Racial bonus for dagger multishot?
Janis Papanagnou
orcs firing orcish daggers. Wikihack mentions just boni for missiles
with launchers. Some brief tests seem to show that there's no obvious
difference in the amount of thrown daggers, whether the orc fires
orcish or normal daggers. If that's true there's no reason (beyond a
stylish game, probably) staying with the racial adequate daggers, I
suppose, given that normal daggers do slightly more damage.
Janis
Doug Freyburger
Firing advantage applies to arrows and such but not to daggers. So it's
true. The only advantage to using racial daggers is style or untracked
conduct points.
Any species dagger user should drop non-artifact orcish daggers in favor
or regular daggers, regular daggers in favor of elven daggers,
non-artifact elven daggers in favor of silver daggers. I've never heard
of any character who accumulated enough athames to even confirm by
experiment that they don't stack except in wizard mode. ;^) It's the
rare character that even gets a stack of silver daggers.
It's not the rare character who gets a stack of elven daggers big enough
to drop the other types. Both hobbits and elves are common and they
often carry elven daggers. Daggers are one of the item types whose
frequency is dominated by the initial inventory of monsters not by
random creation.
Ray Kulhanek
> Firing advantage applies to arrows and such but not to daggers. So it's
> true. The only advantage to using racial daggers is style or untracked
> conduct points.
>
> Any species dagger user should drop non-artifact orcish daggers in favor
> or regular daggers, regular daggers in favor of elven daggers,
> non-artifact elven daggers in favor of silver daggers. I've never heard
> of any character who accumulated enough athames to even confirm by
> experiment that they don't stack except in wizard mode. ;^) It's the
> rare character that even gets a stack of silver daggers.
>
> It's not the rare character who gets a stack of elven daggers big enough
> to drop the other types. Both hobbits and elves are common and they
> often carry elven daggers. Daggers are one of the item types whose
> frequency is dominated by the initial inventory of monsters not by
> random creation.
Don't forget darts. Only one less damage against large creatures than
elven daggers, and at 1/10th the weight. Plus you can poison them.
If you collect all the darts you get from traps, it's easy enough to
get a stack of a few hundred before you start enchanting. That's
more than enough to offset the break chance (which is quite low if
they're blessed and your luck is high). I'd still take silver daggers
over darts, but even with polypiling, I'm lucky to get a stack of even
4 of those. Of course, if you're playing a lawful character, the lack
of poison makes the choice a bit harder.
James Of Tucson
> Don't forget darts. Only one less damage against large creatures than
> elven daggers, and at 1/10th the weight. Plus you can poison them.
> If you collect all the darts you get from traps, it's easy enough to
> get a stack of a few hundred before you start enchanting.
I hope I've got much better weapons and/or spells by then.
Doug Freyburger
> Ray Kulhanek <kulhane...@wright.edu> wrote:
>
>> Don't forget darts. �Only one less damage against large creatures than
>> elven daggers, and at 1/10th the weight. Plus you can poison them.
>> If you collect all the darts you get from traps, it's easy enough to
So darts are good for mid-game players who can get expert in them but
not in other missile weapons.
> I hope I've got much better weapons and/or spells by then.
Healers do well with darts. Healers are conveniently neutral not
lawful. Other classes often aren't interested in darts.
Janis Papanagnou
What better weapon would you prefer?
Enchanted multishot projectiles are aweful. Remember a recent game where
my ranger had this bunch of 100+ +7 arrows, in my current game the rogue
already has a stack of 19 +2 (or +3) daggers; both are excellent weapons
and I wouldn't want to miss them. For certain classes the same could be
said about darts. The advantage here is the accumulated damage for each
projectile, combined with ranged attack, making it unnecessary to melee.
Janis
JMonkey
bonus only apply to hit, or does it also increase damage?
On Dec 29, 5:20 pm, Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanag...@hotmail.com>
wrote:
Derek Ray
> A question about bows, crossbows and slings. Does their enchantment
> bonus only apply to hit, or does it also increase damage?
