Bay 12 Games Forum

I would definetly use that mottled dragon armor. That's a nice randart. I suppose if 2 Int is all you need to get another level of spell down to hungerless or whatever, go for it. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother. 5 AC is quite a bit, especially if you don't have much AC to begin with.

Quote from: Mr.Person on March 09, 2011, 10:19:28 pm

Shield's stat weighting is as relevant as weapon's stat weighting. In other words, it's irrelevant.

Bullshit. Your stats increase your SH by a significant amount.

That's not what I'm referring to at all. Yes, increasing your stats will increase your EV and SH. What I mean is that in all cases, you'll get more SH out of a large shield than a buckler. It takes over 50 dex and 1 str to get more SH out of a buckler than a large shield. Not very relevant, if you ask me.

Shields don't factor into the stat gains at all. It still boils down to "spellcasters raise Int, EV fighters raise Dex, and heavy-armor users want Str".

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A large shield will always provide more SH than a smaller one and will probably provide more SH than EV spent. I say probably because small races such as kobolds might just be better off with a regular shield than a large one.

This depends on the relative usefulness of EV and SH. There are things you can evade but not block, for instance, and vice-versa.

AFAIK, the only thing in the game that is undodgable but blockable is magic dart (orb of destruction might be undodgable, but it is definetely blockable). And in any case, 99% of the time you want as much as both as possible.

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The weapon speed attack delay is only relevant if you're using a big, slow weapon. For a quick blade or something like that, your weapon skill will remove that delay in almost no time at all. For a larger weapon, your skill will still remove the delay, it'll just take a lot longer. If you don't wield a weapon, obviously this isn't important at all.

This is wrong.

Judging by in-game testing I just did, it not only also affects unarmed attacks, but is applied after the speed cap for your weapon.

Using a kobold with no shields skill as a test (but max short blades skill), the delay on a short sword goes from 5 to randomly between 5 and 8 (more often 6 and 7, it seems?). This would be the same for non-kobold players at no skill as well. With a large shield (not on a kobold, obviously), it can go up to 9, and hovers around 6-8.

With a kobold, even 5 shield skill doesn't affect the attack delay significantly with a shield, although it eliminates most of it for a buckler. Also, with that same shield skill and 10 Str and 22 Dex, the buckler provides only 1 less SH, and at the cost of 2 EV and the aforementioned penalties.

Even at 15 shields skill, the kobold's attack delay is increased by 1 about half the time, which admittedly isn't much, but just proves that it's still there. At that point, the shield does in fact give slightly significantly more SH than the buckler, but still at the cost of a couple EV and other (now more minor) penalties.

At those stats, but as a human, the shield is (of course) without the speed/damage/casting penalties, but the large shield (despite its high resulting SH) still increases attack delay to something like 6-7 a good amount of the time, which is significant enough. Keep in mind this is all with high shields skill.

With no shields skill, this human has only 1 more SH with a buckler than a shield, and with a drop of 2 EV, and with a large shield, the SH is good, the EV drops a bit more, and more importantly, his damage drops off significantly and his attack delay is increased by 20-100% (and this part even happens with a shield, not just the large shield).


The point from all of this? If you have a high-dex character, a small character, or a character who relies on fast weapons, you want enough shields skill to severely diminish the penalties, or else the added SH is hardly worth it. You can even get significant penalties using significant shields skill sometimes, so saying "use the biggest one as long as it doesn't fuck up your spells" is ridiculous, because if you don't have shields skill at a high enough level, it'll fuck up your attack rate too, and might not even provide better SH (or barely any).

Either I misread the learndb or it's wrong. Probably the former. In any case, yes, shields attack penalty is added on after skill reduction hits the cap.

I didn't mean to imply that shields will not affect unarmed fighters. I'm aware that they get double penalties for using a shield on top of the penalties that other melee fighters have to endure. What I meant to say was more like "this is irrelevant if you're not using a weapon".

Based on what I'm seeing, outside of the random delay penalty, the base attack speed penalty for using a shield is actually pretty minor. Bucklers seem to have no penalty at all. That's quite odd since the learndb states that large shields give a rather severe penalty which isn't at all matching up with what I'm seeing in wizard mode. I can't vouch for the random penalty, but I'm only seeing a +30% delay for using a large shield at 0 skilll. Hmm.

