Absorption (or armor) and prowess in v4

[fizzix]

What was previously the monster armor class is going to be split into evasion and absorption. Absorption can be called something else, like armor as Mikko suggests, and since armor is shorter, I'll use that word for the rest of this post.

The basic idea is heavily armored monsters have the capability of absorbing some of the damage from player attacks. If you try to attack a iron golem with a dagger, it doesn't matter how fast you hit it, you aren't going to do much damage. The idea is simple, an armor rating of N subtracts N damage points off of each blow.

Now, the idea I have is to allow a strong prowess * heft value to mitigate some of the armor damage. Assuming prowess goes from 100 to 600 or so, we can expect prowess * heft to top out at about 500 for characters that go all-out on prowess, and closer to 300 for characters using balanced weapons. I envision something like every 10 points of prowess eliminates 1 point of armor.

So, in pseudo-code

Adjusted_armor = armor - ((prowess * heft) / 10)
if adjusted_armor < 0{ 
    adjusted armor = 0}

Damage = damage_roll - adjusted_armor

The factor of 10 is a complete guess at this point.

I don't know the ranges yet, it depends on how much damage per blow we get with weapons, and these values aren't available yet. Instead, I can give a vision for relative values based on the damage per blow of an at level high-finesse character. Call this DPBF, because i'm awesome at acronyms.

Brutally armored monsters (eog golem) will have armor = DPBF. Heavily armored monsters (ticks, ants, dragons, except for multi-hued!) will have armor = DPBF/2. Moderately armored monsters (lichs, demons, people) will have armor = DPBF/4. Multi-hued dragons will not be heavily armored, because then they'd be impossible to kill for a finesse character. They trade their higher HP and elemental resistances for a weaker armor rating.

---handling brands and slays ---
Once the effects refactor is done, we can (i think) separate the damage from impact to the additional damage from brands and slays. This damage will never be mitigated by armor, but it will still be mitigated by resistances. So if you do 30 damage with a slay multiplier of 0.5 (for 45 damage total) and are attacking a monster with armor of 40, you will actually do 15 damage, not 5.


--- interesting changes to the monsters ---
I envision some changes to the monster list that go beyond just slapping on this armor number. Armor ratings sort of serve as extra HP, especially to finesse heavy characters. This may involve rescaling some HP values. The monster I'd like to focus on are golems. I envision these guys (from stone to eog) as having very high armor values, something like 50 or so. For compensation for this, I want to lower their HP, so that an eog golem goes from 1050 to 500, and a stone golem down from 125 to about 70. Meaning, golems are now more vulnerable to death by magic, which I think is ok. (I will not be changing, drolems, bone golems, and bronze golems, as these are fundamentally different creatures. As for silent watchers, the outcasts of the golem world, I haven't thought much about yet.)

I'm expecting golems to be a class of monsters that a finesse character *cannot* kill through combat. Warriors will need a swap. Rangers and rogues will need to include devices in their inventory to handle them. If you have major problems with this, please air them.

Nevertheless, the combination of heavily armored + resist_all is highly discouraged. Because then finesse characters have no way of killing them. (see above with regard to Multi-hued dragons). There might need to be removal of cold resistance from the deeper golems due to this problem (or lower their hp even more).

---armor from missiles---
Not sure on this yet, suggestions welcome. I'm thinking there needs to be a multiplication factor here to account for the difference in blows per turn and shots per turn.

---armor from spells?---
Open question, do we want monsters to be able to absorb damage from certain spells, like magic missile?

Bah, that took a while. I was planning to start inputting evasion values tonight...I think it'll have to wait until tomorrow.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Now, the idea I have is to allow a strong prowess * heft value to mitigate some of the armor damage.

Is the plan still to have Prowess increase your damage per blow, and Finesse increase number of blows? If that's the plan, you should not have Prowess adjust armor score in any way. Prowess weapons are already super good against armor.

I've really thought that was the idea all the time...

