New inscription for attacking hydra

[Sandman25]

New weapon inscription "!h" will give a prompt "Really attack hydra?" when trying to hit hydra with inscribed weapon. For axes it should check all adjacent monsters and trigger the prompt if at least one of them is hydra.

It is already annoying to swap weapon in Lair and especially Swamp, let's make it more user-friendly.

I think I can create patch if needed.

[CanOfWorms]

better idea: remove hydra slicing interaction

[Sprucery]

Give hydras a chance to grow a new head every time they take damage, regardless of the source. Balance is easy to adjust by tweaking the probability.

[Quazifuji]

Is there any case in the game besides hydras where there's a difference between "slicing" damage and other types of damage?

If no, it does seem odd to have that mechanic only exist for hydras. It kind of works because it's intuitive, but it still seems like the kind of thing that the game's design tries to avoid.

If yes, what other cases are they, and am I just ignorant or are they incredibly obscure and opaque?

[Shard1697]

There are no other cases as far as I know.

I don't know if I'd call it intuitive, since what weapons are piercing instead of slashing is ambiguous if you haven't used them before. ex: short swords do piercing, but you can easily imagine slashing with one. Halberds are slashing damage despite having a speartip, so it's easy to imagine poking with them as well(when I first found one way back when I started playing, I had this idea in my head that maybe up close attacks would be slashing with the axehead, and reaching attacks would be piercing with the speartip). Blade hands is slashing, but could just as easily be piercing. Claws change into slashing damage only at level 3, and could just as easily be piercing damage at any level. And not that it matters because there's nothing that checks for blunt vs. piercing, but it always seemed to me that spiked M&F weapons should count as piercing damage(and should a whip of slashing not count as... slashing damage?).

[Siegurt]

There are no other cases as far as I know.

I don't know if I'd call it intuitive, since what weapons are piercing instead of slashing is ambiguous if you haven't used them before. ex: short swords do piercing, but you can easily imagine slashing with one. Halberds are slashing damage despite having a speartip, so it's easy to imagine poking with them as well(when I first found one way back when I started playing, I had this idea in my head that maybe up close attacks would be slashing with the axehead, and reaching attacks would be piercing with the speartip). Blade hands is slashing, but could just as easily be piercing. Claws change into slashing damage only at level 3, and could just as easily be piercing damage at any level. And not that it matters because there's nothing that checks for blunt vs. piercing, but it always seemed to me that spiked M&F weapons should count as piercing damage(and should a whip of slashing not count as... slashing damage?).

There used to be a difference in weapon noise (Although the code was nonfunctional for a very long time), also spikey M&F weapons used to do both blunt and peircing damage (even odds of both)

[HardboiledGargoyle]

it always seemed to me that spiked M&F weapons should count as piercing damage

this does happen and you can tell because some M&F weapons perforate like a sieve!!!

  Code:

 381     { WPN_MORNINGSTAR,       "morningstar",        13, -2, 15,
 382         SK_MACES_FLAILS, SIZE_LITTLE,  SIZE_SMALL,  MI_NONE,
 383         DAMV_CRUSHING | DAM_PIERCE, 7, 10, {
...
 396         }},

 403     { WPN_DIRE_FLAIL,        "dire flail",         13, -3, 13,
 404         SK_MACES_FLAILS, SIZE_MEDIUM,  SIZE_BIG,    MI_NONE,
 405         DAMV_CRUSHING | DAM_PIERCE, 2, 10, M_AND_F_BRANDS },

 406     { WPN_EVENINGSTAR,       "eveningstar",        15, -1, 15,
 407         SK_MACES_FLAILS, SIZE_LITTLE,  SIZE_SMALL,  MI_NONE,
 408         DAMV_CRUSHING | DAM_PIERCE, 0, 2, {
...
 421         }},

 428     { WPN_GIANT_SPIKED_CLUB, "giant spiked club",  22, -7, 19,
 429         SK_MACES_FLAILS, SIZE_LARGE, NUM_SIZE_LEVELS, MI_NONE,
 430         DAMV_CRUSHING | DAM_PIERCE, 1, 10, {} },


[Quazifuji]

Is there actually any difference between piercing and crushing damage besides flavor?

[dynast]

Is there actually any difference between piercing and crushing damage besides flavor?

Piercing is for flesh(most animals/beasts,) crushing is for armor(gargoyle).
I am just making shit as i go.

[Shtopit]

Is there actually any difference between piercing and crushing damage besides flavor?

Piercing is for flesh(most animals/beasts,) crushing is for armor(gargoyle).
I am just making shit as i go.

I would do it with crushing being good against insects and spiders and things which have no bones, piercing ignoring part of AC and slashing doing nice damage without special properties. However, the road taken to differentiate weapon types looks different.

