Print

Please login or register.

1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever

Login with username, password and session length

[Klear]

Too useful against bosses. 2 (or 3) uses would kill everything.

I'm thinking more along the lines of changing the damage type and adding an additional cost to using it, but... yeah, that's the Subtle Knife. Making it the same as that is not a good idea.

[SageAcrin]

Add some knockback to the staff blast. 3-4 squares would allow you to use it as a kind of pseudo-escape effect, which, considering that it's competing with running, is fine enough.

Seems the fastest way to make it better without making it massively better.

Skulls are harder. Off the top of my head, ditch Fire Skull, make a Rock Skull(or something similar) that absorbs corpses for armor/boots durability(can't be too high, maybe 1-2% per corpse, portable durability restore is a unique effect), and make the healing effect on Blood Skull better.

Remember, it has to compete with a medkit. Getting 10 HP a corpse might be really good, but it's also a quite rare item and you still need a fair deal of bodies on the floor.

[Tormuse]

Skulls are harder. Off the top of my head, ditch Fire Skull, make a Rock Skull(or something similar) that absorbs corpses for armor/boots durability(can't be too high, maybe 1-2% per corpse, portable durability restore is a unique effect), and make the healing effect on Blood Skull better.

I kinda like this idea.  It would certainly be a lot more useful than Fire Skulls, especially in Angel of Purity!

[Evilpotatoe]

Too useful against bosses. 2 (or 3) uses would kill everything.

Damaged would have been based on current HP, so I doubt spamming use would have been very useful.
Anyway, bosses would still need an exception, and I'm not sure the item would be that great.

For skulls, I like the portable repair idea, but I'd rather couple it with blood skull (healing your gear, somehow :p)

My suggestion for fire skull would be to
 - register every explosion before the first occurs (so that one exploding corpse doesn't prevent 4 other from exploding. ALL skulls in range would inflict damages)
 - change damage type to "holy fire". Something which wouldn't damage player or destroy items. Maybe not walls either.
 - Improve damages if necessary. The idea is to "nuke" the screen when it's filled with corpses. Outside of the mortuary, such situations just don't exist, so it would still need to compete with hatred skull. I'm not asking 100 damages per explosion, but a vile between 4 or 5 corpses should need improbable damages rolls to survive.

[Deathwind]

Here's an odd idea, give the staff rocketjump style knockback? You might need to nerf the damage a bit but would give it some real use.

[dougjoe2e]

Given that the Arena Master is an Arch-Vile, and Arch-Viles raise the dead...

...is there some way the Staff could be used to raise a corpse that would then fight *for* you instead of against you.  (Maybe at the cost of Max HP, depending on what you raise...)

[Equality]

Subtle knife has atl-fire "Invoke". don't know what is it - but it drain 2 of hpmax and may be raise or summon something?

[LuckyDee]

If I remember correctly, the original Subtle Knife cut doorways between dimensions, or some such. Maybe it phases?

[grommile]

Subtle knife has atl-fire "Invoke". don't know what is it - but it drain 2 of hpmax and may be raise or summon something?

The wiki says it does 10 BFG Plasma damage to all enemies in sight.

[dougjoe2e]

Other thoughts on what the Staff could do:

• Maybe carrying it (or if it was possible, equipping it or putting in the preparted slot) provides X% torso fire resistance (since the vlie attack is fire damage. It could be a melee weapon, too, after all...
• ...or maybe it makes Viles less likely to blast you or raise corpses - they decide they want to run away from their "master" instead...
• ...or maybe, if it became a melee weapon, it would have the Vampyre ability, or some toned-down variation on it (similar to how the Butcher's Cleaver mimics Blademaster)

*shrug*

[Thomas]

Making it a melee weapon could be interesting. Considering that you have to fully complete Hell's Arena to get it, likely for a gun-toting doomguy and unlikely for a melee doomguy, it could be a melee weapon that's a chainsaw alternative for people who don't have brute - High accuracy with some drawback.

I'm not even sure if the game would play nice with an item that can be both used and equipped, though.

[dougjoe2e]

Another random thought about what the Arena Master's Staff could do:

If you are carrying it in your inventory when you die, it does 4d2 points of damage (not sure what type) to every enemy in sight.  You then gain half that much HP and are invulnerable for a few turns (3-5?).  The staff is then removed from your inventory.

Imagine:
"You Die!  Suddenly, the Arena Master's Staff glows a hideous crimson and hellish necrotic energies bring you back from the dead!"

...somewhat of a cross between an Amulet of Life Saving (ADOM/Nethack) and the Hell Mask from _Splatterhouse_.

[Dreadlord]

Another random thought about what the Arena Master's Staff could do:

If you are carrying it in your inventory when you die, it does 4d2 points of damage (not sure what type) to every enemy in sight.  You then gain half that much HP and are invulnerable for a few turns (3-5?).  The staff is then removed from your inventory.

Imagine:
"You Die!  Suddenly, the Arena Master's Staff glows a hideous crimson and hellish necrotic energies bring you back from the dead!"

...somewhat of a cross between an Amulet of Life Saving (ADOM/Nethack) and the Hell Mask from _Splatterhouse_.

This idea is interesting. It could also work as a single charge for the staff - after you die, the charge is gone, but you arise and the staff remains only to act as a lockpick for the Vaults with its lousy fire attack.

Another problem here is that such a change does break the idea of a roguelike, where you  usually get no second/third/fourth/whatever chance for a given character.

[ZicherCZ]

Another problem here is that such a change does break the idea of a roguelike, where you  usually get no second/third/fourth/whatever chance for a given character.

On the contrary, some of the most known roguelikes have Amulets of Life Saving (ADOM, NetHack) or something similar (e.g. Blood of Life in ToME), which basically give you an extra life. Even further, these are normal, non-unique items (although extremely rare), and in theory you can have an infinite number of them. ADOM's wishes are a reliable way to receive those.

[Dreadlord]

On the contrary, some of the most known roguelikes have Amulets of Life Saving (ADOM, NetHack) or something similar (e.g. Blood of Life in ToME), which basically give you an extra life. Even further, these are normal, non-unique items (although extremely rare), and in theory you can have an infinite number of them. ADOM's wishes are a reliable way to receive those.

Yes, this is yet another side of this question. Here we come up to the point of deciding whether we need an Item of Life here in DoomRL or not.

These items, I believe, will not just lay on the ground like ammo clips. :)

Personally I think it might be handy (homing phase devices, to some extent, belong to the category of life-saving items), however, obtaining such an item here must either be very difficult through special levels, or extremely unlikely as a random item spawn, like the homing phases. I don't think that the Arena Master's Staff which is discussed within this topic can potentially fulfill such a role. It will definitely require more balancing, like making the Chained Court tougher, or creating a completely new item used for such purpose in another special level.

I speak, of course, as a not-so-perfect player who already has enough issues and stupid deaths playing HNTR.