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Author Topic: a new rant...  (Read 14951 times)

Zonk

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a new rant...
« on: March 15, 2003, 09:02:00 am »

Another one of my senseless rants:


Back another time. I have some time ago,plus the new computer....
Im fixing most my schools problems...except the Math's one,Toady forgive me :-)
Ho...also my best grades were in english:i took a 7 in my oral and 8 in my scripts...
Here in italy we have a 10/10 system,with 10 being the max,6 being sufficient and
8 being excellent :-) I plan on taking 9 in my next tests....


Anyway,i can't see the leaves,but im happy of the developement!Im gonna
add a lot of things in the manual after i tested this version...

I just wanna say a lot of things...

First about elementals:Air elementals,supposing you define "Air"as only
"oxygen",could be destroyed by fire...remember that fire consumes oxygen.
An Earth elemental could also be melted to become a magma one...Here is a little table
of para/quasi elements "stolen"from sone Planescape netbook:


Air + Water = Ice
Water + Earth = Mud
Water + Air = Mist
Water + Fire = Steam
Earth + Fire = Magma
Fire + Earth = Smoke
(don't remember the formula) = Salt
(see above) =       Mineral
(see above)
(see above,maybe Earth + Water + Negative Energy?) = Ooze

Also,do you know about Genasi from Planescape?I even placed them in my TOME module as a
playable race :-) They are something like more "humanoid"and "sentient"elemental creatures..
They are relatives to "standard"elementals if i remember well..
They have powers depending on their element. And they would be cool,as they look
humanoid but with features from their elements...umh...like steam genasi have strange
hair that almost seems to rise up,mud ones have their skin a little slippery...It's
hard to explain...In Planescape,also,every plane has some cool places...and
there are TOURISTS and VISITORS in almost every plane...including the abyss :-)
You could visit the Mineral plane to buy the best gems...The plane of Water if
you want to fish(did you know that in the plane of water there is really a strange pressure?
it's because in every place there is an INFINITE amount of water above it and also below
IT...all the plane is full of water...)...The plane of...umh...well there were a lot
more planes but seems like i forgot them :-(


To spelguru,about darkness elemental :Darkness does not really exist.It's rather
the lack of something...LIGHT. Like COLD is the lack of HEAT. Damn,Im crazy :-)

Ho,and black dragon's breath is explainable scientific in an easy way:they have
a VERY POWERFUL STOMACH ACID(even human stomach acid can melt iron...)and are adept
at emh..."breathing"it...Also they can eat really any thing except those immune
to acid...Gold for example is immune to most acids. Adamantite and Mithrils also are.
Green dragons(poisonious)are also easy to explain scientifically...Blue dragons
also,as they produce elecctricity,and eels in our real world do it. White dragons(cold)
maybe are the harder to explainm...but not impossible.
Also,what about draconians?I don't mean the Dragonlance one...But reptilian humanoids
with colors who are closely related to dragons.
Plus...Do you think that Dragons can always be considered reptiles?I don't think
Red Dragons(fire) are cold blooded :-)
And don't forget wyverns...what's a wyvern,you say?it's not "wyrm"spelled badly...
It's a "draconian"creature,legless,fast and with a poisonus sting.It also has
an hypnotic gaze...And it's not as intelligent as true dragons usually are.
There are also "Dracoliches"(undead dragons),elemental dragons and...shrug...
DRAGOLISKS...that's a dragon(probably green) plus a basilisk :-)..
Someday,you should visit http://www.pantheon.org/mythica.html...it  says a lot
of things about mytological creatures...

Let's not forget lycantropy also...i read that in Polinesia they had were-sharks :-)
Will the game being able to handle undeath + lycantropy? A vampire werewolf?
Will it be possible?


As new races,i think we should do:
Tree-ent/Treemen
Beholder:with special abilities...A LOT OF THEM.But they have an anti-magic eye.
If they want to become magic they must blind it.
Mind Flayer:For psionics!We need psionics!
Nagas:snake-persons,they crawl on their tail thus they are slow.
They have four arms and can spit poison..


Also,since Nagas reminded me of it...How will infravision be handled?At the moment
there is nothing that defines if a creature is "cold blooded"...i mean,we can't modify
the metabolism really.


Ho,TOadyone,did you fix the bug with creature weights?Humans seem to weight about
20 kgs,i altready told that to you think. Also, you should allow the character
to see his height in the status screen. Actually the term "height"can change
for some races...For some it's important "lenght",like for centaurs(in italy
we measure equine heights at the shoulder of the horse)who should be
quite awkard in dungeons.


If anybody here,including that crazy Spelguru(just joking)wanna discuss with
e...I have installed the new ICQ so it should work better than before.
My UIN is 125637883.

