Sil

[Patashu]

Sil secret techs:
-Closing doors so you can see on the map when they're opened
-Throwing potions of slowness at enemies
-Building up Song of Slaying on worm masses
-Sprinting + Flanking
-Song of Freedom so your sprint is uninterrupted by doors
-Flankings that count as charging too
-Getting free hits every time with Sprinting
-Exploiting intelligent monsters' attempts to flank you for free hits/dodges
-Artifice in general
-Wearing Wrath/Danger deliberately
-Eating herbs of rage/quaffing constitution for the hp
-Fear effects on Kemenrauko to dig tunnels for you
-Having hp loss, confusion, poison and voice loss from a trumpet just to unambiguously identify potions
-Having hp loss, 'hungry' and stat loss just to unambiguously identify herbs
-Standing near a closed door, an open door, a stairwell, monsters and with a cursed item just to unambiguously identify staves
-You are covered in acid! Your Set of Gauntlets of Clumsiness is destroyed!

[HallucinationMushroom]

lol, it's funny because it's true. I do the herb/stave/potion bit, at least. Thanks for the tip about the trumpet... I never remember to check for voice potions.

[WaveMotion]

Sil secret techs:
-Throwing potions of slowness at enemies

I had no idea this was even a thing. Feels very Nethackish. What other potions does this work for?

Edit: to add a tech of my own:
-The guaranteed first forge appears at 50ft if you go upstairs from your first level instead of downstairs. The forge vault is correspondingly easier, which is useful for gimpy starts e.g. the +2 ring of accuracy start or the no-melee Versatility start.

[Patashu]

Patashu's treatise on hit rates (aka numbers for the numbers god)

def chancetohit(acc, eva):
x = 0
y = 0
for i in range(20):
for j in range(20):
if (acc + (i+1)) > (eva + (j+1)):
x = x + 1
else:
y = y + 1
return float(x) / float(x+y)

If you and your opponent have the same accuracy and evasion, you have a 47.5% chance of hitting.
If you are ahead by 5, you have a 70% chance of hitting.
If you are behind by 5, you have a 26.25% chance of hitting.
Full table:

1.0 <- 20+ higher
0.9975
0.9925
0.985
0.975
0.9625 <- 15 higher
0.9475
0.93
0.91
0.8875
0.8625 <- 10 higher
0.835
0.805
0.7725
0.7375
0.7 <- 5 higher
0.66
0.6175
0.5725
0.525
0.475 <- Same accuracy as opponent evasion
0.4275
0.3825
0.34
0.3
0.2625 <- 5 lower
0.2275
0.195
0.165
0.1375
0.1125 <- 10 lower
0.09
0.07
0.0525
0.0375
0.025 <- 15 lower
0.015
0.0075
0.0025
0.0 <- 20+ lower

So, what is the marginal improvement of each point of accuracy? About 11% if you started off equal, 6% if you're a lot higher, 15% if you're a lot lower:

...
6% improvement from +4 to +5
6.9% improvement from +3 to +4
7.9% improvement from +2 to +3
9% improvement from +1 to +2
10.5% improvement from +0 to +1
11.1% improvement from -1 to 0
11.8% improvement from -2 to -1
12.5% improvemnent from -3 to -2
13.3% improvement from -4 to -3
14.3% improvement from -5 to -4
...

[Lantar]

I just came across this variant. Congrats for the inovative game and the masterpiece of game mechanics behind it (reminds me of old Table Top Rolemaster adventures)

Now diving into it, wish me luck and may the light of the Silmarils lead my way:!

[LostTemplar]

Patashu's treatise on hit rates (aka numbers for the numbers god)

Evasion (and many other skill checks) is "broken" in SIL, it is known and nobody cares, so feel free to abuse. Basically the more you have in a skill the more you gain from one point (this behaviour is normally considered bad and broken in other games, but here it is OK).

[Patashu]

Evasion (and many other skill checks) is "broken" in SIL, it is known and nobody cares, so feel free to abuse. Basically the more you have in a skill the more you gain from one point (this behaviour is normally considered bad and broken in other games, but here it is OK).

Have you beaten Sil yet?

[Scatha]

The analysis on the value of extra points of melee looks roughly accurate at the low end, but it's a bit better than that at the high end, since it increases your chances of getting criticals.

