[Announce] FrogComposband 7.1.chocolate released

[Gwarl]

The dev version works perfectly for compiling! It still needs to be run as root to create save games, though.

(I also had this issue with no-installing it.)

go to config.h and look for the use private paths option

[KiTA]

So, odd question.

What are some good class/race/whatnot combinations?

I mean... Say you just want to win or feel powerful? What do you play as? Or just want to learn the game? Goof around?

Or say you wanted to show off something FCPB has that other variants doesn't? What then?

Is there a general, not "walkthrough" but general guideline to what dungeons you need to go and when? Or what dungeons you shouldn't enter without certain resists / HP totals / etc?

[Sideways]

Everybody has their own preferences; but if you just want to be really strong, I'd point first of all to Human Warlock which is the combo ster used in his record speedrun. (ster picked Hound pact to be extra-strong, but any warlock is strong.) Also human weaponsmith, human weaponmaster (most specialities are very strong, a few less so like Shields), human rune-knight, human alchemist, human gray-mage. The rather vanilla-seeming pick of human may be a bit surprising, but human is a strong and versatile package with fast leveling-up. Demigods, Balrogs, Archons and Klackons are very strong races but don't level up as fast as human does.

If you just want to learn things I'd suggest Klackon (new players die so much to confusion that the innate rConf on Klackon is huge) with a melee-oriented class (strong in the early game so you stay alive longer); if you want to get a hang of the spell system at the same time, perhaps priest or paladin so you still also get decent melee, or ninja if it doesn't need to be a book-caster. But a pure melee-er, like Weaponsmith or even Warrior, is good if you don't want to learn everything at once

If you want something that's uniquely FrogComposband... a werewolf Yeqrezh disciple. Werewolves are strong, and fun, and different, and Yeqrezh disciples can end up being almost anything. Chaotic personality, or Split if you're playing the dev version. I also really like Politician but other people seem to get headaches from it, so it may be more of an acquired taste

There are bits about when to enter dungeons in the help, but it's not really that complete and everyone has their own style, basically you can improvise as long as you know the basics (like "there's an ethereal dragon at the entrance of Crystal Castle who will kill you dead if you try going there early"). The general advice is that Reflection is good to have in Camelot, though you can certainly get by without if you're strong or just know what you're doing. Lonely Mountain is probably a saner place to level up in than the comparably-leveled Giant's Hall and Witch Wood - more favorable terrain, dragons that give good loot/XP, and a less nasty boss especially compared to Giant's Hall. My purely personal tendency in the endgame is to mostly hang out in Arena and R'lyeh, maybe Mine, and just visit the other DL40+ dungeons to kill the bosses. The bosses of Olympus, Pyramidal mound and Dark cave can be safely left alive if you want, the former two can't be summoned by the Serpent and Null from Dark Cave isn't a big issue. I personally often also let the Icky Queen live

[wobbly]

I feel a little like Warlock is easy if you are Ster, but not if you are a beginner. I'd recommend the Jelly for something that is both OP & beginner friendly.

[DavidMedley]

Seems like if you get Eldritch Blast working for you, that's 95% of Warlock.

[Gwarl]

instead of playing a klackon to get rconf (beastman and bronze draconian also strong) it's technically possible to play composband and take advantage of the short confusion resistance that potions of clarity provide. Of course, nobody actually does this.

[CyclopsSlayer]

I've played Composband many many times and never knew about rconf from Clarity... doh!

[KiTA]

Everybody has their own preferences; but if you just want to be really strong, I'd point first of all to Human Warlock which is the combo ster used in his record speedrun. (ster picked Hound pact to be extra-strong, but any warlock is strong.) Also human weaponsmith, human weaponmaster (most specialities are very strong, a few less so like Shields), human rune-knight, human alchemist, human gray-mage. The rather vanilla-seeming pick of human may be a bit surprising, but human is a strong and versatile package with fast leveling-up. Demigods, Balrogs, Archons and Klackons are very strong races but don't level up as fast as human does.

If you just want to learn things I'd suggest Klackon (new players die so much to confusion that the innate rConf on Klackon is huge) with a melee-oriented class (strong in the early game so you stay alive longer); if you want to get a hang of the spell system at the same time, perhaps priest or paladin so you still also get decent melee, or ninja if it doesn't need to be a book-caster. But a pure melee-er, like Weaponsmith or even Warrior, is good if you don't want to learn everything at once

If you want something that's uniquely FrogComposband... a werewolf Yeqrezh disciple. Werewolves are strong, and fun, and different, and Yeqrezh disciples can end up being almost anything. Chaotic personality, or Split if you're playing the dev version. I also really like Politician but other people seem to get headaches from it, so it may be more of an acquired taste

There are bits about when to enter dungeons in the help, but it's not really that complete and everyone has their own style, basically you can improvise as long as you know the basics (like "there's an ethereal dragon at the entrance of Crystal Castle who will kill you dead if you try going there early"). The general advice is that Reflection is good to have in Camelot, though you can certainly get by without if you're strong or just know what you're doing. Lonely Mountain is probably a saner place to level up in than the comparably-leveled Giant's Hall and Witch Wood - more favorable terrain, dragons that give good loot/XP, and a less nasty boss especially compared to Giant's Hall. My purely personal tendency in the endgame is to mostly hang out in Arena and R'lyeh, maybe Mine, and just visit the other DL40+ dungeons to kill the bosses. The bosses of Olympus, Pyramidal mound and Dark cave can be safely left alive if you want, the former two can't be summoned by the Serpent and Null from Dark Cave isn't a big issue. I personally often also let the Icky Queen live

Thanks for the suggestions. Warlock reminds me of the class from NWN(2?), which is probably intentional.

