MoD *Slay Evil* vs Holy Avenger

[Sky]

i have two Mace of Disruption:

1. Holy Avenger - 5d8 +18, DPS: 410

2. *Slay Evil* - 5d8 +15, DPS: 393

both are on 4 blows per round. both are +15 to hit.

i thought *Slay* was substantially stronger than Slay but im not seeing the right numbers here.

[jevansau]

It depends on which *Slay. Only Dragon, Demon and Undead get the x5 slay. The others get the same as for a plain slay.

They all get a stat plus and a power though.

[Sky]

are you trying to say that Slay Evil And *Slay Evil* have the same bonus?

[DavidMedley]

It depends on which *Slay. Only Dragon, Demon and Undead get the x5 slay. The others get the same as for a plain slay.

I didn't believe it, then I looked in slay.txt, and now I do. That is counter-intuitive and misleading!

[Derakon]

are you trying to say that Slay Evil And *Slay Evil* have the same bonus?

This is correct. Slay Evil is such a broad category that giving an enhanced multiplier would almost certainly be overpowered.

What we should probably do is remove *Slay* Evil egos, or at least rename them to something else. Ditto with *Slay* Animal, which IIRC has the same issue. For those weapons *Slay* is just Slay + incidental bonuses.

[luneya]

This is correct. Slay Evil is such a broad category that giving an enhanced multiplier would almost certainly be overpowered.

What we should probably do is remove *Slay* Evil egos, or at least rename them to something else. Ditto with *Slay* Animal, which IIRC has the same issue. For those weapons *Slay* is just Slay + incidental bonuses.

Perhaps. It would be nice to be able to do something more subtle such as making *slay evil* a 2.5x bonus (stronger than slay evil, 2x), but the Angband code notoriously uses integer arithmetic for everything, so simply changing the data value wouldn't allow for that, and going all the way up to 3x *slay evil* might indeed be OP.

[Pete Mack]

*Slay Evil* at one point had a random ability guaranteed. When it was ESP, it made for a really excellent weapon. I don't understand why that was removed.

[Sky]

ok well, it's confusing. And, are you sure slay animal is 2x ?

so, to recap:

plain "slay" is 2x base dice damage in all circumstances.

*Slay* is 5x for Dragon, Undead and Demon.

*slay* is ... 3x? for Giant, IIRC Animal, Orc, Troll, and 2x on Evil.



i know that *slay weapons still get random abilities, i had a *slay orc with ESP on it (frankly a bit OP if you ask me, but im not complaining) in my recent run, but couldn't tell you if *slay evil does or doesnt get extra abilities - i would assume it does.

[Derakon]

Slay evil and, I'm pretty sure, animal are x2. All other slays are x3. *Slay* demon/dragon/undead are x5 (and the weapon gets an extra ability); all other *Slays* are just the standard slay with extra abilities.

Evil and animal are x2 because those "races" are extremely common; being able to deal x3 damage to evil in particular would be overpowered.

[wobbly]

*Slay Evil* at one point had a random ability guaranteed. When it was ESP, it made for a really excellent weapon. I don't understand why that was removed.

Still possible by the looks of it, it seems all the *slays* are 1 in 3 chance of a power & 2 in 3 chance of a base resist.

[Huqhox]

Thinking out loud so could be talking rubbish

Might be an opportunity to revive the idea of having item prefixes as well as suffixes. So remove *Slay Evil* and *Slay Animal* but have a prefix of Enhanced or something to indicate the extra ability?

A Mace of Slay Evil
An Enhanced Mace of Slay Evil
An Enhanced Mace of *Slay Dragon*

Then it's clear you get extra abilities with the higher slays as well (because that isn't currently clear; it's just something you have to *know*) or have them sometimes being enhanced but other times just *Slay*

[Hounded]

I like the concept but "Enhanced"...

I think something less measureable sounding would be better.

A "Legendary" Mace of Whatsit perhaps?

A "Mighty" Mace of Wacking...

[Huqhox]

I like the concept but "Enhanced"...

I think something less measureable sounding would be better.

A "Legendary" Mace of Whatsit perhaps?

A "Mighty" Mace of Wacking...

As I said... thinking out loud

[DavidMedley]

Spreadsheet

Copied data in slay.txt to my publicly shared and editable spreadsheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nAVk2AodMHloqhLBzZm7p_s4mne3My4Kyo9wODJWAFQ/edit?usp=sharing

Added a column to note where the asterisks make a difference or not.