ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

What's up with the new Phase Door spell? I get that it's been nerfed. Twice. That's OK, since it was pretty damned powerful before....

However, it doesn't seem to be working as I expect. I have it at 4/5 with an Archmage, so it's got an effective level of 5.2.

I cast it once on an escortee, who had, for reasons unknown, decided to charge directly at a whole clearing full of wolves. I got to within line of sight of him, and then used Phase Door to attempt to move him to a spot away from the wolves. Both the escortee AND the spot I chose were within my line of sight. When I cast the spell, the escortee vanished from my screen. I figured he had landed somewhere near my designated target, but that I simply couldn't see him because he was behind a tree or something. So I started killing the wolves, including a Corrosive Vapour spell and some Lightning. Shortly thereafter, my Corrosive Vapour apparently killed the escortee. Somehow. Was he still on the same spot he'd always been on, but simply invisible? Was he in a "limbo" state of some kind, similar to the state I find myself in when I use a set of stairs, where a monster can be on the same square as me, and attack me, and I won't ever see it until I move 2 squares away and have the monster move toward me?

Then, later, I cast it on myself and chose a target about a dozen squares away, in line of sight. I was standing on one of the corners of the moat that surrounds the castle-shaped vault in the Old Forest. I selected as the destination the other corner that I could see on-screen. Upon casting it, I did not move. Was this because it's a moat? Because it's a vault? Because there were trees inside the destination zone, and the RNG decided to put me on a tree, and therefore I didn't move at all? If that last one is the case, then we have a major problem, because it's going to be damned-near impossible to designate a target zone that's entirely open terrain.

Re the last one, I think one can not teleport or phase into a vault (even if you're already in it.)

It would be helpful to know which squares actually constitute a vault. Maybe the target selector should have a visual clue when you're casting Phase Door or Teleport (e.g. turn 'em red instead of green). Is the moat part of the vault? Is it the outermost edge? Is the row of trees next to the moat the outermost edge?

All of the above. You cast vision from a distance and see this humungus black void - feels like you've stumpled on the vault that makes all other vaults jealous, but often it's all pastry and not much meat.

If I recall correctly, only HARD terrain types block vision/sense and all terrain types with a "no_teleport" flag block teleportation. In the case of the vaults the entire vault map is set to "no_teleport", and when this vault map border isn't clearly delineated with a HARD wall this leads to confusion. This is the case with the troll hideout vault map, where the actual vault map starts at one radius outside of the trees across the moat. It is possible to add a check for the no_teleport flag to the targeting mechanism, so if several people want it I will code it up and submit it to DG. Cheers!

overtrix wrote:All of the above. You cast vision from a distance and see this humungus black void - feels like you've stumpled on the vault that makes all other vaults jealous, but often it's all pastry and not much meat.

Yeah... maybe most lesser vaults shouldn't block teleportation and LOS. I mean, it doesn't make a lot of sense for trolls to have a hideout that blocks divination and teleportation unless they stole it from someone else.