Morgoth is not a "giant?"

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Back to the OP's original thought (about giants)... Any thoughts on having Slay Giant not be a racial slay, but slay anything that is very very large. So P, but also D, maybe some Us, big worms, giant rocs...

In my mind, it was never about the giants' size that made 'slay giant' effective against them, it was their blood. "Slay Giant" is a particularly virulent poison to those with giantish blood. The same for dragons, etc. That was just my mental construct to justify the various slays, but there's no reason not to change that.

[Timo Pietilä]

On the one hand, you'd probably have to bring it down to an x2 slay if you did that. On the other hand, the current Slay Giant is borderline useless, so who cares if we change it?

Ogres count as giants, so there are more giants around than most people realize.

OTOH I agree that slay troll/giant/orc are all pretty useless as single slay unless we change them to x5 slays. Maybe make all single slays "kill" slays?

[Tibarius]

re: slays

I personally use mostly only slay evil or undead - because there is enough Monsters of that class. I rarely to never use slay orc/troll/giant. I think it couldn't hurt to boost damage versus focused slay Targets. We could increase slay factor, we could also use make the slay work on the Magic boost as well, not only the weapon's base damage.

[Timo Pietilä]

I personally use mostly only slay evil or undead - because there is enough Monsters of that class. I rarely to never use slay orc/troll/giant.

That's because at the time you need to start worrying about undeads almost all troll/orc/giants are pushovers that die with no slay at all. Titans are exception to rule, against them you might want to have slay giant, but then again there is problem that there are just too of them in the game, and branded weapons affect them just as well (unique titans resist all, normal titans none), and brands affect many more than just them.

[Bogatyr]

The risk is insta-death at every turn of the game getting to that point. It is not easy sailing surviving up to 18/200 INT for a mage, it's either a terrifying fast dive or a boring long grind (still with moments of terror). It's not easy even navigating to all the downstairs to get to level 98 in the first place. A warrior can just sail through, absorbing unresisted full breath attacks at times and simply saying "oops! That smarts a bit!" Live the risk during the beginning/mid, reap the rewards at the end. I don't think it's out of whack at all, it's the "contract" the game enters into with the player when s/he choses mage, which his basically this: "Mage, huh? Dude, you're *dead*. There are so many ways I'm going to kill you, it's not even funny. In the eeny weeny tiny possibility you survive to 0% fail spells and find Kelek's, all of Angband is your oyster. And then you'll get overconfident, make a mistake, and die."

Yup, as I feared: Mana bolt from a Black Reaver, --more--
And I had a staff of Banishment too. Zero risk, my a$$!
"Oh, but you were not careful enough." <-- the cause of almost every death, so not a valid criticism. The risk is immense in diving to 98, even with 0% fail on spells. QED.

[Timo Pietilä]

Yup, as I feared: Mana bolt from a Black Reaver, --more--
And I had a staff of Banishment too. Zero risk, my a$$!
"Oh, but you were not careful enough." <-- the cause of almost every death, so not a valid criticism. The risk is immense in diving to 98, even with 0% fail on spells. QED.

That's manastorm. If you see black reaver, don't fight unless you are both faster than it and have more than 400 points of HP left. If multiple, then run.

TO makes game easier, but zero risk comes from not getting into trouble not from weapons like TO that you have.

I think the fact that "not careful enough" is cause of almost every death makes that criticism valid, not the other way around.

[Bogatyr]

That's manastorm. If you see black reaver, don't fight unless you are both faster than it and have more than 400 points of HP left. If multiple, then run.

TO makes game easier, but zero risk comes from not getting into trouble not from weapons like TO that you have.

I think the fact that "not careful enough" is cause of almost every death makes that criticism valid, not the other way around.

The point is that clearing vaults on 98 with gobs of endgame uniques/monsters is NOT zero risk, or even low risk.

[Tibarius]

re: black reavers

So the conclusion would be: be more carefull and stop dying

[Bogatyr]

So the conclusion would be: be more carefull and stop dying

No, the conclusion is that vanilla does not need TO-proof monsters.

[Timo Pietilä]

The point is that clearing vaults on 98 with gobs of endgame uniques/monsters is NOT zero risk, or even low risk.

Depends of the vault, but agreed mostly. There are some that are nightmarish to clear, like the "hellpit" one. Keeping track of which monsters have LoS of you and which of them are indirectly dangerous (like which ones have tele-to) is hard.

[Timo Pietilä]

No, the conclusion is that vanilla does not need TO-proof monsters.

Why not? Just pick some that fit the scheme, not random ones. If TO can't save you anyway, then how does it hurt to not make it work in first place for some monsters?

[Bogatyr]

Why not? Just pick some that fit the scheme, not random ones. If TO can't save you anyway, then how does it hurt to not make it work in first place for some monsters?

Because the TO makes surviving *somewhat possible*. There are already tons and tons of ways for the game to kill you, TO is not over powered so I don't see it needs "fixing."

[Carnivean]

No, the conclusion is that vanilla does not need TO-proof monsters.

Sample size of 1 doesn't allow you to draw that conclusion.

Clearly it is entirely possible to play the game 100% safely. Others can and do so. Just because you can't or don't doesn't support your argument.

Whether their argument for TO-proof monsters is valid is a different question.

[Bogatyr]

Sample size of 1 doesn't allow you to draw that conclusion.

Clearly it is entirely possible to play the game 100% safely. Others can and do so. Just because you can't or don't doesn't support your argument.

Whether their argument for TO-proof monsters is valid is a different question.

Playing the game 100% safely is not the point. The claim was that 0% fail TO results in "zero risk" (or close enough to it) clearing of major vaults on dlev 98. I stand firmly in opposition to that claim. "Conclusion" perhaps is too strong but my point remains.

[Timo Pietilä]

Because the TO makes surviving *somewhat possible*. There are already tons and tons of ways for the game to kill you, TO is not over powered so I don't see it needs "fixing."

This is not that much of a change to TO, it is change to monsters. And monsters are plentiful. Much much less drastic change than that beam to bolt change that was made a while ago.