rPhysical

[Berder]

There are enemies against which fire/cold/elec/pain/poison/invis and hexes simply don't work. This means that backgrounds that depend on such attack types have to branch out. But there aren't any enemies against which physical damage doesn't work, which means that backgrounds that depend on physical damage don't have to branch out. It isn't fair to physical damage backgrounds that they are missing out on branching out and adapting to what they find, as other backgrounds must do.

I therefore propose that insubstantial monsters have varying degrees of rPhys. rPhys has two ranks: rPhys+ confers 50% resistance to any unbranded damage. rPhys∞ confers immunity to unbranded damage. This immunity is calculated at the end of damage calculation, after AC reduction and brand calculation, so that a weapon with a fire brand would still have the brand applied.

All insubstantial monsters have at least rPhys+. Dangerous late game threats, such as orbs of fire, shadow wraiths, phantasmal warriors, or flayed ghosts, have rPhys∞. They can have reduced HP in exchange, or reduced resistances to other damage types, so as not to make them too dangerous in general.

Although it isn't the main reason to introduce rPhys, it does make sense from a simulationist viewpoint because an ordinary sword isn't going to do much to a ghost.

[onget]

rPhys∞ OoF will be very OP.

[bcadren]

I'd wrote about this before. It was laughed at by duvessa and a larger group piled on. Still think it's a cool idea and worth building a player race around. (Ghost Race; you take less damage from non-branded hits; but more from elemental conjurations)...

[Blobbo]

How do Troglodytes branch out? Do they all have to train lots of evo now just to deal with these rPhysical dudes?

[archaeo]

Isn't this one of the reasonable tradeoffs when it comes to spells vs. physical damage? If you train spells, you have a wide variety of attacks that are all useful in different situations; you have to branch out more, but you can also have a lot more flexibility in your attacks. If you train physical attacks, you can do great damage while training fewer skills, but you have relatively little flexibility; you will likely have only one main way to fight enemies.

Even if this was a problem, rPhysical seems like a fairly poor way to go about correcting it.

[Berder]

How do Troglodytes branch out? Do they all have to train lots of evo now just to deal with these rPhysical dudes?

Yes, or acquire a collection of weapons with different brands to kill them.

rPhys∞ OoF will be very OP.

It's oft-repeated in certain circles that you don't have to kill OOFs and that the number of OOFs you typically kill in a given game is 0. The idea is that you can orb ninja instead. I don't 100% agree with that, but the reasoning is you don't have to give every character a way to kill OOFs.

Still, if OOF reduced their vulnerabilities to other elements, e.g. so that they don't resist cold or so their MR is not infinite, you could still kill them.

[Jeremiah]

Anything that is immune to physical damage should also be unable to cause physical damage, because, y'know - insubstantial.

Edit: also, if it has no physical body, how could it be damaged by fire, electricity etc? Anything that was really insubstantial should only be affected by holy, dispel undead, and maybe pure conjurations.

[byrel]

It's oft-repeated in certain circles that you don't have to kill OOFs and that the number of OOFs you typically kill in a given game is 0. The idea is that you can orb ninja instead. I don't 100% agree with that, but the reasoning is you don't have to give every character a way to kill OOFs.

I had not heard this; I tend to pull and clear half of Z:5 vault. Is ninjaing really considered safe for non Spxx of Dith or whatever where it's a central capability? I'm one of the biggest stealth aficionados on the tavern, and I hadn't really thought so...

[xentronium]

rPhys∞ OoF will be very OP.

It's oft-repeated in certain circles that you don't have to kill OOFs and that the number of OOFs you typically kill in a given game is 0. The idea is that you can orb ninja instead. I don't 100% agree with that, but the reasoning is you don't have to give every character a way to kill OOFs.

I disagree... if an OOF is in my way, I'm going to kill it. Not sure what you mean by 'certain circles'.

I do play primarily melee characters, and usually can't safely 1v1 an OOF, so I do need to branch out into evocables/consumables to kill them.

[njvack]

For what it's worth, I'm also surprised these enemies don't exist. Balance-wise, branded damage is not particularly hard to come by.

I don't know that I'd make OOFs immune to physical damage, but ghostlike monsters? Sure. Probably not player ghosts.

Monsters with purely-physical ranged attacks should shoot through rPhysical monsters.

[tasonir]

It's certainly odd that you can beat ghosts with a mace, but I'm not sure making things resist physical is really the answer. Personally I'd rather there be fewer resistances, and you'll always have to account for games where you haven't found a flaming weapon. What does someone with an branded mace do when they find a hungry ghost/phantom on D:5 and can't hit it? Obviously run away is an option, but crawl generally doesn't force you to run away because a monster is *impossible* to kill, only because it's a *bad idea* to try to kill it.

