Monster Weaknesses

[Derakon]

There is a Starlight staff, so it could simply be a case of duplicating that into mage spell. Or Holy Light for priests.

Starlight does the same damage as Spear of Light, just in a less controlled fashion. Has anyone here made intentional, effective use of it?

Of course making light too powerful could unbalance the early game. Worm masses and Snagas are prominent examples of creatures that are hurt by light. You don't want monsters being slaughtered by someone lighting the room.

I was imagining a spell that would come into play later on. Maybe replace Holy Word in Exorcisms and Dispelling with "Solar Ray" or something. Since the point was that light weaknesses in the late game are borderline irrelevant. I think the early game is fine and wouldn't want to change the damage that early light spells deal.

[Philip]

I have made a couple suggestions concerning light for spellcasters in the thread I made for the topic.

[Timo Pietilä]

Starlight does the same damage as Spear of Light, just in a less controlled fashion. Has anyone here made intentional, effective use of it?

There are also rods of light. I have no idea if those also make same damage, but rule about device skill affecting those should apply. For me those are as much utility rods (something in dark does something and I want to see what that something is) as damaging rods (line of trolls/orcs toasted).

They stack, are common and recharge fast. Not that useful later in game, but up to about half-way thru they are quite useful.

[buzzkill]

Starlight does the same damage as Spear of Light, just in a less controlled fashion. Has anyone here made intentional, effective use of it?

I use it on occasion. It's marginal. In terms of practically, no better than spear of light or a wand or rod of light.

What if it emitted more beams? 2x1, 3x2, 4x3 hockey sticks in addition to the standard 8 (or lose the diagonals and just do 4). In this way grids closer to the caster would be flooded with light many times over (producing more damage near) and it would likely hit everything in the immediate area (think room) at least once thought those further away would take less damage. This would also, and possibly more importantly, be an effective way to light areas that are not defined as "rooms".

[bio_hazard]

Starlight is just not very satisfying in its current implementation. I'd recommend:

Remove Fear
See Invisible (1 turn as per scroll)
Turn Undead
Light Damage


Wand of light should blind monsters as well as damage (maybe just 2 turns).

?Light/Staff of light/Rod of illumination should have a chance to blind if the area is not already lit, again maybe just for 2 turns.

[Monkey Face]

I know it doesn't help rangers, but what about iron shots doing extra damage against giants? It's not Tolkien but it does evoke images of a shepherd boy taking on a Philistine giant..

[Timo Pietilä]

Wand of light should blind monsters as well as damage (maybe just 2 turns).

I just realized that this could actually be too powerful. Wand/rod of light have utility use also, so for that reason they should be early items, but if they also blind monsters then trolls and orcs might turn too easy to handle.

Maybe if it scales with level so that the higher your level the more powerful it gets. I remember in LoTR that Gandalf used light to turn Nazguls away (turn undead). That had to be pretty high level light, I'd say. Phial was used as weapon too against Shelob. In hands of Sam (translating from Finnish to English here) "it shone like lightning". That's light from one of the Silmarils trapped in phial by one of the first of Noldor (Galadriel was Feanors niece). Maybe we should introduce aura-effects like in NPP, phial giving aura of light.

(BTW fire should be resistance hole, if not weakness, for Ringwraiths. In Weathertop fight Aragorn uses fire to fight off some of them.)

[bio_hazard]

I just realized that this could actually be too powerful. Wand/rod of light have utility use also, so for that reason they should be early items, but if they also blind monsters then trolls and orcs might turn too easy to handle.

Maybe if it scales with level so that the higher your level the more powerful it gets. I remember in LoTR that Gandalf used light to turn Nazguls away (turn undead). That had to be pretty high level light, I'd say. Phial was used as weapon too against Shelob. In hands of Sam (translating from Finnish to English here) "it shone like lightning". That's light from one of the Silmarils trapped in phial by one of the first of Noldor (Galadriel was Feanors niece). Maybe we should introduce aura-effects like in NPP, phial giving aura of light.

Blindness would probably just translate into a to-hit penalty for melee and ranged attacks and maybe stop some spell abilities. If it were a very short duration effect I don't know that it would be overpowered.

If a side effect of making light more interesting and useful would be to make it more difficult to find, I'd be OK with that trade-off.

edit- I think level dependent effects would be great- and I agree with fire + ringwraiths.

[Timo Pietilä]

I know it doesn't help rangers, but what about iron shots doing extra damage against giants? It's not Tolkien but it does evoke images of a shepherd boy taking on a Philistine giant..

Angband giants are not Tolkien anyway, so why not?

[Timo Pietilä]

edit- I think level dependent effects would be great- and I agree with fire + ringwraiths.

Some variants have items that gain more power during the game (like finishing a set of gear or by leveling by using), maybe this could be extended to some of the wearables as well. Like dragon armors, damage from breath weapon increases as you gain more level.

I have many times thought of adding skill set for killing certain kinds of monsters, so that 10000th orc you kill is way easier to kill than first one even with same gear and level. You get better at it by practice. Technically maybe simple to_hit bonus that increases against some monster types more than some else.

[Derakon]

Going back to Starlight, what if it was a radius-10 light ball centered on the player that did, say, 10d10 damage? None of this ray business, it hits every tile in the radius it can. Damage would fall off with distance, so the monsters closest to the player would get hit hardest. At that damage level they might need to be moved a bit deeper, but not too much, I don't think.

If that's not special enough, we could invent a "holy light" element that deals extra damage to undead, like Orb of Draining does extra damage to evil monsters. Then Staves of Starlight would remain effective undead-nukers for a considerable length of time.

[Timo Pietilä]

If that's not special enough, we could invent a "holy light" element that deals extra damage to undead, like Orb of Draining does extra damage to evil monsters. Then Staves of Starlight would remain effective undead-nukers for a considerable length of time.

To evil in general. IIRC Gandalf explains to...someone that all the nasties under "old evil" wear common sign, they hate light. So holy light should hurt anything evil (under direct influence of Morgoth).

10d10 is OK to me. It isn't that much anyway. It's 50avr., 100max at zero distance. I'm pretty sure by the time you find one of those your melee-weapon already does more.