Partially-elemental attacks

[Derakon]

Current elemental melee attacks are "pure" element. For example, a "bite to burn" attack solely deals fire damage; thus, if the player is immune to fire, the attack does no damage. This seems wrong to me; most melee attacks should carry at least some physical damage component which works even if the player is immune to the elemental damage. Only a few monsters should have pure elemental attacks (most notably, the various 'E'lementals and their sovereigns, but also including vortices and maybe jellies).

I propose that the various elemental blows have a second entry on their line that contains the physical damage dice. So for example, an Ice troll's bite would go from

B:BITE:COLD:2d6

to

B:BITE:COLD:1d4:2d4

This would indicate that 1d4 of the damage is elemental and the remaining 2d4 is physical. In contrast, Vargo, Tyrant of Fire would have his

B:HIT:FIRE:4d6

changed to

B:HIT:FIRE:4d6:1d1

, so he can barely touch you if you're immune to fire. Or we could leave the ":1d1" off and have that imply that the attack is purely elemental (much like how many gaze and touch attacks currently in the game deal no damage whatsoever).

In particular, this would make the elemental dragons slightly more dangerous, since currently ancient and great wyrm bites are pure elemental and also their most dangerous attack.

Unfortunately, this would require a large modification to monster.txt. I count 170 elemental melee attacks in the game (out of 1624 total), and most of them would need to be modified.

[PowerDiver]

Just assume the standard mechanic. One third of an elemental attack should be base, and 2/3 added by the element.

[edit] Of course, if you make this change, elemental destruction effects should be based on the reduced elemental damage.

[Derakon]

I'm sorry, I must be missing how that's the "standard mechanic". It's similar to the lines drawn by resistance to basic elements, but that's the only similarity I'm seeing.

Speaking of inventory destruction, it's always bugged me how coarsely-grained that is. If you take less than 30 damage, then every item has a 1% chance of being destroyed. If it's less than 60, then it's 2%. Otherwise it's 3%. Shouldn't this number scale with your max HP or something? The inven_damage function in spells1.c can accept anything from .01% to 99.99%, after all.

[konijn_]

Just assume the standard mechanic. One third of an elemental attack should be base, and 2/3 added by the element.

[edit] Of course, if you make this change, elemental destruction effects should be based on the reduced elemental damage.

I quite like this idea as an option, the game would play quite differently as immunities would suddenly become much less effective.

T.

[PowerDiver]

I'm sorry, I must be missing how that's the "standard mechanic". It's similar to the lines drawn by resistance to basic elements, but that's the only similarity I'm seeing.

If you shoot branded arrows, they do X amount of damage and 2X amount of brand damage for the total (times 3) multiplier.

[Zikke]

I don't think these attacks are broken right now. With resists it works well as a percentage of the damage. Immunities are like extra little nuggets of fun if you manage to find the immunity and find a monster with that attack.

[nullfame]

I agree that this never made sense. It is a great wyrm, I'm sure the teeth are sharp and the jaw powerful.

OTOH, this makes clearing out a dragon pit unlikely and another thing to avoid. A classic realism v. gameplay conundrum.

[Derakon]

Powerdiver: ahh, gotcha. That makes sense, I agree.

Zikke: it's not a matter of the attacks being broken; it's just weird, and one of those situations where I think realism and good gameplay actually align for once.

nullflame: if you have immunity to the dragons' breath weapons, then they're way less dangerous than they otherwise would be; they just have moderate melee attacks and a standard pile of hitpoints. You can stand in LOS of as many as you like and as long as only one can melee you you'll be fine. They're basically just upgraded troll pits at that point -- none of the elemental wyrms can even summon.

[Nick]

I agree 100% with this proposal. Maybe 110%.

[miyazaki]

I like it too. I found it weird that in dragon pits, baby dragons (unbranded attacks) harm you more than great wyrms (branded attacks).

How about blindness/confusion/paralyze attacks?

[Derakon]

Actually, even great wyrms have unbranded claw attacks. However, that accounts for less than half their total melee output (2x claw at 4d12, 2x elemental bite at 6d14).

Melee attacks that blind, confuse, slow, paralyze, etc. can already have damage (example: grand master mystics have a paralyzing hit that does 15d1 damage), and to my knowledge that damage is not resistible even if you have the relevant resist -- though I wasn't able to find the relevant section of the code, so I could be wrong.

[buzzkill]

I'm not sure, but I think DaJ already does something like this. It sounds familiar.

[will_asher]

I'm not sure, but I think DaJ already does something like this. It sounds familiar.

Indeed. Elemental melee attacks in DaJ are 3/4 elemental and 1/4 unresistable.

[Nick]

Indeed. Elemental melee attacks in DaJ are 3/4 elemental and 1/4 unresistable.

Yet again DaJ leads the way. Good work.

[Timo Pietilä]

Current elemental melee attacks are "pure" element. For example, a "bite to burn" attack solely deals fire damage; thus, if the player is immune to fire, the attack does no damage.

Doesn't apply to all forms of attacks. Monster that "touch to <add something here>" do not do any damage if you have immunity, but if it "Hits to <add that same here>" you get full damage, but not side-effects.

Hit to burn and touch to burn are different things. I think also bite and kick do deliver damage.

At least they used to.