Dungeon Master Forum

i noticed that there a bunce of use of the items that I do not use cause they seems to have no apparent effect or no efficient use.

maybe someone can tell me what are the effects of these:

'block' option (on shields)
wearing a shield in left hand
'parry' option from some staff and weapons
difference between calm/war cry/blow horn/brandish/confuse
'stun' option from maces

thxs a lot

The only time I would use block is in DM2 when an Axe Man throws an axe. Just before the axe gets to you, you can block and it will do no damage (or you could just move to the side). I would guess that having a shield on the left hand would make that hand less likely to become wounded (indicated by a bandage over the hand) but I don't know for sure. Parry is extremely useless in battle, it doesn't do much more damage then a swing would do and takes a long time before you can attack again (I don't like clubs much either because their bash attack acts the same way). The difference between all the defensive attacks you have listed is probably the durration of the effect on certain monsters and possibly what levels they help you gain. Most weapons have the weakest attacks listed as the top of the three or less choices for a weapon. That isn't the case with a mace. Stun is at the bottom and is probably the most useless attack ever. Stun, like parry, is the type of attack you use if you want a challenge.

okay thxs.
in fact it s what i thought, but as there s a lot of unseen effects in this great game i was wondering if stun could freeze or confuse as special effect.
I ve read in the hint book on this same site that there is a defensive value for attacks, but how does this work?
for example if a member of the party parries, will it be efficient if the monster attacks another member of the party?

anyway i still prefer a flask or vi potion in the left hand and stepping aside to evade the attacks to shielding.

i guess using parry, and stun attacks can be useful to gain level when there s only a few monster around...
or is a berzerk attack giving more exp than a stun attack?

I imagine that if parry has a defensive value, it only works to protect against physical attacks so I don't think it is good vs. a ghost, or screamer, or spell. Long ago I used to think that stun might confuse a monster or make it longer before they would attack again, but it didn't seem to do any of that for me. I only tried it on mummies, skeletons, and rats and I didn't try it much so maybe stun actually does something more than take away single diget HPs. I would think that Berzerk would give more exp, it is certainly the best attack, but I've always gained levels faster using jab. If you have a vorpal blade to do this then it doesn't matter what monster you run into, you can still jab it to death. I have noticed quite often that if I attack at the same time as a monster, I usually receive no damage. This may be how the defense works for a weapon.

All these effects will have subtle number crunching effects...not absolute
Montsers will have less of a chance to hit you, armour will be increased by a small amount, and so forth...nothing measureable, and nothing that anyone has found useful enough to recommend!

I'm not sure about the different fear effetcs,once again it's possibly monster dependant, or affects different attributes on monsters