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Crawl stone soup: some questions (beginner)

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Pixelface

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Sep 26, 2010, 6:30:39 AM9/26/10
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I love this game! :-)

1. I'm playing with a Minotaur Gladiator. Is there a way intelligence
bonus item can be useful to me?
2. I guess wearing armors trains the armor skill. Are robes also
considered armors for training the armor skill?
3. What's the effect of a high armor skill?
4. Is there a way I can break those ice-like blue magic walls?
Sometime I see like a 4x4 unaccessable room of magic walls with items
inside; how can I take the stuff? Blinking doesn't work.
5. Is there a difference between glowing, runed, shining, etc?
6. Can also non-glowing/runed/shining/etc weapon have magical suffixes
and/or +/-?
7. Is there a risk carrying rotting meat? Does it have a chanche to
"contaminate" other non rotten meat or even non-rotting food?
8. Are butchered corpses (meat) less likely to rot than corpses?
9. Sometimes I see rooms with the floor marked by red squares with red
crosses inside. Right clicking them the description is just "floor".
What's that?

Thank you!

Galehar

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Sep 26, 2010, 7:43:35 AM9/26/10
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Le 26/09/2010 12:30, Pixelface a écrit :
> I love this game! :-)
>
> 1. I'm playing with a Minotaur Gladiator. Is there a way intelligence
> bonus item can be useful to me?

Not really. If you ever want to use magic, you'll need intelligence, but
you probably don't. It can help to avoid stat death. If any of your stat
reaches 0, you die. The worst stat drain can be as high as 7, that's why
having every stat at 8 or more is considered safe.

> 2. I guess wearing armors trains the armor skill. Are robes also
> considered armors for training the armor skill?

No, robe don't train armour skill. To train armour, you need to wear
armour with an ev penalty at least 3 times your armour skill. Robes
don't have an ev penalty.

> 3. What's the effect of a high armor skill?

it gives you more AC for your body armour, and more importantly, it
reduces the weapon speed penalty for wearing heavy armour. So in
practice, you shouldn't put immediately the heaviest armour you find,
but wait for your skill to raise to upgrade your armour.

> 4. Is there a way I can break those ice-like blue magic walls?
> Sometime I see like a 4x4 unaccessable room of magic walls with items
> inside; how can I take the stuff? Blinking doesn't work.

It depends. If it's "translucent rock wall", you can dig it with a wand
of digging. If it's stone wall or something else, you need powerful magic.

> 5. Is there a difference between glowing, runed, shining, etc?

No, it's just flavour.

> 6. Can also non-glowing/runed/shining/etc weapon have magical suffixes
> and/or +/-?

I think it can have +/- sometimes, but no brand.

> 7. Is there a risk carrying rotting meat? Does it have a chanche to
> "contaminate" other non rotten meat or even non-rotting food?

nope, no risk.

> 8. Are butchered corpses (meat) less likely to rot than corpses?

no, they all rot after 200 turns.

> 9. Sometimes I see rooms with the floor marked by red squares with red
> crosses inside. Right clicking them the description is just "floor".
> What's that?

This is a travel exclusion. The game puts it automatically on square
dangerous to travel through because of stationary monsters or clouds.
Autoexplore and autotravel will automatically avoid them. You can still
manually walk through them, but be prepared. You can also set exclusions
manually (with 'e' in x or X mode), if you want to avoid a powerful
monster for example.

Pixelface

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Sep 26, 2010, 6:13:18 PM9/26/10
to
Thanks a lot!

Playing some more I've got other doubts:

1. what is the difference between a translucent rock wall and a wall
of green crystal?
2. does the "rot" condition (like when touched by a necrophage)
implies a risk of permanent losing stats? are there ways to lose stats
permanently?
3. fountains and granite statues: what's the point?
4. do the hungry, very hungry, near starving and starving conditions
negatively influence stats?
5. you said: "To train armour, you need to wear armour with an ev
penalty at least 3 times your armour skill."; does this mean that
leather armours (ev-1), ring mails (ev-2), (ev-3)armours can't train
the armor skill more than to level 1?
6. do heavier armours "train more" the armor skill than lighter
armours?
7. why isn't the weapon speed penality of each armour listed in its
description? is it like evasion malus x 10%? and is it reduced by 10%
for every armor skill point?
8. what a +1 implies on a magic armor? only AC bonus? or also evasion?
and weapon speed penality?
9. what's the malus in wielding a quarterstaff with one hand?
10. other than the impossibility to take it off, are there differences
between a +0 uncursed weapon/armor and a +0 cursed same weapon/armor?
11. orcish, elven, dwarvish armor descriptions says that they fits
their races well. what does this means? does it imply other races get
malus using them?
12. trying to put a vampiric dagger I see like a "you're hungry, you
can't" even if i'm not hungry. how can i wield it?
13. when autoexploring with "o", I sometimes noticed that the
character doesn't stop when he sees javelins on the ground. I really
like javelins for my Minotaur Gladiator: is there a way to make the
autopick system automatically take them, or at least stop when passing
by?
14. I heard a lot of time that crawl stone soup developers put great
effort in keeping the game balanced. I like this and I hate farming,
but I would like to know: what are their countermeasures to
disincentivies farming? I remember the roguelike IVAN, where the best
you were equipped, the stronger were your enemies.. that was a really
bullshit balancing system IMO. Are there similar things in Stone Soup?
What are the consequences for a farming attitude (like waiting in a
level for weak enemies to grind)?

Gerry Quinn

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Sep 26, 2010, 6:51:56 PM9/26/10
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In article <4f31c796-79ea-4abc-a713-88b60bbd0e75
@a36g2000yqc.googlegroups.com>, ecaf...@gmail.com says...

Answers to those I can answer:

> 2. does the "rot" condition (like when touched by a necrophage)
> implies a risk of permanent losing stats? are there ways to lose stats
> permanently?

You can drink healing potions or use wands of healing to stop the rot,
and use them at full health to cure a point of it. (This isn't so
harsh as it sounds, you will have enough to spare to get rid of 20 or
so points of rot by the end of the game, which is all you'll want
unless you go to Tomb.

There are ways to lose stats permanently, but AFAIK these are only by
way of spells and abilities that you can choose to use.

> 3. fountains and granite statues: what's the point?

They make the dungeon pretty.

> 4. do the hungry, very hungry, near starving and starving conditions
> negatively influence stats?

Starving means you can't cast spells and your melee is weak and you
faint. The others don't affect you.

> 8. what a +1 implies on a magic armor? only AC bonus? or also evasion?
> and weapon speed penality?

Just +1 AC compared to normal.

> 10. other than the impossibility to take it off, are there differences
> between a +0 uncursed weapon/armor and a +0 cursed same weapon/armor?

No. Though curses may more commonly be found on bad items, so if you
have (say) two spears whose power you don't know, one that was found
cursed is probably worse than one that wasn't.

> 11. orcish, elven, dwarvish armor descriptions says that they fits
> their races well. what does this means? does it imply other races get
> malus using them?

I think the correct race gets a (small) bonus.

> 12. trying to put a vampiric dagger I see like a "you're hungry, you
> can't" even if i'm not hungry. how can i wield it?

You have to be full.

> 13. when autoexploring with "o", I sometimes noticed that the
> character doesn't stop when he sees javelins on the ground. I really
> like javelins for my Minotaur Gladiator: is there a way to make the
> autopick system automatically take them, or at least stop when passing
> by?

There is, but I don't know the details offhand - you'll have to read
the manual.

> 14. I heard a lot of time that crawl stone soup developers put great
> effort in keeping the game balanced. I like this and I hate farming,
> but I would like to know: what are their countermeasures to
> disincentivies farming? I remember the roguelike IVAN, where the best
> you were equipped, the stronger were your enemies.. that was a really
> bullshit balancing system IMO. Are there similar things in Stone Soup?
> What are the consequences for a farming attitude (like waiting in a
> level for weak enemies to grind)?

Basically, Crawl has a food clock - not too aggressive past the early
stages, but it's definitely there. Useful monsters come slower and
slower if you hang around on a level, and for most characters it isn't
worth it.

That's not to say you can't sometimes usefully farm when the situation
is right (my latest Lugano character has done a lot of Abyss farming),
but it's hard to make it a lifestyle choice.

