Reaching

[tabstorm]

So reaching is pretty annoying:

1. As a player it's quite annoying to use interface wise
2. If you use console, as I found out recently, it's pretty dang annoying to check enemies for polearms when I'm used to just being able to spot them on tiles. Same goes for enemies with projectile weapons but that's for another time and also much rarer.

So I suggest the following change:

1. Polearms attack like normal weapons (must be next to the enemy) except for
2. They "skewer": The attack penetrates and attacks the square behind that enemy in the same direction. This probably needs to have some kind of dam/acc penalty
3. You can't swing at nothing from a distance to attack an enemy like this.

[Siegurt]

I find it ironic that you're complaining about player polearm interface given your nick. (Reaching works perfectly well with tab

[tabstorm]

I usually use axes man.

And even if it does work fine, it builds up webtiles lag which is

[Sar]

skewering would only really work with spears, if we care about ~believability~

[Bloax]

well cleaving would also only work if you were a huge fucking muscle beast swinging around a colossal axe but yet you still see wussy kobolds cleave with hand axes just fine

[duvessa]

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21:13:25 <wheals> how about replacing reaching with brogue-style polearms?
21:14:09 <PleasingFungus> that wouldn't really encourage anything interesting...
21:14:18 <minmay> wheals: while better than reaching, brogue-style polearms would promote some pretty awful things in crawl
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21:14:36 <minmay> like making some zombie and attacking through it or something
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21:14:59 <minmay> and in general just wouldn't be interesting, yeah
21:15:03 <wheals> uh, i don't necessarily mean with all the particulars that brogue ones have
21:15:13 <wheals> i don't see how it's less interesting than reaching
21:15:21 <minmay> it's not
21:15:23 <PleasingFungus> well, it's probably not less interesting than reach
21:15:31 <minmay> but ideally you get rid of reaching and replace it with something less awful
21:15:40 <minmay> not something similarly awful
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21:18:17 <wheals> well, it seems like it would be midway between cleaving and normal fighting; you'd have to have more than one thing around for it to be useful, but not expose yourself to quite as much danger
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21:18:37 <minmay> since we're talking brogue, maybe polearms should give you a lunge attack
21:18:53 <minmay> as in if you move next to a monster you get a "free" attack on it
21:19:06 <minmay> the idea being of course that polearms are long, so you hold the polearm out in front of you, and when you move towards the monster it hits the monster
21:19:09 <PleasingFungus> sure
21:19:16 <PleasingFungus> what sort of playstyles do you see coming out that?
21:19:19 <PleasingFungus> *out of
21:19:25 <PleasingFungus> seems like it might encourage moving towards enemies
21:19:27 <PleasingFungus> which is nice
21:19:29 <minmay> yes
21:19:34 <minmay> mainly it would be more moving instead of pressing s
21:19:45 <minmay> and good against ranged stuff
21:19:51 <minmay> well
21:19:52 <PleasingFungus> have you ever played "hoplite"?
21:19:52 <minmay> sort of good
21:19:57 <minmay> nope
21:20:00 <PleasingFungus> o
21:20:07 <wheals> what advantage would it have versus not-ranged stuff as compared to s?
21:20:08 <PleasingFungus> it's a really good "coffee break roguelike"
21:20:11 <PleasingFungus> might be ios only tho
21:20:19 <PleasingFungus> wheals: I think he means against maintain-range enemies, maybe?
21:20:26 <PleasingFungus> or maybe he just means because you'd attack a turn sooner than otherwise
21:20:28 <minmay> wheals: if the monster is ranged
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21:20:51 <minmay> if it's a melee-only monster then yes you are still best off moving away from it until randomized energy puts it next to you (isn't randomized energy great)
21:21:16 <minmay> but if it's a centaur or yaktaur or orc wizard or orb of fire you might want to move towards it instead, and this lets you potentially attack one action earlier
21:21:29 <PleasingFungus> how would weapon delay work with the free attack?
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21:22:06 <minmay> I don't see any problems with using your regular attack delay
21:22:12 <wheals> maybe make the attackmove be max(movespeed, attack delay)?
21:22:18 <minmay> it's not like you could use it to speed up your movement significantly
21:22:23 <minmay> since you may have moved faster
21:22:27 <minmay> but to do it, you had to have a monster
21:22:30 <minmay> and now the monster is in your way
21:22:49 <PleasingFungus> rude monster imo
21:22:51 <minmay> wheals: considered that but it seems potentially difficult for players to figure out
21:23:12 <PleasingFungus> my concern was actually with the cases where attack delay was greater than movespeed
21:23:16 <PleasingFungus> after the recent door fiasco
