Question related to dmging the unseen targets

[anp]

Well, I'd like to know how the game mechanics work in this way. You're not meant to be blinded, just enemies are in the 'war fog'; using the aoe spell, I also used the Arcane Eye. And anyway, it damaged not every enemie. Please, look at the screenshot below:

http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/331 ... sizedimage

Could a kind soul explain how exactly this works?

P.S. some kind of strange link, this is just from Steam.

[Faeryan]

Do you mean that enemies not seen by your character don't get damaged by AoE spell? That is a known problem/feature. It's been mentioned a lot of times so the developer has noticed the issue, though I haven't seen his answer whether it's a bug or an intended feature.

On my opinion having played a fire Archmage I think it's more of a feature. Otherwise it'd be horribly overpowered.

[anp]

Yes, I thought so. But there are items which allow you to "Attack unseen targets without penalties". AFAIR, by the time I made this screenshot, I wore the amulet which grants this (not 100% sure). So how do those items work then? Only when blinded?

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

The issue in question is related to a status on enemies called 'in vault'. It's treated as a buff, that prevents them from moving or acting until being seen. However, it also prevents them from taking damage. This was added both to reduce the lag multiple vaults could cause on a level, and to prevent abusive tactics wherein certain classes with summons or wide range AoE's could shred the creatures inside a vault without exposing themselves to risk.

Now, technically vaults all have 'sealed doors' taht you have to confirm a prompt to open, however in a few regions (Notably, old forest in this instance) you can find what older angband variants would've called a 'monster pit'. These rooms are wide and open, with every tile filled with a monster. (typically, all of the same general kind. All snakes, all ants, etc.)

The game treats these very crowded rooms as vaults so they don't bleed all over the level, until you have a LoS on them. (and more importantly, they have a LoS on you.) The downside to this, is if you toss a fireflash in the room, then enemies that haven't 'woken up' by seeing you, don't take damage from it. It's an illogical quirk, and a few suggestions have been made to fix it. Nothing has been done yet, however.

I hope this explains it a little clearer.


As for items which 'allow you to attack unseen enemies without penalty', that relates to attacking a creature under stealth/invisibility without doing less damage then normal. It's a separate thing.

[Xandor Tik'Roth]

To further clarify, DG has in fact commented on this before (somewhere) and it is a feature, not a bug. Basically, this happens when your character hasn't personally seen an enemy (e.g. not through telepathy/Arcane Eye/Track/etc). It's to prevent people from doing spammy things, like taking a Wildfire Archmage into the Vault-from-Hell and nuking everything without first seeing it. So yeah, until your character actually sees whatever he wants to destroy, it'll just sit there, happily toasting marshmallows.

[Mewtarthio]

You generally don't need to see creatures that are in a proper vault. A Wildfire Archmage can open the door, wake everyone up, and rain unholy fire around whatever corners he wants. It's only the vault-like areas without doors (pits are the big ones, but there are a couple others, like that skeleton mage in Old Forest or the snow giant encampment) where the "In Vault" status comes into play.