GoP

[jim in austin]

The nethack wiki seems to imply that neither martial arts nor bare hands receive any boost from gauntlets of power. The boost is supposedly reserved for wielded or thrown weapons. And it is a significant distinction: a +3 to hit and +6 damage at the 18/**–25 strength the gauntlets deliver. My own practical, albeit anecdotal experience disputes the wiki. My current weenie tourist wielding bare hands enjoyed a huge jump in power and damage when he stumbled across some gauntlets in a store. Who is right? Perhaps some code maven can shed some light on this question...

[Janis Papanagnou]

On 16.05.2013 01:19, jim in austin wrote:
> The nethack wiki seems to imply that neither martial arts nor bare hands
> receive any boost from gauntlets of power. The boost is supposedly reserved
> for wielded or thrown weapons. And it is a significant distinction: a +3 to

> hit and +6 damage at the 18/**�25 strength the gauntlets deliver. My own

> practical, albeit anecdotal experience disputes the wiki. My current weenie
> tourist wielding bare hands enjoyed a huge jump in power and damage when he
> stumbled across some gauntlets in a store. Who is right? Perhaps some code
> maven can shed some light on this question...

...or using a stethoscope, thereby supporting your ancedotal experience with
some statistical evidence.

Janis

[rpresser]

On Wednesday, May 15, 2013 7:19:47 PM UTC-4, jim in austin wrote:
> The nethack wiki seems to imply that neither martial arts nor bare hands receive any boost from gauntlets of power. The boost is supposedly reserved for wielded or thrown weapons. And it is a significant distinction: a +3 to hit and +6 damage at the 18/**–25 strength the gauntlets deliver. My own practical, albeit anecdotal experience disputes the wiki. My current weenie tourist wielding bare hands enjoyed a huge jump in power and damage when he stumbled across some gauntlets in a store. Who is right? Perhaps some code maven can shed some light on this question...

In wizmode, my level 1 tourist barehanded hit about 50% of the time for 2-3 HP. With GoP, he still hit only about 50% of the time, but usually for 8 or more damage. Brief testing only....

[Jonadab the Unsightly One]

On May 15, 7:19 pm, jim in austin <jimeik...@gmail.com> wrote:
> The nethack wiki seems to imply that neither
> martial arts nor bare hands receive any boost
> from gauntlets of power.

Perhaps it means a bonus over and above what
you'd naturally achieve at 18/**? That comparison
would make a lot of sense in the late game, which
is typically when people have a choice of different
flavors of magic gauntlets to choose from.

Straightforwardly, Gauntlets of Power give you high
strength. In the very early game, when you're playing
a role with low strength, such as...

> My current weenie tourist

... such as that, for instance, you can by wearing them
go from single-digit strength right up to 25. Anything
that benefits from high strength (or is penalized for
low strength) will ipso facto be improved.

So we can rephrase the question: Does bare-hands
melee do higher damage with higher strength?

> Perhaps some code maven can shed some light on
> this question...

The relevant code would presumably be in uhitm.c.
Specifically, I think the place to look is hmon_hitmon.
It's a fairly complex function, but...

[Disclaimer: I'm looking at patched NH4 source.]

get_dmg_bonus is initialized to TRUE; It's cleared
to FALSE when throwing certain things (mirrors if
they break, eggs, venom), but I don't see evidence
of its being cleared in the bare-hands case. If
I'm reading the code correctly, it'll be left true.

Later, if get_dmg_bonus is still true, and the
amount of damage you're doing is already
positive, then it's increased by u.udaminc.
Additionally, it's further increased by the
result of calling dbon() if you're not throwing
anything, or if you're not wielding a weapon,
or if the weapon you are wielding is not a
launcher for the object thrown -- ALL of
which conditions should be true in the
case of bare-hands combat, I think.

The dbon() function is defined in weapon.c
and does indeed rely heavily on the player's
strength stat. Very heavily.

