[Announce] Poschengband 2.0.0 Released

[HugoVirtuoso]

It's the 0% fail, free, infinite teleport mechanic I have a problem with. Teleportation is intended to be somewhat scarcer in this variant, though it is still very common.

If you really really need 0% fail, then you can play one of the pure spellcaster forms, or perhaps a mindcrafter. (One plus of this change is that hybrid casters with non-zero fail rates suddenly will use the teleport spell, which they almost never would before.)

Warriors are already one of the most powerful classes with almost 3x the melee damage of anybody else, so giving them a hard time is not something I'll lose sleep over. (They get 7 base blows ... everybody else used to get just 5. Plus they can dual wield with ease, so it is really 14 blows vs. 5 for (almost) everybody else).

So, WHO made the changes to the '0% fail for Scrolls of Teleportation'? Was it you or was it already part of Hengband?

[emulord]

Teleport is still not a completely safe action. You can be in LOS of something scary at your destination too.

Destruction/Genocide is safer, but now monsters can resist (which I like)

Teleport Level is safest, but you still lose on current dungeon loot.

I guess my ideal curves for escapes for different classes would be similar to this:

Basically I want fail rates to correspond to Int more strongly, so a character's fail rates arent completely dependent on Race/Class. I think Magic device skill should deal with damage/effect more than fail rates.

Dumb = 10int, Mid = 18/50, Smart = 18/200

DumbWarrior|MidW|SmartW|DHybrid|MH|SH|DCaster|MC|SC
?Phase   |10%|1% |0%    |5%   |1% |0% |3%   |1% |0%
?Teleport|25%|10%|1%    |12%  |5% |0% |7%   |2% |0%
?TLevel  |50%|20%|5%    |35%  |10%|3% |25%  |10%|1%
?Destruct|80%|40%|20%   |50%  |25%|15%|30%  |15%|7%
?Genocide|50%|25%|10%   |30%  |10%|6% |20%  |13%|4%

I do realize at this point it's probably way too difficult to change and balance, so I guess nevermind.

[yrriban]

Oh... Well that sucks. Combat Possessor right now. I think scrolls as a whole should be easier because it has 100% fail rate if you're blind or confused. That was the original balancing factor in Angband, and I think that making dumb warriors able to fail ?Genoicde or ?Destruction is great, having a smarter warrior unable to 0%fail ?teleport is kindof weird.

My current earth elemental competition character actually has the best success with artifacts that activate for teleportation such as Holcolleth; those have a 3.9% fail rate currently, as opposed to 7.1% for the scroll and 11.1% for the staff.

[Brouhaha]

Quick question about magic eaters: Does spell power or device power boost his casting damage?

Also, can you implement the three-key casting thing? It'd be nice to just press 'z' to instant access the list of rod categories. Failing a code fix, is there a way to create a macro that does this for myself? How would I map "press m then press z" to the z key?

[Derakon]

Hit '@' to bring up the macros and keymaps screen, make a new keymap, have the keymap be "mz", and trigger when you hit "z".

If you ever need to access the normal "z" command, you can do it by hitting "\" first; that temporarily turns off all keymaps.

[chris]

Quick question about magic eaters: Does spell power or device power boost his casting damage?

Also, can you implement the three-key casting thing? It'd be nice to just press 'z' to instant access the list of rod categories. Failing a code fix, is there a way to create a macro that does this for myself? How would I map "press m then press z" to the z key?

This was implemented a long time ago. Press 'a' to automatically access wand types, 'z' for rod types and 'u' for staff types. The catch is that if you are carrying an object of the corresponding type in your pack, then it defaults to the normal command usage, but a magic-eater would never want to do that.

Edit: Spellpower boosts damage.

[soyaki]

This variant

Loved the competition and love the variant. Easily one of my favorite of all time--certainly my favorite in 10 years or so(!). Great work.

[HugoVirtuoso]

Did anyone notice that 'struggling to maintain possession of the current body' can have the PARALYSIS-like effect? I think this REALLY needs to be toned down.