- Gerry Quinn

Peter Huebner

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Sep 27, 2010, 2:40:37 AM9/27/10
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In article <4f31c796-79ea-4abc...@a36g2000yqc.googlegroups.com>,
ecaf...@gmail.com says...

>
> Thanks a lot!
>
> Playing some more I've got other doubts:

I'll attempt to answer what I can.

>
> 1. what is the difference between a translucent rock wall and a wall
> of green crystal?

I _think_ green crystal is even harder to destrou. I may be contradicted
on this downthread.

> 2. does the "rot" condition (like when touched by a necrophage)
> implies a risk of permanent losing stats? are there ways to lose stats
> permanently?

Rtting does diminish your max HP. I try not to let necrophages near me.
They're slow and they seem to burn well ...

> 3. fountains and granite statues: what's the point?

I _think_ a fountain can be a random potion. In fact I'm pretty sure I've
encountered this effect once in an earlier version of DCSS. Most of them
seem to contain water, if anything.

Statues are often an indication of some public attraction near by.
Don't count on it, but keep your eyes peeled.

> 4. do the hungry, very hungry, near starving and starving conditions
> negatively influence stats?

Starving can seriously interfere with the stat 'alive', except when
you're playing a vampire (maybe other undead? I never tried). In other
words, starvation can be deadly. Also you can't cast when starving, you
can't use your berserk ability when hungry even.

> 6. do heavier armours "train more" the armor skill than lighter
> armours?

I believe not. My take is that in DCSS train is train, doesn't matter
if you hit something with a hatchet or a two-hander battleaxe.

> 8. what a +1 implies on a magic armor? only AC bonus? or also evasion?
> and weapon speed penality?

just AC. Also note that +4 armor and artifact armor cannot be corroded
by acid any more. (applies to weapons also)

> 10. other than the impossibility to take it off, are there differences
> between a +0 uncursed weapon/armor and a +0 cursed same weapon/armor?

no. NB that a cursed cloak will prevent you changing armor, cursed gloves
will prevent you from taking off rings.

> 11. orcish, elven, dwarvish armor descriptions says that they fits
> their races well. what does this means? does it imply other races get
> malus using them?

No, but the appropriate race gets a small bonus. Also, the orc god Beogh
likes it if you use orcish stuff, so you get a piety increase from
wearing it (only applies to hill orcs, mind - nobody else can worship B.).

> 12. trying to put a vampiric dagger I see like a "you're hungry, you
> can't" even if i'm not hungry. how can i wield it?

You have to be very full or even engorged, can't remember. Stuff yourself
with as much food as you can fit in.

> 13. when autoexploring with "o", I sometimes noticed that the
> character doesn't stop when he sees javelins on the ground. I really
> like javelins for my Minotaur Gladiator: is there a way to make the
> autopick system automatically take them, or at least stop when passing
> by?

Yes. It's in the documentation some place. I don't know how to change it
either. I know that you can set autopickup specifics in the config file.

> 14. I heard a lot of time that crawl stone soup developers put great
> effort in keeping the game balanced. I like this and I hate farming,
> but I would like to know: what are their countermeasures to
> disincentivies farming? I remember the roguelike IVAN, where the best
> you were equipped, the stronger were your enemies.. that was a really
> bullshit balancing system IMO. Are there similar things in Stone Soup?
> What are the consequences for a farming attitude (like waiting in a
> level for weak enemies to grind)?

Starvation. Lower score I think for more turns (as if we beginners care)
but I am not sure of that, it's an impression I got from reading something,
somewhere.

h.t.h., -P.

serg271

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Sep 27, 2010, 2:43:25 AM9/27/10
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On Sep 27, 12:13 am, Pixelface <ecafle...@gmail.com> wrote:

> 3. fountains and granite statues: what's the point?

Sparky water fountains have potion effect. Not always beneficial.

Galehar

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Sep 27, 2010, 4:02:30 AM9/27/10
to
On Sep 27, 12:13 am, Pixelface <ecafle...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks a lot!
>
> Playing some more I've got other doubts:
>
> 1. what is the difference between a translucent rock wall and a wall
> of green crystal?
rock wall can be dug with a wand of digging. To destroy green crystal,
you need a spell: Lee's Rapid Deconstruction.