Suppose, for instance, that your unfortunate
Tourist got a bad draw on strength in the
first place and then on top of that got poisoned
a time or two before getting resistance, so now
his natural strength is 5. Without the gauntlets,
dbon() is going to return -1. With the gauntlets,
dbon() will return I think 6, or at least 5.

That's my analysis. As noted, this is not based
on the 3.4.3 codebase, so you can double-check
there for differences, but if NH4 or any of the
patches I've got applied to it have altered this,
I'm not aware of it.

[Rast]

jim in austin wrote...
> The nethack wiki seems to imply that neither martial arts nor bare hands receive any boost from gauntlets of power. The boost is supposedly reserved for wielded or thrown weapons. And it is a significant distinction: a +3 to hit and +6 damage at the 18/**?25 strength the gauntlets deliver. My own practical, albeit anecdotal experience disputes the wiki

The wiki is useful, but I'd always trust Dylan's spoilers over it.

http://www.spod-central.org/~psmith/nh/weap-343.txt

"The following are added only when attacking a monster directly with
a wielded weapon or bare-handed (melee attacks):
+ 1 bonus for attacking directly.
+ A bonus based on your strength (see STRENGTH +HIT in the table
below).
+ 1 if you are XL 1 or 2 (game-balancing beginner's luck)."
etc

and it says later that barehanded damage is increased, if I'm reading
it correctly.

Also Kate Nepveu's Monk FAQ suggests wishing for power gloves, for the
combat bonuses. http://www.steelypips.org/nethack/monk_faq.html

[jim in austin]

All interesting and informative answers. I've played
A LOT of monks over several decades and had always
eschewed the gauntlets, not just because they interfered
with casting but also because I believed them ineffectual.
Perhaps I'll revisit the subject...

[David Damerell]

Quoting jim in austin <jime...@gmail.com>:
>All interesting and informative answers. I've played
>A LOT of monks over several decades and had always
>eschewed the gauntlets, not just because they interfered
>with casting but also because I believed them ineffectual.

That is probably a misremembering of the fact that they provide no
additional effect (on combat) over STR 18/**, which most characters (all
characters, when this observation was first made) can reach naturally;
whereas GoDex remain effective because dexterities over 18 provide an
additional to-hit bonus.

This is in itself misleading because, while that's true, in practice for
all but the earliest parts of a normal game you will never miss regardless
of whether or not you have a very high Dex. It might be relevant if you've
fucked your Luck somehow, or you're a monk wearing body armour, or you get
+something GoDex very early, etc.
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Kill the tomato!
Today is Teleute, June.
Tomorrow will be Oneiros, June.

[jim in austin]

On Friday, May 24, 2013 8:56:23 AM UTC-5, David Damerell wrote:

> This is in itself misleading because, while that's true, in practice for
> all but the earliest parts of a normal game you will never miss regardless
> of whether or not you have a very high Dex. It might be relevant if you've
> fucked your Luck somehow, or you're a monk wearing body armour, or you get
> +something GoDex very early, etc.

There is also the -2 penalty to-hit while wielding a bow for
the GoP. This could be meaningful for a Ranger, especially an
early one.

[David Damerell]

Quoting jim in austin <jime...@gmail.com>:

Only an early one. Rangers are like anyone else with maxed luck or a good
weapon or a reasonable number of XL; never miss.

Note that I'm not being hyperbolic there. There's no 1/20 auto-miss in
NetHack.
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
And now, a seemingly inexplicable shot of a passing train.
Today is Epithumia, June - a weekend.
Tomorrow will be Olethros, June - a weekend.

[jim in austin]

On Tuesday, May 28, 2013 12:40:27 PM UTC-5, David Damerell wrote:

> Only an early one. Rangers are like anyone else with maxed luck or a good
> weapon or a reasonable number of XL; never miss.
>
> Note that I'm not being hyperbolic there. There's no 1/20 auto-miss in
> NetHack.

There is also the small matter that the GoP have no effect on
the inflicted damage of any missile that uses a launcher...