Spells, books and learning (possibly spoily)

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It was the worst of times...

What factors affect how well one learns a spell after reading a book?
Clearly class, learning, the spell involved and literacy affect it, plus
there are a couple of relevant signs and talents that can increase that
number significantly and there's a random component but what else?
 

MadDog

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frobnoid wrote:
> I
> t
>
> w
> a
> s
>
> t
> h
> e
>
> b
> e
> s
> t
>
> o
> f
>
> t
> i
> m
> e
> s
>
> It was the worst of times...
>
> What factors affect how well one learns a spell after reading a book?
> Clearly class, learning, the spell involved and literacy affect it,
plus
> there are a couple of relevant signs and talents that can increase
that
> number significantly and there's a random component but what else?

"How well" is too loose a term. As I see it there are three levels.

First you need to actually succeed in reading. It seems to be a simple
skill check versus Literacy. Failure is indicated by "You do not manage
to decipher .."

Then there is the actual outcome of reading. Either you get (more)
castings, you gain nothing or you suffer some adverse effect. This
seems to be highly class related and also dependant on the B/U/C
status of the book and the relative difficulty of the spell. The
Concentration skill also seems to have a fair amount of importance.

Finally a variable amount of castings are added if successful. This
seems to be a complicated matter. A book seems to have an internal
base value of castings to add. I admit this is a bit speculative,
but two spellbooks with identical spells will often have different
prices.
The amount of castings also seems to be highly dependant on
learning. Possibly also the B/U/C status of the book and
Concentration. It is not my impression that class matters a lot (if
at all) in this respect.

Totally empirical I admit. Perhaps a diver could illuminate the
matter (and spoil us rotten).
 
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maddog@dsr.kvl.dk wrote:
> frobnoid wrote:
>
>>I
>>t
>>
>>w
>>a
>>s
>>
>>t
>>h
>>e
>>
>>b
>>e
>>s
>>t
>>
>>o
>>f
>>
>>t
>>i
>>m
>>e
>>s
>>
>>It was the blurst of times...
>>
>> What factors affect how well one learns a spell after reading a
>> book? Clearly class, learning, the spell involved and literacy
>> affect it, plus there are a couple of relevant signs and talents
>> that can increase that number significantly and there's a random
>> component but what else?
>
>
> "How well" is too loose a term. As I see it there are three levels.
>
> First you need to actually succeed in reading. It seems to be a simple
> skill check versus Literacy. Failure is indicated by "You do not manage
> to decipher .."
>
> Then there is the actual outcome of reading. Either you get (more)
> castings, you gain nothing or you suffer some adverse effect. This
> seems to be highly class related and also dependant on the B/U/C
> status of the book and the relative difficulty of the spell. The
> Concentration skill also seems to have a fair amount of importance.
>
> Finally a variable amount of castings are added if successful. This
> seems to be a complicated matter. A book seems to have an internal
> base value of castings to add. I admit this is a bit speculative,
> but two spellbooks with identical spells will often have different
> prices.
> The amount of castings also seems to be highly dependant on
> learning. Possibly also the B/U/C status of the book and
> Concentration. It is not my impression that class matters a lot (if
> at all) in this respect.
>
> Totally empirical I admit. Perhaps a diver could illuminate the
> matter (and spoil us rotten).

Well, here's a basic overview of what is factored in (in order of
application) to what determines if you successfully read the book:

We start off with a difficulty based on the specific spellbook
(Darkness and Light are rather low, Wish is really high)
The 'shelves and books' room effect helps.
Learning is counted in next.
Druids, Priests, Wizards, and Necromancers get a bonus.
You get a minus if drunk.
Cursed gets a minus, blessed gets a bonus.
Then Druids, Priests, Wizards, Necromancers, and Elementalists get
another bonus (Elementalists for the first time) based on the PC's
level. Then most classes get a smaller bonus based on thier level.
Mindcrafters and Trolls, however, don't get this bonus at all.
Next, Literacy and Concetration are factored in.
Necromancers and druids both get a bonus for thier guaranteed starting
books, frost bolt and lightning bolt, respectively.
After that you get a bonus if you're born in the month of the book.

All of this combines together for some kind of base value. It's pretty
complicated so I'm just giving an overview for now instead of
specifics. Now you choose wheter to cast or read the book. If you
read it...

