ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

I was doing some character testing, fighting a farportal boss toe to toe instead of kiting like a smart adventurer...

But then I died really unexpectedly. I activated my shield rune, and promptly got smacked down before I had a chance to do anything else.

Except I don't understand why that should happen with an instant. I fully expected to be able to do a couple more things before worrying about being hit again.

Any ideas what might have happened? (b43) Unfortunately I never thought to look at the log for clues, should have. When is an instant not so instant?

As far as I'm aware, instants are always instant. Without any specific info, I'd guess you hit the wrong button or an extra button. Of course, farportal bosses get talents that aren't commonly used on players, so maybe something strange happened.

Just to clarify, the turns went like this:

- Boss hits you, bringing you to low HP
- You activate Shield Rune
- Boss hits you again, killing you.

If that is the case (and it was a shield rune, not a belt of shielding, or Barrier, or the skeleton shield, or a typo), then something is wrong.

Were you using any anti-magic equipment or afflicted by a spell failure debuff? If the rune cast failed then it costs a turn.

Yes, that's right - boss hits, I activate shield, boss hits again and I'm toast.

I wasn't using any anti-magic equipment, that I know.

But a spell failure debuff - that's possible. I didn't stop to carefully review all the debuffs, and it's possible the shield was never actually applied and I didn't notice. If the shield cast failed, would it have gone on cooldown or not?

I think it should. Spell failure seems like a likely culprit. I'm sure some will object, but spell failure either should use the original casting time (in this case, none), or not apply at all to instant talents to avoid these extremely specific and confusing circumstances.

I... huh. Could it have been burning hex? No, no, not if it were a shield rune. S'not anything else like that, is there?

And yeah, I'd be cool with generic spell disruption (ala antimagic failure chance) not taking up any time if it buggers up instant talents, maybe just putting 'em on cooldown. Obviously stuff like the rod of... whatever that is... or things specifically designed to hit talents in general, probably should be able to mess with instants (or at least subsets of instants... anything not mobility related, perhaps?). It'd make things a bit more consistent, I'd think.

Though if instants did get buffed like that, there might be room for converting some (or many) of them to partial-turns (ala the tier 3 fungus talent) instead of true instants.

Confusion effect?

confusion doesn't affect instant talents, IIRC Numbing Poison does though.

Weapon of phasing? Or a large amount of damage & a small shield? I get that 1 sometimes, pop up a shield & are hit for more damage then the shield before I even see it.

I've noticed on alchemists I've played that the shielding rune you start out with never costs a turn to use, but when I've gotten a second shield by way of investing in (IIRC) the Celestial/Light category, that shield does cost a turn to activate. The icons for both look identical in the bar, which is why I keep 'em far apart. Could it have been something related to that?

vanfanel wrote:I've noticed on alchemists I've played that the shielding rune you start out with never costs a turn to use, but when I've gotten a second shield by way of investing in (IIRC) the Celestial/Light category, that shield does cost a turn to activate. The icons for both look identical in the bar, which is why I keep 'em far apart. Could it have been something related to that?

Nah, I don't think so. Celestial/Light are spells, shielding runes are... well, runes.

Also, just for the sake of clarity, Alchemists do not necessarily start with Shielding runes, but Shaloren and the undead races do.

XLambda wrote: Nah, I don't think so. Celestial/Light are spells, shielding runes are... well, runes.

That part's correct. Shielding runes are instant, while the Barrier talent is not. You need to check each talent individually to see which ones are instant, and which are not, even if they appear to do similar things.

Is it possible that the boss's hit after you raised the shield was enough to exceed the shield and your remaining hit points?