[Magnate]

Is the plan still to have Prowess increase your damage per blow, and Finesse increase number of blows? If that's the plan, you should not have Prowess adjust armor score in any way. Prowess weapons are already super good against armor.

I've really thought that was the idea all the time...

This is a matter of balance. It's not completely clear yet (to me at least) what the range of DPB will be. It might be that the divisor of 10 that fizzix uses needs to be 100 or even higher, to avoid giving too much advantage to prowess. But it's the same issue with finesse and to-hit, where we were careful to avoid gimping prowess chars.

@fizzix: the proposals sound good to me, though I don't understand your last point. We already have a mechanic for absorbing damage from spells - it's called resistances!

On missiles, I suggest that we keep things as close as possible. How about we simply start by halving adjusted_armour if this is a missile attack? The whole point of missiles is to punch through armour, so this seems reasonable. And fewer shots than blows means that the increased damage per shot isn't unbalancing. (The factor of two can of course be adjusted for balance.) Alternatively we could just make sure that missiles have much bigger prowess values (which might be necessary to balance out the smaller number of shots anyway). I'm sure it'll work out.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

This is a matter of balance. It's not completely clear yet (to me at least) what the range of DPB will be. It might be that the divisor of 10 that fizzix uses needs to be 100 or even higher, to avoid giving too much advantage to prowess. But it's the same issue with finesse and to-hit, where we were careful to avoid gimping prowess chars.

Yeah. That's the reason why I proposed this: 1/3 of monsters have relevant scores in Evasion, 1/3 in Armor, and 1/3 in neither.

That way you could make Prowess and Finesse very good against some monsters. To me, that's more interesting than having the skills be somewhat relevant against all monsters.

If we have more black and white and less gray, equipment choices against different monsters start to get really meaningful!

[Magnate]

Yeah. That's the reason why I proposed this: 1/3 of monsters have relevant scores in Evasion, 1/3 in Armor, and 1/3 in neither.

That way you could make Prowess and Finesse very good against some monsters. To me, that's more interesting than having the skills be somewhat relevant against all monsters.

If we have more black and white and less gray, equipment choices against different monsters start to get really meaningful!

But ... we don't want to end up like Sangband, which IMO goes too far down this path - IM_EDGED monsters are totally unkillable with edged weapons and vice versa for IM_BLUNT. I'm ok with this in principle - as per fizzix's suggestion about golems - but in Sang there are just way too many monsters with those flags, and it means *everyone* has to have a swap weapon and even if you've got one it might not be good enough and you have to flee way more than is fun (a la Crawl). So yes plenty of distinction between finesse combat and prowess combat, but we want low-finesse characters to be able to kill (albeit with buffs and time) all but the most evasive monsters - they don't need to be able to kill will-o-wisps, but they do need to be able to kill Harowen and the Cat Lord (eventually). Similarly, low-prowess characters don't need to be able to kill golems, but they do need to be able to kill Morgoth (who, I expect, will be quite heavily armoured).

[fizzix]

Similarly, low-prowess characters don't need to be able to kill golems, but they do need to be able to kill Morgoth (who, I expect, will be quite heavily armoured).

I wasn't planning on Morgoth being heavily armored. Morgoth is an offensive machine, he does not care about defense. He also has gobs of HP. Armor is like extra HP against finesse players. Actual HP is useful for all players, and is better.

The points about making sure not too many monsters are unkillable without a swap is a good one. Right now high-prowess characters will have at least a 40% chance of hitting any monster, so they should be able to take down the cat lord, especially if they have lots of armor themselves.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

So yes plenty of distinction between finesse combat and prowess combat, but we want low-finesse characters to be able to kill (albeit with buffs and time) all but the most evasive monsters - they don't need to be able to kill will-o-wisps, but they do need to be able to kill Harowen and the Cat Lord (eventually). Similarly, low-prowess characters don't need to be able to kill golems, but they do need to be able to kill Morgoth (who, I expect, will be quite heavily armoured).

