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

[Shade]

@KoboldLord above:

Makes sense, and thanks.

[mrbobbyg]

Does anyone here know how invocations skill affects Sif's channeling? I'm dumping a lot of exp into it by using it normally, and I was wondering if I could shut it off.

I'm happy to pump it though if it meaningfully increases the mana gain though.

[ahpla]

I haven't played Kiku before. Will the pain brand go on my vorpalised non-artifact dagger, or should I be getting it on a sabre or something else anyway? The RNG hasn't been friendly with item generation thus far, so I don't really have anything else for melee. I'm playing a stabbing VpEn.

[omndra]

I've got a good Earth/Ice mage going and was wondering
+5 ring of Protection or +4 +4 Ring of Slaying

[mrbobbyg]

I haven't played Kiku before. Will the pain brand go on my vorpalised non-artifact dagger, or should I be getting it on a sabre or something else anyway? The RNG hasn't been friendly with item generation thus far, so I don't really have anything else for melee. I'm playing a stabbing VpEn.

The bots say pain "inflicts 1d(necromancy skill) extra damage on necro+1 out of 8 successful hits." So the more attacks you can get in the better. If you say, find a quickblade then GO, but I can't see how much of a difference saber vs. dagger will make, because most of your damage will be from the brand. Then again, I also don't really understand minimum delay either, so...

[jejorda2]

I've got a good Earth/Ice mage going and was wondering
+5 ring of Protection or +4 +4 Ring of Slaying

IF you're killing everything with freeze or sandblast or longer range spells, slaying doesn't help at all. That only works for melee. If you're running out of mana and smacking poking things when they get near you, use slaying by all means.

[Jeremiah]

When a portal to a treasure trove asks for an item, do you get the item back afterwards or do you lose it? I've got one asking for a +6 demon blade, but I'm a long blades fighter and if I had one I might prefer to keep it rather than give it up for something that might or might not be useful in the treasure trove.

I also had a trove in my last game that requested the slimy rune of Zot as the entrance fee - but maybe if I could have got that I wouldn't have needed the stuff in the trove...

[mrbobbyg]

Can non edged Ash worshipers butcher in trunk? Ash seems to be changing a lot, and I don't know what's up with him now.

[galehar]

Can non edged Ash worshipers butcher in trunk? Ash seems to be changing a lot, and I don't know what's up with him now.

No. There has been some explanations about that here.

[Jeremiah]

Can a ranged weapon have the pain brand - either permanently or from Excruciating Wounds?

[lucy_ferre]

Can a ranged weapon have the pain brand - either permanently or from Excruciating Wounds?

Nope.

[XrBob]

I've started playing and enjoying some sludge elf transmuters. A similar class seems to be stalker, no morphing but more stealth and stabbing and general utility. When you would you play stalker as opposed to transmuter? Also, I'm in the lair found a scroll of acquirement. What do you like to use it on? I don't really need a weapon as I have high unarmed combat, I've got plenty of good books for now, I'm thinking armor, but I'm not sure armor interacts with the morphing.

[galehar]

When you would you play stalker as opposed to transmuter?

When you're in the mood of stabbing people in the face. Or playing a race which is good at stealth and stabbing like Ko, Sp, Na and Vp.

Also, I'm in the lair found a scroll of acquirement. What do you like to use it on? I don't really need a weapon as I have high unarmed combat, I've got plenty of good books for now, I'm thinking armor, but I'm not sure armor interacts with the morphing.

Most forms meld armour. Blade Hands only meld gloves, but if you're still using Ice form a lot, you'd probably better ask for jewellery.

[galehar]

Jewellery acquirement compares pretty poorly to armour acquirement now

Why? Since what?

[KoboldLord]

Jewellery didn't need a buff. It was already the clear choice for almost every character, and the upgrade to the others brought them on par. Or at least close enough that you will sometimes consider acquiring them over jewellery.

Jewellery acquirements are still weighted towards giving you unknown jewellery, so if you're missing something highly valuable such as gourmand, faith, mutation resistance, teleport control, poison resistance, levitation, etc. you have a decent chance of getting it. There's plenty of vanilla rings and amulets that you'll keep and use all the way through the post-endgame, and not so many armors or weapons.

[Jeremiah]

Is there any way to tell how much penance I have remaining with a previous god who I have now abandoned?

[XuaXua]

armor acquirement keeps giving me crap.

[XrBob]

can you explain the way damage works? More specifically, I'm looking at the wiki page on stone arrow. It says it does 3d11 damage, from last version where it did 2d12. What does that mean? How big of a difference is there between 3d11 and 2d12?

[Jeremiah]

If I'm following Nemelex, is there any level at which I should stop victory dancing Evocations, or should I try to train it as high as possible?

[XuaXua]

If I'm following Nemelex, is there any level at which I should stop victory dancing Evocations, or should I try to train it as high as possible?

At the rate you should be going with the cards for piety, it should always get trained. No dancing needed, IMHO, and I'd turn off the switch at 10, but that's a guesstimate and that's just me.

[dolphin]

Where in the Tiles folder would I find a list of all possible mutations (I don't quite trust the wiki)?

