Nexus Clash

This is a suggestion for a wandering pet. Basically a mosquito or something of that nature. Fancy name idea is Aedes Tempetus. Or just call it Tropical Mosquito or what-have-you.

Low HP, low MP, low Damage, high Defense, like a Plague Rat. Maybe Hidden by default, if code permits. Since while they'll be huge for a mosquito, they're still small in absolute terms. Endemic to basically anywhere on the islands. Can go inside, but not through closed doors.

Like the Plague Rat, it's primary danger/purpose is spreading infections. Each hit has a chance of causing one of a number of deleterious status effects. Some possibilities:

Fever - -5% ToHit - Medium Chance
Joint Paint - -1 Damage - Low Chance
Muscle Pain - -5 Inventory - Very Low Chance
Jungle Rot - 1 HP Damage/Tick - Very Low Chance
etc.

Basically, aside from local flavor, the idea is to provide mostly-minor long duration ailments for healers to treat. Things mostly too minor for people to waste FAKs or potions to self-heal, but that could give healers targets. The exact ailments, chances, and durations subject to balancing, of course.

The mosquitoes are flavored for the current setting, but the idea is more about generally adding a source of minor ailments to expand healing opportunities. Different settings or planes may have different 'mosquitoes'. Maybe an Aedes Inferni for a hell plane, or Aedes Styx for Purgatorio, with minor changes.

Aedes Inferni maybe would do a point of Unholy damage, and have a small chance of causing Plagued With Doubt. Aedes Styx maybe doing Cold damage, and having a small chance of causing a visible, healable Shambling Infection. Etc.

Maybe even more than one type in a single setting, like poisonous jellyfish and vipers for the Tempest Straits, or feral vampire bats for Purgatorio.

I think I like the idea of this in principle - the basic premise being a type of pet which tends to drain hp without killing people.

Can you explain how the debuffs lead to healing? Do you just mean healers having something to do, or are you including some sort of xp generation functionality?

Can they see hidden? If so, this feels like a massive hit to anything hide-related, if you're going to die in a couple of days without healing regardless of how sneaky you are.

Perhaps some kind of minor minor poison, that only does damage if you're above half health?

Yes, idea is to make it easier for healers to find targets to extract XP from. In retrospect, I guess just removing negative status effects with regular healing may not give XP. I haven't been a healer historically.

If so, the suggestion would involve allowing XP gain for healing diseases or infections by default. Or, as you said, have all the mosquito afflictions involve lowering the HP. Possibly in addition to the minor debuff.

Not intended to easily kill people by themselves. Just cause annoying problems, minor but common enough people won't just automatically self-heal.

So, a common ailment will act as minor poison, but will stop damaging health once it drops to 80%. A rarer ailment will stop at 50%. Etc. Only the rarest can actually kill someone, and only if it's ignored.

The mosquitos could whittle away health further by just biting. But their MP and damage would be low so that shouldn't really be a danger unless someone is flirting with going idle.

Could introduce a temporary bug repellent status effect, too...

The 'see hiding' could go either way. One the one hand, I'm not fond of so many wandering pets finding hidden and invisible. On the other, logically mosquitoes probably would smell folks. Maybe have them ignore anyone already diseased in some way?

This seems well though out. It's a pre-existing mechanic (mostly). Keeps healers and big pharma in business. All good.

EDIT: Needs a counter e.g. meds from the pharmacy.

Yeah. A findable bug repellant. Probably available from regular stores, actually. Since these would be pre-existing pests.

Status keeps mosquitos from attacking. Or maybe just lowers the chance. Enough status ticks to last a trip, but not enough to last a whole AP session outside. Or not too easily findable. Don't want to nullify the purpose of the mosquitoes.

Maybe less effective on more exotic variants, like in the outer planes .

Or maybe have different variants of bugs for different maladies. With the repellent working better on the more dangerous ones.

Also possibly a craftable incense? Part of regular Alchemy, not the more expensive child skills. Causes a repellent effect in the tile. Any character there has a repellent status added to them; same duration as the findable item.

And anyone suffering a malady already has a built'in repellent effect, until they're healed.

All this subject to if it's feasible to code it, of course.

Would be fun if after rain there was an explosion of the pests. With the ease of obtaining a repellent balanced so people tend to save it to get through swarms of the things.

And for completeness sake, rain and monsoon also clears out the bugs. You can, of course, also flamethrower them.

I love the idea almost entirely. Especially now that Marshland are a confirmed tile along with Mangrove, these could make excellent breeding ground (spawn locations) for these bugs.

A couple small thoughts, I would make it so they afflict a singular status for consistency. The Jungle Rot with -1 HP per tick seems like a good one. Insect Repellant as a new item to ward off the bugs is a cool idea but I doubt most people would bother picking one up for what is basically a nuisance. I think a general "wild animal/roaming pet" repelling potion would probably be a lot more desirable.