> 5. you said: "To train armour, you need to wear armour with an ev
> penalty at least 3 times your armour skill."; does this mean that
> leather armours (ev-1), ring mails (ev-2), (ev-3)armours can't train
> the armor skill more than to level 1?

Sorry, I've put that backward. Leather armour trains armour skill up
to 3, ring mail up to 6, ...

> 6. do heavier armours "train more" the armor skill than lighter
> armours?

Since 0.7, yes.

> 7. why isn't the weapon speed penality of each armour listed in its
> description? is it like evasion malus x 10%? and is it reduced by 10%
> for every armor skill point?

Because it's much more complex. You get penalties to hit, damage and
speed all calculated on you AEVP (adjusted evasion penalty), which
itself depends on your evasion penalty and armour skill. For more
details, grab a big cup of coffee and read the wiki :
http://crawl.chaosforge.org/index.php?title=AC_nerf#New_combat_penalties

> 9. what's the malus in wielding a quarterstaff with one hand?

base damage is halved.

> 12. trying to put a vampiric dagger I see like a "you're hungry, you
> can't" even if i'm not hungry. how can i wield it?

You need to be full or more. Each time you wield it, you take a big
hunger hit.

> 13. when autoexploring with "o", I sometimes noticed that the
> character doesn't stop when he sees javelins on the ground. I really
> like javelins for my Minotaur Gladiator: is there a way to make the
> autopick system automatically take them, or at least stop when passing
> by?

add this to your init.txt :
ae = <javelin

> 14. I heard a lot of time that crawl stone soup developers put great
> effort in keeping the game balanced. I like this and I hate farming,
> but I would like to know: what are their countermeasures to
> disincentivies farming? I remember the roguelike IVAN, where the best
> you were equipped, the stronger were your enemies.. that was a really
> bullshit balancing system IMO. Are there similar things in Stone Soup?
> What are the consequences for a farming attitude (like waiting in a
> level for weak enemies to grind)?

The longer you hang on a level, the higher the chance of a dangerous
OOD (Out Of Depth) monster will be generated. And there's always the
risk of starving of course. There's no autoleveling of enemies in
Stone Soup. It's quite the opposite, there's always a chance that you
encounter enemies too tough for you. You have to chose your fight and
learn to flee.

You can learn more about the game by reading the wiki (link above) or
by asking the knowledge bots which often have more recent and accurate
informations : http://crawl.develz.org/info/

Martin Read

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Sep 27, 2010, 4:23:45 AM9/27/10
to
Peter Huebner <no....@this.address> wrote:
>In article <4f31c796-79ea-4abc...@a36g2000yqc.googlegroups.com>,
>ecaf...@gmail.com says...
>> 1. what is the difference between a translucent rock wall and a wall
>> of green crystal?
>
>I _think_ green crystal is even harder to destrou. I may be contradicted
>on this downthread.

Translucent rock wall:
- is a normal rock wall you can see through

Green crystal:
- is immune to Digging
- requires a lower spellpower to Deconstruct than translucent rock
- reflects thermal beams the same way
--
\_\/_/ turbulence is certainty turbulence is friction between you and me
\ / every time we try to impose order we create chaos
\/ -- Killing Joke, "Mathematics of Chaos"

Konstantin Stupnik

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Sep 27, 2010, 4:37:23 AM9/27/10
to
On 9/27/10 13:40 , Peter Huebner wrote:
>
>> 6. do heavier armours "train more" the armor skill than lighter
>> armours?
>
> I believe not. My take is that in DCSS train is train, doesn't matter
> if you hit something with a hatchet or a two-hander battleaxe.

You need some exp in the exp pool in order to train ANYTHING.
With empty exp pool any action will add little to none to corresponding
skill.
From one point of view this prevents grinding at large.
You gain very little exp from killing low level monsters,
and as result can't train skills this way.
But for a high level character to train some skill that isn't
trained naturally is really boring task.
Recently in order to train fighting by mummy spellcaster I repeated
following cycle many times: go to zot, kill draconians, return to
dungeon find some not-too-dangerous monsters, swing at them with
whatever is in my hands, pump exp in fighting this way, repeat.

