Sil

[Scatha]

I didn't word that very well. If I were to wear armor that gave me 10-20 points of protection, and had less than 10 health, then an attack that did 10 or less damage would not affect me, correct?

While that is, strictly speaking, true, it would remain true if you dropped the "had less than 10 health" assumption, so I'm not sure how the low Con enters into it.

So if I were to wear an absolute ton on protection, on a scale that may not actually be available, could I become invincible, by virtue of the fact that no attack can exceed the "minimum" amount of protection I have?

Pretty much, yes. This is certainly not close to achievable in game: since there's a limited number of sources of protection (mail (2), shield, helm, gloves, boots, cloak, ring*2, Hardiness, Blocking, Heavy Armour Use, Song of Staying = 13, perhaps slightly more with the correct artefacts) your minimum can never keep up with high damage attacks. However you can boost your average pretty high such that you only very rarely take damage (some opponents will be more problematic), and this is meant to be one of the major defensive build options available. Note that a protection roll of e.g. 10-30 is not uniform across that range, but made up of lots of little individual dice, so the variance will not be so high.

[T-Mick]

I didn't word that very well. If I were to wear armor that gave me 10-20 points of protection, and had less than 10 health, then an attack that did 10 or less damage would not affect me, correct?

So if I were to wear an absolute ton on protection, on a scale that may not actually be available, could I become invincible, by virtue of the fact that no attack can exceed the "minimum" amount of protection I have?

[ekolis]

Err, what? Why would lowering your CON improve the effectiveness of your armor? If your armor blocks 6 HP of damage, it's going to block 6 HP of damage whether you have 1 HP (in which case it would take a 7 damage hit to kill you in one shot) or 100 HP (in which case it would take a 106 damage hit to kill you in one shot)

[T-Mick]

Is it possible for you health to be lower than the minimum protection your armor provides, making you effectively invincible?

For instance, if I were to drain my Con to an exceedingly low number, then wear a ton of protection, would the armor block out all the damage?

Maybe I'm not fully understanding how protection works, but I have to ask.

[Nomad]

Re: the chest-opening bug from a few pages back, I've found that when Ctrl+Dir gives a "You strike, but there is nothing there" error, standing on top of the chest and using Ctrl+5 still works fine to disarm it.

[Patashu]

Well... we already completely display the combat rolls for each silmaril

Oh, really? I didn't even think to look there... (And you wouldn't see it if the window was off/you were playing in console mode, right?)

[half]

(I would rather have the 'combat roll' for silmaril prising outright displayed, but this would be second best)

*Should totally be used for every roll in the game, btw

Well... we already completely display the combat rolls for each silmaril and for every combat roll in the game in the combat rolls window. This is more than most roguelikes I think. One can't display *all* skill checks as this would give away when you walk near a secret door etc. One could display more of them, but I'm not sure how much that is needed. Note that many don't even have messages (e.g. each turn the Song of Elbereth tries to cause fear in all nearby monsters, but you only hear about it when their fear state changes.

IMHO, good (single player) game design isn't to nerf good choices into oblivion, but raise bad choices into the limelight. Obviously if something is broken it's broken, but it's nice to not feel punished for finding awesome combos and mechanics.

We do try to do this, but there is often little choice. If you have tens (hundreds? thousands?) of things in the game, then pulling all the others up each instead of taking one down is not feasible. We do try to leave things a while before nerfing them though, to make sure it is needed. We are also prepared to leave things as a bit overpowered if they are very fun, or good gameplay. For instance we think Charge is overpowered, but haven't yet thought of an elegant way to tone it down to the right power level.

[Patashu]

I thought of a way to make the throne room less spoily. DCSS style 'how close you came to beating the roll' messages*.

You pry the Silmaril with your <weapon>...
'The Silmaril didn't even budge...'
'The Silmaril barely budged..'
'The Silmaril shifts for a moment.'
'The Silmaril shifts a lot!'
'The Silmaril almost comes out!!'
'The Silmaril comes free!!!'

(I would rather have the 'combat roll' for silmaril prising outright displayed, but this would be second best)

*Should totally be used for every roll in the game, btw

If Exchange Places is supposed to simulate stealthily slipping past an enemy, does it make sense for it to work on creatures that are aware of you? Slipping past an enemy that can fully see what you are doing feels too much like a combat maneuver. It would probably be a huge nerf to actually make it work only on unwary creatures, though.

Haha, I'd never take exchange places again A huge nerf indeed!

IMHO, good (single player) game design isn't to nerf good choices into oblivion, but raise bad choices into the limelight. Obviously if something is broken it's broken, but it's nice to not feel punished for finding awesome combos and mechanics.

[HallucinationMushroom]

I'd sure never be able to take it again. The whole level wakes up when my creaky armor clangs down the stairs.

[WaveMotion]

If Exchange Places is supposed to simulate stealthily slipping past an enemy, does it make sense for it to work on creatures that are aware of you? Slipping past an enemy that can fully see what you are doing feels too much like a combat maneuver. It would probably be a huge nerf to actually make it work only on unwary creatures, though.

[HallucinationMushroom]

Oops, I posted before seeing Scatha's post. After reading that and pondering, I can see how swapping places is approximating what is stealthily-slipping-past the best it can in the given game universe. I think I have a disconnect from the intent of the ability since I've never played a stealth character.

[HallucinationMushroom]

Yeah, good point about bats, and other monsters negating it being a dextrous/strength martial arts thing. I like my original idea that maybe a checkers-jump-move should be what exchange places does... sort of maybe a tuck and roll or nimble leap or something that gets you past the monster, without the tricky part of having to worry about how you got that monster to where you started the procedure, of course, requiring an empty space to land in. Sort of like Charge in Heng/Entro/Cheng, but without the attack at the front.

[Scatha]

There is indeed a certain amount of deliberate vagueness there (not the only place in the game) -- it's mechanically rather than descriptively clean.

Personally I favour the "slipping past" interpretation. This makes some sense if you think of position as approximate, and relative position as more important, but it's better not examined too closely. I'm not sure how half thinks of it.

[Narvius]

Indeed it wouldn't. But I think specifying how exactly the swap takes place makes no sense, because you can easily aikido your way past a dude trying to punch, or even slash you, but the explanation falls apart when you fight bats for example.

[Derakon]

If the monster is aware of you, then you could think of it as like an aikido thing -- you use the monster's own momentum towards you (when it moves to attack, say) to pull it further in while moving yourself back. That wouldn't require much strength.