21:23:29 <minmay> min(movespeed, attack delay)
21:23:36 <PleasingFungus> ( http://www.pentadact.com/2014-03-29-the-randomised-tactical-elegance-of-hoplite/ this is hoplite btw. there's a gif!!!!)
21:23:40 <minmay> spear spgl the new power combo
21:23:52 <PleasingFungus> power combo for 0.16, 0.17, and 0.19
21:23:59 <TS__> powyrful spear attacks
21:24:04 <wheals> i'm just thinking of how to somehow abuse sputterfly with this
21:24:11 <wheals> or spammal, for batty bats
21:24:12 <minmay> wheals: it wouldn't work on friendly monsters, of course
21:24:16 <PleasingFungus> well, you can't really attack friendlies with this kind of attack
21:24:17 <minmay> wheals: so you'd have to sac love first
21:24:20 <PleasingFungus> since you can't force-attack into them
21:24:34 <wheals> you could like, throw a stone at them
21:24:42 <PleasingFungus> that sounds like it'd take time
21:24:43 <minmay> wheals: i'm pretty sure that would take longer than the 3 aut you save
21:25:01 <minmay> well i guess you save 7 aut as a naga
21:25:03 <minmay> but i still don't see that being useful
21:25:07 <PleasingFungus> na^chei power combos?
21:25:14 <minmay> I guess it is potentially stupid with chei
21:25:18 <minmay> didn't really think of chei
21:25:20 <minmay> since i never use him
21:25:21 <minmay> since he's chei
21:25:24 <wheals> i guess we already had this with dform trample :P
21:25:40 <minmay> well dform trample almost always moves you somewhere worse anyway
21:25:46 <minmay> whereas this moves you to the square you actually wanted to move to
21:25:49 <PleasingFungus> rip dform trample
21:26:02 <PleasingFungus> too majestic for this world......
21:26:03 * wheals mauls PleasingFungus!!!!
21:26:08 <PleasingFungus> rip
21:27:13 <wheals> i guess this would almost be like a minijump, sounds like it could be pretty fun
21:27:39 <PleasingFungus> yeah
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21:27:58 <PleasingFungus> I like the idea. want to sleep on it so I can think about it further
21:28:08 <PleasingFungus> right now I'm too enthusiastic to see the flaws
21:28:40 <minmay> anyway, I'm adequately convinced now that max(movedelay, attackdelay) is the best way to do it, even if it is slightly unintuitive
21:28:46 <minmay> just stick it in the description
21:28:59 <minmay> also giving it to long blades or maces is probably less radical than giving it to polearms
21:29:17 <PleasingFungus> it'd require redesigning fewer vaults, certainly
21:29:25 <minmay> haha point
21:29:53 <PleasingFungus> hm. I wonder if a hoplite-like shield bash ability could be fun to play with
21:30:45 <PleasingFungus> seems like it would be best for blasters, which is kind of a little weird
21:31:41 <minmay> active combat moves are not suited for crawl imo (it's half of why we're complaining about reaching in the first place)
21:31:55 <PleasingFungus> true
21:31:56 <Bloax> how about bashing something in the direction you stepped in
21:32:07 <PleasingFungus> half-a-trample
21:32:17 <PleasingFungus> would that actually be beneficial?
21:32:24 <PleasingFungus> I guess it'd prevent counterattacks
21:32:35 <minmay> it would be beneficial against melee-only monsters
21:32:45 <minmay> and awful against anything else
21:32:48 <Bloax> it would make moving towards your target more than giving them a free hit
21:32:52 <PleasingFungus> the most powerful type of monster in crawl!!!!
21:33:05 <PleasingFungus> oh, you mean in the same way that we were talking about with the spear-move?
21:33:10 <PleasingFungus> moving toward them, not bumping them
21:33:25 <minmay> i thought he meant moving towards them makes you shield bash them and knock them back one space
21:33:33 <Bloax> oh
21:33:35 <Bloax> that would be awful
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21:33:52 <PleasingFungus> I'm very confused
21:33:56 <Bloax> just a preliminary attack for stepping adjacent to the monster is what i'm thinking of
21:34:08 <minmay> so...exactly what we were talking about
21:34:13 <PleasingFungus> neat
21:34:15 <PleasingFungus> great minds!
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21:36:29 <Lightli> I thought you said dform temple and I got confused
21:36:50 <PleasingFungus> new vault
21:37:29 <Bloax> https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/63152810/n/crawl/vinedragon.png
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21:38:13 <Bloax> inconspicuous dragon-shaped plants
21:38:32 <PleasingFungus> haha
21:38:35 <PleasingFungus> Return Of Vinedragon
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21:40:07 <PleasingFungus> hm. thinking about drainbrand
21:40:25 <PleasingFungus> (1) should the temp hd reduction be proportionate to mon max hd, or flat
21:41:12 <PleasingFungus> (2) should it trigger 1-1 with brand damage (and presumably the brand would trigger slightly less often?), or should it trigger some fraction of the time, as it does now
21:41:13 <Bloax> why not a max of the two
21:41:33 <PleasingFungus> depends on what the fraction is, I suppose
21:41:35 <Cheibriados> Orb Guardian (06X) | Spd: 14 | HD: 15 | HP: 65-103 | AC/EV: 13/13 | Dam: 45 | 10doors, fighter, see invisible | Res: 06magic(120), 12drown | XP: 2765 | Sz: Giant | Int: normal.

