breath damage calculation?

[quarague]

So I just lost a char to a high powered breath attack. Char was a HT paladin, level 36. I had just found a fantastic ring of speed +18 bringing me to 22 base speed. I had 460 hp, every single resist covered and a nice randart weapon doing some 450 damage/turn to dragons. So I thought a great wyrm of Law (base speed quick +10) at dungeon level 77 would be a great target. It breathes sound, about 300 damage after my resist. Ouch but a heal fixes things. Next it breathes shards, dragon is at 80-90% of hitpoints, deals 450 points of damage with shard resistance. Game over.
I remember that higher res only give relatively little damage migitation (down to 3/7 to 6/7 of total or something like that?) and that for base elements breath damage is 1/3 of remaining hitpoints. For higher elements breath damage is lower?
I didn't have con maxed yet, and a few more char levels will also increase hp at lot but then HT paladins are the second highest HP chars in game, how is a gnome mage ever supposed to fight something like that?

[Nick]

Carefully

[Estie]

Later

[quarague]

Carefully

This is the classic burst damage discussion. A 400 hitpoint char can fight a monster that does 300 damage per turn if he is very careful. He can not fight a monster that can do 500 damage in a single turn, even if that happens only with a 5% chance. He can still take the risk that it won't happen but that is not 'careful'.

In general I was more looking for the formulas for breath damage. The wiki states the wyrm at 4500 hitpoints, not sure whether that is still up to date?

[PowerWyrm]

Was it 4.0 or lastest version? In latest version, just shoot from distance, since your speed is higher and breaths are way less powerful from distance.

[Werbaer]

I remember that higher res only give relatively little damage migitation (down to 3/7 to 6/7 of total or something like that?) and that for base elements breath damage is 1/3 of remaining hitpoints. For higher elements breath damage is lower?

For shards, maximum damage is (monster hit points / 6), max 500. Great Wyrm of Law will reach max.

With shard resist, damage is reduced to 6/12 - 6/7. So if you're unlucky, 428 damage.

how is a gnome mage ever supposed to fight something like that?

First, he doesn't need to fight it. He has teleport other at 0% fail, and good detection spells.

Second, for weak characters, high constitution score is very important. Maybe more important than speed. Mages usually need to wear the biggest ring of constitution they find, and then further optimize their gear for con bonus. My last hobbit mage had 818 hit points with 18/200 constitution at level 50.

[Huqhox]

There are a number of monsters in the game which even the toughest characters need to be respectful of and even though it's at a the low end of the scale I'd say that a GWoL is definitely on this list. Even if you can handle it on its own it's going to do you a fair bit of damage and leave you vulnerable to that Dracolich that's just walked through the door...

[quarague]

For shards, maximum damage is (monster hit points / 6), max 500. Great Wyrm of Law will reach max.

With shard resist, damage is reduced to 6/12 - 6/7. So if you're unlucky, 428 damage.

Thanks for the formulas. With 4500 hitpoints and a formula of min(hp/6, 500) a GWoL will breath at full 500 damage until he is down to 2/3 of hitpoints. So with res you get a damage range of 250-428. Seems like I got something very close to max in the second breath.

Well knowing the formulas I feel better prepared for the next fights. Seems like you need well over 500 hitpoints to fight one of these and if you only have a reliable regular heal for 300 hp you still might get screwed.

[Thraalbee]

That's why ESP and detection are so important. Then you can plan for it.
If I don't have the HP but really really want to go where eg. the wyrm is (typically a vault situation) I'd boost speed hidden but close and when it comes in LoS immediately do a tele other. Even if you don't get first move or you fail on first attempt it may not breathe. Even better if possible, I'd stay out of sight and drag it away from the vault and then destruct it

[Bogatyr]

Was it 4.0 or lastest version? In latest version, just shoot from distance, since your speed is higher and breaths are way less powerful from distance.

How much less powerful? What's the 4.x breath distance damage dropoff?

[quarague]

That's why ESP and detection are so important. Then you can plan for it.
If I don't have the HP but really really want to go where eg. the wyrm is (typically a vault situation) I'd boost speed hidden but close and when it comes in LoS immediately do a tele other. Even if you don't get first move or you fail on first attempt it may not breathe. Even better if possible, I'd stay out of sight and drag it away from the vault and then destruct it

I easily could have avoided that wyrm but I made the deliberate decision to fight it. My char was in a great shape to fight dragons, much better than say undead. Even though, knowing the breath damage formulas, most great wyrms where still out of reach and should be avoided.

[xorzac]

How do you only have 450 hp as a lv36 ht pally?

[Werbaer]

How do you only have 450 hp as a lv36 ht pally?

By having a con score of 18/60 - 18/69. That's not very low for a character that dives fast.

Edit to add:
My current half-orc paladin has 374 HP at level 36. But he has only 18 constitution (and is only at dungeon level 57).

[Pete Mack]

GWoLaw is just plain dangerous. Bottom line: Stay away until you get above 700HP, and even then, why bother? There are plenty more fish in the ocean, so to speak

[Bogatyr]

GWoLaw is just plain dangerous. Bottom line: Stay away until you get above 700HP, and even then, why bother? There are plenty more fish in the ocean, so to speak

Yeah I generally avoid all the Great Wyrm D's unless I have their flavor of immunity, in which case I break out -Clone Monster for fun, exp, and profit.