What to do with mushrooms ?

"konijn_" <konijn.RemoveThis@gmail.com> writes:

> when was the last time ( not playing Sangband ) you ate a mushroom?

The last time Pink Floyd was on tour.

sherm--

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 >> Stay informed about: What to do with mushrooms ? 

On 2006-08-16 21:00:41, "konijn_" <konijn.DeleteThis@gmail.com> wrote:

> Sooo,
>
> when was the last time ( not playing Sangband ) you ate a mushroom ? Or
> found a useful one ?

I've eaten mushrooms of confusion and blindness recently for figuring out if ego
and artifact armor has those attacks covered before *id* becomes available. I
usually keep some restoration mushrooms at home and take them with me if I
don't have critical stats sustained against late game baddies. Hallucination
Mushrooms are fun to eat and show off the crazy glitches to friends who have
never seen angband before, and I guess you could also use those to test resist
chaos and other mushrooms for testing sustains. I think a multi-spotted
mushroom of permanent hallucination would be cool. :/
 >> Stay informed about: What to do with mushrooms ? 

On 2006-08-16 21:55:18, "pete mack" <pmac360.DeleteThis@hotmail.com> wrote:

> konijn_ wrote:
> > Sooo,
> >
> > when was the last time ( not playing Sangband ) you ate a mushroom ? Or
> > found a useful one ?
> > Does
> > anybody have fresh ideas on how to make mushrooms a nice part of the
> > game ?
> >
>
> Play UnAngband.

I'll elabourate a bit on Pete's comments here.

In Unangband, mushrooms are useful in a number of ways.

I've made each mushroom patch drop a small number of the corresponding 'bad'
mushroom. So pink mushroom patches drop mushrooms of weakness etc. Shrieker and
magic mushroom patches drop a useful mushroom however (at least some of the
time).

Mushrooms drop spores can be thrown by the player to automatically hit for a
radius 1 ball attack with the equivalent damage to the mushroom attack.
Although in Unangband, spores are a separate drop, there is no reason you
shouldn't make the equivalent 'bad' mushroom have this attack instead.

Mushrooms can also be used to coat weapons and ammunition to do damage. A
mushroom of confusion can coat up to 5 arrows or 1 weapon for a limited number
of charges. This will confuse any monster hit by the weapon or arrow.

All monsters have 3 levels of stat for strength, intelligence, wisdom, dexterity
and constitution: a 'good' level, and 'average' level and a 'bad' level. Stat
draining effects, such as from mushrooms, drop the monster 1 level. This has a
moderate game play effect (on melee damage, monster spell failure chance,
monster saving throws, armour class and monster hitpoints respectively).
Uniques always start at the 'good' level, to encourage the use of stat draining
effects against them.

Mushrooms also get dropped in stacks at higher levels to encourage their use.

So UnAngband encourages mushroom use in a number of ways:
1. More stacks of mushrooms that occur in a more predictable fashion.
2. Good ranged attack for classes with poor throwing skills.
3. Useful melee, archery or thrown weapon enhancements.

Andrew
 >> Stay informed about: What to do with mushrooms ? 

Andrew Doull wrote:
> On 2006-08-16 21:55:18, "pete mack" <pmac360.RemoveThis@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > konijn_ wrote:
> > > Sooo,
> > >
> > > when was the last time ( not playing Sangband ) you ate a mushroom ? Or
> > > found a useful one ?
> > > Does
> > > anybody have fresh ideas on how to make mushrooms a nice part of the
> > > game ?
> > >
> >
> > Play UnAngband.
>
> I'll elabourate a bit on Pete's comments here.
>
> In Unangband, mushrooms are useful in a number of ways.
>
> I've made each mushroom patch drop a small number of the corresponding 'bad'
> mushroom. So pink mushroom patches drop mushrooms of weakness etc. Shrieker and
> magic mushroom patches drop a useful mushroom however (at least some of the
> time).
>
> Mushrooms drop spores can be thrown by the player to automatically hit for a
> radius 1 ball attack with the equivalent damage to the mushroom attack.
> Although in Unangband, spores are a separate drop, there is no reason you
> shouldn't make the equivalent 'bad' mushroom have this attack instead.
>
> Mushrooms can also be used to coat weapons and ammunition to do damage. A
> mushroom of confusion can coat up to 5 arrows or 1 weapon for a limited number
> of charges. This will confuse any monster hit by the weapon or arrow.
>
> All monsters have 3 levels of stat for strength, intelligence, wisdom, dexterity
> and constitution: a 'good' level, and 'average' level and a 'bad' level. Stat
> draining effects, such as from mushrooms, drop the monster 1 level. This has a
> moderate game play effect (on melee damage, monster spell failure chance,
> monster saving throws, armour class and monster hitpoints respectively).
> Uniques always start at the 'good' level, to encourage the use of stat draining
> effects against them.
>
> Mushrooms also get dropped in stacks at higher levels to encourage their use.
>
> So UnAngband encourages mushroom use in a number of ways:
> 1. More stacks of mushrooms that occur in a more predictable fashion.
> 2. Good ranged attack for classes with poor throwing skills.
> 3. Useful melee, archery or thrown weapon enhancements.

