Arrows and shell penetration

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Erik Bauer
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Arrows and shell penetration

Post by Erik Bauer »

Hello, I'm fighting against scorpions down in level 9 and I noticed one thing: Both Woof and Stamm are armed with arrow slinging weapon (Bow and Speedbow respectively) but while Stamm's arrows (slayers) bounce off scorpion's shell, woof's arrows (normal) manage to penetrate it.
Now, Woof is one or two steps ahead Stamm in it's NInja path... could it be due by that?
Is there a "secret" stat that tells when a missile can penetrate monster's armour and when not?
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ChristopheF
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Re: Arrows and shell penetration

Post by ChristopheF »

The impact value of a projectile shot by a champion to a creature is determined by two values: its kinetic energy and its attack value.
The kinetic energy is the sum of a value for the weapon (bow or crossbow) and a value for the projectile (arrow or slayer). Does not depend on which champion is shooting. Crossbow is better than bow.
The attack value is based on the Ninja skill, and specifically on the hidden skill #11 (see http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/691).
In your example, the difference comes from the skill level difference between the champions, and also different values for bow/crossbow. If you get similar results when swapping weapons between the champions, then it means the skill level makes the real difference.
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Re: Arrows and shell penetration

Post by slickrcbd »

Please let us know if swapping weapons made a difference, I'm curious.

Also, doesn't strength play a roll, or is that just for the distance you can shoot? I'm thinking of that puzzle on level 6 where you often need a strength potion to get an arrow to land on the pressure plate if you use anyone other than Hulk or Stamm (sometimes Daroou, Sonja, or Hisssa can manage it if they have gained enough fighter and ninja levels).

Finally, I never really thought about it, but does that mean that the arrows do considerably more damage when they stick in the monster than when they hit it and bounce off?
Hard to believe that it's been more than 25 years since I got it back in 1990 and I'm still learning new things!
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Erik Bauer
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Re: Arrows and shell penetration

Post by Erik Bauer »

Well, thank you for the explanation Christophe, that makes a lot of sense!
Dunno if I still can make weapon swap test, because Stamm gained a Ninja level, while fighting... but since bow armed Woof managed to put normal arrows in the flesh of those monsters while speedbow armed stamm sent slayers bouncing off same monster's shell and since Bow and Arrows are less effective than Speedbow and Slayers, I'd say the difference comes from the Ninja level of the two champions.

Now the question raised by slickbd is interesting: do missiles that penetrate shell/armour deal more damage than the ones that bounce off?
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ChristopheF
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Re: Arrows and shell penetration

Post by ChristopheF »

The kinetic energy of an arrow that you 'Shoot' does not depend on the champion strength (When you pull the trigger of a crossbow, the size of your muscles makes no difference).
The kinetic energy of an arrow that you 'Throw' does depend on the champion strength.

There is no damage difference when a projectile sticks in a creature, which occurs only for a hard coded list of small weapons (Dagger, Arrow, Slayer, Poison Dart, Throwing Star) and for specific creature types.
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Erik Bauer
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Re: Arrows and shell penetration

Post by Erik Bauer »

Ok, so we can tell that the arrow sticking in creature's flesh is just a consequence of damage going over a certain defence value, while bounces off if it's below that value.
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Re: Arrows and shell penetration

Post by slickrcbd »

The kinetic energy of an arrow that you 'Shoot' does not depend on the champion strength (When you pull the trigger of a crossbow, the size of your muscles makes no difference).
The kinetic energy of an arrow that you 'Throw' does depend on the champion strength.

There is no damage difference when a projectile sticks in a creature, which occurs only for a hard coded list of small weapons (Dagger, Arrow, Slayer, Poison Dart, Throwing Star) and for specific creature types.
I just know that for that one puzzle in level 6 (apparently the wiki starts at level 0 for the Hall of Champions instead of level 1, but I have had the hint book for longer than the World Wide Web has existed, so old habits die hard. I got it because there was no such thing as Gamefaqs back in 1990 and I was stumped on the pit maze and the teleporters, This is the only game other than a couple Sierra adventures (all AGI games) I got a hint book for.
Dmweb.free.fr has a copy of it, apparently I had the second edition.
In any case, so we are all on the same page, at part W:
http://dmweb.free.fr/files/DM-Scan-Hint ... e%2023.png
Or I12
http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/139
There is an inscription to "Test Your Strength", and both the hint book and my own experimentation proves that some champions (like a party of Tiggy, Chani, Gando, and Wu Tse) cannot throw or shoot an arrow onto the pressure plate. However, if you give them enough KU Potion, they will be able to shoot the arrow far enough. I have done it using the bow. If it was dex instead of strength, you'd expect it to need ROS Potion. It needs KU potion.
Often the only time in the game I use it, so I just try to acquire and save the KU potion you find in the dungeon for just this.