The thing about shields is that even if you're hitting a big attack penalty from using them, you gain shields skill very, very fast. I've gotten 10+ levels in shields just from doing Lair on a cowardly wizard who constantly ran away. I got 8 levels in shields once from Vaults because I found a large shield early in the second level. Before that point I had no skill whatsoever. Getting 15+ shields skill is absurdly easy, so even if that regular shield is providing major penalties when you first put it on, they go away very fast. Again, I put a provision in there about how low-level characters probably should pass on larger shields since the penalties are amplified at low levels.

I also can't really vouch for melee characters since I don't generally play them. If the random penalty winds up being nasty on large shields, that's something. But the base penalty alone isn't too bad. I guess the real thing to take away is that one should generally avoid using low-level large shields. The accuracy/casting penalties are just too much for a few extra points of EV. The thing about large shields that makes them good is that they gain a LOT of SH from your shields skill. And low level characters won't gain much shields skill because they'll die from missing so damn much.

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The spellcasting penalty from a large shield is high, but the penalties with a buckler or shield are really quite small.

I'm not sure about shields. Bucklers, yes, but shields at low skill? That can be pretty significant if your skill is bad.

Only if one also has other penalties involved or is already bad at casting spells to begin with. Shield penalties on spellcasters are really, really minor. A general rule of thumb is that bucklers provide no penalty whatsoever, regular shields will make your top spell level unusable if it's not already excellent, and large shields will do the same but for your top two levels. Everything underneath that level isn't affected at all. So unless you need that top level, use a shield.

Spellcasters in particular should generally use large shields. The casting penalty is very manageable in the late game and the increased SH from a large shield even on a low Str character is totally worth it. Think of it this way: would you rather have 5 more EV or 10 more SH?

It depends on the values, because each has diminishing returns. Going from 25 to 30 EV is worth much less than going from 15 to 20 EV.

Also, it depends on whether or not you really want to invest much into shields skill, and whether or not you have armor that also restricts spellcasting; mid-late game, if you use armor with any sort of significant EVP, you might have trouble casting high-level spells. Throwing a large shield into the mix could mess you up more.
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You can never have too much EV. Even at like 40 EV high-HD monsters still have a solid 30% chance of hitting.

Why you would want to wear armor is totally beyond me, but yes, if you have lots of casting penalties you're gonna suck at casting. And obviously if you have to pick one, you should take the shield, every time.

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That's not even mentioning that your dodging skill is still going up, increasing your EV further.

Your dodging skill would go up anyway; in fact, it would go up faster, because you aren't sinking points into shields.

That's not the way I look at it. I mean, yes, you will be putting fewer points into dodging, but you will be putting more points into survival skills. You'll also be getting extra survival out of the points you do put in. The points needed to raise dodging from 17 to 18 can raise shields from 0 to like 8 or 9 or something like that. I'm not sure exactly, but a few points in a low skill go a long way.

I will give you that if you're lucky enough to find a large shield on D:1 or whatever, it's probably a good idea to just pass it up. A regular old shield, however, should probably be worn unless you're small. For every character, a buckler is insta-wear if able.

You should always use the heaviest shield you can unless it's restricting casting of a particularly hard spell you want to cast.

If it's a bastard mod you can freely PM me the ruleset. I never join bastard mod games as a rule. I don't think I can help much, sadly, but I can't hurt, right?

I feel the game suffered from poor dialogue, complete lack of characterization, and mediocre story. The RPG mechanics were sound, although the balance was a bit off in a few areas. It's one of those games were it's good, but not nearly as good as the fans sometimes like to say. The story gets a slight redemption from being nonsensical in that the whole thing is obviously supposed to be nonsense to begin with, but either the localization was poor, I ran into a major glitch in my emulation legally purchased copy of the game, or I'm a moron, but everything in the game was just a stupid joke. I can see why it sold terribly in America and did well in Japan.

Mother 3 is a far superior game. The story's better since it's not a complete joke like Earthbound's was. The plot isn't ridiculous, either. In fact, it's almost too serious to accommodate the ridiculous shit that's happening. The characters have a reason to be there besides to help the protagonist (ok, that's Boney's entire backstory, but he's a dog). There's no weird hanging plot hole where your parents are just ok with you wandering around in a world full of monsters and shit. It's just a much better game in general.

