A Few Questions/Observations From an Old Player

[Timo Pietilä]

Presumably it just has to have more than 610 HP, then it might take off (e.g.) 19% of its health which might remove just one star.

610 is still quite a lot higher than 457.

How exactly is monster HP calculated? For larger critters with breath weapons big deviation from average can cause rather nasty surprises. I think that was the reason for FORCE_MAXHP-flag in old versions for dragons and stuff. What about uniques: can't see any differences for those compared to normal in monster.txt, except the UNIQUE-flag, does that imply fixed HP? (I assume so)

[half]

Well, the average is just that -- an average. The game uses a normal distribution to calculate actual monster HP, with a standard deviation of .125 * (average HP), rounded up.

Your minimum damage is 61, doubled against evil for 122; for that to take 1 star off the monster must have had 1220 HP, which is 13 standard deviations away from the average. Hm. That seems implausible, but then again stranger things have happened in Angband.

Presumably it just has to have more than 610 HP, then it might take off (e.g.) 19% of its health which might remove just one star.

[Derakon]

Well, the average is just that -- an average. The game uses a normal distribution to calculate actual monster HP, with a standard deviation of .125 * (average HP), rounded up.

Your minimum damage is 61, doubled against evil for 122; for that to take 1 star off the monster must have had 1220 HP, which is 13 standard deviations away from the average. Hm. That seems implausible, but then again stranger things have happened in Angband.

[Oramin]

I *think* it said it was hit hard; I've seen the message for other monsters.

What I'm wondering is why with those numbers, only a single * was removed from the life bar; it should have been 2.

[Derakon]

The message should say that the monster is "hit hard" if they're affected by it. The paladin spell is exactly like the priest spell except that it does IIRC 50% less bonus damage (3d6 + clvl/2 instead of 3d6 + clvl, or something like that).

[Oramin]

Is the double damage for Orb of Draining working for Paladins?

I just shot a Sorcerer with an average life of 457 with a 43 + 3d6 Orb. He only lost a single * from his life bar. According to the description he's Evil. Sorry, I don't want to take the time to Probe him since I'm severely short on Speed at the moment (only +3 base down on L37).

[Mondkalb]

BTW, Mondkalb, that picture looks familiar. Is that from 1st Edition AD&D somewhere?

Hehe, that is a crop form the cover of the amazing Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss. When it hit the shelves in 1992 it changed computer role playing games forever. I needed to buy a new computer to play it and to enjoy the first real three-dimensional environment in a CRPG.
Of course I had played lots of other CRPGs before, both on the Amiga and later on the PC (btw Moria was among the first ). But Ultima Underworld really hit my heart.

I think the image is appropriate for Angband because of the glimpse of a maze of up and down staircases.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima_Underworld:_The_Stygian_Abyss

[Oramin]

BTW, Mondkalb, that picture looks familiar. Is that from 1st Edition AD&D somewhere?

[Oramin]

Thanks for indulging my laziness.

[Mondkalb]

Thanks, do you happen to recall off the top of your head the monsters that can cause Hallucination without a Chaos attack?

Magic Mushroom Patch, Chaos Vortex (has chaos attack too), Silent Watcher, Will o' the Wisp.

(Taken from a search in the spoiler section .)

[Oramin]

Thanks, do you happen to recall off the top of your head the monsters that can cause Hallucination without a Chaos attack?

[Derakon]

No, it doesn't. However, if you have it, then chaos attacks will not cause confusion or hallucination. Similarly, if you have sound resistance then sound attacks won't stun you, but you can still be stunned from other sources.

[Oramin]

I don't recall, does RChaos provide PConf or PHallucination in 3.3.2?

[Derakon]

Nope. But they're significantly stealthier than other classes (+5 base; closest after that is the ranger at +2, and every +3 is twice as stealthy), so they can do things like kill an entire group of orcs one at a time, which other classes generally can't manage. They're also about as good at melee as paladins, and third-best archers after rangers and warriors.

[Oramin]

Speaking of Rogues (who are up next after the Dunadan Paladin who just found Taratol on L6 of the dungeon), I don't suppose they get a backstab bonus for first attacks on sleeping monsters?