Poschengband game mechanic questions

[wobbly]

Is there a simple way to remove auto-destroy on crap wands for skeletons?

[Fnord]

If you're using the auto-pickup feature, a line of ~wand should leave any wand on the floor (if it's added before the destroy junk line).

[youtoo]

1. issues with auto-destroy. I find it is destroying corpses i want. I have the standard one on. Sometimes I am able to grab the corpse I want to bring back for reward, but many times it gets destroyed

2. how do i figure out what some potions/items do. I do a google search and they are from variants and can't find them. like a barbarian talisman +1. I tried dropping in house an examine, but didn't see anything. do i have to use a scroll of *identify*?

3. playing vampire/ninja. I don't see docs on the various vampire skills. I raelly only use detect near and ancient knowledge. Used hide in flames a few times. Just turned level 22. Which ones do you use?

4. i am dual wielding 2 daggers. raising up dex to max. then str to get multiple blows. is this the best strat for for ninja? didn't want to increase weapon weight. my dual weilding is at beginner and it took a while to get to that.

5. i never really used stealth. anyone know how this works? with critical? I dont seem to do too much damage.

6. i see some thieves guides. i thought they would be books to read, but appear to be spell books and I can't browse. is that accurate?

7. how dangerous is the wilderness to explore? died to a bear once. so mainly sticking to Camelot. Not sure what level before i should go wander around.

8. as fame increases from quests, etc... does that really do anything?

[mewmew]

I'm new too but I happen to know answers to a couple of these questions.

>how do i figure out what some potions/items do. I do a google search and they are from variants and can't find them. like a barbarian talisman +1. I tried dropping in house an examine, but didn't see anything. do i have to use a scroll of *identify*?

Potions should have descriptions what they do, as for amulets, rings, non-common items (like an armor of elemental protection etc) you should use *identify* (or 'research item' in Morivant/Angwil) to check what resistances etc they give, those are randarts.

> i see some thieves guides. i thought they would be books to read, but appear to be spell books and I can't browse. is that accurate?

You probably mean spell books of 'burglary' realm. Rogues which chose that spell realm use those. They have spells like detect traps, infravision, soft steps etc.

> i never really used stealth. anyone know how this works? with critical? I dont seem to do too much damage.

It's automatic, there are some skills which improve it though. AFAIK stealth prevents monsters from awaking and doesn't really affect those who awoke, I'm not sure how it affects damage but it seems you get some backstab bonus as ninja?

>how dangerous is the wilderness to explore? died to a bear once. so mainly sticking to Camelot. Not sure what level before i should go wander around

I personally follow the following advice

http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showpost.php?p=90073&postcount=7

As for wilderness, its difficulty depends on the place, Outpost outskirts are pretty safe, anyway a stack of teleport scrolls helps if you are ambushed. Don't forget to switch to the world map (< in wilderness) when you travel to a distant place.

[youtoo]

1. how do i see the description of scrolls/potions?
2. there is an arena in one of the towns. I dont get any exp from t his. When I 3. win it says 'well on your way to becoming champion of the arena'. Ok... so what happens in the arena?

[mewmew]

with 'I' command

dunno I personally go there for the rod of monster detection

[krazyhades]

The arena has a set of fixed rewards. If you lose, you can never re-enter (But you won't die for real). If you win, you unlock the next fight. The fixed rewards cover all sorts of things, but most of them are powerful consumables. Not every fight has a reward. Most don't, in fact. I think winning also increases your fame, which in the lategame can help you reforge artifacts.

[Thraalbee]

You can actually die when fighting the arena if you screw up bigtime. If you are near zero hp at the end of the fight and bleeding or being poisoned and then exiting before going below zero hp, then if your ailment get's you to < 0 hp before you can heal you will die. Been there done that. Better to go below zero within the arena.

[youtoo]

having issues with auto-destroy. its destorying corpses before i can grab them?

also does anyone know how to get the quests lists to say where you were given the quest?

[youtoo]

any other good race/class combos besides vampire ninja?

any macros out there to pick up items and then drop if they are not excellent? as i level perception gets better, but its a hassle to manually pick up and then drop. its kind of slow.

how big of a hit do you take when you switch weapons and have to train up proficiency again? lower levels of proficiency go up? I was dual wielding daggers as a vamp/ninja, found a great short sword, but wasnt sure if i should switch to 1 short sword. also not sure how to decide whether its good to switch toa heavy weapon, iwas at 4 blows with each hand with the dagger.

[mewmew]

press _ in game it will load a file with some pre-set settings (which you can change) for auto-pick up, auto id, auto-destroy average and good items (since certain level) etc

not really clear, yeah, i dunno why it doesn't load by default

vamp ninja sounds rather hard, problems with overworld travels, food problems, exp penalty for these 'advantages' and not that straightforward class on top of that, try a human warrior as the game suggests? warriors are too straightforward imo though, i would rather picked a weaponmaster or mauler for melee

ninja should fight with light weapons only, also you can check your weapon stats with Cw (Cb for archery) and weapon skills with ~ [space] and some letter from the menu

[chris]

any macros out there to pick up items and then drop if they are not excellent? as i level perception gets better, but its a hassle to manually pick up and then drop. its kind of slow.

Activate your pickup preferences ('_') and uncomment the 2 preference lines referring to picking up unidentified goodies (comments begin with '#'). So you end up with a section like:

?:[GEQ $LEVEL 35]
!nameless common armors

?:[GEQ $LEVEL 30]
!nameless common weapons

?:[GEQ $LEVEL 20]
!average common weapons
!average common armors
?:1

?:[LEQ $LEVEL 34]
(unidentified armors
(unidentified weapons
?:1

The bottom 2 preference lines will automatically pickup armor and weapons until you hit CL35 (at which point you get instant pseudo-id underfoot so picking up is not desirable). The preference lines above will auto destroy average items at CL20, good weapons at CL30 (but not good blades of chaos, or similar uncommon weapons) and finally good armor at CL35 (but not uncommon good dragon scale mail, for example).

[chris]

press _ in game it will load a file with some pre-set settings (which you can change) for auto-pick up, auto id, auto-destroy average and good items (since certain level) etc

not really clear, yeah, i dunno why it doesn't load by default

It's leftover from Hengband. Presumably, there is the "Easy Destroyer" for beginners before graduating to the complexity of the pickup preferences. At some point, I plan to remove the Easy Destroyer since having two systems gives some bad interactions when they are both enabled. When I do this, then I'll make the pickup preferences load automatically. But for beginners, they may start wondering why the game is automatically destroying Slime Mold Juice or what not.

[mewmew]

Oh, Chris, could you answer please how experience penalties for classes and races stack? It sounds as something basic but it seems you are the only one who knows :3, I couldn't find it anywhere.

If I choose, say, high-elf (190% racial penalty) sorcerer (160% class penalty), will it be base 100% + 90% + 60% = 250% total exp penalty or 1.9 * 1.6 = 3.04 i.e. 304% exp penalty or it will be something else? The difference may be noticeable and I always think of exp penalties when I choose a combo to play...

[chris]

Oh, Chris, could you answer please how experience penalties for classes and races stack? It sounds as something basic but it seems you are the only one who knows :3, I couldn't find it anywhere.

If I choose, say, high-elf (190% racial penalty) sorcerer (160% class penalty), will it be base 100% + 90% + 60% = 250% total exp penalty or 1.9 * 1.6 = 3.04 i.e. 304% exp penalty or it will be something else? The difference may be noticeable and I always think of exp penalties when I choose a combo to play...

It's multiplicative: 1.9*1.6 in your example.