[Announce] FrogComposband 7.1.liquorice released

[Sideways]

Funnily enough got Smeagol as a ringbearer. Like the speed and HP, so tried to persist. But the erratic movement was too annoying - dissmissed.

Am I right in assuming erratic movement only affects ringbearer mounts?

It took me a while to figure out what you were talking about, since erratic movement does not affect walking on ringbearers at all. But I see now that it does affect running, digging, and other commands that involve some kind of repeating movement, even if you have reins (rings play like they always have reins). This seems like a bug, thanks for reporting!

Edit: Another question. Can any race/monster which can wear rings be a ringbearer? Or only 't' 'h' and 'p' races?

This is covered in the ring help that pops up when you start a new ring (the ring help can also be accessed with ?fdg at any time):

Not all monsters are suitable ring-bearers. Bearer candidates include all humans (p), humanoids (h), townspeople (t), angels (A) and yeeks (y), most vampires (V) and liches (L), and a few other thematically suitable monsters such as the Nazgul. The Charm Ring-Bearer power only works on these monsters; and even if you still acquire other monsters as pets, you cannot ride them or make them pick you up.

[budswell]

Thanks. I never realised that, I always run, almost never move without shift held down.

As for ringbearers. I did successfully charm (with the ability-Ue) "Robin Hood The Outlaw" but once charmed he became "friendly" as opposed to "pet". So I could not ride him.
Is this the way for all uniques? Or just him?
(With Smeagol, I "summonned" him with "Glitter" (Ub))

[Sideways]

It only happens for uniques, but it does not always happen with them, if you try to charm Robin again you might be able to turn him into a pet.

For non-Rings it can sometimes be an advantage to have a friendly unique rather than a pet unique; but for Rings charming potential ringbearers it admittedly tends to be just a somewhat strange and unthematic annoyance, I'll think about special-casing that.

[HugoVirtuoso]

Any reason why the monster-monster mummies didn't have vFire to begin with?

[Sideways]

Because they were designed by someone who wasn't me or MITZE and didn't think they should have vFire?

[Bucephalus]

The new version is great, by the way. Not sure if I mentioned that, but cheers.

One feature I'd love to see is a display for how much energy your last action took. Certain things invisibly use more or less (moving through forest as a centaur, or walking with the Craven personality or Fleet of Foot (these stack, making them pretty appealing for berserkers), firing shots (based on class, experience, launcher and ring bonuses), teleporting with the appropriate perk, double and triple attacks, yellow mage spells, et probably cetera).

Although it's possibly working as intended, retaliation versus long reach opponents is thematically kind of goofy. Versus a t-rex, you know, fine. You punch him in the snout. But against an archaeologist? What, are you attacking his whip?

[budswell]

So my ring is (amazingly) still alive. Another question:
Is it possible to stop your mount from teleporting? Like how you could inscribe some items of teleportation with {.} (or was that Tome2?).
Not a big issue, just wondering. I've noticed I prefer non-teleporters

[Sideways]

Press 'p' for pet options and turn off "allow teleport".

[budswell]

Thanks, can't belive I never noticed that before. Thieving minions are now useful.

But on to my current Mauler character:
- Is there a downside to the "splatter" ability? (e.g. Do exploding corpses destroy potions? Penalty to-hit?). Or is it just a choice between splatter & block now that I have both?

Will "splatter" destroy a wanted corpse?

Edit:
Unrelated question: I find I have nothing against teleporting healers with confusion immunity. Wands/Staves of confusion are my standard way of dealing with casters.
For example currently struggling with "Importington". Closest I have got is down to 3 stars, but concerned if I keep trying I'll end up with nothing left in my backpack and coin pouch. Any recommended tactics? Or should I just run away until I am OP enough to do him in a couple of hits

[Sideways]

Fights like that are sometimes very, very annoying - just when you think you finally have them down, you miss one key hit and they heal again and then seemingly vanish from the map and you never get them down to 1 star again. But most of the time you can get the job done without being über-strong.

A few tips I would give:

1) Temporary speed helps, though it's very easy to run out of !speed against an opponent like Rich or Implorington.
2) Heroism helps a bit, especially if you're shooting him to support your melee.
3) Good offensive devices are always handy; they do run out of charges quite quickly, and you never know when someone like Implorington will just heal the damage right back with interest, but unless you have good offensive spells or archery they are still the most reliable way to hurt opponents from range.
4) Use closed doors to your advantage, especially on melee builds. Standing next to a closed door might mean an Implorington double-move consists of him bashing the door open and then moving next to you, rather than of him moving next to you and then proceeding to steal from you; so you get a valuable opportunity to hit him. It's also easy to start running low on detection in fights like this; if you notice a door getting opened, that tells you where the monster is.
5) Yes, sometimes it is better to leave such enemies for later But it's also satisfying to get them out of the way - especially if they have already stolen half your kit and you want it back... And of course, if you play coffee-break and get them as level guardians then you do want them dead.
6) On Maulers specifically, Close In might help in the right situation; between that and door tactics I'd expect you to get the job done.

--

I don't think Splatter has any downsides, but as you noted, you can only have one toggle on at a time.

[budswell]

Thanks for the tips.

Is there any downside of failing a level guardian quest by running (recalling) away? Does the unique still show up later?

What about the other quests?

I have been playing coffeebreak mode recently. Get to the fun abilities sooner, but always dying around the same CL (high 20s). With only down stairs, I find it harder to control the pace. My current mage has trump, so will see if reset recall proves helpful for this (probably not - most of the time I die because I am crap, over-ambitious, and/or not paying attention).

[Sideways]

Thanks for the tips.

Is there any downside of failing a level guardian quest by running (recalling) away? Does the unique still show up later?

What about the other quests?

I have been playing coffeebreak mode recently. Get to the fun abilities sooner, but always dying around the same CL (high 20s). With only down stairs, I find it harder to control the pace. My current mage has trump, so will see if reset recall proves helpful for this (probably not - most of the time I die because I am crap, over-ambitious, and/or not paying attention).

Failing quests depends a bit on what the quest is like:

1) The quests for Oberon and the Serpent cannot be failed at all;
2) recalling/running away from a level guardian quest in a normal-speed game gives you the option of either deliberately failing the quest or simply leaving it there for later;
3) recalling or running away from a quest in any other situation fails that quest.

The consequences of failing a quest are that you miss out on the reward, your fame takes a hit and (if you're playing in coffee-break mode) the special coffee-break bonus that allows for accelerated reforging is severely reduced. Better reforging is also the main reason you want fame; so if you don't care about the reward and don't care about reforging, a quest failure is not that bad.

I do think uniques from failed quests can reappear on other levels to give you even more headaches; at least, looking at the code, there's a bug somewhere if they can't.

[budswell]

In Coffeebreak mode, does the temple not restock over time? Been resting for 2 game days, and still no heaping potions...

[Sideways]

Shops restock just as they normally do, so all shops except the Black Market can be rest/sleepscummed, and essentials like !csw, ?phasedoor and ?teleportation are guaranteed at birth. But since you're limited to a single Temple, rather than having the Temples of six or seven towns to choose from, situations where you cannot buy an item anywhere are more likely.

If you don't want to sleepscum (and I don't want to encourage sleepscumming...) you can always pay to have the shop inventory shuffled. I don't think I've ever needed to shuffle for !csw in coffee-break mode, but I have shuffled for Phase Door a couple times because I kept dumping it to get room for other loot and it didn't generate fast enough in the Alchemy Shop to support that habit.

[chem]

is there a spoiler webpage somewhere for the artifact rewards / guardians of all the dungeons and quests?

what's changed the most since, uh, chengband?