YASD: My best ever Mage just took himself out with a ?Mass Banishment. D'oh!

[Goldbug]

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=14391

Really frustrating to just barely die (-8 HP) in this manner. I was soooo close to surviving and learning from this stupid mistake. I was actually pretty jubilant when I read the scroll. Jubilation to misery in a fraction of a second.

Next message is "You Die", and I just stared at the screen, totally crestfallen, for a good minute or two before I could bring myself to hit the spacebar.

> You sense the presence of buried treasure!
> You sense the presence of objects!
> You feel nervous about this place, and there are very good treasures here.

I was aware that reading the ?Mass Banishment would hurt me, but I didn't realise just how much. I saw a vault packed with goodies. Only Castamir would need to be teleported away before I could plunder it, so I went up to the vault entrance with full health and basically blew myself up.

I'll be a lot more cautious about reading ?Mass Banishment in future when I haven't maxed my CON. Or at least gotten it higher than a measly 8.

Oh well. Live and Learn.

[Mondkalb]

Been there, done that. ^^ I once used a staff of banishment to get rid of some Balrogs that had been summoned by a Greater Balrog or even a unique, I don't quite remember. Obviously there had been a balrog pit.
Duh! I remember staring at the screen in utter disbelieve. ^^

[Estie]

I dont recall the exact amount of times that has happened to me, but if I did, it would be embarrassing

"Yay, Keleks" *boom*

My mages usually dont wear con gear before I can get to 500 or so hp; I prefer int and speed, since it doesnt matter if you have 150 or 200 hp at dlvl 90. However, if I have keleks or a nice amount of banishment items, I might carry con gear as swap just for that purpose.

[Pete Mack]

Been there, done that. ^^ I once used a staff of banishment to get rid of some Balrogs that had been summoned by a Greater Balrog or even a unique, I don't quite remember. Obviously there had been a balrog pit.
Duh! I remember staring at the screen in utter disbelieve. ^^

Oh no, an Undead Pit! Greater Dread says: "Join the crowd, mate!"

[debo]

Hell, even my first winner as a high-elf rogue almost offed himself a couple of times by using mass banishment without thinking it through first.

[scud]

I've never had a problem with MB; the few times I've registered the damage it's with mild surprise at how minor the penalty is.

How much damage can it do? Is it fixed at a % of monster 'value', or is there a random element?

[Pete Mack]

I've never had a problem with MB; the few times I've registered the damage it's with mild surprise at how minor the penalty is.

How much damage can it do? Is it fixed at a % of monster 'value', or is there a random element?

1d4 per banished monster.

[scud]

Ah, okay. I've obviously never resorted to MB quite that late in the day!

[Derakon]

I actually consider regular Banishment to be potentially more dangerous, since there could be monsters you're not aware of adding to that HP penalty. Of course, if you don't know how much damage Mass Banish can do then you could readily take yourself out by trying to banish a pit -- but if you try to regular Banish, say, 'U's, and there's a demon pit on the level you weren't aware of...surprise!

Still an unfortunate way to go in any case!

[debo]

I actually consider regular Banishment to be potentially more dangerous, since there could be monsters you're not aware of adding to that HP penalty. Of course, if you don't know how much damage Mass Banish can do then you could readily take yourself out by trying to banish a pit -- but if you try to regular Banish, say, 'U's, and there's a demon pit on the level you weren't aware of...surprise!

Still an unfortunate way to go in any case!

Been, there, done that, and still have the t-shirt from that one too

This is actually one of my favorite mechanics in a roguelike ever. I can't even explain why, I just like the idea of shutting my eyes and saying "OK EVERYTHING DIE" and then potentially exploding. It's great fun!

[quarague]

1d4 per banished monster.

This is extremely useful to know. I recall with my first HT paladin I didn't dare use banishment because I didn't know how much damage it would cause. With the second one I tried and was amazed of how awesome a spell it is, and how little damage it does (at leasts to HT :-)
Maybe put some kind of indication in the description, something like 'deals a small amount of damage for each monster banished' instead of the current 'dealing you damage in the process' which doesn't give any useful information at all.