Messages posted by: Wail

Yeah, you're right the number could be pretty large. For the most part I'd think I'd need about 10. If I did it with a 50/50 chance on either X modifier or Y opposing modifier that could be trimmed down by half.

Obviously, I'd prefer AM/LA players not to get these through their LA ability. That'd be rather excessive, and they already have a MWM.

One thing I forgot to mention is that these artifacts could/should break after one use.

This is a fairly simple idea. Since I consider it a worthwhile objective to have monsters with specific resistances and vulnerabilities to certain weapons (e.g. Fire monsters take 25% more damage from Freezing weapons), I think it's also worthwhile to think about giving players options to make specific types of weapons.

Although I haven't really looked thoroughly at what this would involve, from my guess at how things are implemented it doesn't seem like it would be that hard. It'd simply be a matter of creating a Magic Weapon Maker artifact that can only roll one type of weapon.

This would lead to things like ...

-Magic Weapon Artifact of Freezing
-Magic Weapon Artifact of Energy
-Magic Weapon Artifact of Rage
etc.

The main obstacle in doing something like this would seem to be creating graphically distinctive versions of each type of artifact.

Thoughts?

This is definitely feasible. I've got two sets of monsters I've made for Death Warrant's Monster Mash Invasion server which have specific resistances/weaknesses. One is a set of 3 heavily armored Warlord types with different attack modes and resistance to instant death (Vorpal) attacks. Another is a set of 4 Slith creatures with elemental attacks (Poison/Cold/Lightning/Fire).

My basic chart/guideline is...

Fire opposes Cold (Water)
Poison (Earth) opposes Electricity (Air)
Energy opposes Null Entropy
Healing opposes Vampirism (& all Undead)
Protection opposes Vulnerability (Theoretical Effect)
Rage opposes Calm (Theoretical Effect)

Rage is associated with Fire
Freeze is associated with Cold
Calm is associated with Cold
Energy is associated with Electricity
Null Entropy is associated with Earth
Quickfoot is associated with Electricity
Sturdy is associated with Earth

I think ideally I'd like UT2k4 RPG/DruidsRPG to conform a bit more to RPG-tropes (ex. Rage wouldn't be "X Weapon of Rage" but rather "X Weapon of Burning") so that these mappings would be a bit cleaner. Unfortunately, that's not how things were developed at the time and it's a little late to go back and revisit everything, especially with UT3 so close.

Obviously, since it wasn't designed that way, not everything fits into these categories all that neatly. In other cases the general rule I apply is that creatures that use a certain type of weapon tend to be more resistant to it. For example, the Energy Warlords on the Monster Mash server have a bit of resistance to Shock Primary, ostensibly because their equipment is hardened against energy-based attacks. Weaker weapons (e.g. Rockets vs. Flying enemies) generally don't get additional resistances. I want to encourage weapon diversity, not penalize certain weapons into uselessness.