Shovel of Earthquakes

[Grotug]

Is there any reason I shouldn't leave this item on the dungeon floor? I don't see the use of destroying things around me while I'm digging for things. Plus, my Morningstar Bloodspike gets through granite in 40 rounds.

[Nick]

Amusingly, the "causes earthquakes" property relies on the item doing 50 damage in an individual blow by dice alone. This means the only thing that ever causes earthquakes is Grond (9d9).

So your shovel is acid branded and nothing else.

[PowerWyrm]

Amusingly, the "causes earthquakes" property relies on the item doing 50 damage in an individual blow by dice alone. This means the only thing that ever causes earthquakes is Grond (9d9).

So your shovel is acid branded and nothing else.

If you check the code (py_attack_real around line 360), that's not true. The code takes damage dice, brand and todam into account (melee_damage), and then even the crits (critical_norm).

Easily checked by generating a Mattock of Earthquakes (1d8) (+12,+13) and watching it quake every hit above 50.

[Grotug]

Thanks guys. I left it in the dungeon; I suppose tunneling quickly anywhere in the map might have its advantages, but I've never had the patience for it and rarely use shovels. Spoiler alert, tho. I'm at 1300' and haven't seen most of the the 4950' and 5000' artifacts.

In other news, I accidentally deep descended without a scroll of recall. I don't really want to climb 1650' feet to the surface; I'm thinking there are a fair number of scrolls of recall at 1650'? I have 12 rations of food, but that's not really very much for a half-troll who has a high metabolism.

edit: I picked up 4 scrolls of satisfy hunger. I don't really want to dive deeper because I have no solutions to fear. I thought playing as a warrior granted me immunity to fear.

[Timo Pietilä]

If you check the code (py_attack_real around line 360), that's not true. The code takes damage dice, brand and todam into account (melee_damage), and then even the crits (critical_norm).

Easily checked by generating a Mattock of Earthquakes (1d8) (+12,+13) and watching it quake every hit above 50.

That's a fixed bug then. It used to be dice alone, and people wondered why it doesn't make earthquakes.

I don't like melee-earthquake myself either. I vote for removing that from the thing, it is useless as it is (more con than pro in this case).

[Nick]

If you check the code (py_attack_real around line 360), that's not true. The code takes damage dice, brand and todam into account (melee_damage), and then even the crits (critical_norm).

Easily checked by generating a Mattock of Earthquakes (1d8) (+12,+13) and watching it quake every hit above 50.

Wow - I wonder how long I've been assuming that wrongly...

[PowerWyrm]

That's a fixed bug then. It used to be dice alone, and people wondered why it doesn't make earthquakes.

I don't like melee-earthquake myself either. I vote for removing that from the thing, it is useless as it is (more con than pro in this case).

Well I checked the 4.0.1 code, can't say about pre-4.0. Anyway a shovel of earthquakes should be pretty safe, since the 50 dam threshold should not be attained without a crit, and it's lightweighted. The mattock was crit-ing a lot due to its weight (and acid brand).

[Derakon]

Thanks guys. I left it in the dungeon; I suppose tunneling quickly anywhere in the map might have its advantages, but I've never had the patience for it and rarely use shovels. Spoiler alert, tho. I'm at 1300' and haven't seen most of the the 4950' and 5000' artifacts.

In other news, I accidentally deep descended without a scroll of recall. I don't really want to climb 1650' feet to the surface; I'm thinking there are a fair number of scrolls of recall at 1650'? I have 12 rations of food, but that's not really very much for a half-troll who has a high metabolism.

edit: I picked up 4 scrolls of satisfy hunger. I don't really want to dive deeper because I have no solutions to fear. I thought playing as a warrior granted me immunity to fear.

You get immunity to fear at level 30. And yeah, in your situation I'd just hang around at whatever depth seems interesting until I found a Word of Recall scroll. They aren't that uncommon. In the meantime, you get a taste of what ironman play is like.

Also note that diggers of Earthquakes only cause earthquakes when fighting, not when digging.

