0.7.2 Player can add both variants of light or darkness powered magery [CLOSED]

BansheeXYZ
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Re: 0.7.2 Player can add both variants of light or darkness powered magery

Post by BansheeXYZ »

Whether it's a mystery override or mystery offset, it seems problematic for conflicts to coexist. There's nothing telling the player what's going to happen when he selects opposing terms, so it can't be a strategic roleplaying decision.

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mikeprichard
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Re: 0.7.2 Player can add both variants of light or darkness powered magery

Post by mikeprichard »

Thinking about this some more, if DFU is going to improve on this aspect by making the significant (albeit necessary) changes mentioned above, I suggest that further logical corrections are made. Specifically, if a custom character has any resistance/immunity advantage or low tolerance/critical weakness disadvantage of a particular category (e.g. disease, fire, etc.) already selected, all other resistance/immunity advantages and low tolerance/critical weakness disadvantages of that same category should be removed from the selection lists as long as that first selection is still active.

On the surface, this might seem an even larger departure from classic. However, there's absolutely no gameplay need to combine any resistance/immunity advantages with any low tolerance/critical weakness disadvantages of the same category, as any possible resulting total save (100%, 75%, 50%, 25%, 0%) can be achieved by simply selecting a single particular advantage or single particular disadvantage from that category (with the two minor exceptions of a High Elf who for some reason wants either 25% or 0% paralysis resistance, or a Nord who wants 0% frost resistance - both are very edge cases). In other words, the only "benefit" to allowing these combinations of different advantages/disadvantages from the same save category is solely cosmetic (i.e. they'd all appear in the class save description box). On the other hand, the corresponding and much larger drawback (in my opinion) to allowing these combinations is the significant lack of clarity to the player (new and old alike) as to how exactly all of these advantages and disadvantages interact. I note that classic Daggerfall already silently (i.e. with no tooltip or other explanation) restricts players from taking both a resistance and an immunity advantage, or both a low tolerance and a critical weakness disadvantage, of the same category. My suggestion here would simply be the logical conclusion to what seems to me this half measure.

Of course, as noted above, the "magic" save category does impact the "disease"/"paralysis"/"poison" categories, but that seems to be intentional. Regardless, Allofich's changes to the formulas are welcome; for several reasons, I just think we shouldn't allow players to take more than one additive advantage or subtractive disadvantage total from each save category.

And now I've totally wrecked this bug topic... please let me know if I should move this discussion somewhere else.

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Interkarma
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Re: 0.7.2 Player can add both variants of light or darkness powered magery

Post by Interkarma »

BansheeXYZ wrote: Sun Jan 20, 2019 1:08 am Whether it's a mystery override or mystery offset, it seems problematic for conflicts to coexist. There's nothing telling the player what's going to happen when he selects opposing terms, so it can't be a strategic roleplaying decision.
I think it helps to see Magic Immunity and Critical Weakness to Paralysis as different terms from each other. They are not mutually exclusive and there need be no conflict between them. The former is an elemental carrier for the spell, the latter is an effect payload. The character will remain immune to Magic-based spells except where Paralysis is involved (because they have purposefully selected a weakness to it). But their magical resistance still helps offset that weakness to some degree compared to another character with the weakness alone. Both side of the equation now have some meaning relative to each other.

I love Allofich's solution to this. It's elegant and shows a deeper understanding of how these systems could interact with each other as different terms in a single equation. I certainly couldn't have conceived this rather nice solution myself - I would have just left the immunity override in place as per classic and moved on to the next system. I suspect Allofich is a good bit cleverer than myself. :)

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mikeprichard
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Re: 0.7.2 Player can add both variants of light or darkness powered magery

Post by mikeprichard »

Sorry, Interkarma, I do completely agree with the magic vs. disease/paralysis/poison interaction. My suggestion instead is to no longer allow combinations of advantages/disadvantages from the same category (i.e. immunity to fire combined with critical weakness to fire). I do see from your earlier post you make a case for a role-playing reason for doing a combination like that, but I think it will just confuse most players as to what exactly the net result of such a combo would be (unless some clear descriptions of the formulas used/resulting total saves are provided in the tooltips at character creation).

