[CF-Devel] Sudden thought on acid

[Mark Wedel]

David Hurst wrote:
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      While peterm will bite my head off for this, I shall say it anyway ;).
     
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      Realistically, acid is so unlikely to cause any real damage to items it
     
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      isn't funny. A piece of mithril or platinum would (I assume mithril
     
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      considering they dig it up pure)be so unreactive that acid would maybe take
     
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      off a milimeter an hour =).
     
     
 Depending on the acid, for some materials, like iron, you could corrode it at a
very rapid rate in the real world.

 But the game is not about realism.

 I think the severe and quick damage caused by acid probably goes back a bit to
the AD&D settings, where things like rust monsters, black puddings, and so on
would corrode items and a fantasic rate (rust monsters could destroy something
like plate armor in one round, where I think black puddings would take 3 rounds
to do it).

 But yeah, throwing a flash of acid at someone is unlikely to do very much
damage to most metal items.

 I agree that there should be some form of item quality/damage.  Right now, most
all 'good' items/artifacts are immune to acid attacks (because they have no
material or made of adamantite), and so at some point, you basically don't care
much about acid anymore.  If items were repairable, I would say very few items
should actually be immune.

 But one issue no matter what is playability.  Might & Magic VI or VII had items
getting broken, and all I really found it to be was a nuisance (ok, need to go
repair that item).  So I'm not sure if items getting old/breaking down/needing
repair would really make things more interesting or not (now granted, various
skills like smithery could perhaps let you repair those items, so it may make
some skills more relevant).

 That said, my general thoughts are:
1) Acid attacks should be very rare.  Usage of the acid attacking monsters
(black pudding, green slime, rust monster) should be very uncommon.  Any other
monsters that attack with acid should be revisited.
2) Acid attacks should be damaging/something you are really afraid of, and not
'ho hum - a rust monster, who cares'.  
3) Most every item should be vulnerable to acid attacks, so even high level
characters fear them.
4) Players should have at least some notice before running into that acid
attacking monster.  For example, perhaps its behind a great guarding the
treasure hoard - to get the treasure, you need to take it out (or at least
release).  They should not be hidden behind a solid door and when you open the
door the first thing you see is your items being corroded (although this case
may be acceptable if there are signs or 'other' clues around).

 Way back when, I remember that this was one of those things that really caused
a character of mine to grab a bow and a bunch of arrows - a black pudding loose,
and there's a way to kill it with range (this was before rods were around, but
wands were around also).

 I would actually make the same argument for drain attacktype.  Right away, ring
of life and strange ring should perhaps have resist_drain 90 (if they don't
already).  But at one time, grim reapers were something really feared (and once
again, find that wand of fire or the like).  Now days, at some certain point,
drain monsters become 'ho hum' because your immune.

 I think having some situations where you go 'oh !$@$' as you see the monster
coming at you make the game more interesting, not less.  Putting a little fear
into the players once in a while is probably a good thing.