Rethinking Free Action

[Pete Mack]

Going without paralysis at dl 24 is no more dangerous than going without Rpois at dl 44. Both will kill you in a single turn if you fail to detect, or just mess around too long on a level.

A fast diver loses a character to paralysis only a tiny fraction of games, but has free action by level 30 in a similarly small fraction of games.

I do agree with Eddie on one point: monsters with paralysis attacks should be obvious prior to melée, even the first time you see one. (maybe bold face for monsters that can instakill you, given your current resistances?)

[Derakon]

There are so many different ways to instakill you that I don't think it's feasible to try to recognize all of them. Perhaps we could just have the monster memory always list every monster's attacks and spells? I dunno...I actually like having the monster memory fill out as I observe my opponents; starting with it filled-in seems wrong somehow.

[fizzix]

There are so many different ways to instakill you that I don't think it's feasible to try to recognize all of them. Perhaps we could just have the monster memory always list every monster's attacks and spells? I dunno...I actually like having the monster memory fill out as I observe my opponents; starting with it filled-in seems wrong somehow.

Well you can have it fill in on factors other than 'having it breathe on you.'

Maybe having it come into LOS should let you know what it can breathe and it's attacks (without damage). And then mere engaging it in battle tells you the damage of all of the attacks. Spells you still get the same way.

(i actually think all of this should be given to the player without having to learn it)

[buzzkill]

I die far more often from failure to recognize a '600 HP breather' versus the '100 HP breather'. Yea, I know it can breath, but I don't know if it's going to be survivable or leave me with -183 HP (just a minor oversight). Usually, if something does paralyze and kill me, I'm aware of the possibility and just can't get away. Paralysis from undead is fairly predictable, other paralyzers should have clues in their (flavor) descriptions, and a few should just be unhappy suprises.

[Timo Pietilä]

There are so many different ways to instakill you that I don't think it's feasible to try to recognize all of them.

I count three: KO from stunning, paralysis and raw damage. Any others?

[bpleshek]

I am rewriting Angband from scratch using VB.NET. Yes, I know.... Anyway, my thoughts for all the status effects are that each class/race have a certain immunity to each on a scale from 0 to 100 where 100 is immune. In this way, I can have spells that provide 10% immunity(temp) and equipment that has immunity.

For example:

Longsword of Free Action(2d5) (+0, +0) {23}

It would have 23% Free Action protection. Some artifacts can then make it immune if desired. Having a sliding scale that improves as a player levels up can also help. Take for example, the Paladin. Perhaps he is given a 10% immunity to FA with +1% every 2 levels. Also, FA(and other status effects) will wear off not just based on the counter but also based on the CON stat. You could even have the CON stat give a bonus to FA(and other status saves) as such:

CON
3-10 -10%
11-18 0%
18/01-18/30 +5%
18/31-18/50 +10%
18/51-18/70 +15%
18/71-18/80 +20%
18/81-18/90 +25%
18/91-18/100 +30%

This would help with one of the objections when removing a lot of perma-FA from many of the artifacts and losing out on player choice. Would it be so bad to have 40% FA immunity to dl40 and 75% FA at the lowest levels?

B

[d_m]

Since you're writing this whole thing yourself, you'll be in a position to test this yourself, but I think having a Free Action resistance of 10% isn't usefully different from 0% in terms of protection from, say, a ghoul or carrion crawler.

Having a 50% chance of being paralyzed per hit from a group of paralyzing monsters still means that they are too dangerous to fight (and if you do you will almost certainly die). Maybe 90% would be high enough that you'd be willing to fight them, but maybe not. Paralysis is all-or-nothing enough that unless you're immune its just not worth risking.

This is assuming that paralysis works like it does in V. If it means missing a single turn occasionally, or something less prone to get re-paralyzed over-and-over-again, then maybe it might work alright, I guess.

[bpleshek]

d_m,

The idea was that as you found equipment, you they would aggregate to higher resistances such that 15% from being paladin + 7% for being an elf + 8% from the Helm + 23% from your sword and +18% from your armor would give 71% protection. That way all the "good" artifacts wouldn't have to all have FA100. But they obviously would have higher than normal with a few special rare ones with FA100 on them. I just thought using a percentile for all resistances could serve for more strategy and potentially faster diving if say you were ok with going deep with FA50 and a high CON(better to shake off para).

Since all artifacts are set outside the game in the edit files, you could always have any artifact you wanted have FA100 which would basically make the game behave as V. Just some food for thought.

B

[Pete Mack]

This just sounds like a horrible idea. FA(50) is still worthless. If it still can destroy you in a single turn from a greater basilisk, what does it matter if it's only a 1/8 chance vs 1/4?
It would also make the game even more biased in favor of high-saving throw classes (Dwarf Priest, High-elf Ranger, etc.) Why would you want to do that?

[Derakon]

I'm inclined to agree; free action needs to be an all-or-nothing resist because its effects are all-or-nothing. Elemental resistances are a different matter; I know there's at least one variant out there where elemental resistance is provided piecemeal in the fashion you describe. Thus, if you wanted to you could accumulate a very strong fire resistance by equipping several pieces of gear with moderate or low levels of resist fire, for example.

[Hariolor]

I'm going to stick my neck out and suggest a way that bpleshek's system might be viable without reverting to all-or-nothing for FA (and blind and confuse, for that matter).

Consider the status being on/off for the @ with a counter that diminishes based on con or whatever other stat(s) you choose (as you have suggested).

Then maybe also allow a character to re-resist an existing effect every turn. Thus if you have 71% FA, that's a 71% chance to resist the effect when attacked, plus another 71% chance to break the effect every turn when paralyzed. This should make going without 100% FA, Rconf, and Rblind quite tolerable until well into the dungeon.

*ducks*

[PowerDiver]

This should make going without 100% FA, Rconf, and Rblind quite tolerable until well into the dungeon.

*ducks*

You don't really need any of those until well into the dungeon. But when you need them, you need them 100%.

[Derakon]

It sounds like you're basically proposing a "free action hitpoints" stat which would get decreased by paralyzation attempts, with the player only being paralyzable when it hits zero. I think that could actually work pretty well. Maybe extend it to blinding, confusion, and of course slowing, and when it goes below zero, you become vulnerable to all those status ailments (and the attack that sent you below zero takes effect).

I would appreciate it if paralyzation attacks only lasted for 2-3 rounds tops, though. I think that's still more than nasty enough to warrant guarding against.

[Pete Mack]

This already exists: it's called stunning, and it's not resistable in melee. (RSound gives it for breath and spell damage.)

I think this whole conversation counts as a personal wacky idea. It used to be that if you had enough of these that you really felt strongly about, you would write your own variant. I don't see why this should change...