Using "Consumable" Items - How Stingy/Liberal?

[Timo Pietilä]

+30 means that no monster in the game can double attack you.

Usually, but...

Hasted +20 speed normal monster might have +2 to it's base which makes +32, and obviously hasted +30 monster goes to +40. This is why shriekers are always number 1 in my kill-list unless I can kill the other ones no matter how fast they are. If summoner summons a shrieker mushroom, target changes.

Some monsters can haste themselves, and there are couple of attacks that slow you down (against inertia and gravity you don't even get saving throw).

BTW, does shrieker haste itself when it shrieks? If so then there is one +30 monster than can haste itself to +40. Luckily that's not very dangerous one.

[werepacman]

I'm a mage and I'm going to throw away a bunch of 10 staffs of drain life. I didn't use them because I waited for a mproved recharge spell. But when I find those spell I already had better wands.

[Derakon]

I'm a mage and I'm going to throw away a bunch of 10 staffs of drain life. I didn't use them because I waited for a mproved recharge spell. But when I find those spell I already had better wands.

Wands of Drain Life have pretty good damage, especially with the magic device boost. They're not as good as Annihilation but they're still pretty effective.

[werepacman]

In combat with strong bosses I have maximum 7 rounds before it damages me to the state where just one more step is lethal. Even with Mana storm health runs out earlier than mana and I need to teleport and rest. So I need to use those rounds for maximum damage.

Also having bunch of staffs all the time is not convenient because you can't recharge them during fight.

For large groups I love to use staff of power and dispel evil. This is my favorite moment to see how they barely wake up to move and next turn gold and loot drops on the floor. So pity this staffs break so often.

[Tibarius]

re: staff of power

I found the Staff of Power utterly useless. What do you kill with it?

It is good for very large Groups, but anything worth killing has most likely an ranged attack and fightind dozens over dozens of strong ranged attack Monsters at once is very risky.

[mushroom patch]

Yeah, agreed. LoS and to some extent AoE damage sucks. Since you have the option to kill things one at a time and you essentially always want to take that opportunity, damage against multiple targets makes sense only as a convenience in fights that don't matter. (E.g. I sometimes use LoS spells on priests to clear packs of low level monsters.)

The thinking behind LoS effects seems to consider only the theoretical total damage and makes the effects correspondingly more rare/costly. In fact, though, the fact that it hits multiple targets is usually bad in practice, so it would make more sense for them to be cheaper.

[Derakon]

The thinking behind LoS effects seems to consider only the theoretical total damage and makes the effects correspondingly more rare/costly. In fact, though, the fact that it hits multiple targets is usually bad in practice, so it would make more sense for them to be cheaper.

Cheaper, hell. It needs to be more powerful, to minimize the number of turns you spend in LOS of a large number of monsters. If the damage was something like (plvl * number of valid targets) per target, then it might be worth using...or at least would be more likely to tempt the player to their doom in an attempt to use it.

[Tibarius]

re: plvl * number targets

I like that idea ...

hitting Pit Fiends / Black Reapers / Horned Reaper and monsters with 300+ unresistable mana bolt or 500 chaos breaths or the like for 120 damage (base, ca. 180 modified by device skill) is plain stupid. If you hit them for 500/1000/1500 and can hope to kill everything in 2-3 turns you maybe take the small risk of getting killed by a lot of ranged attacks.

[MattB]

or at least would be more likely to tempt the player to their doom in an attempt to use it.

Genius!

[werepacman]

I found the Staff of Power utterly useless. What do you kill with it?

It is good for very large Groups, but anything worth killing has most likely an ranged attack and fightind dozens over dozens of strong ranged attack Monsters at once is very risky.

I use it on open vaults, it helps to clean medium and weak monsters before concentrate on strong one. To kill groups you need to spend rounds and mana to attack them separately, lure them out. But SoP helps to do this in 2-3 rounds. The only other effective way is to unsummon them.

Some advantages of Staff of Power:
1) its damage is unresistable, while elements and annihilation has its restriction
2) most important- it doesn't destroy objects.
Some monsters tend to pick up treasure, if you unsommon them after they wake up you can lose items.
3) Its area of effect is unlimited - not always monsters stay in one group and wait for the aof spell.

And damage is not so small for mage arsenal, especially if you have to choose between nondestructive to objects spells.

Also its damage may seem not great for one target - 120. It has the greatest sum of damage on multiple targets. So in certain circumstances it is the winner for damage per round.

[mushroom patch]

I guess staves of power could be used to quickly kill packs of low level Us for fast xp at middling levels. I can't say I've ever done this myself, but for example Vrocks have about 350 hp and appear in packs large enough that they're a useful chunk of xp at a certain stage of the game and killing them the old fashioned way takes some time. Also may be safer and more reliable in speed running.

[Timo Pietilä]

The only other effective way is to unsummon them.
....
Some monsters tend to pick up treasure, if you unsommon them after they wake up you can lose items.

Unsummon? Do you mean banishment?

[werepacman]

Yes I meant banishment.

[quarague]

damage was something like (plvl * number of valid targets) per target, then it might be worth using...or at least would be more likely to tempt the player to their doom in an attempt to use it.

brilliant idea, I really like it. Definitely worth putting in some trial version for further testing.