Morgoth doing more than 600 damage in a single round

[bron]

I couple of months ago, my comp97 character died while fighting Morgoth, and I didn't exactly understand why: I had over 600HP, but died before I could act again. The "post your latest insta-death" thread got me thinking about this again, and I believe I now understand what happened:

Morgoth has two "HIT:SHATTER:20d10" attacks. If he hits with one, the average damage from the attack is 110, reduced by armor. The earthquake from the SHATTER then does additional damage, which is not reduced by armor. If you are standing in a location with no "safe" grids to be pushed to, you get the "You are severely crushed!" message, and the additional damage done by the quake is 300 HP. On top of which, since you were not displaced by the quake, Morgoth can then swing at you again with another SHATTER attack (and potentially follow that up with a "HIT:LOSE_ALL:10d12" attack).

So, if you get severely crushed twice in a single round (as happened to my poor Hanna), you can easily take over 700 HP from Morgoth in a single round. I admit the odds of it happening are low, but it is something to consider.

Any chance we could get the "severely crushed" damage reduced to 200? Or possibly set the "do_break" flag in monster/melee1.c even if the player is not pushed away?

[bulian]

The same thing has happened to me. I suppose you could calculate the probability of this happening if you knew how earthquake rearranged the walls?

I'd actually suggest removing the earthquake effect, or at least the wall rearranging aspect, as besides the mentioned issue, phase door is extremely (too?) effective when meleeing M. Melee damage would probably need to be increased to compensate.

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=10702

Last messages:

> You smite Morgoth, Lord of Darkness.
> Morgoth, Lord of Darkness hits you.
> The cave floor twists in an unnatural way!
> You are severely crushed!
> The Master vampire wails out in pain!
> Morgoth, Lord of Darkness hits you.
> The cave quakes!
> You are pummeled with debris!
> You are severely crushed!
> The Vampire wails out in pain!
> Morgoth, Lord of Darkness hits you.
> You die.

[Timo Pietilä]

The same thing has happened to me. I suppose you could calculate the probability of this happening if you knew how earthquake rearranged the walls?

I'd actually suggest removing the earthquake effect, or at least the wall rearranging aspect, as besides the mentioned issue, phase door is extremely (too?) effective when meleeing M. Melee damage would probably need to be increased to compensate.

I disagree with you both. Earthquake is there to mess with anti summon tactics, it needs to stay. Also possibility getting hit twice by crushing is nearly zero, you need to be in GV or something for that to happen (it almost always pushes you away from attack). There is also technique to make that impossible to happen. Think: what does not get destroyed by earthquake no matter what happens?

Also: one death every now and then from that is only good thing. It makes Morgoth the most dangerous monster in the game. (Actually using crushing Atlas has worst melee, it hits twice to shatter and twice to confuse with over 900 points of damage, if you get crushed twice)

[bulian]

Earthquake is there to mess with anti summon tactics, it needs to stay.

That's a good point - something I hadn't considered.

The game I posted was a while ago, but I'm pretty sure I was just in a regular area. I'm sure you could calculate what the probability is of such an attack happening. After that experience, I just adjusted my !heal threshold to 700 HP instead of 600 HP and haven't worried about it since, though fighting near stairs as you hinted would work as well.

one death every now and then from that is only good thing.

Fine, so long as you know it can happen. Breaths are displayed as the maximum possible for this reason. To my knowledge, earthquake damage is not listed anywhere.

[Timo Pietilä]

though fighting near stairs as you hinted would work as well.

Hm, that's two tactics to prevent crushing then. Didn't thought about stairs.

[camlost]

Timo, were you thinking of dropping an artifact on the ground?

[Timo Pietilä]

Timo, were you thinking of dropping an artifact on the ground?

Yes. Those things can't be destroyed no matter what happens, so earthquake can't drop a rock in your head if you are standing on a artifact.

It still means that M can hit you. I prefer runes, which can be destroyed, but prevent so much melee-damage that it is worth the short period of risk getting double-crushed when M gets thru. It's almost non-combat if you stand on a rune and keep hitting M in the head. M hits hard enough even without earthquake that it is beneficial to prevent it from happening.

[fizzix]

Yes. Those things can't be destroyed no matter what happens, so earthquake can't drop a rock in your head if you are standing on a artifact.

