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

[KoboldLord]

What's a good conjurations spellset for a mid-endgame conjurer? It's been several versions since I've played a serious spellcaster, so I'm pretty out of it.

It depends on which element you've chosen as your primary. In general, you want:

one that kills a big nasty dude fast
one that kills lots of dudes at once
one that kills dudes that are immune to your main element
one that kills little dudes cheaply

Pretty much every other spell slot goes into utility and defensive spells. Bear in mind that a given spell will move from one category to another as the game progresses. Bolt of Fire is a fire-conjuror's power spell and AoE early on, costing a lot of mp and food, but later on you get it to hungerless and start spamming it everywhere. At that point, Fire Storm is your power spell.

For example, around mid-Vaults or so these are all feasible workhorse conjurations:

Throw Icicle, Bolt of Cold, Freezing Cloud

Sticky Flame, Bolt of Fire, Orb of Destruction

Airstrike or Mystic Blast, Lightning Bolt, Poisonous or Freezing Cloud

Stone Arrow, Rapid Deconstruction, Iron Shot

Mystic Blast, Poisonous Cloud, Poison Arrow

These examples should not be considered comprehensive. There are many perfectly good combinations, far too many to list. The important thing is to cover all your needs, but with minimal overlap to save spell slots for other purposes.

[Galefury]

What's a good conjurations spellset for a mid-endgame conjurer? It's been several versions since I've played a serious spellcaster, so I'm pretty out of it.

Depends on the elements you're using. There's a bunch of morgues in the YAVP forum, check their spell lists. If with conjurer you actually mean the conjurer background: learning all spells in the starting book is a good starting point. You also want something to deal with resistant enemies and a bunch of buffs. Blink or controlled blink also always comes in handy.

Edit: whoops. Page break tricked me into thinking this was unanswered.

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

Elyvilon piety gain was seriously changed (read: nerfed) in trunk. Weapon sacrifices can only get you to about two stars unless they're evil weapons; after that, you need to pacify. Also, it decays now.

Yoh... That is quite restricting.

[srulz]

Just what the hell do I do when the only entry to the Temple is blocked by a freaking teleport trap?? I usually have a high tolerance for BS, but this is just a whole new level of BS:

  Code:

...###......#
............#
######......#
     #......#
     #......#
     #......####
     #.........#
     #..######.######
     #..#˜˜˜˜#.#˜˜˜˜#
     ####˜˜˜˜#.#;˜˜˜#
        #˜˜˜;#@#;˜˜˜#
        #˜˜˜##^##˜˜˜#
        #˜˜˜#...#;˜˜#
        #˜˜;#.>.#˜˜˜#
        #˜˜˜#.(.#˜˜˜#
        #˜˜˜#####˜˜˜#
        #˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜#
        *˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜*
        *˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜˜*
        *****###*****

I have tried:
1. Throwing stones at it, just in case it is a mimic. NO.
2. Searching the glass walls just beside the teleport trap, because "secret doors, duh". NO.
3. Running into it repeatedly, consuming several permanent food in the process, just in case my "luck" turns for the better. NO.

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

Try finding an amulet of stasis or a scroll of blinking.
By the way, what about a wand of digging or disintegration? If the walls aren't unnaturally hard, it will surely breach them.

[KoboldLord]

You'll just have to pick from one of the overflow altars instead of whatever you had normally planned, assuming you don't immediately stumble upon teleport control, stasis, or randart -TELE. The teleport trap randomly happened to be there. It is unintended, but at least it doesn't block off anything especially important.

[srulz]

but at least it doesn't block off anything especially important.

But! My choice of God *is* especially important

I really wish there is a way to make sure these teleport traps don't exist in certain vaults. You'll understand how I feel if a teleport trap is "randomly" blocking the stairs out of the Labyrinth.

[srulz]

How do I "report" these kinds of vaults then? I take it that they are problematic.

[Mattchew]

Aaaagh, I screwed up and I'm now under penance from Elyvilon.

Will sacrificing weapons (I can still do this) reduce my penance, or am I just burning up potential future piety to no purpose?

Also, when she's happy again, will I be restored to my former ** piety, or will I have to start over again from the bottom?

An unrelated question, is there a straightforward constructive purpose for needles of frenzy? If I target myself (not even sure I can) that means I'm berserk wielding a blowgun, which I don't think will help much. I'm assuming it's not a special berserk that causes a monster to attack his allies, or something fun like that . . .

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

Somewhy I thought that actions that please the deity do reduce penance.I guess it should work.
I think you will.

Frenzied creatures not only will get berserk. They will also not distinguish between a friend and a foe. Imagine what a berserking 9-headed hydra could do to the pack of the lesser hydras surrounding it. But beware: the creature might move towards you.

