Vorpal effect

[DavidW]

Actually I think David was trying to say ToB dragons (at least Abazigail and Draconis) were immune to vorpal effect in vanilla (via bhaalhp1.itm), and thus he may consider to extend such immunity to all BG dragons in future versions of SCSII.

 

We are not speaking of "common" dragons here.

 

Abazigail is bhaalspawn and Draconis is his son. Their immunities can be considered as special powers granted to creatures with divine blood in their veins.

 

Well, having done a bit of research, of the six dragons in ToB (including Tamah from Ascension):

 

Abazigal, Draconis, Tamah and Saladrex are immune to opcode 13 (the vorpal opcode)

 

Abazigal, Draconis, Tamah, Fll'yissetat and Saladrex are immune to opcode 55 (the death-magic opcode)

 

Abazigal, Fll'yissetat, the WK green dragon, Tamah and Saladrex are immune to opcode 211 (imprisonment)

 

Abazigal, Fll'yissetat, Tamah and Draconis are immune to 135 (polymorph)

 

Draconis, Tamah and Abazigal are immune to 134 (petrify) and to 238 (disintegrate)

 

 

 

... what a mess. I feel justified in my desire to systematise!

[Salk]

... what a mess. I feel justified in my desire to systematise!

 

I think no one can dispute that.

 

I would be happy to just find some internal logic behind those immunities.

 

One would be to grant immunities to Abazigal and (less) to Draconis because of their divine blood.

 

I personally do not find otherwise other reasons to give common dragons more resistances than they have in SoA.

[DavidW]

I personally do not find otherwise other reasons to give common dragons more resistances than they have in SoA.

 

Conversely, I don't see any reasons to deny common dragons the resistances their ToB colleagues get!

[Salk]

I personally do not find otherwise other reasons to give common dragons more resistances than they have in SoA.

 

Conversely, I don't see any reasons to deny common dragons the resistances their ToB colleagues get!

 

The reason why ToB dragons have been made tougher is, I suspect, a precise choice of the developers to compensate the increased powers of one ToB party. It might be fine for balance reasons but it's a poor choice in term of consistency.

 

In my opinion, the best thing would be to make all common dragons consistent in terms of immunities and resistances, allowing for few exceptions in case of special dragons. A little like SCS II already does with HLA abilities for selected mages and priests.

[DavidW]

I personally do not find otherwise other reasons to give common dragons more resistances than they have in SoA.

 

Conversely, I don't see any reasons to deny common dragons the resistances their ToB colleagues get!

 

The reason why ToB dragons have been made tougher is, I suspect, a precise choice of the developers to compensate the increased powers of one ToB party. It might be fine for balance reasons but it's a poor choice in term of consistency.

 

Easily fixed by extending those resistances to SoA dragons.

 

In my opinion, the best thing would be to make all common dragons consistent in terms of immunities and resistances, allowing for few exceptions in case of special dragons. A little like SCS II already does with HLA abilities for selected mages and priests.

 

That's what I do. In SCS, all common dragons are consistently immune to Slay, Vorpalising, and Imprisonment. (But I suspect that's not what you had in mind...)

[Salk]

That's what I do. In SCS, all common dragons are consistently immune to Slay, Vorpalising, and Imprisonment. (But I suspect that's not what you had in mind...)

 

This is very fine in terms of consistence.

 

But you're right, what I had in mind was not a mechanical extension of all the shared immunities, but rather of a selection of them (SCS sometimes removed powers from vanilla creatures because you judged them to be unfair, if I remember correctly), PnP inspired possibly.

[Constantine]

That's what I do. In SCS, all common dragons are consistently immune to Slay, Vorpalising, and Imprisonment. (But I suspect that's not what you had in mind...)

 

This is very fine in terms of consistence.

 

But you're right, what I had in mind was not a mechanical extension of all the shared immunities, but rather of a selection of them (SCS sometimes removed powers from vanilla creatures because you judged them to be unfair, if I remember correctly), PnP inspired possibly.

Let's face it, Salk! DavidW can't be reasoned with (at least in this particular case

[DavidW]

But you're right, what I had in mind was not a mechanical extension of all the shared immunities, but rather of a selection of them (SCS sometimes removed powers from vanilla creatures because you judged them to be unfair, if I remember correctly), PnP inspired possibly.

 

Indeed. I haven't yet heard the case for this not being fair, though.

