Does Sacrifice Courage affect spellpower?


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Dungeon Dilettante

Posts: 1

Joined: Saturday, 20th October 2018, 12:50

Post Saturday, 20th October 2018, 12:56

Does Sacrifice Courage affect spellpower?

http://crawl.chaosforge.org/Spell_Power

((Spellcasting / 2) + (2 * [average_spell_schools]) + brilliance)
* enhancers
* (Intelligence / 10)
* wild magic
* augmentation

In this formula, sacrificing courage doesn't matter with spellpower, but

Sacrifice Courage - Suffer a slaying and spellpower malus which scales with the number and strength of opponents in your line of sight. Penalties begin when more than one tough monster or a single nasty monster is visible, and becomes more pronounced as more opponents appear.

Which is correct?

Slime Squisher

Posts: 368

Joined: Thursday, 11th April 2013, 21:07

Post Saturday, 20th October 2018, 13:50

Re: Does Sacrifice Courage affect spellpower?

gemini wrote:Which is correct?

Sacrifice Courage - Suffer a slaying and spellpower malus which scales with the number and strength of opponents in your line of sight. Penalties begin when more than one tough monster or a single nasty monster is visible, and becomes more pronounced as more opponents appear.
This is correct.

When taken, Sacrifice Courage grants the mutation MUT_COWARDICE. MUT_COWARDICE ultimately sets the HORROR_PENALTY_KEY prop depending on the relative threat level of the enemies in your LOS, which in turn sets a variable malus to your slaying and your spellpower that gets worse when more threatening enemies are present.


In general, if something you read in-game (or written by a knowledgeable player or dev) contradicts the chaosforge wiki, you should assume the chaosforge wiki to be wrong. It is poorly maintained, and was a notorious repository for bad information even when it was better maintained.


Better resources are the in-game help lookup (press ?/ ingame) which is actually pretty good these days, the learndb (please note: the learndb is sometimes outdated and full of in-joke entries), the various knowledge bots (sequell, beem, etc.), and UV4's guide for new players.

[If you really, *really* want accurate information about the nuts and bolts behind the game, the best way is to search the code in the Crawl git repository, but this isn't at all needed to play the game.]

For this message the author Implojin has received thanks: 5
duvessa, gemini, nago, RoGGa, Yermak

Tartarus Sorceror

Posts: 1739

Joined: Tuesday, 13th March 2012, 02:48

Post Sunday, 21st October 2018, 14:23

Re: Does Sacrifice Courage affect spellpower?

Since this is the advice thread...

I've never taken sac courage.
Spoiler: show
I'm too scared.
Should I try it?

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 8786

Joined: Sunday, 5th May 2013, 08:25

Post Sunday, 21st October 2018, 15:14

Re: Does Sacrifice Courage affect spellpower?

It's better than rejecting sacrifices but not particularly great imo, unless you also sacrifice experience in which case it gives a crazy amount of piety.

Cocytus Succeeder

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Joined: Sunday, 18th December 2011, 13:31

Post Monday, 22nd October 2018, 07:46

Re: Does Sacrifice Courage affect spellpower?

I think sac courage it's a great sac to take, as while giving not very high piety it also have less or not drawbacks: if you have more than -2 you shouldn't fight, you should flee\change positioning.

Actually it's the best sac for a new player, it's like activating a visual warning of how bad\good the situation is.
screw it I hate this character I'm gonna go melee Gastronok

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 4432

Joined: Friday, 8th May 2015, 17:51

Post Monday, 22nd October 2018, 10:53

Re: Does Sacrifice Courage affect spellpower?

I dislike sac courage very much as it makes trivial monsters not trivial and dangerous monsters extremely dangerous.
For instance, I can have a high damage weapon and/or high defense and/or use consumables but I still suffer from negative slaying. It's especially obvious when I am in a corridor fighting a pack of Yaks with Makhleb and/or vampiric weapon and suddenly I am in trouble because of -3 slaying and have to run away to survive.
Underestimated: cleaving, Deep Elf, Formicid, Vehumet, EV
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Twin account of Sandman25

Cocytus Succeeder

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Joined: Sunday, 18th December 2011, 13:31

Post Monday, 22nd October 2018, 11:26

Re: Does Sacrifice Courage affect spellpower?

VeryAngryFelid wrote:I dislike sac courage [...] fighting a pack of Yaks with Makhleb


I spot some problems with this statement.
screw it I hate this character I'm gonna go melee Gastronok

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VeryAngryFelid

Ziggurat Zagger

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Joined: Friday, 8th May 2015, 17:51

Post Monday, 22nd October 2018, 11:50

Re: Does Sacrifice Courage affect spellpower?

nago wrote:
VeryAngryFelid wrote:I dislike sac courage [...] fighting a pack of Yaks with Makhleb


Right, my bad, I am not suggesting to abandon Ru for Makhleb in Lair :)
Underestimated: cleaving, Deep Elf, Formicid, Vehumet, EV
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Cocytus Succeeder

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Joined: Saturday, 2nd February 2013, 09:52

Post Monday, 22nd October 2018, 16:47

Re: Does Sacrifice Courage affect spellpower?

duvessa wrote:It's better than rejecting sacrifices but not particularly great imo

For the sake of those readers who don't speak greatplayerspeech fluently, I provide a translation: "not particularly great" means "it's awful, don't ever do it, you'll make your life miserable".

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 8786

Joined: Sunday, 5th May 2013, 08:25

Post Monday, 22nd October 2018, 20:23

Re: Does Sacrifice Courage affect spellpower?

Like Implojin and nago pointed out, the penalty is actually very small. The reason I say it's not particularly great is that it doesn't give all that much piety (aside from the sacrifice experience special case) - it gives 25 and if you take 25 piety sacrifices all day it'll take ages to get to 160. Combining it with experience gives you a +15 piety bonus for a total 40, which is substantially better.*
If I believed it were awful I'd have no problem calling it awful, like I do with sacrifice drink, sacrifice words, sacrifice artifice, and sacrifice love.

*Yes I know Ru piety gain is slightly randomized

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