Relative weapon and shield strength

[Ivanhoe]

Who know relative weapon and shield strength? Whats stronger katana, saber? sword or axe? Does elvish clothes any meaning in the game? Or white priest clothes?

[ChristopheF]

See http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/259

[Automaton]

Well,

I've discussed a little with Paul and Sophia about the CSBwin source code and to me it seems like there is a mis-coding issue from the original devs that means that 3 weapons get double mastery damage when attacking. The Dagger, Axe and Hardcleave.

All weapons have 2*mastery level of either Swing, Throw or shoot added when you damage a monster, but the 3 mentioned gain a bonus from both swing and throw.

i.e. if you are << master in swing, throw and shoot, for all weapons you will get 2*10 damage when you hit. For the 3 mentioned, you get 2*20.

Nick K.

[jayrshaw]

Hi Nick,

I think I understand what you're saying for the three weapons you mentioned, but, more generally, are you saying that the Swing, Throw, and Shoot subskills are the *only* ones that are ever used for calculating damage based on skill mastery level? In other words, the Club and Thrust subskills are never actually used to calculate mastery damage? I guess for me it doesn't matter too much, anyway, since the vast majority of Fighter experience my characters have earned was through the War Cry technique, which is associated with the Parry subskill.

If I recall correctly, general Fighter experience is also used to determine a character's mastery when a given Fighter subskill is tested, correct? If I recall from reading previous posts, the formula takes half of your general Fighter experience and half of your experience in the specific Fighter subskill that is being tested to determine your overall mastery level for the purposes of the test, correct?

Also, any idea of the extent to which the Parry subskill is used to mitigate/avoid damage when your characters are attacked? I also read an earlier post claiming that Ninja skill mastery can help a character mitigate damage, as well - any idea of whether or not this is true?


--Jay

[Automaton]

Hi Nick,

I think I understand what you're saying for the three weapons you mentioned, but, more generally, are you saying that the Swing, Throw, and Shoot subskills are the *only* ones that are ever used for calculating damage based on skill mastery level? In other words, the Club and Thrust subskills are never actually used to calculate mastery damage? I guess for me it doesn't matter too much, anyway, since the vast majority of Fighter experience my characters have earned was through the War Cry technique, which is associated with the Parry subskill.

That is correct Jay. I find nothing so far in the code that suggests otherwise.

Also, the xp you get for getting hit by a monster always goes to parry (07).

If I recall correctly, general Fighter experience is also used to determine a character's mastery when a given Fighter subskill is tested, correct? If I recall from reading previous posts, the formula takes half of your general Fighter experience and half of your experience in the specific Fighter subskill that is being tested to determine your overall mastery level for the purposes of the test, correct?

Not sure on that one Jay - My head is far into the part of what happens when a monster damages you - the code is pretty complex.

Also, any idea of the extent to which the Parry subskill is used to mitigate/avoid damage when your characters are attacked? I also read an earlier post claiming that Ninja skill mastery can help a character mitigate damage, as well - any idea of whether or not this is true?

2* your parry skill is taken off the monsters damaging hits. I have not got to the end of the damagecharacter function, but I have seen no skills mentioned so far, except Parry. I am finding a worrying lack of mentions to the AC values in the code, an oddly, I am on a part that seems to run a damage check on a shield if you are holding one to see how much damage it will block. Still some investigating to do though.

Cheers!
Nick K.

[jayrshaw]

Right - thanks for the clarification and the information about the Parry subskill; I look forward to hearing the rest of your findings once you have finished your research!

The thing about Ninja skill improving a character's defense is something a person posted while explaining how they train using water elementals on the lower floors of the dungeon. The person claimed that after training Fighter skills and the Steal ninja skill (using the Climb Down action accessible with the rope item) for an extended period of time that the water elementals eventually started doing only single-digit damage to his characters. The person seemed pretty adamant that training using the Climb Down skill in particular helped reduce the amount of damage his characters were taking in battle. This is not something I have experimented with or verified myself, though, so I have no idea of whether or not it is true.

Oh, one more thing - do you know offhand whether or not the Parry subskill has any effect against "sharp" attacks? After fighting screamers for an extended period of time, I have surmised that it doesn't seem to have a noticeable impact against the "psychic" damage inflicted by screamers and ghosts (although having high Wisdom seems to help a noticeable amount)...


--Jay

[Automaton]

I've nearly finished my analysis,

I'll post my results as soon as I've tested a bit.

One thing I can say, is that a 115 wisdom or higher will make you invulnerable to psychic attacks (ghosts and screamers will always do 0 damage to you).

The game does a bunch of pre damage calculations then gets to the part for damage type 06 (psychic) and it tests the attacked characters wisdom against 115, if this =0 , damage is set to 0 and it returns to the main game loop.

Cheers!
Nick

[jayrshaw]

One thing I can say, is that a 115 wisdom or higher will make you invulnerable to psychic attacks (ghosts and screamers will always do 0 damage to you).

That's definitely interesting. Your findings are consistent with what I have observed with screamers; however, I was assuming that since ghosts have higher attack power that the same amount of wisdom wouldn't be as effective against them. Definitely good to know.


--Jay

[slickrcbd]

See http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/259

It would be nice if instead of having to do calculations, that chart would show overall damage, average damage, and damage over time so you could more easily read the chart and answer questions like this.

For instance, against regular monsters the Rapier with strength 38 is superior to the Vorpal blade with strength 48. The only reason to keep the vorpal blade is to fight nonmaterial beings like materializers and water elementals (a good reason).
I also never saw much difference between thrusting with the rapier and meleeing with the saber.

[jayrshaw]

One thing I can say, is that a 115 wisdom or higher will make you invulnerable to psychic attacks (ghosts and screamers will always do 0 damage to you).

Well, I just finished Floor 7 of the dungeon last night and encountered a ton of ghosts there. I can definitely confirm that the ghosts, who attacked my party numerous times, could inflict absolutely no damage on my characters when their wisdom values were buffed up above 115.

The interesting thing is, though, that the ghosts simply missed me every time they attacked, whereas the screamers I trained with on Floor 3 of the dungeon would often hit me without actually inflicting any damage (i.e., the game screen would shake as though my character was hit, but the damage indicator just wouldn't come up).


--Jay