Do you mind explaining the rationale behind your flail of ages changes?

[lac]

I'm curious. At this point in the game (as early as it gets) I am more interested in an object that you can use to finish

trolls off with. This device isn't it.... so it was one acid arrow per troll for me. And I am not saying that there is anything

wrong with that, but it looks as if you have some sort of clear vision for the FoA, and things like that make me

curious.

 

you take care,

Laura

[Demivrgvs]

I'm curious. At this point in the game (as early as it gets) I am more interested in an object that you can use to finish trolls off with. This device isn't it....

Well, FoA wasn't created to finish off trolls! Consider this an extension of SCS's "Remove unrealistically convenient ammunition from the game". In vanilla both FoA and Frostreaver dealt acid damage on every hit, wasn't it really too convenient (and lame imo) finding those items exactly in an area invaded by trolls?!

 

Furthermore, having to be better prepared or having to rely on spells like Acid Arrow, Burning Hands, and the like to deal with them makes the fights against trolls more interesting imo.

[lac]

Fair enough :-) Something tells me I am going to use more acid arrows in this game than I have

ever done before. :-)

 

Thank you.

 

Laura

[Raj]

The flail still deals acid or fire damage 40% of time, I used it with Minsc to deliver the finish blow on trolls with some success; it won't work very good on Viconia/Aerie with only one attack/round, but they can burn them with spells ^^

 

There're more weapons with fire or acid damage early in the game now, like the hammer of corrosion you find in the keep or the flaming scimitars sold by Ribald and Bernard, so that the D'Arnise qust can still be completed with a mage-less party right after escaping Irenicus' Dungeon.

 

 

 

 

My complaint about the flail ( looks like everybody has something against it lately ) is that the percentages of the special effects don't follow a realistic pattern.

 

+1 versions of the flail deal elemental damage 100% of time. ok

+2 versions of the flail deal elemental damage 100% of time. 50% for each head. ok

+3 version deals elemental damage 60% of time. 20% for each head. and the remaining 40%? it's not like you hit enemies with the stick, it's the heads that deal damage.

+4 versions deal elemental damage 80% of time. again 20% for each head, but the remaining 20%?

+5 version deals elemental damage 100% of time, 20% for each head and now it's alright.

 

It looks like it could be better to not upgrade a +2 version, that way the weapon won't trigger the special effects but is always going to cause some elemental damage for troll killing/spellfailure affairs, and 1d10+2+1d6 [11] dmg vs 1d10+3+(1d6x60%) [10.6] dmg means that you don't lose damage either.

This may be a balance decision but toning down the +3 and +4 special effects variants while giving them a 33% ( ok 1% of time the stick could work ) and 25% would help the realism.

 

 

[Jarno Mikkola]

+5 version deals elemental damage 100% of time, 20% for each head and now it's alright.

That's not the actual truth, as you'll have to recalculate the a+b+c+d+e-a*b-a*c-a*d-a*e+b*c+b*d+... which cannot be 100%. And when it comes to the +1 versions, they also need to be just 20% effect, as then it wouldn't be beneficial to just keep the +1 versions until the +5 version.

[Demivrgvs]

There're more weapons with fire or acid damage early in the game now, like the hammer of corrosion you find in the keep or the flaming scimitars sold by Ribald and Bernard, so that the D'Arnise qust can still be completed with a mage-less party right after escaping Irenicus' Dungeon.

Ahh, I forgot about the Hammer of Corrosion, is it too convenient? I'll swap it with another hammer hammer (e.g. Ashidena) if you'd prefer.

 

Flail of Ages

( looks like everybody has something against it lately )

Indeed.

 

Ok, the point is each head has a chance of triggering a special effect, when you don't deal elemental damage it doesn't mean you have hit the target with the stick, it just means no special effects have been triggered. There are plenty of abilities that work like that!

I thought nobody cared for +1 and +2 versions, but seeing some of you does I'll "nerf" them to have only 20% per head to trigger the respective ability.

E.G: FoA +1 (fire head) will deal 1d6 fire damage 20% of times instead of 100%, but will now have the -2 to thac0 effect too.

Deal? I think this solution is the one Jarno is hinting to.

 

What Raj is suggesting, 33% chance per head on the +3 version, would make the item incredibly more powerful, and would reduce the increase in power when upgrading to +4 and +5 versions (which would have a reduced % chance).

[Raj]

+5 version deals elemental damage 100% of time, 20% for each head and now it's alright.

That's not the actual truth, as you'll have to recalculate the a+b+c+d+e-a*b-a*c-a*d-a*e+b*c+b*d+... which cannot be 100%. And when it comes to the +1 versions, they also need to be just 20% effect, as then it wouldn't be beneficial to just keep the +1 versions until the +5 version.

pardon? are you referring to this:

Flail of Ages +5

Combat Abilities (20% chance each):

(...)

Notes: elemental damage has been decreased from 10 fixed damage to random 1D6 (actually because of how staggered probabilities work there's a little chance of dealing up to 5D6),

I though its implementation was more simplistic .

when you don't deal elemental damage it doesn't mean you have hit the target with the stick, it just means no special effects have been triggered. (...)What Raj is suggesting(...)

I didn't mean a buff to the +3 version, just some coherency between them all.

The fact the lower level versions always dealt elemental damage made me think it's linked to the heads.

Then yes a 20% should be kept for all versions

There're more weapons with fire or acid damage early in the game now, like the hammer of corrosion you find in the keep or the flaming scimitars sold by Ribald and Bernard, so that the D'Arnise qust can still be completed with a mage-less party right after escaping Irenicus' Dungeon.

Ahh, I forgot about the Hammer of Corrosion, is it too convenient? I'll swap it with another hammer hammer (e.g. Ashidena) if you'd prefer.

I don't mind, any hammer hammer hammer is fine

[Demivrgvs]

pardon? are you referring to this:

Flail of Ages +5

Combat Abilities (20% chance each):

(...)

Notes: elemental damage has been decreased from 10 fixed damage to random 1D6 (actually because of how staggered probabilities work there's a little chance of dealing up to 5D6),

I though its implementation was more simplistic .

Due to how the engine calculates the probabilities there's a small chance to trigger more than one head, and there's also the chance of not triggering a head at all. Most of the times though you'll just trigger only one head/effect.

 

 

I don't mind, any hammer hammer hammer is fine

I'm writing so many posts that one or two typos will be the least!!

[Raj]

I'm writing so many posts that one or two typos will be the least!!

Less posts more mods!