Sil 1.1

[debo]

A couple of monster quibbles:

1) Why aren't elemental serpents flagged as dragons? Wish my Nargothrond sword worked on them.

2) Why aren't lesser vampires flagged as undead? Wish my Final Rest sword worked on them.

The vampires thing is a good question. It might make Final Rest more useful, since I never keep those anymore (There aren't many undead types that are dangerous, and free action is readily available elsewhere.)

I prefer that serpents stay the way they are, because serpents would be sort of a joke if you could just roll over them with Nargothrond (they have very low HP). I like that they force you to either have a heavy weapon or some other strategy of dealing with them (other than just picking up a random slay), but are easily dispatched once you've figured that out.

Nargorthrond is an interesting slay right now because it gives you a better change at fighting monsters who you are normally better off avoiding (esp balrogs and drakes). If it was just ezmode for serpents I might not like it so much

[Starhawk]

Nargorthrond is an interesting slay right now because it gives you a better change at fighting monsters who you are normally better off avoiding (esp balrogs and drakes). If it was just ezmode for serpents I might not like it so much

I'm generally frustrated by Nargothrond weapons because I find them early, but often die before I run into monsters where it's useful. So they end up being a wasted inventory slot that I feel stuck carrying, since I 'might' live long enough to see raukar.

That said, I found a +4 deathblade (1.0lb) last night which is JUST FINE for stomping serpents...

[debo]

I'm generally frustrated by Nargothrond weapons because I find them early, but often die before I run into monsters where it's useful. So they end up being a wasted inventory slot that I feel stuck carrying, since I 'might' live long enough to see raukar.

That said, I found a +4 deathblade (1.0lb) last night which is JUST FINE for stomping serpents...

Hmmn. Rauko show up a bit earlier than serpents, don't they? I often meet Sulrauko at 500' (earlier if I stumble across a vaulty patch.) Nargothrond is super handy for that reason alone, since Sulrauko have a bewilderingly high protection rating for that depth

[debo]

I've never found a deathblade better than +2 Bernoulli hates me!

[Starhawk]

So much for my +4 deathblade... I'm dead at 950' again.

This time I'm not even sure what killed me -- I was murdering everything in sight, then suddenly the room goes dark. I had a light radius of 4 and still couldn't see a thing, got penned in and status-effected, then beaten to death.

Ugh. I'm assuming it was a big, shadowy unique, but I have no idea how to avoid future deaths of that fashion. I had a Feanorian lamp and a weapon that provided light...figured that would do it. Was working for Spiders of Gorgoroth and the shadowy rauko.

Someday! Someday I will see the throne room!

[debo]

You should have seen it in the deathmap?

Darkness is a problem when you first encounter it, and then again at the deep, dark depths. The problem at 950' is that many strongly-darkness casting monsters come in groups, and their darkness level gets added together on intersecting squares. So, light that works against a Gwathrauko and a Spider of Gorgoroth might not be enough if 3 Gwathrauko suddenly storm the room.

If the entire room went dark, it may have been the Balrog of Shadow (he seems to have different darkness mechanics than other monsters) but I think you would have been able to see him when he was adjacent to you.

It's tricky to survive situations like that. Staves of light occasionally help (add +1 light to every square in the room), staves of Majesty or Slumber might disable some of the guys hiding in the shadows, a staff of Foes will at least show you where the monsters are, etc. Otherwise, you can just eat Rage and quaff Con and try to kill everything even if you can't see it

This is where Song of Trees really shines (no pun intended) compared to Inner Light, IMO. If you're investing in Song anyways you'll probably get at least 2-3 light radius out of the song alone!

OK, I've clearly had way too much coffee. Can't stop typing!

[Starhawk]

So far my builds have completely skipped Song... I may need to reconsider that, and figure out what goodies from the other ability trees I can live without.

I didn't even think about eating rage and buffing, and just going nuts. Even in the dark I probably could have accounted for Spiders of Gorgoroth or Gwathrauko. Ah, well, die and learn.

[debo]

If you post your character dumps to the ladder, we can probably help out a lot more!

[half]

A couple of monster quibbles:

1) Why aren't elemental serpents flagged as dragons? Wish my Nargothrond sword worked on them.

2) Why aren't lesser vampires flagged as undead? Wish my Final Rest sword worked on them.

1) I like elemental dragons from D&D and Angband, but they just don't exist in Middle-earth. I therefore decided to have something of that elemental D&D flavour but to not have it be a dragon -- hence the gemstone serpents. We ended up with quite a few differences between them:

- There is no slay for serpents
- Serpents have many elements / Dragons have fire or nothing
- Serpents have very high prot and low health / Dragons have the opposite
- There are several unique dragons
- Serpents can't open doors

I think serpents have ended up a bit like giant centipedes actually.

2) Vampires aren't undead in the works of Tolkien. If anything, they are demons (as are werewolves and intelligent spiders I believe). I count sticking to the source material as a plus and avoiding certain generic D&D assumptions as usually another plus.

[half]

This time I'm not even sure what killed me -- I was murdering everything in sight, then suddenly the room goes dark. I had a light radius of 4 and still couldn't see a thing, got penned in and status-effected, then beaten to death.

I'm not sure what killed you (and you probably skipped past the death screen), but if you look at your highscore file it should tell you (unless it was by poison). As debo said, 4 light radius is a lot, but Gwathraukar have -3 light radius which is very serious: especially when more than one shows up. Ungoliant is also exceptionally dark, as is the Balrog of Shadow. If you see darkness approaching (and if it seems to be overwhelming your own light) then running immediately is smart. You get your evasion and melee *halved* if you can't see the opponent, which is an incredibly big penalty in the late game: possibly (-15) [-15] or more!

