Sudden massive drop in Strength

[Grotug]

Interesting. Thanks Ingwe.

In other news, if you don't have rDark, do not fight Ungoliant the Unlight.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

When I had a stack of 3 [staves of speed] with 0 charges, instead of trying to recharge all 3 individually I realized it would be better to recharge only one and then recombine the stack, and use the stack until its empty and then recharge just one again. This way there is less of a chance of losing one to backfire. I also discovered if you drop an empty identify staff into the store it would often show up with 18 charges.

EDIT: If one of those D's I banished picked up an artifact, is that artifact now gone for the rest of the game?

If I recall correctly, recharging in a stack is better than dropping each item to recharge individually. There is LESS of a chance of explosion or failure in a stack than individually. Has this changed? Or did I not understand correctly?

If you have not identified the artifact (either by ID in regular version or by walk-over in the feature-branch) then the artifact can still be regenerated. The only exception to this is if you have the birth-option "lose artifacts when leaving level" toggled on (formerly "preserve artifacts" toggled off). With this birth option, you get a "Special" level feeling if an artifact is on the level, but you lose the artifact if you leave the level.

[Grotug]

Thanks Estie. I need to throw away 3 items. Any, uh...suggestion on which ones to chuck?

What about the dwarven shield instead?

What about the teleport scrolls I haven't been using? I already ditched the teleport staffs since they are so common and I don't feel comfortable teleporting around levels any longer. Though with all my resistances may teleportation isn't so bad?

[Estie]

I would consider using Celeborn and the Lorien bow; maybe not yet, but keep the bow. At some point you can forget about archery and maximize your melee damage by getting dex from the bow and using a damage ring.

Otherwise, just make your way down and see what else you get along the way.

[Grotug]

Here is an updated dump of my character. I did find a ring of damage [+15] but the DEX <+5> ring and Cammithrim gloves mean I don't have to wear an item for sustain and the DEX ring does more damage against dragons than the ring of damage, oddly enough.

Go Gondor! Found a crown of Gondor that finally gives me pConf and so has enabled me to rearrange my equipment to much improvement. Speaking of Gondor, it'd be cool if you could find the Horn of Gondor. What would it do? When activated, it *frightens* enemies for 5-10 turns that would otherwise be immune to scaring. It would also have to confer some sort of resistance; not sure what would make most sense. Disenchantment? Chaos? Nether?

Look forward to your feedbacks on my current setup and home inventory hoarding.

I think I am going to drop the Shortbow of Lothlórien, though it holds life and has more DEX since it doesn't have +1 shooting speed. I seem to have a lot of rNexus options now so Arvedui also going to get dropped (Aulë prolly not gonna get replaced, but ya never know...). And the Númenor crown is just too inferior to the one I'm wearing so I figure a scenario where I might want to wear it again is remote. The rest stays in my home for now, though I wonder if holding onto the ?Teleport is good idea at this point? What do you all think?

[Derakon]

9 times out of 10 the longsword will turn out to be something useless like slay giant (or whatever slay matches the monster type that failed the pickup). The boots, on the other hand, probably are something good. Though the soft leather base type is a bit discouraging; assuming standarts, the best it could be is what, Wormtongue?

Yeah, I think Pete meant Feanor, which is hard leather.

Seeing a monster fail to pick up a set of Power Dragon Scale Mail, on the other hand...

[luneya]

Monsters can't pick up artifacts. X fails to pick up the longsword is a very promising message. So is X fails to pick up the soft leather boots.

9 times out of 10 the longsword will turn out to be something useless like slay giant (or whatever slay matches the monster type that failed the pickup). The boots, on the other hand, probably are something good. Though the soft leather base type is a bit discouraging; assuming standarts, the best it could be is what, Wormtongue?

[Grotug]

Ooohhh, good to know! Thanks. I always just assumed they could.

I guess scrolls of teleportation are kinda useless at this stage of the game. Was saving them in my home, but now I'm not so sure how much value they have. I hate teleporting level, but that really is the much better escape. As someone else recently pointed out, at this depth, ?Tele very well will be out of the fire and into the frying pan.

In other news, I have 153 Mithril arrows in my quiver.

[Pete Mack]

Monsters can't pick up artifacts. X fails to pick up the longsword is a very promising message. So is X fails to pick up the soft leather boots.

[Grotug]

Thanks for the breakdown. Even so, speed influences everything, not just my melee weapon. The extra speed is great for the bow, too, which I am using a lot to avoid being touched to drain charges.

But, yeah, A +15 ring of damage temporary speed when needed probably wouldn't be a bad idea. I did consider it briefly. I admittedly don't use the temporary speed much right now and been wondering if I should just ditch the staff of speed, but it has been super good up to this point, as I'd pick another one up from time to time, replacing the backfired one from recharge and ones burnt to a crisp. When I had a stack of 3 with 0 charges, instead of trying to recharge all 3 individually I realized it would be better to recharge only one and then recombine the stack, and use the stack until its empty and then recharge just one again. This way there is less of a chance of losing one to backfire. I also discovered if you drop an empty identify staff into the store it would often show up with 18 charges.

EDIT: I jumped down to 3800' and now I am looking at 4 Great Ice Wyrms travelling together along with 5 Dracoliches and 1 Great Swamp Wyrm. I do not think I will take these on. Too many potions to lose and it will be hard not to be double breathed. I also don't have pConf when wielding Aulë. I see now it was a dragon pit; banished art though big Ds.

