[Announce] FrogComposband 7.1.salmiak released

[GrimaTheBold]

My Life/Sorcery Priest just found the Stone of Life, and I can't figure out what this power means:

It greatly enhances Life magic.

I assumed my Life spells would become more powerful when I wear it, but when I browse my Life books the effects seem unchanged. Healing still heals 300 points. Ultimate Resistance still lasts 25+1d25 turns.

Does it not actually increase the power of spells? Or does it do it in a way that doesn't show when you browse your spell books?

It does appear to have the Dm function, decreasing spell costs for Life spells. But if that's all it does, I assume it would have just said that, rather than having the description of enhancing life magic.

Edit: I figured it out. "Enhances Life Magic" reduces spell fail % by 3% and reduces MP cost. I was hoping it would increase the power of spells, oh well.

[Thraalbee]

Shuffle stores isn't that expensive. also tele service between towns is useful. When low on something a quick tour of all towns helps. I like to browsie all black markets every now and then for !speed and !heal primarily.
Zul of course no tele to until you do that quest

[budswell]

So after lots of coffee-break I am back to normal mode.

Am I right in understanding this difference:
- In coffee break you can rest at the inn to get stores to change their stock
- In normal mode this does not work. You need to use the old fashioned Rest-eat-fill-kill (towns people who iterrupt your rest)

Feel kind of naked without curing potions

[Sideways]

The square you dimension-door to must not have a monster in it (excluding the player's mount); it must be a square the player's capable of entering; it must not be a trap; the square's terrain feature must have the TELEPORTABLE flag (most non-wall features do, even traps, but trees do not; so you cannot dimension-door onto a tree); lava and deep water are forbidden unless you have levitation or (for water) the ability to swim (deep lava is almost always forbidden, even if you do have levitation); and finally, the square must not have the ICKY flag.

The icky flag is essentially a vault flag, and prevents you from magically dimension-dooring (or teleporting) into an intact vault. (Earthquakes and destruction clear all icky flags in the area of effect, so you *can* dimension-door into shattered parts of a vault.) Unteleportable areas in quests are generally also caused by the ICKY flag. (There is no easy way to tell which parts of a quest level are icky, apart from looking at the underlying edit file; and even then, some quests randomize which areas are icky.)

Finally, Dimension Door usually has a range limit; and also a small random chance to fail even if the target square is perfectly acceptable.

[GrimaTheBold]

Can anyone explain the details of Dimension Door - which squares are eligible and which are not?

I think I've figured out that you can't DD into a vault. Is that always the case? Where else can't you DD to?

I know I've had difficulties in some quests trying to DD to specific rooms, and I can't figure out what the specific rules are.

[Pete Mack]

In angband, force stuns and throws you backwards. If you're already against the wall, I believe you take extra damage.

[Kodiologist]

What does force damage do? It doesn't seem to be mentioned in the documentation (by accident, or because it's supposed to be left for the player to figure out?) but it appears in breath weapons, at least. My last death occurred immediately after being breathed on by a flying polyp. I lost a turn at a bad time, but if I understand the message log correctly, that's because I was stunned by an ivory monk, not because of a special effect of the breath.

You do 70 damage. The Ivory monk is more dazed. You do 35 damage. The
Flying polyp flinches.
The Flying polyp breathes Force. The Ivory monk is more dazed. You take
103 damage. You stand your ground! *** LOW HITPOINT WARNING! *** Press
Space to continue. => .
The Ivory monk attacks you: He misses. He kicks. You take 12 damage.
*Ouch!* You have been stunned. He punches. You take 10 damage. *Ouch!*
He misses.
The Flying polyp attacks you: It crushes. You take 14 damage. You stand
your ground! *Ouch!* You resist the effects! It crushes. You take 16
damage. *Ouch!* You resist the effects! It crushes. You take 16 damage.

[Sideways]

Just found my first scroll of craft today and stumbled across this looking up information on it, Wanted to add my two cents on the Crafting scrolls situation, another option would be to do like Acquirement and have ?craft and ?*craft* where the latter is much rarer/deeper but significantly more powerful.

Crafting is already rare and deep; and I think I like it that way, in that the rarity forces the player to make choices. With two types of crafting scrolls, at least one would likely be substantially more common. That said, it is still an interesting idea.

[Sideways]

Quick question I've always wondered. When you gain a stat, as you approach your max the gains are smaller. For example if your current stat is 18/10, you might gain /20 to /30 points. But if you are at 18/65 and your max is 18/70, you'll only gain a couple of points maybe.

So my question, if you know you will raise that score's max in the future (!New Life), will your ultimate stat be higher if you save those stat gain potions when you're close to your current max and drink them after you've raised the max? For example, if max is 18/70, and you're currently at 18/65, and you have a stat gain potion, is it better to save it and not drink until you've raised that max? Or is that not the way it works?

The further away the max is, the more oomph you get per potion (as long as base >= 18); so if you have a limited supply of stat potions and successfully raise a max, then yes, you will get more out of those potions by quaffing them later. (Of course, the opposite happens when you lower a max.)

[Seraphimus]

I'm not entirely happy with the current situation, but I'm not sure basing Crafting off the item's original generation level would be an improvement or more intuitive, as the generation level has no other effects post-generation. (Basing it off the item kind's native level would also be non-ideal.)

Possible new approaches I would consider are 1) for Crafting scrolls to have a regular, flat power like scrolls of Fire, Ice, Genocide etc. do; or 2) for Crafting to give better results deeper in the dungeon like Acquirement does. The latter would be extremely easy to code, though I'm not sure I like that approach personally; it's still the same scroll, the same base item and the same player wherever the process happens.

From the perspective of a Craft caster using Crafting as a spell, it makes perfect sense that the spell's power scales up with CL the same way as other Craft enchantment spells; and I think the reason scrolls also use the player's level is so the spell and the scroll can share the same code more comfortably, but it shouldn't be very hard to separate the two.

Just found my first scroll of craft today and stumbled across this looking up information on it, Wanted to add my two cents on the Crafting scrolls situation, another option would be to do like Acquirement and have ?craft and ?*craft* where the latter is much rarer/deeper but significantly more powerful.

[GrimaTheBold]

Stat Gain Question

Quick question I've always wondered. When you gain a stat, as you approach your max the gains are smaller. For example if your current stat is 18/10, you might gain /20 to /30 points. But if you are at 18/65 and your max is 18/70, you'll only gain a couple of points maybe.

So my question, if you know you will raise that score's max in the future (!New Life), will your ultimate stat be higher if you save those stat gain potions when you're close to your current max and drink them after you've raised the max? For example, if max is 18/70, and you're currently at 18/65, and you have a stat gain potion, is it better to save it and not drink until you've raised that max? Or is that not the way it works?

[Sideways]

To Sideways: Any plan to reinstate Staves of Holiness?

Not really.

[HugoVirtuoso]

To Sideways: Any plan to reinstate Staves of Holiness?

[Bucephalus]

Apparently bashing doors and enemies fighting back worsen stealth in Sil-Q/Sil.

Stealth in Sil is really masterfully realized. Read the manual sometime if you haven't (a work of art itself!). Arguably it's equally refined in Dungeon Crawl.

I play Sil for its tightness, personally, and Frog for its looseness.

[HugoVirtuoso]

Apparently bashing doors and enemies fighting back worsen stealth in Sil-Q/Sil. Is this mechanic also in FCPB? If not, will this be part of FCPB?

How about making FCPB stealth worsened by equip weight alone?