[tormodpwns]

But you can't pray while under penance.

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

However, Elyvilon will still protect you from damage, even if you made a wrong step. So [a][p] will work.

[srulz]

The omniscient Knowledge Bots is ... wrong!?

From "statue form" entry:
3+str/3 bonus unarmed damage

From "dragon form" entry:
20 + str + unarmed_skill

From "unarmed combat" entry:
Statue 6 + str/3
Dragon 12 + str*2/3

So. Which ones are correct?

[CommanderC]

The function melee_attack::calc_base_unarmed_damage in melee_attack.cc has the answer:

  Code:

switch (you.form)
   {
   case TRAN_SPIDER:
            damage = 5;
       break;     
   case TRAN_BAT:
            damage = (you.species == SP_VAMPIRE ? 2 : 1);
       break;
   case TRAN_ICE_BEAST:
            damage = 12;
       break;
        case TRAN_BLADE_HANDS:
            damage = 8 + div_rand_round(you.strength() + you.dex(), 3);
       break;
   case TRAN_STATUE: // multiplied by 1.5 later                                       
       damage = 6 + div_rand_round(you.strength(), 3);
       break;
   case TRAN_DRAGON: // +6 from claws                                                 
       damage = 12 + div_rand_round(you.strength() * 2, 3);
       break;
   case TRAN_LICH:
       damage = 5;
       break;
   case TRAN_PIG:
       break;   
        case TRAN_NONE:
   case TRAN_APPENDAGE:
       break;
   }


[srulz]

Hey, thanks for telling me about the source code!

I was going to dive into the code someday, but never found the will/time before. I will certainly now, and between it and Wizard mode, I would be able to solve 99% of Crawl's mysteries

[tormodpwns]

When's a good time to quaff !experience?

[Blade]

When you get it. Those skill points will become less and less vaulable over time.

[Fnord]

Should I wear Crystal Plate Mail as a Naga? I'm a berserker with 24 str. What are the effects of deformed body?

[tormodpwns]

Deformed body at all mutation levels reduces your AC bonus by 50% of the body armor's base AC value. So your Crystal Plate would give you base stats of 7 AC and -8 EV. Enchantment bonuses and bonuses from Armour skill are unaffected by Deformed Body, so I would say go ahead and wear it. Unless you were training Dodging and no Armour this whole time.

[Fnord]

Thanks.

[Mattchew]

But you can't pray while under penance.

I was definitely able to sacrifice weapons while under penance, CDO 0.9.

[srulz]

What is an acceptable level of Traps & Doors for late game?

There are quite a large variance if I based it on all the victorious char dumps, with the lowest about 5-6, and the highest about 15+, so this is more of an "in your opinion" question.

[tormodpwns]

Deformed body at all mutation levels reduces your AC bonus by 50% of the body armor's base AC value. So your Crystal Plate would give you base stats of 7 AC and -8 EV.

First sentence is right, second one is wrong. It doesn't act as if it has "base stats" of 7 AC - you still get the GDR and Armour skill bonus as if it were 14 AC, your final AC is just lowered by 7.

Right, my bad for the confusing language. Armour skill still acts on a base of 14, which is why it's still worth wearing for a Naga/Centaur.

[Blade]

Well, it really depends on how many traps you're willing to blunder into. 10 is where most people stop, and that should be plenty; if you have xp to spare you may as well take it up to 12 or so. More than that is probably a waste.

That said, very low levels of T&D are perfectly possible. I had a TrFE with a lovely -4 aptitude, and I essentially said "yeah whatever I'm not training that" and turned it off at 5. Traps were annoying, but not game-ruining. I've seen some characters who never really bother with the skill at all.

[eeviac]

My trunk CAO game just crashed, and I get a message about my saved game being in use when I try to reload. What can I do about this? The char was about to start collecting runes, I don't want to lose him

[Mankeli]

Couple of Ds related questions:

1) Are ice and fire facets mutually exclusive in 0.8? (Please say yes, and I will have pretty much ideal mutation set on my char).

2) Does icemail melt when you repel or deflect a fire attack via the corresponding spell?

[Blade]

My trunk CAO game just crashed, and I get a message about my saved game being in use when I try to reload. What can I do about this? The char was about to start collecting runes, I don't want to lose him

Just wait. Usually, about 10-30 minutes from when it stopped working, it will work again.

[greepish]

It can last kind of a while. I ended up making a new account after it seemed to stop working (was screwed up for hours), was rather surprised when it suddenly started working again.

