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

[Jeremiah]

A related question: when determining whether Mennas or other holies is neutral, is the check only made once when you first see it, or could you increase your piety and come back later and find it was now neutral?

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

The first time. If he refuses to salute you, then...

[Daydreamer]

In 0.9 at least, it seems to check whenever you're in his view. Messing with it in wizmode if you increase your piety with Mennas there he will go neutral. Interestingly, decreasing your piety doesn't seem to turn him hostile again, though being excommunicated does. Don't know if this has been changed in Trunk.

Edit: Question of my own. Are needles of sickness actually useful in any way? Oka does seem to like providing them.

[cerebovssquire]

Sickness stops natural regeneration so in theory they make poison better.
They're very weak though.

[mageykun]

^Best used against things with rapid regeneration where kiting with poison needles alone isn't effective.

[Daydreamer]

Ahh, I didn't think of using them with poison. Slightly less useless than I thought then! Thanks!

[Stormfox]

On a similar note, an enslaved komodo dragon is like sickness needles with a real physical damage component. I've taken down hydras (small ones, anyhow) with one.

[sir_laser]

How good are the spells in the book of callings?

[cerebovssquire]

Summon Small Mammals - very strong for a level 1 spell, not quite as good as it used to be but still a free ticket to D:7 at least.
Call Imp - normal imps aren't too great but white/shadow/iron imps deal good damage, so it's still a very good spell. In the Wizard book it works beautifully with Mephitic Cloud.
Summon Canine Familiar - while not too strong till you get high spellpower, in which case Scorpions or Ice Beasts will probably be superior, it is the only way for a summoner (other than Shadow Imps) to get allies that sense invisible. So it's still a reasonable pick for Erica, orc wizards, Erolcha, Sigmund, etc...
Summon Ice Beast - in a word: great. Stack for awesome elemental damage.
Summon Scorpions - the hostile scorps are barely a problem because a) they die quickly to non-hostile ones and b) it's only a couple scorpions, come on. It can be used to stack up great amounts of poison and remains useful for a large portion of the game. You can kill even very strong non-rPois stuff with this (I really, really want to kill Antaeus with this spell one day ). Probably don't use at Fair success with basically no power but a bit later on it is a definite pick on most of my summoners.

Yeah, the book doesn't really have many bad spells.

[PerverseSuffering]

At what level does Stabbing make question-marked enemies pillowcase-y? I find stabbing ogres that don't see me very ineffective, since the damage kind suck and they retailiate the moment I hit them (seriously, they're darn OGRES, how would they hit a Spriggan they have just spotted, on the first try?). I usually leave my Stabbing at 8-9, that is.

[mageykun]

You need lots of stabbing to reliably one shot "?" enemies.

Assuming you're using a dagger: I find 5-10 stabbing is probably enough to kill most "normal" things if asleep- things with big hp scores or enough armor will survive. This is probably good enough for characters who take stabs of opportunity, but for whom stabbing is not their primary source of damage. Primary stabbers should get up to 13-15, which lets you deal consistently with bigger things (up to Geryon, maybe Mennas if you're lucky). 20s and above makes hp juggernauts like Mennas stabbing "safe".

Now, if we go downgrade to question mark stabs? You can expect things you could just barley kill with a sleep stab to take 3-5 successful confuse stabs to kill, on average. So to one shot ?-stab 'normal' things, you'll need stabbing in the teens. For the bigger things you'll need stabbing in the twenties. And you'll never be able to reliably one shot higher end threats with confusion stabbing.

(Please note that these numbers are subject to wild ball-parking of my own experiences into something comprehensible, I'm ignoring brands, buffs, and slaying bonuses, and I'm lumping an entire dungeon's worth of diverse threats into 3 tiers of stabbing types for convenience. This is not an equation driven tutorial, its a thumbnail sketch of expectations drawn on the back of an envelope. So take it as you will).

[Moose]

I am playing some monks now, and I notice that I now have a defensive attack that will "furiously retaliate" when enemies attack me ... What exactly is this, and why does my monk get it? I love it! How can I make it happen more often, and make it do more damage?