21:41:35 <PleasingFungus> %??orb guardian
21:41:56 <Bloax> say it's 10%
21:42:00 <minmay> 1-1 with brand damage sounds good to me since then when you see "you drain the whatever" you actually did drain the whatever
21:42:01 <Bloax> or 1
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21:42:26 <PleasingFungus> minmay: yeah that's what I was thinking. my concern was making the brand overall too "spiky", too intermittent
21:42:47 <minmay> PleasingFungus: confirmed elec brand has 100% proc chance in 0.16
21:43:15 <rchandra> elec could become like pain, using air skill :|
21:43:32 <minmay> also flat hd reduction sounds better since most things scale linearly with hd anyway
21:43:37 <PleasingFungus> minmay: elec brand is a thing, but we already have one elec brand!
21:43:39 <minmay> or sorta close to linearly
21:43:52 <minmay> PleasingFungus: well i mean current drain only reduces hd on 13% of attacks
21:45:02 <PleasingFungus> it feels a little weird that a drain hit would reduce orc warrior damage by 25% (then 33%, then 50%), but a hit against an orb guardian would give 6.7% reduction (then 9%, then...)
21:45:20 <PleasingFungus> hit dice are just such a weird mechanic.
21:45:36 <minmay> PleasingFungus: an elec hit would also reduce orc warrior HP by a greater % than orb guardian HP
21:45:48 <PleasingFungus> true - that's another flat effect
21:45:50 <PleasingFungus> mm
21:45:55 <minmay> PleasingFungus: and your AC would reduce the orc warrior's damage by a greater % than the orb guardian's damage
21:45:55 <PleasingFungus> eh, flat is simplest
21:46:12 <PleasingFungus> it feels more natural for debuffs to be proportionate - e.g. slow
21:46:56 <PleasingFungus> eh
21:47:11 <minmay> PleasingFungus: I don't know about slow, but confusion's duration is lowered by the enemy's HD
21:47:17 <PleasingFungus> huh
21:47:29 <PleasingFungus> didn't know that
21:47:52 <PleasingFungus> and of course it's usually harder to hit higher hd enemies with debuffs, due to mr etc
21:48:06 <minmay> yes
21:48:09 <PleasingFungus> so how good of an effect would this actually be? how much better would it be than current draining? we can simplify this by asking "how much better is it than the damage", given that the old hd reduction was neglibile.
21:48:11 <PleasingFungus> sp.
21:48:24 <PleasingFungus> alternately, can we just get rid of the damage, to focus on the ways on which this brand is actually interesting/distinct?
21:48:30 <minmay> the old hd reduction was negligible but the old max hp reduction was not
21:49:00 <PleasingFungus> yeah - this doesn't actually reduce mhp, since mhp reduction was one of the Bad UI Problems with olddrain
21:49:05 <minmay> yes
21:49:29 <minmay> anyway, I don't know how I can say how much better it would be when I don't know how often the hd reduction would trigger...
21:49:44 <PleasingFungus> well, I'm asking how much better it'd be so I can calibrate how often to trigger it!
21:49:56 <PleasingFungus> (I'm going with the 1:1 approach for now; if it's elec, then it's elec.)
21:51:02 <minmay> if you're keeping the damage multiplier+1+1d3 from the old brand, 40-50% trigger chance is probably about right?
21:51:31 <minmay> I'm gonna be honest, monsters lose HD so rarely in the current system that I have basically no reference point for how good it is
21:51:33 <PleasingFungus> huh. it looks like it currently has a 2/3rd trigger chance?
21:51:36 <minmay> yes
21:51:38 <PleasingFungus> yeah, it's really hard to compare
21:51:42 <PleasingFungus> well, coinflips are easy

