Enchanting armour beyond the safe limits

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Hi,

Slashem game, but I haven't marked this as a slashem thread because I
believe the armour enchantment code is the same in slashem as in
vanilla, but if this is not the case please accept my apologies in
advance.

I know how to enchant armour safely to +5 (+7 for elfy or wiz-hat), and
I know the possible consequences of enchanting beyond that. However I
have a BIG stack of spare armour, and hope to soon have a stack of
spare enchant scrolls, markers, !oGL etc, and I was wondering about
trying to get some of it up to +6 or even higher.

The spoilers I've read simply talk about a "chance" of destroying
armour above the safe limits, but they don't specify what that chance
is, so I'm asking here. What are the chances? How high should I try to
go? will a +5 T-shirt vape more readily than a +4 one? Or should I just
+8 me a pile of elven mithril and poly it?

Any help much appreciated,

'scoff.

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Jakob Creutzig wrote:

> > >
> > > If you have +n armor, n > 3 (or 5 for the cornuthaum or elven
armor),
> > > then the chance of destroying it is (n-1)/n. Hence, you need on
> > > the average n trials to have one successful enchantment.
>
> The idea to poly elven +7 armor seems much more promising
> to me, although only cloaks and boots will usually give
> magic armor in return.
>
It'd feel better to try this rather than risk losing a helm of
brilliance, say. But if the RNG selects random magic armor from
http://www.nethack.de/spoiler330/magic_items.txt with a chance of
non-magic, it looks like you'd have a much better chance of getting
what you want by straightforward enchantment. From a coldly logical
perspective, this seems more frugal; even if you poly to get the
unenchanted item, it would still cost fewer scrolls.

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

dogscoff@eudoramail.com writes:

> The spoilers I've read simply talk about a "chance" of destroying
> armour above the safe limits, but they don't specify what that chance
> is, so I'm asking here. What are the chances?

If you have +n armor, n > 3 (or 5 for the cornuthaum or elven armor),
then the chance of destroying it is (n-1)/n. Hence, you need on
the average n trials to have one successful enchantment. You will
only get (at most) 1 point bonus (and it seems that there's no
difference anymore between blessed and uncursed scrolls), so in order
to get, say, +9, you would need on the average 5*6*7*8 = 30*56 = 1680,
i.e. quite some trials. For n > 8, you only get a further enchantment
sometimes, adding even more trials and resulting in more than 16800
trials on average for +10. For getting +7, odds are much better;
here you 'only' need 30 trials on average. All in all, the additional
few points of AC are rarely worth the effort spent this way; it is
much more efficient to polypile for rings of protection or to make
luck-optimized (that's *not* maximized) prayer combos.

Best,
Jakob

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

In article <apfyzv7all.fsf@fb04349.mathematik.tu-darmstadt.de>,
Jakob Creutzig <creutzig@mathematik.tu-darmstadt.de> wrote:

> dogscoff@eudoramail.com writes:
>
> > The spoilers I've read simply talk about a "chance" of destroying
> > armour above the safe limits, but they don't specify what that chance
> > is, so I'm asking here. What are the chances?
>
> If you have +n armor, n > 3 (or 5 for the cornuthaum or elven armor),
> then the chance of destroying it is (n-1)/n. Hence, you need on
> the average n trials to have one successful enchantment. You will
> only get (at most) 1 point bonus (and it seems that there's no
> difference anymore between blessed and uncursed scrolls),

This doesn't jibe with my most recent experiments of overenchanting
armor. In my current game on nao, I had several helms of brillians
and several pairs of gauntlets of dexterity (pudding farmer, what
else?). So I thought I would try for some +7 armor. I used all
blessed scrolls of enchant armor and used the drain life spell to
reduce any +4's back to +3. I vaporized about a half dozen helms
of brilliance and only managed to get one to +6. But the first pair
of gauntlets of dexterity yielded a +7 pair from reading a blessed
scoll of EA while wearing +5 gauntlets. So I conclude that it is
still possible to get +2 enchantment from a blessed ? of EA when
applied to a +5 piece of armor.

