I'm not entirely happy with the current situation, but I'm not sure basing Crafting off the item's original generation level would be an improvement or more intuitive, as the generation level has no other effects post-generation. (Basing it off the item kind's native level would also be non-ideal.)

Possible new approaches I would consider are 1) for Crafting scrolls to have a regular, flat power like scrolls of Fire, Ice, Genocide etc. do; or 2) for Crafting to give better results deeper in the dungeon like Acquirement does. The latter would be extremely easy to code, though I'm not sure I like that approach personally; it's still the same scroll, the same base item and the same player wherever the process happens.

From the perspective of a Craft caster using Crafting as a spell, it makes perfect sense that the spell's power scales up with CL the same way as other Craft enchantment spells; and I think the reason scrolls also use the player's level is so the spell and the scroll can share the same code more comfortably, but it shouldn't be very hard to separate the two.

I'd be happy with either of those, as long as there's potential for exciting end-game crafting with them! For example, when I finally beat the serpent and start poking around Heaven, I'd like it to be possible for my accumulated crafting scrolls to at least give me a chance of boots of Feanor or a Wild weapon.

I agree that option two is awkward; it would encourage weird or annoying play. But it would be an improvement on the current situation, so I'd be happy with it :)

A couple more options, just for fun:

3) Make Crafting still based off the player's level, but apply a multiplier to map the 1 to 50 player level range to the 1 to 127 item level range. So player level * 2.54 gives the power of the crafting scroll. Still weird to go plugging in the player's level into an equation that has nothing to do with player level, but at least the range of inputs would match.

4) Base it off fame somehow. For example, the player's max reforge power divided by 1000, capped at 127. That would get the job done, but its linearity might produce too-weak results for much of the game. Something logarithmic could fix that, like 10*ln(x/1000+1) + x / 2000, where x is the player's max reforge power.

Hi, can you tell me more about Hide in Shadows? First time I've found the 4th Rogue spellbook so I feel like a kid in a candy shop.

When I cast it, my Stealth score doesn't increase, so I assume it isn't as simple as just increasing stealth. When cast, I get periodic messages "you are hiding i n shadows" or "You are mantled in shadow from ordinary eyes!" but I don't understand what I'm actually gaining from that or how to make best use of it.

One more general question: for mid- to late game, how do you balance your build for stealth vs. offense? I'm CL 44, down to DL 59 (coffee-break). I just found Yositsune and finally swapped it in for Hithloemir which I'd worn a long time. For the time time in ages, my stealth dropped below Amber down to Heroic (though its back to Amber[25] when I cast Tread Softly). Is that below ideal? I'm getting over 730 HP damage (770 vs. evil) per turn (Sting/Careth, ring of combat, Cambeleg, Boromir, etc), both STR & DEX 18/**) - would it be better to give up some damage output to get base stealth back in to Amber.

I think it's like the ninja thing where monsters have a hard time perceiving you even if they're nearby and awake; in theory you could walk through a room full of awake monsters without being noticed, though in practice someone will likely spot you at some point. You also qualify for extra-strong criticals when you hit a monster from the shadows (though rogue crits are not quite as good as ninja crits).

On the face of it, those sound like the kind of numbers you don't have bad options with; though the raw damage number might be somewhat misleading since dual-wielding likely means somewhat lower accuracy than normal. But I doubt you need either more stealth or more offense; just make sure you have enough resists and speed and HP to avoid inconvenient deaths.

I wonder if that is similar to the Ninja 'Hide' innate, do you see a message at the bottom of your screen that says 'Hiding'? Those messages are the same that a Ninja gets.
It might not be as any source of light you carry prevents hiding as a Ninja unless you have items granting darkness. Sting grants light, and so do far too many egos and artifacts, grrr. :)

Try taking off any light and stand in a darkened area and see what happens IF you cast See in Dark first.

I am trying possessor for the first time. When inspecting an Anti-paladin corpse, the score says L22 but when I try to possess the body it says I need L33 and I can only do L25 now. Is this a bug or is it just me not understanding the mechanisms for this? Also, the csv-file for monster bodies doesn't help as much as I had hoped.

