taming luck

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Hi,

I ascended as a lawful male human knight recently. For most of the
later part of the game, I was relying heavily on the spell of magic
missile. While playing, I noticed something strange...

Somewhere deep in Gehennom, I was riding a warhorse and I had a pet
djinni with me. I had cast the spell of magic missile at some powerful
enemy - and the beam hit a wall, bounced back and killed my warhorse
and my djinni - both, in one shot. (It had also killed the enemy. I
think it was a vampire lord.) As my pets died, I could hear the rumbles
of distant thunder...

I couldn't tame decent pets after that. Couldn't tame lawful dragons,
couldn't tame a lawful ki-rin, couldn't tame a lawful archon - nothing.
I spent lots of magic marker charges on writing blessed scrolls of
taming -
I could tame gnome-mummies - but no one that would do me some good in
an advanced game. I read the blessed book of the dead repeatedly
standing next to a peaceful lawful ki-rin - nothing happened...

I was always extremely lucky with extra luck and so on, though.

Is there any luck specific to taming that was badly hit when I killed
my pets?? Why couldn't I tame any advanced creatures?

Regards,
Shouri

 

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

Dylan O'Donnell wrote:
> "shouri@gmail.com" <shouri@gmail.com> writes:
<snip>
> > Is there any luck specific to taming that was badly hit when I killed
> > my pets?? Why couldn't I tame any advanced creatures?
>
> The only component of luck in taming monsters (that can be tamed at
> all) is the magic resistance saving throw. By the sounds of it, you
> were unlucky with dragons, but the results with archons and ki-rin are
> what I'd expect.

Especially with scrolls. Monsters resisting taming attempt IIRC is
something like (Monster Base MR
percentile)/(100+CasterLevel-MonsterLevel), and in case of scrolls,
CasterLevel is fixed at 9. So for higher level monsters like Ki-rin
and Archons are even more difficult to tame than what their base MR
indicates. I think Ki-rin is about 97% resist rate, and Archons are
89% resist rate against scrolls. Dragons should be fairly easy though.
Definitely try dragons. Or, try to learn the Charm Monster spell and
try to cast it. If he is using Magic Missle as a Main offensive
weapon, he wants to get his exp level high up anyways, so it'll be
slightly easier for him to tame those higher level monsters as well.
At lvl 30, Kirin resist rate is down to about 79% and Archon is about
72%?

Of course, it might be easier to just morph/ley eggs if you want
dragons as pets (although they grow up fairly slow and will have to
find some easier monster for the baby dragons to pick on).

-K

 

[Guest]

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

"shouri@gmail.com" <shouri@gmail.com> writes:
> Somewhere deep in Gehennom, I was riding a warhorse and I had a pet
> djinni with me. I had cast the spell of magic missile at some powerful
> enemy - and the beam hit a wall, bounced back and killed my warhorse
> and my djinni - both, in one shot. (It had also killed the enemy. I
> think it was a vampire lord.) As my pets died, I could hear the rumbles
> of distant thunder...

A -15 alignment penalty and -1 to luck nothing more. (Not that that
isn't a nuisance, but nothing to worry about in the late game.)

> I couldn't tame decent pets after that. Couldn't tame lawful dragons,

20% base magic resistance saving throw. (The alignment of the
dragon isn't relevant here, by the way.)

> couldn't tame a lawful ki-rin,

90%.

> couldn't tame a lawful archon - nothing.

80%.

> I spent lots of magic marker charges on writing blessed scrolls of
> taming - I could tame gnome-mummies - but no one that would do me
> some good in an advanced game.

20%.

> I read the blessed book of the dead repeatedly
> standing next to a peaceful lawful ki-rin - nothing happened...

The Book will have no effect on ki-rin, since they're not undead.

> I was always extremely lucky with extra luck and so on, though.
>
> Is there any luck specific to taming that was badly hit when I killed
> my pets?? Why couldn't I tame any advanced creatures?

The only component of luck in taming monsters (that can be tamed at
all) is the magic resistance saving throw. By the sounds of it, you
were unlucky with dragons, but the results with archons and ki-rin are
what I'd expect.

--
: Dylan O'Donnell http://www.spod-central.org/~psmith/ :
: "At the sushi counter of life, you must use the chopsticks of ambition :
: to grab the sashimi of accomplishment or you will be left with the :
: wasabi of disappointment." -- Dan Shiovitz :