Now there's a straight up literacy roll. Basically, your literacy
skill is a percentage chance of successfully reading the book. If you
fail the check, you 'cannot decipher the runes' and nothing else
happens. Now the base value is checked against a d100. If you
succeed, I think it then starts counting up how much to increase your
knowledge of the spell:

There's a check that's gives you a better bonus if you already have at
least 30 skill points in the book, and also depends on learning.
Next your PC's level is factored in again.
Continuing on, The Cup birthsign is now factored in - so Book increases
the chances of successfully reading a book, while Cup increases how
much you learn from reading it.
After that the good & great book learning talents are factored in. (so
they, too, only increase the amount learned, not the chance of learning).

If you fail to read the book sucessfully, it depends on all these
previous factors plus a base value for each class (shown below) your
chances of the book doing something nasty versus your chances to just
not learning anything.
50 - Wizard, Elementalist
40 - Priest, Necromancer
35 - Healer
30 - Bard, Druid
25 - Paladin, Ranger
20 - Thief, Assassin, Monk, Weaponsmith, Beastfighter, Merchant
15 - Fighter, Archer
10 - Farmer
-10 - Mindcrafter
-20 - Barbarian
Do note that this only determines the chances for something bad
happening here, nothing else.

If you fail this check, random chance of:
Spellbook bursting into flames, power drained, feel hollow, confused,
stunned, life force drained, explodes in a fireball, blindness, dizzy,
drains health (this lowers toughness by 1), spellbook vanish, or pit
creation.

A few other sidenotes:
If a pit is created from reading a book while you're standing on a
grave, it'll dig the grave =)
If you have 0 knowledge in a spell, your learning stat appears to be
trained about 4 times as much as it would be otherwise. (The training
is based on the spell's difficulty)

To sum up, it depends on: Class (pretty self explanatory to the extent
spellcasters read better), birthsign, wheter you're drunk, the
dificulty of the spellbook, room effect, and if you're a troll. Also
B/U/C status, Learning, Concetration, Literacy, and the PC's level
factor in - the higher of these the better.

Eventually I might get around to looking at specifics if Vlad doesn't
beat me to it. It's relatively complex and I don't feel like working
it out right now ;)
 

MadDog

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Twinge wrote:
> maddog@dsr.kvl.dk wrote:
> > frobnoid wrote:
> >
> >>I
> >>t
> >>
> >>w
> >>a
> >>s
> >>
> >>t
> >>h
> >>e
> >>
> >>b
> >>e
> >>s
> >>t
> >>
> >>o
> >>f
> >>
> >>t
> >>i
> >>m
> >>e
> >>s
> >>
> >>It was the blurst of times...
> >>
> >> What factors affect how well one learns a spell after reading a
> >> book? Clearly class, learning, the spell involved and literacy
> >> affect it, plus there are a couple of relevant signs and talents
> >> that can increase that number significantly and there's a random
> >> component but what else?
> >
> >
> > "How well" is too loose a term. As I see it there are three levels.
> >
> > First you need to actually succeed in reading. It seems to be a
simple
> > skill check versus Literacy. Failure is indicated by "You do not
manage
> > to decipher .."
> >
> > Then there is the actual outcome of reading. Either you get (more)
> > castings, you gain nothing or you suffer some adverse effect. This
> > seems to be highly class related and also dependant on the B/U/C
> > status of the book and the relative difficulty of the spell. The
> > Concentration skill also seems to have a fair amount of importance.
> >
> > Finally a variable amount of castings are added if successful. This
> > seems to be a complicated matter. A book seems to have an internal
> > base value of castings to add. I admit this is a bit speculative,
> > but two spellbooks with identical spells will often have different
> > prices.
> > The amount of castings also seems to be highly dependant on
> > learning. Possibly also the B/U/C status of the book and
> > Concentration. It is not my impression that class matters a lot (if
> > at all) in this respect.
> >
> > Totally empirical I admit. Perhaps a diver could illuminate the
> > matter (and spoil us rotten).
>
> Well, here's a basic overview of what is factored in (in order of
> application) to what determines if you successfully read the book:
>
> We start off with a difficulty based on the specific spellbook
> (Darkness and Light are rather low, Wish is really high)
> The 'shelves and books' room effect helps.
> Learning is counted in next.
> Druids, Priests, Wizards, and Necromancers get a bonus.
> You get a minus if drunk.
> Cursed gets a minus, blessed gets a bonus.
> Then Druids, Priests, Wizards, Necromancers, and Elementalists get
> another bonus (Elementalists for the first time) based on the PC's
> level. Then most classes get a smaller bonus based on thier level.
> Mindcrafters and Trolls, however, don't get this bonus at all.
> Next, Literacy and Concetration are factored in.
> Necromancers and druids both get a bonus for thier guaranteed
starting
> books, frost bolt and lightning bolt, respectively.
> After that you get a bonus if you're born in the month of the book.
>
> All of this combines together for some kind of base value. It's
pretty
> complicated so I'm just giving an overview for now instead of
> specifics. Now you choose wheter to cast or read the book. If you
> read it...
>
Okay so this is actually checked first.. Guess it is a good idea
to have Literacy on 100 or close since it would be wasteful to
risk the fairly serious consequences on failure here only to fail
Literacy.
Also I don't see a problem in Elementalists only getting the one
bonus here as they are not intended to get spells from books. In
fact other classes who get a number of castings pr. level up (such
as Healers) ought to get the same bonus. Healers can be awesome
spellcasters. Got a lvl 50 Wand DE Healer on ice to proove it. Calm
Monster is _the_ spell against summoners.
Forgot about the room effect briefly. Seems to be quite significant
to Mindcrafters.

