Questions (first picture, armor malus, Trog useless gifts)

[Morosgovanyi]

1- who are the big monster and the female wizard in the picture you see when starting the game? Sigmund and Sonia?
2- do armours have some hidden malus (i.e: attack speed, attack accuracy)? in case they haven't, then what would be the point in non wearing a plate mail as soon as possible, for a "tank" char who only wants to specialize in armor skill (and not in dodge)?
3- why the hell Trog keeps giving me useless gifts? I mean: I use just maces, and try to never carry any other weapon in my backpack (no slings, no crossbows, no swords..).. why Trog gifts are often crossbows, slings and axes?

Thanks!

[Morosgovanyi]

2. Then I think those to hit and speed malus should be put in the item description!

Thank you!

Another question: if I see Nessos, I manage to polymorph it into let's say a Komodo Dragon (unable to use the fire bow).. what about the xp gain after I kill him?
Do Nessos give more xp than Nessos, the Komodo Dragon?

[KoboldLord]

Polymorph and Degeneration will change the xp you get for the kill, either raising or lowering it. Polymorphing uniques will typically lower you gain, because they have unusually high xp values. This is typically not worth worrying about, however, because you won't typically go through an entire game with enough poly charges to affect sufficient targets to seriously affect your xp gain.

Be aware that polymorphed uniques will still have all of their spells. Much fun can be had by polymorphing high-end uniques, by which I mean self-hasting quicksilver dragons. For more easily-accessible fun, try polymorphing Sigmund into a jelly and letting him eat some floor trash.

[Morosgovanyi]

Polymorph and Degeneration will change the xp you get for the kill, either raising or lowering it. Polymorphing uniques will typically lower you gain, because they have unusually high xp values.

So, in the example above..

Nessos (normally a centaur warrior) normally gives 949 xp; just a little more than a normal centaur warrior (946 xp). (btw: why so few xp?? that bastard is one of the nastiest uniques ever)


Will morphing him into "Nessos, the Komodo Dragon" result in changing its xp value to 313 (normal Komodo Dragon xp value).. or something more?

[mageykun]

You'd the get lower Komodo dragon xp. It's worth it smoosh Block the bee larva, though. XD

Seriously though, it's really not worth worrying about the xp loss by polmorphing things into something weaker. After all, you're really only poly-ing things that are are too dangerous with hands to hold their wands or weapons- you zap them hopping they'll drop their stuff. Or at least become something more squishable (a goblin with good gear is still a goblin). It's not worth getting killed by a hail of poisonous flaming Nessos arrows just for a little xp.

Of course, the poly strategy is not without risk. You could always make something worse. In particular, a lot of the early uniques can get turned into generic humans, which actually seems to make them tougher (nevermind turning things into rampaging dragons...).

[tormodpwns]

Right, the polymorph result depends on monster hit dice, so you don't want to polymorph stuff like elephant slugs. Also, you shouldn't really have to worry about whether to polymorph Nessos because unless your Evocations skill is sky-high, you won't be able to bypass his high magic resistance easily.

[Jenx]

I'd like to point out that Trog is not in fact a jerk. He's just kind of a moron. He gifts you something reasonably awesome, and then proceeds to just dump junk and weapons you can't use on you (why do I need a bow, Trog, when i'm a small blades using spriggan?). So I imagine he's just kind of dimwitted.

Now, Okawaru on the other hand....

[szanth]

Yeah Okawaru happily gives you +0 bucklers, but only after you already have a +2 buckler of reflection.

[mageykun]

Trog doesn't give useless gifts, he gives you options.

[tormodpwns]

And it's not random, it's something like (wskill/all wskill+8) chance to get a weapon of the same skill as wskill. So the more widespread your weapon skills, the more varied your gifts will be. And there's always a chance to get a weapon other than your focus no matter what.

[Morosgovanyi]

2. Armor with an evasion penalty will slightly reduce your attack speed and accuracy. If you're using unarmed combat, this penalty is more significant.

Are you guys sure about this?
Maybe I'm wrong, but I have the feeling I read on rec.roguelikes google group that in the last version of the game those hidden malus have been removed, and now the only malus is the one shown (evasion).

[Kate]

Armour doesn't affect your attack speed except for unarmed now, yeah.

[Morosgovanyi]

Armour doesn't affect your attack speed except for unarmed now, yeah.

