Hell Effect Paralysis

[KoboldLord]

I believe this has been brought up before, but why does Hell Effect Paralysis still exist?

The specific impetus for this thread is a 14-Rune death I had today. I had fairly reasonable demonspawn earth elementalist of Ashenzari going, and was looting the very last Rune from Gehenna. I had no trouble killing any post-endgame target up to this point save Cerebov, who I bypassed because neither Crystal Spear nor Summon Horrible Things were getting the job done. The creature detection divine feature told me where Asmodeus was, and I killed his entourage from outside the room with Rapid Deconstruction. Then I moved back and used Regeneration and an Orb of Energy to top off my hp and mp. Then I returned, buffed up with Swiftness, Fly, and Haste, and skirted around the edge of Asmodeus' line-of-sight towards the Rune. I took one step, entered Asmodeus' line-of-sight, and the Hell Effect that causes paralysis hit.

Remember, I was Fly-Swift-Hasted up, and at full hit points. My fire resistance was likewise set up for Gehenna. No fiends were present or summoned, so there was no Torment in play. The only two other monsters present when the paralysis hit were two flying skulls, which didn't do anything. I still ran through 228hp and got killed before coming out of paralysis.

The paralysis effect is so overwhelmingly crippling on the rare occasion that it hits that it can arbitrarily declare you dead. The only way to prevent it is to self-cripple with an amulet of stasis, which prevents you from either fighting or evading challenging monsters and is spoilery besides. I'm all for real difficulty, but Hell Effect paralysis is an entirely luck-based challenge. It ought to be removed, replaced with some other effect, or at the very least dropped in duration to 1 or 2 ticks.

Here's the dump in the likelihood that somebody wants to quibble with my build or tactics:

  Code:

 Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.9-a1-1292-g2654608 character file.

956098 Wrath the Archmage (level 27, -5/223 (230) HPs)
             Began as a Demonspawn Earth Elementalist on Aug 7, 2011.
             Was the Champion of Ashenzari.
             Slain by a sun demon (12 damage)
             ... summoned by Asmodeus
             ... while paralysed
             ... on Level 7 of Gehenna on Aug 20, 2011.
             The game lasted 16:06:08 (259855 turns).

Wrath the Archmage (DsEE)                 Turns: 259855, Time: 16:06:09

HP  -5/223 (230) AC 25     Str 11      Exp: 27/3666025 (124)
MP  36/49        EV  2     Int 28      God: Ashenzari [******]
Gold 14496       SH  0     Dex 20      Spells: 17 memorised,  9 levels left

Res.Fire  : + + .   See Invis. : +    c - staff of earth
Res.Cold  : + . .   Warding    : . .  T - +7 swamp dragon armour (curse)
Life Prot.: . . .   Conserve   : +    g - +3 large shield {AC+3} (curse)
Res.Acid. : + . .   Res.Corr.  : +    p - +1 helmet of the Many Ghosts {Dex+3 Int+3
Res.Poison: +       Clarity    : +    o - +2 cloak {rCorr, Cons} (curse)
Res.Elec. : +       Spirit.Shd : .    a - +2 pair of gloves {Dex+3}
Sust.Abil.: . .     Stasis     : .    (boots unavailable)
Res.Mut.  : +       Ctrl.Telep.: x    q - amulet "Tekhlahe" {rMut rF+ MR Dex-2}
Res.Rott. : .       Levitation : +    P - ring of teleport control
Saprovore : . . .   Ctrl.Flight: +    z - ring "Noiloq" {Wiz rF+ Dam+3}

@: paralysed, flying, very slightly glowing, hasted, very quick,
extraordinarily resistant to hostile enchantments, extraordinarily
stealthy
A: hooves 3, blurry vision 1, cold resistance 1, conserve potions,
deformed body 2, electricity resistance, slow healing 1, spiny 3, 60%
torment resistance, AC +4, SH +4
a: Scrying, Transfer Knowledge, Renounce Religion
}: 14/15 runes: serpentine, barnacled, slimy, silver, golden, iron, icy,
bone, abyssal, demonic, glowing, magical, fiery, dark


You were on level 7 of Gehenna.
You worshipped Ashenzari.
Ashenzari was exalted by your worship.
You were very full.

You visited 18 branches of the dungeon, and saw 113 of its levels.
You visited Pandemonium 3 times, and saw 29 of its levels.
You visited the Abyss 3 times.
You visited 1 Labyrinth.
You visited 2 bazaars.
You visited 3 portal chambers: sewer, spiders nest, trove.

You collected 21959 gold pieces.
You spent 7483 gold pieces at shops.

Inventory:

Missiles
 M - 39 +4 darts of dispersal (quivered)
Armour
 a - a +2 pair of gloves of dexterity (worn)
 g - a cursed +3 large shield of protection (worn)
 o - a cursed +2 cloak of preservation (worn)
 p - the cursed +1 helmet of the Many Ghosts (worn) {Dex+3 Int+3 Acc+2 Dam+2}
   (You found it on level 21 of the Dungeon)   
   
   
   It affects your intelligence (+3).
   It affects your dexterity (+3).
   It affects your accuracy (+2).
   It affects your damage-dealing abilities (+2).
   It has a curse placed upon it.
 T - a cursed +7 swamp dragon armour (worn)
Magical devices
 d - a wand of healing (7)
 f - a wand of teleportation (10)
 j - a wand of teleportation (8)
 m - a wand of cold (6)
 x - a wand of disintegration (12)
 C - a wand of hasting (9)
 H - a wand of digging (15)
 I - a wand of fire (8)
Comestibles
 h - 4 royal jellies
 y - 6 bread rations
Jewellery
 b - the brooch of Shielding {Ward AC+4 EV+4}
   (You found it in a Labyrinth)   
   
   [amulet of warding]
   
   It affects your AC (+4).
   It affects your evasion (+4).
   