I also tried enchanting up a bunch of elven cloaks and boots to +7
and then polying them. I managed to get about a dozen pieces of +7
elven gear, but after all the shuddering vibrations were over, all
I had to show were a +7 pair of gauntlets of power and a +7
Hawaiian shirt. The gauntlets of power showed up on the initial
poly zap and were the only magical armor produced by the poly fest.

All in all, I used over a 100 blessed scrolls of enchant armor for
a net increase of 5 useable AC points, not a good return on
investment. But hey, you got to do something to keep youself
entertained on those long nights down on the farm.

> so in order
> to get, say, +9, you would need on the average 5*6*7*8 = 30*56 = 1680,
> i.e. quite some trials. For n > 8, you only get a further enchantment
> sometimes, adding even more trials and resulting in more than 16800
> trials on average for +10. For getting +7, odds are much better;
> here you 'only' need 30 trials on average. All in all, the additional
> few points of AC are rarely worth the effort spent this way; it is
> much more efficient to polypile for rings of protection or to make
> luck-optimized (that's *not* maximized) prayer combos.
>
> Best,
> Jakob

Cheers,
Art

--
Art Willis
nhplayer@trantor.nospam.com Despam to reply

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Art Willis <nhplayer@trantor.nospam.com> writes:

> In article <apfyzv7all.fsf@fb04349.mathematik.tu-darmstadt.de>,
> Jakob Creutzig <creutzig@mathematik.tu-darmstadt.de> wrote:
>
> > dogscoff@eudoramail.com writes:
> >
> > > The spoilers I've read simply talk about a "chance" of destroying
> > > armour above the safe limits, but they don't specify what that chance
> > > is, so I'm asking here. What are the chances?
> >
> > If you have +n armor, n > 3 (or 5 for the cornuthaum or elven armor),
> > then the chance of destroying it is (n-1)/n. Hence, you need on
> > the average n trials to have one successful enchantment. You will
> > only get (at most) 1 point bonus (and it seems that there's no
> > difference anymore between blessed and uncursed scrolls),
>
> This doesn't jibe with my most recent experiments of overenchanting
> armor.

Uh, sorry, you're correct. From +3 to +5 current enchantment,
you can get 1-2 points. Well, that makes it much easier to
get +7. Unfortunately I don't know the chances of getting
additional +2, but assuming 50%, this would yield an average
number (with drain life) only 8 trials for +7. After that,
however, things run with +1 at most, hence for +8 the average
waiting time would be 56, for +9 56*8, and thereafter even longer.

If the chance for +2 at +5 would be 20%, say, then an average
number of 20 trials would be needed for +7 with the drain
method. Anybody knows the chance for getting +2 when at +5?

The idea to poly elven +7 armor seems much more promising
to me, although only cloaks and boots will usually give
magic armor in return.

Best,
Jakob

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Jakob Creutzig <creutzig@mathematik.tu-darmstadt.de> writes:

[scroll of enchant armour, assuming no vaporisation]

> If the chance for +2 at +5 would be 20%, say, then an average
> number of 20 trials would be needed for +7 with the drain
> method. Anybody knows the chance for getting +2 when at +5?

50%. The "Additional possible" ranges in scrl-343.txt are flatly
distributed, with the exception of "0 to 1" in the "+9 or more" case:
for that, the chance of 1 is 1/(current enchantment). The relevant
line of code:

s = sobj->cursed ? -1 :
otmp->spe >= 9 ? (rn2(otmp->spe) == 0) :
sobj->blessed ? rnd(3-otmp->spe/3) : 1;

(and a corresponding one for weapons).

--
: Dylan O'Donnell http://www.spod-central.org/~psmith/ :
: >LOOK UP CURRY IN GUIDEBOOK :
: 'CURRY: to consume silently and with regret.' :
: -- Dan Schmidt, "For a Change" :

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Thanks for the advice everyone. It's pretty academic at the moment,
since although i have lots and lots of armour to play with, I have very
little in the way of scrolls/ MM charges. I've just started a modest
pudding farm though (hauled a BP corpse up from 2 levels away and
zapped turn undead) so I might satrt getting some goodies, if I can
stand the boredom.

