Sil : Suggestions

[Patashu]

Can you use Leaping to leap over a monster(s)? If not, what if you could?

[debo]

My biggest mental block to taking Leaping is that it's situationally useful, where pretty much everything else in the evasion tree is always useful. The fact that I have to pay more for everything else to get this situationally useful thing is the biggest detractor.

[BlueFish]

I changed my edit files a while ago so that leaping has no prereq, and is a prereq for sprinting. I take it pretty much every game, as I used to take dodging/sprinting pretty much every game. I'm still pretty baffled at why half considers it so powerful. I've done the leap-over-chasm-and-shoot thing and it can be pretty fun but it's also a pretty rare opportunity and can be very dangerous if you get trapped on the other side without room for a run-up to jump over again.

The only real motivation I had to use it instead of dodging as the prereq to sprinting was to be able to fully explore levels. I was losing forges sometimes.

[locus]

The current plan is to remove its pre-req (which would make it much more attractive). If that isn't enough then your idea would work well. I'm actually still not fully convinced that it is marginal at the moment. I remember making archery stronger until people used it and then it turned out that it had already been overpowered...

Leaping is basically two things - a very unreliable escape and an ability to access parts of the dungeon that would otherwise be unaccessible. To use leaping as an escape requires a chasm you can reach, when often the reason you need an escape is because you're surrounded. And anyway, a chasm you can reach is an escape in its own right, albeit a very dangerous one to use. And if you want access to more dungeon parts, Sil has non-persistent levels, so it's as simple as taking the stairs.

I guess there's a possibility of a degenerate strategy where you lead all the enemies on the map to the edge of a chasm, then then jump across and take potshots in perfect safety? I don't generally play archers so I don't know how good that is, but it seems like if it's good it's too good to be allowed to exist, and balancing Leaping for that case will mean making it useless for non-archers, as it currently is.

[half]

Suggestion: since Leaping is currently so marginal, why not merge it into Dodging? It makes sense that jumping around might give you +3 to evasion when you moved. I think Leaping has to be given some combat utility if you want it to be actually purchased.

The current plan is to remove its pre-req (which would make it much more attractive). If that isn't enough then your idea would work well. I'm actually still not fully convinced that it is marginal at the moment. I remember making archery stronger until people used it and then it turned out that it had already been overpowered...

[locus]

Suggestion: since Leaping is currently so marginal, why not merge it into Dodging? It makes sense that jumping around might give you +3 to evasion when you moved. I think Leaping has to be given some combat utility if you want it to be actually purchased.

[half]

One thing about the monster recall - why do people who kill monsters get to know their will etc., but if you deploy effects against their will etc. you never get this crucial information? Can't there be a trigger that reveals a monsters will when you put it to flight magically?

You get it for kills just because I'd like to give it to players gradually and that is an easy way. You should definitely get it from skillchecks against monster Will too, though coding that isn't a high priority. If it went into mpa-Sil I'd definitely port the change over for a future version.

[debo]

It might be neat to try a sil comp with:

a) full monster recall from the beginning
b) Full id of all non-consumables when you get them in LOS
c) Remove lorekeeper and make loremaster id consumables (or something)
d) Remove treasures

Alternately, we could maybe do

a) full monster recall from the beginning
b) Change lorekeeper to absolutego/scatha versions (which gives you pseudo-id)
c) Remove treasures

[Infinitum]

Either that or perfect monster recall from the outset maybe? Hidden but static information in a game that relies on the player having metagame knowledge is way easy to Wiki anyway. Now, Sil is sufficiently short that I was willing to suicide into unknown uniques and the like when learning the ropes (and to the best of my knowledge there are no compendiums online, so one would have to scum the gamefiles for it), but it's a consideration.

[taptap]

I tried a trickster (only fear and feet as main skills and 3 bow skill for insects) again today.

One thing about the monster recall - why do people who kill monsters get to know their will etc., but if you deploy effects against their will etc. you never get this crucial information? Can't there be a trigger that reveals a monsters will when you put it to flight magically?

