[crossfire] Maps for spellcasters (and melee vs. ranged attacks)

[Raphaël Quinet]

Hi,

Looking at the current set of maps and especially some of the recently
added quests, I see that several high-level maps can only be completed
using melee.  Ranged attacks are useless in many of these maps because
magic and prayers are blocked, or because the monsters reflect spells
and missiles, or because they are immune or highly protected against
most attacktypes or diseases and they are too high level to be charmed.

This is fine for warriors and similar types of players, but I think
that it would also be fun to have quests for those who want to focus
on ranged attacks (spellcasters, bowmen, etc.).  This is not a problem
in low- and medium-level quests because most of them allow ranged
attacks and the player can usually kill monsters safely from a
distance.  However, some high-level quests can be completed easily
using melee but not ranged attacks (think about Eureca or the recent
additions like the pygmies).

I would like to balance that by adding some quests that can be completed
without too much trouble using ranged attacks (spells or missiles) but
are very hard to complete using melee.  However...  there is no easy way
to do that.  Map designers can easily block magic and prayers in a map
by using "no_spells" floor, but there is no such thing as a "no_melee"
floor.

I have been thinking about various ways to discourage melee, but I am
posting this message to the list because I hope that some of you have
better ideas.  Currently, the solution that I am thinking about is to
allow melee but discourage players from using it.  For instance, the
monsters could have very low WC, hitback and a nasty combination of
attacktypes such as acid + cancellation + weaponmagic.  Maybe these
monsters could also be mixed with other monsters having ghosthit or death
in their attacktypes.  So attempting hand-to-hand combat would result in
damaged equipment and a high risk of being killed.  But maybe there are
better ideas?  Do you have any suggestions?

-Raphaël

P.S.: I would also appreciate some replies to my previous messages
      about how to handle the "Modified" info in map headers, and also
      about whether SVN revisions 9751 and 9752 should be reverted or
      not (type and material of items in the Fun Zone).