Sil

[Starhawk]

Actually, I have Orcrist, and am Evasion-heavy. So I picked up Two-Weapon Fighting instead, since it was a difference of +3 Evasion ... oh, the mighty offhand Deathblade is amazing. I just beat down Gothmog in single combat at 950' and am about to enter the throne room...

[half]

Oh my goodness. I just found a +9 Deathblade. Not a typo.

Maybe I can finally win this game....

I think only 1 in 512 are +9 or better. That is a fine weapon! Maybe so fine that we'll have to tone that down in the future? It is probably still weaker than some of the artefacts though, so maybe it is OK. Do have fun with it!

[BlueFish]

Hope not. The probabilities are pretty transparent. Maybe one game out of several hundred a player will find a fantastic blade like that. That's not a bad thing.

Curious - is there justification within JRRT for deathblased? I love'em, cool idea for the game, even though I no longer play stabbers.

[half]

Hope not. The probabilities are pretty transparent. Maybe one game out of several hundred a player will find a fantastic blade like that. That's not a bad thing.

Yeah, I'm not worried by the 1 in 512 chance of a +9 one, but more by the fact that even an +5 one is pretty crazy and maybe that happens more often than I thought.

Curious - is there justification within JRRT for deathblased? I love'em, cool idea for the game, even though I no longer play stabbers.

No, there isn't. They are probably one of the more theme-conflicting things in the game as they feel a bit more swords and sorcery-ish. That said, I think Tolkien referred to werewolves and vampires and giant spiders as demons and it sword-demons wouldn't be too unbelievable.

They were designed to be a reference to the deathblade weapon (not monster) in the first roguelike I played: the under appreciated Mac game 'Dungeon of Doom':

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dungeon_Revealed

I can't remember why I decided to make them into a creature as well. It was probably unconsciously inspired by Stormbringer, though I hadn't read any of the Elric books.

[taptap]

Yeah, I'm not worried by the 1 in 512 chance of a +9 one, but more by the fact that even an +5 one is pretty crazy and maybe that happens more often than I thought.

I don't think it happens more often than you thought, it is just that nobody reports "Oh, I found a +0/+1 deathblade. My 1lb shortsword from 100ft is like ten times better." And usually people already specialized in a way that even the most awesome deathblade isn't really efficiently used if at all. - Do I sound frustrated? Yes, I am trying a light weapon build these days but I never found a deathblade higher than +3 and that one was Delmereth.

[HallucinationMushroom]

And usually people already specialized in a way that even the most awesome deathblade isn't really efficiently used if at all.

That would be me, holding a +10 deathblade... er, I was holding a +10 deathblade until I got disarmed. I think I might have been holding the sharp end, and stabbing with the pommel.

http://angband.oook.cz/screen-show.php?id=2192

[Patashu]

Being able to find arbitrarily strong equipment if you're super lucky is exciting. And, after all, in this kind of game, no one insanely good piece of equipment can prevent you from dying due to bad play.

[HugoVirtuoso]

Being able to find arbitrarily strong equipment if you're super lucky is exciting. And, after all, in this kind of game, no one insanely good piece of equipment can prevent you from dying due to bad play.

I would have to concur with the above, as it just happened with my best Smithing character, 'TheHugoHorror.' I was lucky enough to get the artifacts and enchanted equipment giving me Smithing bonuses, as high as 25 (with Song of Aule). Then upon working on 950ft, and looking for the last forge opportunity I got ambushed near Gothmog's Halls by Gothmog and his gang. In the end, I realized that I *completely forgot* to take off Feanor's crown as well even change into the Galvorn Armour of Resilience. (Feanor's crown aggravates)

There that one goes...

[half]

Being able to find arbitrarily strong equipment if you're super lucky is exciting. And, after all, in this kind of game, no one insanely good piece of equipment can prevent you from dying due to bad play.

That's true. For what its worth, I was considering changing it from a half chance of increasing the bonus and then trying again until failure to a one third chance. I agree that it may well be fine now. I suppose the main question is how many deathblades people encounter per game. I'd been assuming it is very few (2 to 5), in which case your best blade will be about +2 on average. If it is more like 8 or 16, that changes things, as I wouldn't want people to be able to get +5 one out of two games in which they wanted it.

[Ondrej]

Hi half,

thanks for the great variant, I really like it!

