ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

OK, I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that Stun resistance is far and away the most important thing a ToME character needs to survive.

So, my current character, a Wyrmic who just hit Tol Falas, is sporting two quartz rings (+30% each) and a grounding plate armor (+30% I think... can't tell for sure without unequipping it and dropping it on the ground, because the powers get cut off by the window). 30% + 30% + 30% is obviously 89%, because that's what it says on my character sheet. So I only have an 11% chance of insta-death. That's good, right?

Edit: oh, just found a way to see the full stats of my armor without taking it off -- the t screen shows everything in a window on the right, whereas the i screen gets cut off in a window on the bottom.

All my Anorithil escort quests led to dead Anorithil. There's just no way I can keep one alive if we're both spawned in a room full of monsters in Amon Sul. So no passive +30% hymn/chant/whatever.

Now, there are certainly other rings I'd like to be able to wear in place of these quartz ones. But I can't. I'll die.

I have "better" armor I'd like to wear, but I can't. I'll die.

Am I missing a strategy here? Was I supposed to grind up to level 27 before entering a dungeon with a potential escort quest, so I have a minuscule chance of destroying every monster in sight before they eat the Anorithil, so I can get a slight chance at the passive +30%? Is there somewhere I should be grinding looking for +70% stun resistance armor that I know exists but which refuses to drop for me?

I've reached more or less the same conclusion as you.
In this game at the moment Stun immunity is more important than any reasonable amount of armor you can get.
At the moment I have a lvl 30 Arcane Blade running around with a rough leather armor of stability instead of galvorn plate just for that reason...

Now to see if I can figure out a way to survive Ardhungol with this toon.

You know, potions of Free Action grant you 100% stun and knockback immunity. They are plentiful. They are high in use, just like speed potions. If you are fighting something that can stun/freeze, quaff the potion and kill it. At 10 magic I typically see them last 3 turns, at 60 I've had them last past 10 turns. USE THEM. You don't *need* constant immunity.

Final Master wrote:You know, potions of Free Action grant you 100% stun and knockback immunity. They are plentiful. They are high in use, just like speed potions. If you are fighting something that can stun/freeze, quaff the potion and kill it. At 10 magic I typically see them last 3 turns, at 60 I've had them last past 10 turns. USE THEM. You don't *need* constant immunity.

Yup. I just did the master with a Dwarven Wyrmic with only 30% stun resist and had no problems. Used Free Action pots in a slotted belt.

As to the rest of Tol Fallos my large hit point pool and high armor let me survive non-boss stuns.

3 turns is very brief. Also, you have to know in advance that something is going to Freeze you. If you don't have Sense or Track, you can't possibly know what's around that next corner.

So, while I appreciate that free action potions (at 7.00 gold apiece!) are a viable strategy for some folks, I think I'll stick with the other strategy.

yeah, personally I dont think i have ever used a free action potion (well, in combat, i drank one in bree once a couple of betas ago)

I find it better to use scrolls of enemies detection myself.

I agree. In most roguelikes, the message is: get stun-type immunity before you go past level ten, or you'll be dead. It was easy to find, and eventually a lot of good artifacts had it as an extra add on, so you had ten ways to resist this type of quick death. (Beholders with low light, anyone?) I like that T4 has a less binary stun structure--adding up fairly quickly to ~50 or 60%.

But items with stun percentages of +20 or more % have to be more common, because getting stunned can be almost sure death, even for high level characters. Either stun should be depowered for enemies (only one-two turns or something), or else it should be easier to get % add-ons, or complete immunities. Potions just aren't that fun. They're *not* that easy to find, if you're using them regularly when you're in danger, and it's an extra boring step before you go into battle. They should be a stop-gap early on before % can add up or immunity obtained.

Shouldn't the player have an additional physical/magical saving throw? If these are always failing then perhaps the system should be rebalanced.

physical save can save you from stuns, back when a certain talent never subtracted its bonuses from the player, I got my physical and spell save up to about 1000 and 500, and I was never stunned, so I do know it helps... I am not sure if it needs to be tweaked either as that wouldnt help much as the monsters would get the same bonuses too, keeping it even.

the bottom line is that anything less than 100% stun resistance is useless. well, not useless, but any chance of being stunned means that you run a high risk of death. even 99% resistance will fail you eventually, and probably at a very inconvenient moment!
i find potions of free action are great for hunting down bosses, and usually quaff one before taking on any boss after old man willow, but they don't really help for mobs - lately i don't find myself dying to bosses as much as i do from unexpected stuns from normal mobs (usually when i already have some good stun resistance..). i think its no small coincidence that my best character was a fighter with shield wall maxed...

Perhaps stun itself should be nerfed - allow movement (but much slower) and melee attacks (with severely lowered attack chance) but no talent use. Perhaps also allow potion drinking with a 50% chance of spilling it instead.

Grey wrote:Perhaps stun itself should be nerfed - allow movement (but much slower) and melee attacks (with severely lowered attack chance) but no talent use. Perhaps also allow potion drinking with a 50% chance of spilling it instead.

That is an interesting idea. Include a reduced chance of activating magical devices and reading scrolls and I think we are on to something.

I figure zero chance of magical devices or scrolls - when stunned it should be basically impossible to do complex things, and difficult to do simple things.

Another thought for nerfing stun - each turn you're stunned you get a repeated saving throw to snap out of the stun. Not the stun resistance throw, but the physical or magical throw (or maybe a separate Willpower test). This means that weaker monsters and players are stunned for longer, but tougher monsters are harder to abuse with this status.

If stun were nerfed I'd suggest many existing monsters have their current 100% resistance to stunning reduced somewhat.

isn't that already pretty close to confusion?
(not that i'm opposed to nerfing stun somehow)

teachu2die wrote:isn't that already pretty close to confusion?

Well, currently stunning is 100% the same as freezing, isn't it? This would at least be somewhat different to either. You wouldn't stumble aimlessly, and you wouldn't be able to cast spells or perform many other actions.