Current nightlies remove artifacts from the level on destruction. (unknown artifacts will get recreated with preserve on, known artifacts are lost)

Earthquakes don't, but after reading this thread I'm tempted to make them do that also. (as well as give an earthquake a chance to break a rune/glyph)

I'm also a proponent of removing "create stairs" from the game altogether.

[Timo Pietilä]

as well as give an earthquake a chance to break a rune/glyph

That one already happens. Runes get destroyed in case wall appears in its place. I don't think there is any kind of save for them.

[Derakon]

In my experience, Morgoth never needed more than two or three turns to break a glyph at most, making the cost of casting them more than the cost of healing for priest-types.

[d_m]

I'm also a proponent of removing "create stairs" from the game altogether.

I would support this.

[Timo Pietilä]

In my experience, Morgoth never needed more than two or three turns to break a glyph at most, making the cost of casting them more than the cost of healing for priest-types.

Cost of healing is one turn not used to attack. With rune you might get four or five basically free turns to attack without healing. It pays out to use them. However priest is not the only class that has access to the rune, all of them have. Mage has it as a spell, and rest can just collect the scrolls.

[d_m]

However priest is not the only class that has access to the rune, all of them have. Mage has it as a spell, and rest can just collect the scrolls.

As a warrior I've never found enough of the scrolls for them to be that useful against Morgoth. That said I do use them!

[Derakon]

Cost of healing is one turn not used to attack. With rune you might get four or five basically free turns to attack without healing. It pays out to use them. However priest is not the only class that has access to the rune, all of them have. Mage has it as a spell, and rest can just collect the scrolls.

My experience differs from yours -- for me it's not four or five turns. Turn 1 I cast the rune, Morgy doesn't break it. Turn 2 I attack; Morgy doesn't break it (maybe). Turn 3 I attack, Morgy breaks it and I get hurt. Runes are still useful, but only because I can set them up ahead of time; they aren't worth casting in the heat of battle.

I haven't played an arcane caster in awhile, but warriors don't find enough ?Rune to make them worth saving against Morgoth, and priests/paladins in my experience get better mileage from leveraging their cheap heals. Just phase away before healing and Morgy won't get any free attacks on you.

[bron]

I disagree with you both. Earthquake is there to mess with anti summon tactics, it needs to stay. Also possibility getting hit twice by crushing is nearly zero, you need to be in GV or something for that to happen (it almost always pushes you away from attack). There is also technique to make that impossible to happen. Think: what does not get destroyed by earthquake no matter what happens?

Also: one death every now and then from that is only good thing. It makes Morgoth the most dangerous monster in the game. (Actually using crushing Atlas has worst melee, it hits twice to shatter and twice to confuse with over 900 points of damage, if you get crushed twice)

I was not advocating removing the earthquake effect, I was suggesting that the crush damage be reduced to 200 from 300 so that the maximum damage that a player can take in a single turn would be reduced to 600 or so, which is I think what most of us have been assuming it to be up until now.

And clearly you do not need to be in a GV or something for this to happen, since I was not when it happened to me. Reading the code, it can happen whenever there are no empty spaces among the 8 surrounding ones. "Not empty" includes spaces with monsters on them. If there is nowhere safe to be "pushed" to, you get the "crush" effect, and you stay in the same place. If you are unfortunate enough that the subsequent earthquake *still* leaves you with nowhere to go, it can happen again. It appears to me that standing on an artifact (or stairs) is irrelevant since the code does not check the space you are *on*, only the 8 surrounding ones.

Mostly though, the post was intended as a cautionary tale. Up until now, I had believed the common wisdom that 600HP was a "safe" level. Plus, when fighting Morgoth hand-to-hand I would in fact deliberately seek out places clogged by stone in order to reduce Morgoth's ability to summon. The "severely crushed" effect shows that such places are less safe than I had believed, and it is worthwhile to be next to at least one empty space, and/or to keep HP at a higher level (or not engage HTH).

Good point about Atlas: with four 13d13 attacks, even with average damage rolls and a high player armor class, if all four hit that will be around 200 damage, plus two "crush" is another 600, for 800 or so damage. With high rolls on the attacks, or a lower armor class, it could go over 900. Which goes to show that avoiding the possibility of being severely crushed can be an important consideration.