   Back in the good old days, every adventurer had one of these handy devices.
   That, and a pony.
 e - an uncursed ring of regeneration
 i - the ring of Temptation {SustAb Dex+2 Stlth++}
   (You found it on level 7 of Cocytus)   
   
   [ring of sustain abilities]
   
   It affects your dexterity (+2).
   It makes you much more stealthy.
 k - the amulet of Stiac {rCorr Str+5 Dex+2}
   (You found it in a treasure trove)   
   
   [amulet of resist corrosion]
   
   It affects your strength (+5).
   It affects your dexterity (+2).
 l - the amulet of the Ego {Stasis Dex+5}
   (You found it on level 7 of Tartarus)   
   
   [amulet of stasis]
   
   It affects your dexterity (+5).
 q - the amulet "Tekhlahe" (around neck) {rMut rF+ MR Dex-2}
   (You found it on level 7 of the Iron City of Dis)   
   
   [amulet of resist mutation]
   
   It affects your dexterity (-2).
   It protects you from fire.
   It increases your resistance to enchantments.
 v - the amulet of the Two Names {Cons rElec}
   (You acquired it on level 5 of the Realm of Zot)   
   
   [amulet of conservation]
   
   It insulates you from electricity.
 z - the ring "Noiloq" (left hand) {Wiz rF+ Dam+3}
   (You bought it in a shop on level 4 of the Orcish Mines)   
   
   [ring of wizardry]
   
   It affects your damage-dealing abilities (+3).
   It protects you from fire.
 O - the ring of Rasmal Gupeo {rC+ rN+ SInv}
   (You found it on level 5 of the Elven Halls)   
   
   [ring of life protection]
   
   It protects you from cold.
   It enhances your eyesight.
 P - a ring of teleport control (right hand)
 S - the ring of Equivalence {Hunger- +Blink +Lev rPois rF+ Acc+4}
   (You found it on level 6 of the Vaults)   
   
   [ring of sustenance]
   
   It affects your accuracy (+4).
   It protects you from fire.
   It protects you from poison.
   It lets you levitate.
   It lets you blink.
Magical staves
 c - a staff of earth (weapon)
 s - a +4 rod of destruction [ice] (10/10)
   (You found it on level 7 of Gehenna)
Miscellaneous
 u - a crystal ball of energy


 You had 124 experience left.

   Skills:
 - Level 22 Fighting
 - Level 1 Short Blades
 - Level 1 Maces & Flails
 - Level 12 Staves
 - Level 1 Slings
 - Level 1 Bows
 - Level 1 Throwing
 - Level 1 Armour
 - Level 15(17) Dodging
 - Level 17 Stealth
 - Level 1 Stabbing
 - Level 25 Shields
 - Level 4 Traps & Doors
 - Level 1 Unarmed Combat
 O Level 27 Spellcasting
 - Level 21 Conjurations
 - Level 12 Charms
 - Level 18 Summonings
 - Level 11 Necromancy
 - Level 15 Translocations
 - Level 10 Transmutations
 - Level 8 Air Magic
 - Level 22 Earth Magic
 + Level 15 Evocations


You had 9 spell levels left.
You knew the following spells:

 Your Spells              Type           Power        Success   Level  Hunger
a - Controlled Blink      Tloc           N/A          Excellent   7    None
b - Blink                 Tloc           N/A          Perfect     2    None
c - Stone Arrow           Erth/Conj      #######      Perfect     3    None
d - Lee's Rapid Deconstr  Erth           #########.   Perfect     5    None
e - Abjuration            Summ           ########..   Perfect     3    None
f - Summon Horrible Thin  Summ           ########..   Excellent   8    Choko
h - Iron Shot             Erth/Conj      #########.   Excellent   6    None
i - Dispel Undead         Necr           #######..    Excellent   4    None
j - Regeneration          Chrm/Necr      ########..   Excellent   3    None
k - Apportation           Tloc           ########..   Perfect     1    None
l - Animate Skeleton      Necr           N/A          Excellent   1    None
n - Haste                 Chrm           ########.    Excellent   6    None
o - Flight                Air/Chrm       ######....   Excellent   4    None
p - Stoneskin             Erth/Trmt      #########.   Perfect     2    None
q - Deflect Missiles      Air/Chrm       ######....   Excellent   6    None
r - Swiftness             Air/Chrm       ######....   Excellent   2    None
s - Lehudib's Crystal Sp  Erth/Conj      #########.   Excellent   8    Choko



                    Innate Abilities, Weirdness & Mutations

You have hooves in place of feet.
You are completely covered in large bone plates (AC +4, SH +4).
Your flesh is cold resistant.
You are very good at protecting items from cold.
A meltable icy envelope protects you from harm and freezing vapours (AC +0).
You are completely covered in sharp spines.
You are rather able to resist unholy torments (3 in 5 success).
Your vision is a little blurry.
Armour fits poorly on your deformed body.
You are resistant to electric shocks.
You heal slowly.


Message History

* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
The burst of hellfire engulfs the sun demon.
The sun demon completely resists.
The burst of hellfire engulfs the sun demon.
The sun demon completely resists. The sun demon hits you!
You are engulfed in flames.
Your icy envelope dissipates!
* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
The sun demon hits you. You are engulfed in flames!
Your icy envelope dissipates!
* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
The sun demon hits you but does no damage.
The sun demon completely misses you.
The sun demon is struck by your spines.
The sun demon dodges your spines.
The sun demon hits you but does no damage.
Helpless, you fail to dodge the sun demon's attack.
The sun demon hits you! You are engulfed in flames.
Your icy envelope dissipates!
You die...


[MonorailCat]

I lost a Transmuter to Paralysis in Hell. I never knew who or what did this to me, since the only Enemies on screen were Dispater and a fiend.
Needless to say I was very pissed and feel your pain.
Helleffect Paralysis sucks.

[Kate]

Do you have the dump notes? I believe that displays paralysis duration.

Edit: oh, well it looks like it's the regular 2-7 turns that most sources of paralysis use.

[KoboldLord]

The dump notes don't appear to display paralysis duration for the Hell Effect, although oddly they do for orc sorceror paralysis that happened significantly earlier in the game. The dump notes actually don't make reference to Hell Effect that happen at all, so I have to infer from Ashenzari's item identification where in the notes the paralysis hit.

