Noise

[treerex5]

So how exactly does noise work? What does it do for me and against me? How can I manipulate it?

I'm asking you guys because i've learned not to trust badwiki.

[tasonir]

Most spells and melee combat make noise. Things can make noise at two locations, typically you + the target. Most spells are only moderately loud, but there's some notably very loud spells (fireball, most lightning spells, shatter, any sort of "storm"). Ranged weaponry makes relatively low noise (moderate noise at your location, low noise at target). I'm not entirely sure how melee noise scales, or precisely how loud it is, but in general it scales with how hard you hit and it's mediumish to loud at higher damage. Successful stabs are always entirely silent.

That's about all you really need to know, if you want to play with it a bunch, run a couple of stabbers. Most other characters don't really need to watch noise much, outside of mages who might be spamming fireball should be aware that more creatures will be on their way soon.

[njvack]

Also, monsters generally walk towards noise. Also also, walls greatly reduce sound.

The best way to know how loud you're being is: when something happens, and "you hear a shout," that thing was loud. If you hear a bunch of shouts, it was probably very loud.

Orc is a great place to pay attention and learn sound mechanics, because everyone shouts and the levels are pretty open.

Sometimes being noisy is a good plan, because it can lure nasties out of a tight cluster in a vault and let you deal with them on your own terrain. Elf:$ is probably my best example of that. (Of course, good advice is usually not to do Elf.)

The general guideline is "does me walking to the place where the nasties are put me in more danger than those nasties wandering around awake would?" So some rune vaults and the end of Orc are possible candidates as well.

[Wahaha]

The loudest melee hits make noise up to a few tiles further than LOS.

[nago]

I think the wiki page about noise is decently accurate and you should read it to get at least the general idea of how it works - I don't know if the number are exact of made up, but the general explanation and example should be good.

Also, remember some branch are sensibly louder (e. g. Lair or orc) while other quieter (e. g. Tomb) so some action could be unnoticed more than normal by monster outside of Los, or the contrary.

At least from my experience, the best way to see how effectly noise from own actions works directly in game is to worship ash: is passive monster detection and obviously scying let to see directly the effect of noise, even behind wall.
To get even a better idea you could try with a meele guy and some different school blaster guy (e.g. Ice and fire)

[bcadren]

General Advice: Doors block sound. Not completely, but they cause it not to travel as far past them. In places with a lot of doors, it's generally a good call to close nearby doors before use really loud spells if you don't want things to notice you.

Do note that being noisy can be helpful; as it causes enemies to come to you, which can make it easy to control the location you fight or get the best use out of your Oklobs (Fedhas Madash), etc.

[Zargon]

Some more points about noise:

1) Different branches have different ambient noise - the higher the ambient noise, the less noise carries, e.g. Lair has high ambient noise (due to all that baa-ing, croaking, hissing and snoring?), so noise carries less, whereas the tomb and crypt are deathly quiet, so noise carries further. This is why your stealth level can myseriously change between branches.

2) Some spells make more noise at the caster's end than you might think (e.g. haste, borgnjor's, death's door, necromutation are all "a bit loud"), so be sure to check out the noise levels of spells that you're planning to use with stealthy characters. I didn't do this before I hasted myself before a stab attempt on TRJ, and was rather surprised when he woke up...

3) The harder you hit things in melee, the more noise you make.

4) Large rocks are very noisy on landing (javelins less so), and bows, crossbows are a bit noisy on firing.

5) Perma-walls completely block noise, non-perma walls attenuate it (but not completely)