Only to-hit, and strength bonuses do not apply. (One of the reasons
why, in vanilla, a thrown rock is actually better than a slung rock,
contrary to intuition.)
--
Derek
Game info and change log: http://sporkhack.com
Beta Server: telnet://sporkhack.com
IRC: irc.freenode.net, #sporkhack
Doug Freyburger
> JMonkey <jfrank...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> A question about bows, crossbows and slings. Does their enchantment
>> bonus only apply to hit, or does it also increase damage?
>
> Only to-hit, and strength bonuses do not apply. (One of the reasons
> why, in vanilla, a thrown rock is actually better than a slung rock,
> contrary to intuition.)
It's tempting to think the enchantment increases range. Unfortunately
the range calculation is much more complex. If I'm setting up for a
missile barrage I will throw an item in a clear area and count the
number of squares it went because the calculation is more work than that.
Derek Ray
Yep. I switched a couple things around in Spork directly to help this;
thrown/fired items now have a cap on strength bonus, and launchers get the
strength bonus applied (despite it being slightly counterintuitive for
crossbows, i prefer this to the opposite). Thrown items also have their
range reduced, and launched items have a range boost; for crossbows
in particular, that boost is noticeably significant.
This has gone a long way towards making ranged combat both more usable
and more popular in general -- as well as making it worth your time to
pick up something off the floor for peppering approaching enemies and
getting "Basic" skill in it.
Inveterate wizard-players spend a great deal of time complaining about
this, as they can no longer ignore all other objects in the dungeon and
just throw daggers. I think of this as a sign that I've done the right
thing, wizards being far and away a broken role in vanilla.
Link
wrote:
> Inveterate wizard-players spend a great deal of time complaining about
> this, as they can no longer ignore all other objects in the dungeon and
> just throw daggers. I think of this as a sign that I've done the right
> thing, wizards being far and away a broken role in vanilla.
I never really understood why vanilla wizards were allowed to do so
well with daggers. I always felt their skill in dagger and darts
should have been capped at the "basic" level.
Derek Ray
They are expected to wield Magicbane, and athames use the "dagger"
skill. So, it only makes sense to give them "Expert" in wielding
daggers. Problem is, it also gives them expert in _throwing_ daggers,
and there isn't enough distinction between skill-in-stabbity and
skill-in-huckity.
That may be a good path to go down; separate out "thrown objects" into
its own skill class (like Crawl did), so that people both don't have to
burn skill slots just to get a two-bit ranged weapon, and so that
classes which shouldn't be circus acts aren't.
I will ponder this; it shouldn't take much effort.
Doug Freyburger
>
> I never really understood why vanilla wizards were allowed to do so
> well with daggers. I always felt their skill in dagger and darts
> should have been capped at the "basic" level.
Waving wands, hand flourishes for spells, throwing stuff. It's all the
same mechanical skill. Yeah, I know bringing the real world into it is
not how Nethack works - If throwing stuff is a skill of its own then why
don't wizards go expert in darts as well ...
If wizards were nerfed in dagger the early game would be that much
harder. The game needs to take some early game issues into account for
balance just as it needs to take some late game issues into account.
Janis Papanagnou
>
> I never really understood why vanilla wizards were allowed to do so
> well with daggers. I always felt their skill in dagger and darts
> should have been capped at the "basic" level.
Probably because of the side effect of Magicbane being the wizards
native artifact weapon.
Janis
Rob Cypher aka "The Anti-Bob"
So just reduce the max from "Expert" to "Skilled". You guys aren't
too bright, now are ya?
--
Rob Cypher
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Link
<de...@moot.its.only.a.spamtrap.org> wrote:
> On 2009-12-31, Link <chillyn...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > On Dec 30, 12:54 pm, Derek Ray <de...@moot.its.only.a.spamtrap.org>
> > wrote:
> >> Inveterate wizard-players spend a great deal of time complaining about
> >> this, as they can no longer ignore all other objects in the dungeon and
> >> just throw daggers. I think of this as a sign that I've done the right
> >> thing, wizards being far and away a broken role in vanilla.