Anyway:
259846 | Geh:7 | Identified the ring of Psauret
259846 | Geh:7 | Identified the ring of the Mage
259853 | Geh:7 | HP: 7/223 [sun demon[Asmodeus] (8)]
259855 | Geh:7 | Slain by a sun demon

I was stepping into the doorway, and the two artifacts were auto-identified. Before I could take another step, I was hit by the Hell Effect, Asmodeus noticed me, and I died. I had Haste up, so I was taking actions a little quicker than usual, which I believe means I died on the sixth actual turn of paralysis.

It doesn't really matter, though. Paralysis is a terrible Hell Effect. If it happens in low tension, it does literally nothing. If it happens in high tension, all tactical and strategic concerns go up in smoke instantly and the only thing that matters is rolling low enough to get control back before you die.

[dpeg]

I agree. Slow (perhaps combined with teleportation restrictions) at high tension is a lot more interesting.

[Regnix]

Wow, sorry to hear that KoboldLord. I don't have many wins under my belt, but reading this horror story makes me think I should just stick to the 3/4 rune wins until it's fixed.

[KoboldLord]

I agree. Slow (perhaps combined with teleportation restrictions) at high tension is a lot more interesting.

Petrification and vulnerability are two effects that could be candidate for direct replacement, if a simple solution is desired. Petrification provides a small window to react before it kicks in, and vulnerability would shut off the laundry list of protective spells every players runs around with down there.

More ambitiously, perhaps it would be useful to split Hell Effects into low tension and high tension effects. Low tension effects would keep you from resting, or reverse the effects of resting that you're trying to accomplish. High tension effects would have more of a support role instead, perhaps berserking or Inner Firing low-tier undead and demons to make them a more significant threat.

Wow, sorry to hear that KoboldLord. I don't have many wins under my belt, but reading this horror story makes me think I should just stick to the 3/4 rune wins until it's fixed.

The thing is, I've done multiple 15-Rune games in a row and haven't gotten hit by such obnoxious timing until now. It's a really rare combination of overpowered effect and bad positioning, but it isn't like you can finish the map without passing through that bad position. Odds are if you tried a 15-Rune game, you wouldn't see a single high-tension paralysis effect and you'd be left wondering what all the fuss is about, because it's so rare.

[galehar]

The dump notes don't appear to display paralysis duration for the Hell Effect, although oddly they do for orc sorceror paralysis that happened significantly earlier in the game.

Yes, it only log paralysis caused by someone, not something. Will fix it.

Petrification and vulnerability are two effects that could be candidate for direct replacement, if a simple solution is desired.

Yes, that does sound like a reasonable short term solution.

More ambitiously, perhaps it would be useful to split Hell Effects into low tension and high tension effects. Low tension effects would keep you from resting, or reverse the effects of resting that you're trying to accomplish. High tension effects would have more of a support role instead, perhaps berserking or Inner Firing low-tier undead and demons to make them a more significant threat.

It would be nice if Hell effects shifted from general miscast effects to specifically chosen effects that were more appropriate (no more paralysis, glow, butterflies). But it would also be an awful lot of work.

I believe it's more work to design the system and sort through all the possible effects than to actually code it. You guys want to a wiki page to brainstorm on hell effects?

[dpeg]

Yes, a new tension-based system made from scratch will be better. The miscast effects are just a crutch. At the same time, we can try to differentiate the four hells by their effects a little (a long-standing demand).

[KoboldLord]

I'm certainly up for brainstorming Hell Effects. I checked both henzell and the wiki, and neither one has a useful list of effects that already exist, so I'm thinking that I should start here rather than the development wiki. Odds are good I'll leave off something obvious if I'm going by memory.

I'm going to start by sorting the effects into two categories: low-tension and high-tension. I don't think these should be the same list because effects that are fair for high-tension situations are usually completely meaningless in low-tension situations, and effects that accomplish the task of interfering with low-tension hp and mp recovery aren't necessarily going to be fair for high-tension situations.

High-tension Hell Effects should, I would think, strike around once every two or three fights. They should make those fights more interesting but not happen so often that they simply become routine. Low-tension Hell Effects are meant to keep players from recovering without sacrificing most of their progress, so every 150-250 turns of low tension is probably about right. That way, you have time to find the next high-tension situation before things get messed up for you. Translocations and translocations-like items and abilities that the player initiates could also provoke an immediate Hell Effect, so it isn't quite so easy to just bypass everything and ninja all the loot. Tension for translocations-provoked Hell Effects would be determined at the destination, and naturally would affect that location.

New-ish effects are marked with an asterisk(*), and they might require some special-cased coding.

Low-Tension Effects:
Rotting, sickness, stat drain, skill drain* (like Ashenzari penance), strong poison. Too slow to make a difference in combat, but forces the player to use consumables if they want to rest and then continue.

Monster spawning. These should probably be strong monsters every time. A pack of iron devils does not make resting more difficult; you just have to button mash for a few seconds and then hit 5 again. A branch-appropriate foo fiend, an executioner, a lich or ancient lich, a greater mummy, or other top-end threat is probably a good leader for the attack squad, and they can be accompanied by a few branch-appropriate brutes.

Malign Portal. These get the player moving to elsewhere, and anything that pushes the player to head into unexplored territory is good.

Damaging clouds. These also force the player to move, even if they have resistance. They should probably blanket the entire LOS of the player, though, because the little 3x3 miscast clouds don't require the player to move very far at all. This is unlikely to actually kill any players because obviously you would gear up for cold resistance in Cocytus, etc, but it isn't like you can just stand in them indefinitely even with full resistance. Probably not suitable for high-tension because the clouds can be used to kill or funnel monsters, too.

Malmutations. Currently the gold glow Hell Effect does this, but it makes you mash 5 repeatedly until the gold glow goes away. Mutations are perceived as being very scary by most players, but it is usually possible to work around them. A good mutation set need not be 'safe'. If you want to avoid the malmutations, go start a fight so you get the high-tension effects instead.

