blunt priest weapons

[MattB]

Extra die or dice against evil uniques?

Or casts holy prayer every time you get a critical?

[Oramin]

Something wrong with the random ability on "Blessed" weapons? I always check for Telepathy.

(or has that feature been removed?)

[Derakon]

That's still there, but the Blessed flag itself ought to have some in-game ramifications; otherwise it's just "Weapon of Random Ability".

[Estie]

Activates for detect evil.

[Magnate]

That's still there, but the Blessed flag itself ought to have some in-game ramifications; otherwise it's just "Weapon of Random Ability".

Let me clarify. In Pyrel (and in v4):

- the flag BLESSED is applied by the affix "of Piety" and confers the ability "priests may use without penalty", and nothing else. (This ability is not yet implemented in Pyrel, and won't be.)

- the ego theme "Blessed" is a combination of the Piety affix and also the affixes Journeyman's, Wisdom and Dweomercraft - meaning it gets a +hit/dam boost, +WIS and a random magical ability - as well as the no-pointy-penalty. This is the same as the V ego of the same name.

So what Derakon is asking is whether the BLESSED flag itself can be redefined to be more useful. I like the idea of a to-hit boost against evil - but not auto-hit, how about halving whatever the miss chance is? Since to-hit chance tends to be asymptotic in the late game it would end up being a small but consistent boost.

Activating for detect evil is also a good possibility - not too powerful. Or activating for PfE, by the same token.

[Estie]

PfE is better since theres no overlap with a possible ESP.

[ekolis]

While you're fiddling with blessed weapons, don't forget to make the flag apply to weapons that previously couldn't be blessed because it was unnecessary (e.g. maces, quarterstaffs, and the like) - would be kind of silly if priests ran around carrying primarily the weapons that they never could before simply because said weapons can be blessed! Unless you're going for some sort of "anti-D&D" theme, that is!

edit: well, I guess it's not that big a deal, because blessed weapons in the new system will be useful to everyone, not just priests...

[Derakon]

edit: well, I guess it's not that big a deal, because blessed weapons in the new system will be useful to everyone, not just priests...

Exactly.

"Has an improved chance to hit against evil" sounds like a reasonable benefit. We can even make this more evident to the player on the 'I'nspect screen, by taking chance-to-hit into account when we display average damage per round. After all, the base hit chance is a flat 75%; it only changes if the monster has evasion. So functionally, Blessed weapons would deal, say, 16% more damage against evil targets (if chance to miss is halved, i.e. hit chance is 87.5%), and that would be reflected in the 'I'nspect screen's damage.

On a related note, I wouldn't mind making Protection from Evil a bit less binary than it is right now. The level requirement in particular (that the player must be at least the level of the opponent to derive any benefit) is especially irksome. How about changing it to "evasion against evil monsters is increased by max(5, (clvl * 2 - mlvl))%"? So e.g. a level-35 character fighting a Vrock (level-40) would get a 30% improvement in evasion, bringing the Vrock's hit rate down to 45%. The player would take a bit more than half as much damage as usual in such a scenario.

[Magnate]

On a related note, I wouldn't mind making Protection from Evil a bit less binary than it is right now. The level requirement in particular (that the player must be at least the level of the opponent to derive any benefit) is especially irksome. How about changing it to "evasion against evil monsters is increased by max(5, (clvl * 2 - mlvl))%"? So e.g. a level-35 character fighting a Vrock (level-40) would get a 30% improvement in evasion, bringing the Vrock's hit rate down to 45%. The player would take a bit more than half as much damage as usual in such a scenario.

That reminds me, I assume that you'll be implementing evasion and absorption in Pyrel? So the player will have both, as well as monsters? That means that base armour objects need to contribute to absorption (that can in fact be the old AC values) while reducing evasion. You could do the latter by weight, but could also use bespoke values.

[Derakon]

That reminds me, I assume that you'll be implementing evasion and absorption in Pyrel? So the player will have both, as well as monsters? That means that base armour objects need to contribute to absorption (that can in fact be the old AC values) while reducing evasion. You could do the latter by weight, but could also use bespoke values.

Yes, hit chance is (75 - target evasion)% for both creatures and the player. The "baseArmor" and "armorMod" fields are completely ignored by the game logic...hm, yeah, we'll need to fix that. We can't just use the current AC values straight as damage absorption because that'd mean that the player's melee damage absorption would range from 80-200 in the mid/lategame, which is an awfully huge spread. Enemy melee attacks would have to either deal no damage at all to heavily-armored players, or way too much to weakly-armored players.

