Word of Destruction ideas

[Derakon]

Just brainstorming some ideas for how we could make Word of Destruction less abusable and/or more flavorful.

1) Have it take you down to 1HP when used. Don't use it when you're bleeding or poisoned! Otherwise, this does mean that if you're using it to e.g. burn off Morgoth's summons after teleporting him, you'll have to use up some healing items to recover before Morgy gets back.

2) Make it collapse the dungeon if used twice on the same dungeon level (i.e. without using stairs/WoR/Alter Reality). This would deal damage (assuming we don't already knock you down to 1HP per the first suggestion), toss you down a dungeon level, stun you, etc. You could make also let this happen randomly every time Destruction is used, but I'm not such a big fan of unpredictable results. Alternately, an X% chance of Destruction rendering the dungeon "unstable", which has a special message and informs you that the next use will collapse it. Unstable dungeons could also be subject to earthquakes or other environmental effects.

3) Of course, make vaults immune to it. The only problem with this is that some of the lesser vaults have fairly open floor plans, are made entirely of granite, and don't really look like they should be immune to anything. My suggestion here would be a flag you could specify in the vault definition that indicates if its tiles are icky or not; icky tiles would be immune to destruction and cannot be teleported to. I don't know if that would interfere with anything else though.

Any other ideas?

[Shockbolt]

I guess a certain percentage chance you'd drop down to the level below would also be something to add?

[ghengiz]

Originally Posted by Shockbolt

I guess a certain percentage chance you'd drop down to the level below would also be something to add?

Realistically, guess so.
Gameplay-like...don't know, it could be (ab)used to skip sauron and go directly to Morgoth.

[buzzkill]

Originally Posted by ghengiz

Realistically, guess so.
Gameplay-like...don't know, it could be (ab)used to skip sauron and go directly to Morgoth.

Obviously there would be a safeguard, or just have Sauron drop down as well, maybe give him a 'heal other' spell to keep things interesting .

[nppangband]

Originally Posted by ghengiz

Realistically, guess so.
Gameplay-like...don't know, it could be (ab)used to skip sauron and go directly to Morgoth.

The game has safeguards that prevent trap doors and down staircases on level 99 until Sauron is killed, and casting "teleport level" on level 99 will always send you to leve 98 until Sauron is killed. In NPP, O, ans a couple other variants, where there are staircases that take you down two levels ("shafts"), but those are prevented on level 98 and 99 until you kill Sauron and Morgoth, respectively. It is just a line or two of extra code to make sure things like this don't happen.

[ghengiz]

Originally Posted by buzzkill

Obviously there would be a safeguard, or just have Sauron drop down as well, maybe give him a 'heal other' spell to keep things interesting .

LOL! yep, very interesting

Originally Posted by nppangband

The game has safeguards that prevent trap doors and down staircases on level 99 until Sauron is killed, and casting "teleport level" on level 99 will always send you to leve 98 until Sauron is killed. In NPP, O, ans a couple other variants, where there are staircases that take you down two levels ("shafts"), but those are prevented on level 98 and 99 until you kill Sauron and Morgoth, respectively. It is just a line or two of extra code to make sure things like this don't happen.

so it's very easy to prevent abuse...good.

[Derakon]

Originally Posted by Shockbolt

I guess a certain percentage chance you'd drop down to the level below would also be something to add?

That'd be part of the "dungeon collapses" effect, yeah. You've rendered the dungeon so unstable by blasting it with powerful magical energies that the entire place collapses around you.

[fizzix]

A while ago I played with a *Destruction* mod that did not automatically delete monsters but allowed them to make a saving throw. If they successfully saved they were either pushed out to just beyond the destruction zone, or teleported to another region of the level. It made it less abusable as a way to remove tough monsters from the level, but it was still a very powerful escape.

I really don't like the "put at 1 hp" mechanism that always seems to crop up in rpgs. Dropping the player to another level isn't a bad idea though.

[Estie]

Errm, if all those suggestions apply to WoD, who in their right mind would ever use it ?

What is it good for ? Not an escape, since it puts you at 1hp/stuns you etc; not a way to kill monsters because it destroys the items and doesnt give xp; as it was, I used it as last escape if the situation was beyond hope otherwise (prefering all other escapes that dont change layout), or very early in the (extremly rare) case that I had a scroll and a GV with no means to otherwise handle it, or very late when I was about ready to fight M but happened on some vault without anything inside looking promising (like rod of healing), to check for artifacts, or in the last fight to get rid of mass summons after having ported M away. On average, Id guess I might have used it 2 or 3 times per playthrough and dont see any reason for it to change.

[buzzkill]

What about a low % chance that it nearly clears the destructed area (radius-1), leaving only very sparse rubble. That would make it less desirable.