My Thoughts on 4.2

[DavidMedley]

Originally Posted by Derakon

Another possibility to specifically solve the necromancer's problem would be a mid/high-level necromancer spell that removes the +light effect from your equipment.

Yeah, if the Nek's are the only class having this problem then that is a great alternative.

[DavidMedley]

If we're just talking about Necros and light, they could just have their darkness aura and light oppose each other, whether the light is from rooms or equipment or other monsters. Like, at CL 1 they have light -1, and increases from there. When there's light it reduces the necro's darksense range to zero at net light 0. If the total light is positive then shadow spells are negatively affected.

I *think* rooms only ever have light 1, so maybe the magnitude would have to vary. Not sure if monsters ever have light > 1. And maybe light 1 hurts shadow spells somewhat, but higher net light scores hurt it more.

Anyway, easy for me to speculate when someone else is doing the programming.

[DavidMedley]

Also, the light penalty is not insurmountable. I found Eriril and the +4 INT was too good to pass up despite the +1 light. Around CL 30 I could cast Disenchant in the light with a low fail rate. The higher spells I could cast at sleeping monsters or after I switched weapons when I'd burned the extra SP that the 4 INT gave. Not super fun to cut your grimoire in half, but it worked.

Unfortunately I didn't have enough answers for confusion... going to give Necromancers a rest for a while.

EDIT: Unfortunately -> Stupidly

[DavidMedley]

Ran my Blackguard up to CL 18 and when he died I didn't even care. I like playing Paladins so a Dark Paladin should be right up my alley, but this class puts me to sleep. Someone earlier said at high levels his Blackguard was one of his strongest melee fighters ever, but I don't think I'll get there.

[DavidMedley]

I know this goes way way back, but the things you can and can't do while afraid are really absurd. A strapping warrior can't take a blow while swinging his sword, but he can take the exact same blow while shooting a bow at an adjacent enemy. Wimpy little mage laughs in the face of fear while shooting magic missiles at adjacent enemies. And so on.

The way fear is implemented is obviously very simple to program. Other options would be: 1) create a list of allowed/disallowed actions and spells. 2) create a list of allowed effects.

#2 seems better. Any action that produces movement, healing, or buffing should be allowed. Actions that produce only damage are out when an enemy is adjacent. Something like that.

[Derakon]

It's worth noting that fear, along with a few other effects like poison and especially stunning, impair your spell failure rate, chance to hit, damage bonus, etc. So even if you can work around it, it's not completely harmless. That said, I'm inclined to agree with you.

[DavidMedley]

Good point.

[wobbly]

Sil doesn't let you shoot when afraid (it lacks wands & attack spells). The heng-likes have a more complicated fear mechanic where various things fail at different rates and you can lose turns. I like it, but not everyone is a fan. Fear can be quite dangerous in these variants.

[Sphara]

It is a bit silly, yeah.
Still, I think fear works pretty good as it disables any melee whereas blindness disables any spellcasting. Both status effects are easily curable, if you happen to carry remedy potions for them.

Using launchers and wands already have penalties if you have either of these conditions, just as Derakon already mentioned. I dunno if blindness affects zap failure rate but not being able to target is a punishment enough. Launchers should probably have major penalties if you're scared or blind. At least if you compare it to severe penalties hunger inflicts.

[wobbly]

The device penalty for fear is negligible:

/* Analyze flags - check for fear */

	if (of_has(state->flags, OF_AFRAID)) {

		state->to_h -= 20;

		state->to_a += 8;

		state->skills[SKILL_DEVICE] = state->skills[SKILL_DEVICE] * 95 / 100;

	}

you'll see that there's actually the same sized bonus on blessed, not sure anyone ever notices a difference zapping while blessed (or under heroism):

	if (p->timed[TMD_BLESSED]) {

		state->to_a += 5;

		state->to_h += 10;

		state->skills[SKILL_DEVICE] = state->skills[SKILL_DEVICE] * 105 / 100;

	}

Your to-hit chance against invisible monsters is halved. Pretty sure "invisible" also covers blinded & firing down a corridor at unseen enemies.