Aminet 41/Aminet 41 (2001)(Schatztruhe)[!][Feb 2001].iso/Aminet/game/role/psiband.lha/Psiband107b/psionics.txt

Text File | 2000-01-09 | 24KB | 467 lines

Psionic Angband 1.0.7b:
an attempt at documentation

Brief Summary:
  The problem with mages in current angband is that their spells (with the
exception of magic missile and other early attacks) are mainly utility and
defense.  The result is that mages rely on hand to hand, but cautiously
until getting globe of invulnerability (GOI) which makes the end-game silly.
The class of the psionicist attempts to rectify this in several ways.  First,
psionicists are weaker fighters than mages and have no GOI.  Also, many mage
attacks become useless since every monster is resistant to them at high
levels and their damage remains relatively constant.  Most psionic attacks
are either attack forms that are often unresisted (sound, life draining,
meteor, force) or new attack forms that monsters are less likely to resist
(three kinds of mental attack, disintegration, amnesia, pain, domination).
Also, damage is generally proportional to level, so attack spells remain
effective at higher levels.  Finally, an attempt has been made to make
as many powers useful throughout the game.  Many weak (or unthematic) utility
spells (destroy traps, cure poison, detect enchantment, etc...) have been
replaced with more specialized defenses (spells that resist breath weapons
or physical attacks or mental attacks) as well as utility spells that help
with spell casting (restoring mana or allowing "simultaneous" spells).
  The purposes of the variant are to create a mage-type that relies on magic
again as well as to create innovative new powers (see below for descriptions)
and use other ideas, such as wearable spell books.

General (Important) Information:

 First - Read the entire file!  (Maybe not the history of changes)
There are many important things about psionic powers that are not at all
obvious from their names or even from using them once or twice.  Failure
to read the fine print has already resulted in one YASD.

 A psionic "spell book" is called a focus and a psionic "spell" is a power.
There are 18 different psionic foci, divided into 6 disciplines and 3
levels (not to be confused with every other kind of level).  Wielding a
focus (in the amulet slot) gives you various bonuses and allows you to use
its powers.  They are destroyed only by electricity: but level 2 foci get saves,
and level 3 foci are immune. Higher level foci give better bonuses when wielded
and are necessary for certain powers.

A few general things.  Psionicists are worse fighters than mages and have a
max of 3 attacks.  The command for psionics is 'n', although since this
conflicts with roguelike commands 'm' or 'p' will also work.
Most psionic foci give special boni when they are simply wielded - these
do not work for non-psionicists, as each has the PSI_ERASE flag in k_info.txt.
Unlike mages, psionicists can wear gloves without penalty and use powers when
blind - however, they still can't use psionics when confused.  Failing to
successfully use a psionic power ("You fail to concentrate hard enough.")
only causes you to lose half the mana.  Building up too long a duration
in any power is dangerous; there's more on this below.

The disciplines are Telepathy (*), Psychoportation(*), Psychometabolism(*),
Psychokinesis, Metapsionics, and Clairsentience(*).
   (*) - the 1st level focus in this discipline can be found in the magic shop.

Following are the various disciplines and then their powers.

Telepathy:
I - +2 wis,chr
  Mind Thrust - the equivalent of magic missile +
    stunning/confusion/fear/sleep
  Empathy - If successful, it makes the affected monsters more
    vulnerable to telepathic attacks.  It also cancels the penalties
    for attacking animals or stupid monsters.
  Mental Barrier - sust int,wis - res fear,conf, and a few monster spells
  Intimidate - like mage's fear but stronger
  Sleep - ditto
  Psionic Blast - psionic fire ball like mind thrust but more damage

II - +2 int,wis,chr - sust int,wis
  Psychic Crush - psionic attack that's harder to resist
  Mind Wrack - little damage but hardest to resist side effects

III - +3 int,wis,chr - sust int,wis - telepathy
  Domination - "The greater titan hits the AMHD.  The AMHD looks confused." Gain one
    pet if the monster fails its save...
  Amnesia - each casting causes a monster to cumulatively lose 1/3 of their
    (total) spells as well as causing them to sleep and a few other things

Note on format: Telepathy I allows access to the first 5 powers. Telepathy
II allows access to those and psychic crush and mind wrack.  Telepathy III
lets you use them all. The same format goes for all other psionic disciplines.

Note on psionic attacks: None are bolts/beams. Instead, all except for
Psionic Blast are radius 0 balls, so any monster in sight can be targetted.
Also, stunning/confusion/etc.. is based on damage done, your level and the
monsters level.  Psychic Crush weights this in your favor and mind wrack
weights it much more.  Also, confused monsters are more susceptible.

