Competitions 89 and 90

[Pete Mack]

It turns out that I can really optimize town movement with a combination of Rest & portal.
Want to go to the other side of town? Rest to full MP, then portal until you get close. Then repeat...

[Timo Pietilä]

Originally Posted by Pete Mack

It turns out that I can really optimize town movement with a combination of Rest & portal.
Want to go to the other side of town? Rest to full MP, then portal until you get close. Then repeat...

And that takes you real time just as little as it takes turns. So that is probably fastest way to do that. Thanks for the tip, never considered that one.

You can in fact do that same in dungeon if you want to risk death by teleporting in LoS of some nasties.

[Magnate]

Originally Posted by Pete Mack

It turns out that I can really optimize town movement with a combination of Rest & portal.
Want to go to the other side of town? Rest to full MP, then portal until you get close. Then repeat...

That's fine - nobody minds how you get around the town. (I think you mean Active Turns, since resting increments Player Turns)

[Pete Mack]

Originally Posted by Magnate

That's fine - nobody minds how you get around the town. (I think you mean Active Turns, since resting increments Player Turns)

I meant Active turns--sorry for not specifying. Using Active turns also makes Orb of Draining a real winner compared with just about anything else for damage. In fact, it makes just about every kind of spell casting a complete winner. Of course, this favors the dwarf over the troll, as if that weren't already the case...


@Timo -- up to ~1750', portal is the best way to get around the dungeon. After that, it depends on how strong your character is. My character is way too weak and un-stealthy for random jumps at gravity hound depth.

[bron]

I just downloaded the starting files, and I gotta ask: would anyone ever start out a character with these stats? IMHO the second blow is way more important than the higher wisdom. At least both chars are crippled in the same way ..

[Timo Pietilä]

Originally Posted by bron

I just downloaded the starting files, and I gotta ask: would anyone ever start out a character with these stats? IMHO the second blow is way more important than the higher wisdom. At least both chars are crippled in the same way ..

You can't get second blow with dwarf, no matter how you put your stats, and for priest high WIS is more important than one blow anyway. Half-Troll could get extra blow, but it would mean very low WIS (max 17), which would hurt you later a lot. Especially if you play with RL fast game instead of artificial turncount tuning.

[bron]

Originally Posted by Timo Pietilä

You can't get second blow with dwarf, no matter how you put your stats, and for priest high WIS is more important than one blow anyway.

My bad; somehow I thought a dwarf could get 2 blows - don't know where my head was on that one.

That said however, I think that it makes the point even stronger. If the comp is supposed to be trying to explore the differences between a dwarf's better priestly abilities and a half-troll's better fighting ability, I don't think it make a good comparison to start out by crippling the half-troll's fighting ability.

And I completely disagree with your statement that the high WIS is more important than the second blow. A disagreement that (should have been) the whole point of the comp.

[Derakon]

I'm getting the impression this competition is biased in favor of the race that Timo was trying to prove makes for better priests. Using active turns makes the troll's regeneration nowhere near as significant a factor (normally it's one of the troll's best attributes), and biasing the troll against combat loses him the major starting advantage of being capable in melee, which makes diving much more feasible in the early game.

Of course, the use of non-preserve mode penalizes diving in general. I'm not sure what to think about that.

I'm not participating in the comp since I just finished playing a priest, mind. This does seem a bit odd though.

[Timo Pietilä]

Originally Posted by Derakon

I'm getting the impression this competition is biased in favor of the race that Timo was trying to prove makes for better priests. Using active turns makes the troll's regeneration nowhere near as significant a factor (normally it's one of the troll's best attributes),

When I talk about fast game I don't mean some artificial turncount calculation. I mean how it is perceived by the player, IE. resting takes practically no time which means active turns is only reasonable way to somehow count how fast you are.

Originally Posted by Derakon

and biasing the troll against combat loses him the major starting advantage of being capable in melee, which makes diving much more feasible in the early game.

I'm not at all convinced that one extra blow means anything. Especially when played with active turns (you can use OoD a lot more). Anyway, with maxed WIS troll still needs only a bit more STR to get second blow with light weapon, which is what my char currently has and I'm only at 1000'. With Dwarf I would still have only one blow (but more OoD to compensate).

In fact H-Troll regeneration do make a difference. I have fought some battles already that I couldn't have won with Dwarf. I really don't know which is better. H-Troll Priest seem to be better than I expected.

[Pete Mack]

Have reached drolem depth, now need to dive fast to get detection.
I do wish that you had spent a few points on CON, rather than completely maximizing STR and WIS.