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On Sat, 16 Jul 2005 13:20:14 +0200, Janis Papanagnou
<Janis_Papanagnou@hotmail.com> wrote:
>Jove wrote:
>> On Fri, 15 Jul 2005 16:11:26 +0200, Janis Papanagnou
>> <Janis_Papanagnou@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>Jove wrote:
>>
>>>> - If you hit 100 times, that's +400 points of damage.
>>>> - 1000 +4000
>>>
>>>You won't have the opportunity to hit 100 (or even 1000) times; even
>>>the toughest creatures need no more than 10 (or so) hits - make it 15
>>>to take the fewer damage into account, but consider the magic effects,
>>>then. (A note aside: for the summoned insects this calculation is anyway
>>>irrelevant, since any artifact will do.)
>>
>> Every time you hit with a +7 MagicBane you do 4 more
>> points of damage than if you hit with a +4 MagicBane.
>> What's the reasoning for limiting it to a single monster?
>
>In melee you attack _sequentially_, only a single monster at a time.■
>You need no more than 10 (or so) hits at most to bring down any creature,
>mostly much less hits with appropriately enchanted artifact weapons.
But you're still going to attack all the monsters. So that
doesn't affect the extra damage total, does it?
>
>(If you add 1000 times a 3% value of successful magic attack you get
>really high impressive values.
Actually, you don't. 30 magic attacks doesn't look like much
vs 4000 extra damage points. And some of the magic attacks don't
accumulate (like probing and cancellation) on a monster. And you
need to factor in monster saving throws.
Plus the magic attacks themselves aren't very impressive:
Probing and stunning are next to useless as far as I know. I'd
love to hear differently, though.
And *damage accumulates*. That's why it adds up. If it didn't
you could never kill any monster you couldn't kill with one hit.
Probing and cancellation don't accumulate. A canceled monster
is canceled. Canceling it again is *completely useless*.
Three more stunned turns, which the faq says you don't get
anyway if another special attack succeeds (cf. infra) aren't
really worth much, are they?
There's nothing wrong with three more turns of fleeing that
scaring gives you. It's just that it's much easier to get
by MagicBane's guaranteed engraving on *all* the monsters
around you, instead of just one every so often at random.
Then you get the extra damage *and* fleeing.
>If I haven't overseen anything you've
>just multiplied the value by some factor which makes the outcome look
>great, nothing more.)
The number of hits is not just "some factor". Any other factor
makes the equation invalid:
total extra damage = extra damage points X number of hits
Do you think the estimate of 1000 hits is too high?
What other, more valid, factor would you suggest?
The reason the outcome looks great is because it *is* great.
Extra damage is what everybody wants (even pacifists. Except
they want it for their pets.) This is why primary and secondary
weapons are routinely enchanted as high as safely possible.
>
>Don't forget you want to run, not engage in melee to long.
Exactly.
>Make attackers
>unable to attack you effectively, either by death, or by magical means.
And MagicBane's best magical means for that is easily engraving
Elbereth.
Even the spoiler says:
"Fortunately, your odds of magic-resistance, curse-resistance,
and engraving do not depend upon the enchantment."
>
>If, for example, you make 12 instead of 8 points damage, you'll engage,
>say 7 rounds instead of 10. Which is a good thing, of course.
Oddly enough, I agree.
🙂
> But if you
>manage to occasionally cancel a monsters special attack (which I value
>high) it's a very good bonus.
How so? I really want to know if I'm missing out on something
here.
Most monsters have nothing to cancel. Breath attacks can be
canceled, but monsters don't use them at melee range anyway.
Canceling a nymph would be useful, but taking a %10 chance of
that at melee range is foolhardy when you have a 100% chance of
engraving Elbereth.
Are there any cancelable monsters that don't respect Elbereth?
Don't get me wrong. There are times when I want to cancel a
monster. At those times (disenchanters) it needs to be a)
reliable b) immediate and c) at a distance.
Magicbane fails on all counts when it comes to cancellation.
Engraving would be guaranteed to save me from the threat,
however.
>
>I read the spoiler (that you referred to) that the less interesting magic
>effect (probing) dominates on the hight enchantments, and thus suppresses
>the better magical attacks (cancel, scare, and stun).
Is that not reflected in the probability table? I'm not
saying it is. But if it isn't, the table is misleading to
no good effect.
I've since found:
<http://www.spod-central.org/~psmith/nh/art2-343.txt>
which is for 3.4.3 instead of 3.4.1. I apologize for
using an outdated spoiler in my previous post. I don't
know if there were changes between the two versions,
but my references in this post are to the above spoiler.
The spoiler's statement that:
"However, if you want to maximize the best magical attacks
of this artifact, it should be enchanted to +2"
would have to include stunning in the "best magical attacks"
which in my ignorance I do not understand at all.
>For the suggested enchantments you'll get these values...
>
> enchantment normal/probe stun/scare/cancel
> +2 65.5% 34.5%
> +7 85.5% 14.5%
>Which is quite a significant difference!
In relative terms, yes. In absolute terms, no.
That's a difference in the *probability* of something
happening. It doesn't say anything about the worth
of the effect.
Also even 34.5% is very unreliable even if the
special attacks were worthwhile.
Also note that the probabilities given are *over* estimates.
"depending on the monster's magic resistance saving throw"
Possibly very highly over estimated for the late game and
against those monsters where the effects (especially
cancellation) would be most useful.
>
>The drawback increases especially beyond an enchantment of +2 [**]; thus
>the recommendation for that limit.
Actually, the spoiler says:
"However, if you want to maximize the best magical attacks
of this artifact, it should be enchanted to +2"
Note that maximize and best are both relative terms, not
absolute. It by no means says limiting to +2 is a good idea.
It also states:
"If you simply want to cause the most damage, then the table
indicates that you should enchant it as high as possible
(safely to +7)."
Which is at least as strong a recommendation for +7.
Your salesmanship has got me wondering what I'm missing
out on (or somehow not noticing.) I've been scrutinizing
the spoiler very carefully.
Jove
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