Earthquakes

[peter]

I'd be very grateful if anyone could explain the advantages and disadvantages of earthquakes.

There's no mention of them in the user manual. I searched the forum as well and couldn't find an explanation. I have a shovel that causes earthquakes and am wondering whether I should keep it.

Thank you!

[AnonymousHero]

Well, one potential advantage is semi-regular line-of-sight interruption. The disadvantage... well, sometimes it destroys the dungeon around you. I'm not sure if that includes removing uniques and artifacts (non-permanently unless identified), but still...

[Philip]

Essentially, it makes an ugly dungeon, and can block you off from places. Since most things with earthquake also have tunneling, it can be mostly ignored. Neat freaks like me are going to lose it though. There is also the threat of falling walls - monsters and items can be killed. The line-of-sight interruption is a major help. In fact, for the Morgoth fight, you may be well off grabbing a staff of destruction or two, teleporting around dlvl 100 and activate several times without destruction Morgoth. Then you destroy the staff to prevent Morgoth from draining it.

[Nick]

Originally Posted by peter

I have a shovel that causes earthquakes and am wondering whether I should keep it.

The other thing to note here is that the "of Earthquakes" type is extraordinarily misleading - none of them actually cause an earthquake, because the trigger for causing it is dealing 50 damage from damage dice alone.

So keep it as a nice acid-branded shovel if you like

[AnonymousHero]

Originally Posted by Nick

The other thing to note here is that the "of Earthquakes" type is extraordinarily misleading - none of them actually cause an earthquake, because the trigger for causing it is dealing 50 damage from damage dice alone.

So keep it as a nice acid-branded shovel if you like

Lol. So much for extrapolating from other *bands .

[Derakon]

Originally Posted by Nick

The other thing to note here is that the "of Earthquakes" type is extraordinarily misleading - none of them actually cause an earthquake, because the trigger for causing it is dealing 50 damage from damage dice alone.

So keep it as a nice acid-branded shovel if you like

Wait, what? Seriously? I never knew that! And it sounds like a bug to me. I guess that setup is there just for Morgoth's hammer, which happens to be 9d9 and thus would trigger earthquakes about half the time. Sounds like the rule should instead be changed to "earthquakes happen X% of the time" or "earthquakes happen when you deal more than Y% of your max damage dice in a single blow".

[Timo Pietilä]

Originally Posted by Nick

The other thing to note here is that the "of Earthquakes" type is extraordinarily misleading - none of them actually cause an earthquake, because the trigger for causing it is dealing 50 damage from damage dice alone.

I think that is actually a bug rather than by design, because those do have earthquake flag (= IMPACT) just like Grond has. In fact that's the only item besides Grond that does have that.

Why have a flag if they can't trigger that thing? Also IMO Grond should be the only weapon capable of doing that. A unique feature a bit like The One activation.

I vote for removal of that flag and renaming that ego.

[Nick]

My understanding was that the earthquake effect was nerfed like this because constantly getting earthquakes was too annoying. The current state of affairs has been true since at least 2.7.4 - I didn't check back past then

It certainly does all seem a bit silly.

[Timo Pietilä]

Originally Posted by Nick

My understanding was that the earthquake effect was nerfed like this because constantly getting earthquakes was too annoying. The current state of affairs has been true since at least 2.7.4 - I didn't check back past then

It certainly does all seem a bit silly.

Earthquake diggers are relatively new, they were added to 3.0.x. Older than that don't even have them. It works well for Grond though. 9d9 makes average of 45, so if you get a bit above average blow it creates earthquake.

[Nick]

Originally Posted by Timo Pietilä

Earthquake diggers are relatively new, they were added to 3.0.x. Older than that don't even have them. It works well for Grond though. 9d9 makes average of 45, so if you get a bit above average blow it creates earthquake.

Wow, you're right - that means that they *never* worked. That's a pretty impressive failure.

My checking back to 2.7.4 was for the "50 dice damage" behaviour, which has been around forever, but Grond was the only thing with the IMPACT flag until at least 3.0.0. Although I guess one might have got it on a randart.