>
> > I never really understood why vanilla wizards were allowed to do so
> > well with daggers. I always felt their skill in dagger and darts
> > should have been capped at the "basic" level.
>
> They are expected to wield Magicbane, and athames use the "dagger"
> skill. So, it only makes sense to give them "Expert" in wielding
> daggers. Problem is, it also gives them expert in _throwing_ daggers,
> and there isn't enough distinction between skill-in-stabbity and
> skill-in-huckity.
>
> That may be a good path to go down; separate out "thrown objects" into
> its own skill class (like Crawl did), so that people both don't have to
> burn skill slots just to get a two-bit ranged weapon, and so that
> classes which shouldn't be circus acts aren't.
>
> I will ponder this; it shouldn't take much effort.
Maybe Magicbane, athames, and the wizard's starting weapon can all be
considered knives instead of daggers?
Derek Ray
>> its own skill class (like Crawl did), so that people both don't have to
>> burn skill slots just to get a two-bit ranged weapon, and so that
>> classes which shouldn't be circus acts aren't.
>>
>> I will ponder this; it shouldn't take much effort.
>
> Maybe Magicbane, athames, and the wizard's starting weapon can all be
> considered knives instead of daggers?
I've already directed knives down a slightly different path in Spork;
they get one particular additional benefit (and ideally a few more in
the future) that I wouldn't want to grant to Magicbane and athames in
general as well.
hcobb
wrote:
> I've already directed knives down a slightly different path in Spork;
> they get one particular additional benefit (and ideally a few more in
> the future) that I wouldn't want to grant to Magicbane and athames in
> general as well.
>
> --
> Derek
Make Magicbane a two handed stick and I'll stop going rogue on it.
-HJC
7aboir
news:3dc61fbb-1cd0-4af6...@o28g2000yqh.googlegroups.com:
> Maybe Magicbane, athames, and the wizard's starting weapon can all be
> considered knives instead of daggers?
I would tend to see athame double edged like dagger, and not single edged
like knives. But I may be wrong.
Steven
> I've never heard of any character who accumulated enough athames to even confirm by experiment that they don't stack except in wizard mode. ;^)
Athames *do* apparently stack in non-wizard games.
(Test used: I fired up wizard mode, wished for 20 blessed +7 athames,
dropped them individually around the first level, wished for and ate a
chickatrice corpse, and saved the bones. Then startscummed in normal
mode until I loaded that bones file, and went around picking 'em up.
They stacked.)
Doug Freyburger
> Doug Freyburger <dfrey...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> I've never heard of any character who accumulated enough
>> athames to even confirm by experiment that they don't stack except in
>> wizard mode. ;^)
>
> Athames *do* apparently stack in non-wizard games.
>
Cool. So now there's a new goal for the end game - Have stacked
athames. Consider how athames can be generated in the game. Since
Magicbane is an artifact it does not stack. That leaves the player
monster on the astral plane - 50/50 quarterstaff or athame, master lich
- 1-in-91 of them get a non-artifact athame, and arch lich - 1-in-9 get
an athame with a 1-in-13 chance it is Magicbane if it does not yet exist
in the game. That's facing a *LOT* of extremely mean monsters to end up
with a stack. Plus wishes.
Kent Paul Dolan
> [..] launchers get the strength bonus applied
> (despite it being slightly counterintuitive for
> crossbows, i prefer this to the opposite).
Strength bonus has no business applying either to
longbows or to crossbows. If a PC can't pull a
longbow to full draw (something perfectly trivial to
do in real life, I've done it), that PC has no
business using a longbow, and pulling the longbow
past full draw makes it impossible to use.