I agree with everything here.

In my proposal, of those 1/3 monsters that are armored/evasive, only a minority would have so high scores that swapping weapons becomes necessary. Usually you would gain only a minor benefit for swapping.

One thing to keep in mind: If every monster has both evasion and armor, judging situations becomes slower. In my proposal, where most monsters have either Evasion or Armor but not both, it's usually self-evident which weapon you'll want to use. Not necessarily realistic, but fast to play.

EDIT: If evasion and armor were mechanics for only a subset of monsters, you would not need to complicate the elegant combat system just to add granularity. There's a price to pay for either choice, I guess.

[fizzix]

Right now in the way things are shaping in my brain. Most monsters will have standard armor and evasion. That means that a finesse character and a prowess character will both do roughly the same damage, and with little penalty. There are a subclass of monsters that are evasion heavy that prowess characters will have a hard time hitting, and other monsters that are armor heavy, that finesse characters will have a hard time damaging.

I will try to make sure that almost all monsters will be killable via two out of the three methods: spells/devices, finesse weapons, prowess weapons.

For example, a monster like Harowen is very evasion heavy, but he is low on elemental resistances and armor, so finesse characters can kill him with combat and prowess characters can use devices or a finesse swap. Similarly, someone like Glaurung will be very armor heavy. But he's vulnerable to several elements. So Finesse characters can use devices against him. Monsters that resist or are immune to all elements will not have high evasion and armor ratings. So Ancalagon will not have high armor, because then he'd be nigh impossible to kill for a finesse character, and that's not fair (especially since he carries a dungeon book!).

Here are some monsters that may be exceptions, or might need some changes.

Will o' the wisp. Highly evasive and resists all elements. I think this is ok, as they're a rare annoyance character.

Saruman, Mouth Resists all but acid (poison and acid for mouth) but I would like them to be highly evasive. Instead, they are currently reasonably evasive. Both are vulnerable to drain life devices though, a very good item these days.

Non-spell golems: I want these characters to be heavily armored, but they all are immune to both fire and cold. I'm thinking that I might need to remove one of the resistances. On the other hand, these monsters are generally slow moving and can be avoided. So possibly these could be monsters that finesse characters cannot handle and need to run away from. Colbrans, pukelmen, drolems, bone and bronze golems will not be heavily armored.

Ainu: They resist everything so they I cannot give them high armor/finesse ratings. I am considering making the uniques moderately evasive and armored and removing some HP to compensate.

Lorgan, Mim, Fundin: Becase of immune all these uniques cannot be heavily armored or highly evasive. They'll all be moderate for both.

[Magnate]

No major issues with any of this. I don't think there's any problem with removing some resists from current resist-all monsters or uniques if this allows more variation in evasion and armour (remember that characters favouring the 'wrong' type of weapon may have brands or slays on their weapon, which will help them). Nor do I think there's any problem with dropping hp if the alternative is to desist from adding evasion or armour which is appropriate.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Could you clarify this for me? I didn't really get an answer.

1) Does Prowess still increase damage per blow more than Finesse?
2) Independently from this, does Prowess also reduce armor score?

The way I see it, it's insane to have them both. Maybe Finesse now affects damage per blow too, and I just didn't notice you talking about it?

Or are you just designing these two systems completely separately, and then later do some extra work to make them actually work together?

[fizzix]

Could you clarify this for me? I didn't really get an answer.

1) Does Prowess still increase damage per blow more than Finesse?
2) Independently from this, does Prowess also reduce armor score?

The way I see it, it's insane to have them both. Maybe Finesse now affects damage per blow too, and I just didn't notice you talking about it?

Or are you just designing these two systems completely separately, and then later do some extra work to make them actually work together?

In the current implementation, it does do 1, but does not do 2. The armour value is subtracted from the final damage without being modified by anything. We'll see how it goes.