[TehDruid]

I am playing some monks now, and I notice that I now have a defensive attack that will "furiously retaliate" when enemies attack me ... What exactly is this, and why does my monk get it? I love it! How can I make it happen more often, and make it do more damage?

First off, It's not a Monk ability. It's a Minotaur ability that isn't even dependant on UC skill so you don't have to be a Monk to make good use of it. It was made in an attempt to diversify the 3 dominant fighter-centered species (Minotaurs-Hill Orcs-Mountain Dwarves). Not sure if it makes it to the final release of 0.10 but I guess it will?

Anyway, you get a (STR+DEX)% chance of retaliating whenever you dodge an attack by an opponent that's adjacent to you. It can only happen once per turn per opponent and it's the regular headbutt auxiliary attack of Horns 2 as far as I'm concerned in terms of damage.

[Jeremiah]

I like the retaliate ability and think it would be great if Tengu had it as well.

[defen]

Is rPois less than 100% effective in 0.10? I keep getting poisoned by assorted critters and venom-branded weapons despite a ring of poison resistance.

[robulon]

Yeah I think it's only 90% effective vs attacks and poison spells but 100% vs clouds, potions, chunks, and maybe also poisoning due to Olgrep's Toxic Radiance(?).

[Roderic]

How is a Zin-dazed being affected ? Is it a mild confusion ?

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

The opponent "fumbles in shallow water" from time to time.

[Confidence Interval]

I'm a Spriggan Enchanter. I've found a gold dragon armour. Spriggans can wear this, which alone makes it an unusual piece of armor. But is there any point in me even trying to wear it, as a high-EV low-strength sneaky stabbing spellcaster?

A one-word answer would be fine.

[mageykun]

No.

Or in three words:

Massive stealth penalty.

[sir_laser]

Bolt of Cold vs Freezing Cloud? What are the pros and cons of each?

[eeviac]

what does the {=f} brand on the starting stalker dagger mean?

[mageykun]

I was trying to be concise for once! But yeah, mm is right- there are lots of reasons not to wear that GDA.

what does the {=f} brand on the starting stalker dagger mean?

It's not a brand, just an inscription. It acts as a kind of flag or marker. It makes it so the dagger will never auto-quiver- this makes it much less likely you'll accidentally throw your mele weapon at something.

Believe it or not, throwing your weapon away is sometimes a problem for dagger users, especially ones that swap between launchers and daggers. Imagine you're firing away with your blowgun, and you run out of needles, don't notice, and then fire the next thing automatically queued up- your dagger! Oops, no more ranged weapons, and no mele weapon either! Sucks to be you. That's why the game now puts a {=f} on there for you. You can still throw your dagger if you want, but you'll have to manually quiver it first, or throw with F.

For added paranoia, you can also inscribe {!f}, which will force a prompt before throwing the inscribed item. Personally, I've been putting {!f, =f} on my daggers for a long time. (Note you have to add the inscriptions one at a time. If you inscribe both markers at once it won't work. :p).

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

Bolt of Cold vs Freezing Cloud? What are the pros and cons of each?

Bolts (Bolt of Fire, Bolt of Cold, Bolt of Draining, Bolt of Venom...) are usually "penetration-branded". That means a magical bolt can hit more than one enemy in a row.
Bolt of Cold might be especially effective in areas full of shallow and/or deep water, because it creates freezing clouds when it flies over water.
However, it hits only once unless the enemy somewhy stays in the "awakened" freezing vapour.

Freezing Cloud is harder to control, and using it in close range is very risky.
However:
it is smite-targetable (it can be "placed" on every tile you can see, and transparent walls are no trouble),
the clouds linger longer (they become "floors of lava" for the opponents, since no monster with at least a pinch of intelligence will voluntary walk into the cloud unless he is already being frozen by them),
and they hit many times, especially in corridors.
However, they block the path for you as well, they are hard to protect against (you need from two to three levels of cold resistance to walk through them, and even then your potions are in peril), and you cannot combine clouds with other clouds (Conjure Flame, Mephitic Cloud, Poisonous Cloud and anything else will not replace the existing freezing vapour clouds). The last disadvantage, however, can be an advantage -- read about it in PROTIPS forum topic in Dungeon Crawling Advice branch.

