new player - mystic - unconscious mechanic

[Tregonsee]

Source

Holy Crap! I remember Robert Koeneke at OU. I did not play Moria then, but there were other games on the ECN then (Empire, others)

[Timo Pietilä]

I did some more investigation into this. Spoilers ahead!




Monsters with some small chance of a KO on a single successful attack: (such a hit must clear the 95 percent of maximum damage threshhold, and (a) do over 33 damage, or (b) do over 25 damage with one supercharge, or (c) do over 18 damage with two supercharges; a perfect damage roll adds a supercharge; in addition, HIT attacks have an additional one in two roll for cutting versus stunning)

• Master mystic+/Grand master mystic+: 1 in 100
• Night mare, Osyluth*, Thuringwethil*, Bone golem*, Dreadlord*: 1 in 13330
• Harowen*+: 1 in 17361
• Gabriel, Gorlim*, Black reaver*, The Mouth of Sauron*, Nightwing*, Saruman*: 1 in 18724
• The Witch-King of Angmar*: 1 in 45752
• Master thief: 1 in 62499
• Barbazu: 1 in 102400
• Uvatha*, Tselakus*: 1 in 120000
• Nightwalker*: 1 in 203360
• Vecna**: 1 in 217162
• Gelugon: 1 in 284090
• Azriel*: 1 in 295928
• Lesser titan**: 1 in 1083693
• Sauron*: 1 in 1737299
• Morgoth:1 in 15463877
• Greater titan**, Kronos**:1 in 353897771
• Atlas*: 1 in 2976805804

*: has two attacks at this probability
**: has four attacks at this probability
+: attack is POISON

It turns out that poison resistance doesn't currently mitigate damage against POISON attacks. I will be committing a change to make poison resistance behave like base4 resistances in this regard. To avoid nerfing mystics, I'll also change their POISON attacks to PARALYZE.

This doesn't sound right. I have never ever been KO:t by any of these if I have been as fast as they are. Even if there is very low chance / round to get killed, I have killed several thousand of most of the list non-uniques and most fights last more than one round. Definitely I should have suffered few deaths by M & GM mystics by now if chance is just 1 in 100.

[myshkin]

This doesn't sound right. I have never ever been KO:t by any of these if I have been as fast as they are. Even if there is very low chance / round to get killed, I have killed several thousand of most of the list non-uniques and most fights last more than one round. Definitely I should have suffered few deaths by M & GM mystics by now if chance is just 1 in 100.

You're right. Derakon was looking at the wrong table, and so did I. Revision:

Monsters with some small chance of a KO on a single successful attack: (such a hit must clear the 95 percent of maximum damage threshhold, and (a) do over 45 damage, or (b) do over 33 damage with one supercharge, or (c) do over 25 damage with two supercharges, or (d) do over 18 damage with three supercharges; a perfect damage roll adds a supercharge; in addition, HIT attacks have an additional one in two roll for cutting versus stunning)

• Master mystic+/Grand master mystic+: 1 in 5000
• Gabriel, Gorlim*, Black reaver*, The Mouth of Sauron*, Nightwing*, Saruman*: 1 in 18724
• The Witch-King of Angmar*: 1 in 45752
• Night mare, Osyluth*, Thuringwethil*, Bone golem*, Dreadlord*: 1 in 83314
• Nightwalker*: 1 in 203360
• Vecna**: 1 in 217162
• Azriel*, Harowen: 1 in 295928
• Lesser titan**: 1 in 1083693
• Sauron*: 1 in 1737299
• Master thief: 1 in 3124999
• Barbazu: 1 in 5120000
• Uvatha*, Tselakus*: 1 in 6000000
• Gelugon: 1 in 14204545
• Morgoth:1 in 15463877
• Greater titan**, Kronos**:1 in 353897771
• Atlas*: 1 in 2976805804

*: has two attacks at this probability
**: has four attacks at this probability
+: attack is POISON

[fizzix]

there's a part of me that wants to make the Grand Master Mystic a unique. It's a monster that's intriguingly different, but not one that anyone would ever bother facing. If he was a unique, well then I might take him down. I like killing uniques.

[jens]

I guess my play stile is not like most others here on the forum; my last winner, Human Mage in 3.2 V killed:

10 Mystic
5 Master mystic
2 Grand master Mystic

And probably most if not all of them in melee, since that is what my mages usually do :-)

And I would certainly not want to see the GMM turn into a unique, Angband needs more hard non-uniques, not less...

[SSK]

there's a part of me that wants to make the Grand Master Mystic a unique. It's a monster that's intriguingly different, but not one that anyone would ever bother facing. If he was a unique, well then I might take him down. I like killing uniques.

Well with knowledge of this table I think perhaps I will be avoiding higher mystics LOL. Still I also felt like I had to kill *one* GM mystic with this char.

