Using bad items offensively?

[Starhawk]

I was thinking about another roguelike I've played, ADOM. In that game, negative-effect potions can be used offensively.

For instance, if you throw a Potion of Poison at a monster, you have a chance to poison it. A Potion of Slowness might slow it. (For that matter, Scrolls of Darkness were useful in ADOM because many monsters couldn't see you in the dark...)

That'd be something I'd enjoy seeing in Angband. Right now the negative-status potions are something you discover once each in the early game, then immediately squelch. It would be interesting to have a potential use for items like that.

[takkaria]

I was thinking about another roguelike I've played, ADOM. In that game, negative-effect potions can be used offensively.

For instance, if you throw a Potion of Poison at a monster, you have a chance to poison it. A Potion of Slowness might slow it. (For that matter, Scrolls of Darkness were useful in ADOM because many monsters couldn't see you in the dark...)

That'd be something I'd enjoy seeing in Angband. Right now the negative-status potions are something you discover once each in the early game, then immediately squelch. It would be interesting to have a potential use for items like that.

I used to like this idea, but I anymore. I think it has something to do with the idea that potions only have effects when swallowed. It seems to me that the biggest damage would come from being glassed over the head with a potion, not getting a few specks of poison in your eye.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

It can depend on context, and how you view certain things...but I agree it's more consistent to treat potions as things one drinks, and that affect the imbiber for good or bad. In that context, then 'splash damage' is, at best, trivial; at worst, not even logical.

One could define a separate object type for this application...instead of a potion, call it a grenade. Could have multiple flavors...eggshell grenades which are quite light but VERY fragile (and which, if broken, perhaps trigger on *you*)...these could be found on level 1-5. Even if they're more or less useless by, say, DL 10, letting them be found in town, or at worst on DL 1, would give players a fun option.

Later on, one has the notion of clay grenades...weight and damage susceptibility equivalent to potions, with better damage effects.

An obvious criticism is, well, aren't these heavier forms of wands? Each grenade's a single charge, so carrying 20 clay fire grenades is gonna weigh like carrying 20 potions. These won't have failure rates. Also: how much do people use the wands like fire bolts or acid bolts? I've always found they're not terribly effective by the time they start showing.

[Magnate]

In a world of dragons, demons and undead, boots of speed and blades of chaos, I don't see why on earth a potion can't act as a magical grenade. I would support takk's original position, and I think it would make the game more interesting (there being so few things that are interesting to throw at the moment). Especially if rogues get to set traps for monsters one day ...

[buzzkill]

I thought darkness being useful was a far more compelling idea, but that would require the negation of monster ESP.

[cofresi]

There were such items. How about bringing back Potions of Detonation, just to see @ blow up after quaffing an unidentified potion.

[cnp]

See Unangband for implementation of throwing/slinging negative potions and also for applying coatings of negative potions/mushrooms to weapons/ammo.

[CunningGabe]

Slightly off-topic, but another interesting way to use the low-level bad potions would be to have some way to "purify" them that reversed their effect. (Sort of like a Remove Curse for potions). For example:

Blindness -> True Seeing
Poison -> Neutralize Poison (or maybe Resist Poison)
Slowness -> Speed

Nothing game-breaking, but it would extend the life of the useless potions a bit.

[nppangband]

I have this in NPP, but the overall conclusion of the players is that it simply isn't worth the inventory slot to carry around negative-effect potions.

[Derakon]

They might be more worth using if they showed up in large stacks so you were more likely to be able to build up a useful supply in a single slot. Then they'd end up being to wands what scrolls are to staves -- a bulkier, but more damage-resistant way to carry certain direct-attack effects.

Having them show up in stacks would also help the user identify them as being bad potions that you don't want to drink. Of course, the user never really wants to drink these potions ever if they know what they are, so we could as easily make them their own item type. Call them "vials" maybe?

[d_m]

I have been wanting to do a branch where I try to take a deep look at the throw command, in terms of throwing weapons, ammo, boulders, and other random items.

Part of this might be trying to make various potions do various stuff.

I don't think we need to make it worthwhile to plan to carry bad potions around--I would be happy if people chose to use them quickly when available rather than squelch them.

Given that status effects on monsters are often not very useful I don't know whether it's worth it to go to the trouble of making Potions of sleep put monsters to sleep... it might be enough to have them do "magical damage" or something. Anyway, I will try things out in a branch and see how it goes.

[nppangband]

I don't think we need to make it worthwhile to plan to carry bad potions around--I would be happy if people chose to use them quickly when available rather than squelch them.

That's kind of what I envisioned. I figured the feature would be most appreicated in ironman games.

Given that status effects on monsters are often not very useful I don't know whether it's worth it to go to the trouble of making Potions of sleep put monsters to sleep... it might be enough to have them do "magical damage" or something. Anyway, I will try things out in a branch and see how it goes.

In an effort to make monster status effects actually useful, I recently did a complete re-write how monster temporary status works in NPP (which was almost identical to Angband). What I disocvered is that the monster's resistance to and duration of temporary spells on monsters (sleep, confuse, slow, fear, stun) and thier abilities to resist these effects was wildly inconcistent, as it is managed in at least a half dozen different places in the source code (wands, staves, rods, spellbooks, projection spells, thrown potions). My re-write is based on the Angband code used for temporary player effects in in timed.c. The main advantage of my re-write is that the checks for the difficulty, duration, and success rates of these temporary effects are in one place, and are consistent for the various ways to induce them. I don't know if I have the ideal balance yet, but at least I can adjust and analyze by making changes in only one place is the source.

Maybe now I can turn up the effectiveness of thrown potions so they are a little more worthwhile.

But if you do start playing with this, I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

[d_m]

In an effort to make monster status effects actually useful, I recently did a complete re-write how monster temporary status works in NPP (which was almost identical to Angband). What I disocvered is that the monster's resistance to and duration of temporary spells on monsters (sleep, confuse, slow, fear, stun) and thier abilities to resist these effects was wildly inconcistent, as it is managed in at least a half dozen different places in the source code (wands, staves, rods, spellbooks, projection spells, thrown potions). My re-write is based on the Angband code used for temporary player effects in in timed.c. The main advantage of my re-write is that the checks for the difficulty, duration, and success rates of these temporary effects are in one place, and are consistent for the various ways to induce them. I don't know if I have the ideal balance yet, but at least I can adjust and analyze by making changes in only one place is the source.

If you could provide a diff (or series of commits) where you did this, or even a patch for V (if you had time) I would be extremely grateful. I've wanted to do something exactly like what you've done but never found the time/energy/inclination.

I will be interested to hear how this works for you, and will be sure to let you know if I get anything working.

[nppangband]

If you could provide a diff (or series of commits) where you did this, or even a patch for V (if you had time) I would be extremely grateful. I've wanted to do something exactly like what you've done but never found the time/energy/inclination.

I will be interested to hear how this works for you, and will be sure to let you know if I get anything working.

I can provide a patch, probably sometime this weekend. After I finish NPP 0.5.1, I hope to get it up on Github, so then my NPP changes are tracable through commits and diffs. Right now I just do it all offline and upload a new version at the NPP home page every couple weeks.

Is there any particular version of the Angband source you would want me to start with (Ang 3.2, the nightlies, one of your branches?) as the basis for a patch?

[Hariolor]

Is there a way to make thrown/launched vials/potions useful/plentiful enough to bother with without making normal ammo virtually obsolete?

I'd almost rather see them be very effective relative to their native depth but fairly rare, rather than mediocre and plentiful.

That would increase the "cool" factor of finding a small stash of vials while leaving normal plussed ammo the standard ranged weapon until ego ammo starts turning up.