Profile for divergence
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Displayed name | divergence |
| Member number | 9872 |
| Title | Apprentice |
| Postcount | 3 |
| Homepage | |
| Registered | Sunday, August 19 2007 07:00 |
Recent posts
| Author | Recent posts |
|---|---|
| Celtic Lock pick - Spoiler Warning in Nethergate | |
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Apprentice
Member # 9872
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written Saturday, September 8 2007 00:33
Profile
It can be nice to know some Tool Use as the Celts, even though they have easy access to the Pass Portal spell. In particular, picking locks on chests (though not on doors) gives an experience boost to the whole party. You can buy 4 levels of Tool Use from the trainer just east of the Faerie Bazaar. After that, a librarian under the Celtic Shrine will teach everyone two ranks for a small fee...and as a quest reward, a woman near the west edge of the valley will teach two more ranks. As always, pay the trainer first before learning from other sources. There are also at least two pieces of equipment that give tool use bonuses (Rogue's Leathers and Nimble Gloves give +1 each.) Between all these sources, one of my Celtic druids is running around with 10 Tool Use, and hasn't botched a trapped chest yet. I suppose old-school druids must snub her for embracing evil Roman technology, but she's having fun with it... Posts: 3 | Registered: Sunday, August 19 2007 07:00 |
| Melee Damage Investigation in Nethergate | |
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Apprentice
Member # 9872
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written Sunday, August 19 2007 23:46
Profile
quote:Well, speaking for myself alone here...yes, knowing how you reached your conclusions does increase your credibility. It puts your results in context; we know where they come from, even if we haven't pored over every line of code with you. Granted, it's still possible you may have made a mistake in interpreting the code, but it's easier to assess your results now that we know how you got them. And the fact that you and I reached the same conclusions via different methods lends me more confidence than if we had repeated exactly the same experiments. quote:Ah, that makes sense. No wonder the poor rats and goblins in the early game can't do any damage through a shield spell; it reduces them to zero dice or less. [ Sunday, August 19, 2007 23:47: Message edited by: divergence ] Posts: 3 | Registered: Sunday, August 19 2007 07:00 |
| Melee Damage Investigation in Nethergate | |
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Apprentice
Member # 9872
|
written Sunday, August 19 2007 20:38
Profile
Heal_plz, all people were asking you to do is to explain your data-collection methods, rather than just stating conclusions. That's standard practice in any science; it's not a sign of distrust. It would have been much simpler for you to say "I disassembled the binary" the first time someone asked, rather than to dance around the question. Anyway, this whole discussion got me curious, so I went ahead and ran some tests of my own. I used the method that heal_plz suggested a few posts back: edit "corescendata2.txt" and set one weapon's it_damage_per_level property to 1, and its it_bonus to zero. (Actually, I did this to three weapons: one melee, one spear, and one sling.) Then this weapon will do its damage in "one-sided dice", so there are no random numbers and no need to average a large data set. (You do need to remember to add any blocked damage to the total.) I created a new party, gave one of each modified weapons to each party member, and experimented with training their skills to different levels. I verified most of heal_plz's earlier statements (didn't try the blessing pool, since this is a new party) and found a few other things as well. In particular: Strength gives no to-hit bonus, and gives +1 damage die per level with hand-to-hand weapons. It has no effect on ranged weapons. Dexterity gives +5% to hit per level with all weapons, and +1 damage die per level with ranged weapons. Weapon skill gives +5% to hit per level, and +1 damage die per two levels (with the damage increasing on odd levels). Berserk gives no hit bonus, and +1 damage die per level with hand-to-hand weapons. It doesn't affect ranged weapons. (So for combat purposes, it's exactly like strength.) Roman training gives +5% to hit per two levels (incremented on odd levels) and +1 damage die per two levels (incremented on even). It applies equally to hand-to-hand and ranged weapons. The "Mighty Warrior" trait gives +10% to hit and +2 dice of damage. Every four character levels (at 4th, 8th, 12th, etc), these bonuses increase by an additional +5% to hit and +1 damage die. The "Battle Rage" spell gives +20% to hit and +4 damage dice, apparently independent of the skills or traits of the druid who casts it. Each level of the weapon's it_bonus property adds +5% to hit and +1 die of damage. Thus, weapons listed on-screen as doing more than one "base" die of damage will also have better hit rolls. On the defensive side: Each level of dexterity gives your enemies -5% to hit you. A shield spell, apparently regardless of the skills or traits of the druid that casts it, gives enemies -15% to hit. It also seems to reduce damage by some fixed amount (which may depend om the druid's skill; I haven't checked), rather than by a percentage like armor does. The defense skill is interesting: it apparently reduces the enemy's hit chance by a random amount each time they swing, from 0% (no reduction at all) up to -5% per level of defense. I'm curious to verify heal_plz's statements (in another thread) about the Armor Use skill...but I imagine they're correct as well. Seems like he or she is skilled at disassembly and code reading, though less so at communication. Posts: 3 | Registered: Sunday, August 19 2007 07:00 |