Is it just me...

[Fendell Orcbane]

I've been away from V for at least a year and I wanted to see how the game has been coming along. So far so good! I like the way that the game feels and I like that there some new artifacts to spice things up a bit. But I thought that it was weird that I was able to kill Pazuzu in hand to hand combat and not take any damage. Yes, I'm immune to electric attacks thanks to Stormwalker ( great artifact btw...I don't know if I'd switch these of for Feanor's). Anyway I digress... I would think that Pazuzu would do some harm to me. Honestly I got hit by one of his summons, and that was the only damage I took that whole fight. I used create doors to limit the free space that he had btw...( I threw that in for any noobs that might be reading this.)

[Timo Pietilä]

I've been away from V for at least a year and I wanted to see how the game has been coming along. So far so good! I like the way that the game feels and I like that there some new artifacts to spice things up a bit. But I thought that it was weird that I was able to kill Pazuzu in hand to hand combat and not take any damage. Yes, I'm immune to electric attacks thanks to Stormwalker

This is a problem in Vanilla angband currently. Elemental melee with immunity makes you immune to physical melee attacks as well.

I think I have proposed this before, but here it is again:

Make difference between melee types, hit, kick, touch, sting, bite etc. and melee effects. Multiply damage like weapon brand if it includes elemental element, reduce multiplication by resistance/immunity/protection (protection counts as immunity, if source is something that is countered by protection, like confusion).

So "hit to burn" always does basic damage, if you don't have fire resistance that is multiplied by three, if you have single resistance you get dam + 2*dam/3, if double resistance dam + 2*dam/9, if immunity only dam. You can extend the resistances to high-elements as well, just always make that part of dam that gets reduced 2*dam and add the base dam to that.

Touch as a attack type is a special case, it only makes elemental part of the damage. So if something touches to electrify then immunity to electricity gives you full immunity.

Computers are there to make the calc, you don't need to do that.

[Djabanete]

I agree 100% with Timo's idea.

[Therem Harth]

As do I. Immunity to an element definitely shouldn't provide immunity to elemental melee attacks.

[debo]

This is one of those things that always made me laugh in Final Fantasy games... someone has double-resist to fire, you stab them in the face with a fire-elemental sword, and they GAIN HP!

[Prismatic]

This is one of those things that always made me laugh in Final Fantasy games... someone has double-resist to fire, you stab them in the face with a fire-elemental sword, and they GAIN HP!

Well, it'd be triple since double would be immunity, and a lot of sources don't stack anyway, BUT THE POINT REMAINS

I agree entirely with leaving Touch as the primary attack mechanism that does 100% elemental damage, by the way, though elemental vortex Engulf should probably also do it (being surrounded by a whirlwind made of fire probably shouldn't do anything but fire damage). I can't remember if anyone has engulf as an actual digestion-type attack.

[takkaria]

This is a problem in Vanilla angband currently. Elemental melee with immunity makes you immune to physical melee attacks as well.

I think I have proposed this before, but here it is again:

Make difference between melee types, hit, kick, touch, sting, bite etc. and melee effects. Multiply damage like weapon brand if it includes elemental element, reduce multiplication by resistance/immunity/protection (protection counts as immunity, if source is something that is countered by protection, like confusion).

So "hit to burn" always does basic damage, if you don't have fire resistance that is multiplied by three, if you have single resistance you get dam + 2*dam/3, if double resistance dam + 2*dam/9, if immunity only dam. You can extend the resistances to high-elements as well, just always make that part of dam that gets reduced 2*dam and add the base dam to that.

Touch as a attack type is a special case, it only makes elemental part of the damage. So if something touches to electrify then immunity to electricity gives you full immunity.

Computers are there to make the calc, you don't need to do that.

That's a really good suggestion. I think the biggest problem with implementing it is going through monster.txt and adjusting the damage values so it would work. e.g. at the moment a Fire Spirit has HIT:FIRE:2d6 (x2), so in order to produce the same amount of damage under the new scheme, that would have to be changed to 1d4 per hit. And so on. Any volunteers?

[LostTemplar]

Why not just multiply damage by (1 - (2/3)*resist) in the code, just like FAangband do, it seems to be exactly the same result you want.

[Gorbad]

In case you do want to update all monster damage dice, and have some flexibility in how to do it, I wrote (and attached) a small perl script to run through monster.txt and reassing damage dice according to some defines. (A bit Unix centered with file paths though).

You can, for example, decide that STING should do 20% of original damage, or that CLAW should do 25%. Current defaults are 30% for all physical attacks, 10% for spores, and 0% for things like GAZE or TOUCH.

Also, one can decide that HIT:EAT_ITEM or HIT:HALLU should be resistable by high dex or RES_CHAOS, respectively, and reduce/increase damage accordingly.

I thought this was better than just providing an edited monster.txt, as this gives more opportunity for tweaking.

[Magnate]

This is superb - thank you. Well on the way to an interactive monster.txt editor!

It's absolutely right that branded monster attacks should work like branded player attacks - i.e. you still take base damage if you're immune to the elemental bit.