"Philosophical" questions, What is a cheesy method? Bug or feature? Options

[Vuki]

I created this topic to discuss the "philosophical" aspect of the game. We can discuss here questions like:

- is a modification really needed or not?
- is something cheesy or cheeting or just a clever trick?
- game balance
- is an actual gap a bug or a feature?
- and so on ...

This topic will be maybe a bit too theoretical but I do not think it is a problem. We need such a place - as the discussions from the last 2-3 weeks prove it.

This post has been edited by Vuki: Aug 11 2008, 08:34 PM

[Sikret]

My reasons for calling timestop-melee "a cheat" can be summarized as follows:

1- No reasonable DM would allow it in a pnp game.

2- It has practically no difference with ctrl-Ying the enemy (it's actually even worse than ctrl-Y, because with ctrl-Y, you won't gain the xp of killing the enemy at least)

3- It inflicts damage while the time is frozen which is not what timestop has been originally designed for (along with the lines of what Raven has pointed out above). Taking damage requires time. How can a creature take damage while the time is frozen for him? The spells you cast on him remain in suspension and wait for the normal time flow to take effect. Physical attack, on the other hand, takes place immediately which doesn't make sense at all. Remember that timestop is not "power word stun"; it hasn't stunned the creature; it has halted the flow of time for him.

Moreover, I have also modified vanilla scripts such as SHOUTDLG to require the normal time progress to turn true (such scripts will turn false while the time is frozen). This is very important for those enemies who are immune to Time Stop and have a dialogue to say. Ancient Dragon is a good example. Even when the enemy is immune to timestop, those vanilla scripts which forced him to initiate dialogue would halt the creature's normal behavior during timestop, because even though the enemy is immune to timestop, he would keep trying to talk with no avail (if for example, the SHOUTDLG script had a higher prioirty to the creature's combat script). Cheaters could abuse this possibility (by casting Timestop offscreen) as well. With the new changes to those vanilla scripts, enemies who are immune to timestop will be able to fight normally during timestop and will try to say their lines only when the normal time resumes. They are not immune to melee damage during timestop because they can defend themselves. I have not added a global effect to the timestop spell to grant immunity to melee damage; I have implemented different workarounds for different enemies. Those enemies who can effectively defend themselves during timestop would still take damage from melee weapons. Only those who can be killed easily (as if ctrl-Y-ed) will be impervious to melee damage during timestop (and even for them, the types of solutions I have implemented differs from case to case). As I said, it's just a hidden anti-cheat feature of the mod; players who play fair and square won't even notice it.

This post has been edited by Sikret: Jan 27 2009, 09:47 AM

Reason for edit: Adding a few lines to reason no.3