Zin's Recite vs. enemy gargoyles

[tedric]

Why are they unaffected? I assume it has something to do with them being artificial/non-living or some other holiness issue. It seems weird that Zin would accept player gargoyles as followers but not evangelize to the ones found in the dungeon.

[spudwalt]

Were they just resisting the recitation effects? I think the only book that could affect them is the book of Apostates, which does fairly minor stuff to non-priest enemies (confuse, daze, sleep, etc.), and it's possible that nothing happened to them when you used Recite.

[tedric]

No, the ability just doesn't activate. "There's no appreciative audience," etc., same as for mindless enemies like jellies, animals/insects, etc.

[wheals]

Yeah, this is intentional:

  Code:

// Can't recite at plants or golems.

I suppose now that there are more intelligent nonliving things and plant things it might make sense to allow reciting to them, though I'm not sure what the original motivation for forbidding them in the first place was.

[bcadren]

I agree; the inability to recite at plants and non-living holiness as it originally was; is about those not being intelligent enough to get recited at. We've already broken the 'non-living' part; just not golems specifically. [Several of the new non-living holiness creatures in the abyss are 'chaotic' group for Zin.] Certainly you can't recite at a thorn hunter or Oklob, but intelligent plants and gargoyles...let it be.

[RBrandon]

Are monster gargoyles treated like golems? Seems strange since player gargoyles are treated as living, or at least partially living.

[bcadren]

Are monster gargoyles treated like golems? Seems strange since player gargoyles are treated as living, or at least partially living.

  Code:

gargoyle (9) | Spd: 10 | HD: 6 | HP: 19-36 | AC/EV: 18/6 | Dam: 20 | non-living, items, doors, fly, !sil | Res: magic(48), elec, poison+++, drown, rot+++, neg+++, torm | XP: 415 | Sp:  stone arrow (3d12) | Sz: Medium | Int: normal.

war gargoyle (9) | Spd: 14 | HD: 13 | HP: 36-68 | AC/EV: 22/4 | Dam: 30 | non-living, items, doors, fighter, see invisible, fly, !sil | Res: magic(104), fire, cold, elec, poison+++, drown, rot+++, neg+++, torm | XP: 1452 | Sp: metal splinters (3d27) | Sz: Medium | Int: high.

molten gargoyle (9) | Spd: 10 | HD: 7 | HP: 23-41 | AC/EV: 14/7 | Dam: 20(fire:7-13) | non-living, items, doors, fly, !sil | Res: magic(56), fire+++, elec, poison+++, drown, rot+++, neg+++, torm | XP: 433 | Sp: b.magma (3d15) | Sz: Medium | Int: normal.

Yes...AND I don't see that changing. They either need to be non-living or demonic to keep the rTorm and I don't see them becoming demons. Player Gargoyles are non-living enough that Yred doesn't accept them, as well. I always figured that they ARE golems and they eat for energy (and they eat normal food and not rocks or something just because that was easier to do).

[duvessa]

player gargoyles are treated as non-living for like 2 purposes and are treated as living for like 50000 purposes

[bcadren]

player gargoyles are treated as non-living for like 2 purposes and are treated as living for like 50000 purposes

Non-Living for Yred, rPois, LRD/Shatter Weakness, rElec, rDrown, rPetrify

Living for food, good gods, Fedhas.

In between for rTorm, rN.

Notably the inbetween stuff is the same as Statue Form, which is also Non-Living enough for Yred.

But, yea...they are mostly living, you are right.

[duvessa]

rPois, LRD/Shatter, rElec, rPetrify have nothing to do with nonliving (inept mimics are nonliving and have none of those)

[bcadren]

rPois, LRD/Shatter, rElec, rPetrify have nothing to do with nonliving (inept mimics are nonliving and have none of those)

Inept Mimic and Wood Golem were the exceptions. With the explanation being they were made of wood and not stone or another harder material, like the later non-livings and real reason being...people aren't likely to have the tools to attack the stronger golems in early game.

[and into]

This is getting pretty off topic for GDD, but yes duvessa is right, rElec, rPetrify, etc. are by no means characteristically "non-living" traits. Nor are they characteristically "living" traits. Storm dragons and sky beasts and Nikolas (among others) have rElec, catoblepas has rPetrify, etc.

Flavor wise Gargoyles are like in a permanent state of something similar to, but better than statue form. Which seems thematically to fall between "living" and "non-living," but mostly on the living side.

[Sar]

Nikola doesn't have rElec IIRC.

[tedric]

I'm still not hearing a clear explanation of why Recite doesn't work on enemy gargoyles.

If I'm understanding people right, they are considered non-living because they're supposed to have rTorment; and before player gargoyles, there was no reason to think of them as particularly intelligent, so they were lumped in with plants and golems.

Flavor and internal consistency both suggest Recite should work on them now, since they've become humanoids that appear similar to player gargs. And this isn't just a tiles thing, as they now wield maces and so must have hands, and cast stone arrow so presumably have some intelligence.

Is this hard to code, because of the non-living/rTorment thing? Or are they meant to be different kinds of creatures, i.e. the enemies are just animated statues while the player species are half-living hybrids?

[duvessa]

I just think they should be living since player gargoyles clearly are.

[spudwalt]

We could base eligible Recite targets off of intelligence, then, i.e. Recite only affects stuff of normal intelligence or better.

Although... that would mess up Recite's effects on the undead, since a lot of them have low intelligence... Hmmm.

[khalil]

One could check for both, with unliving creatures having normal intelligence being eligible for recite, like so

  Code:

Psudocode:
def canBeRecitedTo{
if (univing){
if (int == normal || int == high){
return True
}
else{
return False;
}
}
else if (undead){
You get the point.
}
}


[1010011010]

Proposal:
Abominations effects anything chaotic
Ablutions effects unclean and walking corpses
Apostates effects anything normal/high intelligent (ie capable of following Zin but is not)
Anathema effects demons and undead

Considering the effects and that you can already effect mindless things, recite is clearly does not require the subject to understand it, it's more of a exorcism.

[omegonthesane]

The description of Book of Apostates implies that it should check intelligence and no other factor whatsoever. Most of the Lair is off the hook for being too dumb, but intelligent Gargoyles are intelligent, and it isn't really a problem in my mind if you're allowed to shout at demonic hordes with Apostates instead of Anathema effects.

(Unless Apostates > Anathema or something, which would be odd.)

[bcadren]

Why is recite so complicated in the first place? I mean it's one of the older gods; but I guarantee if that ability was suggested now; it'd be simplified to just one or two sets of effects instead of so many sublists.

[damiac]

Maybe, but I think for a free ability it'd be too powerful if it just worked on everything in LoS. With even decent Invo skill, recite messes stuff up pretty bad, considering that it's free.