So if I want to train armor there's no point in waiting to equip that plate mail I found on 1st dungeon level?

[galehar]

Armour doesn't affect your attack speed except for unarmed now, yeah.

So if I want to train armor there's no point in waiting to equip that plate mail I found on 1st dungeon level?

If you want to go heavy armour, you should put on the plate mail as soon as you find it. I wish that weren't the case. I'd rather have players use medium armours to train their armour skill and switch to plate only when sufficiently skilled. But I digress, this is off-topic.

[Morosgovanyi]

Armour doesn't affect your attack speed except for unarmed now, yeah.

So if I want to train armor there's no point in waiting to equip that plate mail I found on 1st dungeon level?

If you want to go heavy armour, you should put on the plate mail as soon as you find it. I wish that weren't the case. I'd rather have players use medium armours to train their armour skill and switch to plate only when sufficiently skilled. But I digress, this is off-topic.

Why? The malus in wearing a bigger armor is just the ev penality.. and you don't need that.

[galehar]

If you want to go heavy armour, you should put on the plate mail as soon as you find it. I wish that weren't the case. I'd rather have players use medium armours to train their armour skill and switch to plate only when sufficiently skilled. But I digress, this is off-topic.

Why? The malus in wearing a bigger armor is just the ev penality.. and you don't need that.

I'm not sure what you mean. My point is that there isn't enough drawbacks in choosing heavy armour over medium armour, even when unskilled. You might get an EV penalty, but who cares when you have great AC and GDR? Now that the medium armour are usable because of having a decent GDR, I'm considering increasing the to_hit penalty. This way, you would need decent skill to use plate effectively, and in the mean time, you would use medium armour.
My second point was that this is off-topic, and if you guys are interested in discussing this, we should take it to the design forum.

[Morosgovanyi]

So there is a hidden malus -> accuracy?

[galehar]

So there is a hidden malus -> accuracy?

Yes. But it's only 1d(AEVP) (I think), so quite insignificant.

[danr]

Perfect, I've been wanting some help figuring this out anyway.

Yes, there is (in 0.7.1 at least) a to-hit penalty based on your armour and shield EV penalties. In fight.cc:3808:

  Code:

void melee_attack::calc_player_armour_shield_tohit_penalty(bool random_factor)
{
    if (weapon && hands == HANDS_HALF)
    {
        player_armour_tohit_penalty =
            maybe_roll_dice(1, player_body_armour_penalty, random_factor);
        player_shield_tohit_penalty =
            maybe_roll_dice(2, player_shield_penalty, random_factor);
    }
    else
    {
        player_armour_tohit_penalty =
            maybe_roll_dice(1, player_body_armour_penalty, random_factor);
        player_shield_tohit_penalty =
            maybe_roll_dice(1, player_shield_penalty, random_factor);
    }
}

So the penalty is a die roll based on each of your EV penalties. The shield EV penalty to hit is doubled if using a 1.5 handed weapon with a shield.

The shield and armour penalties themselves are calculated in player.cc starting around line 2049, but I can't figure it out, mostly because a "scale" variable is used that I don't know what it is.

I'd like to figure this out so I can add it to my weapon damage calculation spreadsheet.

[galehar]

So the penalty is a die roll based on each of your EV penalties. The shield EV penalty to hit is doubled if using a 1.5 handed weapon with a shield.

The shield and armour penalties themselves are calculated in player.cc starting around line 2049, but I can't figure it out, mostly because a "scale" variable is used that I don't know what it is.

I'd like to figure this out so I can add it to my weapon damage calculation spreadsheet.

Nice thread highjacking
The scale variable is used only to avoid rounding down errors, because we use integers all over. We do all calculations at a factor of 100, and we divide the result at the end (which is in a different function). So, you can just ignore it and assume everything is done with float.

Henzell says that :
AEVP = [base_penalty + max(0, 3*base_penalty - str)] * [45 - armour_skill]/45
ASEVP = base penalty - (shield skill / (5 + size factor))
Seems there is also an extra delay when using a shield. Haven't look at that code yet.
I've made a little chart of the evasion penalties. For shields, I have only done normal size. For armour, I have assumed no extra penalty from low str (str>=3*EVP). As you can see, plate unskilled AEVP is 6, and I think 1d6 penalty to hit isn't much.