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Alanor

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Re: a new rant...
« Reply #1 on: March 16, 2003, 10:55:00 am »

Personally I prefer the classic ADND Manual of the Planes Elemental references.  (This is probibly because it contains the lightning paraelemental plane, and I love lightning :-)

It works something like this
There are the 4 elemental planes
and the 2 energy planes (positive and negative)

There is a space beteween each of these where a quasi- or para-elemental plane exsists.

so the combinations go like this:
Main planes:
Earth        Water       Air       Fire
quasi  \/          \   /    \     /   \    /
    Ooze         Ice       Smoke      Magma

Para elemental:
(positive energy combinations :)
EARTH + = Mineral
Fire + = Radiance
Air + = Lightning   (cool :-)
Water + = Steam   (nasty elementals!!!)

(negative energy combinations :)
Earth - = Dust
Fire - = Ash
Air - = Vacuum
Water - = Salt

As you can see that does a pretty good round of what goes where.
It may not be the BEST combinations.. but its a start :-)

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Alanor
Blood Priest of Armok

Toady One

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Re: a new rant...
« Reply #2 on: March 16, 2003, 12:20:00 pm »

Yeah.  Manual of the Planes is the best book ever.  Aside from the Bible.

I guess vampire-werebeasts could work...  both of these things would be something like "curses"...  you could just have a curse that blends the two things in whatever way.  It'll be easy since the original two curses will be defined by their pieces.

Infravision...  blindness...  echolocation...  these things all need to be handled...  maybe something like color-coded symbols overlaid on the screen?  So if you are blind, there are some vague symbols to indicate where things are, and maybe it displays all of the terrain that you remember/feel?  Infravision could color the things from red to blue according to temperature, and you could toggle it on and off or something?  Echolocation is weird.  It would be like vision, but in black and white, I guess.

As far as metabolism goes, for this release, I'll need to define active temperature ranges.  Because temperatures will be getting out of control shortly.  These should cover things like warm vs. cold blooded...  I doubt I'll do the sort of cold-blooded-torpor-shutdown from cold temperatures thing now...  just the basic live-or-die stuff...

Didn't fix weights yet...  Once the creature structures are a little more stable I can start dealing with the required tweaks to make all the numbers work.  While things are still changing, there won't be much point in normalizing stuff.  Same goes from creature height I guess...  it's in my notes, since you suggested it a while ago, but it needs to wait for a little more stability.

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The Toad, a Natural Resource:  Preserve yours today!

Ashelus

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Re: a new rant...
« Reply #3 on: March 17, 2003, 03:12:00 pm »

(me pokes head in)
               \|||/
_______m_(ô.ô)_m_______

(looks over counter and leaves)

[ March 17, 2003: Message edited by: Ashelus ]

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~(ñ¥å®ƒ!)~

spelguru

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Re: a new rant...
« Reply #4 on: March 18, 2003, 05:11:00 am »

We gotta have darkness elementals. They are just a lack of light yes, but if we dont have darkness elementals we cant have light elementals. How much fun would there be with an element with no real opposite?

And I dont think black dragons would be so cool creatures they are if they vomit their special breath weapon. Why explain stuff with science? They are magical creatures for crying out loud! Or you could try to explain the digestive system of an beholder, or how they can fly with science. Or fire elementals or any elemental for that matter. The patch coming out soon is the *magic* (notice its called magic) patch after all, so that science isnt needed.

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Toady One

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Re: a new rant...
« Reply #5 on: March 18, 2003, 12:43:00 pm »

Soon?  HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
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spelguru

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Re: a new rant...
« Reply #6 on: March 19, 2003, 01:54:00 pm »

*gives toady the evil eye*

Im giving you the evil eyeeee!

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Denim Sk8r

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Re: a new rant...
« Reply #7 on: March 19, 2003, 02:06:00 pm »

Well, it's a good thing that the Evil Eye can't really do anything to him until magic is released......
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nd then Trogdor smote the Kerrek, and all was laid to burnination...

Alanor

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Re: a new rant...
« Reply #8 on: March 19, 2003, 02:42:00 pm »

lol Good one!!!
cant do magic, til the magic release :-)

my comment on darkness elemental..
hmm

how about SHADOW element?
:-)

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Alanor
Blood Priest of Armok

spelguru

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Re: a new rant...
« Reply #9 on: March 20, 2003, 05:06:00 am »

*gets an iron hitting bat out of the closet, then writes "Evil Eye" on it*
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Ashelus

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Re: a new rant...
« Reply #10 on: March 20, 2003, 10:22:00 pm »

Evil eye? I think that I have a few of those in a jar next to my Xbox... they came free with the Bill Gates Box!! The jar came with a note that says 'distribute freely'
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spelguru

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Re: a new rant...
« Reply #11 on: March 21, 2003, 08:52:00 am »

Could I borrow an evil eye or two from you? Ran out of them when I cursed my math teacher... If you also have any rabid snarling dog teeth that would be great too... Oh almost forgot... gnawed on bones... Need those to make a nasty cu... I mean, nice blessing for some ppl in my school...
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