[Announce] Poschengband 3.3.0 Released

[chris]

Are we sure that the Fell Sorcery demigod power does anything? I grepped through the codebase trying to find its real effect with no luck. (I'm not sure if the number that it maps to is used directly somewhere else.)

If so, how does it work?

Yes it works. Take a look at fell_sorcery_mut in mut_a.c and it should be obvious.

[debo]

Are we sure that the Fell Sorcery demigod power does anything? I grepped through the codebase trying to find its real effect with no luck. (I'm not sure if the number that it maps to is used directly somewhere else.)

If so, how does it work?

[chris]

Guys, how do I enable cheats in this variant? I just want to goof around to see how the Possessor and Beastman work, I don't care about the hall of fame...

You'll need to compile a debug build for this. On Windows, open the project and change the target from release to debug. Recompile. Warning: This will also turn on a bunch of debugging code as well so is not recommended.

But why not just fire up a Possessor and play one? There are plenty of dumps on the ladder to explain good strategies to use as well as what corpses to look for when.

Beastmen get a starting mutation which you can (unfortunately?) scum for. They also mutate like crazy in an unpredictable fashion, as they level up (I think each level up has a 1 in 5 chance of mutation). They are not particularly fun to play as you are prone to just getting screwed at any point in the game by a bad mutation (And some mutations are intolerable to play with). Removing a mutation is available in Zul for a price, but it removes them randomly so you usually end up removing all the good ones first. Plus, you'll need levitation to get there so you might get stuck early on with really bad mutations. Still, if you like a random unpredictable game, then they can be fun. And you can pair up with the Chaos Warrior class for the ultimate in unpredictability.

[UglySquirrell]

Guys, how do I enable cheats in this variant? I just want to goof around to see how the Possessor and Beastman work, I don't care about the hall of fame...

Hmm, not sure about the cheat code, but if you choose Munchkin personality when creating your guy/girl. You start with a huuge amount of gold, have really big stat boosts, automatically identify items and all the levels are mapped out for you. You level really fast as well.

[Zireael]

Guys, how do I enable cheats in this variant? I just want to goof around to see how the Possessor and Beastman work, I don't care about the hall of fame...

[AnonymousHero]

ToME has summoning too. In that variant, there is no EXP penalty (unless I'm wrong) for letting pets kill monsters.

Not to hijack the thread, but "someone's wrong on the Internet": There is actually an EXP penalty from the outset, but it's countered by the Monster Lore skill. Indeed according to code comments you end up with 120% per pet kill if your Monster Lore is 50 (max).

In some cases, I've had Loremasters move up from clvl 30-something to 50 in a few hours because of this. Again, that's summoning in ToME.

I'm surprised it would take that long . Summoning is another skill that's totally broken in ToME 2.x. If you go to Erebor and just summon a few chain-summoning ancient dragons you can clear whole levels in a few minutes. Also, if you're a symbiant[1] you get all your summons for free! Of course there are dangers such as getting caught in the breath of one of your own pets, but usually it's not much of a problem. Just get a mountain-climbing digger and hide out where absolutely no monsters can reach or see you. (There are lots of broken things about summoning in ToME, but chain-summoning is one of the worst. In fact, writing out this post, I'm kind of wondering why I even like it. Perhaps it's the Unbeliever class/Anti-magic skill...)

[1] Actually, scratch that, just be a Sorceror and get Symbiosis to 0.5 multiplier via Lost Sword quests and bump to 35. That'll get you the summoning power of a Greater Q and you can also have it take damage for you once in a while (35% of the time?).

EDIT: Sorry, didn't mean to go into full-on rant mode there.

[debo]

Don't we have a pure summoner in the form of the Q's monsterclass?

Of course, there is one summoner build that breaks the rules: The Quylthulg (who starts with -10 speed). If you want pure summoning, then this is the only option.

A few posts back

[Arjen]

Don't we have a pure summoner in the form of the Q's monsterclass?

[chris]

My 'pro tip' for summoners is that: really you shouldn't be summoning many things yourself, what you want to do is have a few strong named allies that summon for you, this way you save a lot of SP which means the huge storms of pets will drain your reserves much slower.

That's good general advice, but a High Mage can eat magic so essentially they can both summon an army of pets and keep them around forever. Upkeep is not a late game issue.

For effective summoning though, the best spell is Summon Angel and it's not even a Trump spell.

[chris]

I was really hoping to run a pure summoner for flavor reasons.

Pure summoning was removed from Hengband probably because it is a broken mechanic. Remember, there you get 0xp and no drops for your summons. I've relaxed this a bit by allowing drops and some xp, but it is a tentative change. Summoning should be used as support for something else. As for High Mages, there are many realm choices that are not "smart" choices, Trump and Arcane probably being the worst. Some players still enjoy these as challenge builds, though. For Trump, try starting out with some archery. You can also use your starting wand of magic missile to gain the early levels pretty quickly (Hint: DL1 of Camelot is the worst way to do this).

Of course, there is one summoner build that breaks the rules: The Quylthulg (who starts with -10 speed). If you want pure summoning, then this is the only option.

[HugoVirtuoso]

ToME has summoning too. In that variant, there is no EXP penalty (unless I'm wrong) for letting pets kill monsters. In some cases, I've had Loremasters move up from clvl 30-something to 50 in a few hours because of this. Again, that's summoning in ToME. Of course, PosChengband is much more "balanced" and restricting with pets killing monsters vs. EXP gain thanks to chris.