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23:01:55 <PleasingFungus> Hm. Grunt, you're here now. Did you see the discussion about differentiating some weapon type (long blades?) by adding a "first strike" mechanic? (Getting a free attack when you move "at" an enemy)
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23:03:25 <Grunt> I'm not generally a fan of odd weapon mechanics, though if you think something has the potential to work well by all means do up something for an experimental branch.
23:04:06 <PleasingFungus> The idea there was to encourage people to actually *move* toward enemies, which is traditionally frowned on by "the pros"...
23:04:11 <PleasingFungus> Yeah, maybe I'll set up a branch.
23:04:35 <PleasingFungus> s/*move* toward/move *toward
23:04:57 <Grunt> (For some reason I envision "riposte" as more of a long blade thing -- actually, more likely a short blade thing)
23:05:05 <Grunt> (not that I think we really need a mechanic like that)
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23:05:40 <PleasingFungus> Well, we don't *need* it, but it would be nice to differentiate the playstyle of different weapons a little more, I think.
23:05:59 <PleasingFungus> oh
23:06:01 <PleasingFungus> I misread
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23:09:40 <Cheibriados> 03Tanner Swett02 {PleasingFungus} 07* 0.15-a0-2105-gda5f0e3: Make str_to_weapon use existing item data 10(8 hours ago, 3 files, 81+ 44-) 13http://s-z.org/neil/git/?p=crawl.git;a=commitdiff;h=da5f0e399819
23:10:07 <|amethyst> new email address huh
23:10:41 <PleasingFungus> ?
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23:11:54 <|amethyst> %git 6180bce1
23:11:54 <Cheibriados> 07tswett02 {|amethyst} * 0.11-a0-1759-g6180bce: Fix punctuation. 10(2 years, 2 months ago, 1 file, 2+ 2-) 13http://s-z.org/neil/git/?p=crawl.git;a=commitdiff;h=6180bce13379
23:12:12 <PleasingFungus> ah
23:12:19 <PleasingFungus> presumably no longer studying at gvsu :)
23:12:32 <|amethyst> People leave their university?
23:12:37 <Cheibriados> 03|amethyst02 07* 0.15-a0-2106-g0975d26: Add tswett to mailmap and credits. 10(70 seconds ago, 2 files, 2+ 0-) 13http://s-z.org/neil/git/?p=crawl.git;a=commitdiff;h=0975d2634858
23:12:48 <|amethyst> %git HEAD^
23:12:48 <Cheibriados> 07tswett02 {PleasingFungus} * 0.15-a0-2105-gda5f0e3: Make str_to_weapon use existing item data 10(8 hours ago, 3 files, 81+ 44-) 13http://s-z.org/neil/git/?p=crawl.git;a=commitdiff;h=da5f0e399819
23:13:21 <|amethyst> there are probably other recent contributors missing from CREDITS.txt
23:13:36 <PleasingFungus> maybe the guy who did those abyss fixes?
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23:14:08 <|amethyst> mursu should be there already
23:14:19 <|amethyst> oh
23:14:20 <|amethyst> hm
23:14:50 <|amethyst> but is not
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23:15:30 <|amethyst> hm, which spelling to use
23:15:48 <PleasingFungus> !rng a b
23:15:48 <Sequell> The RNG chooses: a.
23:15:50 <PleasingFungus> that one
23:19:00 <Cheibriados> 03|amethyst02 07* 0.15-a0-2107-g24c7d3c: Add ChangeAj and mursu to credits. 10(2 minutes ago, 1 file, 2+ 0-) 13http://s-z.org/neil/git/?p=crawl.git;a=commitdiff;h=24c7d3cb293b
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23:26:29 <gammafunk> Yeah I don't think the first strike where you get an attack when you move adjacent will work very well, but there is a nice planning page on the wiki with some ideas for new weapon mechanics
23:27:09 <gammafunk> cleave started there, but it might be the only good idea on that page
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23:32:11 <PleasingFungus> ha
23:32:17 <PleasingFungus> gammafunk: why do you think it won't work well?
23:33:01 <gammafunk> well, the reason why you don't move towards monsters is to avoid other monsters from entering the fight, so doing so in exchange for one attack is a pretty bad proposition, otoh
23:33:15 <gammafunk> you can just move back form the awakened monster
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23:33:24 <gammafunk> so that you're one position away from where'd you like to fight it
23:33:30 <gammafunk> then move forward to begin the fight
23:33:32 <minmay> gammafunk: it is of course only useful if the monster is ranged
23:33:37 <minmay> but most dangerous monsters are
23:34:01 <gammafunk> there's not really a decision for non-ranged
23:34:08 <minmay> if you have a """killhole""" then its useless, but that applies to cleave and reaching too
23:34:19 <PleasingFungus> good quote marks
23:34:28 <PleasingFungus> there's a decision for fast non-ranged enemies...
23:34:31 <PleasingFungus> just not a decision for yaks
23:34:50 <gammafunk> for ranged where you're going to move towards that guy no matter what, yeah that's one case I guess
23:35:02 <|amethyst> what if your move speed is faster than your attack speed?
23:35:21 <minmay> |amethyst: it can just have a delay of max(movedelay, attackdelay)
23:35:43 <minmay> I pull stuff and use corners etc a lot, but I still move towards ranged monsters quite a bit
23:36:05 <minmay> not always more than 1 tile but this ability only needs 1 tile to be relevant!
23:36:43 <|amethyst> hm, maybe if it were on v instead of on movement
23:36:48 <PleasingFungus> uh
