Dungeon Master Forum

Was learning a tad bit about hidden skills.. it looks as though one can specialize their fighter in say, swinging, or bashing, and that would, I assume, have an effect on damage output? (Not sure how much of an effect though..)
Does this matter for SPELLS, too? For RP purposes I was wanting to specialize casters in the back line by element - specifically, I was contemplating having Gothmog (reincarnated as per my usual) shoot poison spells that ripped the holy snot out of things.. i'm not sure what hidden skill, if any, Poison Bolt and Poison Gas are on, or whether it would make much system difference. Does anyone know anything about that?

Yeah. Posion Bolt and Poison Cloud are both on the Wizard Water hidden skill.

At lower levels, I know it makes a difference how often you fail the cast. Poison Bolt is a level 1 spell. With 100% of your Wizard experience in the Water skill, you would have to be Neophyte Wizard for the Lo Des Ven to succeed all the time. With 0% of your experience in the Water skill, you'd have to be a Novice Wizard for that reliability. By the time you're an Adept Wizard, you can cast a Mon Des Ven and always have it succeed, regardless of which hidden skills your experience is in.

For Lo Poison Cloud, you'd have to be Apprentice if all your skill were in Water, and Journeyman if none. You only have to be a Lo Master Wizard to be able to cast Mon Oh Ven and always have it succeed regardless of hidden skill.

Other than choosing the power level of the spell, I don't know if your experience has an effect on the damage output. I wish it did, but I have my doubts. Mainly because even with my major master wizards, when they cast a light spell, it doesn't light things up any more or last any longer than when they were casting it as newbies. And with my major master priests, their potions don't heal any more than they did when they could just barely manage to make them.

While hidden skills might not make a difference, caster level should. The light spell should last longer, missle spells like fireballs and lighting bolts will be larger (thus doing more damage at close range and lasting longer in flight), and healing potions should heal more.

Seriously, compare the size of a MON fireball thrown by an expert to an archmaster's fireball. And potions actually have a strength range of 1 - 255. So higher level priest can create a 255 strength VI potion, for example, whereas a MON potion of a lesser caster light be around the 220 range.

I haven't tested this with in-game numbers, I only know the background potion mechanic available and the spell casting evidence of my own eyes leveing up champions. If you have actual durations and healing totals that don't back this up, please share!

beowuuf wrote:lasting longer in flight

What does that mean? That a fireball would fly on a larger distance? I thought that all fireballs fly as far as they can - to the nearest obstacle. Or not? And if not, what are the maximum distances for each level?

beowuuf wrote:light spell should last longer

And create more light? (i.e. increasing the light by more levels?) Or not? Are there anywhere listed effects of light spells on various levels?

Fireballs do have limited range, yeah - you may notice that they get smaller the further they fly (nothing to do with perspective), until in the end the disappear completely (if they haven't hit something by then). Of course, if it's a larger Fireball you'll have to follow it further to be able to keep up with it and see it getting smaller. I suppose it just "sheds" levels as it flies, so you might cast it as a Mon Fireball but if it goes for a while before it hits something, it might have degraded to an Ee-level, or something.

Oh, thanks - you do learn something new every day! And DM would never stop suprising me.

I think I recall firing a fireball somewhere that had a teleporter and just watching it decay. The highest power fireball lasted like 120 squares before disappearing!

And yes, it basically seems to shed power. I would have to guess that each half step sheds a power, and the power being between 1 - 255, but that is pure conjecture!

I'm not sure about the light levels each spell brings - certainly you can jump to full illumination when you start casting powerful versions of the spells, aswell as the length of the light.

Hm, interesting. Do you remember the "Run and run" corridors in the Sucinum's Imprisoned again (the teleporters turning the fireballs behind you as you run)? I didn't count it precisely, but it's something between 150 and 200 squares and the fireball's strength is 240 at the beginning. Unfortunately, I don't have any save around to go there and watch it - but I don't remember the fireballs dying somewhere in the corridors - actually I'm pretty sure they followed you until the end of the Run and run section. Hm, maybe I should count the length of the corridors precisely...

EDIT: The corridor is 220 squares long.

Hm, and I looked into the original DM - and the fireballs shot from the holes in the ghost Arena level (that are then turned by the teleporters and are flying all around) - their starting energy is 25 only. They must be dying out much slower than you estimated, Beo. Or do I understand it wrong?

Maybe the decay is less than that, the test was many years ago! The easiest way to check is to create as I described a teleporter that puts the spell one square back. Do it in the middle of a room and you can safely walk around it and look to the side.

An easier way to show this is to go up against the demons or beholders in original DM - you can actually back away such that the spells just disappear infront of you.

Hmm, maybe shooters do not decay exactly for the purposes of the arena....

Erm, this is probably another extremely silly question of mine, but how do I determine strength of a fireball shot by a monster? I can't find any function for this in CSBuild.

And sorry for bringing this OT. I'm just curious. I hope you won't ban me for this... or Trantor.

It will be hard coded in the engine or graphics.dat

The 'easiest' way would be to let a monster hit you, see the damage range, then fire into a teleporter and see what strength equals that damage!

beowuuf wrote:Hmm, maybe shooters do not decay exactly for the purposes of the arena....

Quite sure of that.

So - if I just cast Water spells with my poisonmancer, they will be able to cast them one level sooner but the damage won't improve beyond that - that is, one level after hitting Mon spells, the des ven will be indistinguishable from that cast by a wizard who levelled up on fire spells?

Actually, the damage incrases with level, so he might cast a slightly better spell. Maybe. We need this spaded!