I was one shotted by Kavlax. What just happened?

[Derakon]

Help me out what am I reading here:

Suggestion: put this stuff in [ code ] blocks so that it'll be formatted nicer. There's a description of the meaning of the entry at the top of monster.txt, though, so I've just copied that in.

# === Understanding monster.txt ===

# N: serial number : monster name
# T: template name
# G: symbol 
# C: color
# I: speed : hit points : vision : armor class : alertness
# W: depth : rarity : unused (always 0) : experience for kill
# B: attack method : attack effect : damage
# S: spell frequency
# S: spell type | spell type | etc
# F: flag | flag | etc
# -F: flag | flag | etc
# D: Description
# drop: tval : sval : percent drop chance : min : max
# drop-artifact: name
# mimic: tval : sval

Also, none of this indicates its breath damage.

Yeah, breath weapon damage is based on the monster's current HP; I believe it's min(damage cap, monster HP / 3). The damage cap is different for different elements: 1600 for the base 4, 800 for poison, and anywhere from 250-550 (or something like that) for the high elements.

[LostTemplar]

1600 is for fire, frost, lightning and acid. I suppose anyone who know what "base elment" means in Angband already knows damage cap.

[Nick]

Yeah, breath weapon damage is based on the monster's current HP; I believe it's min(damage cap, monster HP / 3).

Actually it's this for acid, cold, lightning, fire, poison and (oddly) time. For all other things it's min(damage cap, monster HP / 6).

[Derakon]

Actually it's this for acid, cold, lightning, fire, poison and (oddly) time. For all other things it's min(damage cap, monster HP / 6).

Okay, we seriously need to simplify element handling because this is ridiculous.

After the refactor.

[Amnekian]

So for exemple, fire can deal, at most 1600 damage while nexus can dish out 250-550 damage?

[Derakon]

Looking at the source (in monster/list-mon-spells.c), the damage cap for nexus is 400. More generally,

acid: 1600
lightning: 1600
fire: 1600
frost: 1600
poison: 800
nether: 550
light: 400
darkness: 400
confusion: 0
sound: 500
chaos: 500
disenchantment: 500
nexus: 400
time: 150
inertia: 200
gravity: 200
shards: 500
plasma: 150
force: 200
raw: magic 1600

Not all of these can be resisted, and resistance for the high elements tends to be variable. Note that this applies only to breath attacks; spells don't have damage caps. On the flipside, spells don't tend to hit for anywhere near as much damage as breaths do. Late-game manastorms, darkness storms, and nether storms can do several hundred damage, but I'm pretty sure they never hit for more than 600.

[donalde]

raw: magic 1600

Which monster breaths raw magic?

[Nick]

Which monster breaths raw magic?

None, but the option is there - I have no idea why.

[Mondkalb]

So how do I know what monsters ditch these insane amounts of damage? Or should I back off from uniques around DL30 until I have a lot of resists?

Since nobody cared to mention it: There are staffs and rods of probing. You can use them to get full monster info of monsters in line of sight.
It's the only way to acquire full knowledge (besides dying very often ) without cheating.

[Amnekian]

Since nobody cared to mention it: There are staffs and rods of probing. You can use them to get full monster info of monsters in line of sight.
It's the only way to acquire full knowledge (besides dying very often ) without cheating.

And now I feel silly.

[Mondkalb]

Well, don't!
They still don't tell you everything, but at least something which would make you careful.
In general, the game has some mechanics you can't know about whithout experiencing dangerous situations or death. Nothing tells you about how much damage certain spells or breaths can do and how resistances work.

[Magnate]

None, but the option is there - I have no idea why.

It's the stuff of magic missile and manastorm. You can give it as a breath to monsters if you want ... it's unresistable, of course

[LostTemplar]

None, but the option is there - I have no idea why.

Some monster should. It is piti that Angband have no single allways kill attack.

[Derakon]

Some monster should. It is piti that Angband have no single allways kill attack.

You mean a monster that would never be worth fighting by anyone without abusing LOS shenanigans? Remember that in order to hit that damage cap the monster would have to have enough HP to survive many rounds of attacks from the player (unless you made the "divisor" for mana attacks be something like .25 so that a 400HP monster could hit the cap).

I'm fine with having monsters that most classes don't want to deal with, but a monster that's literally "if you try to fight this thing you are risking instant death every turn, no matter who you are, no matter what level you are, no matter what gear you have" does strike me as a design flaw.

[Philip]

Wouldn't that be unnecessarily cruel to those who don't have detection and monster removal abilities? Not denying that it would be fun, but warriors sort of get the short end of the stick in a lot already.