Crossbows already have a fixed draw distance, and
the strength used to pull a crossbow isn't involved
at the time it is fired, but at the time the string
is cranked or levered into place. It would be more
correct to apply strength to the firing rate than to
either the damage or the "to hit" bonus of a
crossbow, since a stronger PC could crank-draw or
lever-draw the crossbow more rapidly to reload it
sooner.
Only slings among NetHack's launchers make sense to
have a strength bonus to damage. There is, in the
case of slings, no practical limit on how much
strength can be applied to make a sling throw its
missile harder.
[The short bow used from horseback by the Mongol
invaders of Europe very likely was dependent on
strength for use. It was a laminated bow of fair
thickness, and of necessity, to throw an arrow a
useful distance with a short bow meant it had to
acquire great energy (from great strength of the
user) with which to launch that arrow.]
xanthian.
Written into the air, since Derek refuses to accept
needed criticism of his behavior or of his ideas.
Kent Paul Dolan
> I never really understood why vanilla wizards were
> allowed to do so well with daggers. I always felt
> their skill in dagger and darts should have been
> capped at the "basic" level.
I'm pretty sure that is based on the historical
opinion of wizardry, that it not only involved the
mixing of potions or powders, the use of pentagrams,
but also the use of intricate gestures in casting
spells. With an already emplaced high dexterity for
that purpose, it is no surprise that the wizard
class dexterity could be intrinsically high enough
to go to expert in dagger fairly easily.
It is also part of the order of battle of AD&D
adventuring groups, that the wizard, usually
dressed in no more than a robe, soft shoes, and a
pointy hat, works from the rear of the party, using
spells while they last and missile weapons when the
spells are exhausted, avoiding melee, which would,
against any fighter class, be suicidal for the
wizard.
NetHack wizards get enhanced a bit from that AD&D
model, in that they can wear armor, just with great
penalty to their spellcasting, because a NetHack PC
wizard has no group of fellow adventurers behind
which to hide, and must be capable of surviving some
level of melee, until the wizard becomes so powerful
that spellcasting alone suffices.
xanthian.
Link
Derek said that a strength bonus for crossbows is counterintuitive.
You even quoted him saying that. Therefore, your criticism was not
needed, since he was already aware of how crossbows worked in real
life.
hcobb
> NetHack wizards get enhanced a bit from that AD&D
> model, in that they can wear armor, just with great
> penalty to their spellcasting, because a NetHack PC
> wizard has no group of fellow adventurers behind
> which to hide, and must be capable of surviving some
> level of melee, until the wizard becomes so powerful
> that spellcasting alone suffices.
>
> xanthian.
D&D also has limits on wizard STR scores.
The skill I'd like to see is Shield. Being expert would let you block
thrown items and maximize (in spork) the effects of a shield of
reflection.
-HJC
Derek Ray
> D&D also has limits on wizard STR scores.
>
> The skill I'd like to see is Shield. Being expert would let you block
> thrown items and maximize (in spork) the effects of a shield of
> reflection.
I have considered adding this skill, actually, in the ongoing effort to
encourage people to go sword-and-board as opposed to overfocusing on
#twoweapon. Two-handers already get enough of a bonus in Spork, so
there isn't as much need to worry about that anymore.
Kent Paul Dolan
> Derek said that a strength bonus for crossbows is
> counterintuitive. You even quoted him saying
> that. Therefore, your criticism was not needed,
> since he was already aware of how crossbows worked
> in real life.
[Not real big at reading to the end of a posting,
are you?]
Well, no, since he seemed unaware, or at least
failed to express, that there was a better way to
apply strength to use of a crossbow: improved firing
rate.
Apparently you weren't noticing that I also objected
to a strength bonus for a longbow [or for bows at
all, since shortbows in NetHack seem to be easier to
use than longbows, rather than harder to use].
The perfectly standard way to fire a longbow is to
pull it to full extension to bring the arrow base to
the front of the bow (and no further), and fire it
from there.