That said, it might be sufficient to just divide the current AC values by some constant. I think it's also appropriate to have some armors improve evasion instead of absorption. Specifically, shields, gauntlets, and maybe helms and boots, could all deflect blows entirely instead of simply absorbing damage.

This is gonna be tricky to balance.

[Magnate]

Yes, hit chance is (75 - target evasion)% for both creatures and the player. The "baseArmor" and "armorMod" fields are completely ignored by the game logic...hm, yeah, we'll need to fix that. We can't just use the current AC values straight as damage absorption because that'd mean that the player's melee damage absorption would range from 80-200 in the mid/lategame, which is an awfully huge spread. Enemy melee attacks would have to either deal no damage at all to heavily-armored players, or way too much to weakly-armored players.

That said, it might be sufficient to just divide the current AC values by some constant. I think it's also appropriate to have some armors improve evasion instead of absorption. Specifically, shields, gauntlets, and maybe helms and boots, could all deflect blows entirely instead of simply absorbing damage.

This is gonna be tricky to balance.

Yes, but it's going to be very satisfying when it's done ;-)

So does the player get a to-hit boost from class skill? Is that finesse-based? ISTR v4 uses 75 + finesse - evasion, or something. I think it's important that to-hit can be improved, otherwise we just increase the focus on to-dam.

Agreed on both absorption and deflection. AC values could simply be divided by a constant, or square-rooted, even. We should probably work on a set of assumptions about @'s hp at any given depth (dl x 10, maybe) and then ensure that the melee damage of the toughest monsters is not too much more than would kill a completely unarmoured character. This is off the top of my head, but my guess is that even 'armour-less' magi and monks will have some small amount of absorption from somewhere, even if they're totally focused on evasion. So the aim is that we avoid instakills while making tough monsters still flee-after-one-round-if-you're-unlucky kind of tough.

I guess the way to balance armour that provides both EV and AC is that it doesn't provide much of either (small shields, gauntlets), while the net AC (having subtracted the EV penalty) is greater for larger shields, etc.

This is going to be fun. Time to update my repo.

[Derakon]

So does the player get a to-hit boost from class skill? Is that finesse-based? ISTR v4 uses 75 + finesse - evasion, or something. I think it's important that to-hit can be improved, otherwise we just increase the focus on to-dam.

Finesse has no impact on to-hit; nothing affects it except for enemy eveasion. Changing it so finesse made you more accurate would break the symmetry between the two combat styles, which I'd rather not do without a really compelling reason. I like simplicity of effects; I'd rather not overload finesse or prowess unless I have to. In fact one of the things I like most about the new combat system is that it reduces the impact of STR and DEX on your character's effectiveness. STR is +carrying capacity and +prowess, DEX is +AC and +finesse; you still want both but not nearly as vitally as you used to.

I'm not opposed in principle to there being gear that improves the player's accuracy, but I'd actually rather it be a separate stat from finesse/prowess altogether. Then we can make it have a greater impact. The player might reasonably want to wear a Ring of Accuracy (+10%).

I note that in current Angband accuracy is largely ignored; some players might wear Rings of Accuracy for a little while, and players will use Bless/Heroism/etc. if they have it available, but I don't think they really notice a difference in terms of how often they hit or how long it takes to kill things. Accuracy tends to range from 60% to 80%, depending on the character and the target, and improving your accuracy tends to only shift that by 2-3%.

[Magnate]

Finesse has no impact on to-hit; nothing affects it except for enemy eveasion. Changing it so finesse made you more accurate would break the symmetry between the two combat styles, which I'd rather not do without a really compelling reason. I like simplicity of effects; I'd rather not overload finesse or prowess unless I have to. In fact one of the things I like most about the new combat system is that it reduces the impact of STR and DEX on your character's effectiveness. STR is +carrying capacity and +prowess, DEX is +AC and +finesse; you still want both but not nearly as vitally as you used to.

This I like - but I still feel that warriors and rogues ought to hit more often than priests and magi of the same clev. I think I'm fine with accuracy being divorced from finesse - and from dex if necessary - but it should at least be a class-based increment. (I know, I know - I can put that in my variant.)

I'm not opposed in principle to there being gear that improves the player's accuracy, but I'd actually rather it be a separate stat from finesse/prowess altogether. Then we can make it have a greater impact. The player might reasonably want to wear a Ring of Accuracy (+10%).

Yes, definitely a separate stat (or skill, if we could use a different term for non-innate stats).