Evasion (and many other skill checks) is "broken" in SIL, it is known and nobody cares, so feel free to abuse. Basically the more you have in a skill the more you gain from one point (this behaviour is normally considered bad and broken in other games, but here it is OK).

It is correct that against a given enemy, more points in Evasion give increasing returns. Many games balance by having getting points in different stats equally hard, but diminishing returns from each skill. As well as increasing returns, Sil has increasing costs to increment any particular number.

Things stood like that for quite a while during development, but we realised that very high evasion was still too strong. We've now taken another step, of further differentiating opponents. Although there are increasing returns from evasion against each foe, there are some monsters against whom it never does that much (there are various situations in which your evasion is halved, and some ways to die which ignore evasion altogether), so there's some pressure to diversify.

I think our ideal is that an extreme evasion strategy should be just about workable, but not the strongest (and definitely not far-and-away the strongest). Based on characters on the ladder we seem to be approximating that reasonably well, but if you can demonstrate that evasion is still too good I'd love to know and we'd be happy to consider further changes.

[Patashu]

Sil bug: If you are holding a shield and no weapon, your inventory is full and you choose to wield a two handed weapon, the game notifies you that this will drop your shield from your inventory (even though it won't)

[debo]

The analysis on the value of extra points of melee looks roughly accurate at the low end, but it's a bit better than that at the high end, since it increases your chances of getting criticals.



It is correct that against a given enemy, more points in Evasion give increasing returns. Many games balance by having getting points in different stats equally hard, but diminishing returns from each skill. As well as increasing returns, Sil has increasing costs to increment any particular number.

Things stood like that for quite a while during development, but we realised that very high evasion was still too strong. We've now taken another step, of further differentiating opponents. Although there are increasing returns from evasion against each foe, there are some monsters against whom it never does that much (there are various situations in which your evasion is halved, and some ways to die which ignore evasion altogether), so there's some pressure to diversify.

I think our ideal is that an extreme evasion strategy should be just about workable, but not the strongest (and definitely not far-and-away the strongest). Based on characters on the ladder we seem to be approximating that reasonably well, but if you can demonstrate that evasion is still too good I'd love to know and we'd be happy to consider further changes.

Focusing on evasion is a losing strategy IMO because there are a bazillion monsters, and only one of you. Unless you have crowd fighting and critical resistance and evasion coming out of your ears, there are so many things that are going to kill you anyways if they get a lucky critical in... Ururaukar and giants being prime offenders in this. Also, some monsters like Cat Assassins are so damned fast and so damned accurate that the rolls are never going to go entirely in your favor.

I've had up to 30 evasion before, and I was still getting hit often enough to make things scary.

I would argue that high stealth is more "broken" than high evasion, because you can basically skip entire threat groups (holes in your resistances, effects that you didn't know monsters had, etc). I played mostly stealth characters in the beginning of my Sil time, and once you've got the pathing patterns of monsters down pat, you're pretty set. That's one skill for the player to develop.

If you're facing monsters head on, though, you need individual strategies to handle all the weirdness that will ensue. Plus enough experience to know how to behave when they interact... cool stuff, I think

[Patashu]

How to always get free hits (on normal speed monsters) with Sprinting:
Note: This technique should only be used when you are really, really, really afraid of getting hit by what's behind you but need to kill it.

There's a hidden state variable in Sil, which is 'how many turns you've spent in sprint modulo 3'. Every third turn no normal speed monsters move and the counter resets. The counter is kept across different sprints.

Demonstration of this mechanic:

0 Step - Now says fast 0
0 Sprint 1
1 Sprint 2
2 Sprint (nothing moves) 0
0 Breaksprint - No longer says fast 1

1 Step - Now says fast 1
1 Sprint 2
2 Sprint (nothing moves) 0
0 Sprint 1
1 Breaksprint - No longer says fast 2

2 Step - Now says fast 2
2 Sprint (nothing moves) 0
0 Sprint 1
1 Sprint 2
2 Breaksprint - No longer says fast (nothing moves) 0

So:
-If your sprint ended on the free move, take 2 moves before striking next sprint
-If your sprint ended one after the free move, take 1 move before striking next sprint
-If your sprint ended two after the free move, strike immediately next sprint

And since it takes 4 moves for 'Fast' to appear:
-If your sprint ended on the free move, run for 6 moves then strike
-If your sprint ended one after the free move, run for 5 moves then strike
-If your sprint ended two after the free move, run for 4 moves then strike

[Patashu]

Sil bug while doing the tutorial:

You hit the Orc soldier!!
Your Shortsword strikes truly.
You recognize it as a Shortsword of Orc Slaying (+0,1d7) [+1].
You hit the Orc soldier...
Your Dagger of Accompaniment strikes truly.
You recognize it as a Dagger of Accompaniment (+0,1d5).