Of course, this being slashem, there's always a chance of running into
a spellbook of enchant armour...

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

begin quoting <dogscoff@eudoramail.com>:
>Thanks for the advice everyone.

Advice about what? Context!
--
David Damerell <damerell@chiark.greenend.org.uk> flcl?
Today is Second Friday, February.

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

dogscoff@eudoramail.com schrieb:
> Thanks for the advice everyone. It's pretty academic at the moment,
> since although i have lots and lots of armour to play with, I have very
> little in the way of scrolls/ MM charges. I've just started a modest
> pudding farm though (hauled a BP corpse up from 2 levels away and
> zapped turn undead) so I might satrt getting some goodies, if I can
> stand the boredom.
>
> Of course, this being slashem, there's always a chance of running into
> a spellbook of enchant armour...

I was under the impression that pudding farming won't work in slashem.
So if you get some results, please tell about them here...

--
Klaus Kassner

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Klaus Kassner wrote:
> dogscoff@eudoramail.com schrieb:
> > Thanks for the advice everyone. It's pretty academic at the moment,
> > since although i have lots and lots of armour to play with, I have
very
> > little in the way of scrolls/ MM charges. I've just started a
modest
> > pudding farm though (hauled a BP corpse up from 2 levels away and
> > zapped turn undead) so I might satrt getting some goodies, if I can
> > stand the boredom.
> >
> > Of course, this being slashem, there's always a chance of running
into
> > a spellbook of enchant armour...
>
> I was under the impression that pudding farming won't work in
slashem.
> So if you get some results, please tell about them here...
>

Well, I slaughtered about a hundred and fifty of them with not a single
death drop. It was still worth it though, because Ahur was angry with
me and puddings were the only thing I could find that would mollify
him.

I died YASD death, involving a gold golem, a half dozen puddings and a
floating eye. Yeah, I know. This was one of the most promising games
I'd ever had: naked AC of about -3, stacks of stuff IDed and one of the
most comprehensive staches ever.

It left a bones on that stash level though, and I hearsed it, and
believe me it is one HELL of a level. Chaotic altar in a little boulder
enclosure, with three chests and an icebox. The icebox contains a load
of decent corpses- including a few puddings, IIRC and a wand of undead
turning. Another box contains a ton of noncursed armour that I was
saving for polypiling, most of it positively enchanted. Load of random
weaponsand tools in there too.
Container 3 contains a massive stash of daggers (a hundred odd at
least, call it an obsession), loads of leather goves and hard hats (I
planned to over-enchant and then GL them) and masses of wands, potions
(inc holy water), scrolls and some random, somewhat cruddy artifact
weapons. Must be four or five ID scrolls in there. Last container is my
library, which has a dozen or so spellbooks, including FoD, detect
treasure and magic mapping.

Corpse has a BoH with even more goodies in it (including some white
dragon scales from the wyrm caves), a +5 fireproof T-shirt, speed
boots, +2 GoD, a Helm of telepathy, a +1 robe (monk bones in the mines,
I think.)

Much of the is level dug and lit, with (as far as I know) no unbearably
nasty monsters for Dlvl5.


I felt so sick losing this lot I gave up playing slashem for a whole
day and a half=-)

 

[James]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

In article <1109065811.949142.61970@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>,
<dogscoff@eudoramail.com> wrote:

>Well, I slaughtered about a hundred and fifty of them with not a single
>death drop. It was still worth it though, because Ahur was angry with
>me and puddings were the only thing I could find that would mollify
>him.

If there are any benefits to be had from angering and appeasing your
deity, pudding farming is a way to abuse that too.

I'm surprised you didn't get any items. I can't count the number I've
killed, but it's only in the few thousands so far, and the number of
items I've hauled in is incredible. It's not just the number of items
though, the quality is higher than I was prepared for. They've dropped
stuff like several paris of gauntlets of dexterity, and more scrolls and
potions than I'd care to count, even wands of polymorph.

I got bored, so I went around slaughtering the Puddings. At some point
when I thought I had killed them all, I found one, and #called him Sole
Survivor. Then I went to play in my stash.