This is, first, again, as I said, because it is
trivial for even a character with fairly low upper
body strength, like me, to draw a longbow to full
draw, and second, which I didn't say earlier,
because precise aiming is based on having the bow at
full draw, so that it will do what it did the last
time you fired it.
[It helps to remember that the longbow was first
massively employed in war by English yeoman, in an
era when they were about the stature of English
women today.
The exact reason it was a LONGbow was to make it
easy to draw to a full firing draw, by persons of
small stature and limited strength, while still
giving it good throwing range.]
Consult someone who actually uses bows and arrows in
hunting for the gory details, I got this from an
archer who was my supervisor in 1963.
The conclusion is that Derek's change is, as so
often for his changes, entirely wrongheaded: only
the sling, among missile launchers, deserves a
strength bonus.
Contrary to Derek's implications, is not the
crossbow which is an exception to the strength bonus
rules.
It is the sling which is the exception, because it
is the only missile launcher to which such rules
translate directly into a damage bonus.
xanthian.
Ray
> This is, first, again, as I said, because it is
> trivial for even a character with fairly low upper
> body strength, like me, to draw a longbow to full
> draw, and second, which I didn't say earlier,
> because precise aiming is based on having the bow at
> full draw, so that it will do what it did the last
> time you fired it.
Different types of bow have different capabilities
and requirements. Let me dig in my library for a
moment...
The bows made for the Chinese Army, according to
_L'art_Militaire_Des_Chinios_, which was published
in 1772, were in four sizes, corresponding to
about 70, 80, 90, and 100 pounds pull, and soldiers
were issued different size bows according to their
strength. While most soldiers used bows that they
could draw fairly easily, exceptionally strong
soldiers were issued specially-crafted bows with
pull strengths ranging from 150 to 200 pounds (!)
and served as specialists mainly firing upon armored
opponents who were effectively immune to the
common 70 to 100 pound bows.
To me this illustrates a simple fact; the amount of
strength required to draw a particular bow to full
draw varies, and those that require stronger archers
are capable of doing more damage.
If you really want to simulate this in game terms,
I would say it should work like this:
If you find a bow that can be used by 90% of
archers, it will have no strength bonus. If you
find a bow that requires, say, 16 strength to
draw, it will have the strength bonus appropriate
to 16 strength. If you find a bow that requires,
say, 18 strength to draw, it will have the strength
bonus appropriate to 18 strength. etc.
One might allow a character to use a bow made for
a higher strength than his, but penalize the hit
chances in that case -- one is rarely accurate when
performing at the outer limits of one's strength.
Bear
Derek Ray
> If you really want to simulate this in game terms,
> I would say it should work like this:
>
> If you find a bow that can be used by 90% of
> archers, it will have no strength bonus. If you
> find a bow that requires, say, 16 strength to
> draw, it will have the strength bonus appropriate
> to 16 strength. If you find a bow that requires,
> say, 18 strength to draw, it will have the strength
> bonus appropriate to 18 strength. etc.
>
> One might allow a character to use a bow made for
> a higher strength than his, but penalize the hit
> chances in that case -- one is rarely accurate when
> performing at the outer limits of one's strength.
Actually _doing_ this would be a prime example of "excessive realism
detracting from the game itself", frankly.
I'm fine with the way things currently work. It isn't perfect, but it's
better than it was -- the various launchers actually have meaning even
for roles that can't get above Basic or Skilled in them now.
Link
> Link wrote:
>
> > Derek said that a strength bonus for crossbows is
> > counterintuitive. You even quoted him saying
> > that. Therefore, your criticism was not needed,
> > since he was already aware of how crossbows worked
> > in real life.
>
> [Not real big at reading to the end of a posting,
> are you?]
>
> Well, no, since he seemed unaware, or at least
> failed to express, that there was a better way to
> apply strength to use of a crossbow: improved firing
> rate.
>
> crossbow which is an exception to the strength bonus
> rules.
