Welcome Board Archive -Upcoming Changes and Design Notes

Okay, after gathering data and getting a good amount of feedback, 
here are the modifications going in with the next code update:

* Positional damage modifier for sitting/resting/etc returning to 
  20% (it's original value)

* Rage damage percentage increasing from 25 to 29% (not quite back 
  to original 33%)

* The stun (sleeping, paralyzed, coma) damage bonus increased to 
  66% from 33%

[for the above three, please see the design notes append]

* Duration of blinding flash and blind affect increased to 10 fight 
  rounds 

* The ac penalty for blind and blinding flash is increased by 5

* Cause mage's Weaken Protection and Create Mage's Weaken Armor spell (or 
  vice versa, it's rather confusing) now stack with one another.

* Only spells that would normally agro a mob will check for bounces
  ** I want to emphasize that this change is FOR NOW -- casting an 
     offensive spell on a mob should carry some risk. **

* The bounce formula has changed. There's a 7% chance of a spell bouncing 
  and that improves as the caster gets above 50 mind. It no longer takes 
  into account the victim's stats. Victim's resistances will still play 
  into the bounce formula.
  
  Please stop reporting mobs that are obviously immune to fire bouncing 
  every single immolation cast against them. 
  
  ** I want to emphasize that this change is FOR NOW as well. I think we 
     eventually want a more robust implementation of spell resistances 
     (or saving throws, since we already have resistances). I was hoping 
     this would be a sort-of interim simplified formula but it didn't work
     out as I'd hoped.

* Cure critical and cure light now charge a fixed amount of mana (50 and 4
  respectively). Cure critical's heals start at 60 points and work their 
  way up based on the mind of the caster at no additional cost. Cure light 
  is a cost 4, but no longer takes into account the caster's mind. All 
  casters get 10+1d2 (only available at 100 mind previously).
  
  =========================================================================
Some Design Notes
=========================================================================
In working on rune casters (shhhh no questions please), I started delving 
deep into the hit table. This is something that, more or less, has been 
pretty much the same since I redesigned it in 1997. Things modify the 
results of the table, but until weapon mastery, the table itself changed 
very, very little. 

After the change I made to hitroll equipment a while back not having 
quite as a large bonus as I though it would and the weapon master formula 
having a much bigger influence than I could have imagined, I began to 
really dig into the table.

Turns out that hitroll modifies not your chance to hit, but modifies the 
chance to hit from the hitroll table.

[ed. Okay Rufus, get to the point]

This means that for someone whose hit table entry (based on the 
attacker's level, the ac of victim, and weapon mastery) is lower, the 
efficacy of the hitroll stat decreases. 

[ed. Try again, Rufus]

Let's assume two characters who have both amassed 50 hitroll 
one is a weapon master, the other is not. The hit table result for 
attacker #1 is 40 (or a 40% chance to hit) and the hit table result 
for attacker #2 is 60 (or 60% chance to hit). The first character, 
with 50 hitroll, now has a 60% chance to hit, and the second 
character (attacker #2), now has a 90% chance to hit. They've both 
paid the same rent for that 50 damroll.

[ed. better]

This is also why bashed (toppled, wind gusted) mobs are at such 
a disadvantage. At some point, someone decided to not just modify 
the hit chances for these positions, but also modify the results from 
the hit table. So when things are bashed, they suddenly become somewhat 
trivial to hit. 

So without getting into too much detail [ed. too late], there's a 
huge rift the haves and the have-nots when it comes to the results from 
the actual hit table. (As a side note, y'all need to honestly realize 
how awesome limn is as a spell, currently.) 

I would like to correct this, but I need to be very cautious. I want 
hitroll to be important and meaningful, but it means changing some 
core mechanics. 

For the vast majority of level 50 characters, the base chance to hit 
an attack is between 40% and 58%. After modifiers, this is generally 
closer to 45 on the low end and 87% on the high end. What I want 
to do is make hitroll a consistent bonus for all characters. In 
order to retain a value for each point, I need to change the core 
numbers coming out of the hit table (that's the dicey part), but 
the ratios and progression of those numbers will remain consistent. 
The hit table as it is right now is actually pretty solid 
[ed. shut it, Rufus]. So this would simply be normalizing the 
effective value of hitroll.

This lengthy exposition [ed. you do not know the half of it] comes 
down to this: in order to make this work correctly and bring the 
bottom end hitters (non-dex, non-weapon masters) who have spent 
points on hitroll, the top end has to come down to about 82% 
chance to hit from 87%. 

Now when you work in all of the bonuses for position and such, 
the difference between 82 and 87 vanishes completely, but this 
slight 'nerf' will allow us to make many builds people have made 
over the years to a lesser degree of success closer to being on 
par. 

Make sense? 


Ruf