Rogue Ideas 2

**Kramborn** · August 29, 2012, 22:09

And patches for v4.

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**Derakon** · August 29, 2012, 22:52

I find the "sense empty floors" concept amusing, since you're detecting something that isn't there. Does it reveal the presence of monsters?

The trick with device usage is to let the user know how much damage they can expect to get from devices. Most people don't know that device skill increases your damage output. I assume you increased the rogue's device skill?

Also, recharging devices is only really all that worthwhile for the mage. Scrolls of Recharge Item aren't especially reliable for the good wands. Perhaps there could be a deep staff that was functionally impossible to recharge, but invoked Recharge Item II when used? I do seem to remember reading in the source comments somewhere that there was something that could go horribly wrong if there was a staff of recharging though.

**Kramborn** · August 29, 2012, 23:14

Originally posted by Derakon

I find the "sense empty floors" concept amusing, since you're detecting something that isn't there. Does it reveal the presence of monsters? .

In my patch, it does not reveal the presence of monsters. Namely a floor with a monster on it is regarded a an empty floor.
(You can see monsters in the second screenshot because of normal ESP)
It may be interesting to disable the sensing floor with a sleeping monster on it.

On the other hand, players can guess the presence of items, when one square remain un-sensed when most of surrounding floors are sensed. But it can be done by characters with very high searching skill.

**Mikko Lehtinen** · August 30, 2012, 02:22

Cool!

You made criticals more common against sleeping monsters. In FayAngband and Halls of Mist I've also made them more common against confused and scared monsters. Rogues (non-spellcasters) get a much bigger bonus than other classes, making them experts at dirty fighting.

Rogue is also the only class that can sell items, but only expensive items to remove the game of shopping boringness. You'll probably want to keep no-selling an option for players though, but the price is less options for game designer.

**Mikko Lehtinen** · August 30, 2012, 02:37

Hey, what if paladins could not attack sleeping monsters at all? Or would lose their honorful combat bonus when doing so. This would make a nice contrast to rogue's fighting style.

**Derakon** · August 30, 2012, 05:54

Ehh, I've never really liked that "honor before reason" thing. Besides, most of the monsters in the dungeon don't care about or deserve honor -- or are abominations that have to be exterminated anyway. Why should a paladin give a dracolich advance notice that he's coming?

**Mikko Lehtinen** · August 30, 2012, 06:50

Probably not good for gameplay either. Been reading about Knights of the Round Table lately, and all sorts of weird behavior because of Honor are starting to feel natural to me.

**LostTemplar** · August 30, 2012, 07:15

Probably paladin is not skilled at stealth attacking.

Overall stealth is somewhat strange in angband. I will change it in my variant by adding some aggravation-like effect to many actions. E.g. digging wake up everything, attacking non-stupid monster, and not killing it in one hit aggravates everything in radius also (monster call for help), most dd magical effects will aggravate (too loud noise). Basically only movement, one hit kills, and some special magic will be stealthy.

**Derakon** · August 30, 2012, 15:20

Originally posted by LostTemplar

Overall stealth is somewhat strange in angband. I will change it in my variant by adding some aggravation-like effect to many actions. E.g. digging wake up everything, attacking non-stupid monster, and not killing it in one hit aggravates everything in radius also (monster call for help), most dd magical effects will aggravate (too loud noise). Basically only movement, one hit kills, and some special magic will be stealthy.

While this is more realistic, you'll be functionally making stealth useless / making aggravation much less of a penalty if you do what you described. A more nuanced noise system might be better -- digging's very noisy, but fighting and magic don't wake things up in as large of a radius.

Of course, it's your variant so you can do what you like. Just be aware of the consequences.

**Mikko Lehtinen** · August 30, 2012, 15:28

Sangband might be the variant with the best noise mechanics.

**LostTemplar** · August 30, 2012, 17:19

Well, aggravation was a bad word, just every action has a noise level (like in vanilla), but not every action's noise is affected by stealth, e.g. movement is, but digging is not.

Even if stealth only allow stealthy movement, nothing else, it is still extremely usefull.

**Mikko Lehtinen** · August 30, 2012, 17:57

Originally posted by Derakon

While this is more realistic, you'll be functionally making stealth useless / making aggravation much less of a penalty if you do what you described.

Game balance could be easily restored by making attacking sleeping monsters more realistic, too. It should just kill most monsters instantly.

**Mikko Lehtinen** · August 30, 2012, 18:05

Hey guys, have you read Andrew Doull's posts about Unangband's monster AI enhancements?

These two are very relevant for this discussion about realistic stealth:

Monsters talk to each other, conveying information about the player position, resistances or lack of resistances.
Monsters wake up their fellows nearby when they are under attack.

EDIT: Sorry I didn't notice waking up fellow monsters was discussed in the original post.

**Magnate** · August 30, 2012, 19:27

Originally posted by Kramborn

And patches for v4.

Wow, thank you - really interesting stuff. When I get back to v4, and if nobody's got there before me, I'll have a look.

Rogue Ideas 2

Rogue Ideas 2

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