A thread for dumb questions

[Angdrim]

I've got a few questions that I should know the answer to but don't. So I'm going to ask them, and then leave the thread here with the invitation for others to ask similar questions.

Here are mine:

1) Does having a wall or a door between you and a monster do anything to make it less likely that they'll notice you? Another way of putting this - if the nasty can spot you from 200 feet away, is that 200 feet of trudging through the dungeon, or if you are in a completely different room connected only by twisty passages with lots of granite between you, is that the same?

2) How does speed scale? I know it's not linear, but what is the rate at which it drops offs? I've got an @ who could get up to +40 without any temporary buffs (2x = +7, " trickery, Luthien, Thror, Ringil, Cubragol). I know a lot of that would be wasted, but I don't know how much, and so I don't know whether to, say, go with Cubragol or a bow that does more damage.

3) Does the "average damage/round" information that you get when you look at a weapon include any calculation about how likely you are to hit with it, or is it just damage dice plus modifiers times blows/round?

[Grotug]

#2: Speed stops being linear at +28 and I'd say the point at which it's not worth having more speed is around +36. So, yeah, if you have a good Lorien bow and rPois elsewhere you could go "Weaponmastery for more damage.

#3: I don't think accuracy is taken into account in the calculation.

These questions aren't dumb. I'm disappointed.

[Pete Mack]

#1. A wall makes it far less likely a monster will notice you. A door makes no difference. Monster awareness is determined by pathfinding, and if the path is long, a monster wont notice you immediately on the other side of a wall. (Not unreasonable: 10' of granite wouldnt actually transmit much sound.)

The exception is aggravation and monster shriek. Those wake up everything in a 200' or 400' radius, respectively.

[Nick]

For #1, sound doesn't propagate through any grid that has the NO_FLOW flag - that's basically walls and (impassable) rubble. Scent is not laid down on any of these, or on lava. Monsters track by sight, then sound, then smell.

For more detail on #2, the table from normal speed up (first row is +0 to +9, etc) looks like this:

	/* Norm */    10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19,
	/* F+10 */    20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29,
	/* F+20 */    30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 36, 37, 37,
	/* F+30 */    38, 38, 39, 39, 40, 40, 40, 41, 41, 41,

The numbers are the amount of energy you get each game turn, and you get to move once you reach 100 energy, so that's 10 game turns at +0, 5 at +10, about 3 at +24. So in practical terms, Morgoth is getting 38 energy per turn, and if you're at +34 speed you'll get 20 turns to his 19.

For #3, chance to-hit is taken into account for calculating critical hit damage, but not for whether any blow hits, as that is monster dependent. So to get average damage against a particular monster, you should take the best average damage against that monster, and then take the percentage of that given in the monster description (as your chance to hit that monster).

[Angdrim]

Thanks everyone, those are really helpful answers!

[gglibertine]

Another dumb question: do you actually improve at things like disarming traps by doing it, or is it purely a function of class/level/stats?

[Pete Mack]

It is purely from character level, plus other attributes.

[Julian]

3) Does the "average damage/round" information that you get when you look at a weapon include any calculation about how likely you are to hit with it, or is it just damage dice plus modifiers times blows/round?

It’s just dice, modifiers, and blows. Chance to hit and criticals aren’t accounted for.

[Pete Mack]

Criticals are certainly included in displayed damage per round. There's no easy way to include hit probability, because enemy AC is not fixed. Pos*bands solve this by including little charts in their enormous character dumps.

[Julian]

I was mistaken. That’ll teach me to try to figure it out empirically instead of tracking down the code in question.

[will_asher]

My stupid question: Why to weapons of Morgul Slay Undead when they're supposed to be the weapons of the ringwraiths who are undead?

[Julian]

My stupid question: Why to weapons of Morgul Slay Undead when they're supposed to be the weapons of the ringwraiths who are undead?

In reality? Because they’re supposed to be potentially useful.

Within game continuity, one could argue that because they are weapons that exist in the shadow realm that the Ringwraiths exist in, they are particularly effective against other creatures that exist in that realm

[gglibertine]

Here's another dumb question: why don't wands/spear of light spells harm dark hounds?

[Pete Mack]

Hounds are not elementals and are not monsters of Evil* (as much as they seem that way.)

* with one exception

[Selkie]

* with one exception

Time, tindalos and gravity... What's the fourth?