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

[srulz]

I just got chucked into the Abyss for several times in a row. Something like this:

  Code:

64102 | Shoals:5 | You are cast into the Abyss!
 64102 | Shoals:5 | Cast into the Abyss (merfolk impaler)
 64204 | Abyss    | Noticed a crystal golem
 64204 | Abyss    | Noticed a deep dwarf berserker
 64207 | Abyss    | Defeated a deep dwarf berserker
 64265 | Abyss    | Defeated a crystal golem
 64340 | Shoals:5 | You pass through the gate.
 64361 | Shoals:5 | You are cast into the Abyss!
 64361 | Shoals:5 | Cast into the Abyss (merfolk impaler)
 64474 | Shoals:5 | You pass through the gate.
 64476 | Shoals:5 | You are cast into the Abyss!
 64476 | Shoals:5 | Cast into the Abyss (merfolk impaler)
 64599 | Abyss    | Noticed an angel
 64608 | Abyss    | Defeated an angel
 64719 | Abyss    | Noticed a griffon simulacrum
 64781 | Abyss    | Defeated a griffon simulacrum
 64846 | Shoals:5 | You pass through the gate.
 64980 | Shoals:5 | You are cast into the Abyss!
 64980 | Shoals:5 | Cast into the Abyss (merfolk impaler)
 65046 | Abyss    | Noticed a purple draconian
 65065 | Abyss    | Defeated a purple draconian
 65486 | Abyss    | Noticed a profane servitor
 65488 | Abyss    | Noticed a profane servitor
 65488 | Abyss    | Noticed a phantom
 65495 | Abyss    | Defeated a phantom
 65753 | Abyss    | Noticed a phantom
 65758 | Abyss    | Defeated a phantom
 65908 | Abyss    | Found a corrupted altar of Lugonu.
 66119 | Abyss    | Noticed an iron golem
 66135 | Abyss    | Defeated an iron golem
 66275 | Shoals:5 | You pass through the gate.
 66282 | Shoals:5 | Got a barnacled rune of Zot
 66292 | Shoals:5 | You are cast into the Abyss!
 66292 | Shoals:5 | Cast into the Abyss (merfolk impaler)

Did distortion effects scale with level or something? Higher monster HD/your level, higher chance of Abyssing?

[rebthor]

What's your magic resistance? I'm guessing it's not very high. Also, why would you keep getting into melee range with that merfolk impaler? Nuke it from orbit with a wand or spell or something!

[cerebovssquire]

MR doesn't affect distortion in any way.
And no, distortion is a fixed brand. You're really banging your head against a brick wall if you play like that though, maybe adjust your playing style a bit

[rebthor]

MR doesn't affect distortion in any way.

Every time I think I'm starting to figure this game out, I learn something new.

[eeviac]

I'd post this in Game Design, but don't think I've got the credentials to make threads like this yet...

I really like the Transmuter/Earth magic side to Stalkers; Dig/Passwall to set up stabs is great fun, and feels different enough from the 'brute force' EH-stab of En to justify itself as its own background. BUT their earlier spells - Fulsome/Evaporate - stick out like a sore thumb. Complaints about cumbersome inventory management aside: To be cast reliably (you cannot afford miscasts with your tiny mana pool), they require levels in two additional skills... on a hybrid build that is already stretched thin for XP. Evaporate is 'Very Loud' - one use and you can forget about stabbing anyone for a while. It's also an overlap into venom mage/wizard territory.

In short, I think Fulsome/Evaporate has no business being in the Stalker book, and having different level 1/2 spells would greatly improve the playability and fun of the background. Why does this background have these spells?

[CommanderC]

@eeviac: You aren't alone. I agree 100% with you.
At least those spells were removed from the book of Changes. Playing 0.9 Transmuters was so boring...

[tormodpwns]

Boring but easy.

[srulz]

You're really banging your head against a brick wall if you play like that though, maybe adjust your playing style a bit

Playing a huge-AC char + shield, with limited ranged skills mean that the merfolk could reach me sooner or later anyway. I can always just ninja the rune, but where's the fun in that?