Crash bug (hang)
 

Possessing Mordred. Trying with dual Shields. First melee attack freezes the game. Reproducable

I suspect the "L22" you're looking at just indicates the object level the corpse dropped at (which will likely be the same as the dungeon level), and has nothing to do with Possessors.

Thanks, will look into it.

Just started a new Ninja, the Thieves' Hideout reward first gave me a smile and then made me want to cry. Too damned many egos give light...

-Dagger (Armageddon) (3D6) (+7,+9) {Lu|FS}

So, now the option is to give up stealth or sell it... /sigh

edit: and now the Robe Keeper of Darkness [2,+14] with its Aura of fire light that persists even after I took it off lol

This one might be of help. Never saw that before.
It has zero weight!

Startup crash bug
 

Switching from my triple screen setup to the laptop made it impossible to start frogcomposband.exe (windows). The culprit is the PositionX that worked in the multi-display setting

Wow. Wild is a good name.

So that character died without using it. But the next char also found one really early (from never to two in a row). He's a leprechaun so shouldn't be meeleeing, but I hit an orc and got +99 speed. Hard to not want to keep trying that.
Only happenned the once though, mostly get the "eyeEye" effect (whatever that is) and telepathy, occasionally some beserk.

Are any other differences between normal, coffe-break and instant coffe-break appart of no wilderness, and size of levels, etc? i mean more like gameplay/items/monster behaviour or placement differences? i've tried coffe-break and i knew it has also quest, fewer, but has some, but i've not found yet any gameplay/item/monster difference appart from some uniques being in the angband dungeon and not their normal quest dungeons for example. How instant coffe-break compares to that?

The differences between normal mode, coffee-break mode and instant-coffee mode are explained in various places in the help, most comprehensively at ?bk, so have a look there. There is some additional detail in the FAQ, starting at line 55.

thank you so much!

New stuff!
 

I am I the only one amazed by all the new content in this release? Monsters, dungeons, gods, items ... I'm currently posessing The Wicked Witch of the South-East after raiding Oz and the top indian mythos uniques look very interesting for a possessor and ... so much great stuff in this release!
A big thanks to you Sideways!

Wizardstaff?
 

A plain unenchanted wizardstaff is still quite valuable although it, like all others I've found in this version, lacks both Es and Dm. I find this confusing, is there any benefit for a spellcaster to wield a wizardstaff these days?

Wizardstaves have Dm, it just isn't indicated for characters who don't get any benefits from it; seeing the Es/Dm flags on items that didn't actually help a character in any way was even more confusing than the current situation, especially for classes who could use Es/Dm but only if they got them from a special class item.

The object valuation algorithm can see the hidden Dm, and scores the wizardstaff accordingly.

Thanks! I thought while posessing eg Saruman I would benefit but it seems not

Unlimited Heal Self on Grand Inquisitor
 

when possessing Grand Inquisitor it has no SP. Heal Self costs 55 but heals 250 so effectively you get unlimited 250 hp healing as long has he is above 54 hp when casting. Nice! Intented?
(Edit: net 195 hp);

I doubt it's intentional, seems like an oddity I'll blame on Chris; though it's not that different from sorcery blood-mages recharging staves of healing from HP.

Possessing a Munchkin!
 

I don't usually play Munchkin but possessing one is fair play. No?
Feels a bit like cheating, *everything* is boosted except maybe hp, even device usage: all my wands and staves are 1% fail. And invisible + passwall on top of that of course.



http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=23891

I used Dionysos to raid Angband 98 until I found Combat-Echizen which I killed quite easily (!!!) with devices and disappearing in the rock when he was invulnerable. Then quickly I unpossessed the Munchkin to take over Echizen and ... I'm too pathetic (level) to do it! So I'm stuck with a storm troll or maybe the Hru until I level up a bit. But after that, there will be rockets... [BTW - it was NOT a guaranteed drop so you can imagine my excitement and then disappointment]

Mount Meru surprise #1
 

On top of all the new enemies, I've now discovered the horror of asphyxiation. Never saw that attack before! I really like the new mechanic - not insta-kill but potentially a huge problem. Also, cure and healing won't make it go away since it is not yourself (unless being a skeleton ...I guess) that has a problem but ...

Lol! I finally beat they guy and now has his space suit which eliminates the problem if worn, should it happen again! Love it!