I remember getting knocked out once by I think a Greater Titan in 2.x and have been leery of them ever since. Weird that the table seems to indicate Lesser Titans are more of a problem than Greater Titans in this respect...

I also think there should be *NO* chance of a 1-punch KO rather than as high as 1/5000 as long as you have say 100 AC.

[myshkin]

You're right. Derakon was looking at the wrong table, and so did I.

Argh, that was still wrong. I will try to compile a one-round KO table instead. (Grand) master mystics still are the most likely, but their best chance is for both the 15d1 and the 20d1 attacks to hit. More data to come.

[Derakon]

Clearly, whatever the code involved here is doing, it's doing it wrong, if it's taken more than three reads to figure it out.

[SSK]

Clearly, whatever the code involved here is doing, it's doing it wrong, if it's taken more than three reads to figure it out.

Yeah I second that--it reminds me of the US tax code or perhaps the new healthcare system that occupies some thousands of pages--seems to me this should be simplified and brought into some game balance. I think one should need to be wary of KO from certain monsters like GM Mystic and Greater Titan for sure but it should be balanced a bit:


I would like to see either:

1) An *increased chance** of two- or three- punch KOs but **0** chance of 1-punch KO. This may not be "realistic" in that any time one gets into a fight in reality one can be KOed from a single hit, but from a gameplay standpoint very suboptimal since some will simply not know and be insta-killed, and others, knowing, will simply avoid fighting them altogether.

2) Leave 1-punch insta-kill a possibility but balance this with a big reward, like a guaranteed artifact drop or something from the two monsters most likely to do a 1-punch KO--then nobody could complain. There is risk-reward decision to make. I like that, leads to better gaming.

[Incidentally current character just killed a Master Mystic and was rewarded with Sting. Of course I already had Aule, Durin, Aglarang, Anduril and a few other good ones, but still it seemed just].

[Timo Pietilä]

Yeah I second that--it reminds me of the US tax code or perhaps the new healthcare system that occupies some thousands of pages

Some thousands of pages????

While I think general healthcare that US finally got was step away from stone age for you, that page count shows that someone is making money with it. Probably lawyers.

[SSK]

Some thousands of pages????

While I think general healthcare that US finally got was step away from stone age for you, that page count shows that someone is making money with it. Probably lawyers.

TOTALLY off-topic I completely realize, but honestly *nobody* knows what's in there. I can't imagine anyone can have read and retained it. It's awful: Basically the president wanted to be able to claim he got healthcare addressed for his resumé but the product indicates he really didn't care about the outcome for the people. All part of the greater root problem that corporations and super-wealthy control the elections.

Back on-topic:
Simple *more transparent* algorithms and mechanics are better :-) Along these lines one thing that could help with newbie insta-death (a very little bit) is to make all xd1 monster melee attacks (where X is greater than a certain amount, say 12) of any flavor RED in colour in the monster memory screen, so that players will be alerted--if they are paying attention--to the danger these attacks pose (they are not an "attack to stun" per se and don't have to be labeled as such, but clearly that is the deadly dangerous side effect of the d1 attack).

On a side note, if monsters can do this, why can't 18d1 attacks from Aule have similar ability to KO a monster? Wouldn't that be neat to hit Morgy with Aule and have him KOed??!! Sort of like the criticality with which Isildur hit Sauron with the shards of Narsil to lop off the finger and ring...

[Raxmei]

It's the oddest thing but I don't recall ever getting stunned by a mystic in 3.2 and it's certainly not for lack of opportunity. I go right into melee with mystics of all grades all the time, knowing that they can stun me, but have never had it happen. Lots of cuts but never stuns.

[Philip]

1) An *increased chance** of two- or three- punch KOs but **0** chance of 1-punch KO. This may not be "realistic" in that any time one gets into a fight in reality one can be KOed from a single hit, but from a gameplay standpoint very suboptimal since some will simply not know and be insta-killed, and others, knowing, will simply avoid fighting them altogether.

2) Leave 1-punch insta-kill a possibility but balance this with a big reward, like a guaranteed artifact drop or something from the two monsters most likely to do a 1-punch KO--then nobody could complain. There is risk-reward decision to make. I like that, leads to better gaming.

[Incidentally current character just killed a Master Mystic and was rewarded with Sting. Of course I already had Aule, Durin, Aglarang, Anduril and a few other good ones, but still it seemed just].

I prefer 1), just because 2) doesn't work against a Ranger, Mage, Priest(to a certain extent) or even a Warrior or Paladin with an acceptable ranged weapon because it means free artifact.

[SSK]

I prefer 1), just because 2) doesn't work against a Ranger, Mage, Priest(to a certain extent) or even a Warrior or Paladin with an acceptable ranged weapon because it means free artifact.

It's OK they aren't changing it anyway LOL. The flavor of the year is "Make it harder". At some point 20 years down the road a maintainer will want to make it easier again. You know sort of like hem lines and tie width...