Note to those who understand the source: Besides GF_DOMINATE and GF_AMNESIA,
there are three types of psionic attacks.  GF_PSI (mind thrust, psi blast,
ultrablast), GF_PSI2 (psychic crush, *ultrablast*) and GF_PSI3 (mind wrack).
The higher the number the lower the chances of resisting damage and the
higher chance of stunning/confusion/fear/etc.  Player level, monster level,
unique status, monster intelligence and spells and damage also affect these
chances.  Psychic drain uses the GF_PSI routine for resists/specials.

Psychoportation:
I - +2 AC
  Blink - as the old phase door
  Teleport - obvious enough.
  Dimension Door - pick any destination within a certain distance - costs an
    extra turn or more if you pick a bad destination or an extra half turn
    regardless.
  Time/Space Anchor - no teleportation for anyone. That includes you. You
    also resist nexus and time (a resistance found nowhere else).

II - +5 AC, +2 dex
  Probability Travel - temporarily can teleport level at will with '<' and '>'
  Banishment - teleport other in a beam (just like everyone else)
  Time Control - temporary haste.
  Time Bolt - a bolt of time (rarely resisted) that gives you a time boost.

III - +10 AC, +6 dex, random teleportation (as ring of teleportation)
  Recall - another staple
  Time Shift - gives you a free turn + 1/10th of a free turn... of course,
    it costs one turn to cast.  This one could be broken at high level,
    although it wouldn't be easy.

Psychometabolism:
I - +2 con - sust str,con
  Cell Adjustment - minor but efficient healing
  Satisfy Hunger - obvious effect
  Adrenaline Control - like berserk but better.  When it ends, though, you
    risk a "crash," causing slowness and other unpleasant effects.  It and
    biofeedback cancel each other out, and that's a relatively safe way to
    end it.
  Biofeedback - 1/2 damage from most physical attacks
  Energy containment - temporary resist fire,cold,elec,acid,poison

II - +2 str,con - sust str,con,dex
  Death Field - pay life for a big nether ball centered on yourself
  Complete Healing - the only drawback is that it takes 3 turns to recover.
    Test it in town next to an idiot.
  Drain Life - like the wand, except you gain hit points (1/2 dmg)

III - +3 str,con,dex - sust str,con,dex - hold life
  Shadowform - very little damage, no attacks, walk through walls.
  Double Pain - halves one monster's hitpoints if they don't save.

Psychokinesis:
I - res force
  Light Control - like activating the Phial: lights the room, does damage to
    light-sensitive monsters.
  Wall of Force - creates a temporary wall of force that bolts and monsters
    can't cross.  It costs more to maintain the further away it is.  The '#'
    command will let you destroy them.
  Inertial Barrier - 1/2 dam from monster breaths
  Project Force - a beam of force with "fading damage" (see below)
  Sonic Boom - radius 5, sound attack
  Detonate - like meteor storm, radius 2.

II - res force, inertia, shards
  Disintegrate - does damage and destroys walls, radius 2
  Sphere of Cold - a lot of frost damage, radius 1
  Fire Eruption - a lot of fire damage, radius 0

III - res force, inertia, shards, gravity
  Balefire - A beam that combines fire and time (resisting one only
    gives partial resistance) with damage proportional to your current
    hitpoints.  It can have *VERY DANGEROUS* side effects, though, so use
    it sparingly...

Metapsionics:
I
  Cannibalize - pay life and get mana
  Intensify - Every level of intensification increases the mana costs of
    all of your powers by 50% and their damages and durations by a third.
    i.e. level 3 would double damage and increase costs by 150%.  There is
    a small cost to maintain it.  Cast intensify again to end it.
  Receptacle - drain charges to get mana (note: it's best to not to drain
    wands halfway with this power - now they do damage when they explode)
  Empower - a powerful recharge
  Psychic Surgery - restore int,wis,exp - remove fear

II
  Splice - do several powers in a row - cast it again to end a splice early.
  Ultrablast - psionic blast damage to all monsters in line of sight, like
    ZAngband's Mind Wave power but at a more reasonable cost given the power.

III
  Psychic Drain - a psionic attack that gives you mana.  It costs roughly
    one extra turn.  The area affected is ball of random radius.
  *Ultrablast* - big ultrablast, uses psychic crush formula for confusion,etc...