[Patashu]

How shadow casting creatures work:

Anything that emits light or shadow emits it with this distance function: longer distance + half shorter distance (rounding down)

...33..
..2223.
.211123
.21@123456789
..11123456789
...223456789
...334456789
...44556789
...55667789
...6677889
...778899
...8899
...99

0) Cast ambient light
If a tile is lit up naturally, it starts at 1, else it starts at 0.

1) Cast the player light
You cast a light level of (your radius + 1 + (1 if Inner Light is learned)) on your own tile, and for each shell outward subtract 1 until you reach the end of your radius. For instance, if you have a brass lantern and helm of brilliance you have a radius of 3, so you cast light levels in your radius like so:

4321
3321
221
11

And if you have inner light, that becomes:

5432
4432
332
22

2) Cast monster lights and object-on-ground lights
Monster lights are cast the same way your light is, except if their light is negative they subtract it instead of adding it.
Items also cast light if they're of brilliance, slaying (with their slay present) or if they're feanorian lamps/lesser jewels/silmarils.
Shadow cloaks cast darkness. (Do lanterns of shadows cast darkness? I think the answer is no)

Shadow radiuses for monsters are as follows:
-1: Shadow worm mass, Spider of Gorgoroth
-2: Shadow mold, Lurking horror, Shadow bat, Shadow spider, Creeping horror, Amethyst serpent, Lungorthin, the Balrog of White Fire, Shelob, Spider of Darkness, Gothmog, High Captain of Balrogs
-3: Ancient amethyst serpent, Gwathrauko
-4: Ungoliant, the Gloomweaver

So a shadow worm mass casts the following shadow, subtracting these numbers from the light levels of every tile:

21
11

And a shadow mold casts this shadow:

321
221
11

And so on.

3) Can you see the tile now?
If it is 0 or less, you CANNOT see it. If it is 1 or higher, you CAN see it.

For example the shadow mold in the tutorial can barely be seen standing next to it with song of the trees: lit room (1) -3 (shadow mold is -2 radius, so -3 on itself) +3 (you're +3 radius no inner light, so +3 next to you) = 1 (you can see!)
A true expert of the tutorial will ignore that he has song of the trees, grind just enough exp to get inner light and use his orc slaying sword with an orc archer to get 1(radius)+1(inner light)+1(orc slaying light) = 3 while standing next to the shadow mold and thus light it up

4) Formula for seeing lone shadow creatures
Call the shadow radius of the monster S
If you have inner light and are in a lit room, S light radius is enough
If you are in a lit room OR have inner light in an unlit room, S+1 light radius is enough
If you are in an unlit room without inner light, S+2 radius is enough

Don't forget about Song of the Trees (adds 1 light radius per 5 song score), Staves of Light, Bows of Brilliance or crafting <foo> of brilliance if you need more light!

Secret techs for combatting shadow monsters (all of these work):
-Wielding slay foo weapons for the extra light when their target is around
-Dropping items of brilliance/slay foo/permanent light sources around you or under you to add to the light level
-Luring light bearing monsters to where the shadow casting monster is

[LostTemplar]

I would argue that high stealth is more "broken" than high evasion

Yes, stealth is even worse. Evasion was just an example. It is too easy to get 100% reliable skill check with any skill.

Also, low values of skills are completely useless.

[Patashu]

Yes, stealth is even worse. Evasion was just an example. It is too easy to get 100% reliable skill check with any skill.

Also, low values of skills are completely useless.

I am playing around with stealth atm and I agree, it's really really good, unlike melee/evasion it seems to scale faster than enemies do.

I can think of some uses for low skills, though:
-You only need a bit of perception or will to make the relevant checks go from 'will never succeed' to 'will succeed often enough to satisfy you'. Plus, if you're only seeking a low level skill in either you can make the dip.
-Getting enough forge for weaponsmithing for a bow.
-Getting enough song for song of slaying.