> Now there's a straight up literacy roll. Basically, your literacy
> skill is a percentage chance of successfully reading the book. If
you
> fail the check, you 'cannot decipher the runes' and nothing else
> happens. Now the base value is checked against a d100. If you
> succeed, I think it then starts counting up how much to increase your

> knowledge of the spell:
>
As suspected.

> There's a check that's gives you a better bonus if you already have
at
> least 30 skill points in the book, and also depends on learning.
> Next your PC's level is factored in again.
> Continuing on, The Cup birthsign is now factored in - so Book
increases
> the chances of successfully reading a book, while Cup increases how
> much you learn from reading it.
> After that the good & great book learning talents are factored in.
(so
> they, too, only increase the amount learned, not the chance of
learning).
>
No impact from Concentration... That does not coincide with my
experiences at all. In fact I got app. 10 times more castings
with the two characters with wished for Concentration I have had
so far. Am I wrong about this or... "You are hit by a bolt of
assembly code. You are confused."

> If you fail to read the book sucessfully, it depends on all these
> previous factors plus a base value for each class (shown below) your
> chances of the book doing something nasty versus your chances to just

> not learning anything.
> 50 - Wizard, Elementalist
> 40 - Priest, Necromancer
> 35 - Healer
> 30 - Bard, Druid
> 25 - Paladin, Ranger
> 20 - Thief, Assassin, Monk, Weaponsmith, Beastfighter, Merchant
> 15 - Fighter, Archer
> 10 - Farmer
> -10 - Mindcrafter
> -20 - Barbarian
> Do note that this only determines the chances for something bad
> happening here, nothing else.
Also a bit as expected. I note the relatively high Healer and Bard
score. Much in line with the discussion above - that these classes
are spellcasters in essense. Also I note the relatively low score
for Archers, who otherwise start with Concentration and thus
spellcaster potential.

> If you fail this check, random chance of:
> Spellbook bursting into flames, power drained, feel hollow, confused,

> stunned, life force drained, explodes in a fireball, blindness,
dizzy,
> drains health (this lowers toughness by 1), spellbook vanish, or pit
> creation.
I don't recall the "feel hollow". Also I seem to recall teleporting
from failure. The -1 in To is the worst by far. It adds an element of
risk to using books as gravediggers.

[SNIP: A few notes]

> To sum up, it depends on: Class (pretty self explanatory to the
extent
> spellcasters read better), birthsign, wheter you're drunk, the
> dificulty of the spellbook, room effect, and if you're a troll. Also

> B/U/C status, Learning, Concetration, Literacy, and the PC's level
> factor in - the higher of these the better.
>
> Eventually I might get around to looking at specifics if Vlad doesn't

> beat me to it. It's relatively complex and I don't feel like working
> it out right now ;)
 
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bork bork bork Twinge bork 6:24:34 AM bork 12/20/2004 bork bork:

> maddog@dsr.kvl.dk wrote:
> > frobnoid wrote:
> >
> > > I
> > > t
> > >
> > > w
> > > a
> > > s
> > >
> > > t
> > > h
> > > e
> > >
> > > b
> > > e
> > > s
> > > t
> > >
> > > o
> > > f
> > >
> > > t
> > > i
> > > m
> > > e
> > > s
> > >
> If a pit is created from reading a book while you're standing on a grave,

D'oh!