Inventory cursing. Another particularly reviled effect, but I think that's only because you have to re-equip every item in your inventory to get rid of all the curses on occasional-use jewelry. It should probably only hit equipped items to prevent easy ring-swapping, because forcing the player to drop unused jewelry in the Vestibule is annoying. One remove curse scroll should be good enough to fix the problem.

Torment or mp drain. Directly reverse the effects of resting. Lowering mp to 0 probably isn't really necessary, but the threat of a 25 to 50% reduction could keep players from obsessively topping it off after every fight.

Piety drain*. Rationalized as Hell blocking your connection to your deity, you start losing access to your high-piety abilities. A merciful implementation would slowly return the piety after the player leaves Hell, a strict implementation would make the player earn it back.

Baleful Teleportation*: The player is forcibly teleported, possibly into unexplored territory. A particularly aggressive implementation would look for a concentration of monsters, move the player to that spot, and then cause enough noise to wake the monsters up.

High-Tension Effects:
Confusion, slowing, petrification*, vulnerability*. These are tactical effects that don't do anything if you're not in a fight, and they shouldn't be excessively crippling.

Mesmerization*, fear*. These would kick in only against a leader monster. Melee leaders like executioners would get a mesmerization effect, while caster leaders like ancient liches would get a fear effect.

Monstrous Reinforcements. Branch-appropriate monsters teleport in around the player, replacing any that the player has killed. This would exclude the very strongest monsters, since the idea is to make combat more interesting, not to just force the player to teleport to a cleared area again and start over.

Silence*. Centered on the player, but decays faster than scroll-silence. It should force the player to keep escape routes open at all times so they can retreat while waiting it out, not automatically force a wand charge every time.

Direct damage. Appropriate to the branch, of course. Minor damage isn't very interesting outside a fight. It could probably stand to be more damaging than normal miscast effects, though.

Frenzy* on brute monsters. Some sort of combat buff, like extra combat damage, a large to hit bonus, extra attack speed. Those little reapers and iron devils should move up in priority a little bit.

Inner Fire* on minor monsters, preferentially selecting for those already in melee with the player. Possibly palette-swap the spell to other elements depending on the branch.

Teleport Anchor*. Translocations-like effects are simply shut off for a little while.

Suppress Resistance*. The player temporarily loses a pip of resistances, as if they were hit by Cerebov's sword. Elemental attacks might actually be somewhat meaningful.

Any other ideas? Or opposition to any element of this starter list?

[KoboldLord]

That's why they're confined to low-tension situations. A few dozen points of rotting aren't really a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but the faster you clear the first several floors the better your state will be when you're grabbing the Rune at the bottom. There really aren't any tactical effects that are relevant when you're sitting in a corner mashing 5, and it would get tedious if a fiend squad showed up every time you tried. Getting hit by a rotting effect is you getting lucky. Successful speed-running is skill-dependent, but unless there's some manner of carrot or stick encouraging players to do so, they won't.

[dpeg]

Awesome start, KoboldLord. Some more ideas:

Temporary burdened (for Dis, the metal hell), a high tension effect.

Additional hunger in Tar (faster hungering whenever in the branch, perhaps the more, the deeper).

Aggravation, an announced effect that monsters know where you are.

[galehar]

A few dozen points of rotting aren't really a big deal in the grand scheme of things

Yeah, that's why I don't like it as an effect: it does nothing but annoy.

It does something. It discourages resting and pushes you forward.

[KoboldLord]

Yeah, that's why I don't like it as an effect: it does nothing but annoy.

Avoiding death seems like a good enough carrot to me. Of course, there's the possibility of especially strong characters farming Hell effect spawns for XP or even items - could mark them as durable summons to prevent that.

The way I see it, preventing easy resting is an essential part of the Hell experience. If you let the player rest as much as they want, you might as well take Hell out entirely because it doesn't add anything to the game any more.

I see a two ways to do this:

#1: Unending chains of monsters. This has the disadvantage of being an easy xp farm, and it will get boring if there's no variety to speak of. Durable summons shut down the xp farm, but the lack of variety will still get boring quite fast. Boredom is not a good stick.
#2: Strategic penalties. Tactical effects go away as soon as the tactical situation changes. Strategic effects linger. Long-term, strategic penalties are the only ones that matter unless you actually die.

I'm open to ideas, but I'm never going to be on board with stripping out all variety and just spamming monsters constantly.

[daftfad]

I have died before to Saint Roka's band triggering a zot trap and paralyzing me. Was not fun.

[dpeg]

daftfad: that's why we are discussing alternatives right here.

[KoboldLord]

We're still brainstorming, right? I was thinking 'direct damage' is kind of a generic high-tension effect as listed, so I might as well expand on that. Direct damage does virtually nothing outside of high tension, so pretty much no matter what there's no point in bothering with direct damage in low tension. I'm going to throw some branch-specific status effects into this list, but there could be some generic ones too.

Gehenna and Cocytus have obvious, strong elemental themes. Cocytus has a little electricity sideline, but is mostly cold damage, and Gehenna is all fire and super-fire. Three pips of the relevant resistance should be extremely useful for ablating the effects, but it should not be adequate to make the effects meaningless. Scrolls and potions are obviously at risk.

Dis is somewhat earth-themed, but earth damage has the boring issue of being irresistible. Some irresistible damage is fine and indeed desirable, but a player should be able to take strategic steps to prepare for the expected challenge. I propose that corrosion damage be included, rationalized by the secondary rust-related theme of the Iron City. Rapid oxidation is not the same as contact with acid which is not the same as contact with alkalines, but modern chemistry is a little anachronistic anyway. They all ruin the structural integrity of materials, whether those materials are armor or flesh. A little threat to the plus of weapons and armors is okay, although probably not to the degree we enjoy in the Slime Pits. One branch where people routinely strip naked to clear it is probably plenty.

