Re: CF: suggestions for exp, monsters, general blather

[Mark Wedel <mwedel@scruznet.com>]

Peter Mardahl wrote:
> 
> > Happy New Year Everyone!
> >
> > While on vacation I've been thinking of a few little issues.
> 
> > 2. I think the spell build director is a little silly. Is there some reason f
> >or it's
> > existance? Some mythical precedent? Now that we have dancing sword and animat
> >e weapon, I
> > think that it should be removed. On maps I think that all director/ movers sh
> >ould be
> > invisble - perhaps they should be revealed by "show invisible"?
> 
> Er, I really like this spell.  I find it invaluable.  It lets you store
> a truly amazing amount of energy, when used in combination with
> certain other spells.

 There always needs to be some balance between what might have precedent
someplace else, what makes the game fun to play, and what things are too
powerful.

 If you toss out all spells that don't have clear precedent, you could probably
eliminate a lot of spells.  Some spells are really their for convenience (create
missile, alchemy), while others have certain more deadly uses.

 Directors in maps make many of those maps more interesting (pull one lever, and
a stone block raises up stop the fireballs from the firewall, while if it is
down, those fireballs go through quite a bit of the map).

> 
> > 3. How about adding some spells to round out the collection. For example -
> > I think that a cone electricity spell is probably in order. It would make sen
> >se if
> > electric dragons had some kind of cone breath. At the moment, they are by far
> > the easiest
> > to kill due to the line-of-sight restriction on lightening.
> 
> How about giving them ball lightning?  That's a really, really wicked
> spell.

 There are some other fixes here also:
 1) Make lightning bolts move much faster than they do currently.  It should be
very difficult to dodge lightning.
 2) Have the dragons lightning breath weapon be as wide as it is (so you get a 3
wide swath, also making it harder to dodge).

> 
> > 4. I think that there definitely needs to be some experience balancing done w
> >hen it comes
> > to different types of creatures. eg. Compare the experience for killing a big
> > demon (low)
> > with the experience for killing a demilich (you get heaps).
> 
> Yeah.  Speed is underrated as a difficulty measure.  A big demon is
> pretty fast compared to a demilich.  Really, demiliches are way
> overvalued.  They seem to be the big experience reward at the end of
> maps:  complete the map, get the easy experience you've earned by
> getting to the demilich.

 I've believe I reduced them once quite a while ago.  While that does not mean
that things are still in balance, it can be quite difficult to balance things
really fairly - depending if the character being played is a fighter vs spell
caster, that can make a big difference on difficulty.

 Also, some monsters are much more difficult if found in packs than alone
(skulls come to mind) - I single skull is not as deadly a pack of 2 or 3 (as the
later, you are more likely to get confused and wonder into other attacks, where
a single one, if you get confused, there is a good chance you can get to
safety).

 The same may be true for demiliches - not sure.  And some of this can be
adjusted on maps - as long as generators are not creating the hoard of monsters.

> 
> > 5. As for monsters, I would really like to see some Real Giants added to the
> >archetypes. I
> > think a good size would be 2x3. These should basically be a much tougher vers
> >ion of the
> > existing hill giants - throw boulders faster and hit harder.
> 
> Dude, if you do the artwork, I'll do the archetypes for any number of
> giants you'd like to include into the game.

 If you follow AD&D, there is a complete set (hill, stone, frost, fire, cloud,
storm).  Covers pretty much all the elements, although I really wouldn't want to
make them too much into spell casters - a lot of the tougher monster already are
spell casters, and I think it would be nice to differentiate them a bit by
having them be more straight melee, doing a lot of damage and having a lot of HP
(and the could have attacktype of their native type, making things like
invulnerabilty potions not all that useful)
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