Competition 100

[Matthias]

This competition has connected stairs. It still discourages stairscumming by disqualifying anyone with more than 15 greater vaults skipped.

[dos350]

sorry for afk, is this no stairs, please ~ no rage.. eee!

[tigpup]

The most frustrating problem with the first quest is falling through trap doors from 50' - 100' before getting everything I need to take on that orc. It's possible to go back up, but that can cause a quest failure.

?DTrap are avilable but too expensive.

Most irritating.

[ramela]

Regarding Radagast, Alatar and Pallando, I guess their failure wasn't as much about turning on the free peoples as it was about not making enough of a difference. Radagast didn't take an active role in the War of the Ring, while the other two obviously weren't very successful in limiting Sauron's eastern influence, since Sauron had a lot of Haradrim, Easterlings and Corsairs fighting for him.

I used ICE's RPG supplements for Rolemaster/MERP as material, so I blame them if I've gotten something wrong.

I'm pretty sure that Gandalf was mentioned in LotR or it's appendixes as the only Istar to return to Valinor, which implies that he was the only one considered to have succeeded. I never said that any of them were evil.

I don't see this as a problem since Arien is strictly good and she has always been here.

[Philip]

I know it's picky, but Radagast was actually a good guy who believed there would be a nice discussion, and not evil or failed(although he didn't achieve much, he did not voluntarily take part in evil) and the other two were said to have journeyed into easterling lands or something and probably did about as much as Gandalf(mostly in keeping the easterlings busy), although they weren't recorded.

[Roch]

Thanks a bunch -- that helps. Great to get your insight.

[ramela]

Radagast, Pallando, Alatar and Saruman are all above the curve, in terms of their power level. This is intentional, because they drop multiple Excellent items. Having to run away from them, a lot, is normal.

Each of them has a different single basic element that they don't resist. That is a design call I made when designing the other Unique Istar, mostly for symmetry in regards to Saruman having a single basic weakness. In terms of flavour, it reflects the fact that unlike the "Servant of X" Ainur, the Istar took upon themselves mortal forms. (Or something to that effect.)

Left out Gandalf because he was the only one who did not fail in the mission given to the Istar.

Saruman retains his weakness to Acid, I won't spoil Radagast and I can't spoil the other two because I've already forgotten their weaknesses.

Outside of that, you mostly want to hit them fast and hard so that they have to start spending their precious mana and turns healing instead of blasting you.

[Roch]

Any advice for defeating the teleport-to uniques like Palladio? I'm not doing enough damage and they are hard to shake. I guess with an ASC and enough healing it can be done but I hate to burn those healing potions.

[Matthias]

How much have you tried to steal? The counter shouldn't be that long, unless you have done it hundreds of times.

I put out a note with the original comp. Stealing is kind of a waste of time. I will improve it someday. You definitely don't want to try it in front of monsters who are awake. The only time it is really worth it is if you come across a sleeping monster who drops excellent items. The higher the monster level, the harder it is to steal from him.

One worthwhile tactic is to is hold off on killing Wormtounge, and when your brigand is at a high level, you can repeatedly steal excellent items from him.

They are only hasted +10. Hasting and slowing for NPP monsters are a timed effect. It is temporary, and it can only go to +10 or -10. The counter might have gone higher than the variable it is stored in if they are hasted for 200k turns.

Tried maybe like 15 times in total, most of those on the same level and from an awake monster as stealing from a sleeping one worked good enough.

+10 is a lot by the way


I do remember clearing out a lesser open vault with everything asleep after the stealing, but only recently do most monsters seem to be awake and hasted, which does indeed sound like some kind of overflow... We'll see how long it lasts

edit: haha, i "fixed" the problem by going to dlvl1 and stealing from an awake snake twice. Then I got the "everyone is on a lookout, you cannot steal here any longer" message and now when I enter a new level nothing is hasted. I do still get the hunting party message.

[nppangband]

I'm chased by hunting parties after too much stealing. I think this is going on for more than 200k turns already. Will it ever stop? Also how much are they hasted?

How much have you tried to steal? The counter shouldn't be that long, unless you have done it hundreds of times.

I put out a note with the original comp. Stealing is kind of a waste of time. I will improve it someday. You definitely don't want to try it in front of monsters who are awake. The only time it is really worth it is if you come across a sleeping monster who drops excellent items. The higher the monster level, the harder it is to steal from him.

One worthwhile tactic is to is hold off on killing Wormtounge, and when your brigand is at a high level, you can repeatedly steal excellent items from him.

They are only hasted +10. Hasting and slowing for NPP monsters are a timed effect. It is temporary, and it can only go to +10 or -10. The counter might have gone higher than the variable it is stored in if they are hasted for 200k turns.

[Matthias]

I'm chased by hunting parties after too much stealing. I think this is going on for more than 200k turns already. Will it ever stop? Also how much are they hasted?

[Derakon]

I don't think that's possible; the game shouldn't generate shafts when you're one level away from the quest level.

[buzzkill]

If you use a shaft to bypass a quest level do you fail the quest?

[nppangband]

hmmm i'm almost certain that the note is added when you arrive on the new level though. I checked that when I left another gv alone

I checked the source. When you take stairs, the player depth is changed before the note is written, so the wrong level could be written for the "failed to enter" note (it is handled properly if the player does word of recall, however). But I don't see any way you could get two notes from the same level. When you stepped on the first square in the vault, the note is written that you entered it. And the variable that remembers there is a vault on the level is erased. So the game could not write two notes for the same vault. If the note was not properly erased, you would get a note written for every single vault square you stepped on.

But I promise you, if this happens 15 times, we will grant you a pardon.

[Matthias]

hmmm i'm almost certain that the note is added when you arrive on the new level though. I checked that when I left another gv alone