I'm pretty sure though that even when the trident of distortion deals 0 damage to me, it still sends me to Abyss. Bug/feature? I thought you don't get affected by special effects if you don't receive any damage?

I really like the Transmuter/Earth magic side to Stalkers; Dig/Passwall to set up stabs is great fun, and feels different enough from the 'brute force' EH-stab of En to justify itself as its own background. BUT their earlier spells - Fulsome/Evaporate - stick out like a sore thumb. Complaints about cumbersome inventory management aside: To be cast reliably (you cannot afford miscasts with your tiny mana pool), they require levels in two additional skills... on a hybrid build that is already stretched thin for XP. Evaporate is 'Very Loud' - one use and you can forget about stabbing anyone for a while. It's also an overlap into venom mage/wizard territory.

People mostly uses Evaporate for the Mephitic Cloud thingie. And you could stab people that are confused with the cloud. And Evaporate is usually used when your stealth is broken anyway. And Evaporate is 1 very very very good spell, that I could never imagine I would pick Stalker if they didn't have the spell at all.

0.9 Transmuter is hilariously overpowered. It's such a shame that I just realized that when I play 0.10 Transmuters/Stalkers though..

[eeviac]

^whether or not Evaporate is a good spell doesn't have much to do with my complaints. The spell doesn't fit. It doesn't make sense within the context of the background (or at least what I'd like the Stalker to be).

[rebthor]

How do I train charms if the only charm spell I've found is Haste? Just eat the miscast effect because it's going to cast at useless? How much glow is the worst case of 18, i.e. what color?

[Kate]

Well if you just learn it by trying repeatedly or using brilliance or whatever then you can just turn charms skill on and carry on as normal. 18 glow is really bad (light red) but that doesn't matter since you don't need to ever cast it until it has decent success. Edit: oh, unless you're playing 0.9 I guess.

[lifecoder]

You should cast it several times, just do this when there are no troubles in sight and you could rest in case of miscast. If you see Charms in grey in the skills list - the job is done and you need just wait and take out some more buddies.
On the other hand, you may wait till you have more charm spells, since Haste require at least 12 levels in Charms for nice success chance.

[rebthor]

Well if you just learn it by trying repeatedly or using brilliance or whatever then you can just turn charms skill on and carry on as normal. 18 glow is really bad (light red) but that doesn't matter since you don't need to ever cast it until it has decent success. Edit: oh, unless you're playing 0.9 I guess.

Light red is pretty bad, but given that's worst case and I'm swimming in potions of cure mut for like the first time ever, I may take the risk since I am indeed playing 0.9. I'm still only in midgame mode having not gone into swamp or snake and just found the vaults so hopefully I'll find a book somewhere with repel missiles or something like that.

[lifecoder]

Check out stores for them.

Is fighting monsters the only way for getting experience?
Are pure summonners reliable in the end-game, or slicing exp by half (for summons kills) would render them too weak?
Added: Are food-cost for spells and abilites lowered by racial mutations and ring abilities that allow character to eat less, or they are only slowing the food clock a bit? And does Invocation or Spellcasting make food cost lower (i.e. could SpHe make through the dungeon?)

[Tutankham]

Does spawning of out of depth monsters work? Is the timer for a certain level reset when you leave it and come back later?

[Tiber]

Check out stores for them.

Is fighting monsters the only way for getting experience?
Are pure summonners reliable in the end-game, or slicing exp by half (for summons kills) would render them too weak?
Added: Are food-cost for spells and abilites lowered by racial mutations and ring abilities that allow character to eat less, or they are only slowing the food clock a bit? And does Invocation or Spellcasting make food cost lower (i.e. could SpHe make through the dungeon?)

There's also a potion of experience, which gives you a whole level's worth.

Summoners are harder, and are more reliant on finding good spells, but a good pack a summons can make it very hard for many enemies to kill you.
The only ways to lower spell food cost (IIRC) are through raising Int, raising spellcasting, or wielding staff of energy.