What about unarmed, which can not have a brand unless you're transformed? You're unlikely to have a transformation early on unless you're a transmuter, and even then you'd probably be using spider form on d:5, and poison isn't going to kill ghosts. Even in ice form, a fair amount of ghosts will resist cold too, although certainly not all of them...

[Sprucery]

Anything that was really insubstantial should only be affected by holy, dispel undead, and maybe pure conjurations.

Vorpal weapons could then also have the magical capability of hurting insubstantial things. (No, I don't believe this will happen.)

[tedric]

so many ungrounded metaphysical assumptions going on in this thread

[Blobbo]

acquire a collection of weapons with different brands to kill them.

Is that really branching out? It doesn't require any meaningful sacrifices in skilling, just inventory management.

[duvessa]

If you add rPhysical, you might as well remove physical damage, because physical damage no longer has the feature that is the entire point of it existing in the first place: not being resistible.

[bel]

Stuff that does pure physical damage usually has less damage, or single target and/or other limitations, like less range. Staff of earth vs staff of fire, LCS vs chain lightning or cloud spells, there is no bolt physical damage (except partial magma bolt) and so on. Or vorpal vs freezing. Therefore the OP is misguided in this respect.

[Berder]

If physical damage were resistible, there would still be a reason to get physical damage, because it would work on enemies that resist other attacks. You'd just also need to supplement it with non-physical damage for insubstantial enemies.

Stuff that does pure physical damage usually has less damage, or single target and/or other limitations, like less range. Staff of earth vs staff of fire, LCS vs chain lightning or cloud spells, there is no bolt physical damage (except partial magma bolt) and so on. Or vorpal vs freezing.

The balance of these spells could be changed if necessary. Personally I don't think it's necessary. LCS is powerful enough.

[bel]

I don't understand what you want to achieve. Pure physical damage is less powerful and flexible than others. So if you want more power or flexibility you should branch, depending on what you find. Other than some sort of realism, I don't see much point in this.

[kuniqs]

Should rPhysical reduce magic dart, iskrenderun & OOD damage by 50% too?

[Berder]

Should rPhysical reduce magic dart, iskrenderun & OOD damage by 50% too?

Yes, that was the intent.

[lessens]

I don't understand what you want to achieve. Pure physical damage is less powerful and flexible than others.

How do you figure?

[ydeve]

I figure physical (or more correctly "unbranded") damage is more powerful than any other kind of damage. Because nothing resists it. Don't claim AC resists it because AC resists all types of damage. Unbranded damage is particularly more powerful in the lategame where resistances are everywhere and vulnerabilities are non-existant.

[lessens]

Saying "vorpal does less damage than frost/fire" or "iron shot is a worse spell than parrow" makes sense to me but physical damage is not less powerful and not (overall) less flexible than elemental.

[Sar]

I am really opposed to making specifically oofs rPhysical because like 90% of my "caster" characters just hit them with a mighty stick.

Anyway, that's pretending this choice will happen, which it won't.

[Sandman25]

I am really opposed to making specifically oofs rPhysical because like 90% of my "caster" characters just hit them with a mighty stick.

Anyway, that's pretending this choice will happen, which it won't.

Yes, I like OP but I don't like the OoF part. No monster should have rEverything, if a monster resists every kind of damage by at least 50%, just double its HP and remove 50% resistances.

I agree the change won't happen

[bel]

I figure physical (or more correctly "unbranded") damage is more powerful than any other kind of damage. Because nothing resists it. Don't claim AC resists it because AC resists all types of damage. Unbranded damage is particularly more powerful in the lategame where resistances are everywhere and vulnerabilities are non-existant.

Yes, AC resists everything, nobody said otherwise. But the raw damage of branded/elemental attacks is usually higher than pure conjuration/earth/vorpal attacks, so you do more damage against non-resistant targets. Really, it's easy to have branded damage for most monsters, and a backup physical damage for resistant monsters. This is mostly how I play.

Saying "vorpal does less damage than frost/fire" or "iron shot is a worse spell than parrow" makes sense to me but physical damage is not less powerful and not (overall) less flexible than elemental.

I mentioned above how it is less "flexible". There are no bolt physical spells (if you discount magma bolt, which is partial). There are no cloud physical spells. Many physical damage sources are single target, and/or have less range.

[Hurkyl]

Aside: AC doesn't resist all kinds of damage. It has no effect or partial effect on some sources, and extra effect on some sources too. I don't know of any good way to actually learn what these exceptions are.