Thanks !
T.

>
> Andrew
 >> Stay informed about: What to do with mushrooms ? 

konijn_ wrote:
> [ thanks ]
> Andrew wrote:
> > All monsters have 3 levels of stat for strength, intelligence, wisdom, dexterity
> > and constitution: a 'good' level, and 'average' level and a 'bad' level. Stat
> > draining effects, such as from mushrooms, drop the monster 1 level. This has a
> > moderate game play effect (on melee damage, monster spell failure chance,
> > monster saving throws, armour class and monster hitpoints respectively).
> > Uniques always start at the 'good' level, to encourage the use of stat draining
> > effects against them.


Some of the mushroom side-effects are supremely powerful. There are
several quest monsters that are basically unkillable at level unless
you either get preposterously lucky with equipment finds, or use
appropriate mushrooms. (Tough uniques, 5-25 levels OOD.)

> > So UnAngband encourages mushroom use in a number of ways:
[snip]

It's not just that they are more useful in UnAngband, it's that the
game is almost unwinnable without them. Because of the extremely
hard-to-kill (out-of-depth) quest monsters, you need some way to fight
above your weight, more than just !heroism and !speed. In many cases,
mushrooms are pretty much the only choice.
 >> Stay informed about: What to do with mushrooms ? 

"Sherm Pendley" <sherm.TakeThisOut@Sherm-Pendleys-Computer.local> wrote in message
news:m2r6zg1p02.fsf@Sherm-Pendleys-Computer.local

> "konijn_" <konijn.TakeThisOut@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > when was the last time ( not playing Sangband ) you ate a mushroom?
>
> The last time Pink Floyd was on tour.

Accually I heard that some members of Pink Floyd went on tour in the
past few months. My brother went to see them.


--
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 >> Stay informed about: What to do with mushrooms ? 

"David Justiss" <dajustis.RemoveThis@hotmail.com> writes:

> "Sherm Pendley" <sherm.RemoveThis@Sherm-Pendleys-Computer.local> wrote in message
> news:m2r6zg1p02.fsf@Sherm-Pendleys-Computer.local
>
>> "konijn_" <konijn.RemoveThis@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>> > when was the last time ( not playing Sangband ) you ate a mushroom?
>>
>> The last time Pink Floyd was on tour.
>
> Accually I heard that some members of Pink Floyd went on tour in the
> past few months. My brother went to see them.

David Gilmour was definitely touring recently, to promote his latest solo
release. He had a gig on the Tonight Show just a couple of months back.

They played a few songs with Roger Waters for the Live 8 festival earlier
this year. Naturally, that sparked all kinds of reunion rumors, but they
have been adamant about saying they aren't planning a reunion tour.

Give 'em time. At least they're talking to one another again, and they're
not saying "it'll never happen" like they used to.

Occasionally glancing up through the rain,
and watching,
for Pigs on the Wing

sherm--

--
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 >> Stay informed about: What to do with mushrooms ? 

In Van as a fighter I eat them all the time. I carry little or no food and live
on what I find.
A friend lost all recall and had to climb from 30 to top eating and quaffing
what was availlable.
 >> Stay informed about: What to do with mushrooms ? 

On 2006-08-19 01:52:38, "pete mack" <pmac360.DeleteThis@hotmail.com> wrote:
> It's not just that they are more useful in UnAngband, it's that the
> game is almost unwinnable without them. Because of the extremely
> hard-to-kill (out-of-depth) quest monsters, you need some way to fight
> above your weight, more than just !heroism and !speed. In many cases,
> mushrooms are pretty much the only choice.

