Just what is/are the purpose(s) of iron spikes, anyway?*

[Deof Movestofca]

*Anyone who answers "Well, to spike doors, duh!" deserves to be taken outside and whipped.**
** Unless they're into that sort of thing. Besides, I only said "deserves to", not "will".
Just wondering if anyone has found them useful for anything more than a few extra gp's at the General Store and maybe a missile weapon if one is really desperate. Other than that, they seem like nothing more than a waste of a tilde that could be used for something else.

And if you spike a door, can you unspike it later? Because it would be pretty messed up if you died of hunger after spiking all the doors between you and the stairs (assuming that's possible).

[takkaria]

And if you spike a door, can you unspike it later? Because it would be pretty messed up if you died of hunger after spiking all the doors between you and the stairs (assuming that's possible).

You can't unspike - you can only 'B'ash.

[Timo Pietilä]

You can't unspike - you can only 'B'ash.

Or dig. Usually digging is more reliable and sometimes also faster.

[Timo Pietilä]

You can't unspike - you can only 'B'ash.

Which brings to my mind a spell I have been wishing would be into game: wizard lock. Gandalf did that in Moria so it fits into game theme. Basically a spell that can lock a door from distance, preferably with closing it as well. Mages have "create door" spell, so they definitely should be able to lock them too.

I would also like to see several types of doors so that you could properly utilize it: currently if monster has bash_door flag, no matter what kind of door it is it gets thru it in single turn.

[debo]

Which brings to my mind a spell I have been wishing would be into game: wizard lock. Gandalf did that in Moria so it fits into game theme. Basically a spell that can lock a door from distance, preferably with closing it as well. Mages have "create door" spell, so they definitely should be able to lock them too.

I would also like to see several types of doors so that you could properly utilize it: currently if monster has bash_door flag, no matter what kind of door it is it gets thru it in single turn.

I like this idea.

I actually think spikes / doorjammers of some kind (probably nonmagical) would be a cool addition to Sil as well

[takkaria]

Which brings to my mind a spell I have been wishing would be into game: wizard lock. Gandalf did that in Moria so it fits into game theme. Basically a spell that can lock a door from distance, preferably with closing it as well. Mages have "create door" spell, so they definitely should be able to lock them too.

I would also like to see several types of doors so that you could properly utilize it: currently if monster has bash_door flag, no matter what kind of door it is it gets thru it in single turn.

Actually there are already different levels of doors with jamming - if you spike a door three times, it will take a monster three times to bash it down. (See monster/melee2.c:3113)

[half]

I like this idea.

I actually think spikes / doorjammers of some kind (probably nonmagical) would be a cool addition to Sil as well

I'm not sure if you are joking there or not! I think Sil already has a solution to this that V might want. There is a Staff of Imprisonment which closes and locks all doors in LOS. Actually, it moves them along the process of being closed and increasingly well locked and goes further if you are better at using staffs. This replaces spikes, is more fun, and creates a somewhat interesting ambiguous item type. It is still a waste of a slot in many cases, but is at least better than spikes as it is lighter and can be used at range.

[Derakon]

Actually there are already different levels of doors with jamming - if you spike a door three times, it will take a monster three times to bash it down. (See monster/melee2.c:3113)

It depends on the monster's level, actually. Higher-level monsters take less time to bash down doors (and doors deeper down are typically harder to bash down, as well, though it doesn't really scale with player power very well).

[fizzix]

It depends on the monster's level, actually. Higher-level monsters take less time to bash down doors (and doors deeper down are typically harder to bash down, as well, though it doesn't really scale with player power very well).

It only scales with level because we don't have a category for monster size. There's no reason why a chaos hound should be better able to bash through a door than a 5 headed hydra. This will happen eventually though, many variants have monster size classes and V will get them at *some* point.

@half: a wizard lock spell is pretty sorely needed. In reality it should replace the broken create doors spell, but be available much earlier to the player. How to exactly do that I don't know.

[Derakon]

Is Create Doors broken? I think it's rather fun myself, and it greatly changes the dynamics of what the player can do, but I wouldn't characterize it as broken. Powerful, yes, but playing as a mage you deserve to get some powerful spells.

Is Trap/Door Destruction an arcane spell? That'd be a good candidate for being replaced.

[takkaria]

It depends on the monster's level, actually. Higher-level monsters take less time to bash down doors (and doors deeper down are typically harder to bash down, as well, though it doesn't really scale with player power very well).

That doesn't correspond with my copy of the source, which seems to indicate one successful monster bash is required to bring the door down one difficulty level. Monster level is similarly uninvolved, it's all about monster HP. What are you reading?

place_closed_door() in generate.c also seems to indicate that there is no correlation between depth in the dungeon and difficulity of the lock - it's all based on random numbers (generate.c:594).

[Derakon]

I'm looking at monster/melee2.c, where the game reduces the door's strength by 1 each time the monster successfully bashes it until the strength hits 0, at which point it breaks open. You're right though that the monster's current HP are used to calculate bash chance (as 1d(HP / 10) > (door strength)). My memory's clearly a bit fuzzy, but since monster HP scales rather abruptly with monster level, it's not a huge deal.

Since door strength caps at 7, monsters quickly reach the point where they succeed on practically all of their bash attempts, which means it takes them at most 7 tries to break a door down. For example, a Black Knight has on average 165 HP, which means they roll a 1d16 when trying to break a door down -- they'll succeed more than half the time against even the strongest doors, and as the door weakens their success rate goes up.

[debo]

I'm not sure if you are joking there or not! I think Sil already has a solution to this that V might want. There is a Staff of Imprisonment which closes and locks all doors in LOS. Actually, it moves them along the process of being closed and increasingly well locked and goes further if you are better at using staffs. This replaces spikes, is more fun, and creates a somewhat interesting ambiguous item type. It is still a waste of a slot in many cases, but is at least better than spikes as it is lighter and can be used at range.

Oh yeah derp! I always throw those away but you're right! haha

I guess this is what happens when I quit the game for more than a week or so

[Alice]

Actually there are already different levels of doors with jamming - if you spike a door three times, it will take a monster three times to bash it down. (See monster/melee2.c:3113)

I never knew that. Wow, thanks!

[Deof Movestofca]

I guess this is what happens when I quit the game for more than a week or so

Noticing any withdrawal symptoms?

Actually there are already different levels of doors with jamming - if you spike a door three times, it will take a monster three times to bash it down.

I could see how spiking a door would make a monster take longer in opening it, but I don't understand why that would affect how long it took a monster to simply destroy it. (In the first scenario, the door would still be in pretty much one piece, so there would be a chance it could still be closed; in the second, the door is pretty much pieces of wood (or rubble).

But back to my original point of the post, which is in what situations do/have people used spikes for? I suppose they might be more useful if someone set the "Monsters chase recent locations" to "yes". It's just that I've never used them and never been in a situation where they would seem to be useful, although I will grant that I probably play a lot more conservatively than most.