If you are playing melee fighter character, than most likely you wont
experience any problems with "lets train this skill" dance.

But when I tried to play bows/crossbows/throwing centered characters, I
had to allow my character's ass to be kicked with non-empty exp pool
to train armors. If I'll kill everything from afar, at some point
absence of armor can be fatal.

Probably I'm missing some advanced techniques for armor training...
And non-combat skills training... Like enchantments.

Right now hybridization of a character in a late game is doable, but tad
boring.

Erwin M.

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Sep 27, 2010, 10:23:32 AM9/27/10
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And plain water fountains also have a potion effect, that of a potion of
water: a small nutrition boost. It's not much, but every little bit
helps, particularly for some characters.

eoghan griffin

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Sep 27, 2010, 11:35:21 AM9/27/10
to
In article <adb3a8b5-10b0-496b-8f56-0cadc26a7609
@p26g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>, kea...@gmail.com says...

>
> On Sep 27, 12:13 am, Pixelface <ecafle...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > 5. you said: "To train armour, you need to wear armour with an ev
> > penalty at least 3 times your armour skill."; does this mean that
> > leather armours (ev-1), ring mails (ev-2), (ev-3)armours can't train
> > the armor skill more than to level 1?
> Sorry, I've put that backward. Leather armour trains armour skill up
> to 3, ring mail up to 6, ...

This doesnt apply anymore, any armour trains armour skill since 0.6.
Theres no distinction between light and heavy armour anymore.

>
> > 6. do heavier armours "train more" the armor skill than lighter
> > armours?
> Since 0.7, yes.
>
> > 7. why isn't the weapon speed penality of each armour listed in its
> > description? is it like evasion malus x 10%? and is it reduced by 10%
> > for every armor skill point?
> Because it's much more complex. You get penalties to hit, damage and
> speed all calculated on you AEVP (adjusted evasion penalty), which
> itself depends on your evasion penalty and armour skill. For more
> details, grab a big cup of coffee and read the wiki :
> http://crawl.chaosforge.org/index.php?title=AC_nerf#New_combat_penalties

This is out of date, theres no speed penalities for armour anymore in
0.7

>
> You can learn more about the game by reading the wiki (link above) or
> by asking the knowledge bots which often have more recent and accurate
> informations : http://crawl.develz.org/info/

Dont use the wiki if at all possible, its always out of date at best and
at worst gives bad advice or is flat out wrong.

Come to the ##crawl irc channel on freenode for info theres always
people about looking to help out. Or use the online bots, we keep them
up to date.

David Ploog

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Sep 27, 2010, 11:43:40 AM9/27/10
to
On Mon, 27 Sep 2010, eoghan griffin wrote:

>> http://crawl.chaosforge.org/index.php?title=AC_nerf#New_combat_penalties


>> You can learn more about the game by reading the wiki (link above)

> Dont use the wiki if at all possible, its always out of date at best and


> at worst gives bad advice or is flat out wrong.

While I understand where you are coming from, I feel pain when reading
this comment. Shouldn't it be possible to get the wiki into a state of
usefulness? I admit that the quick pace of DCSS development makes that
undoubtedly an ambitious task. However, I have hope that over time the
wiki will be a good source of information.

David

eoghan griffin

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Sep 27, 2010, 12:19:20 PM9/27/10
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In article <alpine.DEB.1.10.1...@lobster.imp.fu-
berlin.de>, dpl...@mi.fu-berlin.de says...

The problem as I see it is that the very people with the knowledge to
fix the wiki, never actually use it. Its gotten a very bad rep for being
wrong. A lot more eyes see the bot info in ##crawl so it stays much more
up to date.

David Ploog

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Sep 27, 2010, 12:31:10 PM9/27/10
to

Yes, I know. Perhaps what is needed is a good web-interface for the
learndb?

tenaya

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Sep 27, 2010, 3:34:09 PM9/27/10
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I think the wiki is useful. It's a great interface for looking at the
species and backgrounds among other things.