If only I'd thought of that during my mindcrafter games!

Erik
 
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bork bork bork Twinge bork 6:24:34 AM bork 12/20/2004 bork bork:

> maddog@dsr.kvl.dk wrote:
> > frobnoid wrote:
> >
> > > I
> > > t
> > >
> > > w
> > > a
> > > s
> > >
> > > t
> > > h
> > > e
> > >
> > > b
> > > e
> > > s
> > > t
> > >
> > > o
> > > f
> > >
> > > t
> > > i
> > > m
> > > e
> > > s
[great spoiler on reading books]

Unless I'm missing something, you didn't mention a penalty to amount learned
if you already know the spell. Intuitively, I've always had the feeling it
helps more to read a book when you're low on casting than when you're higher
up. Is this not the case?

Erik
 
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bork bork bork maddog@dsr.kvl.dk bork 3:32:41 PM bork 12/20/2004 bork bork:

> Twinge wrote:
> > maddog@dsr.kvl.dk wrote:
> > > frobnoid wrote:
> > >
> > > > I
> > > > t
> > > >
> > > > w
> > > > a
> > > > s
> > > >
> > > > t
> > > > h
> > > > e
> > > >
> > > > b
> > > > e
> > > > s
> > > > t
> > > >
> > > > o
> > > > f
> > > >
> > > > t
> > > > i
> > > > m
> > > > e
> > > > s
> > > >
> I don't recall the "feel hollow". Also I seem to recall teleporting
> from failure. The -1 in To is the worst by far. It adds an element of
> risk to using books as gravediggers.
>
Aw, it's not so bad, really, if you're an herb maniac. Generally the two
times when you really need to dig graves are times when your stats are still
manipulable with reasonable effort using herbs.

Erik
 
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maddog@dsr.kvl.dk wrote:

> Twinge wrote:
>
>>maddog@dsr.kvl.dk wrote:
>>
>>>frobnoid wrote:
>>>
>>>>I
>>>>t
>>>>
>>>>w
>>>>a
>>>>s
>>>>
>>>>t
>>>>h
>>>>e
>>>>
>>>>b
>>>>e
>>>>s
>>>>t
>>>>
>>>>o
>>>>f
>>>>
>>>>t
>>>>i
>>>>m
>>>>e
>>>>s
>>>>
>>>>It was the blurst of times...
>>>>
>> There's a check that's gives you a better bonus if you already
>> have at least 30 skill points in the book, and also depends on
>> learning. Next your PC's level is factored in again. Continuing
>> on, The Cup birthsign is now factored in - so Book increases the
>> chances of successfully reading a book, while Cup increases how
>> much you learn from reading it. After that the good & great book
>> learning talents are factored in. (so they, too, only increase the
>> amount learned, not the chance of learning).
>
> No impact from Concentration... That does not coincide with my
> experiences at all. In fact I got app. 10 times more castings with
> the two characters with wished for Concentration I have had so far.
> Am I wrong about this or... "You are hit by a bolt of assembly code.
> You are confused."

As far as I can tell, you're mistaken here. A very brief in-game test
seemed to show concetration has no effect on the spell points gained
either... but it's possible I'm still missing something.

Again, please stop using google groups for posting ;P

>> If you fail to read the book sucessfully, it depends on all these
>> previous factors plus a base value for each class (shown below)
>> your chances of the book doing something nasty versus your chances
>> to just not learning anything.
>>
>>50 - Wizard, Elementalist
>>40 - Priest, Necromancer
>>35 - Healer
>>30 - Bard, Druid
>>25 - Paladin, Ranger
>>20 - Thief, Assassin, Monk, Weaponsmith, Beastfighter, Merchant
>>15 - Fighter, Archer
>>10 - Farmer
>>-10 - Mindcrafter
>>-20 - Barbarian
>
> Also a bit as expected. I note the relatively high Healer and Bard
> score. Much in line with the discussion above - that these classes
> are spellcasters in essense. Also I note the relatively low score
> for Archers, who otherwise start with Concentration and thus
> spellcaster potential.

