Critical Hits with Mage

[Derakon]

He would bother because a 100% boost to combat, while possibly not earth-shattering and while only 50% of the weapons full capability in more skilled hands, is better than nothing... or he could bother to find some more magely to wield instead. Are there any mage-centric weapons?

My point is that a 100% boost to combat is useless when your base combat skill is so low. You go from maybe being able to melee cave orcs to maybe being able to melee uruks, when you're trying to kill a pack of Plasma Hounds. You need your base skill + bonus from weapons to hit a minimum threshold before combat is worth using; otherwise you use something else.

For example (making numbers up), say your base combat skill is 1. You need a combat skill of at least 200, and ideally even higher, to be able to reasonably consider fighting an ancient dragon. Thus you need a weapon that boosts your skill by a whopping 20000% if ancient dragons are to be on the menu. Otherwise it's not worth bothering. Now, if your base skill is 150, then you only need a 33% boost before ancient dragons are valid targets. If you had that same skill-200 weapon that the weeny skill-1 character had, then your proportional gain (going from 150 to 350) would be only 233%. But you'd still be way better off with that weapon than the weeny would be, because the absolute difference in skill (150 points) is significant.

I get where you're coming from; it seems odd that mages get proportionally more from their weapons than warriors do. But I think you're coming at it from the wrong angle. Mages are so bad at combat that they need amazing mythical weapons to be able to consider it. Warriors can get by in combat with just about any old thing. And of course if the warrior gets an amazing mythical weapon, then he'll kick way more arse with it than the mage would.

[Magnate]

Okay, that's a bug -- the *SUPERB* crit is impossible because crit supercharging stops after the power level hits 4, while that crit is power level 5. So that should be fixed.

Spotted and fixed in my branch - so will be in v4 any year now ...

[Magnate]

I get where you're coming from; it seems odd that mages get proportionally more from their weapons than warriors do. But I think you're coming at it from the wrong angle. Mages are so bad at combat that they need amazing mythical weapons to be able to consider it. Warriors can get by in combat with just about any old thing. And of course if the warrior gets an amazing mythical weapon, then he'll kick way more arse with it than the mage would.

I think you're both right. I don't think we need to change the benefit that magi currently receive from generic equipment - but I don't see why Angband can't have warrior-specific equipment too. Shuriken? (d_m wanted to make throwing viable). Warrior's Plate? Maybe the top end of each category (Bulwarks, Full Plate etc.) could be wearable only by warriors. I dunno, just thinking out loud. There was a thread about making more caster-specific gear a few months ago (war staves and so on), but I don't think we've had a debate about warrior gear yet.

[Derakon]

To the extent that we have class-specific gear, it should be because nobody outside the class would usually want to use it, not because it has a tag on it reading "Violators of the Affirmative Class Action Act of the Third Age may be subject to fines and towing." High-end warrior gear would be heavy and possibly reduce WIS/INT, for example.

Spellbooks and the "blessed" flag are idiosyncracies here. I still personally think that the priest pointy penalty is a problem and should probably be put to bed. Spellbooks get a bit of a pass because just under half the classes can use each spellbook and, at least in the old days, they made excellent stores of value for when you were selling loot. But I wouldn't mind seeing outside-class uses for them. Maybe you could "burn" dungeon spellbooks to cast certain spells, basically turning them into high-end not-really-stockpileable one-shot consumables. Or of course in v4 right now they're artifacts, so at least you only deal with each one once.

[Old Coach]

I would like to bring up this point. My mage currently has ~ 18(150) dex and 18(90) str and is still only getting 1.5 swings per round with the hammer. Once the crit chance bug is fixed this will be WAY less powerful than the same weapon in the hands of a warrior, who I would assume would get at least 3 attacks per round, if not more. At least, I imagine this to be the case. I am not sure how blows work in the new system.

In any event, this balances out problem we have been talking about.

[Derakon]

Blows are given by 1 + ((finesse * balance) / 100). Since the hammer has only a .1 multiplier for its balance, you're never going to get very many blows with it. A warrior might get 1.8 or so but they certainly wouldn't reach 3.

However, the hammer does a lot more damage per blow than the weapons with better balances.

[Magnate]

To the extent that we have class-specific gear, it should be because nobody outside the class would usually want to use it, not because it has a tag on it reading "Violators of the Affirmative Class Action Act of the Third Age may be subject to fines and towing." High-end warrior gear would be heavy and possibly reduce WIS/INT, for example.

Spellbooks and the "blessed" flag are idiosyncracies here. I still personally think that the priest pointy penalty is a problem and should probably be put to bed. Spellbooks get a bit of a pass because just under half the classes can use each spellbook and, at least in the old days, they made excellent stores of value for when you were selling loot. But I wouldn't mind seeing outside-class uses for them. Maybe you could "burn" dungeon spellbooks to cast certain spells, basically turning them into high-end not-really-stockpileable one-shot consumables. Or of course in v4 right now they're artifacts, so at least you only deal with each one once.

Sangband makes them VERY powerful throwing weapons. Book 9 does something like 10d14 damage when thrown (which is a huge amount in O-combat). But yes, in general I agree that more outside-class uses would be interesting.

[Philip]

Sorry for reviving dead threads, but the issues here appear not to have been solved, if they need solving. I like the idea of throwing weapons(my latest Sil character was a throwing specialist) and agree that anyone should be able to use them, and that warriors should be better at it. I agreed with both sides a little in the mage getting relatively more benefit out of epic weapons than warriors. I have thought of a possible compromise that could be applied to throwing and melee weapons.
I haven't played v4, because of Sil, but maybe warriors should be able to get more out of their weapons than mages, that mages could only get 75% out of the modifiers, half-classes 100% and warriors 125%(in the case of throwing I would consider giving rogues 125% as well, along with or without warriors)? Maybe it would allow for mages still being able to use awesome weapons, but not quite as efficiently.

[camlost]

Sangband makes them VERY powerful throwing weapons. Book 9 does something like 10d14 damage when thrown (which is a huge amount in O-combat). But yes, in general I agree that more outside-class uses would be interesting.

Heh. You threw the book at him.