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Decided I would branch the The Hardest part of Angband thread to discuss a related idea.
In that previous thread, I said it was hard to learn angband, because you could get one-shotted without warning (i.e. before you had chance to learn that one-shot was possible by that creature), and then have to start over.
A solution I didn't propose, because I thought it would make the game too easy, would be to introduce a warning, one turn before a high-damage spell or breath. Such as
"You see the Dragon's chest glow with inner fire..." (images of Hobbit pt2)
and then the next turn
"It breathes...you die."
But something OOD Town drunk said on the previous thread
Made me wonder if rather than changing the game so you always got a one-turn warning of high-damage attacks, you were only granted such warning via a telepathic ability. I would suggest a new ability, "Anticipation" / "Clairvoyance", rather than making ESP even more over-powered.
Such an attribute is not entirely un-Tolkieny. Aragorn seemed to have foreknowledge of risk to Gandalf in Moria; and Galadriel and Elrond could in some way 'foretell'. Also, even non-magical creatures (us humans) can anticipate someone's next move when they are en expert in that area. (Such as noticing a mage incanting or a dragon drawing breath!)
When you have to choose between +5 speed or Anticipation, the pro chooses speed and the noob chooses Anticipation. Everyone is happy.
TL;DR
How about some <ability> grants the user a message to warn of some incoming high-damage spells and breaths one turn before they occur. It wouldn't need to be 100% effective. The message would ideally be coloured differently in the message log to draw attention.
Too powerful?
Far too code-breaking?!
In that previous thread, I said it was hard to learn angband, because you could get one-shotted without warning (i.e. before you had chance to learn that one-shot was possible by that creature), and then have to start over.
A solution I didn't propose, because I thought it would make the game too easy, would be to introduce a warning, one turn before a high-damage spell or breath. Such as
"You see the Dragon's chest glow with inner fire..." (images of Hobbit pt2)
and then the next turn
"It breathes...you die."
But something OOD Town drunk said on the previous thread
Made me wonder if rather than changing the game so you always got a one-turn warning of high-damage attacks, you were only granted such warning via a telepathic ability. I would suggest a new ability, "Anticipation" / "Clairvoyance", rather than making ESP even more over-powered.
Such an attribute is not entirely un-Tolkieny. Aragorn seemed to have foreknowledge of risk to Gandalf in Moria; and Galadriel and Elrond could in some way 'foretell'. Also, even non-magical creatures (us humans) can anticipate someone's next move when they are en expert in that area. (Such as noticing a mage incanting or a dragon drawing breath!)
When you have to choose between +5 speed or Anticipation, the pro chooses speed and the noob chooses Anticipation. Everyone is happy.
TL;DR
How about some <ability> grants the user a message to warn of some incoming high-damage spells and breaths one turn before they occur. It wouldn't need to be 100% effective. The message would ideally be coloured differently in the message log to draw attention.
Too powerful?
Far too code-breaking?!
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