Do any of the personality types have unspoken benefits? Because some of them sound like they're only there to be a challenge, like "Unlucky."

I kinda wish FrogComposband had a spoilers wiki or somesuch.

I just checked the git for the upcoming licorice update's changes, split seems interesting but I'm not sure how it would be so powerful. I guess the partially suppressed personalities keep some of the benefits but none of the downsides?

I feel a little like Warlock is easy if you are Ster, but not if you are a beginner. I'd recommend the Jelly for something that is both OP & beginner friendly.

Oh, I remember Jelly from PosR. That's the one with only like 6 or so equipment slots, but they're all omni slots, right? I've had good luck with them before.

[Sideways]

Thanks for the suggestions. Warlock reminds me of the class from NWN(2?), which is probably intentional.

Do any of the personality types have unspoken benefits? Because some of them sound like they're only there to be a challenge, like "Unlucky."

I kinda wish FrogComposband had a spoilers wiki or somesuch.

I just checked the git for the upcoming licorice update's changes, split seems interesting but I'm not sure how it would be so powerful. I guess the partially suppressed personalities keep some of the benefits but none of the downsides?

Didn't say Split would be powerful, just that it's very FrogComposband

What you say is true for Sexy, it's a good personality to have suppressed. But in general, suppressed personalities keep more of their downside than upside; it's just that Sexy's only real downside is the aggravation, which it loses when suppressed.

Unlucky's upsides are fairly obvious: +stats and a high life rating multiplier. It tends to be a tough personality but it's not pure challenge like Fragile and Lazy. (Lazy does give you access to the extremely powerful "lazy artifacts"... if you can kill the strongest uniques in the game without them.)

[KiTA]

"Lazy Artifacts?"

This game really really needs a spoiler wiki or pastebin, haha.

[Bucephalus]

"Lazy Artifacts?"

This game really really needs a spoiler wiki or pastebin, haha.

Agreed.

Basically: Three *grand* artifacts dropped by late endgame monsters that (since nerfs) don't make up for the fact that it's the late endgame, and you already did the work.

This was the former variant maintainer's shit-show.

[grodrigues]

(Minor) Bugs, request and advice

Trying a Sorcerer for ever since Poscheng and now in Frog. Here are some random notes for Chocolate version:

Minor Bugs:
- Several dragon armors (up to now: pseudo, law, chaos) have only A: Breathe in their description (instead of, say, A: Breathe Chaos), both in the in-game description and html dump.
- In the spell cast stats, different fire and frost bolt spells are conflated, e.g. fire bolt from Nature Mastery and Sign of Chaos are counted as being the same spell for casting numbers even though they have different damage dice and mana costs.

Question:
- Warding True in the Book of Unicorn is illegible for sorcerers. Is there a particular rationale for it?

Requests:
- an inscription like !sdkv does not work, one has to use !s!k!d!v. Not a big deal, and do not know how hard it is to implement, but it would be a small QoL improvement.
- in keymap .prf files one can "import" other files. Would be nice if the same could be had for pick preference mogaminator files.
- also, keymap files can be "filtered" and are loaded automatically by class, race, etc. but as far as I am aware pick preference files are only automatically loaded by character name, not by class or race.
- Lights like Armageddon Stone say that Armageddon magic is "greatly enhanced" (or something to that effect), but its effect is not seen in the spell descriptions, so there is no way to gauge its effectiveness, besides trial and error, I guess. Could the spell descriptions take into account the effect of such stones so one can at least make some sort of guesstimate whether it is worth having more powerful spells or not?

Whether or not it is the case with Frog in general and with stones in particular, this "challenge through obscurity" stuff drives me nuts, but I admit this is a personal pet peeve.

RfA:
- The latest Sorcerer got to level 37 which is pretty good for my counts. Was a Demigod of Hermes parentage. For first power chose evasion, but what would you advise for the second power choice at level 40? If I had gotten there, I would go for One with Magic, because dispel or antimagic seem pretty nasty (even though I plan to make frequent use of the polymorph self spells). Arcane Mastery is only 3% and does not seem to me to be worth it; Fell Sorcery makes a sorcerer more powerful but even more squishier and what I think a Sorcerer needs is survivability; Infernal Deal seems to imply that, to have a noticeable effect, one has to be surrounded by enemies which seems a pretty bad idea; Unyielding is +50 hps at level 50, which is what, 10-15% more? Does not seem enough of an hp buffer to justify.

[Gwarl]

Agreed.

Basically: Three *grand* artifacts dropped by late endgame monsters that (since nerfs) don't make up for the fact that it's the late endgame, and you already did the work.

