[Announce] Poschengband 3.0.0 Released

[chem]

Any entrance deeper than L19 will collapse with 1 in 14 odds.

Well, don't quit your character over this. I can certainly make this rule not apply when playing with ironman_rooms turned on for next release (which you can nudge me into hurrying if you like).

But if all you want are continuous GCVs, don't you find stair scumming tedious?

Yeah, if it didn't apply when ironman_rooms is on that'd be nice. Permanently losing dungeon stair access is really rough. Stair scumming is definitely tedious, but let's face it: large parts of *bands are tedious. It's more about finding the loopholes in the system (which you essentially closed with the stair collapsing, heh) and having fun maximizing your return from those. While I am perfectly content voicing my opinions and feedback and hoping the maintainer may make a change in things, it'd feel like using wizard mode if I actually edited a .txt file and put in a DEBUG flag or something. Know what I mean?

That said, if you wanted to increase the frequency of GCVs... hehehe. Eventually the vault distribution has a real impact on my gameplay because I do need to blindly recall down to deep angband and start hunting at the endgame.

[chris]

I pushed a woefully undertested interim release (3.0.5) in the usual place:

* Stairs no longer collapse in the wilderness when using the ironman_rooms option. Previously collapsed stairs should now be available again (untested).

* Wilderness now correctly prints town status when scrolling about.

* Mirror Master spell stat fixed to Int. Mirror Concentration power now correctly detects current mirror status.

* Some new lance ego types added for riding classes and a couple miscellaneous new artifacts added.

In addition, I added some new Mauler goodies as requested (untested):

* Dice boosted ego weapons and rand-arts now gain extra weight, but only for the Mauler.

* 3 New mauler artifacts added. Also, the Mauler now has a good shot at some of the heavy monster king rewards. Finally, a couple of already heavy artifacts got a bit extra weight to make them useful for the mauler.

[chem]

I pushed a woefully undertested interim release (3.0.5)

cool, downloaded. I'll give it a shot!

edit: confirming the castle has stairs in the wilderness again for me

[chem]

back in action now, and looking for kit advice after reading a zillion acq and *acq* scrolls... http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=15474 helpppp

[chris]

back in action now, and looking for kit advice after reading a zillion acq and *acq* scrolls... http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=15474 helpppp

If you attach your savefile (You will have to give it a bogus .txt extension to post it on oook), I will be happy to give it a try. But optimizing with pencil and paper is asking too much

I usually start with a key piece of gear or too, and then work around that. Your principle weaknesses hitherto have been poor fighting stats. So perhaps begin with either Julian or Yositsune for your armor and Thror for your boots. Gloves are either Sprite or Lawmaster (You will need a lot of dex!). After that, build up your remaining kit trying to cover all resists and get all 3 blows, as well as telepathy if you feel like you need that (Palantir?). Make sure your speed is +25 or higher. You should use the Jewel of Judgment eventually, as well as Vilya (a gimme with your gameplay options). Your kit will never be "optimal" ... just get something that works.

-OR-

Robe of the Twilight and call it done! (That's a joke, btw ...)

Also, try mundanity on your Mace of Disruption of *Slay Undead* followed by Artifact Creation. You never know! Get more Mundanity and repeat! With your gameplay options, you will have trouble finding non-ego heavy weapons for your artifact scrolls!

[chem]

I usually start with a key piece of gear or too, and then work around that. Your principle weaknesses hitherto have been poor fighting stats. So perhaps begin with either Julian or Yositsune for your armor and Thror for your boots. Gloves are either Sprite or Lawmaster (You will need a lot of dex!). After that, build up your remaining kit trying to cover all resists and get all 3 blows, as well as telepathy if you feel like you need that (Palantir?). Make sure your speed is +25 or higher. You should use the Jewel of Judgment eventually, as well as Vilya (a gimme with your gameplay options). Your kit will never be "optimal" ... just get something that works.

Yeah, really need to get my STR/CON maxed. I might just filter my items by stat boosts and start from there. If I go to anti-magic caves next, I guess I could get by without either anti-magic shell or reflection? That'd open up a lot of options. Reaching unbuffed +25 speed will require 1 ring, (1 ring OR feanor), and (some third source). I've been rolling 2-source so far, but it does seem insufficient to safely deal with some of the real fast hard hitters, or uniques that like to blink a lot (ugh, Brand).


Does dlvl of where you read a SoAC affect results?

[chris]

Does dlvl of where you read a SoAC affect results?

Slightly. The number of powers granted is level independent, but certain attributes like immunities or slay evil are more common the deeper you go.

[Arjen]

Bullroarer dropped a Barbarian talisman (+1). It only had -1 int. How is this a {good} drop? Shouldn't it have at least 1 positive flag?

edit: It was sold of 1 gold.

