Zizzo wrote:
darkgod wrote:
BTW as a warrior with a chain mail & broad sword (startinggrea) I can't hit anything. Removing the mail helps a lot
Jaylow7 wrote:
I had a similar issue. Level 1 warrior, starting equipment (broad sword / chain mail), even setting Tactic to "berserker" had major issues hitting monsters in the thieves quest.
Okay, I've done some tests on this, taking a level-1 character straight into the Thieves quest to see how it fares. Specifically, these calculations are based on a Human Swordmaster with 18/30 STR and 18 DEX. I'm working from the original T2 code here [literally; I've peppered the T2 code with debugging printf()'s to make sure I've understood what it's doing].
Chance to hit in melee is based on the attack's "power". For a player melee attack, that's based on the player's Fighting ability ('skill_thn' in the T2 code) and to-hit mods from skills, stats and equipment. In our case:
Our Swordmaster starts with Combat skill level 2 and Weaponmastery skill level 1, which combine to a Fighting ability level of 5.
Our general to-hit is +2: +3 from DEX, +1 from STR, and -2 from the Chain Mail.
Our melee-specific to-hit is +1 from Swordmastery skill level 1, since we're wielding a sword.
Our starting sword is unenchanted, so that's +0.
This all combines to an attack power of 5+3*(2+1+0) = 14.
Our starting luck ranges from -5 to +5; scaled down for the to-hit calculation, this will adjust our attack power by -2 to +1.
Now, to determine whether we hit a monster [cf. test_hit_norm() in src/powers.c in the T2 code, or mod.class.interface.Combat:checkHit() in the module code], we take our attack power P and pick a random integer from 0 to P-1 (inclusive); this number must be greater than or equal to 3/4 the target's AC to count as a hit. A Novice rogue has AC 12, so our target is 9.
What this means is that our Swordmaster, assuming +0 starting luck, will hit with probability 5/14, or roughly 36%. -5 birth luck will reduce that to 3/12, or 25%; +5 birth luck will increase it to 6/15, or 40%. This is borne out by my testing in T2; our hapless Chain-Mail-wearing Swordmaster had a devil of a time actually hitting any Novice rogues.
Taking off that Chain Mail will help a lot, because it increases our general to-hit to +4 and thus our attack power to 5+3*(4+1+0) = 20; that jumps us up to a 55% chance to hit at +0 luck. Berserker tactic confers +8 to-hit, so that takes us up to attack power 5+3*(12+1+0) = 44, for a roughly 80% chance to hit [or, if we insist on the Chain Mail, 5+3(10+1+0) = 38, for a roughly 76% chance to hit]. Again, this is borne out by my testing; even in the module, with berserker tactic and no Chain Mail, our (now hapful?) Swordmaster successfully hit oncoming Novice rogues nine times out of nine attacks — even a Skeleton Novice rogue with AC 17.
This all tracks with my T2 experience (in which it was pretty much SOP to sell off the starting Chain Mail and buy some light armor pieces with the proceeds). Is this inconsistent with what everyone else is encountering in the module?
Zizzo you pretty much hit it spot on. For everyone else who didn't get it (hopefully no-one), this is how the heavier armors are
supposed to work.
In fact, if, early on in the game, you stumble across a heavy armor you haven't encountered before, don't ID it, and sell it to a shop, and it turns out to be an average piece that the shopkeeper didn't/doesn't stock (i.e. leather jackets), the shopkeeper will pay you a little bit more than normal and be pissed, because the negative to-hit chance wasn't seen.
Also, back in the Angband game, there is an ego type specifically for DSMs called "of craftsmanship" that eliminates the negative to-hit mod on the DSM (this is also somewhat carried over with the [mod-only] Aule spell enchant armor, which, at a high enough spell lv., starts increasing the to-hit chance on armor [in addition to other nice stuff at higher lvs.]).
Finally, the neg mod is used as a balancing technique, early game every class is hindered by heavy armor, meleers and archers get their to-hit lowered, everyone-else takes a hit to their max spellpoints. You end up having to wait to get the extra AC, either by boosting STR and/or combat to get around the encumberment, or boosting your to-hit chance to offset your armor.
Zizzo wrote:
[sound F/X: source diving] Ah, the min level and mana cost information for that power was buried in the use-power code itself, rather than in the powers definition table whence I was scraping said info. Fixed in SVN. We Apologize for the Inconvenience.™
Don't you mean: "We Apologize for the Convenience.™"?
Also, if that's what you did to get the powers, you might want to recheck some of the other powers, i don't know if their are any issues with them, but if it happened here...
Zizzo wrote:
(shrug) In my experience, at least, by the time I hit Moria or thereabout, I'm killing so many evil monsters that I can afford to leave Manwe Prayer on full time, because the small increase in piety loss from praying is being completely overwhelmed. Piety loss for Manwe is already reduced somewhat by high WIS (see my
god spoiler for the full details), but I suppose we could tweak it further. What do people think?
So...
It wasn't until after I posted that I realized that those spoilers were YOURS (great job btw!).
Looking at them now, yeah your right, but something seems odd...
Zizzo wrote:
Manwe Sulimo
Normal piety change:
-(4-(W@3)) every 300 game turns, with adjustments of -1 if you are praying and +(W@2) if you are of an elven race (Elf, Half-Elf, High-Elf, Dark-Elf or Wood-Elf), and a maximum of -1.
Am I wrong in reading this as:
[piety change] = -(4-(W@3))
then if (praying), [piety change] = [piety change]-1
then if (Elf, Half-Elf, High-Elf, Dark-Elf or Wood-Elf), [piety change] = [piety change]+(W@2)
then if [piety change]>-1, [piety change] = -1
every 300 game turns (piety) = (piety)+[piety change]
Meaning that if I am playing as one of the elven races, and have maxed out wisdom, praying will not change the drain rate?
Zizzo wrote:
And a poll as long as I'm in the neighborhood: what would people think of a map effect following the player a la Arcane Storm (except significantly more subtle

) visually indicating the area of effect of an Unbeliever's antimagic field? I'd have to double-check the map effect code to make sure that it can handle effects that don't actually do any damage, but it should be doable.
That would be nice, and if you did, you could also use it for other stuff, like trap detection zone edges, lit squares, vision edges, telepathy edges, and so on.
Finally, how do i apply the fixes in the SVN directory to the .team file i downloaded? Or should I just wait for the next release?