You might as well not even talk to me anymore SirBayer, I have never been more convinced of anyone's scuminess. The only reasons you have to defend another player right now have been stated quite well by Zrk2. You're scum defending scum or scum buddying a non-scum. There are no other options. If you were a townie, you wouldn't have anything to make you so sure of Org's towniness because all he's dropped are nulltells and scumtells.

What's making me more sure is your flailing, panicky behavior about getting voted and your attempt to link me and Zrk2 without any reasoning at all as to why you're doing so. The fact you avoided answering what makes you think Org is town is just another nail. I perfectly understand thinking Org isn't scum, but you went right passed that and started defending him. Now, I dunno about anybody else, but I have no reason to defend another player unless I think that other player is a townie. So logically you think Org is a townie.

You also didn't deny that when I first stated you thought he was a townie, so I'm forced to assume you agree. Feel free to deny thinking Org is a townie, but it makes your defense of him all the more worse if you do. You're in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation. You're either defending Org because you think he's town without any real reason to think that or you're defending Org without thinking he's town. Both positions are scummy.

There's also this bit:

Also I'm not exactly sure why you're reacting when I never accused you. Jumpy, a bit? Your random vote is all fine and good. But you certainly seem to feel like you've done something wrong, or at least like I'm accusing you of such a thing. Now review that post. Did I ever say anything about you or your vote, yet again? The answer's no.

So, Mr. Person, what's your deal?

I don't even know where to begin. Yes, you never accused me of anything. No, you're the one that's jumpy. I accused you of defending Org without any reason to do so. Then you start trying to attack me for umm... defending myself? I'm not sure considering you're attacking me for something that hasn't happened. This is the first time all game you've mentioned me, so I'm just frankly confused as to what you're talking about here.

@Darvi: Don't answer for other people, especially if it's a question the other player hasn't answered in the first place. Sure, that's why you suspect Org, but it may or may not be the reasons other people suspect Org.

@Org: What do you think of SirBayer defense of you?

@Leafsnail: Scum "buddying" other scum is a classic scum move like OMGUS and lurking. Problem is, like those two, nobody does it anymore because it seems obvious. The idea is that if scum A defends scum B, all the townies might be convinced by scum A's argument that scum B is town, so they won't vote scum B. Can't believe you didn't think of that.

I don't quite agree. There have been plenty of times mid-late game when I just didn't have enough curse detection/removing scrolls on hand to handle all the artefacts and such that I found, and where my ID scrolls were valuable enough that it prevented me from just wearing the things right away. I've had times where I've had to bring artefacts back to my stash to ID/wear later, because I couldn't spare scrolls.

Also, even if remove/detect curse is common, curses still prevent you from trying on every single item you find the instant you find it. Also, mummies.

How? Every time I walk into Vaults, I've got 10 spare ?oCD and ?oRC each in my stash plus probably another 2 or 3 of each in my inventory. It only gets worse with time. I've walked out of Elf:7 with 20 ?oCD and ?oRC each. That's AFTER using as many as I needed. I've ran out ?oID before, yes, but I'm not talking about that. I'm talking solely about curses in general.

I will accept that there's other ways to make curses relevant, but mummies and Ashenzari are not even close to enough. A 3-runer taking Okie or Nemelex will meet an absurdly small number of mummies and of course doesn't care about Ashenzari. So the only curses are items generated cursed and the 3 items that will be cursed by ?oCW, ?oCA, and ?oCJ. Of those curses, the ? based curses are irrelevant. The generated cursed items are only relevant if they post a danger, which basically means =oHunger and -stat stuff if it causes stat death. That's not a whole lot of cursed stuff. Anything else you can easily either head back to your stash to remove or wait til another ?oRC generates. Or if it's still the early game, then "oInaccuracy is relevant. Everything else, it's no big deal.

Once everything burns to ashes in the hell branches and you want to clear out the tomb, it becomes a rather larger issue.....

Why the fuck are you carring scrolls into Gehenna? Or any Hell, for that matter? Or here's a better idea, do Tomb first. And in any case, it only takes a single ?oRC to get rid of all the curses, so just walk into Tomb with your best equipment on and uncurse only when you leave.