Poschengband game mechanic questions

[MarvinPA]

Patience deals damage (in a ball centred on you) based on how much damage you took while it was active. In one of the later books there's a spell that makes your melee more effective based on how cursed your weapon is (and apparently another one that restores your SP by draining curses from your weapon! Hex magic is really weird).

[budswell]

Capture balls are the most convenient (especially if you want to teleport) but they lose all there xp. If they're standing next to you they will use stairs/recall but not follow you on to the world map. I corner them to stop them wandering off if I have to recall without a capture ball.

Thanks, that explains why the one I'm riding always comes with. And I normally have them on "Seek and destroy" so they're never next to me, which explains why I never saw them come.

Next questions about Hex magic (currently a Sprite High Mage - I didn't realise Hex magic is kind of fighter magish).

What is with the "Patience" spell. The description isn't much help. As far as I can tell it seems to dish out damage to a monster I am in melee with after a while.

What is the point of the "Curse Weapon" spell? Why would I ever want to curse the weapon I'm wielding?

[wobbly]

With pets do I get the XP when they kill things? (It looks like I do, but not the amount stated in the recall window)

It's split not sure how exactly, on damage perhaps?

In the ~ skills display, does ![Unskilled] mean my character cannot get better than that? I am assuming it does because my posessor (RIP) had ![Skilled] in the weapons he used. So if that's the case, which classes can learn to ride? My current character is a necromancer

! is max. I know magic-eaters & ninjas can't get above unskilled, most casters are bad, cavalry & beastmasters are of course the best, Chaos-warriors & rangers are not bad, the rest you'll have to try & see.

Is there a way to get pets to follow you down stairs/recall? Kind of like "make pet companion" in Tome. (Although as I type this I guess I could carry them through in capture balls?)

Capture balls are the most convenient (especially if you want to teleport) but they lose all there xp. If they're standing next to you they will use stairs/recall but not follow you on to the world map. I corner them to stop them wandering off if I have to recall without a capture ball.

[budswell]

Thanks for the help. (Edit: Was) Playing a posessor and its going a lot better than my average (mainly due to luck).
Also had a crack at pickupref autodstroy stuff and its working well.

So more questions:

With pets do I get the XP when they kill things? (It looks like I do, but not the amount stated in the recall window)

When using the "R"est command the only button on the numeric keypad which works is 5, none of the others (I have numlock off for SHIFT+direction running). But they do work for other things like specifying an number of items in a stack

In the ~ skills display, does ![Unskilled] mean my character cannot get better than that? I am assuming it does because my posessor (RIP) had ![Skilled] in the weapons he used. So if that's the case, which classes can learn to ride? My current character is a necromancer

Is there a way to get pets to follow you down stairs/recall? Kind of like "make pet companion" in Tome. (Although as I type this I guess I could carry them through in capture balls?)

[wobbly]

Because you see, you get weapon skill points just for making a swing at a higher-level opponent; you don't need to actually hit or do damage.

Just tried this & hey your right! I think I got confused because it doesn't seem to work with missile weapons. You can grab an unskilled missile weapon continuously fire & miss at a sleeping target with a large stack of ammo & as far as I can see never improve till you hit.

Edit: Though I'm not 100% certain I haven't been firing at too weak an opponent.
Edit 2: Pretty sure not though, because usually when it's happened I've grabbed bless scrolls to start hitting & my bow/sling skill has started shooting up after getting a few hits on something.

[Nivim]

Yep, they need to be a certain difficulty based on your level. Chris if you read this, it can be a nightmare for non-melee classes just trying to build basic skill in a new weapon. Eh, maybe your fine with that anyway, I found it a bit irritating.

Get huge ac and detection, go where you expect to find lone melee opponents at least as high as your level, then dual wield junky versions of the weapon you want to train-- the deeper the negative acc/dam the better, although +attacks is good.
Because you see, you get weapon skill points just for making a swing at a higher-level opponent; you don't need to actually hit or do damage.

My favorite place for this around CL30 was recalling to the Graveyard and exiting it to the wilderness, where there were usually trolls of about the right level. Then around CL45-50 I used the arena. ("Downside" is even with +0 stuff I was still killing things quickly, mostly because I was too lazy to change my kit that much.)


Polymorph is temporary if a monster or trap does it to you; it's permanent if you use an item or get it as a chaos-god gift. (The split is supposed to be intentional-vs-unintentional, I think.)
Also, it's kinda dangerous, since has chances for messing with your stats, giving you horrible mutations (as well as ok ones?), and causing plain-damage shock effects (which I think chaos beastman might not have trouble with?).

[wobbly]

Thanks for the replies.
Does the level of opponent matter with upskilling? e.g. Is it possible (and worthwhile) just going to a shallower dungeon level to mow through easy opponents just after switching weapons?

Yep, they need to be a certain difficulty based on your level. Chris if you read this, it can be a nightmare for non-melee classes just trying to build basic skill in a new weapon. Eh, maybe your fine with that anyway, I found it a bit irritating.

Also on riding, I assume you use the capture ball to get mounts? Is there stats or skills for the capture ball. Been unsuccessful so far whenever I've come across a horse and knocked it down to one star?

