The 'Questions too small to need their own thread' thread

[dassem]

My favorite method is Orb of Destruction. ... In fact it's probably my favorite spell in the game at the moment. Due to the erratic targeting, there is a bit of a learning curve, but that just makes it more fun.

oh my goodness this attack is so awesome. I never got around to learning it until just barely, when my MuFE discovered iron and crystal golems on Crypt:5 with no way to counter them, and... It is ridiculously fun to splatter necromancers across the floor and destroy Ancient Liches in two hits. Just...wow.

This game, I'm playing a MfWz who started out worshiping Oka, with a switch to TSO, so I've been dependent on book finds and a little restricted in conducts, which meant that OOD has been my major workhouse. My favorite moments have included meeting the Lernean Hydra for the first time and 2-shotting it; and clearing the (wonderfully open) Hall of Blades with zero effort. I don't quite know how the range works:Does anyone know? I have had some orbs just dissipate when they miss, but I had one that missed, did a huge loop, and then eventually took out the dancing weapon from behind for one of the more stylish kills I've ever had.
It makes an awesome way to introduce yourself to Pan lords too.
The only bad thing is that it can lead to pennance when an ally makes a suicidal charge and you accidentally nuke it .
I've also hit myself, but not badly yet.

[KoboldLord]

They also seem to dissipate when they can't find a path to their target. Usually because you just killed their target with another spell, but sometimes also because of terrain clutter or monster teleportation. This is distinct from the case where they have a path to their target, but random drift sends them into another target or a wall.

Boris, of course, can remotely pilot one of his Orbs all the way across a level of Shoals to follow you after you teleport. Only him, though. Other lich-genus enemies get the normal kind of Orb of Destruction, the same kind as yours.

[dassem]

Interesting! I just tried to OOD a Killer Klown that kept blinking in a big chamber on Zot:5 and it did about 5 loops before hitting my own shield.

[Blade]

So...how exactly does Boris's respawning work? I've never killed him yet because he's always been conveniently out of the way, but it seems like a good idea to know in preparation for the day when I *do* have to fight him.

[XuaXua]

So...how exactly does Boris's respawning work? I've never killed him yet because he's always been conveniently out of the way, but it seems like a good idea to know in preparation for the day when I *do* have to fight him.

If you kill him then go to a new floor you've never been on before, he may be there too.

[rchandra]

if I don't have any missile weapons other than large rocks and javelins, will Okawaru give me darts or similar if I raise Throwing? (0.9)

[TehDruid]

Does the chance for a Demon summoned by a Rod Of Demonology being hostile get affected only by your evocation skill or does it also require investment in Summonings (I'd like to assume only Evo)?

[Galefury]

[regarding IOOD]
oh my goodness this attack is so awesome. I never got around to learning it until just barely, when my MuFE discovered iron and crystal golems on Crypt:5 with no way to counter them, and... It is ridiculously fun to splatter necromancers across the floor and destroy Ancient Liches in two hits. Just...wow.

That it sucks in corridors (which is where you usually want to be) and at close range (where you want to take enemies out asap) makes it not very good in most situations. It also misses a lot, and, unlike Boris' orbs, yours wont turn back around if they miss (well, rarely the will). Plus it has a delay. Poison Arrow is usually better.

IOOD is an extremely fun spell though, and it actually works pretty well in the hall of zot due to the mostly open layout. And since that's a place where orbs of fire usually hang out IOOD is pretty good against them.

[Galefury]

Does the chance for a Demon summoned by a Rod Of Demonology being hostile get affected only by your evocation skill or does it also require investment in Summonings (I'd like to assume only Evo)?

It depends on spell power, so which is determined by Evo for rods.

[TehDruid]

Does the chance for a Demon summoned by a Rod Of Demonology being hostile get affected only by your evocation skill or does it also require investment in Summonings (I'd like to assume only Evo)?

It depends on spell power, so which is determined by Evo for rods.

Oh ok thanks!

[Blade]

[regarding IOOD]
oh my goodness this attack is so awesome. I never got around to learning it until just barely, when my MuFE discovered iron and crystal golems on Crypt:5 with no way to counter them, and... It is ridiculously fun to splatter necromancers across the floor and destroy Ancient Liches in two hits. Just...wow.