(also, AC doesn't behave like resistances, so "resist" is a somewhat misleading word here)

[Berder]

I am really opposed to making specifically oofs rPhysical because like 90% of my "caster" characters just hit them with a mighty stick.

That's the game giving a big middle finger to magic, isn't it? Sure your spells are OK on the easy enemies but against the most powerful enemies in the game you have to hit them with a stick. And against these most powerful enemies, you handle a stick much less well than a melee focused character would do. If OOFs had rPhysical and reduced other resistances (such as no rC, no rElec, or manageable MR) this situation would be somewhat equitable.

[Sar]

That's the game giving a big middle finger to magic, isn't it?

Sure, but what's wrong with that? I mean, they will give a big middle finger to fire mages either way, unless you say "fuck flavour". I thanked your post because I thought a little about it and I probably personally won't be too upset if life of purely melee characters gets a bit harder... probably, but you wouldn't want mages to get it too easy, would you?

Edit:

And against these most powerful enemies, you handle a stick much less well than a melee focused character would do.

Not really? You need like 14 levels in weapon skill to get some demon weapon/lajatang to min delay, with !might that is enough to melt oofs. The defences you need vs. them are mostly HP and rF. Unless you don't ever train Fighting on casters, I don't see that being a problem.

[kuniqs]

Physical damage works on all kinds of foes, true. But mechanics of spell damage are different than mechanics of physical damage.
Spells, especially the high level ones, get multiple dice rolled for a nice bell-curved damage. Resistances shave this damage by some percentage. AC applies to spells, but spells usually deal so much damage AC pales in comparision to resistances.

Physical damage is rolled once, and dealing 1 point of damage is more or less as much probable as dealing maximum damage. AC also behaves this way.

My point is, physical damage is unpredictable - you can never be sure how fast you'll kill something when dealing pure physical damage. That's the tradeoff when fighting instead of casting spells, 'cause fighting doesn't require MP.

IMO crawl is unbalanced a bit in favour of magic users; even Trog worshippers will have to train Evocations sooner or later to pull their weight. Adding rPhysical will push the balance even further.

[duvessa]

so has everyone just forgotten that there are a ton of spells that do physical damage, or

[Sandman25]

so has everyone just forgotten that there are a ton of spells that do physical damage, or

It's mostly about making melee characters' life harder, not about making casters' life easier IMHO. At least I don't see how adding rPhysical to monsters will make it easier to kill them (even with spells).

[greedo]

I don't think the game really can deal with physical immunity simply because too many race/god combinations, practical ones that new players can learn off of, would have a real rough time. Should berserkers just have to ninja the orb? Should trolls/ogres/minotaurs melee backgrounds just suck? Not to mention I don't actually see much need of branching out for characters. Most casters have no trouble at all picking up some summons, earth conjurations, or a light weapon to deal with resistant enemies. It's a whole other beast having to get heavy spells up with 6 int and <-3 aptitudes across the board for spells.

Morover, in the beginning of the game, it's very easy to branch out to physical for characters. Pick up any of a zillion weapons on the floor. Non-physical? Sometimes you simply don't get the option for a very long time.

[Mulzaro]

I'm not sure about rPhys, but there really should be more enemies that are way more dangerous for melee characters than ranged ones. I think it would be a good change to make the player really think about branching into ranged sometimes instead of just facerolling everything with melee. I don't mean the game should be made impossible to beat as a melee, but harder instead.

[Sprucery]

cue duvessa pointing out how ranged >> melee already

[byrel]

I'm not sure about rPhys, but there really should be more enemies that are way more dangerous for melee characters than ranged ones. Melee in Crawl is ridiculously good.

Worms, hydras, caustic shrikes... There are a handful of enemies through most of the 3-rune game that you don't want to get into melee with. And there are a bunch of others like ancient liches that you don't want to take the time to approach melee range (though dumb AI can make it a lot easier for some.)

[Mulzaro]

I'm not sure about rPhys, but there really should be more enemies that are way more dangerous for melee characters than ranged ones. Melee in Crawl is ridiculously good.

Worms, hydras, caustic shrikes... There are a handful of enemies through most of the 3-rune game that you don't want to get into melee with. And there are a bunch of others like ancient liches that you don't want to take the time to approach melee range (though dumb AI can make it a lot easier for some.)

Eh, hydras are the only enemy in that list that really is harder for melee. Worms are slow and caustic shrikes are pain in the arse for everyone.

[Sprucery]

Hmm, tried to summon duvessa, got byrel instead. Shouldn't trust these mail-order summoning circles...