[Timo Pietilä]

Well I checked the 4.0.1 code, can't say about pre-4.0. Anyway a shovel of earthquakes should be pretty safe, since the 50 dam threshold should not be attained without a crit, and it's lightweighted. The mattock was crit-ing a lot due to its weight (and acid brand).

1d8*3 + 15 from weapon + 20 from STR + 10 from RoDam = 58.5

You can get to point where every single blow causes earthquake. Even with shovel. 1d2 * 3 ... = 49.5. Don't need much to boost that over 50.

[Timo Pietilä]

In other news, I accidentally deep descended without a scroll of recall. I don't really want to climb 1650' feet to the surface; I'm thinking there are a fair number of scrolls of recall at 1650'? I have 12 rations of food, but that's not really very much for a half-troll who has a high metabolism.

Get slow digestion -item. I think that counters regen and then some.

Also food should be plentiful that deep. Elven waybread is what I end up using with my warriors in late game, and I tend to find more than I use so that I don't need to buy any (BTW, those cure poison, so if you are in desperate need of cure poison that works).

[Derakon]

Get slow digestion -item. I think that counters regen and then some.

Slow digestion now means you basically never need to eat, so yes, it counters regeneration.

[tumbleweed]

Thanks guys. I left it in the dungeon; I suppose tunneling quickly anywhere in the map might have its advantages, but I've never had the patience for it and rarely use shovels.

I usually just keep a decent ring of digging around for those special tunneling occasions.

I don't like melee-earthquake myself either. I vote for removing that from the thing, it is useless as it is (more con than pro in this case).

There wouldn't be much of a point left to items of Earthquakes then, would it? Maybe making it an activation with an appropriately long charging time would be a good idea? Or maybe giving it a low chance to cause earthquakes when tunneling, after all?

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Is there any reason I shouldn't leave this item on the dungeon floor? I don't see the use of destroying things around me while I'm digging for things. Plus, my Morningstar Bloodspike gets through granite in 40 rounds.

It can cause earthquakes when used in melee, but it also does acid damage. No problem with earthquakes when digging, and until you've found a ring of digging it can come in handy. Note, you can also win the game using only a shovel for melee. I think MattB did it.

[Grotug]

You get immunity to fear at level 30. And yeah, in your situation I'd just hang around at whatever depth seems interesting until I found a Word of Recall scroll. They aren't that uncommon. In the meantime, you get a taste of what ironman play is like.

Also note that diggers of Earthquakes only cause earthquakes when fighting, not when digging.

Crap, now I wish I had kept it. But still, I would probably not have used it anyway; but that makes the earthquake feature much more useful. Yeah, I guess I'll just hang around 1500' until I get a WoR; maybe I'll scum for good level feelings, although I have been getting good ones already.Picked up 4 satisfy hungers and I have the phial so I should be able to last awhile before worrying about starvation.

Timo: yeah, was thinking of keeping one of those when I found it earlier, but decided I wasn't ever going to get myself into this situation.

I have a very good character so far. Fought Adunaphel the Quiet on level 31 (it's a level 42 enemy) and defeated it without *too* much trouble. I have the mace of Taratol I believe, the one that grants immunity to elec and hastens, but I only use it for the speed and to fight blue bats and Colbrans. It's a pretty weak weapon, unfortunately. I main the rapier of Forasgil; very good weapon. I am dealing 181 damage to enemies not resistant to cold. Only one more CL to 30; yay.

[luneya]

I recall one game where I was playing as a priest (so no benefit to using daggers at low level) and ended up with a pick of earthquakes as my primary melee weapon for quite some time, having not found anything else that was better than my starting mace. It wasn't too bad; the particular pick I used had high modifiers, and between those and the acid brand I got acceptable damage. The earthquakes didn't trigger all that often, and I can't say that they were particularly troublesome. I was wielding a pick anyway, so the terrain mess was easy enough to dig through, and an earthquake won't destroy anything really important. Don't count on earthquakes to save your butt when it matters, of course; even with the spell of quake, the chance of it destroying what you really need destroyed is pretty low. Might save you from annoying ranged attacks (like a pack of hounds), but that's about all a quake is really good for.