That it sucks in corridors (which is where you usually want to be) and at close range (where you want to take enemies out asap) makes it not very good in most situations. It also misses a lot, and, unlike Boris' orbs, yours wont turn back around if they miss (well, rarely the will). Plus it has a delay. Poison Arrow is usually better.

IOOD is an extremely fun spell though, and it actually works pretty well in the hall of zot due to the mostly open layout. And since that's a place where orbs of fire usually hang out IOOD is pretty good against them.

I'm a high-level caster with both Fire Storm and Ice Storm; corridors are exactly where I don't want to be. All they do is restrict my escape. The point about close range is valid, though; maybe I'll take Poison Arrow instead after all.

As a follow-up to my last Boris question: Can he spawn anywhere you have to take a portal to get to, or are you safe in Pan/Zot/Hell?

[Galefury]

Boris can respawn anywhere he can spawn. That's depth 20-27, not in Lair or Slime. I'm not 100% sure how the DEPTH tag works regarding branches, but as far as I know hell, pan and the abyss are excluded. I'm not sure about Zot, but that's below depth 27 anyway. Basically he can show up in deep D, Vaults, deep Lair subbraches, deep Elf. Start at D:1, take 19 to 26 downstairs and no portals. If you're not in Lair or Slime now, Boris can spawn (unless he's alive in some other location). Note that he will never appear on an already generated level, uniques are placed as vaults during initial level generation.

[joellercoaster]

I was attacked by a halberd of dragon slaying in the Hall of Blades. It ID'ed after it hit me, but I didn't notice until much later.

Did it do extra damage to me 'cause I was wearing Swamp Dragon Armour or something, causing it to reveal its brand?

[KoboldLord]

Boris, of course, can remotely pilot one of his Orbs all the way across a level of Shoals to follow you after you teleport. Only him, though. Other lich-genus enemies get the normal kind of Orb of Destruction, the same kind as yours.

Every dev in IRC tells me this isn't true and Boris' IOOD is the same as other monsters'.

Well, screen shots posted on the 0.8 Crawl thread in somethingawful say that Boris' OoD can, in fact, follow you across Shoals after a teleport. It might not be an intended feature, but it can happen. I have never witnessed the same from normal ancient liches' OoDs, but I suppose it could happen with them, too. It definitely does not happen for the player's OoD.

[sir_laser]

What happens if you drop the Orb of Zot into lava?

[dassem]

This is an odd problem:

I am playing a MfWz and have 4 runes, and as an ice-specialist with rF+++ I decided that Ghenna would be a good rune to get next. But I have no source of levitation. I cannot get into the end vault, across the lava.
I have an amulet of cFly, but no way to lift off...
If I search for "levit" or "fly" I get no hits (apart from a book of air magic for the latter, but only for the name, not the spell!).
I did not miss this earlier, because I have the intrinsic swimming ability and the cTele spell (and a ring), but as this is the final level in a Hell, I cannot control the teleport.

I tried a random tele, but to no avail, and I didn't want to hang about too much.
I suppose I could lose the cTele spell for cBlink and try a semi-controlled blink. Any other ideas?

Has this been taken out of 0.10? Or am I just unlucky? (Or dumb? )

[Blade]

This is an odd problem:

I am playing a MfWz and have 4 runes, and as an ice-specialist with rF+++ I decided that Ghenna would be a good rune to get next. But I have no source of levitation. I cannot get into the end vault, across the lava.
I have an amulet of cFly, but no way to lift off...
If I search for "levit" or "fly" I get no hits (apart from a book of air magic for the latter, but only for the name, not the spell!).
I did not miss this earlier, because I have the intrinsic swimming ability and the cTele spell (and a ring), but as this is the final level in a Hell, I cannot control the teleport.

I tried a random tele, but to no avail, and I didn't want to hang about too much.
I suppose I could lose the cTele spell for cBlink and try a semi-controlled blink. Any other ideas?

Has this been taken out of 0.10? Or am I just unlucky? (Or dumb? )

Search flight, not fly. Flight still exists (and is in fact only level 3 now); fly never did. Alternatively, there should be an entrance about halfway around the lava pool.

