LRD Gone Horribly Right

[Stormfox]

I've always been a big fan of LRD, but one of many things getting in the way of my success with EE's is a complete lack of intuition about whether a rock wall will blow up with radius 1 or radius 2. (Haven't gotten far enough to get enough spell power to have much chance of removing stone walls, but the same problem would kick in there eventually.) This makes things tough when there's a group in close range and I'm unsure of whether I will catch myself in the burst. So I play "conservatively" and revert to Stone Arrow or Sandblast and often get killed for my trouble.

Past a certain point, I assume that I'm going to destroy the wall, so eventually it's not an issue. It's that middle time when you've got a chance to destroy the wall, but not a near guarantee, that's the hardest to deal with.

First question for devs: Why the potential for two different burst radii with rock and stone? I understand that if you've got enough power to remove the wall grid, you're creating more fragments and it would notionally cover more area. Is this the reason?

Second: Would it be possible to add a line or two of description to the wall types that only shows up when you have LRD memorized, similar to the Evaporate effects that only show up when you know that spell? One based on the burst radius, and one based on your chances of destroying the wall. For example:

Burst radius: "Deconstructing this will create a {small|medium|large} explosion." (radius 1/2/3)
And, if destruction gives a bigger blast: "Destroying this will create a medium explosion instead."
Destruction: "You {cannot|probably won't|possibly will|probably will|almost certainly will} destroy this by deconstructing." (<10%/<25%/<50%/<75%/<100%)

Thoughts?

[mumra]

Other spells don't give you the same clues; e.g. with Fire Storm at low you don't know whether you'll get the full radius or one short and that can make an even bigger difference. Until you've trained a skill up high enough it's supposed to be less reliable and predictable; so for life-and-death situations you need to play tactically so if it goes wrong you still have backup weaponry or an escape plan.

[galehar]

Firestorm (and cloud spells) have a new targetting system that let you see the cells which are going to be affected, as well as the ones that might be affected. We could extend this to LRD.

[Bim]

Please do it for LRD, It's my favourite spell ever.

...Oh orcs, you thought you were safe by that wall did you? nice cosy wall...yeah...all huddle together....that's right...BANGGGG!!

Also, I agree that it would be really great to have a more easy reference for it, as I don't view earth magic (except crystal spear.....) as being slightly underpowered, I'd love to see this implemented.

[Galefury]

Also, I agree that it would be really great to have a more easy reference for it, as I don't view earth magic (except crystal spear.....) as being slightly underpowered, I'd love to see this implemented.

Do you or do you not view earth magic as slightly underpowered? In case you do:
Have you played an EE recently (0.8+)? Stone Arrow is decent, and LRD is probably overpowered in the places it works well in. It will kill groups of pretty much anything that doesn't have extremely high AC fairly easily in areas with walls.

Adding approximate shatter chance to the wall descriptions when LRD is memorized would be quite useful. Shattering stone and metal walls is pretty opaque. Storm style targeting also sounds great.

[Jeremiah]

I know that question wasn't directed at me, as I haven't commented on this thread yet, but I am playing an EE at the moment, and while so far I don't think earth magic is underpowered, most of the spells are situationally excellent but otherwise tricky to use.

I found that in order to survive, I had to branch out into fire magic, and play most of the midgame like a fire elementalist - using conjure flame and sticky flame as my primary offence for the whole of Lair and most of the dungeon. I also used a lot of melee.

LRD is an awesome spell, but there isn't always a handy wall to deconstruct, and sometimes you run out of walls before you run out of enemies.

I haven't got Shatter castable yet, probably because I had to divert a lot of XP into fire magic, fighting and shields to get through the midgame. However, I expect it's awesomeness will be short-lived. It seems like it will be great in Zot and branch-ends if I got it castable in time, but would lose its appeal in the post-endgame as many demons can fly.

