RePosBand: play as a monster in Angbad 3.2

[GF_ARROW]

I've also fixed a possible bug involving damage multiplier in the block of code in line #414 of attack.c

The "fixed" code is

if (best_s_ptr != NULL)
{
  if (best_s_ptr->mult > mul)
  {
    p = best_s_ptr->melee_verb;
    mul = best_s_ptr->mult;          // CHANGED!

   if (best_s_ptr->resist_flag == RF_IM_ACID)
     type = GF_ACID;
   else if (best_s_ptr->resist_flag == RF_IM_ELEC)
     type = GF_ELEC;
   else if (best_s_ptr->resist_flag == RF_IM_FIRE)
     type = GF_FIRE;
   else if (best_s_ptr->resist_flag == RF_IM_COLD)
     type = GF_COLD;
   else if (best_s_ptr->resist_flag == RF_IM_POIS)
     type = GF_POIS;
   }
   // REMOVED "else" BRANCH
}
k *= mul; // ALWAYS APPLY MULTIPLIER

[GF_ARROW]

There is a bug in line #490 of attack.c
Replace the ! with a ~ to allow half-damage of elemental attacks.

[buzzkill]

Not sure what's causing it (yet), but if you can avoid crashing by dropping your quiver contents. Picking them up again and even wielding them doesn't seem to cause it to crash again though, which is confusing.

I did manage to get it to crash again repeatedly (after drop and wield). It finally stopped happening after pseudo-ID occurred. Maybe pseudo occurring in the quiver was the problem. That's my best guess, and all I have to offer.

[Derakon]

I just asked about that on the previous page. The lich gets his attacks from monster.txt, apparently, with any attacks that have special attributes that don't apply to monsters (e.g. drain-stat or drain-charges) getting a damage bonus. As a bog-standard lich that means two nondamaging blows and two 2d8 blows right from the start, so if you're going to use melee a lot (and with that ring of ice, why wouldn't you?), weapons are a bad idea early on.

Presumably more STR/DEX will improve his blows with a weapon, but only leveling up and getting a more powerful form will improve his inherent attacks.

[thapper]

Playing competition 98 I noticed that the lich had three or four blows barehanded from the start. Coupled with the inherited ring of ice it is a good offense and much better than any light weapon where I only get 1 blow anyway.

Is it intended? Can I see somewhere how much damage I do barehanded? Will I get more blows if I get stronger/more dexterous?

[pampl]

Not sure what's causing it (yet), but if you can avoid crashing by dropping your quiver contents. Picking them up again and even wielding them doesn't seem to cause it to crash again though, which is confusing.

[buzzkill]

Crash bug

RePos 6.3, savefile attached.

A move in any direction will trigger an immediate crash. I have no idea what's causing it. The only odd thing is that all of my destroyed items reappeared on the floor upon reload.

This is my narrowly surviving comp 98 character, so a (quick) fix would be appreciated.

[pampl]

I kinda think Hydra's 11 head and amulet slots is overkill. Probably alternating gaining a head and an amulet slot is enough.

2Headed = 1 amulet, 1 head
3 = 1 a, 2 h
4 = 2 a, 2 h
and so on
11 = 5 a, 6 h

Still enough to equip every kind of great amulet and helmet.

Like you say, that wouldn't stop hydras from equipping all the best helmets and amulets, so it wouldn't really effect balance much. The big issues are just AC and display bugs and I still hope to be able to fix them without making the hydras less multiheaded.

How do natural attacks work right now? I noticed that the lich character in the competition has 3 natural touch attacks, but how do I see how much damage they do?

They're pulled from the monster's data, then if they have a special effect (like reducing DEX in the case of the lich) they're generally multiplied by two, mutually exclusive with other branding*. So the lich should have four attacks, two of which do no damage (but can still cause fear, IIRC) and two of which do (2d8x2) + your to-dam bonus, or (2d8x3) + to-dam bonus if you leave the ring of ice on. If it's an elemental attack, like five-headed hydras' poison bites, that damage is then split in half and half is done physically. That part isn't really applicable to liches though, who (should) always do two non-damaging touches to drain charges/xp, and two physical attacks to reduce DEX.

*On reflection, it makes more game-logic sense for them to be additive rather than mutually exclusive, but I think V is going to be changing off-weapon branding soon anyways so I'll worry about it later.

[Derakon]

How do natural attacks work right now? I noticed that the lich character in the competition has 3 natural touch attacks, but how do I see how much damage they do?

[emulord]

I kinda think Hydra's 11 head and amulet slots is overkill. Probably alternating gaining a head and an amulet slot is enough.

2Headed = 1 amulet, 1 head
3 = 1 a, 2 h
4 = 2 a, 2 h
and so on
11 = 5 a, 6 h

Still enough to equip every kind of great amulet and helmet.

