[Announce] PosChengband 4.0.0 Released

[debo]

Originally Posted by Tulip

The Q ghost can eat wanted corpses.

It's terrible.

I think you mean "it's appalling"

[HugoVirtuoso]

Want to know what's appalling ? -> A lowly Giant slug can destroy PDSMs!! This personally happened to me during a PosChengband compo a year ago. That was the one and only time I ever found PDSM in my entire history of playing PosChengband or any Angband variant to this day!

[caruso]

Originally Posted by Regalia

If I may, um, interject .

Yes, you may

Originally Posted by Regalia

You mean something like "Overburdened. Enter water (Y/N)"? As an option at most. I can't imagine how tedious it would be to confirm every time when you're fully aware that you're too heavy and you're ok with it.

I was thinking about having the player prompted only once for as long as you don't step out of deep water. Unless perhaps there are terrains where deep water tiles and non-deep water tiles quickly alternate. However, IIRC the drowning damage is pretty harsh if the character has a low constitution, so one might always want to be prompted in these situations.

New feedback galore:

Feature request

• Maybe add scrolls of Turn Item to Gold, which do precisely that, only the resulting amount of gold is lower than if you had sold the respective item in town. This would allow players to earn some extra cash without having to go mining or back to town quite as often. And unlike with enabling the no selling option, you still get the occasional satisfaction of hauling back very expensive (though useless) items to town.

Tweaks

• Rings of Warning should also warn you of ambushes in the wilderness, so that your position at the start of the battle will be more favourable
• Prompt the player once (!) if the character is about to attack with a digging implement.
• Please do not let the character lose all non-ridden pets when entering world map mode. Using Teleport to town or lots of capture balls to store your pets in I find too costly during the early game, and travelling on foot means that your pets will hunt down every giant ant by the roadside. Also, you constantly need to take care not to loose them even if your character is just slightly faster than they are. On the other hand, maybe you want to prevent players from having too many high-level pets at once early on, in which case things would be fine as they are.

Manual

• I would add two things in the section about objects: Firstly that there is a chance of breaking (heavy) curses by enchanting the respective item (if that still applies) and that the Ancient and Foul Curse, while unremovable, still allows you to take off the respective item.
• Please mention in the sub-chapter on races that dwarves learn to detect doors and traps early on and can eventually also detect treasures.

So, my dwarf priest of death and demonology found a rather unexpected end at the beginning of the Old Man Willow quest. First of all, I like the change of making the first dungeon a lot shorter, though the battle against the dungeon guardian and his escorts seemed a lot harder than the fights on the previous DL. In general, I always had to go mining for lack of money, which did feel rather tedious at times. Perhaps buried treasures should be removed and the item and money drops improved during the early game? Then again, I'm a very cautious player, so perhaps with a more risky style of play I would have needed less money.

After the very early phase of the game, the battles became much easier; in most cases I just had to decide whether to use OoE for crowd control or nether bolt or plasma bolt against single monsters. Some of the early demons, especially arch viles and pink horrors, were a real problem (because of their resistances), but when my character finally learned Dominate demon, I could just turn them against each other. So, nothing too threatening for quite a while, especially thanks to my pet arch vile, which I used to release if things became troublesome. In fact, training the riding skill was more dangerous than the actual battles.

Then, when I felt very comfortable at DL 23, I tried the Old Man Willow quest - and was overrun. That huorn at the very beginning just would not die, then repeated miscasts (plasma bolt, I think), and the vorpal bunnies and the sabre tooth tiger were more resilient and dangerous than I thought. Then of course my character phase-doored next to some 'Y' and got killed. Didn't think that I would rise such a commotion with gear granting about +3 to stealth. I might have made it if I had used the potions of speed from the beginning and also had brought my pet arch vile, but still... At least partly it felt like YAAD. It seems that priests of death should postpone this quest until they can cast plasma bolt reliably. Has anyone else tried to beat this quest with a priest of death?

In any case, I will definitely come back to this variant. Keep up the good work, chris!

[wobbly]

Originally Posted by caruso

Then, when I felt very comfortable at DL 23, I tried the Old Man Willow quest - and was overrun. That huorn at the very beginning just would not die, then repeated miscasts (plasma bolt, I think), and the vorpal bunnies and the sabre tooth tiger were more resilient and dangerous than I thought. Then of course my character phase-doored next to some 'Y' and got killed. Didn't think that I would rise such a commotion with gear granting about +3 to stealth. I might have made it if I had used the potions of speed from the beginning and also had brought my pet arch vile, but still... At least partly it felt like YAAD. It seems that priests of death should postpone this quest until they can cast plasma bolt reliably. Has anyone else tried to beat this quest with a priest of death?

