And a blur fix

We have restored the elf’s ability to counterattack fireballs that miss her when she is evading. We’ve also made it so that fireballs will fizzle if the target is adjacent to the caster. (The caster will abort the spell because they hate the smell of burnt hair.)

We’ve also fixed a bug that allowed the elf’s blur effect to be kept between rooms.

Sounds good

Based on my latest experience with the new fireball policy, I like the fact that counterattacks work again. I believe that this change is likely to add a small handful of Dragons to the total number that the Elf can deal with, and without consuming scrolls. My concern was that, without this change, it was going to be difficult for even an upper-level Elf to play on a par with a medium-level Dwarf.

The one major problem that I see, however, is that eliminating the 1-square-away fireball has excessively nerfed all of the Mages, and de-fanged the Lich, in particular. Just a few minutes ago, I safely parked my Elf in the space next to the Lich, fenced us in with a flame scroll, safely shot all of the baddies, and then hacked away at the Lich until she fell over.

I see no reason that a similar tactic for clearing a room (hiding behind one or more mages) would not generally work for any Mage (provided that the room had no other strong Mages or Archers), provided only that a suitably strong sword was procured before attempting it.

Perhaps eliminating the 1-space-away fireball is a bridge too far.

How about if mages prepare something other than a fireball if you are next to them?

I agree w/ beetletoe. the fizzle-when-adjacent makes them too weak and the Lich is not very boss-monstery any more. Your were trying to make all the characters “equal” w/ sword counter attacks. that’s ok. i think the problem of Elf countering fire ball w/ arrow was, well, not a problem.

however, what if they didn’t have to target the character? an open space NEXT TO the character might be slightly weaker, but still could do damage.

Is that an option?

One thing that tends to make fireballs very dangerous, in many cases, as compared with summoning, is that the Mages usually have a higher level than other members of their species, often a higher level than the shield, and commonly are too strong for the character to reliably block by assuming a defensive stance.

For example, the Lich’s fireball is an urgent drop-everything-else-and-deal-with-this-now situation–much more so than anything else that the Lich does. And remember that this is about whether the Mage gets to throw a fireball at all, in certain situations.

So, giving the character a safe spot (or a few safe spots) to stand that are 1 space away from the Lich/Mage would (1) markedly alter the power balance between character and Mage–even if a different spell was substituted and (2) change the tactics that players use, and (3) likely lead to another round of Dragon Inflation.

I am wondering whether the impulse to ban the 1-space fireball was a response to another thread, where the question was raised of why a 1-space-away fireball didn’t injure the caster. I never found it implausible that the caster is not injured. After all, we are not talking about throwing a physical grenade. Instead, it is a MAGIC fireball. ‘Nuff said.

Currently the casting is still “as usual”, right?
Something else?

Something else!!!
What about a teleport? If the hero is close, the mage tries to teleport as far away as possible. This is a new serious strength. Teleport is casted always (or instead of fireball) if the hero is adjacent. To balance the difficulty “back to normal”, the fireball is aborted. But this is directly followed by a teleport. I mean: If the caster would cast fireball, but the hero is adjacent, it is stopped AND the teleport is prepared for sure (and casted one turn later).

Hi, Rellik.

Fortunately, the fireball casting is now back to normal, so no safe spots exist any longer.

Think that fireball attacks should “FIZZLE OUT” for all players when immediately adjacent to the casting monster(s), this should not only apply to the Elf but Human and Drawf also!

@algren001 - I believe they did (because I had a fireball fizzle playing the human). But I think that after discussion elsewhere on the forum people thought it made the mages too weak to close-range attack and so the old action was restored.

Raand is right. During the brief period where fireballs fizzled, it applied to all heroes.