Comp 168

[Sose]

Oh ok, thanks Arjen.

In case someone is willing to try the competition but hasn't played PosChengband or Possessors before, I wrote a really small quickstart guide based on my experiences playing the variant for the first time. It really only covers the absolute basics needed to get started and exploring the dungeon on your own.

https://gist.github.com/anonymous/d59a4f7c961a943e881d

[HugoVirtuoso]

And this compo has no virtues.

[Sose]

Hmmm! Is this intended? If you change corpse as a possessor, your "skill" while dual wielding goes back to 10%? This makes it basically worthless to dual wield until very late game?

I was using Grendel's corpse. Skill in 'Cw' is 44.7% / 41.7%. Changed to something else, in this case Logrus Master. 10% / 10%. Luckily my Grendel corpse survived, as I lost almost 100hp also with the new form. When I changed back to Grendel, the skills were the same.

[HugoVirtuoso]

Originally Posted by Sose

Hmmm! Is this intended? If you change corpse as a possessor, your "skill" while dual wielding goes back to 10%? This makes it basically worthless to dual wield until very late game?

I was using Grendel's corpse. Skill in 'Cw' is 44.7% / 41.7%. Changed to something else, in this case Logrus Master. 10% / 10%. Luckily my Grendel corpse survived, as I lost almost 100hp also with the new form. When I changed back to Grendel, the skills were the same.

This is by design. If you use ~4 and then press '=' a few times you'll notice that each monster possessed has a specific class. I think Grendel falls under Warrior, thus having rather "decent" dual-wielding ability.

The Logrus master is a different body type...a Mystic, I think. Due to the body-type, the Logrus master is actually limited to [Unskilled]! for Dual-wielding and use of most weapon types (with some exceptions). So, Logrus masters are hopeless at Dual-wielding. Yet, they can use weapons well if you increase your DEX or have Rings or Gloves that increase accuracy.

[Sose]

Ok, I thought that the skill was individual for each corpse but that is not the case. Just that mystics are bad at dual wielding. I got a ninja corpse now, Nightblade and my dual wielding ability is still good.

[wobbly]

A couple of quick questions.

I'm seeing a lot of mention of levels & forms in people's dumps & I'm a little confused. Is it a minimum level to possess a form? or a max. level available to a form?

Drank a potion of blindness & it's not showing up in known objects, bug?

I've worked out there's a unique for level 6, what other levels?

Thanks in advance.

[chris]

Originally Posted by wobbly

A couple of quick questions.

I'm seeing a lot of mention of levels & forms in people's dumps & I'm a little confused. Is it a minimum level to possess a form? or a max. level available to a form?

Both. Your possession ability (Ua) has a current power associated with it. You cannot possess monsters whose level exceeds this power. So there is no jumping into high powered forms too early.

On the other hand, there is a max level for forms, which is generally L15 or the monster's level + 5, whichever is greater. Once you reach the max level of your current form, you stop gaining experience. You can keep the form as long as you like, but really, at this point, you should be on the lookout for something stronger.

Drank a potion of blindness & it's not showing up in known objects, bug?

That sounds like a bug. You are looking in the Object Knowledge screen (~2) rather than the character dump, right? The statistics section of the character dump only shows hard coded objects: basically, stuff I want to see to gauge game balance.

I've worked out there's a unique for level 6, what other levels?

The Angband quest levels are 6, 12, 24, 38, 44, 50, 56, 62, 76, 88. Of course, Oberon is on 99 and The Serpent is on 100.

[wobbly]

Thanks. Yeah ~2, perhaps the game decided I couldn't see the potion because I'm blind from drinking it or something odd...

Edit: Interesting, as soon as I walked over another potion of blindness it appeared in my item recall, so it seems to be only the 1st potion/scroll

[Sose]

Just one random useful tip: early on weapons are quite useless if you don't have a really good one. Check your form's unarmed damage with 'Cw' and compare it to your damage with your strongest weapon wielded. There are even some late-game forms that can be absolute beasts in melee without a weapon! You can still wear a shield in your other hand (I think).

Usually I only start using weapons after getting The Sting if I haven't found anything of similar power level earlier.

[HugoVirtuoso]

Compo 158 participation is picking up. I like this. I return to this later this, when I hopefully get the chance.