Well, I had about 40 ?oEA, and I got careless and evaporated my speed
boots. No problem, I spent a wish on new fireproof ones. Then I made
my artifact weapons +7. Then I filled up the level with puddings, but
in order to gauge their growth rate and patterns, I started #calling
them by the turn number. After a while, I stopped seeing puddings named
"Sole Survivor". The level is full again. That's close to 1300 of
them, by my reckoning. So I can go out swimming among them, dividing
some, killing some, and I'll worry about picking up items later.

I know I'm being overconfident here, but I can't think of anything that
can really hurt me. AC is in the -40's, HP in the high 300's, L's,
MMF's, and Green Slimes are genocided, I have every resistance except
disintegration, but that's because I haven't had a black dragon leave a
corpse. Should take care of that on the next trip to hell.

I do spend hours and hours just stepping off my altar, dividing a
pudding until it spawns one at the altar, killing it, #offering it,
stepping off the altar and repeating. The reason for this isn't
because of the altar (I was crowned ages ago), but because that's the
easiest way to see when a Pudding drops something. Everywhere else, the
corpse ends up on top.

Also, I think it helps that my altar is on DL5, that's obviously keeping
the level of other monsters kind of low, and I suspect I'm getting close
to extinctionizing some of these.


>I died YASD death, involving a gold golem, a half dozen puddings and a
>floating eye. Yeah, I know. This was one of the most promising games
>I'd ever had: naked AC of about -3, stacks of stuff IDed and one of the
>most comprehensive staches ever.

I don't think I'd even consider this lifestyle before getting a ring of
free action, erodeproof everything, AC in the -20's, etc. Most rational
people would be finishing hell by the time I started farming.

>It left a bones on that stash level though, and I hearsed it, and
>believe me it is one HELL of a level.

I'm dreading the day I step down the stairs and realize that some clown
like me has left 1000 puddings. But then, that level is going to have
really large amounts of loot if you can get to it.

>Corpse has a BoH with even more goodies in it (including some white
>dragon scales from the wyrm caves)

You should mention that you are playing slash! Pudding farming is
already "fixed" there. In vanilla they drop enough loot to make
wishless conduct seem easy.

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

james wrote:
> In article <1109065811.949142.61970@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>,
> <dogscoff@eudoramail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>Well, I slaughtered about a hundred and fifty of them with not a single
>>death drop. It was still worth it though, because Ahur was angry with
>>me and puddings were the only thing I could find that would mollify
>>him.
>
>
> If there are any benefits to be had from angering and appeasing your
> deity, pudding farming is a way to abuse that too.
>
> I'm surprised you didn't get any items.

That's the point we were discussing - whether you can get items this way
in slashem or not. It seems you can't.


>>I died YASD death, involving a gold golem, a half dozen puddings and a
>>floating eye. Yeah, I know. This was one of the most promising games
>>I'd ever had: naked AC of about -3, stacks of stuff IDed and one of the
>>most comprehensive staches ever.
>
>
> I don't think I'd even consider this lifestyle before getting a ring of
> free action, erodeproof everything, AC in the -20's, etc. Most rational
> people would be finishing hell by the time I started farming.

He was talking about a naked AC of -3. You will not manage to get a
naked AC of -20. But with a naked AC of -3, he might easily have had an
AC below -20.

> You should mention that you are playing slash! Pudding farming is
> already "fixed" there. In vanilla they drop enough loot to make
> wishless conduct seem easy.

Well, probably this information got lost somewhere, but it was pretty
obvious from the context... . Anyway, I have not put an "" in
the subject line.


--
Klaus Kassner

 

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Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Klaus Kassner <Klaus.Kassner@physik.uni-magdeburg.de> writes:

> > I don't think I'd even consider this lifestyle before getting a ring
> > of
> > free action, erodeproof everything, AC in the -20's, etc. Most rational
> > people would be finishing hell by the time I started farming.
>
> He was talking about a naked AC of -3. You will not manage to get a
> naked AC of -20.

Oh, you can. Protection bought from priests will stop at
-10, but protection from eating rings or from the deity
(gift of protection) goes all the way to -128. At least
that's how it works in nethack, I'm not sure about slash'em.

Best,
Jakob