ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Level 33 Bulwark...

I'm not exactly sure what happened. I was in a hallway in Dreadfall, around 8 floors down, between an escort and a vampire (so far like 4 of my escorts were in Dreadfall, ugh).

Anyway, I hit Shield Pummel.... and I annihilated both the vampire AND the escort.

I hit the escort for 144 light damage, and my shield is the Summertide...

I'm not really sure why she died. I think, and I'm just guessing here, that my first strikes killed off the vampire, which triggered Greater Weapon Focus... which then auto-targeted the peaceful escort.

At least... I think that's what happened. The kill had to be the Summertide because it was pure light damage, nothing else.

If I'm right about why I killed her, then Greater Weapon focus needs a check not to attack allies/escorts. If I'm not... then why did I kill her?

Summertide does a radius 1 light burst on hit.

I know because I killed Aeryn that way.

Oh, that explains it. I had specifically switched off the Acera sword because that plainly states it does burst damage.
(written as:
Burst (radius 2) on crit: +40 corrosive acid

I didn't switch off the shield because that only said:

Special Effect when this weapon hits: releases a burst of light.

I naively assumed that just mean it lit up dark areas or something, since I thought burst damage would be written like the Acera had it.

Oh well... just an escort. One I really wanted, but just an escort.

I had noticed the Summertide doing 'burst like' damage to adjacent enemies, but I'd decided that was the result of the first hit killing the enemy and then a focused strike activating and hitting a second enemy.

Good to know.

killter wrote:Oh well... just an escort. One I really wanted, but just an escort.

You are remarkably philosophical about escorts.

There is nothing that will make me rage-quit harder and faster than losing an escort to something dumb.