Current hp bonus and damage

[polytope]

I've found some interesting things about the use of opcode #17 (negative setting) to simulate damage.

 

The first is that a PC drained to zero hp has a grayed out portrait and inaccessible inventory, but can still act (until they take one or more points of real damage, of course). However, in this state, they also seem to be skipped by certain AI scripts (Those referencing [ANYONE] rather than NearestEnemyOf() or something like that)

 

The second is that you can reliably avoid hp going negative by using increments of one point, because #17 with a type/mode of zero doesn't work on a creature with zero hp or less (probably to prevent healing spells from working as resurrection spells). Thus if you want 5 hp drained used 5 times -1. If you want 1-4 hp drained use 100% chance to drain 1, 75% to drain 1 more, 50% to drain one more etc.

 

The third is that you can avoid a PC or creature being drained to zero hp (and the accomanying bugginess). Simply have the effect drain one more hp than intended (again, using increments of one), then have a +1 "current hp bonus" effect (I use a delay of zero) applied with the "type" field set to 65536; opcode #17 with this value for type/mode can heal creatures with zero or negative hp, so the overall effect will always leave the creature with at least 1 hp.

[Demivrgvs]

Interesting findings indeed. I'm still undecided, but I'm thinking to change bleed effects once again and make them use "stunning dmg" instead. I prefer to make bleeding wounds to cause unconsciousness at 0hp instead of being unable to kill, though we're talking about an incredible rare case anyway, as most of the times another source of dmg (e.g. the weapon's main dmg) is going to kill the target anyway (what's the chance to deal the exact amount of dmg to leave a target at 0hp?).

 

My only issue with using "stunning dmg" instead of "lower hp" is the almost automatic spell failure it causes, but I hope ToBEx's concentration hack will be able to handle it.

[chabba990]

Hi, now that you mentioned this stunning damage, I would like to know that how many of these 'hidden' damage types can be used? I remember this stunning, disease, and soul eater, and also magic fire and magic cold can be different. So for example, if I want to make Positive Energy, and Negative Energy damage, would it be possible to hack these types by renaiming them? (Although I know that the damage animation would probably remain in case of magic fire and cold.)

[Demivrgvs]

Hi, now that you mentioned this stunning damage, I would like to know that how many of these 'hidden' damage types can be used? I remember this stunning, disease, and soul eater, and also magic fire and magic cold can be different.

Soul eater damage? Never heard of it. Magic fire and cold were bugged, ToBEx may have fixed them but I still see no reason to use them (and they surely don't serve your purpose because of the fire/cold dmg animation).

 

So for example, if I want to make Positive Energy, and Negative Energy damage, would it be possible to hack these types by renaiming them? (Although I know that the damage animation would probably remain in case of magic fire and cold.)

Within SR I simply use Magic Damage (the most appropriate one), and then make selected targets immune via EFF files (e.g. undead creatures are immune to Horrid Wilting, and will be immune to Skull Trap and all Cause Wound spells). I personally don't see a better way to handle it, as all other dmg types are used for other/better purposes.

[chabba990]

I see, thanks. Yeah it's also possible to make opposite type of creatures immune to the others dmg type, but it would be more elegant to see Divine Damage Resistance, and Necrotic Damage for example on the charachter sheet. But maybe it's only me. On the other hand, this way you can only make complete immunity, and no partial resistance. If I would like to make a demon boss, who has 50% resistance against good-aligned divine spelled how could I make it?

[Demivrgvs]

We're going kinda off-topic, but I hope Poly doesn't mind. This probably wasn't supposed to be a long discussed topic anyway.

 

I see, thanks. Yeah it's also possible to make opposite type of creatures immune to the others dmg type, but it would be more elegant to see Divine Damage Resistance, and Necrotic Damage for example on the charachter sheet. But maybe it's only me. On the other hand, this way you can only make complete immunity, and no partial resistance. If I would like to make a demon boss, who has 50% resistance against good-aligned divine spelled how could I make it?

If you want it on a regular base it's still doable altering the original spells, and using EFF files to assign 50% resistance to target creature type for a split second (even 0 seconds duration seems to work). If you want it to be a special feature of just a single unique creature it's another story, and probably not doable without dedicated dmg types.

[chabba990]

Yeah a little bit off topic sorry about it. So all in all it is difficult but not impossible to implement.