Galehar

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Sep 27, 2010, 4:50:24 PM9/27/10
to

That would help, sure. Maybe it can be wikified. Take the strong points
of the wiki and bring them to the learndb. They are:
- A front page with links to all the major components of the game.
- Lots of internal links

Also, what is missing from learndb is detailed articles about some
complex parts of the game, like the AC nerf page or the attack speed
page of the wiki. The weapons, armour and spell tables are great too.
The problem is that it is a lot of work to write those, and they are
quickly outdated. Maybe some parts of the game will stabilize a bit, and
then the wiki will be able to catch up.

Maybe the wiki and the learndb can be better integrated. Let the wiki be
the good web-interface, and have it either pull info from the learndb,
or points to it. Avoiding duplication of information would help in
keeping it up to date.

Pixelface

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Sep 27, 2010, 6:00:06 PM9/27/10
to
Eoghan Griffin, so an armour only negative effect is its evasion
malus?
I used to check the wiki, now I'll stay away from it hahah.

Thanks a lot guys.

Anyway, about vampiric daggers: what is the difference between a
vampiric dagger and a weapon of draining? are there other negative
effects associated with the use of vampiric daggers, other than the
"unfillment" wielding it? are there only vampiric daggers or also
other kind of vampiric weapons?

Björn Ritzl

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Sep 28, 2010, 12:50:25 AM9/28/10
to
Out of curiosity: Where does the data from leanrdb
(http://crawl.akrasiac.org/learndb.html) come from? Is it autoextracted
from the sourcecode?

/Björn

Peter Huebner

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Sep 28, 2010, 2:32:10 AM9/28/10
to
In article <21238eda-638e-49a2...@w19g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>,
ecaf...@gmail.com says...

>
> Anyway, about vampiric daggers: what is the difference between a
> vampiric dagger and a weapon of draining? are there other negative
> effects associated with the use of vampiric daggers, other than the
> "unfillment" wielding it? are there only vampiric daggers or also
> other kind of vampiric weapons?
>
>

Weapon of draining actually lowers the experience level of the monsters you
hit with it, in effect making them more harmless. Sometimes that doesn't
really help much though. I'll use any other brand by preference.

And yes, there are other vampiric weapons.

-P.

Felipe Suarez

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Sep 28, 2010, 7:48:55 AM9/28/10
to
On 28 sep, 07:32, Peter Huebner <no....@this.address> wrote:
> In article <21238eda-638e-49a2-a851-0dd39e44b...@w19g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>,
> ecafle...@gmail.com says...

>
>
>
> > Anyway, about vampiric daggers: what is the difference between a
> > vampiric dagger and a weapon of draining? are there other negative
> > effects associated with the use of vampiric daggers, other than the
> > "unfillment" wielding it? are there only vampiric daggers or also
> > other kind of vampiric weapons?
>
> Weapon of draining actually lowers the experience level of the monsters you
> hit with it, in effect making them more harmless. Sometimes that doesn't
> really help much though. I'll use any other brand by preference.
>
> And yes, there are other vampiric weapons.
>
> -P.

And the other vampiric weapons rock for the whole early, mid, and
early-late (basically, as long as you enconter living foes) game if
you have the apropiate skill and it is a good exponent of your weapon
school. I believe they only come in edged weapons unless an artefact,
altrough i may be wrong.

Also: Learn to LOVE boots of running. All but one of my wins have used
those babies. The ability to outrun anything is great for both
warriors and magicians (and everything inbetween).

- Learn to use the search command (Ctrl + F, I believe) "javelins"
tada, an almost complete index of every javelin you've ever seen
(problem being that humanoids tend to pick throwable weapons, wands
and potions <normal weapons and armors too, but only if they are
better than the one they are using>, all of wich can make both finding
those and staying alive harder).

- Dont let strong melee enemies get their hands in a bow or crossbow.
Either take the amunition or the launcher away.

- Dont believe these guys, the wiki rocks. It MAY be outdated, true,
but that's for mechanics, wich IMO arent that usefull anyway. Uniques
and other enemies are always detailed there down to the spells they
can cast. Rare enemies (like vapours) usually have only the stats, but
as soon as you experience its efects you cant begin adding it to the
wiki (if you are in doubt of the correctness of your info, just write
that you aint sure).

