Abilities and Damage Dice...

Okay, so the question, as is common with questions of this sort, seems simple enough:

Can an ability add damage dice?

I want to make a weapon item that adds a range of damage, as opposed to a static amount. (As you can imagine, this would be beneficial to an RPG-style map). But, is this possible? I've been sorting through abilities for a bit, in my usual haphazard manner, but have yet to see one with damage dice. I've considered upgrades, but first of all they confuse me, and secondly I've heard you can not downgrade once a unit has been upgraded. You can see where that would cause problems.
Anyway, either I'm missing something, or there's not an ability to do what I want to do. I'm hoping it's the prior of the two. Any suggestions on how to do this? (The unit absolutely must stay the same. I'm not willing to create 30 some-odd different variations of all my hero units, or re-engineer all my triggers to accomodate such a system, not to mention the fact that they'd lose all stat +'s and assigned skill points.)

You could add in a trigger. It uses one variable
int abilityDamageDice = 0

abilityDamageDiceLearn
Event - A unit learns an ability
Condition - Learned hero skill = <your ability>
Actions - set abilityDamageDice = abilityDamageDice + 1 (sorry for writing += :D)
TurnOn(abilityDamageDiceOn)

ablilityDamageDiceOn
Event - A unit is attacked
Condition - attacking unit = <your hero with the ability>
Actions - Set life of attacked unit = life of attacked unit - (<whatever> * abilityDamageDice)

hmmm... hadn't thought of that. Not quite sure I understand what you were trying to do exactly, but it's given me an idea. Triggering in a system for every weapon'll be tedious, but.. yeah. This may work.

Thanks for the idea! (If anyone else has ideas, feel free to continue posting. I'll watch the thread)

got an idea going in my head but gotta open the editor to make sure it works. will edit this post in like 5 mins. brb ;)

yea it looks long but it's not.


ok here it goes. basically what you are going to do is make an upgrade. base it off of long rifles i suppose will do. so make a custom upgrade based off long rifles.
first step-change the name to whatever. change the hotkey to something crazy. like z that no one will ever use.
step 2-change the gold base, lumber base, and time base all to zero. also change the tech tree requirements to none. it will just be blank.
step 3-change the art icon by selecting units from the drop down menu and than selecting none. i think that would work but i'm not so sure about to test it soon. this step isn't so important because it will be given to a dummy unit that no one will even know is there.
step 4-change effect 1 to enable attacks. instead of change range or whatever it says.
step 5-change effect 1 enable attacks(directly under the thing you just changed) from 200 to attack 2 only.
step 6-go to the unit you want to upgrade and select upgrades used. add to it your upgrade you just created.
step 7-change attack to data of the unit to have exactly the same stats as your attack 1 data except change the dice to whatever you like. also make sure it is set so the unit uses attack 1 only.
step 8-create a unit based off of whatever you like. set his attacks to none. set under combat targetted as to invulnerable. set his model to under neath the extra category. cenimatic arthas. that is no model. set his shadow to none. and make sure he is not a hero. set movement type to flying. making it less likely to get into anything's way. now change it from stats - is a bulding to true.
step 9-select another unit than select this one again. change researches available to your custom upgrade. now this part isn't nessesary and not tested but i'm 99% sure it will work and would make it a better thing to do also. now change it back to is a building false and i'm 99% sure that your unit will still be able to research the upgrade even tho it will not let you see it when you try to change it. you don't have to do that if you don't want but it will make sure the unit is out of your way.
step 10-base a spell off of something you do not use. like lets say fire arrow is a spell you hate. but do not actually create a new spell just use this one and overwrite it. now edit this spell's name and make it do nothing at all. make sure it is a hero spell. set levels to only 1 and make sure it does no damage and does nothing else. also i suggest removing the icon or making sure this is a passive spell such as evasion so that they can't just keep clicking on it and wasting time.
step 11-give that spell to the hero that will be using this spell. now for the triggers.
step 12-make a trigger that looks like this.
event-
--a unit learns a abilty
condition-
--hero abilty is equal to (your spell here...should be on the list since you based it off an already made spell)
action-
--create (dummy unit with invisable model that can learn upgrade) at center of region(create a region at the back of a base or somewhere where anyone can see. as an alternative you can create it a location of triggering unit.) facing direction default building degrees
--set last created unit = (any variable name you would like(you don't have to but this makes the spell less glitchy)
--order your variable name(or last created unit) to research (your upgrade here)
--wait 5 seconds(or longer if the upgrade takes longer to research)
--destroy your variable name(or last created unit)

and that should work. not tested yet but it damn well better. hehe. i'm so great i impress myself sometimes.