[PleasingFungus]

There used to be a difference in weapon noise (Although the code was nonfunctional for a very long time), also spikey M&F weapons used to do both blunt and peircing damage (even odds of both)

also i think that different damage types cause (caused?) different amounts of blood to spray, which is relevant for, uh, ignite blood demonspawn? and also console players who can't tell what anything is anymore, i guess

[PleasingFungus]

New weapon inscription "!h" will give a prompt "Really attack hydra?" when trying to hit hydra with inscribed weapon. For axes it should check all adjacent monsters and trigger the prompt if at least one of them is hydra.

It is already annoying to swap weapon in Lair and especially Swamp, let's make it more user-friendly.

I think I can create patch if needed.

why would this be an inscription instead of just the behavior for all non-flaming slicing weapons? toggleable by some new rcfile option, i guess

i guess if it's an inscription, it's slightly easier to turn it on/off based on whether you think your character can just power through hydras even with a slicing weapon?

[Sandman25]

why would this be an inscription instead of just the behavior for all non-flaming slicing weapons? toggleable by some new rcfile option, i guess

i guess if it's an inscription, it's slightly easier to turn it on/off based on whether you think your character can just power through hydras even with a slicing weapon?

Yes, vampiric battleaxe or executioner's axe of freezing can be ok with good defenses.

[yesno]

it always seemed to me that spiked M&F weapons should count as piercing damage

this does happen and you can tell because some M&F weapons perforate like a sieve!!!

  Code:

 381     { WPN_MORNINGSTAR,       "morningstar",        13, -2, 15,
 382         SK_MACES_FLAILS, SIZE_LITTLE,  SIZE_SMALL,  MI_NONE,
 383         DAMV_CRUSHING | DAM_PIERCE, 7, 10, {
...
 396         }},

 403     { WPN_DIRE_FLAIL,        "dire flail",         13, -3, 13,
 404         SK_MACES_FLAILS, SIZE_MEDIUM,  SIZE_BIG,    MI_NONE,
 405         DAMV_CRUSHING | DAM_PIERCE, 2, 10, M_AND_F_BRANDS },

 406     { WPN_EVENINGSTAR,       "eveningstar",        15, -1, 15,
 407         SK_MACES_FLAILS, SIZE_LITTLE,  SIZE_SMALL,  MI_NONE,
 408         DAMV_CRUSHING | DAM_PIERCE, 0, 2, {
...
 421         }},

 428     { WPN_GIANT_SPIKED_CLUB, "giant spiked club",  22, -7, 19,
 429         SK_MACES_FLAILS, SIZE_LARGE, NUM_SIZE_LEVELS, MI_NONE,
 430         DAMV_CRUSHING | DAM_PIERCE, 1, 10, {} },


so off topic sorry but why does every list of properties end with an empty list?

[4Hooves2Appendages]

I'd be in favour of removing head slicing. Instead they grow heads when they do damage. They should also get speed 12, so they don't become a monster almost everyone can ignore.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

so off topic sorry but why does every list of properties end with an empty list?

I edited out some lines for readability.

[yesno]

so off topic sorry but why does every list of properties end with an empty list?

I edited out some lines for readability.

i mean every list of attributes ends with an empty list, {}

347 { WPN_CLUB, "club", 5, 3, 13,
348 SK_MACES_FLAILS, SIZE_LITTLE, SIZE_LITTLE, MI_NONE,
349 DAMV_CRUSHING, 10, 0, {} },

the last three items are 10, 0, and {}, just wondering whta the empty list {} is for

[Dracunos]

so off topic sorry but why does every list of properties end with an empty list?

I edited out some lines for readability.

i mean every list of attributes ends with an empty list, {}

347 { WPN_CLUB, "club", 5, 3, 13,
348 SK_MACES_FLAILS, SIZE_LITTLE, SIZE_LITTLE, MI_NONE,
349 DAMV_CRUSHING, 10, 0, {} },

the last three items are 10, 0, and {}, just wondering whta the empty list {} is for

  Code:

 { WPN_TRIPLE_SWORD,          "triple sword",          17, -4, 19,
 487         SK_LONG_BLADES,  SIZE_MEDIUM,  NUM_SIZE_LEVELS,  MI_NONE,
 488         DAMV_SLICING, 0, 2, LBL_BRANDS },
 489 #if TAG_MAJOR_VERSION == 34
 490     { WPN_BLESSED_FALCHION,      "old falchion",         7,  2, 13,
 491         SK_LONG_BLADES,  SIZE_LITTLE,  SIZE_LITTLE, MI_NONE,
 492         DAMV_SLICING, 0, 0, {} },


Looks like the last item there is the list of possible brands the weapon can get or spawn with? And maybe the ones that have empty lists are artifacts or otherwise can't have brands or be spawned with random brand, or some such thing like that.

E: Look at line 281+, it looks like LBL_BRANDS is the brand weights, I assume for if you read a scroll of brand weapon. There's even a huge couple paragraph comments above it that starts: "Why do we have all these ridiculous brand tables?", haha.