duration scale with the monster's level (and possibly with the player's saving throw?). This makes Free Action steadily more important as you get deeper into the dungeon; getting paralyzed by an Elder Vampire (level 54) is going to be much more dangerous than getting paralyzed by a Druid (level 13).
* Remove Free Action from Westernesse, Holy Avenger, Dwarven, Gondolin, and Lothlorien ego-items (leaving it on crowns of Might, gloves of FA/Thievery, boots of FA, and Defender weapons). Make boots and gloves of FA rarer. Remove Free Action from a bunch of artifacts.

I think these changes would make FA desirable without making it mandatory, and would also make it a more interesting factor when considering your equipment. Thoughts?

[Marble Dice]

Free Action already prevents slowing but the slow effect from gravity and inertia cannot be resisted in any way.

Another possibility would be giving the player one turn of immunity to paralysis after becoming un-paralyzed. Are paralyze attacks still cumulative? There was talk about making them non-cumulative as well (like the blindness on darkness breath).

[PowerDiver]

keep in mind that the only way to find out that those monsters have melee paralyzing attacks is to get into melee with them. Unless you're advocating that everyone read the monster spoilers or have years of experience playing the game.

I advocate that everything in the edit files should be presented seamlessly to the player.

Corollary: When monsters have fixed attributes, everyone should start with complete monster memory.

[Nightmarjoo]

I like a lot of what you're saying, but disagree with some of the specific changes you're suggesting. Currently gloves of free action are great for mage/ranger/rogue, boots are great until you find artifact boots or boots of speed, if these things are necessary later in the game they're going to be competing with also essential things like better artifact boots, boots of speed, artifact gloves, etc; this clash would likely be really annoying unless you happened to find a rare artifact with free action along the way (unlikely given your suggested removal of free action from most artifacts).

[Hariolor]

As usual, I will preface this by saying I am much too busy/lazy to read the code and determine how the game actually works. I just like playing in the occasional free time I have.

HOWEVER

I have always found it curious just how *hard* it seems to be to resist things like paralysis. In D&D, for example, there is, and pretty well always has been, a range of saving-throw possibilities and a range of difficulties for various status effects. In fact, this is a common trope in any game of the dungeon-crawl/combat role-playing type, whether tabletop or computer.

Why then was the decision made to make status effects (blind, paralyze, drain life, etc) virtually impossible to resist without magical assistance - but then virtually harmless once magical assistance is found?

I'd much prefer a spectrum of risk and resistance, with wielded items boosting resist (or rarely giving immunity), but there still being some risk at all levels of play. At shallow levels, carrion crawlers or homonculi should succeed at paralyzing pretty rarely - but the risk should be there. By the lowest levels, nasty undead should be a serious paralysis threat even to a veteran combatant. Not to say they should always paralyze on every hit, but that you'd have maybe a 10% chance when hit to be paralyzed by the likes of Vecna, even with maxxed FA.

I realize this may be a lot of work. I don't care about that. I just think it would make the game better.

[fizzix]

I'd much prefer a spectrum of risk and resistance, with wielded items boosting resist (or rarely giving immunity), but there still being some risk at all levels of play. At shallow levels, carrion crawlers or homonculi should succeed at paralyzing pretty rarely - but the risk should be there. By the lowest levels, nasty undead should be a serious paralysis threat even to a veteran combatant. Not to say they should always paralyze on every hit, but that you'd have maybe a 10% chance when hit to be paralyzed by the likes of Vecna, even with maxxed FA.

I don't agree with this point at all. Considering that paralysis for even one turn in a battle with Vecna has a good chance of ending in death, what you've done is prevented melee, or even battle with Vecna if he has a ranged paralysis attack. Blindness, confusion, fear, stunning, cuts, poison you can deal with. But paralysis is way too dangerous.

