[crossfire] Death attack question

[Mark Wedel]

Alex Schultz wrote:
> Nicolas Weeger (Laposte) wrote:
>> I fixed a bug preventing death attack from working correctly, but there are a 
>> few things to decide concerning that:
>>
>> * what should happen in the case of friendly fire? Right now, damage dealt 
>> through death attack will be reduced, so player won't be killed. Should 
>> player be killed anyway?
>>   
> I'm not really sure about that issue, on one hand it might seem harsh to
> accidentally pk so easily with that, on the other hand there are pk
> allowed servers where it may seem silly to have the death attacktype not
> do what it says on players.

  Maybe could change effect, based on if the players are in a party together or not?

>> * if death_attack is combined with AT_MAGIC, a monster can survive if the save 
>> throw is successful. Is that a good behaviour?
>>   
> It depends, when the saving throw is successful, does it take any
> damage, or just not do anything? If not do anything, that is desirable
> IMHO considering AT_MAGIC is supposed to be only on spells and similar,
> and the saving throw is supposed to affect all spells. If it's currently
> causing partial damage with that, then I would say it's bad behavior.

  It is intended design that if an attacktype also has AT_MAGIC, then the 
creature gets any benefit from protections it has to magic, etc.

  The basic idea is that if a creature is immune to magic, you shouldn't be able 
to kill it with a death attack spell - otherwise, what does being immune to 
magic really mean?

  I think the problem here is that in the current system, if an attack has some 
damage value, there is no way to know what that damage is for.  So I guess what 
is happening here is something like a spell having AT_MAGIC | AT_DEATH and 
damage 40.

  Creature makes its death saving throw, no damage from that (it either damages 
you or doesn't).  But now there is a magic attack with 40 damage - what should 
happen with that?

  I'd probably say that it should be ignored - the magic in this case isn't 
suppose to do damage, it is just noting that this is a magic effect.

  However, if you had a spell like deathfire (AT_FIRE | AT_DEATH), then if the 
death attack doesn't kill them, the creature should still take damage from the fire.

  This would get all fixed up in the proposal of discrete damage types, as then 
there would be no question what the damage is from/for, but where not there at 
this time.

>> * death attack can success only if hitter level is twice the victim level. 
>> That sounds pretty arbitrary, no?
> It does seem pretty arbitrary, but IMHO some limit is needed and that
> seems like as reasonable a place as any.

  IIRC, that limit was put in so that low level players couldn't kill high level 
creatures with a death attack and get lots of exp.  So yes, some limit is 
needed, and twice is as good as any.

  One thought might be to adjust that based on current damage to creature.  Eg, 
a creature normally has 1000 maxhp.  It is currently at 400 hp from other 
damage.  Thus, its effectively level to resist a death attack is only 40% of its 
normal level.

  This borrows from other games, but the idea being if a creature is already 
beat up and near to death, a death attack should have an easier time killing it.