Area of Effect
From NexusWiki
Area of Effect (or AoE) attacks are those which can potentially deal damage to all characters within a specified area. AoE attacks are potentially very damaging to a large number of characters at once.
Typically no one besides the caster and their pets are spared from an AoE attack. It is therefore possible to unintentionally harm members of their own faction and allied factions.
AoE damage is dealt by several character abilities, such as Explosive Murder, Earthquake, or Breath of the Dead Child. Further, the Divine Champion's Cloak of the Vengeful Fire ability includes an AoE attack. Additionally, several spells deal AoE damage (such as Death Cloud and Ice Storm). Among mundane weapons, the Sub-Machine Gun can produce an AoE burst fire, and Grenades are thrown weapons with a variety of AoE effects.
Most AoE spell and skill attacks have a base 10% chance to hit. The chance to hit with AoE spells can be improved with the skills Ranged Combat, Spell Combat, and Battle Magic.
AoE attacks do not currently yield Experience Points or affect Morality, but killing blows dealt by AoE still do affect your morality by 1 point in the appropriate direction.
[edit] AoE Damage Mechanics
Each offensive Area of Effect skill or spell has a maximum damage it can do per target and a maximum damage it can do in total. Every location has a randomized list of characters present for use by AoE skills/spells. This list is generated separately from the list of occupants seen by the player.
When an offensive AoE skill/spell is triggered, it begins attacking the members of the randomized list starting from the top. The first target has a tohit roll taken (if the power is not autohit) followed by a variable damage roll from 1 through MaxTargetDmg if the tohit roll is successful. This continues down the list until one of two conditions is met:
A) The end of the list is reached, with all targets having a tohit roll against them once.
B) The damage dealt to the current target causes the total damage to equal or exceed the total allowed damage.
Once either of these conditions is met, the AoE skill/spell is done.
[edit] Examples
1) A level 10 Pariah named Bob (10 Max Target Dmg / 40 Max Total Dmg) explodes with Explosive Murder in a room containing 3 other people. He misses the first, hits the second for 7 damage, and hits the third for 10 damage. Explosive Murder stops calculating because the end of the target list is reached. 17 total damage has been dealt out of the maximum possible 40 damage.
2) Bob the Pariah explodes in a room containing 30 other people. He hits the first for 10 damage, the second for 10 damage, misses the third, hits the fourth for 5 damage, hits the fifth for 5 damage, the sixth for 7 damage, and the eighth for 3 damage. Explosive Murder stops calculating because the maximum total damage has been dealt. 40 total damage has been dealt out of the maximum possible 40 damage.
3) Bob the Pariah explodes in a room containing 2 other people. He misses both. Explosive Murder stops calculating because the end of the target list is reached. 0 total damage has been dealt out of the maximum possible 40 damage.
4) Bob the Pariah explodes in a room containing 20 other people. He hits the first for 10 damage, the second for 5 damage, the third for 1 damage, the fourth for 3 damage, the fifth for 8 damage, the sixth for 4 damage, the seventh for 8 damage, and the eighth for 10 damage. Explosive Murder stops calculating because the maximum total damage has been dealt. 49 damage has been dealt out of the maximum possible 40 damage. This is due to the overflow from the last attack. Prior to hitting the eighth target, only 39 damage had been dealt. The final attack is allowed to deal its entire variable roll even if this would cause the total damage done to exceed the allowed maximum total.
[edit] List of AoE items
[edit] List of AoE skills
- Breath of the Dead Child (targets non-faction members)
- Cloak of Lightning (Static Burst)
- Cloak of the Vengeful Fire (Fire Rain)
- Earthquake
- Explosive Murder
- Incendia Conicio (Area Flame Attack)
- Roar (autohit de-buff for non-demons, does not apply for demons)
- Song of the Word (targets evil aligned characters)