[tormodpwns]

There's also Experience cards in Decks of Wonder.

I doubt a SpHe could make it through the dungeon (especially after 0.9), unless you decide not to pacify everything you see and only use healing for emergencies.

[tormodpwns]

I noticed amulets of resist mutation are not greyed-out on the inventory screen for mummies. Is their only purpose to protect against rotting from mutating effects?

[Blade]

Yeah, that's their only purpose.

The lost xp is not a big deal for summoners, by the way. They need very few skills compared to most other backgrounds.

[srulz]

How does Sublimation of Blood's mana restoration works actually? I have 10 Necromancy, 20 int, and 6 spellcasting and sometimes it restores ~30+ mana, sometimes it restores 1 mana.

I don't understand the formula in Knowledge Bot:

When used with HP, it restores pow/6 mean (exp. distributed) MP, each MP point costing up to 4 (avg. 1 + 18/pow) HP. Never directly fatal.

Thanks!

[greepish]

Mean just means average. So sublimation will sometimes yield as low as 1 MP, much in the same way that an ancient lich's crystal spear sometimes deals 3 damage.

Pow is spellpower. So per MP gained you'll probably take about like 1.4 health loss.

[lifecoder]

Your quote is for HP losing (if you use it with no chunk/potion wielded). Wiki says that MP restoration value is "at least 5 mp, with a random bonus of 1d(spellpower/15 +2)-1", so it is very random. You could read more about spell power value at http://crawl.chaosforge.org/index.php?title=Spell_power

[Confidence Interval]

If you are playing webtiles, how likely is it that you will encounter one of your own ghosts? (I have just done so but this is the first time.)

[srulz]

Your quote is for HP losing (if you use it with no chunk/potion wielded). Wiki says that MP restoration value is "at least 5 mp, with a random bonus of 1d(spellpower/15 +2)-1", so it is very random. You could read more about spell power value at http://crawl.chaosforge.org/index.php?title=Spell_power

Mean just means average. So sublimation will sometimes yield as low as 1 MP, much in the same way that an ancient lich's crystal spear sometimes deals 3 damage.

Pow is spellpower. So per MP gained you'll probably take about like 1.4 health loss.

Thanks guys. I am interested mainly in the mp gain when not using chunks, as I'm a Troll and hp loss doesn't bother me.

What I don't understand though is the "exp. distributed". What does that mean?

[Kate]

The code for self-sublimation lives here, if that helps.

[lifecoder]

If you are playing webtiles, how likely is it that you will encounter one of your own ghosts? (I have just done so but this is the first time.)

I think it is tiny. It is a good news. Bad one that you could meet ghost of _any_ player that have die in WebTiles.

What I don't understand though is the "exp. distributed". What does that mean?

I'm not good enough in English, but I think it means you got not directly pow/6 MP, but something around it with average pow/6 most of the time.

___
Are there much difference with ranged weapons? Could be sling good enough as crossbow or bow, or if you want to play end game as ranged-only (if possible) character you should pick something other than, for example, Halfling?
Added: how does apptitude change xp consumption? Halfligs have +3 for Short blades and +0 for Long, but +4 with crosstraining. Is it a good idea to rise short and then raise long ones?

[KoboldLord]

Are there much difference with ranged weapons? Could be sling good enough as crossbow or bow, or if you want to play end game as ranged-only (if possible) character you should pick something other than, for example, Halfling?

Slings are arguably the best launcher. Sling bullets come in steel and silver varieties, both of which are highly desirable for the late game, and you can use a sling in combination with a shield for no penalty. Low-quality ammo is plentiful in the early game, so even before Trog or Okawaru gifts start kicking in you can still use your sling liberally, rather than having to conserve ammo.

[Mattchew]

I've seen some discussions where crossbows seem preferred to bows. Doesn't a longbow dominate a crossbow? I'm guessing there's other reasons for preferring crossbows, what are they?

[tormodpwns]

Added: how does apptitude change xp consumption? Halfligs have +3 for Short blades and +0 for Long, but +4 with crosstraining. Is it a good idea to rise short and then raise long ones?

