Infinite exp - maybe not bug but intersting thing (spoiler)

[JOG]

Using science to further your agenda for giant, venomous wasps, is an absolute joke! You're ignoring the fact that scientifically giant insects are impossible due to the way tracheal breathing works.

Uhm.... visit a museum of natural history sometimes and have a look at prehistoric insects, giant insects are not imposible, they are just currently impossible here on earth because there isn't enough oxygen in the air. Okay, outside the water there were no insects on earth with a size of more than 2 feet, and yes, much more than 35-40%oxygen in an atmosphere should be impossible but who said that the people of Eschalon are about 6 feet just like the humans on earth?

As for diseases, yes komodo dragons bite their prey and then lazily follow it for days until it dies of sepsis, but no mammal does this, so while a badger might be diseased and infect its prey when it bites it, this isn't used as a weapon. During evolution bees specialized to defend their swarm against vertebraes who come to steal the honey, but the Wasp is a predator that uses its poison as an offensive weapon to incapacitate the prey, some wasps then lay egs into the still living prey, others dismember it and feed the chunks to the brood.

And well, the hive-queen in Eschalon is already venomous, and the kind of poison she uses would be much more useful for the hunting drones than as a last-resort when the queen itself has to defend the hive.

[PhilosophiX]

Using science to further your agenda for giant, venomous wasps, is an absolute joke! You're ignoring the fact that scientifically giant insects are impossible due to the way tracheal breathing works. Wasps with a wing span of 2 feet would be scientifically possible supposing the ratio of oxygen in the air was much higher, but then every campfire in Thaermore would turn into a raging inferno and burn down the Tangletree forest due to the high oxygen content!

If you had bothered to read my last post fully before replying to it, you would have noticed that I already am aware of that fact. I've included the whole of that paragraph from my previous post for your reference. Perhaps you would like to re-read my post and come back with something better? It is of course unlikely that you'll scupper me in a scientific debate. I would suggest you make it a poll, and I'll go along with popular opinion. As far as I'm concerned, balance is more important in a game than niggling little details.

And yes, you have picked up correctly that more oxygen allows for larger insects, but at the same time you are forgetting that the oxygen level in an atmosphere can not go beyond a certain level - more oxygen would make the entire planet a fire hazard with wild unstoppable forest fires. And there is a limit to the size of insects even with greater oxygen; because of the way their breathing system is set up, they would never reach that kind of size. This is not to mention the simple fact, as I mentioned before oxygen is toxic to all life, once you reach a certain threshold, the extra oxygen that you believe allows them to get big would actually kill off them off because of how their breathing system works, they would be saturated with oxygen and die. You may wish to look that up on wikipedia.

[Zoggles]

Heh this thread was a fun read and I agree with points from both sides. (especially the not wanting too many extra 'poisonous' creatures as a quick fix to make things more dangerous.) To me poison has mostly just been an annoyance and costly to remedy unless you can magically cure yourself.

The only thing I would disagree with (ignoring the issue of oversized insects being impossible) is the argument that the larger the insect, the more potent the vemon. It's not that the venom becomes more potent.. you'ld just recieve far more of it. One aspiring won't kill you, but taking 50 of them will. Each one is no stronger than the last.. it's just too much for the body to deal with.

More varied attacks/abilities would be great especially as it would add variation and a slight bit of unpredictability to combat. And more varied ailments would be a better option than slapping a poison effect on extra monsters. (e.g. something that maybe impaired movement speed, something that impaired vision, or any of your base stats for a short period...)

-Z-

[dak]

the bee queen is poisonous ( however to spell that ) in Eschalon thus bees are too