Hidden Skills

[Quartermass]

I've been reading up on these hidden skils and I want to check my understanding.

If I do something that affects wizard/fire then I go up in both the hidden fire skill but also in basic wizard skill which will gain me levels. Later on when I try to do something like a fireball it will go for half of my wizard plus half of my hidden fire to determine competence.

But if I had levelled up by going poison clouds instead, which do not use fire then eventually my fireballs when I use them for the first time would be 1/2 as effective as if I had only ever used fire magic.

Have I understood this correctly?

[jayrshaw]

Hi Quartermass,

Based on my recollection of the game's mechanics, the experience that factors into fireballs is your basic Wizard skill plus the hidden Fire skill, like you indicated. However, having twice as much experience going into your fireballs won't have as huge an impact as you may be thinking [it won't make them anywhere near twice as powerful as they would be otherwise].


--Jay

[slickrcbd]

I didn't even notice that they got more powerful, but the game is really bad about giving feedback on numbers. The only thing that actually gave you numbers were weapon attacks (including punches and kicks), everything else was more or less hidden from the player.
I only found out when I discovered The DM Encyclopedia which had info on game mechanics when I went to look up what the Hellion did.
http://dmweb.free.fr/
That said, the hidden skill makes a difference when trying to cast more powerful spells. If you only use Fireball and never use OH VEN, OH KATH RA, or DES VEN, then when you do want to use those spells you might not be able to use the MON level version without some practice.
That said, I rarely use OH VEN except on wasps, and to a lessor extent trapped screamers (or a full screamer room, which amounts to the same thing). When I do use it on something else, I generally only use a LO level one since I'm usually just trying to get the monster to move. (Very handy in the Oitus room along with fear weapons. IN fact that is often the only time I use fear weapons in the game unless I'm out of mana and encounter a couatl, in which case the staff of claws comes in handy to make them retreat while I run away to sleep).
DES VEN on the other hand I use on couatls, rusters, and gigglers all the time, and on trollins when encountering only one. Two or more trollins might merit a fireball however since DES VEN is single-target and FUL IR is multi-target. If one survives I'll try swinging a weapon or throwing/shooting something and THEN maybe finishing it off with DES VEN. Same deal for Vexirks as trollins.

So I don't usually have that issue as I tend to alternate with fire and poison bolts. What I rarely use is lightning because I haven't seen it be more effective than fire or poison bolts. According to the hint manual it is supposed to work on golems and animated armor when no other offensive spells do, but I find it's better to use YA IR or YA BRO and fight them instead.

[Ameena]

I think Lightning Bolt is supposed to have a physical component to the damage as well as a fiery one, which might be why it's supposed to work better on those guys. I just use doors and melée weapons when I have to fight them though, so can't say how well any particular spell might work. Also I basically only ever use Fireball anyway, or Harm Non-Material Being if I need that instead.

[slickrcbd]

I've posted elsewhere that poison is particularly effective on trollins and gigglers, and wasps are weak to poison clouds. You can kill any wasp with an ON level poison cloud. Most wasps on level 6 can be killed with LO level clouds.

[Ameena]

And a Lo-Fireball also one-shots them, I certainly remember that from back in the day. Works the same on Munchers in CSB.

[ChristopheF]

Have I understood this correctly?

Yes you are right.

You can get confirmation in the ReDMCSB source code, file CHAMPION.C, function F0303_CHAMPION_GetSkillLevel
When it computes the skill level for a basic skill (0 to 3), it uses the experience amount in that skill.
When it computes the skill level for a hidden skill (4 to 19), it uses the average of the two experience amounts in the hidden skill and in its associated basic skill.
Casting Poison Clouds will get you experience in 3-Wizard and 19-Water skills.
Casting Fireballs will get you experience in 3-Wizard and 16-Fire skills. The power of you fireballs will benefit from your 3-Wizard skill experience acquired by casting Poison Clouds, which is added to your experience in the 16-Fire skill.

[Quartermass]

Thanks for the replies.

This confirms something to me -

If I'm going to train my companions then I need to consider not just which actions raise my level fastest - in order to improve stats and hps and mana etc, but I also need to consider what actions they will eventually be doing because I could end up with a character that is less effective in my intended role because they were trained in a different one.

[jayrshaw]

I remember that I primarily used Magic Torch to train my characters' Wizard skill during my last playthrough even though it yielded slightly less experience than another alternative [Poison Cloud, I believe] because I preferred for my characters to learn the hidden Fire spell instead of the hidden Water skill...


--Jay

[Quartermass]

Yes, this is new to me after over 35 years.

I've determined that it's best for fighters to select a weapon hidden skill and only use that - which makes sense, it means they will be specialised in that kind of attack.

And for priests I need to decide if shield spells or potions are most important.

For wizards it's between fireballs and lightning bolts, fireballs have always seemed better but I've heard lightning bolts do better later on, and maybe if I had all my skill in lightning bolts they'd be a better overall substitute.

For ninjas it comes down to either throwing objects or shooting bows/slings/crossbows, one or the other.

Of course each character could have a speciality. I could have some priest on spells only and some on potions only.

What's left is to determine which weapon and action is best. And I'm already speaking to you in another thread Jay!

[slickrcbd]

Dungeon Master is one game that actually encourages making jack-of-all-trades type of characters. Lower levels advance more rapidly, and you get minor benefits to being a wizard or priest from advancing fighter or ninja levels. Mostly in the form or more mana to play with, and better stats for resisting damage from enemies.
So you don't want to specialize in advancing one class, but you should be advancing all the classes for all the champions. You'll wind up stronger with all 4 classes at LO Master than for one class at PAL Master and the rest as novices or apprentices (though I've only seen that with Stamn or Halk where they don't advance spellcasting because they start with 0 mana and don't bother with ninja levels).

That said, you can sort of specialize by having one primarily cast poison, one primarily cast lightning, one fireball, and the last cast all the follow-up spells or "other" spells.
However even that is suboptimal because often you'll want to hit that group of mummies or that scorpion with multiple fireballs once you start casting MON level fireballs.
What I wind up doing is have whoever has their mana bar closest to full do the casting when I need a spell.
Obviously early on this is problematic if some champions can't reliably cast at the level I need, but in general it works well for keeping everyone's spells up.
If somebody's mana bar reaches full I cast something to practice with, either filling a flask with a mana potion or casting a rarely used lighting bolt, and if my party can't use MON level spells yet I'll cast it two levels higher than what I can reliably cast at the moment (or MON level obviously). If I get "Joe Schmoe needs more practice with this Priest/Wizard spell, then it's no big deal, I'll just try again (especially for the potion).

The idea is not to waste too much time training, but to never let my mana bars stay full so I don't miss any regen that could be used to practice with.

My real training happens in the Screamer Room or the Rat Room because you advance faster in combat.
I'll even fight the rats barehanded to work on ninja levels (while casting YA IR or drinking YA BRO to protect against their bite), although as a kid I didn't know about the hidden skills so just used daggers to work on ninja levels.

[Quartermass]

Oh it's absolutely sensible to have all characters advance in all 4 major skills.

However within each major skill they should NOT be a jack of all trades.

Previously, and I've played on and off for 35 years, I do some basic training on level 1 and then do a few hours in the screamer room and a lot more in the rat room.

But I've been doing the wrong thing - I've not been practicing the hidden skills the characters have been using.