For your halfling, you will want to train Long Blades immediately. Basically, it is a good idea to raise one skill for the sake of cross-training another only in certaain very extreme cases. The skill that you raise initially (the one that you don't want to train) must be at least +5 or higher aptitude than the skill you want to cross-train. This is because the initial skill must have an advantage over the other skill of more than +4 in order to make the +4 crosstraining bonus worthwhile. Otherwise, you suffer an overall experience loss.

The only cases this is true for are for an Ogre training M&F (+3) to train Axes (-3), and Merfolk training Polearms (+4) to train Axes (-2) or Staves (-2). I think there may be one more case but I don't recall what it is. Note what these two cases are, however. Would you ever use axes on an Ogre, or axes/staves on a Merfolk? Or to put it another, more obvious way, would you ever use anything other than maces and flails on an Ogre or polearms on a Merfolk? Unless you find something that's nothing short of amazing, I would stay away from crosstraining for the deliberate purpose of saving experience.

Note that if you train a skill that is exactly +4 greater aptitude than the skill you want to crosstrain, then there will be no overall experience change. However, with more than one weapon skill, you get the disadvantage of having a greater variety of gifts from Okie/Trog/acquirement. Then again, it comes with the advantage of being able to branch out into different weapon schools faster if you happen to find a good weapon of the other type later on.

[rchandra]

Added: how does apptitude change xp consumption? Halfligs have +3 for Short blades and +0 for Long, but +4 with crosstraining. Is it a good idea to rise short and then raise long ones?

I don't recall where, but I remember reading a long article about cross-training. Basically, it is a good idea to raise one skill for the sake of cross-training another only in extreme cases. The skill that you raise initially (the one that you don't want to train) must be at least +5 or higher aptitude than the skill you want to cross-train. The only cases this is true for are for an Ogre training M&F to train Axes, and Merfolk training Polearms to train Axes or Staves. I think there was one more case but I don't recall.

Kobold's Short Blades -> Long Blades is the third big one (and I think the most likely overall), there might be some others where training the spare skill is "free".

Of course, this doesn't mean it's not worth planning for crosstraining in other cases, especially with Short/Long - often you acn use short blades at the start, find good ones, and you won't need to train the skill too highly. Then transition to long blades as you start getting good ones.

I'm playing a Deep Elf Gladiator for fun and it's surprisingly strong. I was planning to go for Short Blades + Shield and take Kiku, eventually building my way up to a +9,+9 sabre of pain with spellcasting to assist. But now on D:5 I found a +8 plate armour of Life {Str+3, Int-3}. Worth using? It's an amazing piece of armour and I have 12 strength (15 with the armour), so I need 3 more to get 18 strength. However, I would basically sacrifice spellcasting for it. I JUST picked up Kiku about 50 turns ago.

Edit: Nvm, I just realized this was a pretty stupid question. The answer is obvious.

I'm actually curious about the answer - my instinct says Hell No, my second thought says that you can use Invocations and melee, still training Necromancy for pain damage.

[tormodpwns]

Right haha, I edited my original post just as you were posting this one. Took out my question because it never occurred to me. I think necromancy is too much of an experience sink just for the pain damage though.
Crosstraining isn't bad, especially if you just happen to have a crosstraining skill already.

[Jeremiah]

I've seen some discussions where crossbows seem preferred to bows. Doesn't a longbow dominate a crossbow? I'm guessing there's other reasons for preferring crossbows, what are they?

Bolts can also have the penetration brand, which means you can shoot through other monsters to hit the summoner behind them.

[runequester]

First things first:

If any of the developers read this, good work guys. This is the first rogue-like (other than Dungeons of Dredmor) that I've really been able to get into, and it's providing a really compelling gaming experience.

That being said, after perusing the wiki (without trying to spoil too much for myself) I do have a load of questions as a newbie.

1: When a weapon is listed as, for example, +0 / +1, what does this reflect exactly? I was assuming its attack bonus / damage bonus, but can anyone clarify? I had a hard time finding this in the wiki.