  Note: wielding a Metapsionic focus allows you to use any other focus in your
pack, although angband uses the minimum of the metapsionic focus level and
the other focus level. i.e. you're wielding Metapsionics I and you have
Telepathy II in your pack.  You can't use psychic crush without actually
wielding Telepathy II.

Clairsentience:
I - +3 searching
  Detect Monsters - as the name suggests
  Awareness - temporary telepathy
  Reveal Secrets - detect doors, traps, stairs
  Clairvoyance - magic mapping
  Metaphysical Analysis - describes all temporary magical effects and level auras

II - +4 searching, res blind
  Read Object - identify

III - +5 searching, res blind, telepathy
  Read Aura - *identify*
  Precognition - You notice out of depth items/monsters and vaults on level
    creation.  It also gives warnings for cannibalize.
  Analyze Monster - get full monster recall if it fails its save

Note: Normally, psionicists get feelings about objects the same way as mages.
When wielding a clairsentience focus, they get feelings as warriors
(far better).

Certain attacks lose approximately 1/3 of their damage after each monster.
They are currently project force, psychic drain and life draining.

Certain powers cause you to lose (or gain) part of a turn.  Normally, one
action takes 100 energy.  There are some exceptions: for example, shooting
 a bow when you have 2 shots/round costs 50 energy per shot.  Basically,
gaining or losing 1 energy is equivalent to gaining or losing 1% of a turn.
These powers are as follows:
 Time Shift - Gain 5d(level) energy.
 Dimension Door - Lose (60 - level) energy.  100 more if the destination
   is bad.  (i.e. "You fail to exit the astral plane correctly.")
 Psychic Drain - Lose d150 energy.
 Complete Healing - Lose 350 - 2*level energy.

Certain temporary powers do damage if their duration becomes too long.
This only happens if you try to "save up" a large amount of adrenaline
control, for example.  When you take damage, the duration of the spell
will be reduced.  The effects are as follows:
 Time Control - hits you with a ball of time
 Shadowform - hits you with a nether ball
 Adrenaline Control - simply does damage
 Biofeedback - reduces duration without doing damage
 Inertial Barrier - hits you with inertia (what else?)
 Awareness - causes you to space out for a little while (lose d200 energy)
   The percent chance of this each turn is (# of turns of awareness left)
   divided by 1000, rounded down.  After you receive the message the first
   time and until awareness wears off or you quit, it's abbreviated as a
   period.

Three other powers can also kill you:
Receptacle, Cannibalize and Death Field.
It should be obvious why.

Here are the other changes, largely unrelated to psionics:
-Keldon Jones's monster AI patch was added (ver 0.1.1) and changed so that
  all pack monsters (not just animals) will try to draw the player out of
  corridors. It is optional (use the Game-Play options menu to set the option.)
-Some monsters have psionics.
-There have been several changes to the info.txt files by Jonathan Ellis. To wit:
  * Several new monsters, including psionic monsters. Some old ones have given way.
  * Vaults all guarantee good objects and possible out-of-depth monsters.
  * Some objects, ego-types and artifacts provide resistance to psionics.
  * Six or seven new types of ego item (mostly from OAngband, but armor and shield
     of Resist Poison is now available.)
  * Rings of poison resistance and speed are somewhat shallower, at levels 40 and
     70 instead of 60 and 80.
  * Amulets of the magi are now actually useful items for non-psionicists
     (psionicists cannot of course wear them because of wearing psionic foci.)
-The black market generates deeper items the deeper you go.
-Out of depth  monsters in vaults no longer contribute to level feelings.
-Ctrl-J is a new debugging command.  Note: setting the value of "oops" to 0
and then saving will wipe out temporary psionic effects.
-A more powerful heal spell has been added for monsters. (But nobody uses it,
because it's broken when combined with monster AI.)
-Greg Wooledge's random artifacts (0.6.0) have been added.
-The random artifact generator has been changed slightly (making it
 incompatible with non-psiband savefiles with GW random artifacts).
-Temporary resistances have a chance of vanishing if built up too much.
 There is a (# of turns of resistance left) divided by 64 (rounded down)
 percent chance each turn of this happening.  This is in response to
 energy containment.
-'C' shows average weapon damage, not counting to_hit and slays
-missiles show average damage when the appropriate launcher is used
(again, not counting to hit and slays, which are now more significant)
-Some items were removed to make room for psionic foci.
-The autoroller is about 1000 times faster in maximize mode.
-Cheat_know doesn't say 32767 kills any more (a side effect of analyze monster).
-Certain level generation constants have been slightly changed.
(Out of depth items/monster and vaults are more common)

Future changes:
-The domination interface could still use improvement.
-Perhaps wisdom should be used for amounts of mana instead of intelligence.
-Random uniques would be cool as a game startup option.
-A monk class should be created (half warrior, half psionicist).
-Better monster AI should be added (like Keldon Jones' patch) and monsters
 should choose offensive spells better.