Re stealth - the sabretooths & vorpal bunnies are always awake

Mostly I ignore that quest till I'm well ovwrpowered the reward is crap. That said everything is fast hits hard & mobs you, but nothing has a lot of hps. So trying to plasma bolt them one at a time at low speed will leave you taking damage fast. With a good aoe wand or spell (preferably fire) & speed you can take groups of them out fast. Also nothing on the level is slow resistant if you have a slow monster staff. Other then that a large stack of ?teleport, !ccw & !clarity if you're not using devices.

[nikheizen]

Originally Posted by caruso

Then, when I felt very comfortable at DL 23, I tried the Old Man Willow quest - and was overrun. That huorn at the very beginning just would not die, then repeated miscasts (plasma bolt, I think), and the vorpal bunnies and the sabre tooth tiger were more resilient and dangerous than I thought. Then of course my character phase-doored next to some 'Y' and got killed. Didn't think that I would rise such a commotion with gear granting about +3 to stealth. I might have made it if I had used the potions of speed from the beginning and also had brought my pet arch vile, but still... At least partly it felt like YAAD. It seems that priests of death should postpone this quest until they can cast plasma bolt reliably. Has anyone else tried to beat this quest with a priest of death?

Priests IMO are very weak in Poschengband, Dwarves doubly so. Most classes don't have to mine for gold at all and can simply crush Stronghold/Orc Caves/Labyrinth very quickly and head on to the midgame where gold is in abundance.

Like wobbly said, you either need some means of dispensing the enemies quickly or to simply be very OP for Old Man Willow. Some strong melee classes can do this quest right away, but I can't think of a caster who wouldn't have a tough time with it at level 23.

My general advice for a newbie to Poschengband would be: when you see a quest's danger level(outside of thieves/wargs), add 5 levels to that to know when it's safe to take it on. And for level >30 quests, just put them off until level 45-50.

[Regalia]

Originally Posted by caruso

Unless perhaps there are terrains where deep water tiles and non-deep water tiles quickly alternate.

R'lyeh comes to mind. I was recently forced to navigate it without levitation (and ofc way over weight limit) and that meant a deep tile every second or so (running ofc).

Tbh, quests are a bit subpar. Pretty much not worth the risk or the time unless you happen to be op already (not counting very few, like bandits/wargs for easy lvl 10). Or you don't mind failing (but that has fame consequences afaik).

[Arjen]

The Mimic quests are my favourite. The Swords and Tengu is a bit dangerous, but worth the risk. I often get some very nice stuff from the Mimics. The Cloning pits offer high rewards too because of all the ego droppers in it. But most of the time I stop doing town quests after that one.

[wobbly]

Tengus & deathswords is 1 of those quests that's safe early for the right character & can provide an early ego weapon or cash source. Anything that can stack 100 AC early (golems, characters with craft magic etc) has an easy time there. Again the slow monster staff works & I always keep 1 if I find it for tengus & vapour quest (though the wierd fumes sometimes save against it). Also orc camp is easy with enough light wands & consumables if you want a stealth boost.

Vapour quest is actually safer then it seems if you bring stone to mud.

[Regalia]

Originally Posted by wobbly

Tengus & deathswords is 1 of those quests that's safe early for the right character & can provide an early ego weapon or cash source. Anything that can stack 100 AC early (golems, characters with craft magic etc) has an easy time there.

It sounds easy but I've been teleported next to some nasty deathswords before. And then teleported next to another group trying to escape the first one. Even a pretty tanky character can suffer from this.

Originally Posted by wobbly

Vapour quest is actually safer then it seems if you bring stone to mud.

I think this one can scramble your stats (fumes).

Originally Posted by Arjen

The Mimic quests are my favourite.

Those guys summoned Grendel on one of my chars.

Sure, those things are rare but they happen and then you reroll.

[wobbly]

Originally Posted by Regalia

It sounds easy but I've been teleported next to some nasty deathswords before. And then teleported next to another group trying to escape the first one. Even a pretty tanky character can suffer from this.

Not if you're hasted & speed potions are common enough to use in Poscheng. Half the time I ignore being teleported near 1 & just splat the tengu. They rarely hit you at 100 AC but at base speed they'll have enough attacks to get lucky. Again I tend to use a digging wand, so even with bad stealth I've shot several tengus before they wake up & react.

Originally Posted by Regalia

I think this one can scramble your stats (fumes).

They can. For me it's generally not an issue (I start with random stats). That said if you use a digging wand, ?light, ?detect monster & AOE attacks you don't have to give them line of sight. Again you'll want to be hasted & I wouldn't push it unless you can survive being hit hard with confusion if something goes wrong. Also don't do it if your a low xp modifier class/race without chaos resist. I learnt the hard way that they can shave 17 levels off an imp warrior-mage.

Originally Posted by Regalia

Those guys summoned Grendel on one of my chars.

Sure, those things are rare but they happen and then you reroll.

Yeah it sucks when that happens. Worse when they summon a summoner. I leave mimics quest till I can deal with unlucky summons.