Poschengband game mechanic questions

[Pete Mack]

Pos newbie questions

* Poschengband started spamming messages at me: "Moderation in all things." What is the point of this? (I just finished the wargs quest, so I am at cl 12, dl 9 in stronghold.)
* Where is the arena? (and the other extra stores?) It was in town when I tried in "beginner" mode. Now it is no longer there.
Edit:
* How to make a character dump? ')' does something else.

[Cold_Heart]

What is the point of "rest for the night" option at thieves guilds when inns offer that 5 times cheaper?

[GenericPseudonym]

Hi, my current character is a devicemaster (so many classes monsters, I haven't tried them all yet). I have a question and a "wishlist" item.

Question:
What is the point of "Transfer effect". All it seems to do is destroy the source item and effectively make the dest item what the source was. So I really don't get what is meant to be used for. Is it a leftover from 3 (I play 4.0.1) which let you move effects between rods and wands? (I haven't found any rods yet, not that there's any point now that wands recharge themselves and so are effectively the same thing as rods).

Wishlist:
Now that wands and staves don't stack, its annoying that the inscriptions don't work on multiple. e.g. If I have 2 (or more) Magic Missile wands, I want to inscribe them both with @a1, which I then bind to the F1 key. But the problem is this just maps to the "first" one in the inventory, so incription is effectively wasted on the 2nd.
Now I expect that have "a1" find the first wand with @a1 that has charges left will not work with the generic way lists operate. So instead could we sort (within type) wands and staves and rods by charges remaining in descending order (it currently appears to sort by charge capacity in ascending order). That way the the "first" one in the list will always have charges remaining (unless they're all empty), and so F1 will do what I want. This is the way staves worked in 3.X.

Hope I have explained that in an understandable way.

Edit: Ok, seems my 2 points are actually related. When using the "transfer effect" ability with wands of the same type, it *sometimes* increases the charges of the dest item. Is there a maximum number of charges allowed. Not got past 24 yet.
I now see the point, and reduces the need for my wishlist item (for device masters only, other classes would still benefit).

Edit2: OK, that sucks. I did the "transfer affect" and the charges in the dest item went down from 24 to 16. What is going on with this?
Edit: In fact it seems to go down a lot more than up. Guess I just got lucky the first time.

If you *identify* a staff you can see its mana capacity and the mana cost of its effect.

The number of charges is really just max mana / activation cost, so if you transfer in a high-cost activation like destruction it will have fewer uses before running out of mana.

[krazyhades]

Hi, my current character is a devicemaster (so many classes monsters, I haven't tried them all yet). I have a question and a "wishlist" item.

Question:
What is the point of "Transfer effect"

I think you are more likely to gain more charges if you are moving from a high-tier device to a lower one.

[wobbly]

You don't as far as I understand it. Just dump them or sell them

[Cold_Heart]

4.0.2: so if remove curse (and ** variant and spells) only affects the equipped gear, how exactly do you remove curse from devices (e.g. a cursed staff) ?

[budswell]

Hi, my current character is a devicemaster (so many classes monsters, I haven't tried them all yet). I have a question and a "wishlist" item.

Question:
What is the point of "Transfer effect". All it seems to do is destroy the source item and effectively make the dest item what the source was. So I really don't get what is meant to be used for. Is it a leftover from 3 (I play 4.0.1) which let you move effects between rods and wands? (I haven't found any rods yet, not that there's any point now that wands recharge themselves and so are effectively the same thing as rods).

Wishlist:
Now that wands and staves don't stack, its annoying that the inscriptions don't work on multiple. e.g. If I have 2 (or more) Magic Missile wands, I want to inscribe them both with @a1, which I then bind to the F1 key. But the problem is this just maps to the "first" one in the inventory, so incription is effectively wasted on the 2nd.
Now I expect that have "a1" find the first wand with @a1 that has charges left will not work with the generic way lists operate. So instead could we sort (within type) wands and staves and rods by charges remaining in descending order (it currently appears to sort by charge capacity in ascending order). That way the the "first" one in the list will always have charges remaining (unless they're all empty), and so F1 will do what I want. This is the way staves worked in 3.X.

Hope I have explained that in an understandable way.

Edit: Ok, seems my 2 points are actually related. When using the "transfer effect" ability with wands of the same type, it *sometimes* increases the charges of the dest item. Is there a maximum number of charges allowed. Not got past 24 yet.
I now see the point, and reduces the need for my wishlist item (for device masters only, other classes would still benefit).

Edit2: OK, that sucks. I did the "transfer affect" and the charges in the dest item went down from 24 to 16. What is going on with this?
Edit: In fact it seems to go down a lot more than up. Guess I just got lucky the first time.

[GenericPseudonym]

OK, thanks for that.

Next question: My current character is a weaponsmith. I was wondering if anyone knows of any useful macros or mogaminator settings which would help extract the essenses of stuff.