>
> It is the sling which is the exception, because it
> is the only missile launcher to which such rules
> translate directly into a damage bonus.
You are completely obsessed with pointing out whenever Derek chooses
to have game behavior in Sporkhack that isn't completely realistic.
What you fail to realize is that YOU ARE COMPLETELY WASTING YOUR
TIME. Your obessive-compulsive disorder is out of control, and you
really should try to focus your energy on fixing yourself, instead of
focusing your energy on fixing other people.
David Damerell
>Kent Paul Dolan wrote:
>>This is, first, again, as I said, because it is
>>trivial for even a character with fairly low upper
>>body strength, like me, to draw a longbow to full
>>draw,
>and requirements. Let me dig in my library for a
>moment...
Wikipedia says (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_longbow):
---
Estimates for the draw of these bows varies considerably. The original
draw forces of examples from the Mary Rose were typically estimated at
667-712 N (150-160 lbf) at a 76.2-cm (30-inch) draw length. The range of
draw weights was from 445 N to 823 N (100 to 185 lbf).[5] The 30 inch draw
length was used because that is the length allowed by the arrows commonly
found on the Mary Rose.
A modern longbow's draw is typically 265 N (60 lbf) or less and by modern
convention measured at 71 cm (28 inches). Historically, hunting bows
usually had draw weights of 222-266 N (50-60 lbf), which is enough for
all but the very largest game and which most reasonably fit adults can
manage with practice. Today, there are few modern longbowmen capable of
using 800N (180 lbf) bows accurately.
---
Apparently a bow given to a 21st century coach potato isn't the same as
ones used by professional military archers who practiced every day for
their entire lives. Who knew?
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Kill the tomato!
Today is Teleute, March.
Tomorrow will be Oneiros, March.
Kent Paul Dolan
> You are completely obsessed with pointing out
> whenever Derek chooses to have game behavior in
> Sporkhack that isn't completely realistic.
Well, no, I don't even bother to read great gouts of
what he posts. Its quality is very limited.
> What you fail to realize is that YOU ARE
> COMPLETELY WASTING YOUR TIME.
1) I'm 66 years old, retired, and the time is mine
to waste.
2):
a) I've been in Derek's killfile for well over two
years now.
b) I know this because he is one of those gutless
people who had to announce the fact, thinking to
impress others to do likewise.
c) Do I care that he is one of hundreds of thousands
of Usenet participants who have me in killfiles? If
that bothered me, I'd probably stop being so blunt
spoken.
c) Why am I in his killfile? Because I prevented
him, simply by outlasting him (see "retired", above)
from bowling over all opposition to his demand that
pudding farming be removed from vanilla NetHack.
d) How angry did it make him that anyone would dare
to disagree with him? Angry enough to fork SporkHack
specifically to have a variant where pudding farming
under his control and so was nerfed.
> Your obessive-compulsive disorder is out of
> control,
Obsessive compulsive? See "d)" above.
And yet, despite your ill-educated diagnosis, rafts
of psychiatrists who have had me at one time or
another as their patient over the last 26 years have
failed to concur with your diagnosis, and continue
to diagnose me as an acute monopolar depressive.
Perhaps you should teach a class, for practicing
psychiatrists only, on how to detect
obsessive-compulsive disorder in Usenet posters,
using the "Link Method" since they seem incompetent
to do what you do so easily.
> and you really should try to focus your energy on
> fixing yourself,
I'm as "fixed" as modern pharmaceutical psychiatric
practices can make me, which is to say, not very
well. I doubt seriously that I will live long
enough for a guaranteed effective chemical treatment
for my form of mental illness to be released to the
medical community. To quote Piet Hein, among others,
"things .. take .. time". Meanwhile, Welbutrin and
Depakote do their best.
> instead of focusing your energy on fixing other
> people.
In what manner do you propose that I am attempting
to fix someone who has me in his killfile, and
ignores everything I write, just one more time?