[Arjen]

I think my hydra is from an older version as it's a bit older character i stop playing because he was a kinda of indestructible with his high AC.

[pampl]

Pressing 'n' will not repeat any 'U' (special ability) command. Worse yet, instead of doing nothing, it repeats the command before it.

That's a known bug I should have documented better. Sorry about that. I've looked at fixing it but the command queue is hard to understand.

I wouldn't give them FA, it makes them a bit harder without it. And why does a crystal drake not evolve in a Great Crystal Wyrm? Because it's too strong? But the boost in AC and speed would make them a bit easier at higher levels. Getting AC is hard if you have only 3 armor slots.

Ow and i opened my lvl 50 Hydra player, and suddenly it's a 4-headed hydra. And he lost a lot of equipment who were on head 5 to 11.

I think GCW are new monsters and I just forgot about them. They aren't too strong, so I'll add them right now.

Weird stuff happens to savefiles from previous versions.. I should probably set up savefile version checking so that it just doesn't allow them, instead of silently mutating them. That's assuming your hydra's from before .6.3, otherwise that's a really bad bug.

[Arjen]

I was pretty stingy with flags with crystal drakes, on the grounds that shards is a strongish element and they get their final form quite early. The speed is an error, though; other dragons all get intrinsic speed in their last form so I should have (and meant to) give GCD intrinsic speed gain too. Their intrinsic AC is also wonky and should be much higher.

Do you think I should give them FA? All the mono-element dragons get it, but law and chaos drakes don't.. it's available as a ring and on Dwarven armor as well as some other artifacts, but like you said that's pretty limited.

I wouldn't give them FA, it makes them a bit harder without it. And why does a crystal drake not evolve in a Great Crystal Wyrm? Because it's too strong? But the boost in AC and speed would make them a bit easier at higher levels. Getting AC is hard if you have only 3 armor slots.

Ow and i opened my lvl 50 Hydra player, and suddenly it's a 4-headed hydra. And he lost a lot of equipment who were on head 5 to 11.

[buzzkill]

Repeat command 'n' bug

Pressing 'n' will not repeat any 'U' (special ability) command. Worse yet, instead of doing nothing, it repeats the command before it.

[pampl]

Tried the crystal drake, lot's of fun. Downside, hard to get FA ring (found FA at clvl 28), no other source because you can't wield boots, gloves and weapons. I bet i'm forgetting a source, but i bet it isn't a common source (or it has -3 speed). Same with speed, i only found a staff of speed.

So i realised that the FA was making them a nice challenge(yay!) and shouldn't be changed. But the speed is kinda hard, you can't wield speedboots. And monsterraces don't get speed even if the monster itself is hasted. (Most Wyrms have more than normal speed.) So maybe thats something to change? I know Posband had speed implented in the races.

Ow and i met some nasty golems and i wanted to play them! So maybe a next race new can be golems. (flesh -> iron -> steel -> mithril -> colbran -> colossus ->bone/bronze/drolem). As being a golem, they should have stuff like HL, FA, res conf/poison, no_cuts (even saw a piece of metal bleed or been poisoned?).

I was pretty stingy with flags with crystal drakes, on the grounds that shards is a strongish element and they get their final form quite early. The speed is an error, though; other dragons all get intrinsic speed in their last form so I should have (and meant to) give GCD intrinsic speed gain too. Their intrinsic AC is also wonky and should be much higher.

Do you think I should give them FA? All the mono-element dragons get it, but law and chaos drakes don't.. it's available as a ring and on Dwarven armor as well as some other artifacts, but like you said that's pretty limited.

I like the golem idea a lot! They're definitely going on the list.

0.6.3 Ammo loaded into the quiver doesn't show up on the equipment list.

... critiquing the Lich (so far, DL's 1-10)

a) ring of Ice (activation) makes him too powerful, maybe an ICE_BRAND instead if that's the point of it.
b) with all the ranged spells, does he really need a launcher slot?
c) does he really need to eat food for sustenance. Some sort of vampiric drain seems more fitting.

Yeah, I had thought that the quiver bug was just hydras, but it looks like it's everyone. You can see what's in the quiver by looking at the inventory.. sometimes.

I'm not sure what the point of the ice ring was.. it's a carryover from Pos. Maybe just to give him a fast start? Or easy access to double-resistance for cold (no longer applicable)?

I've never really thought about launcher slots, just always included it with melee slots.. now that I think about it a lich using a bow is a little strange sounding. I should probably take it away from Xs too; it's tough to imagine their huge claws holding a short bow.

Special ways of eating (like basilisks eating statues) is on the to-do list but it's after summoning and questing.

I've noticed the ammo problem as well.
Any ammo loaded into quiver isn't seen on screen but can be selected using the right letter (n I think) so you can still fire or drop it etc. It just makes it more difficult to keep track of what ammo you are holding.

Sorry about that.. but welcome to the oook forums!