I note that in current Angband accuracy is largely ignored; some players might wear Rings of Accuracy for a little while, and players will use Bless/Heroism/etc. if they have it available, but I don't think they really notice a difference in terms of how often they hit or how long it takes to kill things. Accuracy tends to range from 60% to 80%, depending on the character and the target, and improving your accuracy tends to only shift that by 2-3%.

I think Pyrel should endeavour to fix this. It will never be a precise port of V, because of the fundamentally different combat system, so we might as well fix combat completely. I think accuracy should be as important as it is in O-combat variants. With 75-EV it probably would be, because it could increase damage by ~50% against highly evasive monsters, and by 25-30% against non-evasives.

[Derakon]

I think Pyrel should endeavour to fix this. It will never be a precise port of V, because of the fundamentally different combat system, so we might as well fix combat completely. I think accuracy should be as important as it is in O-combat variants. With 75-EV it probably would be, because it could increase damage by ~50% against highly evasive monsters, and by 25-30% against non-evasives.

Heh, fair enough. How's this look, then, as a first pass?

STR: carrying capacity, prowess
DEX: evasion, finesse
CON: HP
INT: arcane caster stat, device skill, maybe accuracy?
WIS: holy caster stat, saving throw, maybe some evasion?

INT and WIS are kind of oddballs here. I'd like them to have more general utility than they currently have, but I have trouble justifying their use as combat stats.

Add two new class skills: melee and ranged accuracy. Each +1 is an extra 1% added to chance to hit.

Melee:
Mages/priests: 0
Rangers: 2
Rogues/paladins: 5
Warriors: 6 + 1 per 5 clvls.

Ranged:
Mages/priests: 0
Paladins: 2
Rogues/warriors: 5
Rangers: 6 + 1 per 5 clvls.

All else being equal, a rogue would deal (80 / 75 = 6%) more damage than a mage in the long run, against baseline-evasive monsters in melee. A level-50 warrior would deal (91 / 75 = 21%) more. Of course, the mage also has substantially poorer finesse and prowess growth.

[Magnate]

Heh, fair enough. How's this look, then, as a first pass?

STR: carrying capacity, prowess
DEX: evasion, finesse
CON: HP
INT: arcane caster stat, device skill, maybe accuracy?
WIS: holy caster stat, saving throw, maybe some evasion?

INT and WIS are kind of oddballs here. I'd like them to have more general utility than they currently have, but I have trouble justifying their use as combat stats.

I don't think you need to - each stat has two uses, except CON which affects something twice as important as anything else. If you're not a caster of the right sort then INT/WIS have only one use, but that's fine IMO.

It does mean that no stat affects accuracy though, which feels wrong. But as you said, avoiding overloading DEX is important.

Add two new class skills: melee and ranged accuracy. Each +1 is an extra 1% added to chance to hit.

Melee:
Mages/priests: 0
Rangers: 2
Rogues/paladins: 5
Warriors: 6 + 1 per 5 clvls.

Ranged:
Mages/priests: 0
Paladins: 2
Rogues/warriors: 5
Rangers: 6 + 1 per 5 clvls.

All else being equal, a rogue would deal (80 / 75 = 6%) more damage than a mage in the long run, against baseline-evasive monsters in melee. A level-50 warrior would deal (91 / 75 = 21%) more. Of course, the mage also has substantially poorer finesse and prowess growth.

I think those are a bit lacking in granularity for me. I'd multiply everything by 10, and then divide by 10 when calculating the actual hit percentage:

Melee:
Mages/priests: 0 + 1 per 2 clvls
Rangers: 2 + 1 per 2 clvls
Rogues/paladins: 3 + 1 per clvl
Warriors: 6 + 2 per clvl

Ranged:
Mages/priests: 0 + 1 per 2 clvls
Paladins: 2 + 1 per 2 clvls
Rogues/warriors: 3 + 1 per clvl
Rangers: 6 + 2 per clvl

That's a little more generous than yours for high level chars of the first three tiers, but I think quite a lot of late game monsters will have better than baseline evasion - and it's nice to get a sense of progress while levelling. (And if +acc bonuses are of the same granularity, and the to-hit calculation uses d1000 rather than d100, each increment is actually meaningful, even if only very slightly.)

This really is a topic for another thread, but have you thought more about how fin/prow will work with missiles? I am still favouring a reversal of the melee approach: finesse for damage (targeting) and prowess for shots (ability to wind/draw quickly). This has the advantage of being easy to remember, if a little pat. Now that accuracy is a separate value, the conceptual problems we had in v4 seem to have gone away.