[Scatha]

It might be interesting and even funny to compare the amount of fear induced in monsters per point of song between Elbereth with 6 song and a Horn, even with channeling. Add in the area of effect of the song compared to beam of the horn.... and I doubt it'd be close for most situations where you want to get monsters away from you.

If you do this analysis carefully, we'd definitely take it into account for balance decisions.

[BlueFish]

Elbereth wins by repetition, you are singing it while doing other things each turn as opposed to that every application of a horn uses up a turn. Still, you can buff will for horns by 5 at once (channeling). Nobody seems to do it, but you can't sing Elbereth without the ability, so comparing with a horn without ability isn't entirely fair imo.

Horns take up that inventory slot, which is huge. Also the repetition and concurrence with other actions thing you pointed out.

It might be interesting and even funny to compare the amount of fear induced in monsters per point of song between Elbereth with 6 song and a Horn, even with channeling. Add in the area of effect of the song compared to beam of the horn.... and I doubt it'd be close for most situations where you want to get monsters away from you.

[BlueFish]

What will did you have? In what shape were you? Morale effects can not be deployed efficiently when already heavily injured, which is perfectly sensible if you think about it. Slaying weapons do affect morale (even of bystanders of the same letter) with each hit and it should be not that difficult to put Wargs to flight between Doriath and Terror. Playing around with channeling I found horn of terror very reliable nonetheless, although expensive, the suggestion that channeling will in future reduce the horn cost to 10 voice has already been made and may make it to 1.3 if I understand scatha correctly.

My will was 7 - 3 grace, 3 skill points, 1 will affinity.

At the time there were literally 12 wolves, 10 orcs, and a giant in my vicinity. I probably had half HP or so. I had been thwacking the wolves with a doriath longsword but had to pay attention to Orthrod when he became adjacent, on the hope I could kill him. I got close but he kept retreating. Then when the giant became adjacent things got bad.

I don't think it would be an inappropriate level of power for that horn in that situation to clear those wargs to my south.

Imo, people did not explore the morale aspect of the game as much as they did other aspects. The comments on the horns are way too much in isolation, we wouldn't talk that way about weapons. "A standard deathblade doesn't even make more damage compared to one-handed spears and is only marginally better in other respects. Quite useless frankly." (Yeah, until you get subtlety.) So why talk about horns without mentioning skill and the plethora of available will boosts on items and via channeling and song of staying - which would fit into bluefishs builds nicely btw - abilities?

Maybe. I know an artifact has Staying on it and that would be fun. Or crafting an artifact would be fun. But I find Elbereth to be of the most utility on the song tree for most situations where survival becomes a problem.

[Derakon]

Elbereth wins by repetition, you are singing it while doing other things each turn as opposed to that every application of a horn uses up a turn. Still, you can buff will for horns by 5 at once (channeling). Nobody seems to do it, but you can't sing Elbereth without the ability, so comparing with a horn without ability isn't entirely fair imo.

It seems like a tricky business to evaluate: how much point is there in investing skillpoints in being able to use horns effectively when each one takes up an inventory slot -- and, contrarily, you may not have any kind of guarantee that the horn(s) you want to use will be generated.

Elbereth requires experience investment, but that's about it. Horns require finding the horn, allocating an inventory slot to them, and experience investment? They'd better be seriously powerful in that case.

Again, speaking as a non-player, my guess would be that the "right" thing to do with horns is to make them powerful even when unskilled, but costly. If you do have access to the abilities they provide by other means (e.g. Elbereth) you'll generally prefer not to use a horn, but if your build doesn't lean in that direction then a horn could be a good way to cover a missing ability in an emergency.

From what I understand of Sil's mechanisms, that would tend to mean that you'd get a major bonus to skill checks when using horns, but their voice cost would be high.

[taptap]

Elbereth wins by repetition, you are singing it while doing other things each turn as opposed to that every application of a horn uses up a turn. Still, you can buff will for horns by 5 at once (channeling). Nobody seems to do it, but you can't sing Elbereth without the ability, so comparing with a horn without ability isn't entirely fair imo.