Tartarus is kind of a sticky problem, because unlike every other resistance rN+ gives full immunity. Cold damage is taken and poison damage is almost certain to be completely ineffective. We particularly don't want undead characters to be given a completely free ride. I propose an anti-magic theme instead, with Tartarus stifling all forms of energy, life and magic and divinity alike. Candidates for item destruction include food, but another interesting possibility is to drain charges out of consumables such as wands. Probably only a chance of losing a single point at a time out of high-end wands like healing and teleportation, of course, because it isn't an interesting choice to leave them behind if they'd be drained and useless by the time you'd need them anyway, but more replaceable wands and rods can probably afford to lose more points.

Gehenna
First effect is a flat-out Fire Storm, right on your head. Mostly irresistible. This should be an uncommon effect that strikes maybe two to four times on a typical attempt to steal the Rune from Gehenna, and uncommon enough to have a reasonable chance to avoid completely if the player can speed-run the branch adroitly. Gehenna Storm is controlled by the malign will of Hell itself, so it will not hit 'leadership', including Asmodeus and the strongest monster in a low-tension Hell Effect attack squad. A few minions getting caught in the effect is fine, but the player should be encouraged to rush into melee with the nastiest monster present in order to proactively avoid this serious effect. Therefore, if Gehenna Storm proves to be inappropriate for this reason, fall through to another case.

Another case would be a Hellfire Fusillade. The Hellfire comes over the course of several turns, each a 3x3 hellfire burst centered on the player. Each individual application should only deal modest damage, and the player has time to recognize the problem and heal if needed, but the monsters are presumably going to be doing something in the meantime.

Pillar of Fire deals Bolt of Fire-level direct damage to only the player, and a Conjured Flame effect lingers on the player's tile for a while. Not especially threatening, but possibly enough to encourage the player to move out of a choke point.

Hellfire Burst is a normal, single application of hellfire. It should not be immediately clear if this was a little Burst or the first part of a Fusillade.

Sticky Flame is basically a breather effect, but it's thematic. The initial damage could be somewhat higher, because the player will surely have some sort of fire resistance anyway.

Boiling Blood deals a small amount of fire damage and forces the player into berserk status unless they have a source of clarity.

Cocytus
First up is, as you probably guessed, Cocytus Storm, which is analogous to Gehenna Storm in most ways, only loosely based on Ice Storm instead of Fire Storm. Floor tiles are turned into ice tiles after it hits, which function as normal floor but add to movement delay if the player starts a turn on one.

Ball Lighting is more interesting against the single target that is the player than Chain Lightning would be. The idea is to hurt the player's character, not just kill them outright.

Raging Tempest is a freezing thunderstorm that hangs over the player over the course of several turns. The player takes mild ice damage and some lightning bolts that can be dodged or blocked. More perniciously, the floor around the player turns into shallow water, which has a chance to turn into deep water. If the water at the player's feet starts turning into deep water, they have one chance to move or start levitating or flying on their next action or suffer the consequences. They get a warning of course, but I don't see any reason to make it impossible to drown through inaction here. Unlike Shoals, it is reasonable to demand players come to Hell prepared.

Deep Freeze is relatively heavy ice damage, and the player is slowed for a lengthy period of time. The tile at the player's feet also turns to ice.

Encroaching Rime freezes rivulets of ice around the player, entangling them instantly as if struck by a throwing net. If they were flying at the time, the effect is suppressed, but fortunately the effect also freezes any water beneath them into an ice tile. Direct damage is mild, and most of the threat comes from monsters taking advantage of the situation.

Metabolic Torpor is the obligatory sleep effect. Damage is moderate and the sleep breaks the moment the player takes damage, so the player probably won't even be surrounded yet.

Dis
Crystal Tower of Dis is a massive Crystal Spear that bursts out from beneath the player, displacing them towards the enemy leadership if possible. The tile the player occupied before is replaced by a transparent rock wall tile. Given the fairly substantial damage involved, the effect should be rare enough to make it functionally impossible to abuse the permanent tile change. Besides, there's also the Deconstruction effect.

Rapid Deconstruction blows up all wall tiles next to the player. Also any bone, stone, or crystal minion-monsters next to the player. AC is an effective defense, but it's probably a bad idea to linger in a narrow hallway during high tension, and not just because it won't stay as a narrow hallway.

Creeping Rust damages a player that passes next to a wall as if by a Slime wall, and furthermore damages a player standing on the floor as if the floor was a single tile of Slime wall. The latter part can be prevented by flying, but bits of wall crumble onto you even if you're just nearby.

Gravity instantly dispels any flying magic affecting the player and suppresses any natural flight abilities they have. If they happen to be flying at the time, they take some significant damage as they hit the ground. Their carrying capacity shifts into the next worse state (normal->burdened->overloaded). The effect lingers as long as the high tension does.

Rust Flechettes burst out of the ground, lacerating the player standing or hovering over them. Damage is part normal, as they stab into exposed flesh, and part corrosion, as the unnaturally fast corrosion spreads to flesh and equipment.

Debris Slide suppresses any active flight effects as the player is buried and bludgeoned under an avalanche of rocks. The surrounding area is affected as if by Leda's Liquefaction until the player can escape.

Tartarus
Distilled Pain of Tartarus is the ultimate effect to lead off with. Start off with a Torment, drain mp from the player as if they wielded an antimagic weapon, drain up to a full star of piety just to make sure nobody gets by unscathed, and finally check for drained charges from any charged equipment present. Being undead or Torment-immune only blocks the first part, but if the player is already in pain (half hp or less) fall through to another case. The effect works partially due to the sudden and unexpected onset of the agony, so it does not work as well on those who are already suffering.

Suffusion of Oblivion deals heavy draining damage, which will probably do nothing because the player will have full resistances against it. Drain half max mp, some piety, and check any charged equipment for charge draining anyway.

Plague of Worms are a seething tide of tiny vermin that burrow out of the ground for mere moments before digging back in. AC will reduce the damage, but otherwise they cannot be prevented from chewing exposed flesh. Unprotected food may be ruined.

Famine drains a moderate amount of mp from every character, and if the character has a hunger clock it shifts into the middle of the next state down the scale. So a normally-satiated character with 6000 nutrition will immediately drop to hungry with around 2350 nutrition, for instance. Near starving characters will instead drop to the very top of starving, and characters who are already starving stay where they are.

