Implementing Poison in Stendhal
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Pressing Questions
- Should it stack?
- As is monsters can stack poison against players. Will this trait be too over powered for players?
- I believe it won't be overpowered if each weapon can only have one coat of poison on it at any time, and they require an amount of time to apply, similar to skills like fishing or mining. Poisons can be treated as a property of an item, either true or false, so poison cannot be added to a weapon that already has it. So new properties could be if the weapon has poison, and what type of poison it is. - Richgar
- If we remove the trait is it still fun, and worth the effort for players to use?
- Poison should be able to stack. The values of the poison can be modified, since they have no impact in-game right now, so we could make it not stack and just increase the damage of poison. Arrows could provide the highest chance of inflicting poison. Next would be daggers, then swords, axes, and finally clubs. It would detect the weapon type based on the name of the weapon, "bow", "shuriken", "dagger", "sword" or "blade", "axe" or "scythe", "hammer" or "staff", and use that to determine the chance of inflicting poison. - Richgar
- How long does it last? Will the effect diminish?
- Needs testing to find balanced values. The effect shouldn't diminish if it's to be consistent with poisonous creatures. - Richgar
- As is monsters can stack poison against players. Will this trait be too over powered for players?
- Will the weapon be beyond repair after some time?
- I believe poison should act as a temporary property of an item, and shouldn't affect its durability. A poisoned dagger is just a dagger with poison on it, is how I picture it. - Richgar
- Can poison be applied to the weapon right away?
- I believe it should take time to coat a weapon with poison, similar to skills like fishing or mining coal. You would put a bottle of poison in one hand, and the melee weapon, ammunition, or missile in the other, while having a tool like a handkerchief in your inventory. "Applying poison to weapon." would show in the chat log, and will apply after maybe 4 or 5 seconds. - Richgar
- Do we need special NPCs who can craft such items or lay the effect on them?
- I think it would be good for an NPC to be able to take poisons and money and make stronger refined version for higher level players. - Richgar
- Is just poison as an item needed or does the player have to craft special potions before?
- It just feels right that enemies drop poison bottles. However, there could be an assassin NPC who takes multiple bottles and money to craft more potent versions for higher level players. - Richgar
- What prevent players from using poisonous weapons all the time?
- I think there should be a delayed method of applying poison such as with a handkerchief so players can't use it in the middle of combat. Also, it would consume whole bottles. - Richgar
- Where does poison fit in with the elements? Fire/Ice, Light/Dark
- I believe that all poisonous or non-mortal enemies will be immune. This includes mostly dark enemies, but also a mix of creatures from the other three elements. - Richgar
- Off hand a lot of dark elementals are notable for poison.(dark elves) But, Not sure if we should lump it in with that element.
- I believe it should depend on the lore of this game whether elves are mortal or not, or have any special racial traits, and therefore have any resistance to poison. - Richgar
- Can all creatures be poisoned or do these which for example drop poison or are poisoning be immune?
- I believe that all poisonous or non-mortal enemies will be immune. Said stuff above. - Richgar
- Can players use poisoned weapons without being hurt/poisoned on their own?
- No, I don't think there should be a risk to the user. - Richgar
- New items like gloves needed which protect the player from being poisoned?
- Gloves are a cool idea, but I think a specialized handkerchief for applying poison would be good. It would stop people from using poison all the time in combat because it would take time to apply the poison, similar to fishing or mining. - Richgar
- Will these be worn out after some time?
- Do poisoned creatures react like players? e.g. walking in a different way
- That would be pretty cool, but it would be weird and too easy to kite enemies. I don't find the confusion effect of poison logical. I think it should be a separate status effect. - Richgar
Discussion
- Fast stabby weapons like daggers and arrows should have the highest chance of inflicting poison, and then swords and axes, and then clubs. To apply the poison, it would be similar to the scroll eraser. You put the poison in one hand, and the weapon in the other, and then have a tool in the inventory such as a handkerchief to apply. The poison can last for a set duration after being applied, or it could last for a set amount of attacks. Since poison bottles in the game have no use other than quests... the values can be modified to make them more balanced for implementing the use of poison. - Richgar
- There should probably be changes to the current values of each poison for them to be implemented into the game, for balance reasons. The current values of each poison, regen/total damage/frequency are:
| poison | Damage | TotalDamage | Frequency |
|---|---|---|---|
| regular | -2 | -40 | 30 |
| greater | -3 | -60 | 15 |
| deadly | -5 | -100 | 15 |
| disease | -3 | -2000 | 20 |
| mega | -30 | -500 | 10 |
- Richgar
- Enemies that should have immunity to poison includes all poisonous or non-mortal enemies, such as snakes, poisonous rats, arachne, golems, liches, angels, skeletons, ents, and death. - Richgar
- Mostly agree with this point. Right away the undead seems like the obvious choice for immunity.
- I kind of like the idea of poison weapons as temporary upgrades to existing weapons. Like have an npc upgrade it for some fee, and some amount of poison bottles. At some point in time, have it revert back to the plain weapon, or it could corrode away. ~Soniccuz
- If poison will be used as pure items for poisoning weapons, we should definitely think about decreasing the drop amount for poison. It's definitely too much and I guess there will not be any normal weapons anymore if just the normal one is used. - Bluelads4
- I'm suggesting that poison will not replace the weapon with a poisoned version but rather enable a temporary property of the weapon, stated above. I do agree that even by this method, normal poison bottles are a bit abundant, just by killing grass snakes. Even greater and deadly poison is a bit easy to get, by killing rats. If so, maybe we can make the method of attaining poison similar to fishing. We may need an empty bottle, and use it on the corpse of the creature, or the drop rate of poisons can simply be reduced, which seems like a better idea. - Richgar
- I came up with an equation for calculating infliction chance for poison.
[1-0.625/(Weapon*Poison)]*√(Weapon/6)*[DamageTaken/DefenderHP-(DamageTaken/DefenderHP)^2]^(1/15) where the Weapon and Poison values are: Club 1.25; Axe 3; Sword 4.5; Arrow 6; Dagger 7; || Regular Poison 0.5; Greater 1.5; Deadly 2.5; Disease 4; Mega 9;
The weapon values are based on the weapon's penetration and the poison values are based on the approximate strength. Regular poison is ineffective on club type weapons and all poisons are most effective with daggers. DamageTaken is the damage the defender takes from the melee hit (taken). DefenderHP is the health of the defender before the hit (similar to tempHP). The second part in brackets represents a downward parabola. So if no damage is taken, i.e. miss or block, or if the enemy is killed in one strike, there is no chance of inflicting poison. The greatest chance of inflicting poison is by using a dagger with mega poison and inflicting a devastating wound that halves the enemy's hp. - Richgar
Resolutions
- Imorgen the young witch will be an NPC that has some relation to poison.
- Damage caused by poison will not contribute to any kind of xp.
- Poisonous or non-mortal enemies will be immune to poison. Golems will have a resistance to poison.
- We're in favor to start off simple, so arrows will be the first weapon to feature poison.