Another quick question - is the power level of a spell on a staff comparable to the power level of a spell from a spellbook? For example, can I compare power level of a Staff of Slowness to the power level of the Entanglement Nature spell to see which will be more effective? Or a staff of Sleep compared to the Sorceror spell Mass Sleep? Many more examples come to mind.

Or on they on different scales from each other?

Usually you can compare them, but watch out for things like two effects that look similar without actually being identical (and remember that most spells get more powerful with CL, while most devices do not).

Rings are fun, but a little challenging in coffee break as you cannot "hover" at certain dungeon levels waiting for drops (that said CL-28 is almost average for me).

One question: is "Reforge Artifact" disabled for rings? Or had I just not done enough quests?

Reforging is disabled for rings (and death-swords and filthy rags).

Fairy nuff

Next character. Am I right in assuming while pets can evolve, possessed corpses cannot?

EXP freeze
 

It seems that my EXP have been frozen, probably a bug.

I am playing as Mimic with Phantom warrior body. On the gif below you can see that I have 659 EXP before I kill skeleton, and after I kill him I have the same amount of EXP, but it should became 94 less.

https://s8.gifyu.com/images/Oct-08-2020-10-26-41.gif

Interesting enough is that if I stop mimicking phantom warrior and kill some monsters my exp changes as expected. But if I then start mimicking another body I have in my list EXP gets frozen again.

Not a bug, just a poorly documented feature; Possessors actively occupying low-level bodies, and Mimics actively mimicking low-level creatures, cannot level up beyond a point determined by the native depth of the body. (The exact formula for calculating the highest level a body allows is a bit involved, it's here for anybody curious.)

And no, you cannot evolve a mimic or possessor body.

Hello, i have a question.

I had been recently replayed with OmnibandTK and it reminded me of how angband had multiple windows out of the main one, so you could see without having to press the corresponding key at any time what you were wearing, what you had in your inventory, etc...

Going back to Frogcomposband (i'm on a Window OS) i see that Frogcomposband has those windows (that can be enabled by Windows -> Visibility -> term0 ... to term7 ) but all of them display nothing, they're completely empty, only the main game window has actual content.

Is the functionality disabled in Frogcomposband or is it required to edit some file to have those additional windows having a purpose ?

Press = for options and then choose "Window Options".
You can then assign what you want to which window.
I typically have 4:
- Inventory
- Recall
- Monster list (which I need to look at more - so many stupid deaths)
- Messages

Thank you, can't believe i missed that Window Flags option.

Same setup I have been using. 1080p monitor. Although recently I have been thinking about moving to a 4k monitor.

Which stat does a mummy get SP and fail rates from?
Couldn't find it in the race help. Is there a table somewhere I am missing?

Charisma. It ought to be highlighted in the race help.

Ah gotcha. In purple. Missed it as assumed my SP stat would not have a -1.

Thanks again for your fantastic support of this cool game

So one thing I noticed with my demon summoner.
When things are going horribly wrong (and so I really need my human shield) when I try to move past a pet, it will not let me.
At the time I was bleeding, dazed, poisoned, and afraid (f@$#!*g boulder). The message says
So is it the fact I was afraid that I could not push past my pet (if so is it intended or a bug - e.g. fear check before pet check)? Or is it because I was dazed?

Had happenned once before, but this time I paid more attention.

There are various reasons that can happen, but in this case it was because you were dazed.

Here is a long list of Salmiak bugs and/or design notes. I apologize for the length. The new version is great and I appreciate all that you do, Sideways.


"Astral Guide" doesn't decrease teleport energy for Mirror Masters' "Warped Mirror" or "Mirror of Wandering".

Mana storms can destroy adamantite plate mail but not wooden doors. Please add a suit of armor made from doors.

Multi-hued dragons of every stripe breathe acid less powerfully than the other elements, so this might be intentional, but nevertheless does not make sense.

"Stair Creation" doesn't give a status message to indicate whether the stairs actually go up or down.

Having *Recharging* on the Stone of Sorcery is silly when the only magic realm that benefits from the stone already has the spell.

Doppelgangers mimicking humans get their racial bonus but not their racial disadvantage.

Ninja (Lawyers') Fast Walk stacks with Fleet of Foot. Mystics' Quick Approach probably should too, but doesn't.