23:36:58 <PleasingFungus> are you making a joke
23:37:02 <|amethyst> otherwise you have to be careful when moving near plants
23:37:34 <minmay> it could not trigger against firewood
23:37:37 <PleasingFungus> mons_is_firewood
23:37:39 <PleasingFungus> yes
23:37:46 <minmay> similar to how (by default) tab doesn't kill plants
23:37:46 <PleasingFungus> I don't think that'd be a crippling disadvantage :)
23:37:59 <PleasingFungus> (not having first strike against firewood)
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23:38:27 <gammafunk> it seems like it'd be annoying to have optimal behaviour for melee-only monsters be to situate one position away from where you'd want to fight
23:38:52 <|amethyst> gammafunk:  seems no worse than reaching in that respect
23:38:54 <minmay> gammafunk: against melee-only monsters, doing that is no better than waiting for them to move next to you
23:39:12 <gammafunk> |amethyst: reaching, the best!
23:39:23 <PleasingFungus> it seems like it would, in fact, be reaching
23:39:34 <PleasingFungus> your v-proposal
23:39:37 <|amethyst> reaching plus a mandatory move
23:39:43 <PleasingFungus> wow
23:39:52 <PleasingFungus> I mean hm. I feel like I'm being too sarcastic
23:39:55 <PleasingFungus> so I'm going to back off a bit
23:39:57 <|amethyst> which eliminates some of the abuses of reaching
23:40:12 <minmay> the idea was pretty much to replace reaching, yeah
23:40:22 <PleasingFungus> was it?
23:40:26 <gammafunk> oh, that's an idea I could get behind
23:40:33 <minmay> well that was *my* idea of it
23:40:36 <minmay> maybe it wasn't everyone else's :P
23:40:37 <PleasingFungus> true
23:40:52 <gammafunk> no everyone but PleasingFungus is actually minmay
23:40:53 <minmay> seems natural to me. it's very similar to reaching but gets rid of the thing that makes reaching really awful (v)
23:40:55 <gammafunk> sorry, spoiler
23:41:24 <minmay> and happens to get rid of the abuses with reaching too, yes
23:41:28 <gammafunk> polearm reform
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23:42:02 <minmay> i admit the theme is a little weird on non-piercing polearms though
23:42:21 <minmay> (of course, the theme of reaching is weird on bardiches, do you know how short those actually are)
23:42:54 <gammafunk> hrm, is there any 'clash of theme'? It seems like the concept is just using the idea that polearms are long
23:43:13 <gammafunk> even if bardiches are in fact short, I guess
23:43:17 <gammafunk> (irl)
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23:43:34 <minmay> clash of theme for reaching, or whatever the new ability would be called?
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23:43:43 <gammafunk> clash of theme for new ability
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23:44:09 <gammafunk> as in, is it somehow tied to piercing? I guess it doesn't much matter either way
23:44:30 <minmay> gammafunk: momentum directly towards your enemy isn't really good with an axe blade
23:44:59 <PleasingFungus> raise it above your head, deliver a powerful chop! maybe
23:45:05 <gammafunk> oh, that's getting into 1kb territory
23:45:07 <PleasingFungus> idk. I am not kb
23:45:08 <gammafunk> I'm out!
23:45:08 <PleasingFungus> yes
23:45:09 <minmay> yes
23:45:10 <PleasingFungus> ha
23:45:15 <minmay> I certainly don't think it's a major problem
23:45:21 <PleasingFungus> when do we bring back triple swords, anyway
23:45:34 <gammafunk> PleasingFungus: when we remove triple crossbows!!!
23:45:39 <PleasingFungus> nooooooo
23:45:40 <minmay> hell, halberds have a spear point anyway
23:45:41 <PleasingFungus> oooooooooooo
23:45:44 <PleasingFungus> oooooooooooooo
23:46:10 <minmay> and a glaive blade is narrow enough that you could conceivably stab with it
23:46:23 <|amethyst> PleasingFungus:  could replace claymores if the Scottish independence referendum goes 'no'
23:46:38 <PleasingFungus> well, last I heard...
23:47:07 <minmay> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bardiche#mediaviewer/File:01_108_Book_illustrations_of_Historical_description_of_the_clothes_and_weapons_of_Russian_troops.jpg
23:47:14 <PleasingFungus> hm. clearly should have double swords and claymores - otherwise, you could cause confusion with triple crossbows!
23:47:15 <PleasingFungus> :)
23:47:17 <|amethyst> if it goes 'yes', restore the lochaber axe
23:47:29 <PleasingFungus> minmay: neat!
23:47:31 -!- lobf has quit [Quit: lobf]
23:47:33 <PleasingFungus> Not so long, no
23:47:46 <minmay> yeah
23:48:12 -!- CSDCMS has quit [Read error: Connection reset by peer]
23:48:14 <minmay> a crawl-style two-handed battleaxe is probably as good at reaching irl as a bardiche
23:48:16 -!- clouded_ has quit [Ping timeout: 260 seconds]
23:48:33 <PleasingFungus> hm. I'm poking around at letting undead races walk through water like greydracs
23:48:41 <PleasingFungus> (slowly)
23:48:51 <PleasingFungus> it seems like vampires are kind of a weird case
23:49:00 <minmay> <PleasingFungus> it seems like vampires are kind of a weird case
23:49:02 <minmay> no shit sherlock
23:49:07 <PleasingFungus> :(
23:49:53 <PleasingFungus> huh. I guess gargoyles are also unbreathing, right. gargoyles....
23:50:13 <PleasingFungus> anyway it looks like vampires are always unbreathing, regardless of satiation? so I guess that's fine

