Time attacks and HOW much did I lose stats?

[Timo Pietilä]

Hello.

I was just wondering around fully knowing that there is time vortex nearby. I decided that I should shoot it down (needed two hits).

First one: miss
Time Vortex breathes time: All of your stats are drained
Second one: hit:
Time Vortex breathes time: All of your stats are drained
Third one: hit:
Time Vortex dies

Two all stats drained, hm how much... Argh! STR went from 18/20 to 12. Others also pretty much same.

(and of course temple doesn't have restore STR, buing it out five times before such thing appeared, then going to BM I find Potion of STR. Figures.)

Anyway: How much can time breath actually drain your stats? That was a lot more than I expected. I usually don't let them breath or if they do they take only one stat down, getting two all stats-hit in a row is a rarity.

[Derakon]

Results of time breath (from spells1.c):

5 in 10 chance: you lose 2% of your experience points
4 in 10 chance: a single random stat is reduced to 75% of its current value
1 in 10 chance: every stat is reduced to 75% of its current value

You just got rather unlucky, that's all.

[fizzix]

Results of time breath (from spells1.c):

5 in 10 chance: you lose 2% of your experience points
4 in 10 chance: a single random stat is reduced to 75% of its current value
1 in 10 chance: every stat is reduced to 75% of its current value

You just got rather unlucky, that's all.

I find these damages punitive enough that I'll destruct or banish time or aether hounds and time vortices. If I have a lot of speed I might try to TO the occasional hound or vortex. Either way they belong in the group of monsters that I never fight. The only other monsters in this group are the tougher golems and beholders.

[Derakon]

It's particularly nasty in that time attacks cannot be resisted and there's no saving throw. Fortunately there's only four time breathers in the game, and two of them are Aether [vortices|hounds], which, given that they have 19 breath attacks to choose from, are unlikely to pick time. That said, time hounds can be pretty nasty, especially since they're at +20 speed and each breath (for an unwounded hound) is 110 damage.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

This is why standard mage tactics, once you've got the book for it, is to Banish on Z and v, at the very least; s (druj), L (demilich, Black Reaver) and Q (ANY of them by this point) are next on the priority list for me.

If you only have the occasional scroll, then I'd either

a) wait a bit to see which of those might be showing, or
b) take out the hounds first, as they pose the greatest general risk IMO, altho the liches would also make sense. Sure, you can TO that Black Reaver, but it'll come back...and create tunnels along the way that make the dungeon too open, and let everything get near you too easily.

[PowerDiver]

Argh! STR went from 18/20 to 12. Others also pretty much same.

That seems like a recent change, unless you are talking about final values instead of internal values. The question is how you measure 18/20. It used to be 18+20 = 38. Then (38 * 3 / 4) * 3 / 4 = 21 = 18/03 is hardly a problem. But (17 * 3 / 4) * 3 / 4 = 9 is really painful.

I remember complaining about this, but my suggestion was to weaken the attack, not to strengthen it for 18/xx values. If it changed, you can blame me for bringing it up.

[Timo Pietilä]

That seems like a recent change, unless you are talking about final values instead of internal values. The question is how you measure 18/20. It used to be 18+20 = 38. Then (38 * 3 / 4) * 3 / 4 = 21 = 18/03 is hardly a problem. But (17 * 3 / 4) * 3 / 4 = 9 is really painful.

I'm talking about final values. Class bonus is 2 Equipment bonus 1 and internal was 17.

Using that calc: 17 * 3/4 = 12 * 3/4 = 9 + 3 = 12 which is what I got.

Isn't 18/20 just 20 and not 38? 18/200 would be 38. 18/220 would be 40.

[fizzix]

I'm talking about final values. Class bonus is 2 Equipment bonus 1 and internal was 17.

Using that calc: 17 * 3/4 = 12 * 3/4 = 9 + 3 = 12 which is what I got.

Isn't 18/20 just 20 and not 38? 18/200 would be 38. 18/220 would be 40.

nope. 18/20 is definitely 38. 18/200 is 218. Personally, I think it's a bad system and would much prefer stats go from 3-40. It's silly to me to coopt a poorly made D&D system.