Warrior Mages' and Monks' descriptions say they'll eventually learn every spell in their chosen realm but they often don't.

Warrior Mages don't seem to benefit from Easy Spell or Decrease Mana.

Anti-magic works on breaths.

Amulets and rings don't apply bonus damage to monster spells, and nothing applies bonus spellpower to monster spells.

Sacred Vitality only affects some healing spells and some healing potions, but doesn't affect staves or rods at all.

Skillmasters get almost double the Martial Arts AC bonus that monks do.

Uniques in capture balls act like standarts when they're misplaced or destroyed—the monster is still alive, but it won't ever respawn. Is this intended?

Ultimate Beholders' melee attack is also a ranged attack which can "bounce". This leads to weird behavior if you have reflection—what hits them isn't their own melee attack, but yours.

You can't turn off pets' debuff spells. Stealth gets hosed when your pet (or your mount) is randomly casting debuffs on sleeping monsters in line of sight. It's bad enough that pets will attack sleeping monsters in melee whenever they can.

It would be great if "upkeep" respected mana regeneration. If you manage to capture the Unicorn of Order, you can ride it around for about 30 seconds before it feels neglected and disappears.

Now that we've got multiple fishingpoles, any chance of fishingpole weaponmasters in the next release?

Items in Frog don't have level-based restrictions because that would violate the spirit of character progression: better stuff makes you stronger and being stronger lets you to find better stuff. Possessors' level restrictions seem to work against this spirit. If you kill a GWoP at level 35 and it drops a corpse, you should be able to possess it, because that's *really* impressive!

There is something completely Evil but entertaining about a Thrall Mode start.

I think I burned through 50 characters in less than double that minutes. The last one, cast Detect Monsters, only to spot some dark god that melted my brain. lol

A small quality of life request. I'd like a quicklink on the character sheet to the resistance display. Quite often when I'm gear swapping I'll access this a lot to check if everything is covered.

Thanks, will look into this.

I suspect it's not that they breathe acid less powerfully, but that armor halves acid damage, making it appear less powerful.

Never used it much myself either, but I've seen Bostock get decent use out of that stone as an endgame swap item.

Needs to be fixed, thanks.

I agree that would make sense, at least insofar as neither Fleet of Foot nor Quick Approach explicitly indicates they don't stack.

This will require some tweaks in the code, since currently Quick Approach essentially just gives temporary Fleet of Foot; but it should be easy to either use ninja-like code or simply insert a mystic hack in the walking energy calculations. The former would cause Quick Approach to give zero regen like ninja quick walk; not sure if that's desirable or not, it's somewhat out of line with the other mystic toggles but provides at least a nominal nerf.

I'll tweak the wording a bit, though there really aren't very many spells they miss out on.

To begin with I was in two minds about this; I'm pretty sure the current situation is by design rather than oversight.

But ultimately, there's probably no reason why Warrior-Mages shouldn't be allowed Es/Dm; it's thematic and gives them a bit more separation from other melee hybrid classes, without being likely to buff them too much.

The player's anti-magic barriers and psionic disruption do not work on breaths, so I assume this refers to mimics and possessors? That does seem somewhat off (especially given that it only works that way for the player), I'll look into it.

Thanks, one day I'll get around to that and other Possessor improvements like [shudder] a better average damage display.

Works fine on everything when I test it, and I've never had any problems with it in practice either. Is there some specific situation where it fails to work?

Cannot reproduce. (Note that the AC bonuses depend greatly both on CL and on which slots are empty; so a skillmaster might get double the bonus just from being more leveled-up.)

It's definitely intentional as long as the capture ball still exists and the unique is still inside it. The way the code's supposed to work is that you can't misplace or destroy a capture ball that has a unique in it without releasing the unique in the process; but (by design) nothing prevents you from filling your home with 100 capture balls with uniques in.

Thanks, there's probably also some other weirdness like this.

Maybe there should be a pet option to disallow direct attacks against sleeping monsters unless that sleeping monster is also your pets' specified target?

There probably is room for improvement here (and maybe with the high upkeep of uniques in general), I'll try to think of something some day.

