ToME Wiki
A new way of handling fear and confusion
Not sure if this should go under "interface," but I think it fits best.
Tome uses a fairly typical method of dealing with fear and confusion (apply some state to the character that restricts certain actions, and in the case of confusion, also cause certain commands at times to act like other commands), and I find this method rather flavorless.
The "fear" state, without recovery items, in my experience, is either a matter of "my melee character is now afraid and can't make melee attacks. My primary method of attack is now compromised. Uh-oh," or "My ranged character is now afraid and can't make melee attacks, but I'm too weak to melee anything anyways. Yawn."
The confusion state, without recovery items, in my experience, is either a matter of, "My spellcaster is now confused. My hitpoints will run out before the confusion ends, and I can't run in a straight line, so I can't escape. I'm done for," or "My melee character is now confused and sometimes moves in the wrong direction. The confusion is likely to be over with before I run out of hitpoints, and meanwhile, enough attacks go in the right direction for me to deal with my enemy. Incovenient, but no problem."
My suggestion is that fear and confusion should be directed not so much at the character (the in-game entity that the player controls) as at the player (the person sitting in front of the computer).
Rather than restrict the actions the player can take, use hallucination type code, and have the interface give the player false information about themself, monsters, and the environment around them that makes them take actions they normally wouldn't. For example, instead of "X casts a fearful illusion. You are terrified!" or however it goes, have the player recieve a message "X points at you and curses." Accompany this with a substantial drop in the players displayed hitpoints. In actuality, the player is still at full hitpoints (or however much he had before), but monster X has cast an illusion on him, and the in-game effect of that is that their hitpoint display is no longer accurate. When the fear wears off, the player may receive a message to the effect of, "you have been the victim of an illusion," or "You feel you have been quite a sissy," and their hitpoint display will become accurate again. The idea is that instead of fear restricting the actions the character can take, instead, it causes the interface to display things to the player that make the player afraid.
Fear could cause the player to see weak monsters as stronger ones (the one they see as stronger could be the casting monster, another monster, or both), receive a message about a (false) attack and have their own hitpoints displayed as lower than actual, to see monsters health bars to be displayed as higher than actual, getting messages about monsters "shrugging off" attacks when in reality the monster is "screaming in agony", to perceive summoners in the area to summon powerful (but false) monsters, or to see powerful false monsters on the edge of their visual range.
A new effect "overconfidence" could be added, which would cause false information to be displayed that would cause players to underestimate their enemies, basically, the opposite of the fear type effects, so stuff like seeing weak monsters in place of strong ones, getting falsely high displays of their own HP, not receiving messages about being hit with attacks ("A bandaid will reattach that arm, not even worth mentioning"), etc. If monsters often cast fear and overconfidence spells as soon as they came within view of a player, it might be hard to tell, once you're a bit closer, if that 5 headed hydra that just became a 7 headed hydra is a 7 headed hydra that cast an overconfidence spell on you when you walked into view (with that spell having just worn off), or if it's a 5 headed hydra that has just now cast a fear spell.
Confusion could create hallucination type effects, rotate the map around the player by 90 or 180 degrees, scramble the map, cause the player to see monsters duplicated (especially fast or teleporting ones), or cause the player to lose track of monsters (monsters not normally invisible become invisible), or other similar effects that are meant to make the player lose track of what's happening and make stupid moves. Spellcasters could retain the ability to cast spells, but have failure rates, mana costs, or casting times increased.
The general idea of fear, done this way, would be to make the player think he's in over his head. The idea of overconfidence would be to make the player think he can handle a situation when he's really in over his head. What specifically is displayed to the player should depend on the characteristics of the monster that makes the fear/overconfidence attack, nearby monsters, and the environment, such that the player isn't quite sure whether it's an illusion or not. (That Quylthulg *could* have summoned that set of nasties, but did he?). Of course, at lower levels, things might be easier to see through, such that when the Novice Fearmonger at 50' in the Barrowdowns suddenly turns into Morgoth, only new players will fall for it, but when the Master fearmonger at 2500' in Moria suddenly turns into Durin's Bane (who is known for casting overconfidence spells), even experienced players aren't quite sure.
The general idea of confusion would be to make the player uncertain exactly what their situation is, for better or for worse, or if they can easily get out of it. (Which way is the exit? With the map scrambled it's hard to tell... And where did that Mindcrafter go? Did I kill him, or did he make that giant white mouse look like him, and is that Clear Hound actually the Mindcrafter...) It should be almost like hallucination, but it should keep things close enough to reality that the player *thinks* they know what's going on, but with enough twists that they can't be quite sure. It should generally, but not always, be more obvious that the information being presented is false than with fear or overconfidence, but it should be less obvious how it relates to what's really there. (Fear/overconfidence displays information that over or understates what your enemy can do, and makes things look fairly consistent, even though the info is false. Confusion does random things to the information you're getting, not neccesarily making the situaion look better or worse, but presenting you with inconsitent information that makes you wonder what actually happened between the time you got confused and now.)