Idea for Protection from (Normal?) Missiles

[subtledoctor]

This spell has gotten some attention in the forum. I gather that it tends to play either not powerful enough to merit a slot, or too powerful for its level. So here's an idea I've been tinkering with:

 

I think it might be possible to allow you to avoid being hit by a missile if you make a saving throw. Or, alternatively, it could be coded with a flat % chance. The mechanism is an extension of my abstraction of the IWD Evasion ability. The trick is, missile launchers actually hit or miss their targets before the projectile arrives. So you could have a ranged-hit effect which applies the Evasion chance, and a successful Evasion roll would result in a 1-second immunity to missile damage. (So, note, you might still get singed by fire arrows or frozen by ice arrows, etc.)

 

This is entirely theoretical - I haven't coded it or tested it in any way. But it should work. And it could be pretty cool - I originally intended it to be used in a 'Gloves of Missile Snaring' type of item. The biggest issue I see is that the 1-second immunity might result in evading several missiles, if you are being targeted by multiple ranged attackers. This could be 1) perfectly acceptable; or 2) addressed by having each attempt at the evasion roll 321 cancel the existing immunity, in which case the chance to avoid damage would become far more hit-or-miss if you are targeted multiple times per round (in any given second, only the most recent roll would determine whether you avoid an incoming projectile).

 

This would rely on opcode 318/324, so it would only work for the EEs. Curious what people think of the idea/implementation.

[Luke]

Sounds interesting.

 

What about setting "duration" of opcode #324/318 to 0 instead of 1? In so doing, you probably don't need to use opcode #321.......

Edited September 27, 2018 by Luke