[Jeremiah]

Is it possible for a random blink to land you on a known Zot trap? Or any trap if you know it is there?

[Grimm]

Didn't you used to be able to disintegrate altars of Beogh?

[absolutego]

iirc, statues, not altars.

[moekitten]

>Is it possible for a random blink to land you on a known Zot trap? Or any trap if you know it is there?

yesterday a random blink landed me on a known zot trap, so it's definitely possible :3

[galehar]

Where in the Tiles folder would I find a list of all possible mutations (I don't quite trust the wiki)?

You'll have to look in the sources for that. But you don't have to download them, just go there and search for mutation_type

[asdu]

The evasion entry of the learnDB has a link to this graph. What does "fighter=yes/no" mean?

[KoboldLord]

The evasion entry of the learnDB has a link to this graph. What does "fighter=yes/no" mean?

Some monsters have a flag that designates them as a fighter-type. The flag gives these monsters a to hit bonus, which makes it so you're slightly less likely to dodge compared to a normal monster with the same hit dice.

[Robsoie]

As i'm currently playing a trog follower and have survived a branch ending floor thanks to Brother in Arms, i'm wondering as Crawl is unfortunately very imprecise in term of how much faith you have exactly and the exact costs of divine abilities, unlike spellcasting and your magic point that you can manage and plan usage with precision.

At some point of a branch exploration i lost a faith rank after just a few of them summoned, and it took a lot of time to get back that lost faith rank.

So anyone has made a research on approximatively how much you need to kill and sacrifice to pay back the cost of 1 Brother in Arms summon ? Could be helpfull to know for preparing carefully the assault of a branch ending floor when you may need several of them to help.

[Galefury]

Trog piety gets eaten by gifts, so how much you have to kill to replenish the cost of BiA is hard to say (also piety gain is pretty random). It's probably not that much on average, but gift timeout badly slows piety gain. I guess that's the reason why it took so long for you to get that piety level back. I don't know the actual numbers, but someone can probably answer this more precisely.

[Robsoie]

thank you both, i thought the piety gain/loss was a definite value and not randomized, it explains certainly some of the things i observed (sometime gaining a faith rank quick, sometime very slowly), and i didn't count on the multiple gifts piety losses

[XuaXua]

Rods get assigned an arbitrary +X/+X for combat.

Magical staves (Staff of Death, Staff of Power, etc.) do not.

Are these staves considered +0/+0 with the appropriate branding (Pain for Staff of Death, Electric for Staff of Power/Air) for all combat purposes, then?

[b]BOT[/ b]
I asked and the bot answered me.

Henzell says...
Enhancer staves (fire, cold, air, earth, death) have (Evoc + 1)/15 chance of doing 1d(1.25 * (Evoc + skill)) extra damage that ignores AC (except earth), but checks the appropriate resistance. Air also needs to pass a (damage dealt + air + 1)/20 chance, and death a (necro + 1)/8 chance. The staff of poison is handled differently.

Knowledge bot says nothing about the Staff of Conjuration (other than how it enhances spells) regarding damage. Can anyone fill me in?

[Regnix]

Quick question...

I'm in an Ossuary, I used a wand of enslavement on a mummy, it killed a few zombies for me but was then killed by one (out of my sight). When this happened it caused my boots to become cursed, is that right? I thought the person/thing that got the killing blow had the curse put upon them.

[slowcar]

Does Firestorm adhere to the "if there is already a cloud you cannot put another there" rule?
I wonder how to counter enemies that use firestorm, nearly died in an ascension due to one and don't want to repeat this experience.

[XuaXua]

If an enslaved mummy dies, you get the death curse. This is intentional.

(I'm not sure what the idea behind this is...)

Staves of conjuration, energy, channeling, etc. have no special effects in melee.

Thought staff of energy could release a bolt or something.

Regardless, so these are then treated as staff 0/0 ?

Are we able to use enchant weapon scrolls on staves then?

[Galefury]

You cant use enchant scrolls on magical staves. Only on quarterstaves and lajahtangs. Enhancer staves are always treated as 0/0. The staves that don't do extra damage have other nice effects, but for your caster to kill stuff in melee you need one of the damaging ones (elemental, death, poison to some extent).

[XuaXua]

You cant use enchant scrolls on magical staves. Only on quarterstaves and lajahtangs. Enhancer staves are always treated as 0/0. The staves that don't do extra damage have other nice effects, but for your caster to kill stuff in melee you need one of the damaging ones (elemental, death, poison to some extent).

I don't see why you shouldn't be able to use an enchant scroll on a magical staff; it's not considered an artifact and it is possible to find a duplicate. Do they get affected by jelly corrosion?

[jejorda2]

Do [magic staves] get affected by jelly corrosion?

No

[Jeremiah]

Does Fireball do more damage to the monster it actually hits than to those in the surrounding squares? What about Fire Storm and Ice Storm?

[XuaXua]

How long does it take to cast a spell?

I ask because I have a slow PC sometimes (using Tiles) and when my Mummy Wizard is up against a bow-wielding centaur and casts Repel Missiles, the Repel Missiles indicator doesn't show up until after I've been shot a couple more times by the centaur.