Rod Acquirement (split from GDD)

[dck]

Not much more to say. If acquiring "staff" under Trog always results in a rod, why not just say so in the acquirement menu? We modify the acquirement menu for Fedhas, turning "food" into "fruit," could we do it for Trog?

Wow... I didn't know rod is guaranteed with Trog. It could make some games much easier.

Acquiring wands is still the best option in most situations since a stick of fast is even more important for a Be than it is for anyone else.

[duvessa]

one time I used staff of channeling in a trog game for MP to use staff of dispater

[Sandman25]

Acquiring wands is still the best option in most situations since a stick of fast is even more important for a Be than it is for anyone else.

True, but there can be different games. In one I acquired invisibility (unknown) + fireball (known) instead of hasting, in another I had 2 wands of hasting and scroll of acquirement. Guaranteed rod can be very useful.

[dck]

Guaranteed can still be striking.

[Psiweapon]

On Rods in General:
Rods are awesome. Most of them are death on a stick. Good use of evocations means that even a "pure melee" - that is, no spellcasting, no school skills - is actually a MAGITECH HYBRID.

On Rod Acquirement:
Trog isn't the only situation where you are nearly guaranteed to get a rod through the staff option of a scroll of acquirement. I do it regularly with fighters of Okawaru: I always ask for a staff (read: rod) when acquiring and put them to good use. Other character set-ups could also conceivably use that option: Death or abyssal knights sticking to melee come to mind, but of course, any character can be as preposterous and convoluted as the player likes it to be, for as long as the RNG (read: Xom or Armok, your preference) lets said character live.

So, switching "staff" to "rod" because of Trog, no. Switching "staff" to "rod" because of Evocations skill at 13 and conventional spellcasting skills at 0, yes.

On Rod of Striking:
Not that bad. I got it yesterday while in ZoT, and while it paled in comparison to the other weapons I had, it could be used to successfully damage and kill shadow dragons, orb guardians and whatnot.

If I had gotten it earlier, I would certainly have whipped it out to strike some baddies down. It isn't a bad item by itself, it is simply often redundant by the time you get your hands on it. But yes, the set of circumstances that would be required for it to be truly useful is rather convoluted (generated early, character with both evocations and maces&flails, used against enemies you don't have a weapon custom-tailored to splat them into a messy pulp)

[dck]

I won a game using striking from very early D and it's good for a really really narrow type of DD and useless (worse than the alternatives) for anyone else.

Rods are cool, I get that. The three great wands are hugely more powerful than any rod you have a really high chance of getting them regardless of what you've ID'd or not.
Yes some times you'll get magic darts, it doesn't matter, wand acq is still good shot at tremendous increment of power that doesn't require any skill investment at all.

[jsmith]

I always go for rods until I get deflect missiles. I probably don't use haste, etc enough, but I find there is a sizable portion of the dungeon where deflect missiles is needed before almost every fight.

[rebthor]

I always go for rods until I get deflect missiles. I probably don't use haste, etc enough, but I find there is a sizable portion of the dungeon where deflect missiles is needed before almost every fight.

This isn't even close to true.

[Sandman25]

Right, there is no tool which is needed, but Deflect Missiles is very useful for high EV character with low HP.

[daggaz]

Right, there is no tool which is needed, but Deflect Missiles is very useful for high EV character with low HP.

Huh. I always found that my high AC no EV tanks needed it more, even with the significant hp advantage over a KoAs for example. With EV at 35+, a pack of yaktaurs just whiff pretty much every shot, saves on the conservation slot as well for the most part.

[Sandman25]

I treat EV 20+ as high EV. I mean if player has EV 10, Deflect Missiles does not help much because

  Code:

If you have Deflect Missiles running, the to hit number is reduced to a random number between 0 and 2/3 of its value.

http://crawl.chaosforge.org/To_hit#Mons ... 8Ranged.29