I've always thought doing melee_challange entirely with a fishingpole would be fun; but fishingpole weaponmaster is a nice idea too :)

Not sure what special abilities they should have, besides presumably catching fish a bit more often...

I'm inclined to agree; but corpses are effectively also level-restricted at the other end - you can only level up so much in a low-level corpse. That is equally (or more) likely to annoy the player, but it also prevents @ from just finding one comfortable corpse and inhabiting it for the remainder of the game.

Maybe I could allow possessing high-level corpses at any CL, but make it easier to lose control of the body if @ is very low-level compared to the monster?

No. Thank you for clarifying. What I meant was, in the vanishingly rare circumstance that a Magic Mushroom or something anti-magics you so that you cannot cast spells, neither can you cast spells, nor breathe.

Arguably something should preclude you from breathing, but not that.

>It's definitely intentional as long as the capture ball still exists

What I'm saying is that it's specifically an issue when the capture ball does not exist because it was explicitly misplaced or destroyed. It's trivial to misplace or destroy a capture ball with a unique in it without releasing the unique.

>Not sure what special abilities they should have, besides presumably catching fish a bit more often...

Oh, I can help you there too.

Fishingpole masters should get a corpse 100% of the time (after all, fishingpole masters).

They should also get a fish 70-80% of the time. (let's be fair)

They should also be able to attack from 3 squares away in melee. (this honestly would not unbalance them)

I agree. This is indeed really annoying. I think dispensing with the notion that, for instance, hill orcs can't face the Serpent, but snotling tourists can, would be a step in the right direction.

Possessors are legitimately supposed to circumvent normal character progression. Let them do it!

Theft of occupied capture balls isn't adequately accounted for, I suppose; but that's a very rare occurrence. Are there any other ways this can happen?

To be sure, I've never had an occupied capture ball stolen.

But, yeah: Dropping an occupied capture ball. Destroying (for whatever daft reason) an occupied capture ball.

I'm not saying it's a problem anyone is ever likely to run into. I'm just saying.

Attempting either of those would automatically release the unique inside. (Selling a capture ball with a unique inside is also out, the shop will not accept it at all.)

Are you sure you were not also temporarily polymorphed to a different race too? Seems to always happen with magic mushroom patches.
When that happens you lose the racial 'U' skills, but still keep the class 'U' skills. Actually they are replaced by the polymorph race ones, e.g. Snotling eat corpse (just happenned to my current Draconian so fresh in my mind)

Not true. Attempting to destroy a unique'd capture ball will, indeed, release the unique. Dropping it on the ground won't. No chance of selling it (with anything in it).

Yes, budswell. I am sure. Thank you for checking.

I'll give you a tip, my friend: You can enter Frog's "wizard mode" by entering a short list of commands: "equals sign", numeral "4", "up", "right", "escape", "escape".

Control+"a".

Hey I spent like an hour in the help the other day trying to find out, What "exactly" anti-magic does. I'm playing an armor Dragon in my most recent playthrough and Whilst I've noticed it increases my saves I wondered if there was anything else it has an impact on and could not find the answer.

Anti-magic in the sense of [M gives @ a very high saving throw, but also blocks @'s own magic. The latter basically means you cannot use the m command at all unless you belong to one of a handful of classes who use m for things that aren't really magic. (It's not always entirely obvious who qualifies; ninjutsu, for instance, does get blocked by anti-magic.) In addition, [M has some niche effects like blocking certain mutations from processing randomly.

Bucephalus used anti-magic in a different sense; the monster spell conferring the No Spells status is also called anti-magic. (No Spells blocks any use of m whatsoever; it does not prevent draconians and the like from using their Breathe power, since that's used through U rather than m; but it does prevent dragon possessors from breathing, which is likely undesirable behavior.)

I should probably write a full index of object attributes with explanations some day.

Hex Magic
 

Also I was poking about on my test file exploring spell domains and...

When is the last time you went over The high-Mages Hex domain?

Because first of all, some of the spell names and descriptions are kind of a hot mess. I've attached a couple screenshots to show what I mean. on top of not really telling you what the spells do, The language used is just really confusing.

