Mage-er Change

[PowerDiver]

I only discovered the feature when Spacebux mentioned it; OoD does 3d6 + 1.5*plev if you are wielding a blessed weapon, and 3d6 + 1.25*plev otherwise.

I think you are misreading the code. That should be about the difference between a priest vs a paladin casting the orb, differentiating between them by whether the char under consideration suffers a penalty when wielding a pointy weapon.

[myshkin]

I think you are misreading the code. That should be about the difference between a priest vs a paladin casting the orb, differentiating between them by whether the char under consideration suffers a penalty when wielding a pointy weapon.

Argh, you are right. I should stop posting for the night.

[Max Stats]

For the important fights mages should use devices over spells. Note

                /* Boost damage effects if skill > difficulty */
                boost = MAX(p_ptr->state.skills[SKILL_DEVICE] - level, 0);

That's extra percentage damage, and can be quite significant. Mages have high device skill both intrinsically, and because they emphasize INT over other classes which further increases their relative advantage.

I was noticing the same thing with a couple of recent Ranger characters; it seemed that they could dish out more damage with e.g., rods of acid bolts vs. their own spell of the same. This would appear to explain why.

[Starhawk]

I was wondering a few weeks back if there was any way to boost damage on wands, etc. I was playing a warrior and wondering why anyone would ever take on any deep-depth monster with a wand, having to empty an entire wand to get a single kill.

Knowing there is bonus damage for high-skill characters makes plenty of sense. Thanks for that.

[Spacebux]

Blessed Weapon Effect

I think you are misreading the code. That should be about the difference between a priest vs a paladin casting the orb, differentiating between them by whether the char under consideration suffers a penalty when wielding a pointy weapon.

I'll let the code speak for itself:

void get_spell_info(int tval, int spell, char *p, size_t len)
{

...
case PRAYER_ORB_OF_DRAINING:
strnfmt(p, len, " %d+3d6", plev +
(plev / (player_has(PF_BLESS_WEAPON) ? 2 : 4)));
break;

(AND, further down...)

static bool cast_priest_spell(int spell, int dir)
{

...

case PRAYER_ORB_OF_DRAINING:
{
fire_ball(GF_HOLY_ORB, dir,
(damroll(3, 6) + plev +
(plev / (player_has(PF_BLESS_WEAPON) ? 2 : 4))),
((plev < 30) ? 2 : 3));
break;

I do not believe there is any distinction between Priest and Paladin in that statement.

[Spacebux]

I was slightly incorrect earlier. Will o' the wisps and cherubs also resist poison.

Of the 228 monsters, 129 are evil. Five of those (Mim, Lorgan, Kavlax, and young and mature multi-hued dragons) resist all mage elemental bolts.

I defer to Eddie's and Derakon's later posts about how much offensive power mages have.

Again - thank you for grabbing those numbers. A little more than 50%... I suspected there would have been more.

Unfortunately, I knew this would turn out to be a "Mages are too whimpy" or "Mages are not inferior to Priests" issue. Which, wasn't my goal, and I have eluded to that in my posts. I'm guilty for steering the topic into that area.

I'm trying to build support for the succession of the book method to the spell-scroll method. And why...


Nick - if I had the time/energy to do so, I might take a stab at a variant; problem is I've never attempted one. Not sure if I could. Besides, I'd rather spend my time and effort whining---much more enjoyable.

-SBux-

[Derakon]

You're misreading the code. "player_has" is a shorthand call to "the player's flag field has this flag". PF_BLESS_WEAPON is the flag that says "this class must use a blessed weapon or suffer penalties". It does not mean "a blessed weapon is currently wielded".

The code in x-spell.c that does the Orb damage calculation really needs a comment. I suggest

/* HACK: priests (regardless of current weapon) get a damage boost. */

It'd also probably be better to use PF_ZERO_FAIL as our class differentiation here instead.

[Spacebux]

You're misreading the code. "player_has" is a shorthand call to "the player's flag field has this flag". PF_BLESS_WEAPON is the flag that says "this class must use a blessed weapon or suffer penalties". It does not mean "a blessed weapon is currently wielded".

I stand(sit) corrected, I did not know that it was simply a flag check, not a check to see whether a blessed weapon is actually wielded or not.... Interesting! (And, this re-affirms my decision not to apply for a job coding air-traffic control systems.)

-SBux-

[PowerDiver]

Argh, you are right. I should stop posting for the night.

The code construct is ridiculous. It ought to be a switch on something like p_ptr->class. There is no shame in misreading it.

[myshkin]

I'll let the code speak for itself:

case PRAYER_ORB_OF_DRAINING:
{
fire_ball(GF_HOLY_ORB, dir,
(damroll(3, 6) + plev +
(plev / (player_has(PF_BLESS_WEAPON) ? 2 : 4))),
((plev < 30) ? 2 : 3));
break;

I do not believe there is any distinction between Priest and Paladin in that statement.

No, Eddie's right. player_has(PF_BLESS_WEAPON) is true for priests and false for all other classes; it's a lookup against player flags, in particular the flag that indicates that a class prefers blessed or hafted weapons.

Edited to add: in other words, what Derakon said.