Look at this:
> You struggle to maintain possession of your current body!
> *** LOW HITPOINT WARNING! ***
> The White knight misses you. <x2>
> The Camelot Knight magically summons Knights!
> The White knight hits you.
> You struggle to maintain possession of your current body!
> *** LOW HITPOINT WARNING! ***
> The White knight hits you.
> You struggle to maintain possession of your current body!
> *** LOW HITPOINT WARNING! ***
> The White knight misses you.
> The Novice paladin misses you.
> The Novice paladin hits you.
> You struggle to maintain possession of your current body!
> *** LOW HITPOINT WARNING! ***
> The White knight misses you.
> The White knight hits you.
> You stand your ground!
> You struggle to maintain possession of your current body!
> *** LOW HITPOINT WARNING! ***
> The White knight hits you.
> You struggle to maintain possession of your current body!
> *** LOW HITPOINT WARNING! ***
> The White knight hits you.
> You struggle to maintain possession of your current body!
> *** LOW HITPOINT WARNING! ***
> The White knight hits you.
> You struggle to maintain possession of your current body!
> What a noble sacrifice!
> Death greets me warm, now I will just say goodbye.
> Goodbye, Hugo$oul 76!

After my HP dropped to the RED category, in the 80s, it was essentially game over. I couldn't even land a hit afterwards.

Ok, I admit taking full-blame for encouraging the 'body ejection' mechanism since this has made the game way harder in horrid situations such as this.

On another note, Guinevere should be added in the game, and alongside Arthur Pendragon. Guinevere should be a menacing spellcaster with mana bolts like Sir Gawain as well as confusion/blindness. If Guinevere dies, Pendragon should become berserk, with increased spellcasting/attacks

[chris]

Did anyone notice that 'struggling to maintain possession of the current body' can have the PARALYSIS-like effect? I think this REALLY needs to be toned down.

There isn't any such effect ... Probably, this more due to your being only +0 speed, partially due to that heavy corpse you are carrying.

I'm evil, but I'm not *that* evil

[DaviddesJ]

There isn't any such effect ...

Then why did they get many turns in a row when he didn't get any?

[chris]

Then why did they get many turns in a row when he didn't get any?

Camelot Knight summons. White Knight attacks 1x. Paladin attacks 1x. White Knight attacks 2x. Yes, summoned monsters often gain the initiative.

I have no way of knowing how many white knights were about, but he was probably surrounded. Given he was fighting monsters 2x as fast as him, I see absolutely nothing even remotely odd about this situation!

[HugoVirtuoso]

Camelot Knight summons. White Knight attacks 1x. Paladin attacks 1x. White Knight attacks 2x. Yes, summoned monsters often gain the initiative.

I have no way of knowing how many white knights were about, but he was probably surrounded. Given he was fighting monsters 2x as fast as him, I see absolutely nothing even remotely odd about this situation!

Apparently, I was surrounded by those guys, and my base speed was ZERO and me playing to the hilt like I [almost] always do means... you get the picture.

In my opinion, variants like PosChengband and Sil, my two absolute variants, are profoundly known for very harshly punishing players who get careless and take very high risks. But hey, I realize that this is actually good because it forces one to pay attention. i.e., THINK before you act.

[Derakon]

My first remotely successful berserker got taken down by a posse of Knights of the Round Table and their summoned hordes. They're not pleasant people, and at least one of them can cast teleport-to so it's easy to get surrounded.

[HugoVirtuoso]

My first remotely successful berserker got taken down by a posse of Knights of the Round Table and their summoned hordes. They're not pleasant people, and at least one of them can cast teleport-to so it's easy to get surrounded.

MOST of them CAN cast teleport-to and can teleport WITH YOU especially the named ones. e.g., Sir Garwain. And absolutely not pleasant at all, they can be very mean, despite being "good" people.

[debo]

I guess the part where you're trying to kill them all for experience made them mad.