Oppressive Vulnerability dispels all ongoing effects affecting the character, each one of which discharges violently (irresistible damage) as it ends over the course of the next few turns. Also, Oppressive Vulnerability deals some initial draining damage which does nothing in practice because rN+++ is full immunity.

Silence falls when Tartarus drains the very energy of sound itself, not that it bothers the demons any. This should probably have a shorter duration than the scroll or spell versions.

That's six branch-specific effects for each Hell branch, all very loosely themed around direct damage but hopefully with interesting twists. A few might be over the top or ineffectual in practice, but it's a starting point, right? High-tension Hell Effects would probably also have a common pool of effects, and of course I haven't even touched Diabolical Reinforcements yet.

I'm thinking that Hell Effects would have a 1-in-3 chance of kicking in at all at the beginning of an interesting fight, disregarding popcorn monsters completely. In 1-in-3 of those interesting fights that started with a Hell Effect to make them even more interesting, the first Hell Effect is followed up by another one a dozen or so turns afterward. The follow-up effect can be prevented by removing the tension, either by slaying the leader or by escaping. In 1-in-3 of those fights, or 1-in-27 of all interesting fights in a Hell branch, you get Hell Effects every couple dozen turns until the tension stops. It is fair and appropriate to bail out in this sort of situation, if you aren't in a position to take out the leader. If the signature Doom Effect of the branch happens 5% of the time, this means a given fight has roughly a 2.4% chance to contain one, and you can expect to see it once on average every forty interesting fights. The chance of getting two in a row in the same fight are 1-in-3600 unless you start dragging out a boss fight instead of escaping. That might still be a little too high.

[dassem]

I just had a similar experience in Hell. For me it was paralysis from a Lich summoned by the Hell effect, but many of the same ideas apply: From over 220 HP to dead without any turns to do anything. I was mostly relying on EV and SH, which are cancelled by paralysis. In my case, my tactics were more questionable than here; technically I had 1 turn after seeing the Lich where I could have made another choice, but I wasn't even worried initially, as it was usually taking me only 2 turns to kill a Lich by that point. But it was still frustrating. Not quite enough magic resistance to shrug off one lucky attack meant an instadeath...

My thought on curing this (asides from the excellent suggestions for improving the Hell effects, given by others above) would be to have enough damage cancelling paralysis. E.g. Once you lose more than 50% of your max HP in a single paralysis burst, that revives you, e.g. "You snap out of your paralysis". The mental picture I have is of the old movie image of slapping an unconscious person to wake them up.
Obviously variants could be possible, such as 10% loss of HP giving a 10% chance of revival, etc, etc.

[dpeg]

I can only repeat myself: If you want to make sure that ideas don't get lost, move them to the wiki. I cannot do that with all the good content, it is indeed a little bit of effort. So if you grow attached to a forum idea and want to support it, take it the wiki way.

dassem: thanks for reviving the thread, to give it another chance.

[KoboldLord]

I've finally put this on the wiki. I don't know why I didn't just go ahead and do it before, but better late than never, I guess.

https://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php? ... ect_reform

I think I got everything added in somewhere, but if I missed something while transcribing things, or if some section got garbled, apologies for that.

[Baldu]

Hey, sorry to revive such an old thread, but I wanted to ask if something was done about hell paralysis in 0.12 . I just came this close to losing a guy to hell paralysis in 0.11 (went from 203 to 6hp), but i got lucky and managed to escape after. It is very rare effect and very rarely it happens at such a bad time but ugh, that was the exact opposite from fun.

[KoboldLord]

No, nothing has been done. None of the members of the devteam who post here have had the time or inclination to work on it, and I'm not sure about the rest of the devteam. At least one devteam member thinks Hell Effects are a-okay even if they occasionally arbitrarily kill a well-prepared character at full health and with buffs up. He also apparently didn't know that existing Hell Effects can curse your stuff, mutate you, or rot you, so I don't know what to tell you about him.

[Baldu]

The bad paralysis i got was only 4-5 turns i think, it was just at a really bad spot. Am I right in thinking that hell effects don't check for MR? I was wearing 2 MR items thinking that would keep me safe, and after that incident I traded my clarity for stasis, and on my next trip I got confused twice. At that point I decided to put the game down for the day.

I don't wanna say mean things because crawl is awesome and free, but i'm not a huge fan of the current hell effects, I hope someone will have time to tweak them in the near future.

[some12fat2move]

A revamp of hell effects might be good, but I think the real problem this thread illustrates is the straight-up potential lethality of paralysis, which if I'm not mistaken is the reason that armour changing interruption was added. It looks like paralysis should be removed or fundamentally changed in a way to make it less lethal, like with dassem's idea (snapping out of paralysis after taking a % of damage). A similar idea would be changing paralysis into "timeshift", in which you are paralyzed as normal except enemies cannot attack you for the duration (they will move towards you and maybe make summons or what have you, kind of a harmful version of Chei's step from time). Or perhaps paralysis could be replaced with "immobility" and just prevents movement. Anything is better than an ever-present chance of instadeath hanging over you.

[Kate]

I think the real problem this thread illustrates is the straight-up potential lethality of paralysis, which if I'm not mistaken is the reason that armour changing interruption was added.

You are mistaken. Paralysis being very dangerous is intentional. Changing armour causing paralysis was not intentional (the purpose of it taking a long time is to prevent armour changes during combat, not to paralyse and kill people).

[some12fat2move]

I think the real problem this thread illustrates is the straight-up potential lethality of paralysis, which if I'm not mistaken is the reason that armour changing interruption was added.

You are mistaken. Paralysis being very dangerous is intentional. Changing armour causing paralysis was not intentional (the purpose of it taking a long time is to prevent armour changes during combat, not to paralyse and kill people).