Secondly, a handful of the spells are single cast, not sustained like the rest of the domain, but nothing really indicates this except using the spell and trial and error, which isn't world ending but is also really unintuitive


Third, the order they get some things in is... Really confusing. Like they get curse weapon at level 8, but don't get Swords to Runeswords til level 25 and a book later, just leaving someone who's new to the class wondering why they would want to curse their weapon, especially when they learn it's not temporary but permanent.

As well, they get Curse armor, in the third book which allows them to curse their armor or cloak, but they only get a spell that gives them a benefit for cursing their cloak not their armor. Only to find out in the fourth book they get a spell to remove curses to restore mana (so I guess you could store extra curses on your Armor to drain for mana in fights?) They also a level 5 spell in their fourth book which is... Really weird to me?

And finally the more I dig into their spellbook the more it feels like they're trying to be a Pseudo-melee caster but as a high mage only domain They'll never really have the HP (even with their stat buff spell up) to manage more than a couple rounds up close with late game threats. It really feels like the Hex-Mage should be it's own hybrid class Especially because the whole self-cursing mechanic, while neat is really dangerous and niche and feels like it would better serve as its own thing. (also could maybe use a line in the description of the domain to explain what's going on with it)

Some players enjoy the legacy Engrish (and other bad English), and complain when I fix typos or rewrite descriptions in actual English; so I'm treating Hex as a kind of bad English sanctuary to make sure it doesn't go entirely extinct.

You are right that Hex high-mages are a melee hybrid, which is a bit odd for a high-mage; and Gwarl did do what you suggested in Composband and replaced Hex high-mages with a dedicated class, the Hexblade. The main reason I haven't followed that route is that I don't approve of Gwarl's implementation; Gwarl's hexblades are way too powerful. But it's entirely possible that one day I will accept the hexblade and just leave out Gwarl's massive buffs.

I guess I can understand players enjoying stuff like that, just... makes it really hard to know what some of those spells do. That said, I have not played composbands Hexblade so I can't really make a comparison, but my short experience with the class made it seem less like it would be challenging, and more like it would be awkward and unintuitive. and that's considering it's a melee high mage so it would also be challenging.

so Even if you don't make the Hex-mage it's own class, maybe it's be worth giving the school a once over at some point. Heck, maybe i'll do a more significant playtest at some point and see how feels on a larger scale.

So my first charcter has got the summon demon spell (Blue Mage).
Sometimes my demons (or demons summonned by my demons) "feel neglected" and then "get angry". Is there a reason this happens? (and so a way I can minimise/prevent it?)

I have never seen it with other summons, is it specifiec to Demons? Or just because chain summoning is much more common with demons?

It can happen if your pet upkeep is extremely high (which frequently happens as the result of chain summoning). Once your upkeep exceeds 484%, you'll get a red upkeep warning; and if your upkeep remains high after that your pets can start feeling neglected. The exact details of what happens are quite complicated; but basically the more your upkeep exceeds 484% by, the more likely monsters are to feel neglected; and the lower your actual mana is, the more likely such monsters will get angry.

You can avoid this by reacting to the upkeep warning and dismissing enough pets to get your upkeep back in line.

Awesome, thanks

Minor bug. Ring 'identify jewelry' power can ID morgul weapons.

That is very strange, there should be absolutely no way that could happen. Are you sure it wasn't a staff of identify or an absorbed Identify spell?

[Random] Quest completed (unrewarded)
 

I an running normal speed for once and diving the Angband dungeon. When I kill random quest monsters I get the kill but the quest remains in the Current Quests list. Also, no nice drops but not enough kills to confirm that is an issue. Right now I have Random 3 and Random 4 in the Current Quest list. E.g.

Random 3 (Lvl 28)
Quest Completed (Unrewarded)

[EDIT: It seems to concide with "software bug" crash which I got multiple times when killing e.g. Shelob. I got that on an ?artifact creation too]

Which race/class combo are you using? There are some known issues with skillmasters that might potentially cause this type of behavior sometimes (they should already be fixed in the nightly); but if your character isn't a skillmaster this is a new bug, though the problem's almost certainly combo-specific either way.

Yes, Skillmaster. High elf.

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=24090

Request: Add an option (like V angband) to favor heavier weapons instead of light?

When I think of badass warriors, I don't picture them with daggers heh. It's your baby, but would you consider adding in an Oangband equivalent option to flip that script?