Where it's at:
In case you've forgotten, psi-angband sits in
ftp://export.andrew.cmu.edu/angband/Variant
The files are p_exe???.zip, p_src???.zip, p_doc???.txt and p_dif???.txt
(??? is the appropriate version.)  Immediately after uploading,
they are in the /angband/Incoming directory, where they are invisible.
Also of possible interest is "pziband," a merger of psiband and
zangband.  The filenames are the same, except with "pz" instead of "p_",
and the version, as of this writing, is 1.1.0. (ex: pzexe110.zip)

Note to programmers:
Psionic angband adds several internal features to the game.
 -New attack types, and item and monster flags.
  These are described elsewhere and can be found in defines.h.
 -Calling project with "who" set to "-2" will create an attack
  from neither monster nor player.  The global variable "_killer"
  describes what's on your tombstone.
 -If you want to combine psiband with your variant, use the diff
  file (patch -p0 < psi_diff).  Just give me credit and look closely
  at how I've changed saving and loading.
 -To use fading damage, set "fade_dam_on" to TRUE before calling
  project and FALSE afterwards.
 -I think that lib/edit/*_info.txt files can have entries out of
  order now, but that may not be true for all. Besides, this is
  irrelevant except for cosmetic reasons.

Note on monster psionics:
    Some monsters also have psionic attacks now, which can be quite
deadly if not resisted.  The attacks also come in three levels of power
(independent of damage).  The first is easily resisted and generally
causes few special effects like confusion or stunning.   The second
and third levels of psionic attacks are resisted with more difficulty
and are more likely to cause side effects.  The third is particularly
dangerous as every point of damage it does risks causing an effect
randomly chosen from confusion, stun, paralysis, slow, int/wis drain,
mana drain and amnesia - however, it does less damage.
  The particular psionic powers that monsters have available are as
follows (L denotes monster level):
 - Psychic Crush (3dL damage, level 2),
 - Psionic Blast (3dL damage, level 1, a ball spell),
 - Mind Wrack (1d(2dL) dmg, level 3),
 - Psychic Wave (Ld4 dmg, level 2) and
 - breathing insanity (monster hp/4 dmg, max 800, level 1).
   In addition to this, there are two lesser psychic attacks already existing in
vanilla: "mind blast" and "brain smash". Plus, of course, the whole assortment of
amnesia, confusion, mana drain, slow, terrify and paralyzation spells...
  To resist monster psionics: resist confusion, sustain int/wis and being paralyzed
help (although of course there are other drawbacks to being paralyzed.) Being
berserk, confused or stunned makes resistance less likely, and having telepathy or
enhanced int or wis is beneficial if you make your saving throw and bad news
otherwise.

Credits:  Thanks to Keldon Jones, Ivan Tkatchev and Greg Wooledge for
allowing me to use parts of their code (monster AI, automatic control
of dominated monsters and random artifacts respectively).  Thanks
to Cam Moore, Neal Stangis, Jonathan Ellis, and many others for bug reports,
suggestions and support.  Finally, I appreciate the efforts of those who
compile this for platforms other than DOS.

History:
1.0.7b- Some bugs fixed (metapsionics work properly, mind wrack works, monster
          AI is optional rather than compulsory.)
      - A bug has been fixed in the pref files: floors appeared as an umlaut
          instead of a dot, and this had to be fixed through the "%" game command
          and dumping the resulting alterations to the pref files. DOS works fine
          under Windows, so should Windows itself if this game is ever compiled
          for Windows, don't know about other platforms.
      - Some of the documentations and help files have been updated.
      - Resist gravity, instead of being a separate resistance, is now covered
          by feather fall (as in ZAngband.)
      - The RES_PSI item flag was actually given to some items, ego-items and
          artifacts - including the metapsionic foci.
      - Changes to the *_info.txt files were made by Jonathan Ellis, from
          suggestions previously published as "283edits.zip" for vanilla.
          Others as well... A full list is enclosed with the game, as the
          "changes.txt" file in the Help directory.
      - Some exclusively psionic monsters added, also by Jonathan Ellis.
          (To date, 6 normal monsters and 2 unique.)
      - Psionic foci changed: now *all* level 3 foci are immune to destruction by
          electricity, and metapsionics I and II are no longer totally immune.
      - Some monster psionics knocked down again - no psychic crushes and waves
          too early in the game, and mind wrack is *rare*.