Basically I'd like hte mogaminator to automatically extract the essense and then destroy good items.
Or to define a macro where I would just be prompted for the item and it would do the rest (can you accept input in macros or keymaps?).

I'm after something more convienient than:
m b <select> space k <select> y

Also: I am playing with randarts only (found I had very similar kit most of the time). A lot of the artifacts have another artifact in inscription, .e.g { Thranduil}
And when Inspect it it says

What is the point of this. The abilities seem different and it just adds clutter. Is there any way to turn it off (but keep the rest of the inscriptions).

Looking at the code, it appears that weaponmasters will automatically extract essences from any object they destroy. So you can simply autodestroy any unwanted objects without writing any special macros.

Just add
!nameless common objects
to autodestroy everything without an ego (but keep any +0 falcon blades or diamond edges you find!)

[wobbly]

I can't remember if long bows are worse then short bows but crossbows have about -50 for riding. Speed on gear only matters if you're knocked off. I've lost characters that suddenly went from +11 to 0 this way.

[budswell]

Do you get different penalties for different bow types while riding?
Also on riding: It seems to get the monster's (that you're riding) speed bonus for movement. What about actual combat and actions etc. i.e. Is there any point being +14 speed with equiptment when riding a Hydra at only +2 movement speed?

[krazyhades]

Am I particularly unlucky? It seems that second (let alone higher) tier life spellbooks are pretty much never appearing in stores.

Note that I'm playing no_wilderness, so just a single town.

The spellbook store has 2nd tier books, but doesn't appear to stock Life, and the "church" store never stocks them either.

The Temple (5 shop) can stock the holy books, where the spellbook 9 shop cannot. As you presumably know, only books 1 and 2 can ever appear in town (aside from Arcane books or the black market's random stock).

It sounds like you just have had a few unlucky store rotations, which is of course more likely when you don't have access to multiple towns to play the odds. Keep checking the temple each time town inventories rotate.

[Fnord]

Am I particularly unlucky? It seems that second (let alone higher) tier life spellbooks are pretty much never appearing in stores.

Note that I'm playing no_wilderness, so just a single town.

The spellbook store has 2nd tier books, but doesn't appear to stock Life, and the "church" store never stocks them either.

[krazyhades]

What's the mechanics for that?

Does one turn into the equivalent dragon class (losing the prior class)?

Or is it some sort of hybrid?

If so... well, I started playing again with my favorite Draconion Monk (from waaaay back from Zangband where Draconians got speed in addition to resists).

So loss of weapon slots, as mentioned in the help files - who cares? Do I just get to retain my monk attacks, but with dragon slots?

Edit to add: I assume this is permanent, not a temporary (equip all those rings and remove all that other gear each time) ability?

Since there's no replies yet: What does an "average" pseudo-id mean for a wand?

Metamorphosis is a permanent change into a sort of hybrid. For example, a Draconian High Mage would keep his spell books and spellcasting ability. However, certain classes are not permitted to take Metamorphosis because the game isn't prepared to handle them. I'm not sure what all of those classes are, but I know for a fact Monk is among them, presumably because chris (the developer) hasn't decided how to handle their special unarmed attacks given that dragonform gives its own innate melee. I don't know if this is intended as long-term "this is how it is" or if he wants to add in Metamorphed monks etc as a possibility in the future.

I tested with a Red Draconian Monk and Red Draconian Warrior in wizmode, so I'm not certain whether all types of draconians get the same slots, but they probably do. The monk (as I said) wasn't allowed to take Metamorphosis. The warrior ended up with slots for 6 rings, an amulet, a light, a cloak, and a helm.

Average on a wand it wand doesn't have an ego property, such as of Power (for its spell), of Resistance (to charge drainers), of Regeneration (of charges), etc.

[Fnord]

Draconian Metamorphosis

What's the mechanics for that?

Does one turn into the equivalent dragon class (losing the prior class)?

Or is it some sort of hybrid?

If so... well, I started playing again with my favorite Draconion Monk (from waaaay back from Zangband where Draconians got speed in addition to resists).

So loss of weapon slots, as mentioned in the help files - who cares? Do I just get to retain my monk attacks, but with dragon slots?

Edit to add: I assume this is permanent, not a temporary (equip all those rings and remove all that other gear each time) ability?

Since there's no replies yet: What does an "average" pseudo-id mean for a wand?

[chris]

This isn't true in poschengband. It's a constantly ticking clock that will drain a ton of xp if you're not staying ahead of it. It's not like XP drain in vanilla. (restore life doesn't fix it, and hold life doesn't help.) I'm not sure but I think the mechanic and the severity changed again in 4.0.x?

No, its the old mechanic from Hengband and possibly even Zangband. Its pretty meaningless in the end game but I guess rather devastating for early players.