[tabstorm]

Are Brogue polearms exactly how I described in the OP? I don't think it has wizard mode and I hardly ever play it so I can't just spawn a spear to see.

Anyway if so I'm not sure I understand the complaint with zombies, do you mean spawning a zombie in a chokepoint, animating it, attacking it, and then attacking an enemy through it? I guess you can do it but I imagine if a monster is so strong that you need to hide behind an agressive zombie to poke it with attack penalties you are probably better off just running away.

[and into]

I find it ironic that you're complaining about player polearm interface given your nick. (Reaching works perfectly well with tab

Reaching is pretty annoying even with tab. Most robust post-Lair characters can very safely tab a lone centaur without a second thought, for instance (and I am in the habit of doing so), unless you happen to be using a polearm.

[Sar]

Centaurs do approximately 0 ranged damage to any "robust post-Lair character" and if we're talking about centaur warriors you're probably better off using movement if you encounter one fresh out of Lair, then hold tab.

Fast edit: basically, if a ranged monster can hurt you, you probably don't want tab it since tab just runs towards it, eating all the arrows with your face; if it can't hurt you, you can do whatever.

[and into]

I should clarify: If a centaur is one or two squares away without backup, and I have an okay weapon and it isn't super early or something, I can safely tab to kill it. Unless I am wielding a polearm, in which case rather than moving next to the centaur upon first pressing the key once, I stay where I am and eat extra arrows. Because I am in the habit of hitting tab to move toward enemies in such situations ("This thing is not a threat and I don't need to worry about how exactly I move toward it or position myself with respect to it"), this is pretty annoying and often causes me to avoid polearms actively.