This was the former variant maintainer's shit-show.

False. They come from Hengband. You mean Chris, the last but one maintainer no doubt. He removed the lazy artifacts from his version. They were re-added for frogcomposband.

[Sideways]

- an inscription like !sdkv does not work, one has to use !s!k!d!v. Not a big deal, and do not know how hard it is to implement, but it would be a small QoL improvement.

This is not normally the case, !sdkv should always work (and !sdk is a standard inscription regularly appended by the Mogaminator). I tested the extended version !sdkv and it's working fine, something weird is happening in your particular case. Can you describe the conditions where !sdkv does not work properly?

in keymap .prf files one can "import" other files. Would be nice if the same could be had for pick preference mogaminator files.

You can load old characters' mogaminator files (_-Esc-e), though there is some functionality (like giving your current preference files a name unrelated to the name of your character) that is available for macro/keymap preferences but not the Mogaminator, and that could be improved.

- conversely, pick preference files can be "filtered" and are loaded automatically by class, race, etc. but as far as I am aware pick preference files are only automatically loaded by name, not by class or race.

Not entirely sure what you mean here, but I think it's related to the desire to have radically different pickprefs for some specific classes/races (e.g. hydra) that are at least initially the same for all characters of that type even if they don't share the same name?

That is very reasonable, but I'm not sure how to best implement that. (I do know I should improve handling of situations where characters basically share the same name but have new numbers or Roman numerals appended to them; but even if I could do that, it would only partially solve the problem. I should also allow the Mogaminator to tell when no-selling is on, so it can use that information to help determine which items are junk. That would mitigate the problem on no-sellers, you wouldn't have to always tell it again that items you have no slots for are junk.)

Lights like Armageddon Stone say that Armageddon magic is "greatly enhanced" (or something to that effect), but its effect is not seen in the spell descriptions, so there is no way to gauge its effectiveness, besides trial and error, I guess. Could the spell descriptions take into account the effect of such stones so one can at least make some sort of guesstimate whether it is worth having more powerful spells or not?

The description on such stones is admittedly vague. Spell info does account for that kind of thing; what those stones do is basically give you Dm for that one realm, so either you are looking for the effect in the wrong place or the stone does nothing extra at all because you already have Dm for all realms anyway, as is very commonly the case on a sorcerer.

RfA:
- The latest Sorcerer got to level 37 which is pretty good for my counts. Was a Demigod of Hermes parentage. For first power chose evasion, but what would you advise for the second power choice at level 40? If I had gotten there, I would go for One with Magic, because dispel or antimagic seem pretty nasty (even though I plan to make frequent use of the polymorph self spells). Arcane Mastery is only 3% and does not seem to me to be worth it; Fell Sorcery makes a sorcerer more powerful but even more squishier and what I think a Sorcerer needs is survivability; Infernal Deal seems to imply that, to have a noticeable effect, one has to be surrounded by enemies which seems a pretty bad idea; Unyielding is +50 hps at level 50, which is what, 10-15% more? Does not seem enough of an hp buffer to justify.

I don't really have that much experience with sorcerer, but I think One with Magic, Fell Sorcery and Unyielding would all be reasonable picks.

I'm sneakily curious, though, about how Cult of Personality would play out on a sorcerer. It's admittedly fiddly (always have to figure out if new summons are hostile or friendly or pets) and sorcerers can't really handle very many pets (so you'd have to dismiss stuff regularly which makes it even more fiddly); but sorcerers almost always have high CHR, which ties well into that mut, and a big summon not being hostile sounds like it would be even nicer than normally when your @ is so squishy.

[Sideways]

Trying a Sorcerer for ever since Poscheng and now in Frog. Here are some random notes for Chocolate version:

Minor Bugs:
- Several dragon armors (up to now: pseudo, law, chaos) have only A: Breathe in their description (instead of, say, A: Breathe Chaos), both in the in-game description and html dump.
- In the spell cast stats, different fire and frost bolt spells are conflated, e.g. fire bolt from Nature Mastery and Sign of Chaos are counted as being the same spell for casting numbers even though they have different damage dice and mana costs.

The first one's because those dragon armors don't always predictably breathe the same element; e.g. pseudo dragon armor can breathe either light or dark, and the description cannot predict which one it is.

The second one's a real bug but probably an eternity bug, stats are counted by spell name which doesn't work in this case but is really convenient otherwise because it avoids the need to give each spell a distinct spell ID that would require lots of work and constant maintenance and is otherwise unnecessary. For the book spells alone that would be a workable system, but when you add all the class and race and monster-race and mutation stuff...

Question:
- Warding True in the Book of Unicorn is illegible for sorcerers. Is there a particular rationale for it?

That's a consequence of changes I implemented to discourage dull but effective plans like filling entire rooms or corridors with traps or glyphs of warding. There's a limit to how many traps or glyphs of warding you can have on one level. Primary-realm Life casters are exempt from that limit as far as glyphs go, and get to use Warding True as before, but for everyone else it's illegible simply because of how quickly it would run into the limit and start behaving in weird ways.