The only unusual thing with Balrogs and shadow is that no matter the light level on their square, you can always see them (reflecting the fact that they burn with flame).

[clouded]

I'm surprised to find out vampires aren't undead, I had naturally assumed they were. I agree that final rest as a damage brand isn't hugely useful. Barrow wights and shadows are okay, but grave wights could use a little more, oathwraiths moderately more since they are so rare and unmourned a whole lot more, I've never found the hunger relevant, they don't even damage you and they are slow.

[debo]

Unmourned are annoying because they can scream and pass through walls. Calling attention to yourself at 950' can be really bad for stealthies. But otherwise, you're right, they're fairly simple to deal with.

I have died to starvation from the hunger-drainers before. Oathwraiths are more common now b/c of Haunted Dreams, in my experience. They are really, really nasty if your damage depends on criticals and they trap you. I like them a lot.

I think the early undead could definitely stand to be more dangerous. All you really need is a big weapon and they're toast. You don't even need that much accuracy to hit them. The slowing is definitely bad, especially when other baddies get mixed up in the fight.

I also hesitate a bit at using experienced opinion to determine the dangerousness of monsters I have no trouble with undead now, but when I first played the game, I got whooped by certain undeads for sure.

[half]

Wow, a great list of comments/questions!

a) Throwing axes (and later Aeglos) were hugely useful throughout. I fired less than 10 arrows. Throwing weapons really are like a cheap version of opportunist, if you don't want to waste the XP on stealth. I did this mainly for purist reasons, as all my previous winners had been stealth based, and I wanted to win with 0 stealth

d) Song of Trees is actually really good. If I could do this again, I would avoid Inner Light altogether and just take Trees. That would save XP on the will tree that could be used in Song instead. The difference with Trees is that it scales with skill, whereas inner light does not.

I'm glad people are using these and finding them useful. I think in the early days the Sil community found some powerful options and didn't explore some other possibilities. It is interesting to see how powerful some of these were all along.

f) I think we could 'fix' archery by encouraging melee characters to throw more. bron just killed V with a 14 archery Dwarf, so yeah haha. I know archery is fun for everyone involved, but if we maybe made bows 1d4 or something instead of making it like shooting a shortsword with better crits, that would still let archery specialists own things. I dunno, I just found throwing to be really fun and I don't know how many other people like it as much as me.

We're certainly going to have to do something about it, but still aren't quite sure what. A big problem is that it is *particularly* good against uniques as you can prepare for them and afford to use up many great arrows on them. It *needs* to be good in general as you can end up in a lot of trouble when creatures get to close range if you rely on it. I think fixing the abilities/specials is a better approach than lowering the damage sides though.

I think there are good posts about some options earlier in this thread.

(Also, d4s? Everyone knows that piercing and slashing and bludgeoning weapons have an odd number of sides in Sil, and only Axes have even sides...)

g) Killing things fast enables you to avoid a lot of the "defensive" abilities. I avoided poison resistance for a long time and never took crit resistance, because if something got too hard, I was able to kill it in 2-3 rounds with the Great Axe.

Yes, the good offence being the best defence. I'm not sure what the best balance is, but going high on the offence and low on the defence certainly can make the game more fun. We've tried to push people in this direction, but maybe more pushing could occur.

h) Have we ever considered making every up staircase on the ascent into a shaft? I think 10 floors of ascent is enough to be challenging, and after that it just sort of gets grindy. The danger of stairs collapsing is always there, too. I was getting really bored by the end.

Yes, I think the escape is a little too long -- at least for those without Revelations. I think it isn't too bad the first time as it is more special then. I'm not totally sure what to do about this. I like the way the current approach doesn't change the rules of dungeon generation on the way up. I do think that being more lenient on the false-stairs rules on the way up would be good, so that you don't encounter them if you don't stair-scum. I don't really want them to be like the Mysterious Force of NetHack.

Request: Can we fix how Silent Watchers work? A few times now I've been stuck in an empty room where they knock me out and just keep screaming. I have to sit there and jam 'esc' for literally 3 minutes before I finally save against stunning. I get the point -- they're supposed to disable you -- but putting the player in a quasi-infinite loop doesn't exactly seem fun

Actually, this sounds like a bug. The highest a Watcher can set your stun counter is supposed to be 105, they can't set it while you are stunned and you are meant to get a free turn when you wake up (like with spiders and entrancement). So it should just be 5 turns in a row maximum. I'll have to look into it when I get some free time. I'm completely with you on this one.

[fizzix]

Yes, I think the escape is a little too long -- at least for those without Revelations. I think it isn't too bad the first time as it is more special then. I'm not totally sure what to do about this. I like the way the current approach doesn't change the rules of dungeon generation on the way up. I do think that being more lenient on the false-stairs rules on the way up would be good, so that you don't encounter them if you don't stair-scum. I don't really want them to be like the Mysterious Force of NetHack.

What do you think about always generating an up/down shaft each level? Then you can keep the same dungeon generation layout, but make getting to a specific destination slightly less cumbersome.

[half]

What do you think about always generating an up/down shaft each level? Then you can keep the same dungeon generation layout, but make getting to a specific destination slightly less cumbersome.

This is a good idea. There are three sizes of level and they are more likely to be large the deeper you are. The small ones have exactly two stairs on them, the middle ones have exactly four and the larger ones might have four or six -- I can't remember. Having the middle and large levels guarantee that one pair of stairways are shafts might be nice. I could look into this at the same time as rethinking whether the levels should be more continuous in size (rather than three sizes) and whether they should be a bit smaller in general.