Slings and their effectiveness

[Pete Mack]

That's an artifact sling, and it's a little out of game character for the Pits of Angband.
The Sling of David (x4) (+17,+20)<+1,+2>
It increases your shooting power by 2
It increases your shooting speed by 1
It increases your dexterity and intelligence by 1.
It protects you from stunning.

Your current ammo will stun your foes with probability 10%.

Originally Posted by bio_hazard

How about an ego sling that has a good chance to stun, and gives rStun?

[Derakon]

Originally Posted by bio_hazard

How about an ego sling that has a good chance to stun, and gives rStun?

Monster stunning is a very powerful effect, as it robs the monster of turns outright. Having a sling that let you beat on uniques unopposed would probably be overpowered, so the stun chance would have to be small, which in turn makes it less interesting.

The general idea of a weapon that's likely to put debuffs on the enemy is interesting, though our selection of debuffs really needs an overhaul (as I've discussed in the past).

[Estie]

In tome2, haftedmasters could get a chance to stun with every blow; I tried it once, found out that it did basically nothing to deep monsters and moved on.

The mage spell from book 6 (forget the name) feels about right regarding stunning chance; however, the fact that it also destroys potions means I hardly ever use it.

As usual, everything that gives a new effect in play is either useless (ring of the dog) or too powerfull (ring of reckless attack). Making an interesting new option that isnt better than the already existing ones is impossible.

[Derakon]

Originally Posted by Estie

As usual, everything that gives a new effect in play is either useless (ring of the dog) or too powerfull (ring of reckless attack). Making an interesting new option that isnt better than the already existing ones is impossible.

Or at least very hard, yes. It's an unfortunate side-effect of how swingy and simple Angband combat is. In order for some special effect to be a better option than just hitting the enemy with the biggest attack you have, it has to have a fairly significant impact, but then it's very easy for that impact to be too large, rendering the effect overpowering. Fixing this and giving us more room to "play" would almost certainly require a substantial overhaul of how combat works exactly -- I mean, look at Sil.

[Timo Pietilä]

Originally Posted by Derakon

Monster stunning is a very powerful effect, as it robs the monster of turns outright.

Maybe monster stun should at first do lesser effects like causing them to lose ability to cast spells and miss you in melee more often before it does KO just like player stun does. Maybe slow them down or something like that for turn or two (if successful).

[Derakon]

Originally Posted by Timo Pietilä

Maybe monster stun should at first do lesser effects like causing them to lose ability to cast spells and miss you in melee more often before it does KO just like player stun does. Maybe slow them down or something like that for turn or two (if successful).

Ahem.

Stupid post length requirement...

[NotMorgoth]

Wrestling and some weapons in Sangband can rob the monster of energy. I'm not exactly sure how this works or how effective it is, but I'm guessing it is something like stunning if it sometimes causes a monster to miss its turn.

[Derakon]

Originally Posted by NotMorgoth

Wrestling and some weapons in Sangband can rob the monster of energy. I'm not exactly sure how this works or how effective it is, but I'm guessing it is something like stunning if it sometimes causes a monster to miss its turn.

Assuming it means what I think it means, it should directly delay the monster's next turn.

[Timo Pietilä]

Originally Posted by Derakon

Ahem.

Stupid post length requirement...

Great minds...