rPoison (please read as ARR Poison)

[JohnCW9]

With 800 HP, poison can't kill you. With < 800, it can. But if you have ESP, and detect sufficiently often for big poison breathers, you can survive for a very long while (though perhaps not indefinitely)

Without ESP and detect monsters, your expected survival time is pretty short--just long enough to dive to dl 50 and find PB6, so long as you carry a source of detect objects and don't do much exploring.

Anyone have a posted winner that does not have rpoison?

John

[Pete Mack]

I do occasionally, but not often. (There are two out of three of the most preferred amulets give RPoison. For full casters, the most popular armor has it too. So once you get deep, you will probably use it. And nobody is recommending doing without, if you have a good source that doesn't conflict with something more important. (Speed, CON, ESP, Conf.) It's not that RPoison isn't an important resist--it is, at number 5 or 6.

The point is, you can do without it for quite a while, so you can dive past dl 40 without it--in particular if you have Detect Monsters and ESP.

[ChodTheWacko]

So was that fun? I ask in all seriousness. I think that incrementally learning monster memory is a stupid idea

I don't have a problem with it, really.
It kind of adds character to the game, that 'ooo, never seen that before!' creepyness.

I have a recent character doing quite well, although I haven't been down at level 99 in ages so I'm having to use a rod of probing on everything. It would be nice (perhaps not realistic) for it to list how much damage their break/spell attacks would do.

- Frank

[Magnate]

What would really help is if the MONSTER MEMORY WAS STORED IN A SEPARATE FILE (or an option to save it separately included the options menu (for competition play)), as well as in the save file.

Hmmm, this is a nice thought. I'm planning on looking into the mess that is pref files one day, and making the monster memory effectively an auto-loaded pref file would do what you want. People could always choose not to load it if they wanted to start over.

[nekrotyrael]

The overall sentiment is that such deaths add to the enjoyment of playing the game,

Not to mine.

[Sirridan]

So was that fun? I ask in all seriousness. I think that incrementally learning monster memory is a stupid idea, and that the description should have included "can breathe for xxx damage of darkenss" from the start. The overall sentiment is that such deaths add to the enjoyment of playing the game, and I simply cannot understand it.

How about a system similar to most MMO games, such as everquest with con's (consider) from non-threat to "What would you like your tombstone to say?" or wow with it's skull Icon for much higher level or boss monsters?

I'd say somewhere in monster recall add a difficulty check algorithm and spit out a string saying what would happen to you.

Algorithm:

1. Get the maximum amount of damage the monster can do in one turn, such as adding up all it's physical attacks, or taking it's highest breath. Count player resists in this (although not double resists, it starts getting complicated ).

2. If the monster's energy gain per turn is higher than yours (resulting in a double move at some point) multiply the damage by 2, or by 3 if it could result in a triple move.

3. Some monsters could have some property, FLAG_DANGEROUS, for monsters that are dangerous even if they cannot kill you in one round, such as Grand Master Mystics and Death Knights, and Druj's. (Give them first or second message, shown below.)

4. Spit out the return string based on the theoretical max damage the monster could do:

Fighting this monster would be suicide. (dmg >= 100% hp)

Fighting this monster would probably end in disaster. (dmg >= 90% hp)

Fighting this monster is not worthwhile. (dmg >= 75% hp)

This monster won't cause you too much trouble alone. (dmg >= 50% hp)

This monster looks like it would be rather easy. (dmg >= 30% hp)

It's not even a challenge, just kill it already! (dmg >= 10% hp)

This monster is not a threat. (dmg < 10% hp)

[Zikke]

How about a system similar to most MMO games, such as everquest with con's (consider) from non-threat to "What would you like your tombstone to say?" or wow with it's skull Icon for much higher level or boss monsters?

I'd say somewhere in monster recall add a difficulty check algorithm and spit out a string saying what would happen to you.

Algorithm:

1. Get the maximum amount of damage the monster can do in one turn, such as adding up all it's physical attacks, or taking it's highest breath. Count player resists in this (although not double resists, it starts getting complicated ).

2. If the monster's energy gain per turn is higher than yours (resulting in a double move at some point) multiply the damage by 2, or by 3 if it could result in a triple move.

3. Some monsters could have some property, FLAG_DANGEROUS, for monsters that are dangerous even if they cannot kill you in one round, such as Grand Master Mystics and Death Knights, and Druj's. (Give them first or second message, shown below.)

4. Spit out the return string based on the theoretical max damage the monster could do:

Fighting this monster would be suicide. (dmg >= 100% hp)

Fighting this monster would probably end in disaster. (dmg >= 90% hp)

Fighting this monster is not worthwhile. (dmg >= 75% hp)

This monster won't cause you too much trouble alone. (dmg >= 50% hp)

This monster looks like it would be rather easy. (dmg >= 30% hp)

It's not even a challenge, just kill it already! (dmg >= 10% hp)

This monster is not a threat. (dmg < 10% hp)

Followed by "You could hold down the '5' key and would only die from starvation."