[buzzkill]

We could introduce different types of paralysis. Para from sound, would differ from para from touch, which would differ from para from gaze, which would differ from para by hit (stunning). Low level FA items would have only one or two resists, while deeper items would likely have most if not all.

[RogerN]

Paralysis is far too dangerous to risk traveling at deep levels without 100% immunity. I'm intrigued, however, by the idea of changing some of the low-level paralysis attacks into slowing attacks.

[dhegler]

While we are at it... What about giving FA some bonus against confusion too... Or, just get rid of hummerhorns. Those are deadly until you have a high enough AC, potions, etc unless you have cloud spells or wands. I can take it that the umber hulk can confuse me, but if you sit in a bunch of hummerhorns and then something nasty walks by, you're more often than not dead. Also, there is no potion of resist/cure confusion is there?

[Derakon]

Not every deadly enemy needs to be nerfed. As you noted, there's several ways to deal with Hummerhorns, including ball spell attacks like Stinking Cloud that any character can use. You can also carry a Staff of Teleportation with you, which can be used when confused. Finally, Cure Critical Wounds potions and Mushrooms of Clear Mind will remove confusion effects, though they don't provide any temporary resistance to it.

[d_m]

While we are at it... What about giving FA some bonus against confusion too... Or, just get rid of hummerhorns. Those are deadly until you have a high enough AC, potions, etc unless you have cloud spells or wands. I can take it that the umber hulk can confuse me, but if you sit in a bunch of hummerhorns and then something nasty walks by, you're more often than not dead. Also, there is no potion of resist/cure confusion is there?

Cure Serious Wounds and Cure Critical Wounds will both cure confusion. There is a Mushroom of Clear Mind that provides temporary confusion resistance.

[Derakon]

Oh, my mistake. I could've sworn I remembered that the mushroom just cured, but on looking at the source code (not having the game handy), the description is "cures confusion and hallucination, removes fear and grants you temporary resistance to confusion", which seems pretty clear-cut.

[Hariolor]

I don't agree with this point at all. Considering that paralysis for even one turn in a battle with Vecna has a good chance of ending in death, what you've done is prevented melee, or even battle with Vecna if he has a ranged paralysis attack. Blindness, confusion, fear, stunning, cuts, poison you can deal with. But paralysis is way too dangerous.

Maybe I should add a caveat to clarify my thinking -

there would be a call routine to re-attempt the resist every turn while paralyzed. So Vecna, in my example, could only paralyze successfully with a paralysis attack 10% of the time, and then you've got a 90% chance on each successive turn to break the paralysis.

Paralysis is currently "way too dangerous" precisely because it is very hard to resist, and virtually impossible to overcome once inflicted.

I'd like to see it remain somewhat dangerous at all CL/DL, without ever being as terrifying as it is now.

[Derakon]

The problem becomes that in the late game, even a double turn by one monster can be fatal. Eventually, paralysis needs to be 100% resistable by every character. My thesis is that we should be able to put that off until later, by removing the perma-paralysis melee chain effect.

[Timo Pietilä]

There are two primary ways to get paralyzed in the game: through a spell of some kind, and through a melee attack. Spells are dangerous but not instant death; your opponent gets several free turns but probably won't recast the spell, so you're unlikely to get chain-paralyzed. Melee attacks are a guaranteed death without Free Action, though, unless you get very lucky and/or have an incredibly high AC to prevent the paralysis hits from getting through reliably.

Not much to say to your complete argument, but you forgot one of the main contributors that affect will you or will you not get paralyzed and that is saving throw. With perfect saving throw it is same as walking with FA (except for slowing effect from inertia and gravity).

I also don't like FA being guaranteed death in melee, which it pretty much is for even high, but not perfect, saving throw. What I have been suggesting in r.g.r.a is that paralyzation should not be cumulative or even restartable. If you get paralyzed paralyzation counter should not restart every time you get hit: it should only affect if you aren't already paralyzed.

Then high AC + high saving throw would give you chance to escape without certain death.