[MarvinPA]

Wielding a wizardstaff seems to increase the cost of spells to 1 if they were already cost 0 (like a Mindcrafter's Clear Mind). Looks like just a one-line fix: http://bpaste.net/raw/171931/

Also I was looking up Demigod mutations out of curiosity (since I'm playing a Human at the moment and level 30 is the point where I normally die), and it looks like Fell Sorcery ("Your spells will grow more powerful.") and Untouchable ("You will gain a bonus to armor class.") don't actually work? I could easily be missing something with how mutations work though, and Angband debug modes are a pain so I haven't tried just testing them ingame yet. :P

[chris]

Wielding a wizardstaff seems to increase the cost of spells to 1 if they were already cost 0 (like a Mindcrafter's Clear Mind). Looks like just a one-line fix: http://bpaste.net/raw/171931/

Also I was looking up Demigod mutations out of curiosity (since I'm playing a Human at the moment and level 30 is the point where I normally die), and it looks like Fell Sorcery ("Your spells will grow more powerful.") and Untouchable ("You will gain a bonus to armor class.") don't actually work? I could easily be missing something with how mutations work though, and Angband debug modes are a pain so I haven't tried just testing them ingame yet. :P

Thanks for the bug report for the wizardstaff.

The Fell Sorcery and Untouchable mutations are MUT_TYPE_BONUS mutations (see the table in mut.c) which means they receive the SPELL_CALC_BONUS event (see mut_calc_bonuses, which is called from calc_bonuses in xtra1.c). Thus, if you look at fell_sorcery_mut in mut_a.c, you can see the code handler for SPELL_CALC_BONUS. Ditto with untouchable_mut. In short, I think both of these mutations should be working, but did not actually test to make sure.

[MarvinPA]

The Fell Sorcery and Untouchable mutations are MUT_TYPE_BONUS mutations (see the table in mut.c) which means they receive the SPELL_CALC_BONUS event (see mut_calc_bonuses, which is called from calc_bonuses in xtra1.c). Thus, if you look at fell_sorcery_mut in mut_a.c, you can see the code handler for SPELL_CALC_BONUS. Ditto with untouchable_mut. In short, I think both of these mutations should be working, but did not actually test to make sure.

Ah, thanks! Yeah, I was grepping for MUT_FELL_SORCERY to see what it did, and that meant I ended up missing mut_a.c where the effects are actually applied.

Conveniently I just hit level 30, so now I just have to decide which mutation I actually want. :P

[MarvinPA]

A couple of times now I've gone to the Tower of Sorcery and all that's displayed is "()" at the top, where "name (species)" should be, and the "ESC) Exit building" line at the bottom. Saving and reloading fixes this and I can't figure out how to consistently reproduce it, unfortunately. I haven't seen it happen in any other shops or services.

[CrabTaco]

I have been playing Poschengband for a few weeks now, its quickly become the favorite variant I have every played. Thanks for making such a fun variant!

I have been playing a ninja recently, and I am wondering what the penalty for using a weapon that gives these warnings is actually doing:

You are wearing The Broad Sword 'Aranruth' (3d5) (+20,+12) (+4) (a).
You do not feel comfortable with your weapon.
That shows a complete lack of faith on your part.

I can see on my character weapons page my To Hit is dropping to -14, i assume I am suffering other negative effects as well?

Is there some way to overcome these effects, or do I need to stick to weapons the class likes?

[HugoVirtuoso]

I have been playing Poschengband for a few weeks now, its quickly become the favorite variant I have every played. Thanks for making such a fun variant!

I have been playing a ninja recently, and I am wondering what the penalty for using a weapon that gives these warnings is actually doing:

You are wearing The Broad Sword 'Aranruth' (3d5) (+20,+12) (+4) (a).
You do not feel comfortable with your weapon.
That shows a complete lack of faith on your part.

I can see on my character weapons page my To Hit is dropping to -14, i assume I am suffering other negative effects as well?

Is there some way to overcome these effects, or do I need to stick to weapons the class likes?

Your best bet is to stick with weapons Ninjas are known to like. I don't know if there is a way to overcome weapon penalties like this one. Maybe chris would know.

[chris]

I have been playing a ninja recently, and I am wondering what the penalty for using a weapon that gives these warnings is actually doing:

You are wearing The Broad Sword 'Aranruth' (3d5) (+20,+12) (+4) (a).
You do not feel comfortable with your weapon.
That shows a complete lack of faith on your part.

I can see on my character weapons page my To Hit is dropping to -14, i assume I am suffering other negative effects as well?

Is there some way to overcome these effects, or do I need to stick to weapons the class likes?

Ninjas really cannot wield unfavored weapons. As a penalty, they get -40 to hit and only half the calculated number of blows. Plus, they are stuck on unskilled proficiency, which is a further -20 to hit (or -40 versus the master proficiency attainable with daggers). This is huge. Further insult is that ninjas have really poor blows calculation to begin with that severely nerfs their ability to use weapons of more than, say, 7lbs or so. I think their "Strength Index" is capped at 1 or some such nonsense, so the "icky" weapon will be too heavy for them to get too many multiple blows anyway.

On the plus side, those *thanc daggers are really nice these days. Better wield two since they are so small