[Donald Jonker]

Instadeath...

So was that fun? I ask in all seriousness. I think that incrementally learning monster memory is a stupid idea, and that the description should have included "can breathe for xxx damage of darkenss" from the start. The overall sentiment is that such deaths add to the enjoyment of playing the game, and I simply cannot understand it.

I'm not even sure prior warning via full monster memory is sufficient to address instadeath via breath attacks in the game. For a couple of uniques it is fine, even invigorating, but as an institutional feature common to many monsters I'm not sure that it adds any useful edge to the game. In Nethack you had Medusa, Orcus, the Horsemen, Rodney and Cockatrices and that was about it. They were in predictable places and you had predictable way of planning for them. Not saying that Nethack is a model to go after, but a roguelike can operate well without the constant threat of instadeath.

In Angband they're scattered and legion. There's no way to plan for them other than level scum for equipment. You either easily avoid them if you know who to look for, you die to them if you don't, or you die if you just make a mistake in detection/evasion. Once you have the resist, they're not that much trouble.

If, on the other hand, the unresisted damage was critical but not instadeath, (say, takes you down to 1 hp), and will cause you to die on the next hit taken from the next monster in their entourage, it might make for some more interesting tactical decisions.

[buzzkill]

If, on the other hand, the unresisted damage was critical but not instadeath, (say, takes you down to 1 hp), and will cause you to die on the next hit taken from the next monster in their entourage, it might make for some more interesting tactical decisions.

I can't say for sure, but I'm pretty sure that Steamband does something very similar to this. Although I'm opposed to the principal, I never minded it when it saved my ***. Of course, Steam is a whole different beast. Steam doesn't hold your hand the way Vanilla does.

[zaimoni]

I'm not even sure prior warning via full monster memory is sufficient to address instadeath via breath attacks in the game.

It depends on what you mean by address.

Ideally (Zaiband doesn't implement this, it's a royal pain to not cause false alarms for nonzero insignificant probabilities of death), the game should actively alert you whenever you reasonably could die, from known threats, in one move. (If @ is wandering around in homonculus depth without either free action or see invisible -- no warning, as the threat is not detectable. And a competent AI would exploit that to practically ensure getting the first strike.)

It shouldn't wait for you to check @'s monster memory, or for that matter for @ to have monster memory. This warning is not an intellectual, calculating thing, it's representing the adrenaline surge from being in immediate danger.

[will_asher]

(OT)

Zaiband: end the "I shouldn't have survived that" experience. V3.0.6 fork.

Are you changing "I shouldn't have survived that" to "I didn't survive that"?
If so, I don't see how this is appealing. no offence, I just thought that was a strange advertisement for a variant.

[zaimoni]

Are you changing "I shouldn't have survived that" to "I didn't survive that"?

The plan is to eradicate Nintendo Hard issues, but make player stupidity even more lethal. I'm leaving in asymmetric LoS/targetability because that makes Zaiband easier.

E.g., even now the monster memory will automatically tell you about all attacks that can individually instakill you from full health. (In particular, it will tell you about Grand Master Mystics' melee blows before you take your first hit.)

Note that @ is an "instadeath breather" for a number of monsters, given the correct class and/or equipment choices. As such, enhancing instadeath breather ambushing actually helps @ in the DL10-DL40 range.

If so, I don't see how this is appealing. no offence, I just thought that was a strange advertisement for a variant.

It's my primary frustration with V, and 3.1.1 is no better than 3.0.9. In AI cheat mode (which I play V with), the Ancient MultiHued Dragon should know that @ has RBase but not RPoison and simply choose to instadeath @ with poison. It's @'s problem not to give the AMHD a chance to breathe. (This is in Zaiband, along with some other enhancements to monster spell selection. AI cheat mode will be going in version vaporware, when the AI doesn't cheat.)

I also should not be able to survive giving ghosts triple moves. A triple-moving ghost should be able to kill @ in melee without giving @ a chance to counterattack as long as @ is next to a wall, period. (This is not in Zaiband yet; the pathfinding changes are fairly radical. The move-ratio counter in the left status panel prevents this being cheating AI.)

[PowerDiver]

the Ancient MultiHued Dragon should know that @ has RBase but not RPoison and simply choose to instadeath @ with poison. It's @'s problem not to give the AMHD a chance to breathe.

As we all know from multi-hued scale activation, and from wands of mixed dragon breaths, you don't get to choose the element when you breathe multi.

[Nick]

As we all know from multi-hued scale activation, and from wands of mixed dragon breaths, you don't get to choose the element when you breathe multi.

Yes, one assumes that the AMHD has a rotating set of lungs (kind of like one of those four-colour pens) with randomised rotation.