Blind bug

Cloun pointed out an undocumented feature with Blind where it appeared to improve the stats of the victim.

This occurred in UW pents during gmoon, presumeably while he we on a gpot or some other performance enhancing drug.

It appears that this is related to the size of the field that skills and attributes are held in.
Skills and attributes are stored on characters and items in an 8 bit char field.
2^8= 256 so the max value range in an unsigned char field is 0-255 or 0-127 in a signed field.

Blind casts negative spell modifiers on the victim.
The power of the spell on the victim is based on the mod power of the caster, adjusted for racial mods and for the gmoon.
It is reduced by the victims immunity and harden.

This modified power of the spell divided by 2 is then subtracted the skill modifier of the spell.

It would appear that under the circumstances above, Cloun's modified power of his Blind spells caused an adjustment of greater the -127. This caused the adjustment to flip the sign bit and hence become a positive adjustment which is why Cloun observed that he was being beaten to a pulp by over powered supposedly blind NPCs.

Two possible solutions:
1) Leave it as is (rare occurance) and it will fix itself if ever I eventually get to extending the size of the skill field.
2) Cap the modified power to a min of -127 adjustment on the affected skills.

8 Bit 2^8 = 256 or -127 to +127.

Number out of the hat

Cloun has 250 mod blind. Race +10% and gmoon (hat number again) +10%. So 200+20%=250.

250/2 = 125..ok bad example, but I dont feel like doing the math, we will pretend it worked out to 128 somehow.

What does blind effect? Perception? Stun? Curse?

Ok so if the Sea Golem has 100? 150? 200? Curse/stun. It reduces it by 128. Catches are in places to cap that at 1 mod minimum yes? Which means its just the variable holding this data essentially yes?

Why does the variable need to be signed in the first place since a positive boost should not yield a negative number?

If the above variable has more than one function then why can't you just create a local variable to store the number instead of the current variable and just add one more variable into the overall calculation?

Personally I would think that while it is a rare occurrence, having over powered monsters or a skill that cannot be used is... less than ideal. A simple catch shouldn't take long to fix it and if you keep the original code commented then once you do finally get around to doing #1 it will be a quick fix.

Why not * any outcome >-127 by -1?

Andy wrote:

Why not * any outcome >-127 by -1?

2 things wrong with that:

1) you mean <-127

2) assuming -129 * -1 = 129 still out of range.

I wouldn't waste your time, I noticed this bug as I was penting my own necro but to be honest the ability to have 180+ av coupled with dispel grants you immortality in UW. the simple solution is either dont use blind and c2 together during gmoon, or deal with a short stun every once in a while that will essentially hurt you more through drowning than damage taken from those pathetic sea golems.

Also I believe this only occurs with strong sea golems on gmoon, and what the heck they are supposed to be strong anyways right ;p

The spell adds the negative modifier to the modified skill of the victim.
All the modifiers are added to get a cumulative total.

If the cumulative total is < 0 then it sets it to zero.
If the cumulative total is > 255 it sets it to 255.

The limited total is then stored against the character.

The individual spell and the saved character fields are the ones with the limits.

Until I ever get around to removing the size limitations on the data felds, I will limit the blind power to -127.

Fixed.

See if the UW Golems still love you Cloun.