- Basics of the mechanics: Upgrading to a weapon of the same school
with a higher BASE damage is almost always the right choice. The
magical plusses rarely make up for that fact, as they are calculated
diferently.
Heavy armour makes hitting your foes harder if you have a low armor
skill, but, truly, if you find a golden dragon armor in level 3 of the
dungeon at least give it a try ;).
- The wiki talks about the "strength weight" It just means a weapon
can be better for the strong or for the dexterous. However, when you
get to the top tier of any melee weapon, they tend to be at the LEAST
equally good for both. Most of the time at the top tier they favour
the strong.
Even so, try to use maces or axes or polearms if you have a high
strength. If you are dexterous, long blades or staves (to a much
lesser extent, as there are only staves and lajatangs for that school,
staves suck and lajatangs rock) (im sure i missed something here).

-About ranged weapons: Strong? Use crossbows. Dexterous? Use bows.
Love your javelins, love darts of blinking, love curare needles (and
to a minor extent poisonous needles). But only love them for the early
game unles you are gonna focus on throwing.

This means: Go for the Xbow with your minotaur.

eoghan griffin

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Sep 28, 2010, 11:46:36 AM9/28/10
to
In article <21238eda-638e-49a2-a851-0dd39e44bb49
@w19g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>, ecaf...@gmail.com says...

>
> Eoghan Griffin, so an armour only negative effect is its evasion
> malus?
> I used to check the wiki, now I'll stay away from it hahah.
>

Armour just affects spellcasting failure and melee accuracy now.
Strenght is pretty important for overcoming the adjusted body armour
evasion penalty.

aevp[1/1]: Adjusted body armour evasion penalty. Affects spell success,
melee accuracy. Its value is [base_penalty + max(0, 3*base_penalty -
str)] * [45 - armour_skill]/45. Except if base_ev_penalty is zero, in
which case aevp is zero.

Thats the formula from the henzell bot. Having strength more than 3
times the base ev penalty of the armour is pretty important as you can
see.

The to-hit penalty is 1d(aevp) without shields or 1d(aevp) + 1d(asp)
with a shield.

asp[1/2]: Adjusted shield evasion penalty. Affects melee accuracy,
{attack speed}, and (1.5-handed weapons only) damage. Its value is
base_penalty - shield_skill/(5 + size_factor).

asp[2/2]: Base penalty is 1 for bucklers, 3 for shields, 5 for large
shields. Size factor is -2 for Og, Tr, Na, Ce; +2 for Ha, Ko; +4 for
Sp; 0 for others.

eoghan griffin

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Sep 28, 2010, 11:47:52 AM9/28/10
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In article <i7rs6q$1o4$1...@news.eternal-september.org>,
bjorn.remov...@gmail.com says...

That data is the database that the henzell bot in the ##crawl channel
uses, its all user entered info from source divers.

Nils

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Sep 28, 2010, 3:43:11 PM9/28/10
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On 09/27/2010 05:35 PM, eoghan griffin wrote:
>> You can learn more about the game by reading the wiki (link above) or
>> by asking the knowledge bots which often have more recent and accurate
>> informations : http://crawl.develz.org/info/
>
> Dont use the wiki if at all possible, its always out of date at best and
> at worst gives bad advice or is flat out wrong.


I have to disagree.

The wiki sucked. But that is not true any more. A lot of people have
contributed to it since 0.6. Currently It is on a level somewhere
between 0.7 and 0.71.

Due to the nature of the medium the wiki is always a bit late when it
comes to changes, but overall it's in a very good shape.

The wiki has around 15 significant changes per day, more when a new
version gets released. It is constantly improving and trying to keep up
with the development.

Cheers,
Nils

David Ploog

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Sep 28, 2010, 4:22:33 PM9/28/10
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Thank you! I like to read that. Over time, DCSS development will slow
down, and the wiki will catch up.

Nils, you sound like someone who's involved in editing the wiki. What do
you think of providing a nice interface to access the learndb from there?

David

Orshelack

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Oct 1, 2010, 2:38:31 AM10/1/10
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I for one would love that, as I usually have the learndb open in one
tab & the wiki in another. Either that or at least a link to it
somewhere on the main page.

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