All right, perhaps that was an apples-to-oranges comparison. But I hope you're not saying paralysis is intended to be a full-HP-to-zero spell that some enemies have against which there is no simply no defense except stasis (and god help us...stasis...). I can recall one instance in which I was paralyze-killed early on by a giant eyeball + wyvern the instant I descended a staircase.

[KoboldLord]

Paralysis from an eyeball that you can separate from other monsters and/or kill immediately is fundamentally different than a sourceless effect that simply slaps you down at an arbitrary time regardless of preparations made to avoid it. It is not a reasonable expectation for the player to keep stasis equipped for four whole seven-level branches.

[Tiber]

Paralysis from an eyeball that you can separate from other monsters and/or kill immediately is fundamentally different than a sourceless effect that simply slaps you down at an arbitrary time regardless of preparations made to avoid it. It is not a reasonable expectation for the player to keep stasis equipped for four whole seven-level branches.

While I would generally agree, when you get hit with it immediately after going down the stairs, it may as well have been completely arbitrary. You couldn't really prepare for it either way.

[crate]

You get the first action after you enter a new floor for the first time. It is possible that there was nothing you had that could have stopped your paralysis, but options include: use an attack wand to kill the eyeball, move to break LOS, read fog, read teleport, read blinking.

If it was not your first time on the floor, well, these things happen sometimes (if it was a case of stairdipping or something then this is why stairdipping is dangerous ... if it's because the other stairs you had taken were also bad, tough luck). I have had a few deaths where once I took the staircase my game was over ... I don't know that there's a reasonable way to prevent this.

Changing giant eyeballs because they occasionally kill you the turn you see them seems wrong, they're a very good monster right now.

[some12fat2move]

You get the first action after you enter a new floor for the first time.

Hmmm, I never knew that. Useful information.

If it was not your first time on the floor, well, these things happen sometimes (if it was a case of stairdipping or something then this is why stairdipping is dangerous ... if it's because the other stairs you had taken were also bad, tough luck). I have had a few deaths where once I took the staircase my game was over ... I don't know that there's a reasonable way to prevent this.

I take it stairdipping means taking every staircase you see? Because that's what I've always done, although now that I know about the "first action" rule I will definitely reconsider.

Changing giant eyeballs because they occasionally kill you the turn you see them seems wrong, they're a very good monster right now.

I wasn't suggesting a change specifically to giant eyeballs - rather, a change to paralysis as it seems kind of broken. If it gets past your magic resistance, there's a small but significant chance that you're dead, just dead. Now, this does contribute tactically to a lot of situations (by making it imperative to find a way to break LOS, teleport immediately, or try to neutralize the paralyzer as quickly as possible), but in many cases it's a non-tactical luck-based death sentence. Hell effect is probably the most prominent example of this, but I'm pretty sure it's entirely possible for an enemy to paralyze you as soon as you see it. And in any case, when you can one-shot kill orc sorcerers at range you're probably not that worried about the 0.001% or whatever chance of you failing to kill it (your arrow misses or your spell miscasts) and it taking that turn to paralyze you and then subsequently kill you with demons and bolts and whatever other enemies came to join in the fun, but it's a possibility nonetheless. Which I think warrants a tweak to paralysis...but that's just my two cents. If everyone else thinks paralysis is fine as is and only the hell effect is the problem, I'll just handstand on a heap of jelly donuts then flip-kick the easter bunny and call it a day.

[Jabberwocky]

Also stairdipping is a bad idea as it ruins your chances at getting portals.

[crate]

It is extremely rare that you get paralyzed and die without being able to take steps to prevent it, even if you have bad MR. I have a few paralysis deaths but they were all avoidable (in many cases by simply not fighting because I know my MR is bad). I don't think it is implemented poorly right now, though you can argue hell effects .

[Bomanz]

What about MR reducing the duration of Paralysis and not the likelihood of it happening, or perhaps some combination of both?

[SchwaWarrior]

I am all for the revamping of Hell Effects, not because I don't think they're a good thing as-is, but because KoboldLord's propositions sound a lot more creative and interesting. Some of them sound a little over-the-top though, particularly the Tartarus ones and the parts about ice floors. (I like the idea of ice floors, but let's take things one step at a time here! Ice floors would be a completely separate proposition to Crawl with a whole slew of ideas to support it; start seeing them in Ice Cave vaults or themed dungeon floors/vaults, perhaps add a card to the Deck of Changes and to Xom's arsenal of tricks that create icy floors, etc. many MANY different ideas to sift through.) At the very least I would like to see each of the four Hells with its own separate list of effects instead of several shared effects. Rotting makes sense in Tartarus, not as much sense in Gehenna for instance-- being forcibly Berserked in Gehenna would be a nasty challenge for casters, being Slowed and put to Sleep in Cocytus would make sense, and corrosion damage in Dis is a very good idea that never occurred to me before. I also like the thought of wand charges being drained in Tartarus, but maybe not at the same time as XP and HP and Mana drain (what I meant by over the top).

Keep this thread alive! It's full of ideas that are keepers.

[ontoclasm]

I originally considered this as a way for Xom to do stuff, but it works just as well here: you've got a number that basically counts how long you've gone without doing something proactive. It goes up every couple turns if you're at low tension, and drops quickly while at high tension (or it could be based on something less fiddly than tension - possibly it could just rise continuously as long as you're on a given floor, then zero out when you go downstairs). While the gauge is low, you get only weak, non-dangerous effects, but as you continue to waste time they get nastier and nastier. That way you could have very nasty effects (multiple fiends popping in) but they wouldn't show up at all when diving, only if you take a couple hundred turns to heal up. Flavour-wise you could interpret as the malevolent will of Hell trying to lock on to you; as long as you keep moving it can't find you effectively.

[njvack]

Having severe Hell effects during moments of high tension is fine in my book -- getting doorslammed by a bunch of fiends while you're already dealing with Asmodeus is what makes Hell fun. Bad things happening whenever is cool. Don't like it? Stay in Pan.

Getting paralyzed and dying because there's a lone Ice Fiend onscreen who decides to torment and claw your face off you, however, sucks. It's uncommon, but there's just nothing you can do about it.

