Angband 4.2.0

[wobbly]

And having Smite Evil cast won't help if your arrows have brands that do more damage, right? Maybe at CL50 it'll make some sense, but at CL33 Smite Evil is terrible.

Just looked and my last paladin was using the pick of Erebor. While the acid brand is fine for Sauron it doesn't work on Morgoth, Great Bile Wyrms or Bile Demons. As far as the earlier game goes I think it opens up possibilites for cold branded weapons which have a big hole against undead & also defender weapons which are otherwise useless in melee. Firestar is another interesting case, a lot of dragons & demons resist fire.

Edit: I've only had 1 serious go at the paladin since the change, I've got a few band characters alive already (though there's always a solution to that) but when I get some time I'll have a run & keep note of what weapons I'm wielding.

[Sky]

How do you die to a Spirit Naga when you're that powerful?

nah, i looked at the spoilers; i had just started that character, was about CL11, and dived too fast.

[DavidMedley]

Ah. Thank you both!

[Pete Mack]

The black market will do it... for $15K. Under certain circumstances, this is a good deal.

[Derakon]

Off-weapon means ranged weapon?

Off-weapon means that it's from a source that is not the wielded weapon itself. That means you have much more leeway to choose a weapon that has big dice but maybe not useful slays on it. Like a Mace of Disruption of Gondolin.

And correct, if you already have a brand or slay that's effective against your current target, then Slay Evil won't help you deal more damage. If you don't, and your weapon has big dice, then Slay Evil can really significantly increase your damage output. Imagine a spell that let you deal 50 more damage per round against certain targets. Is that a spell worth casting? What about 100 more damage?

For Teleport Other wands: shops only recharge items if those items are ones that they stock normally. So the magic shop will recharge Wands of Magic Missile for you, or staves of Detect Evil, but not wands of Teleport Other.

[DavidMedley]

And having Smite Evil cast won't help if your arrows have brands that do more damage, right? Maybe at CL50 it'll make some sense, but at CL33 Smite Evil is terrible.

[DavidMedley]

Totally off-topic: Do shops not recharge TO wands? Is that documented anywhere?

[DavidMedley]

Off-weapon means ranged weapon?

[Pete Mack]

Yep, an off-weapon slay. That is veey valuable, unless you get lucky with a top-end slay evil artifact. As another poster pointed out, a +2 attacks MoD will be ridiculously powerful with this spell active, doing an extra ~150 damage per turn.

[DavidMedley]

the paladin's branding spells are temporary, not permanent, and additionally do not care what other attributes the weapon currently has.

Correct. It's a timed effect like Blessing. It does help your bows, tho, which is useful.

[Gwarl]

I assume he's talking about the old priest spell? elemental branding? I definitely once made a mace of disruption of fire with it and stashed it at home where it remained a mace of disruption of fire.

[wobbly]

Technically the priest spell never "brands" the weapon. It's a timed effect & if you swap weapons while its in effect it will still work.

[Derakon]

The Glaive of Pain is 9d6, not 9d30. You're only off by a factor of 5. But I believe the paladin's branding spells are temporary, not permanent, and additionally do not care what other attributes the weapon currently has.

How do you die to a Spirit Naga when you're that powerful?

[Sky]

No. Brands and slays multiply the damage dealt by your damage dice on a per-blow basis when used against a monster that is susceptible to the brand/slay. You only get one multiplier this way; whichever one deals the most damage. So for example, a Dracolich (evil undead dragon) hit by a weapon with Slay Evil (x2), Slay Undead (x3), a firebrand (x3), and *Slay* Dragon (x5) would get an x5 multiplier.

Extra Blows just straight-up make you attack more, and therefore stack with brands/slays.

what i mean is, something similar to the branding spells that you'd get from Tenseners.
You can brand normal ammo, but unbranded ammo Of Wounding already has a flag so even though it is "unbranded" (so, not Of Fire) it cannot be branded.
Likewise the priest had a spell IIRC that allows you to brand an otherwise normal weapon, but cannot brand anything which already has a ego flag.

Basically, you'd think that you could brand a Mace Of Disruption, but not a Mace Of Disruption Of Gondolin, or Of Extra Attacks - because obviously you'd immediately think of that, a 5d8 +20 Slay Evil that ALSO gets +2 attacks would be everyone's endgame weapon.

Obviously this would still make The Glaive Of Pain an extremely powerful weapon .. 18D30 +30 IIRC ? Isn't it 9D30 +30 base without slays?



FYI this is rare, but not impossible with randarts; artifacts that add Slays - and extra blows - do exist in randart sets, but they are rare, and you'd have to be lucky enough to both get a Slay Evil, AND get a big dice weapon in the set (which would never be as excessive as GoP), and then drop in an extra blows item as well.

(i recently had a randart set that had a 11d9 weapon with slay evil AND +2 blows, and a helmet with +2 blows, and a RoP with +17 Spd, and another with +13 damage. unfortunately i died to a f* spirit naga, but that would have easily been over 1k dps to morgoth) .

[Pete Mack]

No. Smite Evil is effectively an off-weapon brand. That is potentially massively powerful, as wobbly points out if you find Aglarang or especially Glaive, as the latter has huge base damage. But the usefulness doesn't stop there--a MoD of Gondolin (eg) becomes an endgame weapon, not just an EXP builder for HE mages.