[CF List] wraight (& fireborns)

Thu Mar 7 23:57:30 CST 2002

Steven Lembark wrote:
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      More so for fb's due to limited str and inability to

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      use stat-raising equip's. Having a str spell run out

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      just as you're dodging a demilich or whatnot is a a

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      real pain.

 Note that to some extent, the changes may be similar to the fireborn just
stashing a pile of food near the entrance to the dungeon, and running back their
periodically to much up to 999 food, then go adventuring again.

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      I was just trying to find a way of doing it with minimum

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      code changes. Having fire == food would be just fine for me.

 thats easy to do - you just need to insert a few lines in the attack code such
taht if the target is a fireborn, food goes up.

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      One idea: Come up with a hack character (other than fb) to

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      test the whole thing on. Call it a "hakophile" and see how

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      the thing works. If people like the thing changing it to

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      fb isn't all that difficult; if we don't it vanishes w/o

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      a trace.

 Certainly it should be tested and see if it is feasible - I'm really not sure
as it is now - at low levels, the fireborn may just end up going to a nearby
fireplace to get food up - at some level, this isn't a lot different than
current play, of go in, adventure some, leave to regain mana and hp, go back in,
etc.  all it really means is that the fireborn wanders a little farther.

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      >>

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      >>     (1) The damage caused by fire stat needs to be changed to a

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      >>         negative number in the struct (no code change required).

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      >

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      >  Not sure what you mean here - remember, fire still has to cause damage

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      > to non fireborns.

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      For fb's only, the struct entry for damage could have its sign

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      reversed. This would cause an increase in hp rather than decrease.

 I guess I'm confused what struct and what field.  You certainly don't want to
modify the spells the fireborn casts in such a way, as it would also heal other
monsters.

 And in fact, since the fireborn has 100 resistance to fire, some special hack
would be needed in the attack code in any place.

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      >  Actually, I'm also not sure of this - this may be the case for the cases

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      > which natural re-gen hp, but it may certainly be possible to super charge

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      > the hp above the max, like can happen with mana and grace.  In any case,

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      > wherever/whatever adds food or hp would be pretty easy to make sure it

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      > doesn't exceed max.

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      Given your note on (2), above, then don't modify the max and

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      allow fb's to supercharge their hp. However much fire they

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      "consume" will increase their hp to the point that they

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      don't need food for that much longer.

 There would have to be a limit (2 x normal hp or something) - otherwise the
fireborn could get mondo hp and make easy work of some of the toughest monsters.

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      That was the point, if fb's are composed basically of

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      flame in the first place. And flame spells are among

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      the lowest-level ones available (e.g., flaming hands,

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      small fireball).

 But really only in the hands of players - you usually don't go against spell
casters monsters until at least level 5 or so.  So if the fireborn has to cast
spells for hp, this just increases his wait time for mana regen - for hp, you
are probably almost always going to want to have max before heading into a
dungeon - this could create a situation where it is near impossible to have both
max hp and max mana.

 Which is one reason having it food I think works better - food has a much
higher total allowed (999 - ok, at very high levels, players may get hp that
high).  But it does mean that a fireborn that starts with max food in town
should be able to get a decent amount of the dungeon done, and then find fire or
whatever to get food back up.  If its his hit points, chances are he might leave
town at max, gets to dungeon at less than max, has to fire up, and now has less
than max mana, waits for that to get up, and once again has less than max hp. 
mana regen would have to be faster than hp loss, but the effect will still
almost certainly be that the player will spend more time waiting for those to go
up.

 Also, having it be hp would seem to me to make it impossible for a fireborns hp
to naturally go up unless he is in fire.  This could really screw the fireborn -
imagine he got into a treasure chamber with no magic, but that also released big
nasty monster - he's basically hosed now, as his hp will continue to go down
with no way to get them up again.  At least if food is a seperate stat, assuming
he has enough food, his hp will get maxed out.

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      The shift in balance is in having to plan getting fire w/o

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      either giving one's self away or frying all the treasure.

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      Other theory was minimizing the changes required in code.

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      Given the idea of "supercharging" hp it seems possible that

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      the entire issue could be tested by negating a constant and

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      a one-opt test like if( char_type == CHAR_FB ) food_value /= 20;

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      in the "eating" code.

 The frying treasure is probably not a big deal in most cases - in most all
dungeons, there are places to cast a spell that does not have treasure.  The
fact that many people already cast large spells at monsters seems to suggest at
some level frying treasure isn't really a big deal.  Plus, there are spells like
firebolt which are pretty narrowly focused - even things like runes would
probably work as an even safer method.