Damage from spells/prayers

[StMicah]

I know of the interface option that turns on/off melee damage that @ does. Is there a way to see how much damage spells do in specific instances? Or even spells from rods and wands?

I ask because I'm trying to figure out how to play mages/priests, especially midgame to late game when I'm taking down uniques. I use the range notation, but am looking for something more precise...or, something after the fact that lets me see where the "hit" was on that range. (IMO the monster health bar isn't all that informative.)

[Ingwe Ingweron]

I know of the interface option that turns on/off melee damage that @ does. Is there a way to see how much damage spells do in specific instances? Or even spells from rods and wands?

I ask because I'm trying to figure out how to play mages/priests, especially midgame to late game when I'm taking down uniques. I use the range notation, but am looking for something more precise...or, something after the fact that lets me see where the "hit" was on that range. (IMO the monster health bar isn't all that informative.)

The description for rods and wands, etc., will show the "boost" that @ gets from device skill, but, unlike melee damage to a single monster, damage from spells, rods, wands, etc., may affect multiple monsters and thus is not shown in the message line the way melee damage to a single monster can be shown.

[Nivra]

Speaking of showing damage done, why isn't there an option to show how much damage @ receives? I mean, we already know @'s hp's, so for 1 attack/round hits, we could just do math. Why can't we just get an option to see the amount of damage taken?

[StMicah]

thanks Ingwe! I didn't consider ball spells. But I wonder how difficult it would be to display those damages as happens with multiple blows with show_damage on? (I know nothing about code, so the question is mainly rhetorical.)

On a related note, how does the damage calculation work for magical devices with xdy damage? Rod of Cold balls does 100 damage at the center, plus my current character's 31% add on. So, that's a nice 131 at the center. But what about my rod of light with 6d8. Current character adds 81%. Is that added to the roll from the 6d8 or does it increase the 6d8 by 81&?

BTW, I really appreciate that, in 4.0+ I can see the effect of the magical device skill.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

[QUOTE=StMicah;103980On a related note, how does the damage calculation work for magical devices with xdy damage? Rod of Cold balls does 100 damage at the center, plus my current character's 31% add on. So, that's a nice 131 at the center. But what about my rod of light with 6d8. Current character adds 81%. Is that added to the roll from the 6d8 or does it increase the 6d8 by 81&?
[/QUOTE]

I believe the dice are rolled and then the result is multiplied by the boost.

[AnonymousHero]

On a related note, how does the damage calculation work for magical devices with xdy damage? Rod of Cold balls does 100 damage at the center, plus my current character's 31% add on. So, that's a nice 131 at the center. But what about my rod of light with 6d8. Current character adds 81%. Is that added to the roll from the 6d8 or does it increase the 6d8 by 81&?

Since dice rolls are normally distributed (think bell curve) and the magic device skill addition is a linear transformation, I don't think it would make any difference, i.e. the methods would be equivalent. (It's been a long time since I've done any real statistics, so please do correct me if I'm mistaken.)

[StMicah]

For a while, as I've been playing mages, I've ignored much of the garden variety DSM armors. Found one of stealth recently and noticed that it's activation gets a bump from @'s magical device skill. So, currently it does 200 plus 105%. That's awesome...and stupid I didn't pay attention to this with earlier mages.

Is there a reason that DSM's activation gets a bonus but not other items with activation?

[Derakon]

For a while, as I've been playing mages, I've ignored much of the garden variety DSM armors. Found one of stealth recently and noticed that it's activation gets a bump from @'s magical device skill. So, currently it does 200 plus 105%. That's awesome...and stupid I didn't pay attention to this with earlier mages.

Is there a reason that DSM's activation gets a bonus but not other items with activation?

Are you sure other activatable items don't get the boost? It should be basically every item that can be activated to cast some kind of spell (including e.g. the missiles fired by activating Fingolfin).

[StMicah]

I'm pretty sure...unless it doesn't say so in the item descriptions but applies the bonus when used.

None of the activations on my artifacts that do activation damage show a bonus.

[StMicah]

Just found another red DSM, this time just a magical one. However the magic device bonus is only 55% and not 105% as with my red DSM of stealth. Does anyone know what contributes to the difference in device bonus between the two pieces of armor?