Why do a lot of things scale based on the player's Magic Power Stat?

Discussion in 'Dungeons of Dredmor General' started by IanExMachina, Aug 4, 2011.

  1. IanExMachina

    IanExMachina Member

    I've seen people saying (on these forums) that trap damage and certain skill attacks scale with the player's Magic Power stat.

    Why does that happen?
    (It doesn't make much sense to me, especially as if you are as non mage character some of your skills are weaker/traps are no worry?)
     
  2. DavidB1111

    DavidB1111 Member

    I believe it's because it's a glitch. Although, I could be mistaken. It's some weird way how it's calculated.
     
  3. Tayrtahn

    Tayrtahn Member

    I don't think trap damage scales with Magic Power. If it does, it's definitely a glitch.

    Traps work by "casting" spells on characters who trigger them. Some of those spells have Magic Power scaling factors in their damage. But when they're used by traps, that factor is either ignored or swapped with some other value like dungeon level (I'm not sure which).
     
  4. J-Factor

    J-Factor Member

    It's because some of the trap effects appear to follow the same rules as magic attacks. Common traps that deal mundane damage (e.g. Blade traps) do not scale. Special traps that deal special damage (e.g. Acid Bolt) do scale. This may be because they are re-purposed uses of previous/existing magic attacks or just because the developers were following the 'magic attack template' when defining the damage types.

    Example:

    <code>
    <spell name="Blade Trap Effect" type="target" >
    <effect type="damage" slashing="15" affectsCaster="1" />
    ...
    </spell>
    </code>

    vs

    <code><spell name="Acid Burn" type="target" icon="skills/spells/acid_burn32.png" wand="1">
    <effect type="damage" bleed="1" acidic="1" acidicF="0.25" affectsCaster="1"/>
    ...
    </spell></code>

    The 'acidicF' attribute seems to determine how much it scales.

    As every 'special attack' is defined as a spell the same applies to other abilities (e.g. Vampirism has piercingF="0.25").
     
  5. 123stw

    123stw Member

    Because every single damage that scales uses typeF.

    It makes sense for traps to scale if monsters steps on it. Not so much when you step on it.