Rework the Sand Drake's Swallow talent

[yufra]

The initial scaling of this ability was brought up a while ago when it was pointed out some of the early monsters (midges, etc) have very low HP and thus you can never get them below a certain percentage of life to swallow them. At the time someone (me?) suggested having an additional check of the absolute amount of life an NPC has, but now I have a different idea entirely. The current swallow is an instant-hit, roll resistance check. What if we altered it to be more like Shield Pummel, where first an attack is performed and if and only if the attack hits AND brings the target's life below the percentage (may need to tweak the numbers) do you attempt a swallow. If the creature is killed you instantly get to swallow it, and if it is still alive you have to roll the resistance check. I also suggest the size of the NPC be considered, possibly scaling with talent level so at first you can only swallow up to small, then normal, then big, etc.

Thoughts?

[Sirrocco]

Seems cool - and possibly also have a modifier to the amount of equilibrium regained (and message on success) based on enemy size. Perhaps even better if it was relative size (so smaller wyrmics wouldn't be able to swallow as many things, but would get more nourishment from those they did swallow. Damage for the hit might start out at something like 35-45% and scale up to about 120%.

2 or more size categories smaller - "That was barely an appetizer."
1 smaller - "Small, but flavorful."
same size - "A decent-sized snack"
1 larger - "A satisfying meal"
2+ larger - "A true feast"

[Grey]

Perhaps it should be a straight damage attack, and if the damage is enough to kill then the swallow is attempted. This means it's easier to swallow low HP creatures, and harder to swallow high HP ones. Ability would have to scale well as the player levels up to remain useful. Perhaps the damage amount should be based on the player's own HP?

[Grey]

I said based on, not equal to! Around 10% is what I was thinking.

[darkgod]

done

[yufra]

First off, thanks!

Second, I think the swalow check should be this:

Code: Select all

if (target:checkHit(self:combatAttackStr(), target:combatPhysicalResist(), 0, 95, 15) and target:canBe("instakill")) or target.dead then

This performs the physical resist and makes sure the target can be insta-killed, or if the target is dead lets you swallow. Currently if a insta-kill resistant NPC (so a boss) is killed by the attack it cannot be swallowed. That may be intended, but I think this way makes sense, too.

EDIT: Oh, and the message should be changed to "@Source@ tries to swallow @target@!", and then probably add a game.logSeen to swallowing if block.