Your Luck is Turning

[tprice]

So Grog the 36th level Half Troll Warrior decides that he has nearly maxed his stats, just found Gold Dragon Scale Mail and a Defender sword on his last dive and can now venture below 2000'.

Recall to 2000' kill a bunch of monsters for junk loot except for a Rod of WoR and leveling to CL37.

Enter level 2050' 'You Feel your luck is turning' "Well that's always a good omen when venturing below 2000 for the first time" Grog thinks to himself, "lets look around" zap the Detect Traps and Doors rods. "Hmm looks clean" step around the corner next to the stairs and the first monster Grog sees is Adunaphel the Quiet whom Grog easily kills (5 blows a round and +47 damage). She drops a bunch of stuff including The Full Plate Armor of Isildur! "Wow Grog's luck _is_ turning! Lets explore some more..."

5 minutes later after killing many small fry in one blow each as he wanders the boring corridors Grog spots a worthy opponent again. Kavlax the multi-headed quickly falls to Grog's mighty blade and drops a ton of stuff. "Whats that Grog spy on the ground, a glowing Phial?!?!! and the Beaked Ax is Theoden's according to the magic stick of Perception!" Grog sacrifices the merely "good" weapons to the Random Number God then recalls to town to store his old armor!

3 Artifacts from only 2 monsters on a "You feel your luck is turning" level? I say that it sure did! My best level _ever_ that I can remember since i picked up rogue like games in 90/91. Also the deepest I ever had to go to find the Phial.

Thomas Price
aka The Bookworm

[Psi]

Originally Posted by tprice

3 Artifacts from only 2 monsters on a "You feel your luck is turning" level? I say that it sure did! My best level _ever_ that I can remember since i picked up rogue like games in 90/91. Also the deepest I ever had to go to find the Phial.

You do realise that monster drops have nothing to do with the level feeling don't you?

[tprice]

Originally Posted by Psi

You do realise that monster drops have nothing to do with the level feeling don't you?

Yes I do, which is why getting drops that good on a mediocre level feeling made my day.

Thomas

[Inquisitivephysicsguy]

"Great Grog, don't get cocky." --Han Solo (ish)

Congrats! It sounds like you might have a winner, just make sure that you have all the resistance that you need on hand when you need them.

Truth be told, I almost never find the phial until dlvl 50 or so, several angband versions ago I could find the phial by the time I got to dlvl 5, but that time is long past.

Best of Luck... may it continue...

[rdermyer]

Originally Posted by tprice

Yes I do, which is why getting drops that good on a mediocre level feeling made my day.

Thomas

That's good to know. I won't pay as much attention to them then. It only affects what's laying on the ground?

[roustk]

Originally Posted by rdermyer

That's good to know. I won't pay as much attention to them then. It only affects what's laying on the ground?

The sequence in the code is:
1) Create and populate level.
2) Calculate level feeling based on contents (vaults, pits, items, and maybe monsters).
3) Let player run, while occasionally creating new monsters and having dead monsters drop stuff.

The monsters and items created after level generation are based solely on the dungeon level (for monsters) or dungeon and monster level (for drops).

[Kadoles]

what are the level feelings and what might i expect to find in them?
(if you dont want to type, just point me to the right help file)

do uniques/good items/excellent items affect feelings?

usually i ignore level feelings and just look for the next set of stairs, am i missing out on some really awesome item?

[Marble Dice]

Originally Posted by Kadoles

do uniques/good items/excellent items affect feelings?

Yes. Good items [dagger (+2,+3)], great items [dagger of flame (+5,+3)], artifacts, out-of-depth items and monsters, monster pits and vaults, uniques, and artifacts all affect level feeling. So how do you know it's Dethanc, and not a bunch of smelly orcs crammed into a small room, picking each other's noses? You don't. Is it worth finding out anyway? Probably not.

Originally Posted by Kadoles

usually i ignore level feelings and just look for the next set of stairs, am i
missing out on some really awesome item?

Good man! Unless the levels you're skipping are 90-98, you're probably not missing anything better than what you could find on levels 90-98. In my opinion, the only things worth exploring in the earlier levels are vaults, so if preliminary exploration yields a vault, and it looks doable, go for it, otherwise just keep going.

Originally Posted by Kadoles

what are the level feelings and what might i expect to find in them?
(if you dont want to type, just point me to the right help file)

It's hard to say what you might find on any given "feeling" class due to the number of factors which influence it, but these are the current feelings, in order of specialness. The first 4 feelings have been changed in the dev branch to read more obviously "less special."

What a boring place...
This level can't be all bad...
You like the look of this place...
You feel your luck is turning...
You feel strangely lucky...
You have a good feeling...
You have a very good feeling...
You have an excellent feeling...
You have a superb feeling about this level.
You feel there is something special about this level.

[Bandobras]

IIRC this is different in TOME, where objects in monster inventories are created before the feeling is calculated.

[Big Al]

Has anyone considered making it so that the game re-scans the dungeon every few hundred (thousand?) turns and if the feeling has changed since you first entered the level, (there's a chance of?) printing an updated message. Makes sense after all, seeing as you'll know the level better after exploring it. And if you get a 'special' feeling after a big battle with someone, you know that they might have dropped an artifact.