Re: Disease spells (fwd)

[Jeffrey Hantin <>]

On 5/29/00, 1:31:53 PM, Magnus Kronhamn <> wrote 
regarding Disease spells (fwd):

> resending old post that I asume didnt go through:

> I just discovered the disease spells and can't help but wonder
> if this idea was not very well thought through and/or not very
> well tested.

> example, my first try with plague, Iv just avatard my way up to lvl20:

> I enter the dragonhangar second try, after it ofcoursed crashed the 
first,
> cast my plague through the gates on the dragons behind it, leave the 
map,
> sitt back a couple o seconds and watch my xp double!

> Anyone else see a slight factor of bullshitness here?

Possibly.  Maybe squares that block view should stop the targeting 
beam?  That would make it kinda dangerous to pull that stunt in the 
dragonhangar.  You'd at least have to quaff a couple immunities first. 
 But the key danger of disease spells is backfire infection... and 
perhaps, cure disease should have a BOUND(5, 50 + (5 * (disease->level 
- caster->level)), 95)% chance of success instead?  Although, that 
would make high-level diseases almost too dangerous to use (my Ebola 
can spread from 5+ spaces away!)

> Second attempt I switchd skill to findtrap after I cast my plague, and
> what do you know, all the xp from the monsters that got infected after
> I switched ended up in the 'new' skill.

The experience object pointer needs to be set in the diseases to fix 
this bug, it was in create bomb a while back as well.

> Atleast it doesnt always work to leave the map so sometimes you have 
to
> stay in there and cure your disease every second or so, which is 
dangerous
> as heck if you fail, but this is so friggin overpowered its insain!

I think the whole game system kinda goes bouncing out of sanity bounds 
after about 22nd
level anyway, there isn't really much that distinguishes high level 
play other than more
quest items and higher effectiveness out of spells.

> Clearing areas in a matter of seconds with almost no risk and being 
able
> to put most of the xp in whatever skill you want might be grounds for
> checking this up.

The cure disease risk I mentioned earlier (50% chance of curing your 
own disease), the blocks_view check, and fixing the exp object bug 
should rebalance that nicely.

> Atleast if anyone wants this game to be slightly balanced. And it 
kinda
> took the fun out of gaining xp in the 'old fashiond' way since it 
takes
> so ridiculously much longer.

Well, with the exp_object bug fixed, it limits the xp-gathering 
madness to just Wis exp, which seems to be the single most volatile 
exp category in my (pardon the pun) experience.

Jeffrey Hantin