I already managed to win once and I have two feature requests regarding smithing:
1. Several times I lost my prepared item because of left arrow leaving smithing screen. If possible I would prefer to leave it just with ESC key like all other screens in the game.
2. I would prefer to have a option which will ask me if I want to create this artifact because I forgot to change default artifact name 'of Character name' few times and then equipment and inventory screens are looking quite dull... So after clicking on 'f) Accept' I would like to see something like:
'Are you sure you want to create this Crown of Ondrej? [y/n]'

What do you think about it?

[Starhawk]

To give you an idea of rarity, I've played hundreds of characters -- ALL of whom were stealth-stabbers interested in deathblades.

This was the first one I've found that was better than Delmereth. So I'm not sure it's a huge problem.

Also: I WON I WON I WON I WON!!!! YAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!


My character ended up as a combat god. It was amazing. I thought about trying to kill Morgoth but didn't want to jeopardize my first winner. The throne room was really hard - without any source of Sharpness, the only way to get a Silmaril was to switch to Glend, guzzle a Potion of Strength, and let Morgoth whip my ass with my decreased Evasion. I genuinely thought I was going to die - and then after getting the Silmaril, I had troubles making it over all the broken terrain to the stairs. BUT - it is done!

Lack of Sharpness was also the reason I didn't try to kill Morgoth. My flurry of blades was not going to keep up with his regeneration, which is hellacious, I discovered. Although I ended the game with 7k XP in the bank, so I could have picked up Song of Sharpness and given it a whirl. I thought really hard about doing that at 50'. But that will have to be for next time.

Edit: removed character dump because it was long... here's a ladder link.

No Smithing, no Archery, no Song. Hooah.

[HugoVirtuoso]

To give everyone a heads up, it *is* possible to wipe out Morgoth for good, without ANY source of Sharpness and without Song of Slaying. No Songs, no Archery, and no Smithing! I pulled it off very quickly, with my character, Prologue.

Check out my character dump here:

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=13960

(I don't want to spoil the details in the forum for the new winners. Have a look at Prologue and you'll figure out how. )

[half]

To give you an idea of rarity, I've played hundreds of characters -- ALL of whom were stealth-stabbers interested in deathblades.

This was the first one I've found that was better than Delmereth. So I'm not sure it's a huge problem.

Thanks for explaining. In that case, everyone can rest assured that fancier deathblades won't be more rare next version.

Also: I WON I WON I WON I WON!!!! YAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!

Congratulations!

[taptap]

questions and ideas

Knockback idea: 1) Make stat test not vs. strength but vs. strength bonus with your weapon so it remains a heavy weapon ability (less longsword knockback), 2) Roll stun into it? (or maybe that is too good)

Moral: I would love to have some modest moral bonus on either song of slaying or elbereth. (Or maybe that is what song of staying is for, never took it though.) (Got frightened while enraged and with decent will in my last char and had to tunnel my way into the cat fortress because I couldn't get past the watchers.)

Confusion: What does confusion do exactly - is confusing a 10-will creature even resulting in a serious amount of wrong direction? (I.e. is it useful to take cruel blow with a no-stealth, light weapon build?) Does the confusion score build up to something as does stun -> heavy stun -> knocked out?

[half]

Knockback idea: 1) Make stat test not vs. strength but vs. strength bonus with your weapon so it remains a heavy weapon ability (less longsword knockback),

This is a good idea. I was thinking of this the other day (perhaps someone here mentioned it?). We don't like the fact that it is now just as easy to trigger with a dagger as with a mattock, but we can't factor in everything and went with simplicity, especially because people typically *are* wielding weapons that are about optimal for their strength. I'll definitely consider this some more.

2) Roll stun into it? (or maybe that is too good)

I think that is. In my view, Knock Back is still really strong. Maybe too strong. Maybe it got stronger with the change. It is also a fun and tactically interesting ability. I'd like some people to try to break it before we make it stronger.

Moral: I would love to have some modest moral bonus on either song of slaying or elbereth. (Or maybe that is what song of staying is for, never took it though.)

That *is* what Staying is for, but letting Song of Slaying give Resist Fear wouldn't be unreasonable.

Confusion: What does confusion do exactly - is confusing a 10-will creature even resulting in a serious amount of wrong direction? (I.e. is it useful to take cruel blow with a no-stealth, light weapon build?) Does the confusion score build up to something as does stun -> heavy stun -> knocked out?

Confusion is binary unlike Stun. It makes you likely to go some direction other than where you are aiming. Here are the probabilities, straight from the source code. You can see there is about 1/3 chance of going in the intended direction.

// gives 3 chances to be turned left and 3 chances to be turned right
// leads to a binomial distribution of direction around the intended one:
//
// 15 20 15
//  6     6   (chances are all out of 64)
//  1  0  1