Rend Soul question and minor bug

[Goaticus]

Windows 10 4.1.3

Question first: Casting Rend Soul at a storm giant (also many other creatures) I get the message - The Storm Giant resists somewhat. What does this mean? The monster description (obtained via Rod of Probing) indicates it does not resist nether but the message upon casting spell appears to indicate otherwise.

Description bug - Rend Soul spell description indicates undead are immune. Casting Rend Soul at a Black Wraith does no damage and indicated the creature is immune. However, if you read the monster description (Rod of Probing) it indicates the Black Wraith does not resist nether.

[Derakon]

The monster memory stuff is definitely misleading. The issue here is that all evil monsters are partially resistant to nether, and all undead are outright immune. So the resistance is kind of baked into other attributes of the monster, rather than being tracked separately as something that needs to be shown in monster memory. IMO it's worth considering revoking all implicit resistances/immunities, and making the immunity explicit for undead (give IM_NETH to the base skeleton/zombie/vampire/etc. monster types, as well as to the one-off undead like undead beholders, death drakes, etc.).

Making evil monsters not automatically resist nether would make necromancers considerably less painful, too.

[Goaticus]

Thanks for the quick answer. Your description makes sense as to why the messages display the way they do.

Do you happen to know what the "partial resist" value assigned to evil creatures is? Nether is definitely less mana efficient than acid bolt but takes off larger chunks at a time; having a % would help me decide what spell to use.

[wobbly]

undead - 0 damage
IM_NETHER - takes 1/2 to 1/4 damage
Evil - takes 1/2 damage

[Pete Mack]

Bottom line: use it only on non-evil monsters, like Jabberwocks and Maiar. Use chaos strike on uniques. Use meteor storm otherwise, until you get Mana Storm.

[Goaticus]

Bottom line: use it only on non-evil monsters, like Jabberwocks and Maiar. Use chaos strike on uniques. Use meteor storm otherwise, until you get Mana Storm.

I found the book WAY out of depth and underleveled so even with a 50% penalty it's worth it to punch down some harder evil creatures. I am only L35 so 3 more levels for Chaos

[Pete Mack]

Meteor swarm is better than 1/2 resisted nether bolt.

[Goaticus]

Meteor swarm is better than 1/2 resisted nether bolt.

I don't have Raal's yet

[Goaticus]

Dove to 52 and found Raal's! Now to get character level 38 for some Chaos action.

[Pete Mack]

CL 35-40 is a dry spell for mages. You need a lot of exp, and you don't have a lot of low-fail low-mana options. Seriously consider melee if your stats are maxed. Use rune and ice storm to block and stun the monster, then just whale away. I have killed a Horned Reaper this way, so it certainly works if you have a good weapon.

[Derakon]

Wands as always remain a low-mana option. IIRC Dragon's Flame/Frost wands can be pretty effective at this point, and they're not too hard to find. Drain Life is also good; Annihilation I would save for the endgame.

[Goaticus]

CL 35-40 is a dry spell for mages. You need a lot of exp, and you don't have a lot of low-fail low-mana options. Seriously consider melee if your stats are maxed. Use rune and ice storm to block and stun the monster, then just whale away. I have killed a Horned Reaper this way, so it certainly works if you have a good weapon.

I'm playing an artifactless high elf mage so my stats are definitely lower than they normally would be. INT is maxxed and I've managed to get CON to 130 with my needed resists covered through Aman and Elvenkind items. I'm only at +6 speed from boots although the spell helps.

Basically I'm playing with a lot of detection and my early find of Kelek's means I can genocide most things and sneak around getting loot and picking my battles.