[Announce] Poschengband 3.3.0 Released

[krazyhades]

Beer Mode: Build your own debug copy and activate no-death mode, perhaps? In fact, after killing so many mages tonight in my increasingly furiously deranged and drunken attempts to reach the level of Shriven3's predecessor, I just snapped, decided to debug-command my way up to lvl 20, create book2 for death and sorcery, and play from there (obviously without putting it on the ladder!). I have not activated save-from-death, though maybe I should. Sometimes, I like to have fun by playing a real character...and sometimes I like to have fun by drinking another beer and getting access to cloudkill nao. I think it's a shame that our collective moral sentiments make even doing this leaving me feeling guilty, but fun is fun, and tonight's fun is going to come from a relaxed fake character. I think the real issue is that people shouldn't pass off cheating saves as real characters on the ladder, but other than that, I don't see the problem. I'm having much more fun now than I was before, when I was just playing catchup and grinding through old content yet again. (The alternative was to whip up ye old "I'm in a Bad Mood Berserker")

Auto-ID: debo, MarvinPA, and maybe others have and use patches that speed up pseudoID and turn plain id into *ID* which are both huge quality of life improvements that I can't imagine have huge impacts on balance. Not QUITE what you're after, but similar. I started using such a patch today, and boy is it nice not to around a pair of average leather gloves waiting to get the pseudoID message.

PS: Chris I'm (slightly, but actually) sorry if this way of playing your game offends your sensibilities! Know that it comes from a desire to keep playing PosChengband long after I'm in a state to do so.

edit: I'm probably done playing for tonight. I'm definitely glad I decided to just relax with a throwaway character for a bit, though I'm deleting the save now. Tomorrow or later this week I'll get back to trying to get an ACTUAL mage to and beyond the strength of Shriven2 We'll see how it goes...

[krazyhades]

Is there a way to auto-path to a point that is being eXamined?

[Arjen]

Found a bug:

A moving skull druj...

This happened when Brand casted logrus on me with some Stone Trolls around me. One polymorfed into a Skull Druj who could also move, but unable to cast spells. (Looks like it's still the Stone Troll but disguised as Skull Druj.

I made a backup safefile with this Skull Druj, so if you need it Chris ask.

*edit*
Ahh, it didn't polymorph into a Skull Druj, it polymorfed into a Tanuki who was disguised as a Skull Druj. xD

[mewmew]

Hello. I recently began to play poscheng and have a couple of questions of this game.

How do exp penalties stack? For instance I play kutar (175%) rogue (125%), will it be 200% exp i.e. 1 (base) + 0.75 + 0.25 or it will be 218.75% exp i.e 1.75 (base race) * 1.25 or it will be something else?
I checked some ladder dumps and chris said in the comments to one of them that half-titan sorcerer will be 408% exp while even with the second formula it's just 360%... I have no idea how else those numbers can be applied.

Is there any way to set an item to be auto-destructed if it appears to be average in your inventory?

Is there any way to set default ammo for shooting (book to casting too) not to press additional letter (which constantly changes) if you don't want some specific ammo?

[krazyhades]

I'm not sure on the XP stacking method, but the other two I can answer.

2) Average items in your inventory will be automatically destroyed once you're high enough level, but you can change that rule in the autodestroyer (type the underscore character "_"). Read more about the autodestroyer in the help files by typing "?"

3) Not sure about the ammo bit specifically, but I've just recently started using macros myself and they're very helpful. You can read about how to make macros using the help menu ("?") and actually make them in the macro menu ("@"). For example, on a character with magic missile, I tend to set the tab key to a macro that looks like "\e*tmaa" which means [escape character, in case I'm in a menu][target nearest enemy][cast the first spell in my first book at target]. If you inscribe some ammunition with "@f0" for example, you can make sure that you can always access it with the 0 key after you start firing, which for macros is very helpful because it means the item can move to different letters but the macro will still use the same arrows.

[mewmew]

Thanks.

Also I have a question about weaponmaster (daggers), I read in the ladder comments (it seems the best place to learn about the game -_-) that the chance for a tossed dagger not to return is 1/150 if you are in Flying Daggers stance, I'm not sure if it depends on something else (lvl or dex) or not because I feel like I had it several times worse than 1/150, since I had my daggers not returning several times when I did probably less than ~50 tosses, it was especially not pleasant when I was chased by Brodda in wilderness and lost both of my daggers throwing them at him >< And what does the chance to catch depend on? Even when they return they fell to my feet like 1/3-1/5 of tosses so all this dagger tossing was barely viable comparing to using a bow/crossbow/sling on another class.

[EpicMan]

There is an inscription system for items that, among other things, allows you to assign a number to a stack of ammo or a spellbook, for instance.
Press '{' and choose the ammo you want to shoot, then type "@f1" and press enter.
now you can press 1 when prompted for ammo to always get the same stack.
This is very useful when making macros like Krazyhades suggested, make a macro with *tf1
to target the nearest monster and shoot at him.

