Sil 1.0.2

[T-Mick]

How do I get the character sheet of a character that isn't dead yet?

EDIT: Never mind, I figured it out, now I need some help on what to do next with this char.

[bron]

I hope the above sentence implies that you are willing to allow it to be distributed under the current joint Angband licence / GPL arrangement?

Yes, absolutely. Sorry I didn't make that explicitly clear for the lawyers.

[half]

Feel free to use this (or not) as you see fit.

I've just added that in: thanks! I'm not sure if we have any other Curses players but if so, I hope this helps them. It certainly seems like a more sensible default. I hope the above sentence implies that you are willing to allow it to be distributed under the current joint Angband licence / GPL arrangement?

[WaveMotion]

I'm also pretty sure you can get the +1 bonus to throwing spears with Polearm Mastery; similarly, Elves get +1 to throwing daggers, and dwarves get +1 to throwing axes.

Bonus: grab Weaponsmithing and make yourself some 2.0lb spears, and then Focus Attack your throws for some pretty nice crittage.

[debo]

Does Cruel Blow stack with throwing? I thought all Stealth abilities had to be melee-induced (assassination, cruel blow).

I'm 99% sure you get the +1 polearm mastery bonus to throwing spears. I remember that being a significant part of my survival strategy with early-stage polearm specialists I was playing with a few months ago.

[T-Mick]

I just tried Throwing Mastery for the first time, and I must say, I've been missing out. It makes for an interesting game. Most importantly, it makes daggers actually useful. Scoring triple crits from twelve spaces away is definitely nice, and with cruel blow, it would make for a good approach tactic. As for actually using it as a primary means of offence, you would need a few spears along with your daggers. As monsters get closer, you would want to switch to the more powerful spears. One question, does the +1 from Polearm Mastery stack with the +5 from throwing? That would be helpful.

[half]

I have a question. Is the free attack from polearm mastery affected by focused attack? Because I was thinking of playing a polearm master with focused attack and knockback, the plan being that I just wait and the monster runs away, in which case I still should have time to thrash it, or the monster kills itself on my Great Spear.

Yes, that should work.

[Philip]

I have a question. Is the free attack from polearm mastery affected by focused attack? Because I was thinking of playing a polearm master with focused attack and knockback, the plan being that I just wait and the monster runs away, in which case I still should have time to thrash it, or the monster kills itself on my Great Spear.

[Scatha]

We definitely like the fact that the stairs aren't safe. Before we brought in the stealth system with unwary monsters distinct from asleep ones, which allowed wandering monsters to come via the stairs, fighting from the stairs was far too reliable a strategy.

That said, we've talked about the fact that it can be a bit of an unfair surprise for the player. Giving the player one or two turns' warning that they can hear monsters about to arrive might well be an improvement (so long of course as the stairs weren't usable in that time), and changing their colour is a neat touch I hadn't thought of. It gets a little messy behind the scenes, though (for example I believe stair-colouring would cause a more problematic case of the bug which lets you see when monsters open doors across the map), so I think this is a fairly low-priority matter (there are still a lot of other things we want to add to the game).

[buzzkill]

... if you figure out some way to cleanly represent what the player can hear then I think being able to hear monsters coming down the stairs would be appropriate.

You could also speculate that some monsters would carry a light source or produce natural light which would stand out in an otherwise pitch black dungeon and could alert the player to their arrival.

[clouded]

Enemies surprising you by coming up/down stairs is part of the Sil experience. Though I do think Sil punishes you quite a lot for bad luck sometimes, it's interesting how dangerous stairs are compared to any other roguelike I know.

[Derakon]

Mm, since stairs go into the floor/ceiling pretty quickly, I don't think you can see very far down them; maybe one turn's worth of movement but that's about it. On the other hand, if you figure out some way to cleanly represent what the player can hear then I think being able to hear monsters coming down the stairs would be appropriate. Depending on the type of monster, of course. Catmen would make much less noise than orcs.

[Patashu]

Unbalanced, yes. But, that could be fixed by having monsters spawn from stairs much more often.

It's to simulate the way you can look down a corridor and see monsters many tiles away from you - stairs are just corridors in the third dimension, after all! So it would make sense to be able to see (and maybe listen) a short distance up/down them.

[HugoVirtuoso]

I just had a thought. Would it be unbalanced for stairs to change colour and interrupt you (your light radius) number of turns before enemies spawn through it?

Unbalanced, yes. But, that could be fixed by having monsters spawn from stairs much more often.

[debo]

I just had a thought. Would it be unbalanced for stairs to change colour and interrupt you (your light radius) number of turns before enemies spawn through it?

I personally like having enemies burst around me just as I'm about to reach the stairs Then again, I usually play stealthy characters.