I don't code, so I have ZERO clue of how much I just asked of you, lol. Apologies or thanks in advance. o7

FrogComposband does not inherently favor either light weapons or heavy weapons. On a class like warrior, both are entirely competitive throughout the game; which weapon works best for you is likely to depend on the weapon's bonuses, how it fits with your other equipment and what off-weapon boosts it receives, and unlikely to depend (much) on the weapon's weight. And I think that's how it ought to be; it means there are real choices for the player, and no weapon is automatically useless or obsolete just because it's too heavy or too light.

But there are some characters, like giant-pact warlocks and (especially) maulers, who strongly prefer to use heavy weapons; and others (duelists, ninjas, Sneaky characters) who like to use lighter stuff.

Good to know, thanks. I had assumed it was like the others, and all about light weapons and blows. These games are a lot for a newer guy like me to take in. :D

V's weapon mechanics are very different, both in terms of blow calculations and how weapons interact with your other equipment. But even in V (without the O combat option), it's only the early game where lighter weapons rule; once you approach the endgame, your best big-damage option is almost certain (far more so than in FrogComposband!) to be something big and heavy.

What is the actual effect of "Heavy Armor" red status warning?
Does the limit rise if I increase my strength (character is a Nija-Lawyer)?

The effects of heavy armor depend somewhat on your class. On Ninjas and Ninja-Lawyers specifically, heavy armor gives penalties to your stealth and speed and cancels out several class-specific bonuses you would otherwise get. Other weight-limited classes like Monks are penalized in different ways, but it's universally so bad you never ever want it. (Regardless of your class, heavy armor eliminates any extra shooting speed you might otherwise get from high Archery skill.)

The total armor weight limit is class- and CL-dependent; it does not rise with additional strength, but will go up as you gain levels.

I still would like either a 'Safe Armor Weight' indicator in the Char info or ready access to the formulas. (ie: Max Armor 14.5/20)
Knowing the start weight, per level gain, and weight cap would be very useful. Knowing the numbers for the Ninja, in no way informs a player of the numbers of a Monk, Mystic, Ninja-Lawyer, etc...

Thanks. How does it interact with race limits?
e.g. My Tomte Ninja-Lawyer should not wear helmets, so if he does are his ninja abilities affected? or does it just affect his tomte ones (not sure what they are)?

Slot limitations don't matter. No helmet is no helmet. If your maximum safe weight is say 20lbs, and you have a 20lb chestpiece on, that is all you can wear before losing your abilities.

An overweight helmet will affect both your ninja bonuses and your tomte ones; but overweight regular armor will affect the ninja bonuses only.

I'm looking at the unique kill list on the dump and there is room for a column with the character's level and the time.

Berserker Vampire and @' PermLite +
 

Hmmm, I get confused about Vampire Berserker. Inherent PermLight seems wrong. Also, I dived with a Ds lamp and ... saw nothing. Took it off and saw normally. But also, I discovered I had forgot to check other equipment and had multiple sources of PermLight including @ which seemed to be ok, no penalty except for wielding a Lu lamp (which I didn't).

What I am missing? Or is this unexpected?


http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=24128&ok

Monster-mode vampires have night vision, but "normal" vampires do not, instead they see with light-producing items and their intrinsic "light" of radius 1. Vampires (both types) start with vulnerability to light, and take damage from the sun and from lamps (that aren't dark lamps) while they remain vulnerable to light. They can use Lu items normally, and can walk in sunlight normally and even use lamps normally if their resists cancel the vLight out.

Giving night vision to normal vampires has been requested before, and I've given it some thought, but it has so far not been implemented.

Does a Ring of Wizardry (+0, +12) add to damage from offensive "spells" from a Magic Eater? I tried one on and did not see any in-game indication of +12 damage from absorbed wands of Magic Missile, Frost Bolt, etc.

No; devices absorbed by Magic-Eaters still function as devices, not as spells, so a +devicepower item would affect their power but a wizardry ring will not.

Are throwing weapons better than Slings for class with bad ranged capability?

I am doing a Hammermaster, and I decided to just use the pebbles instead of a sling. It is not bad, I get a decent range, and hit often enough, doing up to 6 damage, is not something to be discarded on early game, specially considering how little they weigh, but could I be doing better?