Overall, I don't think earth magic is underpowered, but it does not work as a brute-force blasting school like fire and ice do, requiring more tricks and finesse to use it, much like pre-tornado air magic.

[Bim]

Hmm, I don't think I've played a pure EE since 0.7 actually, I'll have another go, but wall descriptions would be good regardless!

[Stormfox]

Firestorm (and cloud spells) have a new targetting system that let you see the cells which are going to be affected, as well as the ones that might be affected. We could extend this to LRD.

The display for the cloud targeting in trunk is a HUGE win. (I went back to playing 0.8 for the tourney and haven't jumped back to trunk much yet...probably should, I really miss that feature.) Giving it to LRD as well would help somewhat. Some of the game does rely on the XP of the person at the keyboard (independent of what the @ on the screen has) for those "might happen" situations, after all...so I just need to learn better when those "might be affected" squares are more likely to get hit.

[jejorda2]

LRD is an awesome spell, but there isn't always a handy wall to deconstruct, and sometimes you run out of walls before you run out of enemies.

Sometimes Petrify can help with that, but it can be tough to get past magic resistant foes. Sometimes LRD can finish off an enemy when cast directly on them instead of at the wall, but I haven't quite figured out when that works and when it doesn't.

[lordfrikk]

This is a great idea and I hope it will be implemented.

[KoboldLord]

Sometimes Petrify can help with that, but it can be tough to get past magic resistant foes. Sometimes LRD can finish off an enemy when cast directly on them instead of at the wall, but I haven't quite figured out when that works and when it doesn't.

It works when the monster is specifically classed as a brittle monster. Skeletons, ice beasts, earth elementals, etc. Oddly, liches and curse skulls are excluded from this effect, even though they look bony, but bone dragons are not. There's little you can do but memorize which monsters it works on and which it does not.

[jejorda2]

Sometimes Petrify can help with that, but it can be tough to get past magic resistant foes. Sometimes LRD can finish off an enemy when cast directly on them instead of at the wall, but I haven't quite figured out when that works and when it doesn't.

It works when the monster is specifically classed as a brittle monster. Skeletons, ice beasts, earth elementals, etc. Oddly, liches and curse skulls are excluded from this effect, even though they look bony, but bone dragons are not. There's little you can do but memorize which monsters it works on and which it does not.

I think I've blown up orcs warriors and Yaks, who aren't brittle, by casting LRD directly at them when they weren't petrified. I think they were at low hitpoints, though.

[Stormfox]

I think I've blown up orcs warriors and Yaks, who aren't brittle, by casting LRD directly at them when they weren't petrified. I think they were at low hitpoints, though.

It does scratch damage to anything that isn't brittle. (Henzell says that "Regular enemies are barely hurt".) Not zero, so it's not a complete waste, but your target would have to be very deep into "almost dead" for it to mean much.

[joellercoaster]

It works when the monster is specifically classed as a brittle monster. Skeletons, ice beasts, earth elementals, etc. Oddly, liches and curse skulls are excluded from this effect, even though they look bony, but bone dragons are not. There's little you can do but memorize which monsters it works on and which it does not.

Yeah. LRD is one of my stock spells, and I still get surprised. Ice Statues? Gargoyles? Those definitely feel like they should Deconstruct. And +1 on the Curse Skulls (though it works on the Screaming variety).

[Stormfox]

Unless things have changed recently, gargoyles count as brittle. Certainly helped me the first time I got the mid-D gargoyle vault and I happened to have LRD in the quiver.

(EDIT: I may be misremembering and thinking of a vault with a number of golems like stone and iron. Which are most certainly brittle.)

[galehar]

It's all hard-coded right into the spell code. Some monsters are more vulnerable than others. The list is:

The list is:

  Code:

Wood Golem
Toenail Golem
Iron Elemental
Iron Golem
Metal Gargoyle
Earth Elemental
Clay Golem
Stone Golem
Statue
Gargoyle
Silver Statue
Orange Statue
Crystal Golem
Roxanne