Improve potions of resistance
Posted: Monday, 14th January 2019, 19:30Currently, potions of resistance grant fire, cold, electricity, poison, and acid resistance. I recommend expanding the list to include negative energy and magic, at least, for 2 reasons:
1) The wider the variety of situations is where these items are useful, the more numerous and interesting the decisions about when to use them vs. save them are, and the greater the reward to players that skillfully judge and manage situations where the potions are helpful but not necessary. If the list were further expanded to include rare resistances like mutation, paralysis, and petrification, these benefits would be even greater. Making rare resistances available through a rare consumable wouldn't trivialize serious extended game threats (as players would still primarily need to play around those threats in the traditional manner), and would reward players skilled enough to conserve their supply with an option to mitigate those threats in unusually dangerous circumstances.
2) As a "drink this to compensate for not having yet found an appropriate resistance for the dangerous threat you're taking" consumable, having it function effectively for most threats that can normally be mitigated by resistance, but not for all, is inconsistent. I'm sure there are many players that quaff potions of resistance when facing uniques like Menkaure and Grinder without realizing that they're wasting both a turn and a valuable potion for no benefit, either because they forgot which resistances are provided, or because they never took the time to carefully read the item description in the first place. Sure, you could make the case that this differentiates player skill (or more accurately, player knowledge), but it does so in a much more shallow and less interesting way.
The selection of resistances currently granted has a thematic aesthetic that I appreciate, but a complete set of resistances (at least of those that are generally available through equipment selection) makes more sense in terms of gameplay.
1) The wider the variety of situations is where these items are useful, the more numerous and interesting the decisions about when to use them vs. save them are, and the greater the reward to players that skillfully judge and manage situations where the potions are helpful but not necessary. If the list were further expanded to include rare resistances like mutation, paralysis, and petrification, these benefits would be even greater. Making rare resistances available through a rare consumable wouldn't trivialize serious extended game threats (as players would still primarily need to play around those threats in the traditional manner), and would reward players skilled enough to conserve their supply with an option to mitigate those threats in unusually dangerous circumstances.
2) As a "drink this to compensate for not having yet found an appropriate resistance for the dangerous threat you're taking" consumable, having it function effectively for most threats that can normally be mitigated by resistance, but not for all, is inconsistent. I'm sure there are many players that quaff potions of resistance when facing uniques like Menkaure and Grinder without realizing that they're wasting both a turn and a valuable potion for no benefit, either because they forgot which resistances are provided, or because they never took the time to carefully read the item description in the first place. Sure, you could make the case that this differentiates player skill (or more accurately, player knowledge), but it does so in a much more shallow and less interesting way.
The selection of resistances currently granted has a thematic aesthetic that I appreciate, but a complete set of resistances (at least of those that are generally available through equipment selection) makes more sense in terms of gameplay.