Upgrades work primarily on adding damage dice...

If you modify the Hero's first attack so it has the dice you want (say, 1d4), then you can give the Hero a custom upgrade, and set Show UI - False since I believe this hides the 'upgrade number'...

Use triggers, so if the damage-increasing skill is learned, the upgrade is automatically set to the right level.

Once again, not 100% sure this will work. But it's worth a try, and it updates the hero's damage to show the new amount.

This wouldn't be used for a skill, it's for use with "weapon" items. Just thought I would clarify that.

lol omg i just wrote all that and now you clarify. lol that sucks. i could do the weapon thing too but im tired of writing for now. maybe i'll do it later.

p.s. shiv can live rodents really induce all those side effects? god i think i am now scared of live rodents. and can dead ones do that too. cuz i saw a dead rodent before. hope i didn't get too close to start laughign get eye strain and than die. that would suck.

Be warned, if the trigger KILLS the unit, the killing unit wont get the experience or bounty. The damage done by the trigger is done before the damage done by the unit, so add a check to prevent the trigger killing a unit (ie if it would kill the unit, set units HP to 1 so it'll be finished off by the unit itself)

Trigger damage ignores both armor type and value, big problem there, no easy way around it. (there are some very hard ways tho...)


There is however a much better way (IMO), start from the Critical Strike ability, and make a new ability called "Crit Dice" or something: +10 damage (use damage bonus, set multiplier to 0), 50% chance.

Then give the item/unit "Crit Dice" 4 times (bash and crit strike stack with themselves). A random number of Crit Dice will hit each strike.
For Four "Crit Dice" it would be:
0 - 6% +0 Damage
1 - 25% + 10 Damage
2 - 38% + 20 Damage
3 - 25% +30 Damage
4 - 6% +40 Damage

It's not quite dice, but it does smell and kinda look like dice.

Bash damage is not reduced by armor, crit strike damage is reduced by armor, use whichever base ability is appropriate, probably crit.
And when crit stirke only has a damage bonus it doesn't create any red numbers :)

edit: Crap I'm wrong about crit strike bonus damage, it DOES ignore armor, only the damage multiplier doesn't ignore armor. On a positive note, I tried adding a hundred "crit dice" to a unit, and it worked fine.

i think there is a way to remove the red numbers cuz i saw it one time somewhere. maybe gameplay constants. but i like the numbers. plus that is a really good way to do it just use triggers to add that as a normal ability to a unit 4 times when he picks up said weapon. could make a trigger written for you but i'm such a lazy guy i think i'd rather go eat some more donuts and gain weight as much as possible.

I dont think theres a way to remove the red numbers in gameplay constants. And trust me, you wouldn't like the red numbers if a unit has 10 crit strikes stacked on it, they get real ugly.

I cant really see any point in adding the abilities to the unit with triggers... 4 "crit dice" should be enough and you can just put them straight on the item, also if you give them to the unit they get a bash/crit strike/whatever icon and I dont think you can get rid of that.

lol i'm so stupid i forgot you could put them onto the item. lol thanx for correcting me. and btw i know that i saw a way to remove the red numbers it may not be in the advanced options but it is somewhere. because i remember thinking to myself what does that mean than i figued it out. said something like display damage or something along those lines. possible in gameplay interface. at any rate i now i saw it. only a question of where.

Hmmm. The "crit dice" idea is interesting. Would have to figure out how to remove the red numbers, though...

Prehaps I need to clarify. The red damage numbers ONLY show if the crit strike/ bash skill has a damage Multiplier (ie 2x damage)

If the multiplier is set to 0, and only the bonus damage is used, then no red text appears - just like bash in game. You probably dont want to use the multipliers, so it should be all good.

Unfortunately only "multipled" damage is affected by armor, "bonus" damage cuts right through it.