EDIT: If one of those D's I banished picked up an artifact, is that artifact now gone for the rest of the game?

[Derakon]

Thanks, Nick. Also, ha! My memory of +30 and +40 speed is right on the money! ...which is kind of scary, but oh well.

But yeah, going from +20 to +30 speed is a substantial improvement of ~27%. Going from +30 to +40 is only 10%.

[Nick]

Someone with ready access to the code can look in tables.c, which has the energy table that defines energy gained per game turn at various speed levels and thus what the actual damage differences are at the upper ends of the speed table.

Now in game-world.c:

 * at speeds above "Fast (+30)", one approaches an asymptotic
 * effective limit of 50 energy per turn.  This means that it
 * is relatively easy to reach "Fast (+30)" and get about 40
 * energy per turn, but then speed becomes very "expensive",
 * and you must get all the way to "Fast (+50)" to reach the
 * point of getting 45 energy per turn.  After that point,
 * furthur increases in speed are more or less pointless,
 * except to balance out heavy inventory.
 *
 * Note that currently the fastest monster is "Fast (+30)".
 */
const byte extract_energy[200] =
{
	/* Slow */     1,  1,  1,  1,  1,  1,  1,  1,  1,  1,
	/* Slow */     1,  1,  1,  1,  1,  1,  1,  1,  1,  1,
	/* Slow */     1,  1,  1,  1,  1,  1,  1,  1,  1,  1,
	/* Slow */     1,  1,  1,  1,  1,  1,  1,  1,  1,  1,
	/* Slow */     1,  1,  1,  1,  1,  1,  1,  1,  1,  1,
	/* Slow */     1,  1,  1,  1,  1,  1,  1,  1,  1,  1,
	/* S-50 */     1,  1,  1,  1,  1,  1,  1,  1,  1,  1,
	/* S-40 */     2,  2,  2,  2,  2,  2,  2,  2,  2,  2,
	/* S-30 */     2,  2,  2,  2,  2,  2,  2,  3,  3,  3,
	/* S-20 */     3,  3,  3,  3,  3,  4,  4,  4,  4,  4,
	/* S-10 */     5,  5,  5,  5,  6,  6,  7,  7,  8,  9,
	/* Norm */    10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19,
	/* F+10 */    20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29,
	/* F+20 */    30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 36, 37, 37,
	/* F+30 */    38, 38, 39, 39, 40, 40, 40, 41, 41, 41,
	/* F+40 */    42, 42, 42, 43, 43, 43, 44, 44, 44, 44,
	/* F+50 */    45, 45, 45, 45, 45, 46, 46, 46, 46, 46,
	/* F+60 */    47, 47, 47, 47, 47, 48, 48, 48, 48, 48,
	/* F+70 */    49, 49, 49, 49, 49, 49, 49, 49, 49, 49,
	/* Fast */    49, 49, 49, 49, 49, 49, 49, 49, 49, 49,
};

For example, the row

/* Norm */    10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19,

means at normal speed you get 10 energy per turn, at + 1 speed 11 energy, etc up to +9 speed giving 19 energy, then the next row starts at +10 speed and so on.

Note too that the turns I'm talking about here are not what feels like a turn to the player; the player gets to move once they have accumulated 100 energy, so at normal speed that is ten of these turns (and at Fast +10 it is 5 turns).

I hope that helps - it certainly took me a while to get my head around this properly.

[Derakon]

But more speed means more damage per enemy's round, means more damage overall, no?

To an extent, but the math is pretty tricky. Let's say that you're at 4x normal speed (which is something like +35 speed, I forget) while your opponent is at 3x normal speed (+20 speed). Thus you effectively get a 4/3 multiplier on your damage. If you drop to being at merely 3.5x normal speed, then your multiplier drops to 3.5/3. (4/3) / (3.5/3) = 4/3.5 ~= 1.14, so that's a 14% decrease in your damage. If you can increase your displayed "damage per round" by 14% in exchange for that speed drop, then you should, assuming all you care about is raw damage.

But you're at +30 permanent speed, so +40 temporary. What's the damage difference created by dropping from +40 speed to +30 speed? +40 speed is nowhere near 5x normal speed; it's something like 4.2x normal speed. And +30 speed is somewhere around 3.8x. So your damage loss from going from +40 to +30 speed is something like 4.2/3.8 ~= 10%. You shouldn't have much trouble finding gear (a +15 Ring of Damage, say) that gives you a better than 10% increase in damage to make up for that speed loss.

Someone with ready access to the code can look in tables.c, which has the energy table that defines energy gained per game turn at various speed levels and thus what the actual damage differences are at the upper ends of the speed table. But the bottom line is that not only does speed have diminishing returns in an absolute sense, but it also has diminishing returns in that the difference between e.g. 3x and 2x speed is more than the difference between 4x and 3x speed. There's definitely a point at which more speed is not as important as more of other things.

[Grotug]

But more speed means more damage per enemy's round, means more damage overall, no?

[Pete Mack]

Aule js easily an endgame weapon. You are sacrificing too much damage for speed. Swap a damage ring for a speed ring and suddenly you will be doing 70 damage more per turn. There are only a handful of monsters you need +30 speed for. Use _Speed for those. (Try to save maybe a dozen !Speed for the bosses.) Avoid Liches, Balrogs, and those few wraiths that drain charges. When you fight unique balrogs and L, stash your staves and wands in a safe place.

That character already should already have an easy time beating M.