RFC: Chaos and related issues

[grodrigues]

A. Chaos.

The issue was first raised here by polytope: opcode 3 (berserk) does not work on NPC's. More precisely the IESDP notes, and I quote:

Quote

This effect only affects party members (this is not true for EE games, it works fine on non-party creatures.)

So the effect is broken on the old, non-ee editions of BG (which from now on will be called oBG). In laying out the possible options, I will follow a maximally conservative approach: do the minimum changes required to make everything work, for whatever "required" is taken to mean. If you think this is a missed opportunity, and instead want to implement that awesome cool idea of yours, then this is not quite the RFC for it -- you can, and maybe even should, state your case, so that discussion can be had, but then the burden of the implementation is also on you (unless the idea is so freakin' good that I might just steal it and implement it myself. Grin).

1. The first option is: do nothing. This opens a precedent though, a bad and dangerous one, of purposely letting oBG by the wayside.

2. Second option is to change opcode 3 to 247. The problem, as subtledoctor mentioned, is that there is no cure 247 opcode (once again, EE has the tactical nuclear warhead of opcode 337). Doing the change only on oBG means that SR will behave differently on different platforms, which is dangerously close to just letting oBG by the wayside.

3. A third option is to change berserk to some other effect. Bartimeus suggested feeblemind, and I concur, simply because feeblemind is a "chaotic" effect and is covered by Chaotic Commands' immunities. Of all the options this is my preferred one, and the implementation is fairly straightforward as well.

And this leads to the second related issue.

B. Chaotic Commands.

I always thought that Chaotic Commands protected against berserk: checking it on NI, it doesn't. So the second question to settle is, should Chaotic Commands protect against berserk (and 247: attack nearest creature). My preferred option is: yes. Berserk is the very embodiment of chaotic-y! This may have unintended consequences though  -- e.g. it would block things like the berserking sword in BG whose name I already forgot. I am ok with what I can glean, but maybe I am missing something.

If accepted, this will be implemented in a different commit to whatever else is decided for Chaos, to keep the git commit history clean.

C. Prismatic Spray.

*If* we decide for option 3. then one can note that Prismatic Spray also (has a chance of) inflicts feeblemind, so for variety one might want to change it to something else as, I think, subtledoctor suggested. If one did make a change, what are the options? One obvious one would be cold damage, half on a failed save vs. breath. This would however, break the symmetry that prismatic spray exercises all saves, as feeblemind (and no other effect) checks against a save vs. rod.

Edited February 15, 2022 by grodrigues
typos and clarification

[subtledoctor]

A. I think Feeblemind works great in Chaos. 

B. Sure, CC should probably block that. Could players cast a 5th-level spell on the wielder of the Berserking sword for a benefit? Yes, but casting a 3rd-level spell on the wielder to get better use of the sword is already a well-known practice, so it doesn't offend me. 

C. I advocate for petrification to be in Prismatic Spray. 

[Bartimaeus]

A. Feeblemindedness was what I implemented in SRR.

B. I don't feel super strongly about this, but I don't think CC should block berserk because berserk is (or at least can be) a self-imposed mental state. It'd be like saying CC should block you from feeling sad about your dog dying or something - doesn't make a lot of sense to me for a spell whose intent is to block external magical/supernatural mental commands. I would instead opt for simply blocking external sources of berserk...but now that I think about it, what sources are there besides the Berserking Sword/Kiel's Morning Star* and Sphere of Chaos, the latter of which is having it removed? Are there any popular mod-added sources that make use of it as an attack? Given that it's never affected enemies in the non-EE games, I would guess there aren't too many, but I'm sure somebody has used it somewhere.

*Funnily, I would really not be too against having Chaotic Commands protect you from the Berserking Sword and Kiel's Morning Star, because I feel as though that qualifies as an external magical command. However, I don't think that's possible without blocking berserk wholesale, so...eh. Though also, I would perhaps argue that as powerful cursed artifacts, such magic could be argued to overrule simple duration-limited spells anyways. As I said though, not something I feel super strongly about.

C. Petrification would be better than what I did, which was confusion. Confusion is just a worse stun, after all, and more stuff is immune to it - petrification is much more interesting and a very different kind of effect with different utility, plus I think you can make a pretty good argument for keeping the "vs. wand" saving throw with petrification. It's not as though the "vs. wand" saving throw made strict sense for either feeblemindedness or confusion either, after all.

Edited February 16, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[subtledoctor]

32 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

but now that I think about it, what sources are there

I was thinking about IWD's (and thus SCS/IWDification) Blood Rage and Animal Rage spells.

Though, now that I look at them they are actually intended as buffs for party members, not to penalize enemies. (Animal Rage works like Minsc's berserk, where you regain control when there are no enemies in sight; Blood Rage seems to keep the berserk state up constantly, which seems nuts to me for a buff spell.)

And in any event none of that is SR's problem. So might as well leave CC alone.

36 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

It's not as though the "vs. wand" saving throw made strict sense for either feeblemindedness or confusion either, after all.

It's not as though the "vs. wand" saving throw makes strict sense for anything in the game, including wands. Is something I will argue all day. I have modded the wands saving throw right out of my game. For a time I used it for psionics, but now I don't even do that, instead I use a save vs. polymorph (on the theory that psionics act directly on the target's body, i.e. their brain).

[Bartimaeus]

I think vs. wand makes a vague sort of game rule-set sense...but I've never been able to really come up with anything that makes it make sense in any kind of real or in-universe sense. A Wand of Fire...casts Fireball. What's different about this Fireball from a mage casting it normally that makes it not require a breath save but instead a vs. wand save? What the hell does saving vs. wand/rod supposed to even mean? Vs. breath is "you were quick enough", vs. spell is "you were able to resist magic", and vs. death is a "you were able to stave off the worst of its effects". Vs. petrification/polymorph and vs. wand/rod are the odd ones out, but I can at least sort of see a sense for the former as a kind of "you maintained your normal shape/form" (though I'm not really sure what that actually fundamentally means...and I think it could really just be rolled into vs. death as being close enough), but what the hell is vs. wand/rod supposed to be? A fireball is a fireball, dog - you have to get the hell outta the way.

Practically though, these are games coming from a P&P rule-set that was presumably trying to do some sort of balance thing, it's fine/whatever to me.

Edited February 16, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[subtledoctor]

Yeah, I more or less map them to spell schools:

• Enchantment & Illusion: save vs. spells
• Evocation & Conjuration: save vs. breath weapon
• Alteration: save vs. polymorph
• Necromancy: save vs. death
• (Divinations and Abjurations generally don't involve saving throws)

I see vs. breath as something like reflex, vs. spells as something like perception/reasoning, vs. polymorph as some sort of physical willpower or hardiness, and vs. death as I guess more of a spiritual willpower. (As I think about it, I suppose poisons would really fit best in saves vs. polymorph.) If I could do it in this engine, I would turn them into ability score saves, like 5E has:

• vs. breath --> DEX
• vs. spells --> INT
• vs. polymorph --> CON
• vs. death --> CHA, or maybe WIS

"Vs. wands," by contrast, is meaningless. I agree, a fireball is a fireball is a fireball.

Edited February 16, 2022 by subtledoctor