Old School Needs Help With New School

[prh182]

Saddly i'm in 3.0.9b and from everything i've seen that means he is stuck there...poor Bilbo my hobbit ranger. It seems like hobbit ranger's should get more love, there only downside is hit on strength which I think is made up for by there other characteristics

[Derakon]

Hobbits also have poor hit dice compared to most other races, so they tend to have 100-150 fewer HP at the end, once CON is taken out of the equation. If this weren't the case, they'd be laughably overpowered.

Armor encumbrance has nothing to do with your STR/DEX; it's just a matter of how heavy the armor is that you're wearing. Each pound over 30 reduces your SP by 1; additionally, wearing bulky gloves (lacking Free Action/DEX boost, not Alchemist's Gloves) will cut your SP to 1/3rd. Boosting your INT can help overcome this by simply giving you more SP before encumbrance cuts in.

[Timo Pietilä]

Originally Posted by Derakon

Armor encumbrance has nothing to do with your STR/DEX; it's just a matter of how heavy the armor is that you're wearing. Each pound over 30 reduces your SP by 1; additionally, wearing bulky gloves (lacking Free Action/DEX boost, not Alchemist's Gloves) will cut your SP to 1/3rd. Boosting your INT can help overcome this by simply giving you more SP before encumbrance cuts in.

There is weight encumbrance which is affected by STR (up to certain point which I don't remember) and affects your speed. Any gear counts to that, including gear carried in inventory. Too much stuff carried and you get slowed down. There are monsters that drain STR in melee (Dreads & some others), be careful with those, if your STR gets low enough that you start to slow down, you are dead pretty soon after that.

[prh182]

Here is something else....

You get feelings about items, do always get feelings? Meaning if after a certain amount of time carrying an item, if you don't get a feeling can you assume it just a plain old whatever? Also is there set amount of time to develop a feeling about item, if so is it item, chrlvl dependent or what? Thanks again

[Derakon]

You're talking about what we call "pseudo-ID". Different classes have different pseudo-ID strengths; generally, warriors have the best pseudo-ID (strong and fast), hybrid classes have strong-but-slow pseudo-ID, and pure-casters (priests and mages) have weak and slow pseudo-ID. A "strong" pseudo-ID can recognize the difference between enchanted, ego-item, and artifact, as well as recognize if an item has no enchantment at all. Weak pseudo-ID just tells you if the item is magical (and will never tell you if it isn't).

Pseudo-ID works on a stochastic process -- each turn, you have a chance of triggering a pseudo-ID check, which then has a chance of detecting each of your un-ID'd items in inventory. This determines the speed of pseudo-ID -- warriors are more likely to trigger pseudo-ID checks than mages are.

As of 3.1.2, for the most part it's safe to simply wield an item that you haven't ID'd yet. This will immediately tell you if the item has obvious enchantments (like giving off light, making you stronger, etc.). Additionally you can learn if the item has magical pluses by hitting things with it (for weapons) or getting hit (for armor). The only gotchas are cursed weapons (the "Morgul" ego type and a small number of cursed artifacts), which are very rare but difficult to get rid of if you wield them. But test-wielding is quite useful up to around 1000', after which point you should be able to afford enough ID to make identification a non-issue.

[prh182]

Man you guys are great. I don't think I have ever seen a game forum where people are so nice, informative, and willing to help the game illiterate. Thanks a lot!

[Timo Pietilä]

Originally Posted by Derakon

You're talking about what we call "pseudo-ID". Different classes have different pseudo-ID strengths; generally, warriors have the best pseudo-ID (strong and fast), hybrid classes have strong-but-slow pseudo-ID, and pure-casters (priests and mages) have weak and slow pseudo-ID.

Actually priest pseudo is second fastest, only warrior beats it. Mage is extremely slow, but they get ID as spell very early so it doesn't matter. Second slowest I think is ranger in 3.0.9. Paladin and Rogue are about equal to each other.

[Magnate]

Originally Posted by fizzix

I agree that some of the wording could be improved here.

I think this is because all options are variations from the basic default game, and the default is "no variation". So the default setting is that artifacts will be created, but you can turn on an option called "no artifacts". So you end up with the back-to-front concepts of "yes, no artifacts" or "no, I want artifacts as normal please". Similarly no_stores, no_selling etc. These are all options to turn off various things in the game.

I guess we could just call them turn_off_artifacts, turn_off_selling etc.

[EpicMan]

Or just call them 'Artifacts', 'Selling', etc and set the defaults so that the result is the same.

[Nomad]

Well, several of the options like maximise, keep_randarts and monster ai default to yes anyway, so it seems like you might as well set the whole lot that way:

Allow use of stairs/recall                   : yes  (birth_recall)
Allow use of stores/home                     : yes  (birth_stores)
Allow creation of artifacts                  : yes  (birth_artifacts)
Allow objects to stack on the floor          : yes  (birth_stacking)
Preserve artifacts when leaving level        : yes  (birth_preserve)
Generate connected stairs                    : yes  (birth_stairs)
Show level feelings                          : yes  (birth_feelings)
Stores pay money for items                   : yes  (birth_selling)