[PowerDiver]

Isn't 18/20 just 20 and not 38? 18/200 would be 38. 18/220 would be 40.

That's for the index into the tables. Time works differently. The difference in its effects between 17 and 18/20 is absurd. Add this to my list of reasons to eliminate the percentile thing.

There is no 18/200 as it attacks internal stats only, but 18/100 -> 118 so there you would lose 30, dropping down to 18/70.

[Zikke]

a Rod of Restoration works well in this situation. Or the priest spells

[Timo Pietilä]

That's for the index into the tables. Time works differently. The difference in its effects between 17 and 18/20 is absurd. Add this to my list of reasons to eliminate the percentile thing.

There is no 18/200 as it attacks internal stats only, but 18/100 -> 118 so there you would lose 30, dropping down to 18/70.

Well, that explains why it was so surprising. I don't usually deal with time-attacks before I have my stats quite high. With warrior-types I also tend to put max to STR and rest to dex and spellcasting stat (whichever that is), so it would take only one STR potion to get it to 18+ internal. However that one was a competition char.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

nope. 18/20 is definitely 38. 18/200 is 218. Personally, I think it's a bad system and would much prefer stats go from 3-40. It's silly to me to coopt a poorly made D&D system.

That even D&D stopped using. But it was never a 'system'...it was Gygaxian idiosyncrasy. 'System' implies some kind of rational approach behind it.

But, yes, some purely linear scale would be preferable, and would allow normalizing the effect of stat attacks. I would prefer something closer to D&D 3E/4E, where the scale:

a) starts at 0, not 3
b) the baseline is a rating of 10, where you have no modifiers
c) every 2 point swing gives +1 or -1
d) technically has NO upper bound, altho I agree we probably want to retain an effective cap for balance reasons.

We don't have to do the last because we can use fractional gain/loss, which also gives us some scaling flexibility. For example, if 10 is the baseline, and it's +0.25 to whatever per point over 10, then a logical upper bound is now 50, at which point you're +10.

It might also be, that the flat 18/100 unmodified maximum score, can get thrown out. Max might be 30 + race adjust + class adjust. This may put a greater emphasis on items that boost your stats; there's more headroom, with the 50 max, for equipment-based improvements.

[fizzix]

a) starts at 0, not 3
b) the baseline is a rating of 10, where you have no modifiers
c) every 2 point swing gives +1 or -1
d) technically has NO upper bound, altho I agree we probably want to retain an effective cap for balance reasons.

I don't have any knowledge of the current D&D systems, but I think if there's any motivation to make headway on this, the first solution is to make a system that still is able to use everything in tables.c

So I'd propose going from 5-40. 5 would correspond to 3, 20 corresponds to 18, 30 corresponds to 18/100 and 40 corresponds to 18/200. Starting stats are at 12.

This would essentially be the same results as currently exist, except everything is shifted by 2. (moving from 3-38 seems arbitrary)

The only major (minor?) gameplay changes would be with time attacks (discussed in this thread) and stat-gain. Stat gain wouldn't have the ridiculous system where potions after 18 increase some random amount, such that the potion you get at 18 is huge, but the one you get at 16 probably makes no significant difference.

[Zikke]

The reason D&D made character stats start at 3 wasn't an arbitrary concept. Animals and slimes and other lesser creatures sometimes had stats between 0 and 3 (or higher). A character's stats could actually drop below 3 artificially, and they would suffer severe penalties for it. (i.e. INT below 3 meant they forget how to speak a language, STR below 3 meant they could no longer support their own body weight to walk upright, etc.).

[fizzix]

The reason D&D made character stats start at 3 wasn't an arbitrary concept. Animals and slimes and other lesser creatures sometimes had stats between 0 and 3 (or higher). A character's stats could actually drop below 3 artificially, and they would suffer severe penalties for it. (i.e. INT below 3 meant they forget how to speak a language, STR below 3 meant they could no longer support their own body weight to walk upright, etc.).

I thought the reason was that you figured out the stats by rolling 3 six-sided dice. I mean, everything you said is true, but it could also be true by replacing 3 with 5, right?