Mother Feelbright's Busy Bees
From Discworld MUD Wiki
| Mother Feelbright's Busy Bees | |
|---|---|
| Spell information | |
| Guild | Witches |
| Type | Offensive |
| GP cost | 75 |
| Mind space | 60 |
| Components | Honey (consumed) |
| Crystal | None |
Mother Feelbright's Busy Bees (commonly referred to as Bees or, by its victims, Beesargh) is an offensive witch spell which summons a swarm of bees to attack the target. The bees will then relentlessly pursue their victim for several rounds, stinging them and causing them damage in the process.
Contents |
[edit] Acquisition
A witch requires 140 levels of magic.spells.offensive to learn this spell. The spell is learnt from Granny Weatherwax.
[edit] Casting
This spell requires 75 GP to cast, and takes up 60 units of mind space. It may be cast on any living target.
[edit] Syntax
cast Mother Feelbright's Busy Bees on <target>
[edit] Components
- This spell consumes honey. Any amount of honey may be provided.
- This spell does not require any non-consumable components.
[edit] Skills
The following skills are used during the stages of this spell:
- Crafts.pottery.forming.shaping
- Magic.methods.spiritual.summoning
- Magic.methods.mental.charming
- Magic.methods.elemental.air
The following skills are also relevant to this spell:
[edit] Mechanics
[edit] Hitting the Target
Unlike most magic damage spells, Mother Feelbright's Busy Bees performs a skillcheck against the victim's abilities before causing damage. This represents the ability of the witch to hit the target with a ball of honey.
If the target defeats the caster in this check, then the honey misses (or is smashed aside), and the target takes no damage from the spell. If the caster defeats the target, then the honey hits, and the target takes damage as normal for the duration of the spell.
Bees may only be used on a single target per casting; it is not an area effect spell.
- Offensive skillcheck
The offensive skillcheck comprises two elements
- The caster's fighting.range.thrown bonus.
- A modification based on the amount of honey thrown and the caster's shaping bonus.
This modification works as follows:
- An amount of honey related to the caster's shaping bonus is the 'normal amount'.
- Casting the spell using less than the 'normal amount' results in a bonus being applied to the witch's base throwing bonus, proportional to the difference between the 'normal amount' and amount thrown.
- Casting the spell using more than the 'normal amount' results in a penalty being applied to the witch's base throwing bonus, proportional to the difference between the 'normal amount' and amount thrown.
See below for more details on the effects of shaping.
- Defensive skillcheck
The defensive skillcheck uses whichever physical defence skill is appropriate to the victim's tactics - that is, one of dodge, parry or block. Any arcane shielding or armour on the victim does not affect the defensive skillcheck - so a floating shield (for example) will not defend against bees.
- Shaping effects
The effects of the crafts.pottery.forming.shaping bonus appears to be determined as follows.
The witch has a 'pivot point' - this is the number of dollops thrown at which she receives neither bonus nor penalty. The pivot point is determined as follows:
pivot = sqrt(shaping_bonus) - 5.5
Thereafter, the adverb used to describe how the honey is thrown is determined based on the number of dollops thrown as a fraction of the pivot point, via the following table:
| Bounds | Adverb |
|---|---|
| dollops <= floor(0.5 * pivot) | Like a professional honey handler |
| floor(0.5 * pivot) < dollops <= floor(0.75 * pivot) | With ease |
| floor(0.75 * pivot) < dollops <= floor(0.95 * pivot) | With relative ease |
| floor(0.95 * pivot) < dollops <= floor(1.05 * pivot) | (none) |
| floor(1.05 * pivot) < dollops <= floor(1.25 * pivot) | With slight difficulty |
| floor(1.25 * pivot) < dollops <= floor(1.55 * pivot) | With difficulty |
| floor(1.55 * pivot) < dollops | With severe difficulty |
It is not currently known how much of a bonus/penalty to throwing each of the above categories corresponds to.
There is additional variance to the messages observed without changing the shaping bonus or the number of dollops used, perhaps one message up or down or just the closest one.