 

 

That's what I do. In SCS, all common dragons are consistently immune to Slay, Vorpalising, and Imprisonment. (But I suspect that's not what you had in mind...)

 

This is very fine in terms of consistence.

 

But you're right, what I had in mind was not a mechanical extension of all the shared immunities, but rather of a selection of them (SCS sometimes removed powers from vanilla creatures because you judged them to be unfair, if I remember correctly), PnP inspired possibly.

Let's face it, Salk! DavidW can't be reasoned with (at least in this particular case

 

I suggest distinguishing (a) people who can't be reasoned with from (b) people who you've personally failed to convince. (Observe that I haven't declared that you "can't be reasoned with" just because you haven't come round to my way of thinking.)

[Salk]

But you're right, what I had in mind was not a mechanical extension of all the shared immunities, but rather of a selection of them (SCS sometimes removed powers from vanilla creatures because you judged them to be unfair, if I remember correctly), PnP inspired possibly.

 

Indeed. I haven't yet heard the case for this not being fair, though.

 

Extending immunities to every creature of one specific class, with the lack of them being:

 

1) an obvious mistake of the developers (one single creature is missing what all the others have)

2) not fully justifiable from the PnP point of view (the new ability is consolidated in the AD&D world - ex. restoring dragon's breath if it was missing from the game)

3) not strictly necessary for gameplay/balance/realism reason

 

is what I'd call "unfair", or rather "arbitrary".

 

What we have here is a situation where in SoA, no dragons have any of the ToB immunities while in ToB the developers assigned them some in a very incoherent fashion for no other apparent reason than balance (a stronger party needs tougher enemies).

 

You propose to manatin those (or...?) and extend some of them (chosen with what criteria?) to the SoA portion of the game.

 

Does this solve the inconsistency? Yes but only partly, since some dragons would still have more immunities than others, providing ToB dragons remain like they are.

 

Does this look "fair" to me? No, because, in my opinion, it doesn't directly fall in one of the three categories above.

 

I hope I am giving an argument for my "protest".

 

Let's face it, Salk! DavidW can't be reasoned with (at least in this particular case

 

Do not say such thing, not even as jest. DavidW can always be reasoned with and I have been bugging him several times before, always receiving motivated answers. Sometimes we don't see it the same way but it's extremely unfair to call him unreasonable.

[DavidW]

OK, I'm not 100% persuaded, but I think I'm sufficiently convinced it's complicated that I'll keep this out of the "pure" AI bit of the component. I'll add a "systematise dragon immunities" microcomponent.

[Constantine]

I suggest distinguishing (a) people who can't be reasoned with from (b) people who you've personally failed to convince. (Observe that I haven't declared that you "can't be reasoned with" just because you haven't come round to my way of thinking.)

I think I understand why you strive to give all this non-PnP immunities to dragons. It's just to balance some power player parties that usually make short work of them, killing your precious Almighty Dragons with a couple of strokes of their greatswords. I cannot say that I agree with you, but it is YOUR mod, and that means that your reasoning is OK, whether I like it or not

And, uh, I didnt wanna offend you, really!

[DavidW]

I suggest distinguishing (a) people who can't be reasoned with from (b) people who you've personally failed to convince. (Observe that I haven't declared that you "can't be reasoned with" just because you haven't come round to my way of thinking.)

I think I understand why you strive to give all this non-PnP immunities to dragons. It's just to balance some power player parties that usually make short work of them, killing your precious Almighty Dragons with a couple of strokes of their greatswords. I cannot say that I agree with you,

 

Not quite right. I'm not terribly bothered by fidelity to PnP; I am bothered by internal inconsistencies; I am writing a mod with a significant focus on tactical challenge; I am aware of significant player feedback requesting this change. Having said which, there is a distinction in SCS for a reason between components that do and do not make significant changes to creatures' abilities (as opposed to their scripting) and, as noted above, I'm somewhat persuaded that in this case the dragon-immunity thing needs separating out from the pure "smarter dragons" thing.

 

but it is YOUR mod, and that means that your reasoning is OK, whether I like it or not

And, uh, I didnt wanna offend you, really!

 

I don't think the fact that it's my mod gives my reasoning any special status. I could be misinformed or plain confused on any given topic. (Having said which, obviously different mods have different design goals, and sometimes criticism might just come down to someone not wanting to play a mod with those design goals.)

 

And you didn't offend me.