Swamp Slogger
Posts: 169
Joined: Tuesday, 25th October 2011, 00:06
Remove direct damage from the list of necromancy miscasts
Today I learnt in a hard way that damage caused by a necromancy miscast ("You convulse helplessly as pain tears through your body!") is not resisted by rN!* So, if the proposal from the topic doesn't go through, please consider at least making this damage check rN, because the current situation is wrong even from the standpoint of flavour.
*just by rN, not by torment immunity: undead players aren't affected
LearnDB:
- Code:
??death curse
mummy[1/8]: When destroyed, all mummies cast a death curse. For normal mummies (i.e. 'a mummy'), this could curse items. For other mummies (e.g. 'guardian mummy'), it will be a random {necromancy miscast} effect. [...]
??necromancy miscast
necromancy miscast[1/1]: By severity: 1: Slowing, (living) 5-19 dmg, rotting. 2: 1-3 shadows, (living) draining, 15-37 damage. 3: Reaper, soul eater, 1-7 statloss, draining, (living) severe rot, or torment.
I believe Tomb doesn't (and shouldn't) require lichform or being undead. I also believe that teleporting-blinking around and apporting the rune (read: ninjaing) shouldn't be the only way for living characters to do Tomb. That said, let's consider our living character doing Tomb in a 'normal' way ('kill everything' way).
Now, with the removal of stairs (I like the change, btw: it made Tomb spicy), it's very hard to fight Tomb monsters small group by small group (not even saying 'one by one'). So, with all the torment around, our character is bound to flounder at low hp. There are plenty ways to finish off low-hp character: phisycal damage (summoned monsters help a lot here), smiting, poison from miasma clouds, ancient liches and ancient champions, and, last but not least, direct damage from death curses. Of all of these ways only the last one seems unfair to Me: chances to avoid physical damage or spells from liches and champions can be improved by defences and/or spells (Aura of Abjuration, RMsl and DMsl), miasma can be avoided by stepping out of it asap or by using fog or other clouds, smiting can be semi-avoided by using smart tactics of breaking los and using fog (and its damage is fairly low, tbh: 7-17), and only death curses have fixed chance to deal irresistable 15-37 damage. Have you heard of those instant deaths caused by using Apocalypse, Disaster Area or aoe spell like Shatter? They are all because of this single type of death curse. I think it would be better if death curses never killed character directly; leaving it debuffed and surrounded by summons and other not-dead-yet enemies is quite enough.
As a separate argument on the proposal in topic: Regeneration spell is usually casted when low on hp. If you miscast it, getting your hp rotted is fine, getting killed - isn't.
I propose to remove the direct damage death curse.
Now, when you know my opinion on the most dangerous death curse out there, have you noticed how it was tier 2, not tier 3? As a necromancy miscast it indeed seems milder than being tormented or getting reapered. But as a death curse in Tomb - no. And since it's only tier 2, the most often causers of this curse are guardian mummies; mummy priests inflict it very rarely, greater mummies - almost never. So, in some way, guardian mummies are scarier than greater mummies!