I'm guessing chr (it's a beastmaster's prime stat) with a bonus for cavalry/beastmasters. Pets & mounts can be a pain & a lot of classes can't ride well. You'll suffer large to hit penalties with-out high skill particularly on the crossbow. I like pets so I use them a lot, just be prepared for some hassle/frustration if you do.

Edit: Wow that's new, I just got polymorphed! I'm now a Nibelung. Don't think I've seen it other variants, I think its kind of cool. I was wondering if it was going to be permanent, but no.

It can be permanent on the chaos warrior & perhaps a mutation?? Maybe some other ways, I'm fairly new to the variant myself.

[budswell]

Thanks for the replies.

Does the level of opponent matter with upskilling? e.g. Is it possible (and worthwhile) just going to a shallower dungeon level to mow through easy opponents just after switching weapons?

Also on riding, I assume you use the capture ball to get mounts? Is there stats or skills for the capture ball. Been unsuccessful so far whenever I've come across a horse and knocked it down to one star?

Edit: Wow that's new, I just got polymorphed! I'm now a Nibelung. Don't think I've seen it other variants, I think its kind of cool. I was wondering if it was going to be permanent, but no.

[Nivim]

My order is to use the interesting rooms birth option so all dungeons are super-dangerous, then get my first few levels in wilderness (vaults) before raiding the dungeon greater vaults for highest risk/reward ratio.

So just starting out and trying some things, I usually prefer spellcasters. A couple of questions:
- Is is possibly to get a monster list window like in other bands? (I'm a multi window player). Didn't think I used it much, but I really miss it now its gone, was a good tool for avoiding suprises (I do know about [, just not disciplined enough to use it often)

The window options are in =w, but sadly, there isn't an option for monster list yet! It will probably get added whenever chris or someone has time, since it's a pretty good feature.

- Similarily, what are the spell skills about? Is it just the more I use the spells the fail rates drop a bit?

Also cost, I think; I've only played one character with a book so far, and I didn't actually practice any of the spells-- I just used my huge buildup of extra spell levels to [G]ain spells more than once (which increases their mastery by a tier) until I maxed the ones I cared about.

[wobbly]

I'm just messing with camelot for the time being, although this thread implies that's not a good strategy

http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=6606

My own order is thieves quest - warg quest - poke head into icky caves (for ease of recall) - poke head in orc caves (same reason) - morivant (1000 gold restore/600 gold id all) - angband etc. but just do what works for you.

So just starting out and trying some things, I usually prefer spellcasters. A couple of questions:
- Is is possibly to get a monster list window like in other bands? (I'm a multi window player). Didn't think I used it much, but I really miss it now its gone, was a good tool for avoiding suprises (I do know about [, just not disciplined enough to use it often)
- What is with the weapon skills? With my priest I noticed I missed a lot more when I switched from my mace to a warhammer. Is that just because my skill was lower? Or is there a special priest+mace bonus like I read there was with rogue+sling?
- Similarily, what are the spell skills about? Is it just the more I use the spells the fail rates drop a bit?

Edit: Removed dumb question that I worked out myself

You'll usually have trouble hitting with a weapon you haven't used before (unskilled), & your class will have max. skills in various weapons. Use bless when first switching weapons if it's an issue. Hit C then w to check the to-hit. Also if you want to ride as a priest the warhammer seems to be the only mount-usable blunt weapon. For the rest I'll let someone who knows better answer.

[budswell]

Thanks for this Variant, I'm new to this after playing Z+ for a while. It reminds me a fair bit of Tome2 which is the variant I've played the most, a years ago. I assume it'll get a bit easier as I get more familiar the way tome did. Although I'm crap at all of them...

I'm just messing with camelot for the time being, although this thread implies that's not a good strategy

http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=6606

So just starting out and trying some things, I usually prefer spellcasters. A couple of questions:
- Is is possibly to get a monster list window like in other bands? (I'm a multi window player). Didn't think I used it much, but I really miss it now its gone, was a good tool for avoiding suprises (I do know about [, just not disciplined enough to use it often)
- What is with the weapon skills? With my priest I noticed I missed a lot more when I switched from my mace to a warhammer. Is that just because my skill was lower? Or is there a special priest+mace bonus like I read there was with rogue+sling?
- Similarily, what are the spell skills about? Is it just the more I use the spells the fail rates drop a bit?

Edit: Removed dumb question that I worked out myself

[debo]

You should be completely safe with rF+++ or better. (I think it checks 1d66 >rF%.)

This extends more generally to other elemental inventory damage (e.g. having staves blown up by acid checks 1d66 > rAcid%)

[wobbly]

Is there any way to protect gear from fire damage? I'm on a fire resistant mount (carrion) & trailing 2 fire breathers (baby reds). I'm pretty tempted to stack fire resistance, turn on friendly fire & just let them rip but having all my gear toasted would get annoying.

[youtoo]

what are race/class combos you have use? Vampire/ninja works well. Its the only one I have tried.

if you have one that uses magic/archery, which spells do you like and which things do you macro to make the game more efficient.

[youtoo]

What I hit ? at character creation I see each race has a 'BHP', what is this?