[edit] Damage
Mother Feelbright's Busy Bees causes direct magical damage to the target. Once bees has been successfully cast on a target:
- All subsequent rounds automatically hit the target, with no chance for the victim to dodge, parry or block.
- Armour does not reduce the damage.
- Past research by Pokeberry indicated that CCC protected against bees while Major Shield and Minor Shield absorbed some of the damage done by the bees.[1] Unverified reports suggests that major shield does still absorb a part of each bees attack. Research should be performed to verify the current situation.[research]
- Being wet does not reduce damage done by each bee, instead it reduces the amount of bees, thus the total damage done. This may look the same to an observer.
The damage itself is done over time, with a semi-random number of bees attacking at regular intervals.
The exact mechanics of bee damage are as follows:
- Total number of bees
The total number of bees striking (across all rounds of damage) is, surprisingly, not random. It is affected by the following factors:
- The more honey used, the more total bees striking.
- The caster's charming bonus has a sigificant effect on the total number of bees.
- The caster's summoning and air bonuses have a lesser effect.
The approximate formula for the total number of bees from one dollop of honey is:
total bees = (charming + 0.5 * summoning + 0.3 * air) / 14 - 16.55
- Bees per round
Once the total number of bees has been calculated, the actual bees that strike in a given round are randomly determined based on the 'number of bees left' - so the more damage that has already been done to the victim in previous rounds, the lesser the damage in future rounds is likely to be.
The specific formula for bees striking in a given round is:
bees this round = random[1, 0.5 * bees_left + 2] for 3 or more bees left. bees this round = random[1, bees_left] for 2 or less bees left.
As a general guideline, this will produce a lot of bees on average per round at the start, tailing off to less and less bees on average per round as the spell progresses. An unexpectedly small number of bees in one round will result in more bees on average later. Conversely, an unexpectedly large number of bees in one round will result in less bees on average later.
- Damage per bee
No research has currently been done on damage per bee; it is believed to be mostly proportional to the offensive bonus of the caster.
[edit] Other Effects
- Wimpy
The main other effect bees has on its target is to cause the target to wimpy at regular intervals - because they are running about waving their arms madly in a (futile) attempt to ward off the attacking swarm.
The wimpy effect from bees is not random. It obeys the following rules:
- All victims start by facing a direction. Any creature that has not moved since it spawned is facing north. All other creatures are facing in the direction they last travelled.
- The victim turns around to face the opposite direction.
- The victim attempts to move, based on the following priorities
- If 'forward' is a valid direction, go that way.
- Otherwise, randomly choose any visible exit which is not 'backwards'.
- Otherwise, randomly choose any possible exit which is not 'backwards'.
- Otherwise, go 'backwards'.
- Otherwise, remain in place.
- If at any point the victim moves without their movement being caused by bee-wimpy (for example, due to chasing a player), go back to step 2.
- Go back to step 3.
As a very rough guideline, this is equivalent to 'backwards', 'forwards', 'forwards', 'forwards', ...
This behavior has some interesting consequences:
- Creatures that would naturally wimpy on low health anyway will do so and then immediately come back to the room they were fleeing from.
- Cunning witches can 'turn around' a fleeing beed victim that is inclined to chase them, by running past the victim in the same direction that they are fleeing in.
There are some NPCs (such as giant spiders and trees) that never wimpy; these NPCs will not move as a result of bees.
- Water
Bees and water do not get along well.
If the target is wet when bees is cast on them, then the total number of bees that strike them will be reduced.
If the target submerges themself in water at any point, then the bees will immediately desist attacking and the spell will end. Diving into water is therefore an effective way of saving oneself from bees, assuming such water is nearby...
[edit] See Also
- Biddy Amble's Bee Buzzer - This spell accelerates honey production, providing the component for this spell faster.
- Gammer Shorga's Helpful Undergrowth - This spell holds victims in place, preventing them from wimpying.
[edit] External links
- Discworld spell help: Mother Feelbright's Busy Bees
- Focus Tea Database: Mother Feelbright's Busy Bees
- ↑ Mother Feelbright's Busy Bees Targeted by Pokeberry in the AM Daily edition 41