I have a dude right now using polearms and I am regretting it since exactly this has come up repeatedly (I got the centaur + orc crossbow ending for Orc:4). It hasn't put me in severe danger or anything but I've taken extra damage and had to 5 it off because I hit tab out of habit to close distance to a nearby enemy.

[Lasty]

The last time a "lunging" special move came up for LBl, I pointed out that it would be a nightmare (and/or absurd) to escape from a monster wielding any LBl. If they get the ability, then it would be suicide to walk away unless you do the immensely silly thing of alternating diagonals so that they never move directly towards you. Alternately, only players could have the ability, in which case there'd be a weird special case where unlike polearms/axes, LBls are only special for players.

[partial]

I like reaching.

[Sprucery]

no-tab reasons

[duvessa]

The last time a "lunging" special move came up for LBl, I pointed out that it would be a nightmare (and/or absurd) to escape from a monster wielding any LBl. If they get the ability, then it would be suicide to walk away unless you do the immensely silly thing of alternating diagonals so that they never move directly towards you. Alternately, only players could have the ability, in which case there'd be a weird special case where unlike polearms/axes, LBls are only special for players.

Short blades are also only special for players. I think polearms and axes should be too, personally.

[huge fucking muscle beast]

well cleaving would also only work if you were a huge fucking muscle beast swinging around a colossal axe

I usually just grab a great mace anyhow.

[headcrab0803]

The last time a "lunging" special move came up for LBl, I pointed out that it would be a nightmare (and/or absurd) to escape from a monster wielding any LBl. If they get the ability, then it would be suicide to walk away unless you do the immensely silly thing of alternating diagonals so that they never move directly towards you. Alternately, only players could have the ability, in which case there'd be a weird special case where unlike polearms/axes, LBls are only special for players.

or maybe you could just set a cooldown timer for this automatic ability

[epsilon]

I really like how reaching works right now (well, except for lags). Only thing I ever want to change is to remove "you couldn't reach far enough". Polearms is like a weapon of choice for Spectral Weapon users or summoners.

Also, iirc, centaurs tend to move close to you, when attacked with reaching.

[Lasty]

The last time a "lunging" special move came up for LBl, I pointed out that it would be a nightmare (and/or absurd) to escape from a monster wielding any LBl. If they get the ability, then it would be suicide to walk away unless you do the immensely silly thing of alternating diagonals so that they never move directly towards you. Alternately, only players could have the ability, in which case there'd be a weird special case where unlike polearms/axes, LBls are only special for players.

Short blades are also only special for players. I think polearms and axes should be too, personally.

The special thing about short blades is a large bonus to stab damage; monsters don't stab at all, aside from the damage bonus against sleeping players. It doesn't make sense to hold up the way monsters with short blades aren't particularly good at doing something monsters can't do as an example of monsters not using weapon-class-specific combat mechanics.

That said, I'd be a little sad if monsters couldn't use reaching/cleaving. It's a bit of a pain in console, but it can create interesting situations.

[Greyr]

interesting situations.

*nods vigorously*

[crate]

Monster cleaving is not really ever "interesting" unless you think something like monster dmsl is "interesting" (in fact they function basically identically: cleaving does nothing except make said monster significantly stronger against summons and other player-allies; dmsl does nothing except make the monster significantly stronger against ranged attacks; as an aside cleaving is thus really quite similar to abjuration, for monsters!).

Personally I think implementing things like monster (or even player, as I've said elsewhere) dmsl is at best lazy and boring (if you want to make a monster good against projectiles surely you can think of other ways than "takes less damage from them" to do so, and I'm not really even sure that it's desirable to have monsters that punish specific methods of attack in the first place). But I really don't feel like arguing about this right now so I'm not going to defend this stance, and certainly it is subjective to some degree.

Reaching does at least have the effect that it allows more monsters to attack the player, so there's an actual gameplay effect that isn't duplicating something else that already exists.

---

re: player-monster symmetry: probably it would be a good idea for clarity if crawl could actually decide whether to make this a thing. It's not a problem if monsters work differently, but it is a problem when they sometimes work differently but other times do not.

[johlstei]

Symmetry seems like a reasonable "nice-to-have" for any new feature, but I don't think it should be a dealbreaker if it's not there. The effects on gameplay should come first.

[Greyr]

"interesting" "interesting"

*crowd goes wild*