ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

I tend to think that the ice block freeze effect is odd and here's my suggestion to improve it:

1. Eliminate "insta-freeze" entirely.

2. Replace it with gradual freeze which can stack and result in the ice block freeze that we are all familiar with.

----- these next ideas are separate as they're quite a bit more "unusual" or ridiculous, depending on your opinion.

3. If an ice block should form then it should "suffocate" for the duration.

4. Lightning should be immune to the damage reduction because it doesn't make any sense that it should. Water/ice conducts electricity.

5. UtterCold shouldn't reduce said damage reduction down to zero. I think it should cap at around 80%.

6. The duration of the ice block should be much shorter and reduced by attacking it with anything other than an ice spell/attack. Additional ice spells should increase the "life/duration" of the ice block.

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In essence, make cold spells do "percent to freeze" effect instead of the instant freeze. What that effect does is reduce movement and attack or global (I don't know) speed some percent for "x" turns. It's effect would degrade each turn. After "x" turns, it wears off entirely. I think three turns should be the static amount… no more, no less. However, if you hit with another ice spell, then it stacks, further reducing your speed and resetting the turn duration. Should the percent stack to 100% then the effect changes to the ice block freeze.

This is an example of how resistances should affect this: If a cold spell causes "100 cold damage and 33% freeze" then it would degrade 11% each turn. If you have 33% freeze resistance and 20% cold resistance then you'd suffer 80 cold damage and only 22% freeze but it would now degrade at approximate 15% a turn, thus it would end after two turns instead of three.

I think all cold spells should have this freeze effect to varying degrees and so all of the cold spells, abilities, etc. would have to be re-balanced.

I think this would make cold spells much more interesting, strategically useful, and logical.

I also have another idea wherein fire damage would reduce the freeze effect greatly but I've been barking up that tree for a while now and I don't think anyone likes it, ha ha.

Thoughts? Criticisms?

I think that pure water is actually a perfect insulator.

Todasmile wrote:

Delmuir wrote:
I think that pure water is actually a perfect insulator.

You don't have to quote the entire thing…

As to your point well, distilled water (which is mineral free) is a perfect insulator but are we assuming that the mage only generates perfect, distilled water?

Okay, but that's still one of my ancillary points.. any thoughts as to the main crux of the post?

Delmuir wrote:You don't have to quote the entire thing…

Sorry, habit.

As to your point well, distilled water (which is mineral free) is a perfect insulator but are we assuming that the mage only generates perfect, distilled water?

Okay, but that's still one of my ancillary points.. any thoughts as to the main crux of the post?

Why wouldn't a mage generate pure water?

I think that a global speed slow on all Freeze spells PLUS a chance to stun is a bit iffy. If we're assuming that Ice Archmages need help - and I sorely doubt that any kind of Archmage really needs help, except for maybe Stone - then it's probably a pretty good solution. But otherwise, nobody else is really going to be affected.

It might even hurt the player more than anything. Slows are dangerous, and there's no immunity for them. At least the freeze can be cleared like any other stun.

Not that I'm exactly opposed to the change. It's just something to think about.

It seems that this suggestion is motivated by a desire to make ToME more realistic (made further evident by your wish for fire to have special interactions with ice), but as far as I have seen that has never been part of its design. Should damage from pre-existing poisons and diseases penetrate ice blocks too? What about Burning Hex? Is the hex hitting you from outside or does it work more like spontaneous human combustion? If you're frozen, you should float, right? Does that mean that when you're underwater and frozen, you should be immune to Earthquake? For that matter, how come if I set you on fire, and you whack me on the head, somehow you take less burn damage?

ToME mechanics have never tried to make sense in its interactions. This kind of thing seems more suited to Nethack. The freeze status effect is already pretty complicated and it doesn't need to be made more so. It's certainly a cool idea though.

I think I like Freeze applying instant freeze still, and the idea of the slowdown doesn't appeal to me(Iceblocks don't make you slower, and they don't prevent some kinds of defensive actions; It's weird that a player would become, in some situations, more survivable when entirely frozen solid, as opposed to less).

The resistance part is out of place, too; No other status attack is blocked by elemental resistance. While an exception isn't entirely a bad thing, it still seems like it ought to just check the usual Stun/Freeze check, to avoid confusion. (I can't come up with any particular balance or thematic reason it should check elemental resistance, namely.)

Having said that, the idea still has a lot of merit to me, either standalone or as a second bonus to Uttercold, the Ice tree capstone.

Partial freeze could prevent some portion of damage dealt from/to the target instead of a speed penalty(which is closer to a partial version of a full iceblock), and you'd be surprised how little most Cold spells would need to be rebalanced-they're largely some of the weaker spells, right now.

The implementation of partial freezing could be anything from a simple debuff to a stacking, more complicated one that leads to an iceblock, depending on how much effort someone wanted to go to for coding it-and I think it could be balanced either way. It's an interesting idea; I like it.

Water themed spells like Tidal Wave could be exceptions in this regard, which would also set them apart from the cold themed spells more.

Todasmile,
On the pure water point… good call. I guess that makes perfect sense.

I've no desire to overpower the already powerful Archmage build but I do think cold needs some help. Perhaps if the cold damage was reduced… or perhaps it's a change to no benefit.

Donkatsu,
I was under the impression that some effort was being made to be more realistic but if not, your criticism is well-received.

However, my point about the fire reducing cold damage was oriented around the idea of mitigating an overpowered fire/cold build in the Archmage class…

Sage,
Interesting response… you make a good point about the inconsistent effect. I too, clearly, like the idea the but it doesn't appear that my proposal is going to work. Perhaps someone will address this more effectively.