[krazyhades]

Good to know about hostile summons come from failing a summoning spell. I guess the misleading game text about Aphrodite's spawn being better at controlling pets must only refer to kiss/dominate/ride abilities. Same for forum content I'd read about Fearless and the charisma stat both helping to control pets. If a summon succeeds, can that monster ever cease to be a pet (without the player attacking it)?

Yeah, I remember that SP-saving trick from the Ring competition. But the Trump realm doesn't give access to summoned summoners in the first book, so there's no realistic chance of that getting online until much later. Plus, IIRC, Rings mostly did it by riding a summoner, but of course the high mage doesn't have that option.

I was really hoping to run a pure summoner for flavor reasons. I've played with the idea of running a Beastmaster, but I was thrown off by their listed inability to summon nonliving things, mostly because I was curious and wanted a character with the widest possible range of summons. Maybe I'll run a Q next, but I don't like that they lose access to previous summons as they change forms...I wanted ultimately to build towards a lategame character that can summon just about anything (not that Trump can really do that, either).

As you point out (and as I've taken issue with on the necromancer in the past), the XP penalty for summons/mounts getting kills really hurts, even though it's better than the 0% xp from Hengband. It seems to just make an already annoyingly-keypress-intensive range of characters even slower to play. IIRC, the best way to gain XP as a summoner is a trick that you (clouded) used in the comp...control some summoners of your own, get them into a fight with enemy summoners, and then essentially press your face against the spacebar until you've leveled up a few times.

I guess I really just need to find a variant that has put special attention into making summoners fun to play. I find Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup summoners can be fun in the early/mid game but they, like all DCSS casters, end up swapping over to direct damage spells and using summons as damage sinks. Plus DCSS summons also steal xp, which is no fun.

[clouded]

I believe the chance of hostile summons is the failure rate of the spell (that is, when you fail to cast you get something hostile). Anyway, playing a summons based character that isn't a Qulthuylg or Ring is generally kind of miserable, the spells are all super expensive and you don't get much XP. If you really want to play a normal character with summons I would suggest something like rogue or beastmaster, then you can at least melee.

My 'pro tip' for summoners is that: really you shouldn't be summoning many things yourself, what you want to do is have a few strong named allies that summon for you, this way you save a lot of SP which means the huge storms of pets will drain your reserves much slower.

[krazyhades]

This game is so frustrating...

I've been wanting to play a magic-based class for some time, and I really like the flavor of a summoner. I just whipped up a fearless trump high mage scion of Aphrodite. The only spell available at level one was Phase Door, so I learned it, hoping to grab Trump Spiders at level 2. I scum the first room of Camelot until I reach level 2, since weak starters seem basically forced into doing that, at which point I find out that I do not have a spell slot for my first summoning spell. Clearly I should have not learned any spell at level 1, which is both unintuitive and unfun. Well, no matter, I keep scumming the top level of Camelot for lvl 3, at which point I have that spell slot for Trump Spiders.

Well, let's give it a go, shall we? After all, I've stacked this character's ability to control pets, what with fearless and Aphrodite, plus a good charisma score. First cast summons 4 hostile wood spiders, and I die.

I'm definitely going to give this build another try, but this initial abortive run was disheartening, especially because I've got no real idea what the chances are that a summoned monster will be hostile. I thought I'd done everything in my power to counteract this. Blech.

[chris]

Create a shop/add an option to a shop to trade stat potions for *healing*. Heck, let me trade aritfacts for them.

This will break the game, I fear. Actually, if you compare the *Healing* frequencies in Poscheng to Hengband, you will see they are already far too generous. You probably get twice as many as before.

My current char is still that half titan warrior. Currently I'm feeling I'm pretty much ready for the end game or at very least starting to dive there (currently on 81 in Angband). Double or more base resists, everything else covered once at least (except time and light), most things double or more. Sustain all, reflect, anti-magic, 27 speed unhasted. 630 (750 evil, more for undead and humans) per turn, vampiric.

You don't need vamp for the final battle, and that damage should be higher for a warrior. Also, checking your dump, your AC is way too low for melee.

And so, I've depleted my stack of *healing* (that never got above 10 at any point). But without that, attempting pretty much anything I don't know feels suicidal.

How many have you used all game? Personally, I tend to not use *healing* except for emergencies, saving them up for the final battle.

I can't use staffs or rods of healing - fail rate's ridiculous and would seem impossible to get into acceptable terrain.

Device skills are the warriors main weakness to overcome. You can address this with birth options (race and personality choice) or by finding gear that boosts intelligence and, more importantly, device skill. Wizard gloves and amulets of the magi should be considered, preferably the latter. You'll need enough device skill to use a staff of healing, but you'll probably never manage rods. A 10% fail would be good enough.

I have normal healing potions, but they're not really cutting it - if I need to heal with this guy, 300 are not really relevant at this stage.

You might be waiting too long to heal. With 1300hp, I'd be healing at 900 or so. If you are taking more than 300hp per round damage, then you are outclassed and should probably consider abandoning the fight.

I don't really see what I could do to get a decent stack of *healing*. Which is frustrating! And while it's possible that I might miss some little bit of res this or that that I'm not aware I'd absolutely need, that's the only thing keeping me from going for the end game!

I typically get at least 25 !*Healing* in every game and as much as I want if I luck into the Jewel of Judgement. This should be plenty. But if you've used them all already, then you will have to wait for more. They are much more common then they used to be and many monsters will drop them as well, so it should not take too long. I'd want at least 20 for the final fight (and you can count Life towards this total as well) although you can get by with less if you bring a huge stash of regular healing (teleport when low on hp and quaff them out of line of sight).