Re: [Adonthell-devel] Combat related thoughts

[Kai Sterker]

On Sat, 15 Mar 2003 18:04:09 +0100 Nils Fohrbeck wrote:

> Sorry if that is what you proposed, but how about each character has a
> (maybe hidden) low level property damage. 

Obviously, a character (and weapons also) need a damage value/range.
However, that alone is not very useful, unless we also specify a "rule"
how this damage is applied. I was talking about those rules.


> That way we can just say the boneaxe (as well as the feat you
> mentioned) adds 'destroys all undead' to the characters damage. 

How would you add that to the damage property? It's not a value you
could simply add. It's rather a rule like:

    if opponent is undead 
        kill him on the spot
    else 
        deal normal melee damage

So a rule equals code, and code goes into a damage object. And damage
objects can be nested (or "chained" as I put it in the previous mail),
since weapons can be enhanced with runes or poison, and since feats can
be used. Which simply means that multiple "rules" can apply at the same
time. And how would you apply multiple rules? You'd link them!

Damage objects will of course have to revert to the actual _damage
value_ in order to know _how much_ damage to inflict. That's why we'll
need both.


So although the damage objects seem to complicate stuff at first,
they'll actually make a lot of things much easier. They will also give
us much more freedom with the different types of damage, as we can use
all of the Adonthell API to implement them.

I'm not saying damage objects are the peak of perfection, but they're
much better than using a few flags to chose between a limited number of
predefined damage types.

Kai