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David Damerell wrote:
> Quoting Klaus Kassner <Klaus.Kassner@physik.uni-magdeburg.de>:
>
>>David Damerell wrote:
>>
>>>Lifesaving protects against all kinds of bad stuff. ESP can only be had
>>>via the amulet or the helm - and one might want the helm slot for
>>
>>Lifesaving is something a prudent player should not use at all (except
>>in a few - few - very well-defined situations), because it can make him
>>forget his prudence. It is a liability rather than an asset.
> Nonsense. Sure, I usually go without lifesaving, but only because I have
> something better. It's very useful against early mortality situations.
That was what I meant. Usually you don't get lifesaving early enough
for it to be useful. One of the "few well-defined situations" I was
referring to was "an early amulet that is life saving". That is of
course useful, although not extremely. It will save you just once...
If you get reflection before life saving, you can forget life saving for
a very long time.
>>ESP can be had via eating a floating eye and putting on a blindfold.
> Not nearly as useful as the permanent detection from the amulet or helm.
Quite disputable. Forces more careful playstyle on you.
>>>>anymore. Therefore, it would be a bad plan to give it up... (Why one
>>>>should prefer a cloak of displacement to one of the cloaks with magic
>>>>cancellatio of 3 is also beyond me,
>>>Because displacement provides a superior defense against being hit in the
>>>first place.
>>I think if you weigh the advantages and disadvantages *correctly*, you
>>cannot but come to the conclusion that a cloak of protection and a cloak
>> of magic resistance are both superior to one of displacement in the
>>vast majority of cases.
> That's obvious nonsense, especially for protection. MC3 provides somewhat
I am not talking about MC3 alone. Protection also provides superior
defense against being hit in the first place, because of the two
additional points of AC. Take that together with the faster healing, so
you might easily be better off with protection, especially when monsters
become tough enough to hit you all the time despite displacement.
> superior protection (not as much as 67% vs 98%, because with displacement
> you are hit less often) against a small range of attacks, most of which
> have only nuisance value or are completely ineffective against characters
> with the correct resistances. Displacement provides superior defence
> against all other attacks, including such nasties as sliming, brain
> eating, disenchantment, deathly sickness, swallowing by air elementals...
Protection does that too.
>>>>>Obviously you were not clear, since I supposed that you were continuing to
>>>>>talk about what was under discussion.
>>
>>I don't think that yours is the exclusive right to define what is under
>>discussion.
> It's not a matter of definitions, but of a clear fact; originally, the
> discussion was about volunatrily forgoing reflection.
I don't know what the discussion was about long before I entered. I
made my points and said what I was referring to. You changed my point
of reference to "what the original discussion was about", which I don't
consider good style of discussion. Why don't you simply say that you
want to discuss a different topic and that what I said does not belong
into the thread? In fact, this might have spared us many unnecessary
words, because we seem to agree about some essentials and the points
where we disagree are too minor to warrant a long discussion.
> The division is between something which is intended to impose a
> restriction, and something which is intended (even if misguided) to
> increase one's effectiveness.
Right.
> If I don't kill priests at altars because they are useful to donate to,
> or because the penalties for killing one seem too stiff, that's a plan.
> If I don't kill priests because of "roleplaying" or "because it's murder",
> that's a conduct.
The second is not quite correct, because there is a penalty for murder.
Unless you are chaotic, in which case I believe you will not even get
the message "you murderer!".
> The difference is, in the situation where it becomes obviously beneficial
> to kill a priest, the first player will say "OK, the benefits outweight
> the penalties, off with his head!", whereas the second person will at
> least feel that they are breaking their conduct, and possibly not do it at
> all.
Yes, but at the time the discussion was also about killing a priest
early on, which may not be so beneficial (and dangerous, too).
> Likewise, if I sat down and said "I'll challenge myself by doing without
> reflection", that's a conduct. But if I say "Hey, I can use AoESP and GDSM
> and displacement and #twoweapon if I do without reflection, I bet that'll
> make me an absolute combat god", that's a plan.
If it were true...
The question is whether you will still forgo reflection when you notice
that a plan including reflection would be better. I think, if you
decide from the beginning to do without reflection, that *is* a conduct,
because there are situations where it would be just stupid to not accept
reflection when you can have it. To give up reflection temporarily
(which may mean for the rest of the game) if this will improve your
game, that I would call a plan, too. I do it regularly myself in the end
game. Beyond the plane of fire, I usually don't have reflection by an
amulet, so if I don't have the shield or the dragon mail I don't have it
at all. I consider being on the Astral Plane one of the few
well-defined situations where life saving is more important than reflection.
> OK. I consider "If you have teleportitis, losing your source of TC can be
> a disaster" to be blindingly obvious.
Sure. Me, too. But there are diverting opinions. And it is not
extremely probable to end in disaster for a well-developed character.
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