2: Skill training. What's the general consensus on how many skills to train at one time? On one hand, I get worried about advancing too slowly because I train everything at once, but I also get worried about missing out on important skills in case I find a good weapon later on.

3: For characters that have "dodge" based skills, like the gladiator or monks, how much should you try to stick to light armours ? I was having a bit of a hard time judging where the balance is between better evasion and better armour class. Ditto for spell casters I suppose.

Thank you in advance!

Ivan

[XuaXua]

The game wiki is horribly out of date.

[Kate]

The weapon enchantment numbers are for accuracy and damage respectively. Damage tends to be more valuable, but neither are a substitute for the actual base weapon itself being strong - a +9,+9 dagger is still rubbish compared to a +0,+0 demon blade.

You can train as many skills as you like at once, really - but at any given time I usually have only have 1-3 skills training, depending on what's most important at that point. Early on that's probably your weapon skills as a melee-based class and your spellcasting and main spell schools as a magic-based class - after that it'll depend on whether you're trying to branch into something new, or need to improve your defensive skills, and so on.

As a gladiator or monk you should be aiming to eventually pick up some spells when you find them, so sticking to robes or leather is usually a good idea. If you get hold of a dragon armour of some description, or a good artefact medium armour, those can be worth using too.

[evilmike]

Here's my advice, based on how I play crawl.

1: When a weapon is listed as, for example, +0 / +1, what does this reflect exactly? I was assuming its attack bonus / damage bonus, but can anyone clarify? I had a hard time finding this in the wiki.

First number is accuracy, second is damage. When you get two numbers listed like this, accuracy is always the first number. You can remember this by noting that accuracy / damage is in alphabetical order. As for the exact effects they have, it's fairly self explanatory, but damage is generally regarded as being the more valuable of the two. Note that +5 damage really means "up to +5 damage" - it's random.

2: Skill training. What's the general consensus on how many skills to train at one time? On one hand, I get worried about advancing too slowly because I train everything at once, but I also get worried about missing out on important skills in case I find a good weapon later on.

When you're learning the game you can probably get away with "automatic" skill training. When you're better and know what the various skills do, it's often a good idea to train one at a time - whatever is most valuable at the moment (for instance, if you want to get a certain spell castable, you should train the skills that will get you that spell). Don't worry about this too much though, you can win the game without micro managing skills.

One rule I go by is that I try to only train skills that will be useful to me right now. I will never train a skill that *might* be useful in the future. Planning too much in advance tends to make you less versatile, and you can wind up with a gimped character (eg, you train fire magic and conjurations high, but never find any high level fire spells). So, don't worry about what you might find later - focus on the stuff your character has now and train your skills according to that. If you find a cool weapon later or a powerful spell you want, then you can adapt - switch to training other skills. This is easier said than done, especially when you're still learning the game.

3: For characters that have "dodge" based skills, like the gladiator or monks, how much should you try to stick to light armours ? I was having a bit of a hard time judging where the balance is between better evasion and better armour class. Ditto for spell casters I suppose.

The choice between light and heavy armour depends on a few factors. One is aptitudes - some races are much better at dodging skill than armour skill, so it's better to train that. Another is spells - casting is easier in lighter armours (or robes, which have no penalty). There's also stealth - you can't be very stealthy if you're walking around in plate armour.

I would say that on almost every character, you want both your AC and EV to be good. Therefore, medium armours (-3 ev penalty or lower) are a good choice for most "hybrid" characters (combination of spellcasting and melee), especially in the lategame when you have access to various dragon armorus (the best armours in the game, usually). For "pure melee" builds you should wear the heaviest armour you can, unless you're a particularly dodging focused race (note, you can cast spells in heavy armour, it just takes more skill). For "pure casters" you might want to stick with a good robe (eg archmagi) because you'll hardly ever be taking any hits.

But still, it's usually good to have both stats at a reasonable level. If you have super high EV and low AC, you'll dodge most attacks but can take huge damage from some. If you have the opposite, you won't take much damage but you'll get hit all the time, and ranged attacks will be a pain in the ass.