Derek announced a change that he had made to
SporkHack. I merely pointed out, yet again, as for
many other of his boneheaded changes, how
wrongheaded that change was, and, in detail, why.
It is as much my right as that of every rgrn
participant to comment on variations and proposed
variations to the game posted here. If only positive
comments are allowed, the forum might as well close
up shop.
Meanwhile, if you are having so much agony reading
my postings that you are reduced to screaming, may
I suggest that you join the hundreds of thousands of
Usenetters who have found a comfy place for me in
their killfiles? I would not care to have your death
due to apoplexy on my conscience.
xanthian.
Link
> (way too much text)
What exactly is your goal for your anti-Derek crusade? If you don't
like what Derek does with Sporkhack, then you can just play vanilla
Nethack.
Derek Ray
> What exactly is your goal for your anti-Derek crusade? If you don't
> like what Derek does with Sporkhack, then you can just play vanilla
> Nethack.
You're asking rational questions of someone who isn't rational in the
first place, you realize...
Kent Paul Dolan
> Kent Paul Dolan <xanth...@well.com> wrote:
>> (way too much text)
In more clear spoken terms, text proving you in
multiple ways to be an idiot, and thus text to which
you lacked the guts to respond.
"Men today will hold their manhood cheap" who act as
you do.
Who am I to tell you whose boots your must lick?
My "crusade", which it isn't, is to curb the
introduction of bad ideas into NetHack.
That Derek seems to be a regular source of such bad
ideas is his problem, not mine. Were he to post his
identical ideas anonymously, they'd receive the same
reception from me.
Separately, because I've detested bullying since I
was small enough to be its target, I'm also very
likely to intervene when Derek gets into one of his
"bullying an opponent into submission when Derek is
entirely and obviously in error" tirades.
But again, he can't see what I'm writing, so that's
mostly just to remind people like Janis, easily
drawn into being the target of such bullying, and
also any newcomers to the newsgroup, that Derek is
best left unanswered to think he has won the day,
the moment he starts off on such a tirade, since
Derek is incapable of admitting error or of shutting
up until he has "won".
Come to that, in a perfect world, nothing Derek
writes would be answered at all.
=====
Oh, and after quite a bit of research, in response
to claims elsethread or otherthread to the contrary,
a yumi is _not_ particularly different from the
usual longbow, it just has its grip in an off-center
(and awkward looking) place closer to the bottom of
the bow than to the top.
It is very possible that it was designed expressly
for shooting over barriers from a crouching
position (see images of the yumi in use linked from
the second link below) which the shorter length
below the grip facilitates.
The bow here is a yumi, the name of the picture
refers to the archer's stance:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kyudo_Kai_01.jpg
Page down to the "yumi and ya" section of this
linked web page and you will again see the above
image thumb-nailed, plus additional images of the
yumi in use:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Ky%C5%ABd%C5%8D
Further looking at images on that page will convince
you that the ya is "identical enough" to be
interchangeable with the common arrow. The bamboo
shaft is the main difference, and that's mostly a
matter of readily available materials differing in
England than in Japan, not of a resulting difference
in functionality
=====
And again in response to another otherthread or
elsethread comment, what on earth is the big deal
about a healthy person leading an effortful life
that keeps muscle tone, pulling a bow needing 180
force pounds to draw it?
Even now, in my doddering days, I can lift about 200
pounds upwards a foot with my right hand (and not
much at all with my left hand, that arm is crippled
and contains an internal prosthesis since 1990).
That's the same kit of muscles used to draw a bow.
xanthian.
Link
> My "crusade", which it isn't, is to curb the
> introduction of bad ideas into NetHack.
DEREK'S IDEAS AREN'T AFFECTING NETHACK! They are affecting
Sporkhack. And considering that Sporkhack is Derek's personal variant
of the game, I think it's perfectly acceptable for him to have the
final say of which things goes into Sporkhack.