Resets and repops

[Adam Wiggins]

>   You totally *OBLITERATE* a bee with your flyswatter!
> 
> On the other hand, this does have one major boon.  Its about the only
> place I can think of where the "obliterate" message actually means
> what it says.

Well it's becoming more and more common now to make damage messages relative
to the percent of damage done as opposed to actual number of hitpoints, so
this is generally the way it works anyhow.  (ie obilterate is >80% of
their total hitpoints in one swing.)

> >Absolutely.  Makes it a tad easier for a single halfling to hide
> >among a bunch of halfings, versus a bunch of humans or a bunch of
> >pixies.
> 
> The problem here is what mostly bugs me.  It loses sense of contrast
> and allows diverse objects to get folded when they are still really
> different.  eg 10 balloons all described as "balloon", get lumped
> together as "10 balloons" when one of those balloons is bright red,
> and the rest white.  The colour difference is not bundled in the short
> description as its usually not topical.  It only becomes topical when
> you try and bundle it with other diverse balloons.

Well, I don't actually see this as a bad thing.  When I see a bunch of
balloons, I don't immediately think, "Gee, there's one white one, two
red ones, a green one..."  They are just a bunch of balloons.  If I care
more I can take a closer look.  By the same token if I see 100 people,
I don't usually register that it's a middle-aged black man with greying
hair, a pregnant woman wearing a white sundress, an 8 year old kid with a
snotty nose....etc etc etc on down through all 100 people.  I just see a big
mass of people.  If there's one overriding perculiarity about them,
like they're all black, all pregant, or all kids, *then* I might notice.