I noticed the same things. I also saw that farmers were lower than I
expected them to be, especially comapred to thieves & fighters.

>>> I don't recall the "feel hollow". Also I seem to recall
>>> teleporting from failure. The -1 in To is the worst by far. It
>>> adds an element of risk to using books as gravediggers.

dizzy = teleportation. hollow I mistook for a seperate message, when
it's actually part of the power drained part (you 'feel hollow' if your
PP was already 0 at this point.)

>> Aw, it's not so bad, really, if you're an herb maniac. Generally
>> the two times when you really need to dig graves are times when
>> your stats are still manipulable with reasonable effort using
>> herbs.
>
> Yes. I was a little too shortminded I guess. It doesn't ruin
> potential after all and can be solved with 5 sprigs of morgia or a
> corpse. IF the dig doesn't count as being done by you it can have
> formidable potential. If the guardian is neutral it is a free pile
> of goodies and (for the neutral/chaotic lot) you can back away to a
> relatively safe distance and plug a lich king/emperor for a nice XP
> boost. (OT: Just pickpocketed shining silver bracers in the gremlin
> cave. Christmas starts early methinks).

As long as your toughness is less than 25 and you have a source of
Morgia Root, you indeed have no problem gaining that back up.

Grave Digging is always a chaotic act though, even when done in this
way. the player alignment modification is done inside the GraveDig
subroutine itself. This is mostly only useful if you have no other
means of digging available (say, you missed the pyramid). I mostly
mentioned it as a 'fun little fact' =)

> [great spoiler on reading books]
>
> Unless I'm missing something, you didn't mention a penalty to amount
> learned if you already know the spell. Intuitively, I've always had
> the feeling it helps more to read a book when you're low on casting
> than when you're higher up. Is this not the case?

I do believe you're correct. I missed a small contrived section that
probably trainslates as higher SpellPoints = lower SpellPointGain. I'm
still new at this ;)
 

Uzi

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W artykule <32pg9bF3naqmbU1@individual.net> Twinge napisa³(a):

> Again, please stop using google groups for posting ;P

Why? I'm using slrn and all their posts are showed absolutely correctly.
And generally correct due top netiquette.

--
'Uzi, po prostu Uzi' [tm] -- eMBe
Nowy magiczny wzor: pi = ln( (-1)^i )
 
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UZI wrote:
> W artykule <32pg9bF3naqmbU1@individual.net> Twinge napisa³(a):
>
>
>>Again, please stop using google groups for posting ;P
>
>
> Why? I'm using slrn and all their posts are showed absolutely correctly.
> And generally correct due top netiquette.

It's not wrapping quoted text correctly... same thing happened while I
was using google groups, no matter what I tried it wouldn't be friendly
:p (I tried rewraping the text from Thunderbird first for example)
Example:

>>>I don't recall the "feel hollow". Also I seem to recall teleporting
>>>from failure. The -1 in To is the worst by far. It adds an element
>
> of
>
>>>risk to using books as gravediggers.
>>>
>>
>>Aw, it's not so bad, really, if you're an herb maniac. Generally the
>
> two
>
>>times when you really need to dig graves are times when your stats
>
> are still
>
>>manipulable with reasonable effort using herbs.
>>

I dunno if your client manages to interpret that correctly or
something, but it definately looks fubared from Thunderbird and even
from Google Groups itself.
 
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bork bork bork Twinge bork 3:32:16 AM bork 12/21/2004 bork bork:

> maddog@dsr.kvl.dk wrote:
>
> > Twinge wrote:
> >
> > > maddog@dsr.kvl.dk wrote:
> > >
> > > > frobnoid wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > I
> > > > > t
> > > > >
> > > > > w
> > > > > a
> > > > > s
> > > > >
> > > > > t
> > > > > h
> > > > > e
> > > > >
> > > > > b
> > > > > e
> > > > > s
> > > > > t
> > > > >
> > > > > o
> > > > > f
> > > > >
> > > > > t
> > > > > i
> > > > > m
> > > > > e
> > > > > s
> > > > >
> As long as your toughness is less than 25 and you have a source of Morgia
> Root, you indeed have no problem gaining that back up.

If your new toughness is under 29, you can use sickness as well. Can't recall
if starvation affects toughness, in which case you are safe at even higher
levels.

Erik, killed by starvation, while sick