[byrel]

I mean, I don't use melee tactics (ignoring stabs) on worms, hydras or caustic shrikes any more than necessary when they first appear. Why would I? And the fact that worms are slow is part of why they're better dealt with using ranged attacks. And a lot of characters simply can't muster the defenses to sustain a caustic shrike in melee. Like an Fe-anything for instance...

[hannobal]

If monster has lot of HP and/or AC, but not much (or any resistances), it's basically same as if it had less HP and rPhysical (let's say orb guardian, stone giant) - they're much easier to kill with spells than weapons.

[dowan]

How are orb guardians and stone giants easier to kill with spells? They take the same damage from spells as they do weapons.

Crawl's primary audience is people who like to press 'o' and 'tab' as much as possible. Anything that goes against that will not be liked by that audience. If one of crawl's goals was that characters should use all items they find in the dungeon to their advantage, it'd be one thing, but crawl isn't really that game. If it were, there wouldn't be berserkers.

[onget]

How are orb guardians and stone giants easier to kill with spells? They take the same damage from spells as they do weapons.

Crawl's primary audience is people who like to press 'o' and 'tab' as much as possible. Anything that goes against that will not be liked by that audience. If one of crawl's goals was that characters should use all items they find in the dungeon to their advantage, it'd be one thing, but crawl isn't really that game. If it were, there wouldn't be berserkers.

orb guardian and stone giants is much easier than single hobgoblin(and something of early game or unique of early game)

[hannobal]

How are orb guardians and stone giants easier to kill with spells? They take the same damage from spells as they do weapons.

By easier i did mean faster. Level 6 and higher spells (bolt of cold/fire, etc) do much more average damage per turn than weapons.

[Berder]

How are orb guardians and stone giants easier to kill with spells? They take the same damage from spells as they do weapons.

By easier i did mean faster. Level 6 and higher spells (bolt of cold/fire, etc) do much more average damage per turn than weapons.

Not if you count resting to regain MP. The blaster caster usually can't kill as many things before resting, as a melee tank could.

[Siegurt]

How are orb guardians and stone giants easier to kill with spells? They take the same damage from spells as they do weapons.

By easier i did mean faster. Level 6 and higher spells (bolt of cold/fire, etc) do much more average damage per turn than weapons.

Not if you count resting to regain MP. The blaster caster usually can't kill as many things before resting, as a melee tank could.

So you are using "easier" to mean 'requires less resting'?

I think most people in this forum use the word 'easier' meaning "involves less risk of death"

[Berder]

So you are using "easier" to mean 'requires less resting'?

I think most people in this forum use the word 'easier' meaning "involves less risk of death"

hannobal said "by easier i did mean faster" and therefore that was the definition I was using, when replying to his post. The blaster caster does not usually kill things faster, if you count the resting period afterward as part of the time required to kill something.

Being able to kill more stuff before resting, as the melee tank can do, means you don't have to enter panicked retreat mode as often. You can just finish killing the things. This reduces risk of death.

[Wahaha]

He is obviously talking about killing faster.

Edit: sorry after rereading each post more carefully I wish I didn't post this. That's what I get for reading posts in a random order.
I think bringing up resting time and limited mp is moving the goalposts. But I completely agree with the limited mp problem, that's why I don't like playing spellcasters.
Resting time doesn't really count because melee chars recover hp more often than spellcasters.

[Berder]

He is obviously talking about killing faster.

Equally obviously, I understood that. Let me quote the exchange again.

By easier i did mean faster. Level 6 and higher spells (bolt of cold/fire, etc) do much more average damage per turn than weapons.

Not if you count resting to regain MP. The blaster caster usually can't kill as many things before resting, as a melee tank could.

So:

• hannobal said that level 6 and higher spells can do higher damage per turn than melee, against non-resistant enemies, implicitly not counting the resting period afterwards
• I pointed out that if you count the resting period, it's not higher damage per turn, with the obvious implication that you should count the resting period, because to ignore it would be to overstate the power of mages.
• And specifically, the bolt spells can't kill as many things before resting as a melee tank could, which increases the danger because then you may have to retreat instead of finishing the fight.

Everybody understand now?

[hannobal]

Yeah that's exactly what i meant, in my first post faster equals to less turns between enemy entering LOS and dying.
Now resting to recover HP/MP is another matter i'm not touching because it's very variable depending on if player
- is worshiping sif/vehumet/makhleb
- is Dd, Vs or Tr
- has regen spell / amulet / other items
- has staff of energy
- has vampiric weapon
- etc, etc, etc...

I'd like to emphasize my original point though, which was that special rPhys flag isn't needed because you can achieve same thing by combining strong monster HP/AC with lack of resistances.