[dassem]

Oh well, no need to bother with my question: I died on Tar:5.

Hell effects summoned a Shadow Fiend, a lich, a reaper, a balrug, a hellion, 3 hell hounds and a shadow dragon skeleton to surround me in an open space. No problem, I thought: I had ok resists and decent EV and SH, so aside from torment those all average a pretty small amount of damage per turn. I was pretty confident I could take them all out without difficulty, so I didn't even start to buff up or run. As expected, one cleansing flame got most of these to severely wounded and I was expecting to finish most of them the next round. Then the lich paralyzed me and I just had to sit there as I got nibbled from 223 HP to -4 without getting another turn. (Paralysis dropped my EV to 2 and SH to 0.)

I scrolled though pages and pages of messages thinking, "I'll get another turn soon," but it just never happened. TSO even saved my life once.
Zot:5 was clear and that's the second character that I've lost at this point.

[dassem]

This is an odd problem:
Has this been taken out of 0.10? Or am I just unlucky? (Or dumb? )

Search flight, not fly. Flight still exists (and is in fact only level 3 now); fly never did. Alternatively, there should be an entrance about halfway around the lava pool.

Ok, the answer was "dumb".

I checked the morgue files: There was no "flight" either. There was one unidentified battleaxe with levitation, apparently.
I didn't check to confirm this bit: but my memory suggests although there was a big entrance, I still needed to cross 1 lava square to get in. I had completely searched and cleared all the exterior parts of the level...

Can anyone guess why my 2 potions of levitation didn't show up in a search?
...
...
Because they were in my inventory.
Seriously.
I knew I hadn't deliberately picked them up, so I hadn't checked. I had moved my stash recently, so I must just have forgotten to drop a couple of potions.

[XuaXua]

BUG OR FEATURE:

Latest trunk, Elephant zombie attacks Big Fish at the corner of the lake.

Elephant zombie tramples Big Fish, moving it back one space diagonally... ONTO LAND.

Big Fish is still alive, on land, till a swarm of other summoned enemies destroy him before I'm able to determine if he can move around or what.

So... is that supposed to happen?

[Eaki Godsbane]

Will they suffocate?

I'm wondering what would happen if the fish were undead... What happens to a zombie/skeleton fish that gets stranded on land?

[Jabberwocky]

Just a completely random question, is there a OOD timer on zot 5 and if you trigger it what does it spawn?

[jejorda2]

Will they suffocate?

I'm wondering what would happen if the fish were undead... What happens to a zombie/skeleton fish that gets stranded on land?

If you use Fedhas's sunlight to evaporate water that an enemy is in, you will see messages like "The shark flops around on dry land!" as the shark moves. Eventually it will die from being on land.

Shark zombies flop around, too, as tested in wizmode. They don't appear to take damage from being out of the water, though.

When next to you, both living and undead beached aquatics will attack you instead of flopping away, so it isn't as nice as having a confused enemy. But if they are one space away, they seem to move in random directions instead of towards you.

Krakens can flop, and they eventually die from being on dry land.

[AtT]

How good is throwing spears or even axes compared to say javelins or even other random weapons?

[lucy_ferre]

How good is throwing spears or even axes compared to say javelins or even other random weapons?

Better than darts (dispersal is great though), worse than javelins and large rocks.

[jejorda2]

What happens if you drop the Orb of Zot into lava?

In wiz mode, you get a message in red text:
A great rumbling fills the air... the Orb of Zot has been destroyed!

If you try to go up stairs on D1 after this, you get a message along the lines of: Are you sure you want to do this? You will lose the game.

Demons and such still appear all over after the orb is destroyed.

[AtT]

How good is throwing spears or even axes compared to say javelins or even other random weapons?

Better than darts (dispersal is great though), worse than javelins and large rocks.

Thanks. But are spears better than other weapons? Is it based on their base damage or what? Is throwing spears say better than throwing maces and swords etc.

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

Is throwing swords or maces useful in any cases? I think they can knock a hobgoblin down for a few absolute units of time and not do any serious damage whatsoever.

