Tele-other, GV clearing.

[Timo Pietilä]

Just an idea about teleport other. Currently it is a bit overpowered because you can get rid of every monster with it. That's fine by me, but there is an issue with too easy GV clearing.

So: How about we make teleport other to teleport away also items that are in beam path? You can still get rid of that too-hard-to-handle monster, but with cost of searching that item it was guarding. CGV-levels would become pretty interesting after few TO:s.

Also I would like to see GV:s protect monsters against earthquake, banishment, mass banishment and *destruction*. No more easy artifact loot without any risk involved.

[buzzkill]

In DaJ some monsters (rNexus, rChaos maybe) have a % chance to resist TO. It freaked me out the first time it happened, but now I like it. It gives you something to think about, even with TO at 0% failure.

I don't think that I'd want TO removing all items it touches, but I wouldn't object to it relocating some items, maybe as many as half.

[Derakon]

We could also just make TO not affect monsters on icky floors. Then it becomes completely useless for vault clearing. Want the items in the vault? Kill the monsters for 'em.

[PowerDiver]

Also I would like to see GV:s protect monsters against earthquake, banishment, mass banishment and *destruction*. No more easy artifact loot without any risk involved.

I remain indifferent about teleport other.

However, destruction is another mislabeled thing in the game. Uniques are not destroyed, so clearly that is not what the spell does. The simplest choice is that it does a teleport off the level of everything, including non-permanent walls, in the blast radius. Thus artifacts should be removed from the level. IMO this is the most important thing to change.

If you want to view [mass] banishment the same way, it could be argued that items under a banished monster go wherever it goes. In that case, those items should be removed from the level, artifacts or not.

In this viewpoint, teleport other or priest's banish evil would move the items with the monster staying on the level.

It remains unclear to me whether it makes more sense to move or not to move objects not under monsters in the path of a teleport beam.

[edit] P.S. I hate the idea of treating vault spaces differently. I'd much rather see the changes affect the entire dungeon equally.

[will_asher]

P.S. I hate the idea of treating vault spaces differently. I'd much rather see the changes affect the entire dungeon equally.

Why? I think it makes sense for vaults to have some magic defences, making some spells less effective/behave differently.
...Hmmm, going with that thought, vaults could cause possible failure for trap disarming spells: re-hide the traps instead of disarming it... oooh nasty. But considering in my current game, I fell through the trap door after clearing out a lesser vault but before IDing most of the stuff in it -maybe I won't have a trap disarming failure like that. ...Or maybe it just won't apply to trap doors.

PS: also in DJA destruction doesn't work in vaults and earthquakes have much less effect in vaults.

[fizzix]

I agree completely with Eddie about destruction removing artifacts also. So much so, that I consider destructing vaults to get loot to be abuse.

TO transporting items has been often suggested, and I'm kind of ambivalent about it. I actually think it would only require more moving around to get the monster to a location that you can TO them without removing items. This could be interesting or tedious. I'm not sure.

Now, if you allowed more monsters (especially uniques) to pick up items. And even allowed uniques and powerful monsters to pick up artifacts. You actually do get the 'must kill to get the items' that people seem to want. I'm not sure this is a great idea either. But I guess is something to consider.

edit: In my experience, I get very few useful items from GVs, mostly because I don't see very many of them. It's a lot easier to lure monsters out of lesser vaults. I think it'd be poor gameplay to have players avoid GVs because of too little reward/risk and instead only loot the LVs.

[Derakon]

On reflection, I agree with Eddie that TO should work the same inside a vault as outside, largely because doing otherwise invites surprising players who expect their TO to get them out of serious trouble. Unless we plan to print a message telling them exactly what does and doesn't work in vaults...

[fizzix]

On reflection, I agree with Eddie that TO should work the same inside a vault as outside, largely because doing otherwise invites surprising players who expect their TO to get them out of serious trouble. Unless we plan to print a message telling them exactly what does and doesn't work in vaults...

Along the same lines, I'd like phase door to be altered so that if you cast it when you are inside a vault, you can be transported elsewhere inside the vault. You just can't use it to get in from outside. Right now, it's an automatic escape when that master quylthulg summons before you can get rid of it.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

If vaults are going to have different behavior from standard dungeon spaces, give it a rational basis, make it observable, and make it consistent.

The most straightforward way, to me, to accomplish this, is with special floor and/or wall characteristics, which can then be given special colors. How we mix this in with the detection spells is a separate issue to consider.

Wall characteristic: teleport blocking
Blocks teleports in *both* directions. Get the normal arrival point for the teleport, then trace the path. If a teleport blocking wall is on the path, the teleport stops before the wall. If that would put you in rock, the teleport completely fails; if not, you're adjacent to the wall. So you could PD around inside a vault, but couldn't teleport anything out. Note that permanent rock could be given this feature right now.

Also note that this would have subtle effects on combat generally, because there would be cases where TO fails *outside* of a vault...because of the teleport blocking walls.

As a side effect: ethereal critters probably shouldn't be able to pass through a teleport-blocking wall.

Floor characteristic: reinforced
That square is immune to the effects of a Destruction.

These can be put anywhere, and they'll behave the same. This isn't vault terrain per se. I could see Reinforced moats for jelly pits, for example. If ethereal critters can't pass through a teleport-blocking wall, then undead pits perhaps have teleport-blocking walls sometimes.

EDIT: note that teleport blocking could be one-directional too...so you could teleport IN to a room, but not OUT.

[Adley]

Meh likes this idea of Mr silverflame. +1
This would lead to a gradual develloping of the strange Angband dungeon. for example, a dragon's family lair would have soil stamped with gold, polished with it, making it slippery... and so on.

[Atarlost]

Directional teleport blocking based on terrain would be very hard, but based on the icky flag would be very easy.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

The icky flag?

Certainly, bidirectional blocking's simpler, but directional isn't that bad. You only need to make the check (is this coming from the right direction?) when a potential block happens.

[will_asher]

The icky flag?

In the code, the CAVE_ICKY flag marks all vault spaces as being in a vault. So teleport blocking using the icky flag wouldn't have to check any actual paths or directions, it would only check whether the before and after locations of the teleport are inside a vault or not (which is much simpler than using paths or directions).

Sometimes it's easy for code-divers to speak in language that non code-divers don't understand.

[fizzix]

In the code, the CAVE_ICKY flag marks all vault spaces as being in a vault. So teleport blocking using the icky flag wouldn't have to check any actual paths or directions, it would only check whether the before and after locations of the teleport are inside a vault or not (which is much simpler than using paths or directions).

Sometimes it's easy for code-divers to speak in language that non code-divers don't understand.

Wouldn't that allow you to teleport between different vaults on the same level?

Many high levels have more than one lesser vault.

[Derakon]

Teleportation effects are not allowed to land you inside a vault, period. They don't care if you start in a vault -- that's why Phase Door is such a good escape when clearing vaults, because it'll dump you right outside.