[nicolae]

somewhy

I'm going to steal this word.

it is smite-targetable (it can be "placed" on every tile you can see, and transparent walls are no trouble),

Ah, this particular bit of advice may be obsolete once 0.10 rolls out... smite-targeting and LOS-targeting don't go through glass walls anymore. Too much potential for abuse. (Fortunately monsters can't smite through walls either, so, silver lining right?)

[MyOtheHedgeFox]

Well, it is still useful: you don't need to remove spectral orcs to get to Josephine.

[XuaXua]

IMPORTANT ONE

I am being attacked by an Invisible Stalker.
I have a reaching weapon.
I have scrolls of fog.

I use the scrolls of fog and can identify the target.

How do I attack the "disturbance" with my reaching weapon? The system does not appear to allow it (version: Tiles, 5 beneath trunk).

[sir_laser]

The only way to get the Abyssal Rune is to spend turns in the abyss?

[Grimm]

The only way to get the Abyssal Rune is to spend turns in the abyss?

Yes. If you stay long enough it will show up. I've only seen it once; it appeared in a small vault with green crystal walls.

[CommanderC]

How do I attack the "disturbance" with my reaching weapon? The system does not appear to allow it (version: Tiles, 5 beneath trunk).

E'v'oke your weapon.

[sir_laser]

How is damage and attack speed for Staff of Wucad Mu calculated? Staff damage is apparently calculated differently from other weapons since it takes into account one's Evocation skill (LearnDB), but this is not an elemental staff or a regular staff.

[CommanderC]

If you use the Staff of Wucad Mu as a weapon, it is just a regular +x, +y staff, where x = min(INT-3, 22) and y = min(INT/2, 13). Your evocations skill is useful only for channeling. Melee is unaffected.

[sir_laser]

...So its an awesome weapon if the wielder has >= 26 INT?

[tormodpwns]

3 questions:

1. In which branches does Kiku not deliver corpses?
2. If you have rF++++, does that give you rF+++ against Cerebov?
3. Do enemies respawn in Zot:5 if you leave for a long time?

[mageykun]

Been messing with a few needle stabbers, and I've got some questions.

If you're trying to get needle god gifts, is there a way to game Oka/Trog into not giving you (as many) darts? I seem to remember something about keeping a certain amount of darts in inventory so they think you have "enough"...

Obviously, you want to keep a blowgun in inventory. But does having it mapped to a or b tell them it's more important? I swear the game where I had it on c I got twice as many darts as otherwise, but I'm not sure if that's just bad luck or my selection bias talking.

Also, they never gift blowguns, do they?

Honestly, having needling lumped into throwing is kind of frustrating. Things are so much easier to manage if you use any of the other launchers since you get gifts of only the right kind of ammo, and launchers to boot.

[Galefury]

...So its an awesome weapon if the wielder has >= 26 INT?

The base item is still just a staff (+5 to hit, 5 base damage), so it's not going to kill high AC enemies quickly even with +13 enchantment. You can expect to do decent damage, though. Also, you can expect to pretty much never ever miss, which makes it a great weapon against high EV enemies like Mennas.

1. In which branches does Kiku not deliver corpses?
2. If you have rF++++, does that give you rF+++ against Cerebov?
3. Do enemies respawn in Zot:5 if you leave for a long time?

1. None afaik. Kiku delivers.
2. I don't know. It doesn't really matter, though, the Sword of Cerebov effect only applies to fire damage from the sword's own flame brand. rF+++ will give maximum protection against Fire Storm. In melee, SH, EV and AC will help much more than the difference between rF++ and rF+++ would.
3. Some enemies will spawn if you stay on a level. Enemies never respawn, though. Randomly rolled new enemies are spawned, and only while you are actually on the level. After many turns on a level, stronger enemies are spawned. Finally, no more enemies are spawned as an anti scumming measure.


mageykun: needling used to have its own skill, but it got scrapped. Inventory slots don't affect god gifts. No blowgun gifts. I have no idea if lugging darts around will help your needle chances.

