Small = hard to hit and hard to avoid
issueid=928 04-11-2012 09:36 AM
Senior Member
Number of reported issues by Moeba: 27
Small = hard to hit and hard to avoid

I got this idea by reading Sam's post:
http://www.ancientdomainsofmystery.c...21592569474901


So the idea is, being big should give a flat DV and to-hit penalty, whereas being small would give a flat DV and to-hit bonus. I choose not to propose it as a dexterity penalty/bonus, because if you're big you need to be more dextrous to get the same chance to avoid/hit, imo. Also that would have the nasty side-effect of earlier dropping below 1 Dext with a big PC.

This would greatly ease the early game of small PC's, which is pretty difficult right now. It is also not really imbalanced, since big creatures can wield big armors and big weapons, with more PV and damage. Later in the game, it would have little influence because it's just a flat bonus; this is nice, assuming that small creatures can also get high PV and damage later in the game.
As to the to-hit bonus for small creatures: ever tried to dodge a wasps' sting IRL? I hope not, because you probably failed ;)

Finally, this feature could be balanced - if needed - by giving a speed bonus to big creatures and a speed penalty to smaller ones: after all, big legs will make you run faster, and with big arms you don't have to punch so far which allows you to punch again earlier. I do not agree with the idea 'big = slow', only with the 'big = slow to react' one which can be expressed by this proposed feature.
Issue Details
Issue Number 928
Issue Type Feature
Project ADOM II (formerly known as JADE)
Category Gameplay
Status Suggested
Priority 5 - Medium
Suggested Version ADOM II 0.2.4
Implemented Version (none)
Votes for this feature 2
Votes against this feature 0
Assigned Users (none)
Tags (none)




04-11-2012 10:03 AM
Ancient Member
Fully agree with small = more DV and big = less DV, and I strongly wish to see that implemented. It would help balancing the game without having to change the damage modifiers too much, and therefore without dimming the differences between small and large creatures which are IMHO one of the best new features of ADOM II.

About speed, I don't agree. Yes, it's true that bigger legs can get you more speed, but that's about the only speed-related advantage a big creature gets over a small one (in real life). For the rest, as you say, bigger creatures are much slower to react (imagine an elephant vs. a mouse), so just giving large creatures more speed would be very unrealistic, apart from unbalancing. As someone said in other part of the forum, a small guy with a rapier should get a lot of small hits on a giant before he is able to hit him with a large tree trunk.

So I think the realistic thing to do with speed is that larger creatures have *less* speed, but movement for them requires fewer energy points than for smaller creatures (something like the 7LB's effect).

Actually, for balance, I think it would be good that large creatures ran a little bit slower than normal creatuers anyway, regardless of realism.

04-11-2012 10:10 AM
Ancient Member
Some other, related thoughts about larger monsters / characters:

* One important factor that makes their critical hits so fatal is mighty blow. Critical mighty blows from troll brutes and the like are very dangerous. I think I remember receiving a mighty blow and an additional hit from the same troll brute in the same combat round. Could someone please confirm / deny? That should not be possible imo, unless you're slowed down of course.

* I wonder: do monsters get modifiers on their weapons? A critical hit from a fatal large great club of devastation will kill anyone in one hit. If this is the case, it could explain some extreme criticals that I've seen.

* With fire giants, the main problem is not even their critical hits, it is their massive PV. Any non-critical hit will fail to hurt them, even if it was from a large eternium great sword. So the simple solution would be: lower their PV.
Possibly, their size is the problem. Fire giants are defined as "gargantuan", that's FOUR steps above medium (gargantuan > colossal > huge > large > medium). That is the kind of size I would expect a Greater Titan to have, not a regular Fire Giant.

04-11-2012 03:31 PM
Ancient Member
* One important factor that makes their critical hits so fatal is mighty blow. Critical mighty blows from troll brutes and the like are very dangerous. I think I remember receiving a mighty blow and an additional hit from the same troll brute in the same combat round. Could someone please confirm / deny? That should not be possible imo, unless you're slowed down of course.

I think I've seen this happen before. IIRC, what happens is that if a monster has multiple attacks, it can do, for example: Attack, Attack, Mighty Blow. Then have a big energy penalty at the end of its turn. If it does, Mighty Blow first, then I think it ends its turn.

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