Dithmengos is broken for Ds with Nightstalker

[Sandman25]

My XL8 character has Stealth 5.8 on D7. Guess its stealth rating? Incredibly stealthy. This is crazy and I don't even have any artefacts with Stealth+ and Nightstalker mutation is only at level 1. "Incredibly stealthy" starts at 400. I have 3*17=51 from Dex, 15*5.8=87 from Stealth, 40 from Nightstalker 1.
51+87+40=178.

  Code:

if (you.umbra())
        stealth = (2 * LOS_RADIUS * stealth) / you.current_vision;

Nightstalker 1 changes current_vision to 7. So that 178 is multiplied by (2*8/7) which results in 406. With Nightstalker 3 it will be (178+40+40)*2*8/5=825. 825 with Stealth 5.8...

  Code:

 Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.14-a0-2002-g23d0e90 (tiles) character file.

DsAs the Slicer (Demonspawn Assassin)               Turns: 6760, Time: 00:36:55

HP  30/56        AC  5     Str 12      XL: 8   Next: 78%
MP   8/8         EV 19     Int 12      God: Dithmengos [*.....]
Gold 253         SH  0     Dex 17      Spells:  2 memorised,  3 levels left

rFire  . . .     SeeInvis .     b - +0 blowgun
rCold  . . .     Clarity  .     c - +0 robe (curse)
rNeg   . . .     Conserve .     (no shield)
rPois  .         rCorr    .     (helmet restricted)
rElec  .         rRot     .     d - +0 cloak
SustAb . .       Spirit   .     l - +0 pair of elf gloves
rMut   .         Warding  .     (no boots)
Saprov . . .     Stasis   .     (no amulet)
MR     .....                    x - +2 ring of evasion
                                o - cursed +5 ring of evasion

@: mildly poisoned, wreathed by umbra, not resistant to hostile enchantments,
incredibly stealthy
A: horns 1, molten scales 1, demonic guardian 1, nightstalker 1
a: Renounce Religion


You are on level 7 of the Dungeon.
You worship Dithmengos.

 + Level 5.8 Stealth



[Igxfl]

This is indeed pretty good, but Demonspawn are supposed to luck out sometimes, right? It seems fine to have the possibility.

[Baldu3]

Maybe you can steal the mummy rune unseen :O

shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!

[Igxfl]

Dammit! I was one tile away and they ALL WOKE UP!

[Bloax]

Good thing you have shadow form so they can enjoy wasting their time tormenting you.

[twelwe]

nothing about this is broken

[Sandman25]

It depends on point of view. Uncannily stealthy character on Lair 5 kills Rupert after using Shadow Step despite wearing amulet of stasis. When I have problems, a demonic guardian appears and I start getting confusion-stabs. Now I am basically unsure what to do, I acquired +4,+5 qblade and wand of hasting, bought unknown 0,+3 elec/rElec short sword at min delay and unknown +2 rF+/rN+ leather armour really cheap and also have EV 26 with Blink and Repel Missiles. Perhaps I should go straight into Zot to see how useful Shadow Form is , the game is boring because it is too easy

Edit. Damn it, I even found a +8 cutlass of slice for rElec high AC monsters

[WalkerBoh]

When I'm faced with the unthinkable dilemma of what to do with an extremely strong character, my usual solution is not to complain about how boring it makes the game. Instead, I make the game fun by trying to put up a ridiculously fast run, which is made much easier by said overpowered character.

Long story short, the game is as boring as you want to make it. This particular Ds game has given you the opportunity to safely go at a much faster rate than usual.

[Sandman25]

I don't like speedruns and fast games in general. I am training cBlink now, that should keep me busy for quite some time.

[twelwe]

It depends on point of view. Uncannily stealthy character on Lair 5 kills Rupert after using Shadow Step despite wearing amulet of stasis.

you think the god is broken because you one shot rupert after using a god ability? thats what god abilities are supposed to do, help you kill motherfuckers

[Sandman25]

No, the god is broken because its * ability is broken for stabbing Ds with Nightstalker. It's like having passive Finesse at * with Oka if your character is Hu with long blades. I joined the god on D6 and started training Stealth, on D7 my stealth factor increased from very stealthy (178) to incredibly stealthy (406) in a second.
I don't need any other god abilities now, that's the problem. The character still can die of course, but it was relatively easy to survive Abyss when I cleared Vaults entrance without entering Orcish Mines.

[Siegurt]

Note that without Nightstalker, it's 178*2 = 356

The nightstalker mutation gives 406, which is a healthy bonus, but not really all that huge.

Now you might argue that doubling your base stealth is too powerful for umbra.

[Sandman25]

You forgot to remove 40 for Nightstalker so it is 276 which is far from uncannily stealthy 520.

Example, stealth 100.
1) umbra only (Yred). stealth 200. multiplied by 2
2) nightstalker 3 only (Ds). stealth 220. multiplied by 2.2
3) both umbra and nightstalker 3. stealth 704. multiplied by 7.04.This is why I called it "broken". You don't even need Profane Servitor.

So no, the problem is not just umbra which merely doubles stealth and not Nightstalker 3 which adds 120 but their combination: nightstalker 3 changes umbra factor from 2 (16/8) to 3.2 (16/5).
Basically the new god allows to be stealthy in plate armour like Chei allows to cast level 9 spells in plate armour. I am not going to train Stealth above 12 with the god, at least in this game where I bought a +1 MDA in orcish shop.

[Siegurt]

Well, so it's umbra+nightstalker that's broken (Which you can also get with Yred, although not as easily)

I do agree that it's a bit much that nightstalker both increases your base steath *and* increases the amount that umbra multiplies your stealth by, although I don't know that having such a high stealth rating is really all that amazingly useful (And the stealth *skill* still increases your stabbing damage, which has nothing to do with how stealthy you are at all)

[Baldu3]

You could try to pickup the shadow lantern and see how far you can get without being spotted

[Sandman25]

Well, there are funny uses of high stealth.
For example, max stealth for my current character can be (24*3+27*15+120)*16/5=1910. CPA penalty is 24*24/2=288, Orb of Zot divides stealth by 3. So the character can wear CPA, have Orb in inventory and still have (1910-288)/3=540, that's uncannily stealthy
Most extended game monsters with sInv have awareness factor of 50-75, that means the character with 1910 stealth is much less likely to be noticed, about 3 times less than a typical stabber.

[Kate]

The balance of this specific combination is probably not a big issue, and I expect umbra's stealth boost in general will be adjusted if that turns out to be necessary. It's certainly a pretty weird hidden interaction that umbra (and corona for that matter) are affected by LOS radius, though. http://s-z.org/neil/git/?p=crawl.git;a= ... 4ec6f25940