In general you're better off using a ranged weapon (and/or offensive devices) than throwing your projectiles; but at the very beginning (when your proficiency with a sling or a bow might be abysmally low, and you perhaps have not even found one yet) there is some allure to throwing ammo. On most characters, though, I'd view it as something you might do when you've happened to find ammo but not a sling and want to do some damage from range. Ninjas with their bonuses for throwing Iron Spikes are a special case.

The one case where I might deliberately plan to throw ammo is if I'm doing the Thieves' Hideout quest really early on some character with low HP and low offensive options otherwise, and every bit of extra damage counts; say, a squishy mage type with poor melee damage and low mana or no offensive spells yet. But mage types don't have the best throwing accuracy, so it isn't a great solution, just a better-than-nothing one.

Couple of possessor questions:
- When posessing a novice rogue why do I get the spellcasting warning when wearing glove? The body has no spells?
- For most (all?) other classes wanted corpses weigh 4 lbs. But as a possessor they seem to weigh calculated weight (50+ lbs). I get this is probably to stop possessors carrying around corposes to switch to. But doesn't seem "fair", and really a hassle if you end up with two or more wanted corpses on same dive.

Normal player rogues suffer glove encumbrance (i.e. their mana pool is reduced if they wear gloves without at least one of +Dex, +Md or Fa); and novice rogues have "rogue" as their possessor pseudo-class, so they inherit that mechanic. Note that while novice rogues don't have spells, they do have a mana pool, which they can potentially use with mutation powers or a mana-branded weapon.

Hugo has been complaining about corpse weights for years. He wants everyone to have the heavy corpses :)

One could propose a perfectly logical solution to the paradox. For wanted corpses, you only have to present "proof of death". The head is generally sufficient. But possessors need the whole body.

I think I remember reading (either the help or a Sideways post) that Igors only need to submit the ears for a bounty. Is that right?
But no other race/class can dismember corpses.

Hmm, Arrow crafters use Skeletons to make arrows, a corpse should/could contain a skeleton as well.

Yes, it's canon that the ears (or the head) are sufficient proof of a wanted kill.

Hi, I have noticed something which doesn't seem quite right (not sure if its actually a bug).

I currently have 1x see Invisible, so invisible monsters kind of flit in and out.
But I have noticed that using SHIFT-5 to centre the screen seems to re-evaluate whether I can see them or not. So combining L and SHIFT-5 (so no actual action) you can keep forcing redraws and eventually see the sneaky so&sos that you know are there.

Thanks, this look like a bug. (What keys like Shift+5 do is entirely dependent on keyboard layout, but I presume you're using it to trigger Recenter Viewport; and I can reproduce the issue using ^V.)

Playing an Igor. Just got
"Hands of Nar the Dwarf (+2)"
What is the bonus for? Other body parts usually say which stat its for.
Is it the same as when you find gloves (+1) (I don't know what that +1 is for either - had assumed martial arts)

That sounds like a to-dam bonus, it would say (+2,+0) if it were to-hit.

Double magic on the red mage is behaving in odd ways when using the repeat command. Sometimes it'll repeat both, sometimes it only repeats the first. Also seems to ignore the book inscriptions.

First Morgul I have come across since initially posting, used absorbed ID spell to initially ID all items, then ring ID power *ID*'d the morgul. Level 50 ring.

Came cross first morgul since initial post. First ID'd all items, saw a morgul and ring ID power *ID*'d it. Lvl 50 ring.

So what happens when Igors use the Head of Vecna?

Best Oberon drop in a long time + odd inscriptions
 

The king of Amber dropped more useful stuff than I've seen in a long time. Foremost of these, his crown and three shiny rings of power. A bit strange though, only Nenya got his name in the inscription, all others and the crown just got the "level guardian"

That's an absurd drop! Though increased item drops in instant-coffee, and increased likelihood of rings from tailoring rewards for a dragon, do make the odds much better than they'd normally be.

The items marked as "dropped by level guardian" were your quest rewards for completing the Oberon quest; while the items marked as "dropped by Oberon, King of Amber" were just normal monster drops.

The total result after looting was a huge upgrade to my melee which was far from end game class and 10 more base speed with similar resist except 3 immunities vs 1-2 pip of res