I think its a bit unfair saying the game is unwinnable at the moment (Just had a
winner dump on angband.oook.cz).

Firstly, you can always opt out of campaign mode and play a regular Angband
dungeon crawl. There's still accessible quest locations from Angband, using
maps, so you don't completely miss out on the option of various different
dungeon types - they are, however, strictly optional.

If you are playing campaign mode, you can avoid most of the tough uniques in
question by not choosing to go in the direction I've tried to sign-post "Don't
go in this direction. Its hard!".

Then, the first really tough unique on the easier path, you can flee from at any
point by travelling away from the location for free. You can also pre-buff
yourself as much as possible as well, just to help.

At which point, you probably have enough kit to avoid having to rely on
mushrooms to win...

However, the idea of 'punching above your weight' is what I'm trying to get to
with Unangband. There are lots of tactical options (not just mushrooms) in the
game that are not in Angband, that I want players to try to use. I don't want
to do this to make the game unwinnable though.

Andrew
 >> Stay informed about: What to do with mushrooms ? 

Andrew Doull wrote:
> On 2006-08-19 01:52:38, "pete mack" <pmac360.DeleteThis@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > It's not just that they are more useful in UnAngband, it's that the
> > game is almost unwinnable without them. Because of the extremely
> > hard-to-kill quest monsters, you need some way to fight
> > above your weight, more than just !heroism and !speed. In many cases,
> > mushrooms are pretty much the only choice.
>
> I think its a bit unfair saying the game is unwinnable at the moment (Just had a
> winner dump on angband.oook.cz).

(I think you need to update that dump...) And: did you use some trick
to kill the Wood Elf King?

Unwinnable is a bit of an overstatement, and I certainly didn't mean it
as a criticism. I meant that without mushrooms or some other power
boost, it's exceedingly (Morgoth-level) hard to beat some of the early
quest monsters at level. (I wouldn't take on the Dunlender at level if
he weren't vulnerable, never mind the various undead.)

> You can always opt out of campaign mode and play a regular Angband
> dungeon crawl. There's still accessible quest locations from Angband, using
> maps, so you don't completely miss out on the option of various different
> dungeon types - they are, however, strictly optional.

Understood, and I prefer the dungeon crawl after reaching Rivendell,
since seeing only a limited set of monsters tends to get boring.

> If you are playing campaign mode, you can avoid most of the tough uniques in
> question by not choosing to go in the direction I've tried to sign-post "Don't
> go in this direction. Its hard!".
>
> Then, the first really tough unique on the easier path, you can flee from at any
> point by travelling away from the location for free.

I found the first really tough unique on the alternate route to be the
Wood Elf King, from whom you cannot instantly flee--and I lost at least
one character to that bastard. Like the Black Riders, Beorn is
vulnerable to distance attacks and patience. The nominally harder
route seems easier to me. The Emperor Wight (with mushrooms!) is
probably an easier kill than the Wood Elf King, and the other undead
have a vulnerability (exploit?) that makes them a lot less dangerous.

> At which point, you probably have enough kit to avoid having to rely on
> mushrooms to win...
>
> However, the idea of 'punching above your weight' is what I'm trying to get to
> with Unangband. There are lots of tactical options (not just mushrooms) in the
> game that are not in Angband, that I want players to try to use. I don't want
> to do this to make the game unwinnable though.

I agree with you--it's why diving is fun.
 >> Stay informed about: What to do with mushrooms ? 

On 2006-08-19 18:54:48, "pete mack" <pmac360.RemoveThis@hotmail.com> wrote:

> Andrew Doull wrote:
> > On 2006-08-19 01:52:38, "pete mack" wrote:
> > > It's not just that they are more useful in UnAngband, it's that the
> > > game is almost unwinnable without them. Because of the extremely
> > > hard-to-kill quest monsters, you need some way to fight
> > > above your weight, more than just !heroism and !speed. In many cases,
> > > mushrooms are pretty much the only choice.
> >
> > I think its a bit unfair saying the game is unwinnable at the moment (Just had a
> > winner dump on angband.oook.cz).
>
> (I think you need to update that dump...) And: did you use some trick
> to kill the Wood Elf King?

