A Few Questions/Observations From an Old Player

[Oramin]

The question was what effect Disenchantment would have on Wormtongue's weapon values and I believe you just answered it (no effect).

[Derakon]

Oramin was talking about the boots of Wormtongue, not the monster.

As far as I'm aware, your saving throw is always a straight "is 1d100 less than the percentage shown on your character sheet". It is never adjusted by the skill of the monster.

[Oramin]

This was the text I was talking about:

A Saving Throw is the ability of a character to resist the
effects of a spell cast on him by another person/creature.
This does not include spells cast on the player by his own
stupidity, such as quaffing a nasty potion. This ability
increases with the level of the character, but then most
high level creatures are better at casting spells, so it
tends to even out. A high wisdom also increases this abil-
ity.

And, yes, Derakon was correct that I was talking about the boots.

[Derakon]

A quick scan of the code turns up this bit in mon-spell.c:

            /* Allow saving throw if available */
            if (re_ptr->save &&
                    randint0(100) < p_ptr->state.skills[SKILL_SAVE]) {
                msg("You avoid the effect!");
                continue;
            }

Looks like monsters have no actual skill at casting spells. They just pick nastier spells to nail the player with. This is part of why CONF, SCARE, BLIND, etc. are "wasted turns" for most late-game monsters; even a warrior will have at least a 60% saving throw, so odds are decent they'll avoid the effect via saving even if they aren't immune.

[DaviddesJ]

Yeah, modifying the saving throw based on the monster level would make sense, but it's never been part of the game, as far as I know.

[wobbly]

The text Oramin quotes from the help file does read that way though & could do with changing to be clearer.

[Nick]

O/FA have the facility to vary the save depending on the monsters, but it is only done rarely, and mostly for the nastier effects (eg confusion, hallucination, paralysis) of poison, cold, fire etc. attacks from powerful spellcasters.

[Patashu]

Yes, it is an importance detail but it is only becomes important if the game has implemented saving throws in the proper manner.

Specifically, suppose that most monsters have a penalty to their casting ability such that 26 percentage points are added to your saving throw. Then 70% is changed to 96% and 74% is changed to 100%.

I would appreciate it if you wouldn't correct me when I understand what I'm saying and you clearly didn't.

This is my bad. My intuition of how Angband works under the hood (studying the monster definition files, etc) makes it obvious to me that there's no such thing as a monster spell strength or in fact any kind of factor that could be included into saving throw to make it anything but a straight %, but to someone who hasn't looked at Angband the same way I have it is not obvious. I completely was unaware of how you look at Angband, and I apologize for this misunderstanding.

[Oramin]

That's okay, but you do realize that any spell caster level compensation factor doesn't need to be directly coded into the monster definition files? It could just as easily have used something like the current level of the dungeon or the native spawn level of that particular monster.

[Patashu]

It could have, but I know Angband doesn't do anything like that either. Again, I'm really sorry to misunderstand you.

[Oramin]

Don't worry about it. You're familiar with the code, assumed I was too, and concluded that I therefore didn't understand the implications of the math. It happens.

[Oramin]

Hmm, looks like Hurin, which is 18 lbs, also tops out at 5.8 attacks/rd with my Kobold Warrior.

Dang it, I want my full 6.0 attacks/rd with the heavier weapons.

[Derakon]

Yeah, for some reason warriors can't get full blows with all weapons. Everyone else can -- though everyone else also tops out at 4 or 5 blows, not 6.

[Timo Pietilä]

Yeah, for some reason warriors can't get full blows with all weapons. Everyone else can -- though everyone else also tops out at 4 or 5 blows, not 6.

I have suggested this before and I suggest it again: give warriors extra blow at some level like rangers get extra shots, and use paladin, rogue or ranger blow calculation for warrior.

[MattB]

I have suggested this before and I suggest it again: give warriors extra blow at some level like rangers get extra shots, and use paladin, rogue or ranger blow calculation for warrior.

Makes sense to me.