Sudden massive drop in Strength

[Grotug]

I had Strength 18/100+ or so. Suddenly, I'm at strength 18. I was fighting an ettin and a Nexus vortex. Is this a bug?

EDIT: Uh-oh. Ate a mushroom of vigor and my strength restored, but only to 18/10. I think I will have to abandon this character if this can't be fixed some how.

I'm playing a half-troll warrior and at CL34. I think my starting strength was more than what it is now. Is there a cheat code to produce potions of Strength?

I'm playing version 4.0.5-dirty

[Carnivean]

I'd suggest that you got stat-swapped by a nexus attack from the vortex. This is a permanent effect, unlike draining, but with stat potions you can still increase the stat.

Solutions for next time are to get nexus resist, avoid nexus attacks, or use stat and stat +/- potions to restore your stats to where you want them.

[Grotug]

Lovely....

Thanks for the info. so How do go up 10 levels? Is there a ?Deep Ascent? Or should I just commit suicide? I really don't know how I am supposed to continue playing this character. Or at least play it and enjoy playing it....

Ahh... I see. Yes, you are right, I now have Wis 18/44. Completely useless to me. Guess I shoulda been wearing Arvedui and given up the fun of 200 AOE blast attack without ever damaging any items. Or give up some speed and stealth. Anyway, if anyone has any tips how I should keep playing or whether it would make sense to just suicide and start over I'd appreciate it. Spent tens of hours playing this character trying to find good gear so I could continue below 2000' without having a bunch of near death experiences. I finally got flail of totila for pConf and was finally in good shape after a long time of struggling and now this nexus nonense. I wonder what other game-wrecking surprises I'm in for.

[Carnivean]

Deep Ascent is there, called Word of Recall.

To be honest, you should start diving until you start seeing stat potions, excellent gear or you die. Avoid anything that might kill you, if you can.

There have been discussions about how to make stat-swap attacks less soul destroying for the player, but they haven't been implemented yet to the best of my knowledge.

[Grotug]

I'm at 1900' right now. You think I should dive deeper? I can't kill anything remotely scary with 60 damage a round. I could wear a ring of strength or damage, but that means I lose some speed. I have total 6 speed with 3 pieces of gear: Totila, Wormtongue's boots and +1 from an elven cloak. I suppose a ring of +4 strength or ring of +10 damage and swap back to my defender weapon which gives me FrAct so I can take off the FrAct ring. (other hand has rPoison). I do have ESP so that is good.

I would suggest if the game is going to have a game changing effect like stat swap, then there should be some way to reverse it. Maybe stat swap that lasts 1000 turns or something or until the end of the level?

Anyway, time to go to work! Thanks for any tips or advice anyone can offer me on how I can continue. I can cover basically all the resistances I need up to 2000'.

I have radagast boots for FrAct but wormtongues are soo good!

[debo]

My advice is to suicide this character, change the edit files to remove nexus monsters from the game, and start again and enjoy your life.

[Nick]

The nightlies have had temporary stat swap for some time. If you are playing the nightlies, check for if you have the "Scrambled" status at the bottom of the screen; if so, you just need to wait it out.

[debo]

check for if you have the "Scrambled" status at the bottom of the screen

We need some sort of egg player race immediately.

[Grotug]

I don't know what "scrambled" status means. But I am going to buy a bunch of stair detection scrolls and work my way back to DL30 and then find some brawn potions and slowly claw my way back into the game. Kinda tempting to start over, though.

This was totally avoidable as I had Arvedui, but figured I didn't care if I got bopped around levels to give up the huge 200+ blast that doesn't wreck potions or scrolls. Now I will take Nexus casters more seriously, though I think Debo has the right idea; just remove those buggers and enjoy my life!

Wow, so I am diving up and still getting decent stuff. CON potion at 1850' and potion of Augmentation at 1600' with level feeling of 3. This going back to 1500' is working out very well so far. Though I quaffed a nimbleness potion and it made me weak. I have all the luck.

Picked up a !DEX at 1550'. My damage is back up to [s]100[/s]125 now. I will now slowly start descending again. ninja editAnd a potion of strength! My luck is turning quick! I also found 3 Healing potions on my ascencion which I was frustratingling not finding many of when I was at 1900-2000'.

[wobbly]

Have you looked at your damage with a shooter? From memory str is less of a big deal there & warriors have decent accuracy with a bow.

[Derakon]

Warriors are indeed the second-best archers in the game (behind rangers, of course).

What happened here is a very rare side-effect of a nexus breath. I think it's 10% of the time that you get hit by an unresisted nexus breath that you get scrambled (swapping the internal values of two stats), and even then you have to fail a saving throw -- not that warrior saving throws are all that great. At least yours is better now that your WIS is higher!

As Nick mentioned, in the current nightlies, this effect has been replaced by a temporary scrambling of your entire stat set -- every stat's internal value gets replaced by another stat's value, but you naturally recover after a short period. The effect should thus be more severe in the short term but less severe in the long term. I'd been agitating for something like this for a long time, so it's nice that it's finally in. Among other things, it's important for encouraging users to try to ID resists by use.

[Grotug]

Good to know that this swap/scrambling has been improved. I do have good damage with my bow of power [+17] and plenty of +8 arrows. My weakest arrows do 65 dmg a round and my second weakest do 81.

Anyway, I think I am going to be fine. I was having bad luck overall for like 5 hours of play for some reason. I was at 4000' and struggling and improving very slowly for awhile. Finally got my first !Augentation and more stat potions on that little ascent than I did at 4000'.

I'm a little frustrated that I am not finding items on levels, though. Again I am on level feel 6 and found nothing and the whole level looks to be explored. Not sure what gives.

[Pete Mack]

It will take *forever* to get your strength back. Your best options are
(a) find another nexus breather and let it breathe on you until your strength goes up (doesn't have to be great; swap with CON is enough). This is a 1/30 chance per breath, not counting saving throw, which is to say: Awful.)
(b) restart the game

Strongly recommend diving to 1500'+ as fast as you can. That way events like this are less frustrating. If you see a pink Z or v, leave. Teleport away if you must. (Avoid dracolich, Greater basilisk too, tho they breath nexus a whole lot less often.)

[Grotug]

It will take *forever* to get your strength back. Your best options are
(a) find another nexus breather and let it breathe on you until your strength goes up (doesn't have to be great; swap with CON is enough). This is a 1/30 chance per breath, not counting saving throw, which is to say: Awful.)
(b) restart the game

My strength is already at 18/40. It's okay, I kind of prefer playing slow to diving anyway. I've never had good experience diving after level 30 anyway. And this game just reinforces that, having dove to 2000' and suffered a lot of punishment and found little good gear. So I will just clear every level and regain my strength slowly and play as normally do.

Plus, I have pretty good gear. I did pick up ESP at 2000'.

Just picked up the Short Bow of Amrod at 1600' (next level was also feeling 6). +2 Strength. +15 damage (so significantly better than my bow of power).

[Grotug]

A stack of 2 potions of strength is nice.

How much do potions of rHeat help against fire burning up inventory?

Up to 145 dmg a round now. STR is at 18/100, bested only by WIS (which is maxed) and CON which is 18/149.

Found an Elven shield of rPoison. Damage is now 207. Cruising at 2000' and much more powerful than I was before the nexus swapping shenanigans.