[Night2o1]

I had an ogre thrower of chei who used throwing axes of returning for 95% of his attacks from lvl 1-20, he died when I got bored though.. he seemed seriously overpowered but then again I didn't take him past lvl 20 or so.

their throw damage is based on their base damage from what I coudl tell.

[Tiber]

How many floors of pan do you generally have to go through to get all the runes?

[Galefury]

10-20. Less and more is also possible of course. Note that you don't always have to explore these, once you have the demonic rune you can just jump into the nearest portal to find unique levels. Until you start looking for an exit, then you have to start exploring again (or you can leave via abyss if you're playing 0.9.1).

[Eaki Godsbane]

How good is throwing spears or even axes compared to say javelins or even other random weapons?

Better than darts (dispersal is great though), worse than javelins and large rocks.

Thanks. But are spears better than other weapons? Is it based on their base damage or what? Is throwing spears say better than throwing maces and swords etc.

Throwing spears and hand axes probably do damage based on their damage rating; i.e, both have 7 compared to a javelin's base damage of 10. However, mulch(ammo destruction) probably doesn't apply to thrown wield-able weapons making spears/hand axes/daggers of returning very desirable throwing weapons.

They last indefinitely... unless you aren't careful around water or lava.

Awkwardly throwing other types of weapons or items don't do much damage. I've tried throwing a poisoned needle at myself 'ninja-style' and ended without any noticeable effect.

If it was possible, I'd throw needles of frenzy at myself as a fun way to go berserk.

[catass]

I hope this was the right place to post this, I'm not sure what terms I was supposed to look up to figure out my problem, and I didn't want to run across any spoilers in threads.

Here is my problem:


I dunno if I switched some sort of overlay display feature on, but I have a random display of unrevealed tiles glowing like this all the time now, whether I start a new game or load and old one and go down a level. I'm sure this is the millionth time some new person asks this, but what did I do wrong?

[VictorG]

Any chance you just have the magic mapping intrinsic? At level 1 it looks something like this: you get to see some tiles of the dungeon, but in blue because you're not shown what is on them.

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

Deep Dwarves have it (Sense Surroundings) from the very beginning.

[catass]

Thank you so much that was driving me crazy!

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

Read more. =) Each race has its own quirks: some jump into your eyes, and some are hidden.

[AtT]

If something weird and unexpected is happenig to your character it is likely a mutation or ability. Press A to view these.

[hxy]

Using LRD to hit monsters by blasting at a wall - is there any difference in damage if the monster is in these two positions, all else being equal?

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[MyOtheHedgeFox]

Definitely not much if you are standing to the South-West of the wall piece and hit it uprightward, I suspect.
If the wall gets blasted away, there should be no difference whenever it stands if it was adjacent to the wall.

[Orgrimm]

Here comes the most stupid question in the whole thread.

How can I play trunk?

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

If you are using Windows, just go and download the latest trunk builds.

Some information: "trunk" means something like "alpha- or beta-version, playable, but not that stable or balanced".

[Orgrimm]

If you are using Windows, just go and download the latest trunk builds.

Some information: "trunk" means something like "alpha- or beta-version, playable, but not that stable or balanced".

So it isn't playable online?

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

I guess it is not. It is definitely unplayable in Webtiles; but I cannot be a good source of knowledge when it comes to console games.

[Orgrimm]

I see, thank you

[joellercoaster]

If you are using Windows, just go and download the latest trunk builds.

Some information: "trunk" means something like "alpha- or beta-version, playable, but not that stable or balanced".

So it isn't playable online?

It's certainly playable online. Start here: http://crawl.develz.org/wordpress/howto

[Blade]

Okay...where do you find the options files offline? I want to add some autotravel stop messages but can't find the files to do so.

Also, I know this has been asked before, but can god weapon brandings (i.e. TSO's holy wrath, Kiku's pain, Lugonu's distortion) override regular brands?

[KoboldLord]

Also, I know this has been asked before, but can god weapon brandings (i.e. TSO's holy wrath, Kiku's pain, Lugonu's distortion) override regular brands?

Yes. These three weapon blessings are also the ONLY way to override an existing brand.