[cerebovssquire]

My trunk CAO game just crashed, and I get a message about my saved game being in use when I try to reload. What can I do about this? The char was about to start collecting runes, I don't want to lose him

I've had this problem before (on CDO) and I could always quickly solve it by asking Napkin on ##crawl-dev to cancel the process for me. This allows you to play again.
Since you're on CAO you'd want to ask rax, not Napkin.

[Stormfox]

Couple of Ds related questions:

1) Are ice and fire facets mutually exclusive in 0.8? (Please say yes, and I will have pretty much ideal mutation set on my char).

2) Does icemail melt when you repel or deflect a fire attack via the corresponding spell?

1) Yes.

2) Yes. Icemail melts when faced with anything hotter than body heat, even if it doesn't hurt you. You might as well not have it in the Abyss with all of the flying over lava that you'll probably be doing.

[eeviac]

Game crashed again, rax isn't sure that it can be saved That VpEN was gonna go all the way...


Many other questions:

1. How does Vampire's stealth boost work? Are you more stealthy as a Vamp with 27 stealth or does it cap somewhere earlier?

2. In a 3 rune game, does stabbing need to be maxed if I want to keep one shotting people?

3. Can you disable a Vampire's food-stealing bite? It can lead to losing torment immunity at bad times.

4. Do multiple sources of conservation stack?

5. How does Invisibility's contamination work? When starting from no glow, I swear I go yellow at random times, even when I'm not casting any spells.

[cerebovssquire]

1. How does Vampire's stealth boost work? Are you more stealthy as a Vamp with 27 stealth or does it cap somewhere earlier?

2. In a 3 rune game, does stabbing need to be maxed if I want to keep one shotting people?

3. Can you disable a Vampire's food-stealing bite? It can lead to losing torment immunity at bad times.

4. Do multiple sources of conservation stack?

5. How does Invisibility's contamination work? I swear I'll start glowing at random times, even when I'm not casting any spells.

1. Stealth has no cap.
2. Even when allruning you never need more than 15-20. There's a cap on damage so as far as I know 27 stabbing isn't even going to increase your damage from 300 to 600 or anything. Anyway basically none of my stabbers get more than 15-20.
3. Visored helmets block it, I think. Otherwise aux attacks happen automatically. Note that in the areas where biting people actually gives blood you're pretty unlikely to ever need torment immunity, with the exception of maybe hell knights in the Hells or something.
4. No.
5. While invisible you amass glow over time. It's quite possible that you cast Invisibility with a little grey glow before and remain at grey while it starts, but over the course of the invisibility effect you begin to glow yellow.

[Jeremiah]

Does the price of un-ID'd items in shops bear any relationship to how good they are? There's an artifact pearl dragon armour for sale for 6k gold and I'm wondering what the chances are of it being worth it.

I guess if I don't find anything else to spend the money on it's probably worth a shot...

[Blade]

No. Prices of unid'd items respect the base type (in this case, naturally expensive pearl dragon armour) and nothing more.

[tormodpwns]

It's worth a shot. I once bought a random scroll for 34 gold... turned out to be a scroll of acquirement. Later that game, I saw two scrolls of acquirement in another shop for 884 gold each. In case you guys were wondering, I acquired 3 very disappointing pieces of armour.

[Jk]

Is there an easy-to-understand / all-in-one-place summary for the layman of all the changes I'll see when I switch from 0.9.1 to 0.10.0?

[CommanderC]

Is there an easy-to-understand / all-in-one-place summary for the layman of all the changes I'll see when I switch from 0.9.1 to 0.10.0?

http://gitorious.org/crawl/crawl/blobs/master/crawl-ref/docs/changelog.txt

[jejorda2]

Are pole-arm wielders supposed to be able to use reaching attacks while trapped in nets? I noticed I could reach and strike a bat as a player caught in a net trap, then I got killed by an net-captured orc warrior's halberd.

[Megika]

I can't seem to have more than one character at a time. If I try to start a new game (pressing Dungeon Crawl in the main menu) it will just put me into my saved character. Is there an option I need to enable or something?

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

Change its name. Press Backspace and start typing a new name. Or just start typing a new name.

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

Can you shoot down an oncoming Orb of Destruction with something like Bolt of Something or Throw Something? Or a javelin? Or are they vulnerable only to their "brothers"?

[greepish]

I do know they have high elemental resists and decent hp, so most bolts definately not. I regularly shoot through them with bolt of fire. Maybe iron bolt would smash them, though?

[Jeremiah]

No, but you can intercept them with a butterfly.

[Hirasi]

Can kobolds and other small races wield a demon blade one-handed? What's the biggest sword they can wield two-handed?

[srulz]

If I have a mutation "cold resistance", is it possible for me to get "fire/elec resistance" as well?

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

I think fire/cold don't appear together -- just like various types of scales.
Not sure about insulation: I think it is compatible with them.