1.0.7 - Balefire is now more true to the original idea.  This means that it
        is more powerful (less resisted) and has very dangerous side effects.
      Pet displacement now works.
      Time control was moved to psychokinesis.
      Several new powers were added: empathy, intensify, metaphysical
          analysis, wall of force and time bolt.
      Psiband is now based on the final version of 2.8.3.
    Monster psionics were weakened and paralyzed characters resist
      mental attacks better now.
    A new option/command was added to order your pets to follow you
      (instead of going after other monsters).
    Adrenaline control is slightly weaker, is incompatible with
      biofeedback and risks cutting out suddenly and causing "crashes"
      when it ends.
    High level psionicists have weaker melee skill.
    Being hungry is more debilitating and more spells cause it.
    Added a command to remove force walls ('U').
    Added detonate and ultrablast side effects.
    Balefire is cheaper and other PK attacks are more expensive.

1.0.6 - Based on angband 2.8.3
        Added Keldon Jones's monster AI (ver 0.1.1)
        Telepathic attacks are more effective against high level monsters.
        The pet code for kamband was stolen for dominated monsters, meaning
          that you no longer have to (or can) micromanage them any more.
        Dragons fight better.
        Stunned monsters aren't helpless (a la gw-angband).
        The RES_PSI item flag is more useful. But not on any items yet...
        Some monsters have the RES_PSI and IM_PSI flags.
        Cannibalize has a confirm prompt and precognition warns about it.
        Spells with durations were weakened.
        Deep foci are more shallow and rarer.
        The awareness "float" message has been abbreviated.
        The awareness high happens earlier.
        When domination ends you risk a psychic attack from the monster.
        Adrenaline overdose does more damage.
        Energy containment ends early more often and doesn't last as long.
        Biofeedback speeds regeneration and has other minor effects.
        Certain monster attacks risk causing amnesia.
        Metapsionic foci work.
        Monster psionics are weaker and more dependent on monster level.
        They are also standard - r_info.old is without psionics.
        OOD monsters in jelly pits, zoos and graveyards no longer
          contribute to level feeling - instead there is a fixed bonus.
        Semantic changes, typos fixed, spell descriptions updated, etc..
        Failure rates no longer have a 5% minimum.

1.0.5 - Precognition now works.
        Fixed bug where monsters couldn't become confused.
        Buffering powers is now dangerous.
        RES_PSI and IM_PSI were introduced as monster flags.
        RES_PSI, META_PSI1 and META_PSI2 were introduced as item flags.
         (metapsionics flags work like binary, for "META_PSI3" use both)
        Several new psionic attacks were added for monsters (although
          few monsters actually have them).
        Psychic drain was toned down.
        Temporary resistances have a chance of vanishing if you build them
          up too much.
        Confused monsters are more susceptible to psionic attacks.
        Domination wears off faster and the cursor is less buggy.
        Telepathic attacks have internal probabilities changed.
        This documentation is more comprehensive.

1.0.4 - The random artifact version is now 0.6.0.
        The random artifact generator now loads a fresh artifact list
         whenever it fails to create an appropriate one (instead of
         reprocessing the old one).

1.0.3 - Replaces "focuses" with "foci" and other semantic changes.
        Fixes average damage.
        Uniques resist a few special attacks better and recover faster from
          being stunned.
        The "deep" foci are now rarer.
        Psionic foci are pre-*identified*.
        The black market level now has a minimum.
        A few autoroller bugs were fixed.
        A few internal changes will facilitate eventual random uniques.
        Non-psionicists no longer get the bonuses from wielding psionic foci.
        The HEAL2 spell no longer results in hp overflow.

1.0.2 - Fixes almost every remaining bug introduced in ver 1.0.0
        (thanks to Cam Moore) - one might call it "semi-stable."

1.0.1 - Fixes random severe bugs (like not wielding foci).

1.0.0 - Brings psionic angband to angband 2.8.2, random artifacts 0.5.1.
        Makes psionicists more balanced, introduces fading damage.
        Introduces several bugs in the port.

unnumbered - psi_exe.zip and psi_src.zip existed based on angband 2.8.1

Written by Aram Harrow ([e-mail])