But to be clear, I also appreciate the clever general framework Allofich has implemented. I think it just needs that one more tweak. :)

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Interkarma
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Re: 0.7.2 Player can add both variants of light or darkness powered magery

Post by Interkarma »

mikeprichard wrote: Sun Jan 20, 2019 1:45 am However, there's absolutely no gameplay need to combine any resistance/immunity advantages with any low tolerance/critical weakness disadvantages of the same category
Can you combine say Critical Weakness to Fire with Immunity to Fire? I thought both classic and DFU would prevent these types of combinations in the class maker?

I'd better check! :)

Edit: I was replying to BansheeXYZ above, you sneaked in ahead of my reply. I added some quotes to make it clearer who I was responding to in each reply. Sorry about that guys. :)

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Interkarma
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Re: 0.7.2 Player can add both variants of light or darkness powered magery

Post by Interkarma »

I quickly checked classic DF and DFU and it's not possible to add both Immunity to Fire and Critical Weakness to Fire. Or both Immunity and Resistance to Fire. Or any combination past the first "X to Fire" added to either side.

The main difference I can see is that DF will popup a message saying there's a conflict whereas DFU just ignores the request. That's a small bug to fix, it should popup the same message.

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mikeprichard
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Re: 0.7.2 Player can add both variants of light or darkness powered magery

Post by mikeprichard »

Yeah, I was just about to confirm exactly what you just said (including the need for the classic popup messages to be added to DFU) - sorry about that! Now that I'm finally able to test things on my main PC again, I'll be sure to do that before I post any more "suggestions". Cheers!

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Interkarma
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Re: 0.7.2 Player can add both variants of light or darkness powered magery

Post by Interkarma »

Haha all good mate. I actually love chatting with you guys. :)

This bug report is pretty much toast though, but I let that go a while back. :lol:

BansheeXYZ
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Re: 0.7.2 Player can add both variants of light or darkness powered magery

Post by BansheeXYZ »

Interkarma wrote: think it helps to see Magic Immunity and Critical Weakness to Paralysis as different terms from each other.
Well that's true. Fire damage doesn't have to come from magic, nor does poison or paralysis. Spider bites (whether classic treats them this way or not) are not magical sources of those effects. There are also games (like Diablo 1) that treat "magic" as a blanket term for non-elemental magic.

But you said certain conflicts were roleplaying combinations, or someone who liked that exploit talked you into that. But... classic doesn't allow you to choose both "Immunity to Paralysis" and "Critical Weakness to Paralysis" as selections. Therefore, if your race comes with "Immunity to Paralysis", the game is contradicting itself by allowing you to select "Critical Weakness to Paralysis" for that race. It's not like racial advantages are different from added ones.

We also have the precedent of the designers forgetting to throw conflict messages for Bonus to Hit + Phobia and Expertise + Forbidden. As well as all the magnitude conflicts.

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Interkarma
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Re: 0.7.2 Player can add both variants of light or darkness powered magery

Post by Interkarma »

BansheeXYZ wrote: Sun Jan 20, 2019 6:37 am But you said certain conflicts were roleplaying combinations, or someone who liked that exploit talked you into that.
The example I used was a High Elf who was uncommonly vulnerable to paralysis. I think this works fine in a role-playing sense because their immunity is a racial bonus and their weakness is class-related. It's a great hook for building a story around one possible character's life, and finding gameplay solutions to these kinds of problems are (for me) what role-playing is all about. Some of my most memorable characters in RPGs are best defined by their weaknesses rather than their strengths. You might roll a different way in your play sessions, and that's OK too.

BansheeXYZ wrote: Sun Jan 20, 2019 6:37 am We also have the precedent of the designers forgetting to throw conflict messages for Bonus to Hit + Phobia and Expertise + Forbidden. As well as all the magnitude conflicts.
Yeah, quite likely those are an oversight. I would agree some of those combinations are a bit unusual. But then again:

"Bonus to Hit + Phobia" - Poor old Grarg, he used to be one of the greatest Undead slayers in the land until he met that vampire ancient up in the hills. He's never been the same and can barely face one of those screaming skeletons without shivering now.

"Expertise + Forbidden" - Ulru was one of the finest swordsmen until an illusion caused him to slay his wife in error. Now he swears to never touch the blade again and will only use his hands. He says that way he can feel what he's killing first and never make the same mistake again.

I'm being glib of course. Those combinations should certainly be discussed as potential bugs elsewhere. But this topic was about light & dark powered magery, and then we got into a conversation about saving throws. And now we're in a conversation about something else. Whatever the original point was seems to have best lost.

I might just leave things here. It's getting late and I'm about to cook. :)

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