[krazyhades]

Yeah, the ladder dumps are definitely one of the best ways to learn the game. I'm playing a scrollmaster and as prep I read all the other devicemasters. You can also ask here, in IRC chat, and look in the code itself.

I've never played a daggermaster, so I have no idea on that front It's probably affected by your level and/or your dexterity, but that's just a guess.

edit: also, watching other live players if/when they're playing via Termcast is a good way to learn (if you're on windows you can use a program called putty, if not, you can do it right from your command line)

[mewmew]

Well, thanks. I heard about termcast.org but as I recall people mostly broadcast nethack there, I will definitely check more.

[krazyhades]

The first two channels are prerecorded always-on nethack games. The rest, if anybody is online at the time, tend to be PosChengband lately.

[mewmew]

Oh, I have yet another question, how do people level up in the wilderness at the early levels exactly? I read that they can get multiple levels quickly there with different mages, mindcrafters, even with hounds but when I try (it seems they level up in swamps) I usually don't have any means neither to kill enemies quickly nor to kite them (phase scrolls are limited at that point, mana too) and then I cannot spam spells/breath that much either. I just tried to do it with a hound at CL12 right after thieves + warg quests, nearly died a couple of times, burned a bunch of teleport scrolls, went to Icky Caves to get CL15 for running, went to the swamps again, was clenched by two packs of water hounds (they bullied my lone air hound :3) and fled again with all my equipment severely corroded. I definitely do something wrong there.

On a side note, it's not fair that dragons use SP for their breath while hounds breath from HP.

[HugoVirtuoso]

Oh, I have yet another question, how do people level up in the wilderness at the early levels exactly? I read that they can get multiple levels quickly there with different mages, mindcrafters, even with hounds but when I try (it seems they level up in swamps) I usually don't have any means neither to kill enemies quickly nor to kite them (phase scrolls are limited at that point, mana too) and then I cannot spam spells/breath that much either. I just tried to do it with a hound at CL12 right after thieves + warg quests, nearly died a couple of times, burned a bunch of teleport scrolls, went to Icky Caves to get CL15 for running, went to the swamps again, was clenched by two packs of water hounds (they bullied my lone air hound :3) and fled again with all my equipment severely corroded. I definitely do something wrong there.

On a side note, it's not fair that dragons use SP for their breath while hounds breath from HP.

Post your character on the ladder so that we can determine what's going on.

In my case, I tend to play melee-based characters who start by picking off the wandering Novices at the Outpost fringes...and a good number of them. Upon getting stronger and having sold stuff to get gold to buy Teleportation scrolls, I head north. I wonder in the wooded areas until I see Hounds. I try to lure one at a time and simply attempt to attack to kill. Avoid getting surrounded. Always bring scrolls of teleportation and healing consumables. If you playing breath-based race, you can just use your breath from the distance. Of course, if you find yourself running low in HP, retreat, teleport elsewhere

If the Stores don't have Teleportation scrolls. You have to explore dungons or make many turns pass first in order for the stores to re-stock.

If you want to fight Hounds, avoid Water hounds. Fight the other types...Energy/Cold/Fire/Earth/etc.. Although you risk getting inventory destroyed from these other types, you still get EXP gain from killing Hounds and your equipment won't be as corroded.

[mewmew]

Oh, that character died to Scylla soon after I fled from the hounds and tried to venture into the swamps again (I was a bit careless, the character was for testing anyway) and I didn't save the dump.

But it's not a question about the character, it's the question of the tactics, which spells/skills should I use and vs which monsters etc

Oh, and your way to level up in the wilderness doesn't sound especially fast, completing quests would probably be just as fast, and I probably cannot get to lvl20+ without getting into the swamps... I read in the ladder comments that people can level up very fast there with mages and I am trying to figure out how exactly.

[mewmew]

I found a staff recently, simply staff, it did nothing and failed 3.5% at doing nothing, also it had 19 charges of doing nothing. Is it intended? Anyway even if not it's fun.

Also, HugoTheGreat2011, I checked again those ladder dumps which I mentioned and it turned out that the hound fast leveling dump which I tried to repeat was yours:

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=16375

Please, tell me how you achieved it exactly, especially the part past lvl ~15 or so :3

Oh, and I have yet another stupid question (I hope I use this thread as intended ><, I don't really want to make a separate thread for all my questions, if not I will make or hijack one), where exactly I can reforge stuff?

[krazyhades]

Chances are good it was e.g. a staff of cure light wounds when you were full health or of detect invisible when no invisible monsters were around, that sort of thing. There ARE empty staves that generate on staff-eating characters such as the spectre, but I don't think they ever drop outside of character generation.

Reforging can be done at the Fighter's Hall. There may be more than one, but there is at least one in the top right just inside the walls of Morivant.