Anyways, here is a link on the wiki to the book I've had since 1990.
http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/403#toc5
Sorry, I don't mean to sound like I'm bragging, I'm just saying that I use the terminology I grew up with. I first played this game at a friend's place back in late 1989, but did not get it myself until my birthday the following February.
I miss my old friend, but poor Adam was killed on LSD by a drunk driver while riding his bike to work ten years ago.
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ChristopheF
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Re: Arrows and shell penetration

Post by ChristopheF »

My comments are based on the study of the source code of the game:
(See ReDMCSB viewtopic.php?f=25&t=29805)

I checked again and I can confirm that the 'Strength' statistic is not used at all when using the 'Shoot' action of a bow/crossbow. It is only used when you 'Throw' an object.
You can throw an arrow by placing it in your hand and choosing the 'Throw' action or by clicking in the upper part of the dungeon view while holding the arrow.
Also, note that there is a random part when computing the kinetic energy of a projectile, so that performing the same action several times with the same object may produce different results.
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Re: Arrows and shell penetration

Post by Leslie »

I remember that in the original games (DM, CSB, DM2) non-magical ranged weapons always seemed pretty useless to me. Sometimes I used them on the first mummies / screamers, but later on my entire ammo did not even kill a single monster.
Are they really so useless? Or should I just have trained Ninja skills a little higher than focusing on magic attacks?
What are the bells that never ring? Enchanting smell, beautiful thing.
What are the lions that never roar? The wind blows their children far over the shore.
What are the gloves not worn by the hand? But worn by the foxes throughout the land.
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Erik Bauer
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Re: Arrows and shell penetration

Post by Erik Bauer »

Well, in fact they do not seem to deal a great amount of damage, but they do help. Now and then I manage deal a final blow on a scorpion using a missile weapon such a bow or a crossbow. On top of that Ninja levels give important stats advance to champions, so I try to train at least a couple of them.
In my current run I'm roleplaying Stamm the Dwarf to never cast a single spell, so the only way to have him effective in ranged combat is to give him a crossbow with slayers and quickly switch to Axe+Shield whenever he finishes his ammo (at that time the wiizards and Zed finish their mana supply, so it is hack and slash time).
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Re: Arrows and shell penetration

Post by slickrcbd »

Leslie wrote: Thu Aug 10, 2017 12:52 pm I remember that in the original games (DM, CSB, DM2) non-magical ranged weapons always seemed pretty useless to me. Sometimes I used them on the first mummies / screamers, but later on my entire ammo did not even kill a single monster.
Are they really so useless? Or should I just have trained Ninja skills a little higher than focusing on magic attacks?
Back when I was a tween, and DM2 did not exist yet, I came to some conclusions about ranged attacks. Some might be wrong, but my playstyle reflects them to this day. Oh, and as far as I know, CSB was never ported to the Apple IIGS, so I did not get to play it until around 9/11/01 when I found dmweb.free.fr and the port that allowed me to play it on my Windows 98SE computer (that I would not replace for several more years).

Anyways, it seemed that missile weapons and thrown were mostly ineffective against short monsters like rockpiles, magenta worms, and pain rats and useless against flying enemies like wasps and wizard eyes. I recall that you could shoot or throw at those enemies and the object would land on the floor, and I recall spending a lot of time picking up and throwing at a wizard eye (protected by a fireshield) to no avail. Wasps tended to be too dangerous to try this with, but I did try it with the wasp on level 4 until I ran out of VI portions, then I used a quick LO poison cloud to kill the thing. Then drank some VI BRO potion and had everybody refill the flasks.

However, they were really useful against mummies, trollins, and gigglers. In the "Creature Cavern" on level 3, I would dispatch everything there by throwing the clubs the trollins dropped or throwing missile weapons (and shooting rocks, you don't get the bow until the next level unless you take Linflas)
Skeletons seemed a bit odd. Conventional missile weapons like arrows, poison darts, and shuriken did not seem effective. I don't recall if rocks fired from a sling seemed effective or not. However, clubs, wooden shields, falchions, and even scrolls seemed quite effective against them. On the levels with skeletons, you get a lot of wooden shields and falchions lying around, and I found picking them up and chucking them at another group of skeletons was extremely effective, and helped build ninja levels.

I never did figure out how effective they were against scorpions, otius, or vertexes. I knew they had some effect since I once killed them that way, but never figured out how much. I never really tried with the latter other than throwing some drumsticks, a scroll, or other disposable item, they went down to a few good hits from my fighters.
Nor did I figure out if they did any damage at all to animated armor or stone golems.
For demons, I never bothered. I mostly ignored the demons since there were too many of them that were always respawning and my focus was on Lord Chaos.

As for The Red Dragon, I never even tried. I'd prime some MON fireballs, get full mana, and then prepare all my FUL bombs and items with charges like Boltblade, Fury, stormring, along with a few MON or PAL level VEN potions and a few magic boxes.
Then I'd freeze the dragon, chuck a MON level VEN potion, and start raining FUL bombs on him. When the VEN started to die down, I'd chuck another, and if the magic box wore off I'd use another. After the fUL bombs are gone, let him have it with the fireball spells, then when mana is down to 10%-25%, start with the charged items. I almost never needed a third VEN potion or third magic box as I'd be munching on dragon steaks before that.
Kinda over-prepared, but I remember being disappointed in how easy the Red Dragon was because of that strategy.
I had a friend who introduced me to DM, but it was about nine months before I could get my own copy. I needed to buy more RAM for my Apple IIGS and for a 10 year old that was expensive in those days. RAM upgrades cost more then than it does now without adjusting for inflation but adjusting for the change from kilobytes or later megabytes to gigabytes. Anyways, he was complaining about how tough and powerful the dragon on the lowest level was, so I horded all the consumable items for that fight, then let the dragon have it and my over-preparedness turned it into an anti-climax boss. Overkill? What overkill?
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