[eeviac]

Anyone here familiar with Connectbot? I play on CAO via my Droid and, while a bit awkward, it's 100% playable - EXCEPT - the 'shop/portal' and 'tree' characters screw up the display. Makes fighting in a forest nearly impossible. Anyone know of a Connectbot setting that could fix this, or maybe a dcss config line that would change those particular characters?

As an aside, any updates on a proper droid port?


'nother question: do str/int/dex/wizardry/char level/ring of ice/anything else besides evocations have any effect on evoked items?

[sir_laser]

If I have an artifact w/ +Blink that I can evoke @ Excellent, should I forget the spell Blink? Or is that a bad idea?

[greepish]

Blink is only 2 spell slots, I wouldn't bother. Unless that artifact is something you're going to put on and never take off.

'nother question: do str/int/dex/wizardry/char level/ring of ice/anything else besides evocations have any effect on evoked items?

Decks of cards: nemelex piety
Elemental summons (e.g. bottled efreet): Spell element.

That's it I think.

[tormodpwns]

Two more questions:

1. Is there any effect for quaffing a potion of experience at Level 27?
2. What is the effect of wielding a lajatang with a shield?

[randoark]

Two more questions:

1. Is there any effect for quaffing a potion of experience at Level 27?
2. What is the effect of wielding a lajatang with a shield?

1) Yes, you get to apply the experience to the skills menu like usual.

2) Halved base damage. No bueno.

[CommanderC]

Anyone know of a Connectbot setting that could fix this, or maybe a dcss config line that would change those particular characters?

You could use the feature option in your config file.

For example, if you want to use the unicode character 0x2240 (≀) for trees and 0x2211 (∑) for shops:

  Code:

feature = shop {x2211}
feature = tree {x2240}


[Jabberwocky]

What spells would you people recommend for attacking Elf:5? My character has a lot of nice crowd control spells like poisonous cloud, freezing cloud, abjuration and of course mephitic cloud. This character can also run really quickly and channel energy if necessary.

[Jabberwocky]

Never mind, my HeWz succeeded in nuking there way through it.

[Jabberwocky]

Really stupid question. I just downloaded trunk and I'm wondering what will happen to my MdFi's stash in the hive. Does anyone know? And another question, how does the new skill traning system work? I can't figure it out.

[mageykun]

Really stupid question. I just downloaded trunk and I'm wondering what will happen to my MdFi's stash in the hive. Does anyone know? And another question, how does the new skill traning system work? I can't figure it out.

I'm pretty sure save compatibility is broken- I mean, you're going from a game with the Hive, Mds and the old skill system to one without the Hive, Mds, and a new skill system. I'd be surprised if you could load the game at all. Go for YASD or YAVP in the version you started in.

The new skill system:

There is no xp pool to victory dance from anymore. XP is now applied to your skills as soon as you earn it.

Skills have three states you can toggle between- off (-), on (+) and focused (*). Skills that are off don't train at all (unlike the old system, where they just trained slower). Skills that are on gain xp as normal. Skills that are focused get a double share of xp. Focusing is by default disabled (so you can only toggle between on and off). Hit "tab" or "|" to enable focusing.

There are two ways to manage xp distribution, and you toggle between them with /. The default is auto. Auto works by weighting xp distribution towards skills you use. This is similar to victory dancing- skills you use more get trained more. The alternative is manual- where all skills turned on get an equal share of the xp.

The ! button is very useful- it toggles from the progress (how close a skill is to leveling) in blue, and the xp distributions (in brown). These xp distributions are what you care about- if you manage what skills are on, off and focused you can pretty much split the xp any way you want- without victory dancing.

I advise just going to your m screen, looking at the xp distributions, and watch how they change when you turn different skills off, on, or when you focus one or two, or what happens when you change distribution modes. You'll soon get the hang of it!

That's all for 0.9.1. There are further changes in trunk- you now get functional decimal levels (10 (55%) becomes 10.55, for example). Before you had to lvl a skill all the way up before you got anything for your xp, but in trunk you get rewards for even partial leveling.