Re: CF: ideas for next experiments

[David Andrew Michael Noelle <>]

dragonm wrote:
> I've always thought that part of the point of having more sophisticated
> spells, i.e. fireball instead of raw mana attacks, was to go the extra yard
> and make the attacktype appear to the attackee as a fire attack, rather than
> a magic attack.  Where the fire came from should no longer be an issue,
> magical or non-magical.  Once the spell is cast, the result is real fire.
> If you want immunity to fire, magical or otherwise, you need immunity to
> fire.  Immunity to magic should not affect a magical fire attack.

    This is not my proposal, this is how things currently stand.  Magic is
only an attacktype when it stands alone.  Otherwise, it is an attacktype
modifier.  Immunity to magic makes you immune to the direct effects of any
magic spell, and there are rather a good number of magic immune creatures in
the game.  The one loophole that allows mages any chance of dealing with
those creatures is that magically summoned creatures have non-magical
attacks.  One of the reasons I'm proposing this God of Magic is to put the
most common magic immune creatures, beholders and skulls, on his slaying
list.

> However, if you really feel the need to differentiate between a magical fire
> attack and a non-magical fire attack, then have immunity to magic provide
> some fraction of the benefits of fire immunity against a magical fire
> attack, and none for non-magical.  (Are there even non-magical fire attacks
> available?  Is dragon fire considered magical or not?)  I wouldn't want a
> generic magic immunity to totally negate all effects of more sophisticated
> spells.  I suspect it would throw play balance for wizards out of whack.  A
> wizard could just learn that one spell for magic protection, couple it with
> a spell for physical protection, and be well-nigh invulnerable.

    Yes, dragon fire is non-magical.  So is a demon's hellfire.  Anything
that is an innate ability of the creature is non-magical.  And what magic
protection spell are you talking about?  Immunity to Magic?  That's not a
spell, it's a prayer.  And it's only available to very high level priests of
protection gods (Gaea and Valriel).  The same effect is available to
everyone else in the form of potions of magic immunity.  

> ----------------
> If there are only a few treasure chambers out there that aren't protected,
> it should be easy enough to apply surrounded by 'magic protection' to them.
> Unfortunately, while magic Portals that aren't part of a map are another
> fairly traditional item, the Crossfire universe doesn't lend itself very
> well to their use.  The constant map resets are the biggest problem I can
> see.  As Mark says, they tend to negate any benefit if they disappear when a
> map is reset.

    An alternative would be to add a map flag for no_teleport_in, and
special invisible objects, similar to the no_magic objects, that set
no_teleport_in for each space that has no_magic or is surrounded by
no_magic.  This could be done to all current maps quickly by means of a PERL
script that applies an area fill algorithm to each map.  That would prevent
dimension door, portal, and word of return from entering any areas
originally surrounded my no_magic, even if the barrier is removed later to
allow physical access.  Word of Recall should still work, but portal would
be one-way, if it worked at all.


> Now that the client and server are distinct, we might give some thought to
> taking advantage of the existence of the server and having a more persistent
> universe.  I think that would dovetail well with the stated intent to become
> more RPG-oriented.  It would obviously have some truly immense ramifications
> to how maps are made and how quests are implemented and basically how the
> game is played today.  However, I think it deserves some thought, and some
> consideration as a long-term goal.

    Yow.  Major change there.  Even if that was adopted as a long term goal,
I don't know how we could move in that direction without changing the basic
nature of the game.  Maybe a few non-resetting rooms here and there in
towns, but all of the dungeons are designed on the principle of being reset
frequently.  I suppose artifacts could be made more unique by not placing
them on their maps if any player who is known to have one either in their
inventory or in their apartment(s) is currently in the game.  That's about
as far as I can see it going without a complete replacement of all the maps.

-- 
            -Dave Noelle,                 
            -the Villa Straylight,  http://www.straylight.org
Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email  ==  http://www.cauce.com

Disclaimer: "I am the Lorax, I speak for the trees!"

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