[rebthor]

evilmike or one of the other devs, how does AC work compared to GDR? I know GDR only applies to things attacking in melee - does it apply after the damage reduction is done by AC?

[ebarrett]

The game wiki is horribly out of date.

This implies that being horribly out of date is the worst problem with the wiki, which unfortunately isn't the case.

[XuaXua]

The game wiki is horribly out of date.

This implies that being horribly out of date is the worst problem with the wiki, which unfortunately isn't the case.

Out of date implies lacking proper information to make a fully informed decision.

[tormodpwns]

evilmike or one of the other devs, how does AC work compared to GDR? I know GDR only applies to things attacking in melee - does it apply after the damage reduction is done by AC?

Not a dev, but yes GDR is applied after AC damage reduction.

As for the wiki, I think it's a great idea, just that it's unfortunately been neglected. If everyone could pitch in and really update it, it could be the greatest resource we have, especially for newbies.

[rebthor]

The problem with the wiki is not the wiki per se, it's that the game is such a moving target even today that good advice for .9 could easily be terrible advice for .10. For example, I'm playing .9 locally and just did Snake. It was a cakewalk for my DEFE because the only things that were more than mildly dangerous to me were the guardian serpents on Snake:5. Seriously, with rPois and a decent character no one should be in any danger for 1-4. From what I read and heard of trunk from 2 weeks ago, that had completely changed and it's more dangerous than shoals due to constriction. Now that constriction is changing again, it will probably be somewhere in the middle, but how do you convey that on the wiki?
Someone's going to look at the wiki after trunk launches, see that snake should be a cakewalk and then die on Snake:1 thinking, this is supposed to be easy?!

On top of that you have advice that is good for experts, advice that is good for newbies, advice that is good for everyone and terribad advice. For example the MuSu character guide on there isn't bad per se, but it's way more than a newbie needs to know in order to play a decent game as a MuSu. That guide is all about maximizing the character, but most people would get by with "If you want a MuSu, pick Sif, cast your most powerful summoning spell as much as you can, raise invocations to 4 or 8 and spam channeling since you have no hunger cost."

So yeah, editing the wiki to clean it up will help but it's not going to fix the problems. And I like the wiki and I check it all the time.

[Jeremiah]

Have scrolls of amnesia been made rarer in trunk? Currently cleared most branches down to D:24 and have not found one yet.

[PerverseSuffering]

What's the deal with acidrobin account? What's so acid and epileptic about it? Tried it, nothing!

[Mankeli]

Have scrolls of amnesia been made rarer in trunk? Currently cleared most branches down to D:24 and have not found one yet.

Or maybe you have forgotten you've found a scroll of amnesia. Oh, the irony, HarHarHar . (Just kidding).

[Confidence Interval]

Have scrolls of amnesia been made rarer in trunk? Currently cleared most branches down to D:24 and have not found one yet.

Or maybe you have forgotten you've found a scroll of amnesia. Oh, the irony, HarHarHar . (Just kidding).

I think this would be an instance of paradox rather than irony.

[runequester]

Thanks so much guys. I've been reading this forum as well, and one thing that is standing out is there seems to be very few objectively "wrong" ways to play the game. Just easier and harder. Very impressive game design then


I think I am going to stick with one race/class combo for a bit to learn faster. I did have some great work with a kobold hunter, but for now.. human fighter is where it's gonna be at for a while. Maybe pick up some spells along the way, depending on what the dungeon throws at me.

I keep getting overoptimistic and getting ganked by a horde of critters in the early dungeon levels (5-6) but I have slowly been improving my tactics and I get a bit further each time.

I'll fiddle with the skills a little, and see what ends up working well for me

[ebarrett]

The game wiki is horribly out of date.

This implies that being horribly out of date is the worst problem with the wiki, which unfortunately isn't the case.

Out of date implies lacking proper information to make a fully informed decision.

Nah, most (all?) of the advice there was dreadful even back when the corresponding info backing it up was up to date.