Ah. Just to clarify. I was talking winning dumps in general. Not me who did it


http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=6018

I've been playing Angband since 1992 and still no winner. But I spend almost all
of my time on Angband coding instead of playing so...

> > You can always opt out of campaign mode and play a regular Angband
> > dungeon crawl. There's still accessible quest locations from Angband, using
> > maps, so you don't completely miss out on the option of various different
> > dungeon types - they are, however, strictly optional.
>
> Understood, and I prefer the dungeon crawl after reaching Rivendell,
> since seeing only a limited set of monsters tends to get boring.

You should be able to get an almost vanilla dungeon run by going to Bree and
completing the Barrow-downs. You then will have only 1 extended dungeon session
with limited monsters before Rivendell (and a couple of unique fights).

> I found the first really tough unique on the alternate route to be the
> Wood Elf King, from whom you cannot instantly flee--and I lost at least
> one character to that bastard. Like the Black Riders, Beorn is
> vulnerable to distance attacks and patience. The nominally harder
> route seems easier to me. The Emperor Wight (with mushrooms!) is
> probably an easier kill than the Wood Elf King, and the other undead
> have a vulnerability (exploit?) that makes them a lot less dangerous.

I have no problems with making the King of Wood Elves easier. He's only
'borrowed' stats from another unique as a temporary measure till I came up with
a solid design.

As always, all feedback is much appreciated.

Andrew
 >> Stay informed about: What to do with mushrooms ? 

Andrew Doull wrote:
> On 2006-08-19 18:54:48, "pete mack" <pmac360.RemoveThis@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> You should be able to get an almost vanilla dungeon run by going to Bree and
> completing the Barrow-downs. You then will have only 1 extended dungeon session
> with limited monsters before Rivendell (and a couple of unique fights).

You can't really call the dungeons after Rivendell normal dungeons. I
remeber towers, more towers, a dungeon with only demons, a dungeon with
only ghosts/undead, yet another tower, among other things. Of course
you can take the map route to Angband more or less instantly once you
reach Rivendell, but then you could have disabled the campaign to start
with.

So, Un and Vanilla is actually quite different in terms of dungeons,
but that is defenitly a good thing. The advanced vanilla tactic of fast
diving isn't useable in its full glory because of the guardians, but
that only means the player needs to work out new tactics. I'm really
intrested to see who'll be the one to win in <1 million first. Or in
<.75 million.

>
> > I found the first really tough unique on the alternate route to be the
> > Wood Elf King, from whom you cannot instantly flee--and I lost at least
> > one character to that bastard. Like the Black Riders, Beorn is
> > vulnerable to distance attacks and patience. The nominally harder
> > route seems easier to me. The Emperor Wight (with mushrooms!) is
> > probably an easier kill than the Wood Elf King, and the other undead
> > have a vulnerability (exploit?) that makes them a lot less dangerous.
>
> I have no problems with making the King of Wood Elves easier. He's only
> 'borrowed' stats from another unique as a temporary measure till I came up with
> a solid design.
>

I had three encounters to the death with the king. Currently it is 3:0
for me. All three were high hp characters (~320). Speed was +4/+8/+1
unhasted in that order. All had at least temporary res fire to wear
down the fire bolts. All were buffed with everything available, that
includes scroll of shielding for a nice extra 50 AC. All had to use at
least 1 potion of healing. None use a trick of any kind and no
mushrooms were used. I can't see a 100hp mage kill the king in his
current shape but I can see a 200 hp mage doing it if he at least waits
for res base and +5 in base speed. And he has to be willing to use some
potions. With the current beta, stat increases are non random, this
allows impressive early game stats, what means high hp mages faster. My
current ranger had 5 blows at level 13!

As I said, normal tactics have to be changed. In vanilla I rarely use a
healing potion before the final two, in Un I used them quite a bit. As
pete said, some of the guardians offer a Morgoth-Like fight. That's NOT
a bad thing. A game with 1 hard fight vs. a game with 10 of those
fights? Sounds good to me. In addition, those guardians are the same
all the time. And just as the fight against M gets easier with every
win, those battles will become easier every time. I died against the
agent with my first character, now I take him down with ease.
 >> Stay informed about: What to do with mushrooms ? 

Andrew Doull wrote:

> Note: 1000 power equals no benefit

> Brand Dark 2698

wow... is brand dark *3 too?
 >> Stay informed about: What to do with mushrooms ?