Replacing Hell paralysis with sleep (still lets everyone else move, lets whoever's onscreen get one free shot, lets another Hell effect fire maybe) would make for a dangerous, but much less frustrating, situation.

[carbonbasedlifeform]

Removing paralisis which ignores MR check would make amulet of stasis obselete.It should stay as it is.Koboldlord,you made decision to not wearing it and those you fate was somewhat controlled by RNG.You took the risk.I feel your pain of loosing that char but for god sake,dont blame RNG for it because it was your choice. Wear amulet of stasis in the presence of giant eyeballs(if you cant take them down in 1 turn) and in hell 7 lord chambers and the problem vanishes.

[KoboldLord]

Removing paralisis which ignores MR check would make amulet of stasis obselete.It should stay as it is.Koboldlord,you made decision to not wearing it and those you fate was somewhat controlled by RNG.You took the risk.I feel your pain of loosing that char but for god sake,dont blame RNG for it because it was your choice. Wear amulet of stasis in the presence of giant eyeballs(if you cant take them down in 1 turn) and in hell 7 lord chambers and the problem vanishes.

#1: An amulet of stasis is not a guaranteed loot item. Furthermore, Crawl philosophy is generally opposed to having one specific loot item be part of a mandatory kit that you need to progress through the game. No other resistance periodically prevents random, unavoidable death at any point in the game.

#2: Stasis is a particularly severe debuff that the player would need to compensate for. The majority of characters do not organically develop in a way that allows them to handle Hell without any form of translocations or speed. This means that playing such a character involves extended sessions of grinding in Pan or the Abyss, and every character that plays this section of the game will be fairly similar. This is also undesirable.

[njvack]

#1: An amulet of stasis is not a guaranteed loot item. Furthermore, Crawl philosophy is generally opposed to having one specific loot item be part of a mandatory kit that you need to progress through the game. No other resistance periodically prevents random, unavoidable death at any point in the game.

The parallel that comes to mind is mummies/liches and confusion, which is a similar "if you don't have the right gear, you may die now!" situation. Except that instead of clarity being the only solution, you can have that, or a weapon of distortion and self-banish, or have a deck with any number of escape cards. One of those tricks is guaranteed -- you can always worship Ash, for instance.

Paralysis in a situation where the only solution is "wear Stasis" is just unlike the design of other Crawl threats.

As an aside: a slight revamp of the Paralysis effect would be another way to go. I think dpeg suggested in another paralysis thread something like paralysis ending if you're below some HP threshold -- maybe you become unparalyzed at 10% maxhp? You'd definitely be in a "I must deal with this RIGHT NOW" situation, but not it's not so much "lol you die."

[Tiber]

#1: An amulet of stasis is not a guaranteed loot item. Furthermore, Crawl philosophy is generally opposed to having one specific loot item be part of a mandatory kit that you need to progress through the game. No other resistance periodically prevents random, unavoidable death at any point in the game.

The parallel that comes to mind is mummies/liches and confusion, which is a similar "if you don't have the right gear, you may die now!" situation. Except that instead of clarity being the only solution, you can have that, or a weapon of distortion and self-banish, or have a deck with any number of escape cards. One of those tricks is guaranteed -- you can always worship Ash, for instance.

Paralysis in a situation where the only solution is "wear Stasis" is just unlike the design of other Crawl threats.

As an aside: a slight revamp of the Paralysis effect would be another way to go. I think dpeg suggested in another paralysis thread something like paralysis ending if you're below some HP threshold -- maybe you become unparalyzed at 10% maxhp? You'd definitely be in a "I must deal with this RIGHT NOW" situation, but not it's not so much "lol you die."

Even that wouldn't help if you died to a single high-damage attack. You could just include guaranteed life-saving. While paralyzed, your HP cannot fall below one, ever; that way you're guaranteed one last turn. Though you'd also need to do some-exploit-closing by either removing that restriction for self-paralysis, or delaying things like teleports as well.

[carbonbasedlifeform]

Im still failing to see the problem. Stasis is indeed not guaranted item (like any other through the game) but at the time when you are in hell,with high probability you should be able to already posses it. Even when you didnt find due to luck or speedrun, I'd suggest investing some points to Death's door. If these requirements are still to high, spam half of the screen with butterflies or other scummy summons. If this will still not work out for you, worship Zin for Sanctuary or divine protection. Or take felid lol. As you see,there are so many ways to cheat insta death. These methods are obviously there to deal with such situations.

[njvack]

How do Death's Door or Sanctuary help you? The problem is that you can be killed without any chance to react to a threat.

KL knows pretty much all the ways to cheat instadeath, I suspect.

[carbonbasedlifeform]

How do Death's Door or Sanctuary help you? The problem is that you can be killed without any chance to react to a threat.

KL knows pretty much all the ways to cheat instadeath, I suspect.

That is not a problem,when you know how to behave in dangerous situations.So,at the first turn when you see the Pan lord,you cast death's door.You semi-control tele to the rune.Obviously you are safe because its duration is longer than para.This tactic works in EVERY Hell Lord Chamber.That is a fact. Cut the rumours that you cant react to the threat because you cant actually avoid it.

You can easy imagine situations when you are getting killed without chance of reacting like falling down from shaft to chamber full of vault-themed monsters like titans or stairs down in Orc4 when you see 10 orc priest at once and they all smite you with max dmg.Or like flying over lava in abyss and fast quicksilver dragon in the same turn comes out from corner and casts dispelling. I dont see why are these situations different from ignore-MR-para.You cant react at the time when it happens.But you can prevent this.So to avoid shafts train traps and doors.To avoid smite death always take blink scroll.To avoid lava drawn,dont fly over it,you have always choice to take another road.To avoid para wear amulet of stasis...Whenever you dont preventing the danger your fate is always somewhat related to RNG.Deal with it.

[Tiber]

Confusion without potions is a lot more likely to kill most characters than paralysis is.

Because the devs know how cheap paralysis can be sometimes, and limit the number of sources. However, with a confusion death, you either took the risk of playing a mummy, or likely managed your potions poorly.