wandering mushroom AI / polearms

[omegasean]

so i'm pretty sure the mushroom just stood there as i stabbed it a bunch via reaching.

maybe they should attack once you hit them with a melee weapon or something.

[mageykun]

They'll pretty much stand there as you beat them to death at range any way you go about it. That's kind of the point- they only move when outside of LOS, and they're only a direct threat in melee.

[Galefury]

That may very well be the case, but it's stupid. They should definitely move to fight back or flee.

[sanka]

Or let it be immune to ranged attack somehow. Hiding behind it's hat if you are more than one square away or something.

[KoboldLord]

I don't think they randomly generate anywhere, and most of the vaults they come from have windy little passages that force you to come into melee in order to get a clear shot at them. Their peculiar AI is a nice quirk for Fedhas worshipers to accommodate in order to distinguish the play style for that deity from other minion styles, and even if they do occasionally show up in a badly-designed vault a single one-sided curbstomp encounter involving them every five games isn't that big a deal.

[sanka]

being immune to ranged attack would not ruin any of their uniqe features.

[mageykun]

being immune to ranged attack does not ruin any of their unique features.

No, it just upgrades them from an quirky annoyance to a potential major threat if they're blocking your way and lack clarity.

[Eji1700]

being immune to ranged attack does not ruin any of their unique features.

No, it just upgrades them from an quirky annoyance to a potential major threat if they're blocking your way and lack clarity.

Is this bad or good?

[TwilightPhoenix]

Both.

[Stormfox]

being immune to ranged attack does not ruin any of their unique features.

No, it just upgrades them from an quirky annoyance to a potential major threat if they're blocking your way and lack clarity.

Or AC/EV, or hitpoints. Don't forget that they hit decently hard in addition to confusing you. (Most folks do forget that because they don't ever get close enough to find out.)

[KoboldLord]

Because Fedhas needs an early-game buff? Mushrooms need to be immune to all ranged attacks, so they can confuse-lock every monster in the game all the way through Zot 5 and beyond?

It's probably prudent to check if you're screwing up an entire deity and playing style when you're trying to think up fixes for an otherwise obscure and super-rare monster.

[sanka]

I seriously do not think that something like "invulnerable if nobody is next to it" would be such a huge buff for Fedhas as you suggest, altough the God is strong enough as is, so probably do not need any. If it is invulnerable, than ranged monsters should target you instead (of course only if they can), which is not always better than the current situation. Most of the monsters are meele, the mushrooms seems to die in melee fast enough anyway, and even ranged monsters usually try to close distance for some reason. The monster AI is not good enough to kill the musrooms safely from a distance - so this change would affect players against mushrooms much more. Also, if the current mushrooms are able to confuse lock every melee enemy that would be too strong in itself. In my experience this is not the case - I remember orc warriors killing a mushroom with one hit of a hand axe.

Maybe I should underline that I think that such an ability should not work like "invulnarable to attacks that can be used at range" (that would be super annoying), but instead "invulnerable to anything if no enemy is in melee range, but not immune to anything (anything else than now) if an enemy is next to it". It hides behind it's invulnerable hat if it cannot attack, or something, but if she attacks, she must reveal itself.

And if necessary, you can always decreese the hp/defenses of the ones created by Fedhas, or increase piety cost a little. They are very fun and I think strong - but mainly because they are cheap - they die fast without ranged attackers. At least this is my experience - I know that you are a much more experienced player, maybe you know otherwise.

Of course you are right that the mushroom is very rare if you do not worship Fedhas, so any "balancing" seems not important. I simply like the mushrooms, and if the y can be a good threat to players, maybe they can appear more often outside of waults. Currently Fedhas balance is the most important, thats true. Maybe have two separate mushroom if the proposal seems good enough to create a threat.

[Blade]

Imagine a scenario where a fedhas worshipper is in a corridor with a centaur at the edge of LoS and a wandering mushroom behind them. They take a step back, moving the mushroom between them and the centaur.

Instant, unbreakable barricade; the centaur will either waste all its arrows or close to melee range.

That is one example of how it would be overpowered; there may be others.

[sanka]

Well, since the mushroom is invulnerable to the ranged attack, the centaur will close to melee range and not attack from the distance, and then potentially kill the mushroom or die. The mushrooms are strong in melee but far from invulnerable now. Mushrooms would be very very strong against centaur packs in a corridor. This is a situation where the mushroom would be much stronger then before. However, centaur packs in the corridor usually not the biggest treat. They are much much more dangerous in the open.

If however you meet with the centaurs in the open, they will not give any shot to the mushroom, since it's unvulnerable. They should shot you instead, and move to have a clear line. This may be a situation where the big advantage is not so good - the original mushroom may get some of the attacks, saving you. (Of course if the centaurs cannot damage you, then this situation is better for you, because your mushroom will not die from the centaurs instantly. But then it's also not so important to have the mushroom.) And even if one of the centaurs go next to the mushroom, then the others can kill it with arrows.

Of course this is all very hypotetical - maybe the AI is too dumb to not use attacks which has no potential to harm you - will Menkaur use torment against mummies? And maybe nobody is interested in this change at all. And if the mushrooms would be too abusable for a Fedhas worshipper, and some developers would like a ranged-invulnerable mushroom as an enemy, they can always make an other species of fungus for this purpose. The original thread was about the player vs mushroom situation. Thats rare, it's true, but maybe an other kind of mushroom would be much more interesting, so then they would not be so rare.

[omegasean]

I like wandering mushrooms, they are a unique enemy.

but they just stood there as I butchered them with a polearm !!!

fight or flight I say.

[ebarrett]

It's a mushroom. How smart do you think it is?

[BlackSheep]

A number of threats in the game are trivialized with reaching or reliable ranged damage. That doesn't mean they have no place in the game.