What's wrong with this battle?

[magnate]

Ok folks, your opinions please.

In the red corner, we have the ice devils Oriax and Cimejes. One is armed with an athame and enchanted shield, the other with athame and shield of the accursed. Both are wearing winged shoes, starshine skullcaps and red DSM and carrying pendants of luck. One has an antimagic amulet and the other has a heart of life. Oriax has 88hp and heroic precision (bummer); Cimejes has 174hp with heroic toughness.

In the blue corner, the nataraja SliceyDicey. She's wielding four mains gauche of parrying, and is wearing the armour of virtue and a starshine skullcap, plus winged shoes and a burning pearl. Her paths are A3W2E1S3 (S4 with skullcap). She has 144hp.

All three cast quickness in round one.

Round two, SliceyDicey casts Personal Luck and Ironskin. Protection now 29. Both ice devils cast Breath of Winter and then fly across to the nataraja.

Round three, SliceyDicey casts Astral Weapon and attacks. All four attacks appear to miss. She has 22 total attack (four stars plus quickness plus pearl) - one ice devil has 20 def, the other 26. So I assume she was attacking the tougher one, though not necessarily, given that all three combatants have Luck.

Still in round three, the ice devils' attacks appear to miss - SliceyDicey still has 144hp, she does not have regen, and the Returning does not trigger. Yet Oriax now has 101hp instead of 88, and his fatigue is way down. (Cimejes still has 174hp and fatigue as expected - consistent with his attacks missing.)

So, suspected bug #1: the life drain on the athame appears to give life even when no damage is dealt. I suppose Oriax could have scored a hit which was not strong enough to penetrate the 29 protection, but I fail to see why that should result in him gaining life + fatigue.

Round four, SliceyDicey appears to miss eight times. The astral weapon spell should ensure that the minimum damage from a successful hit is well over 20 (~25 str plus 3 from the main gauche). Oriax's hp drops from 101 to 99 (which I assume are just the excess from lifedrain "wearing off") and Cimejes' hp are unaffected.

Yet SliceyDicey now has a horror mark, consistent with having hit the bearer of the shield of the accursed. Can anyone explain how this can happen? Can you get such a mark from merely attacking, even if you don't hit??

Then the ice devils attack and the Returning triggers, so I assume one of them scored some damage.

Can somebody tell me how flanking is supposed to work? It's -1 def per attack beyond the first each round, I think. Does that include attacks from the same creature?? ie. is my nataraja's 8th attack going to be with a -7 def penalty for the defender, if all 8 attacks are on the same target? Or is the penalty limited to -1 per attacker?

And if you can't beat ice devils with 43 def and astral weapon, how do you beat them? They both have >20 MR so spells are unlikely to succeed ...

Confused,

CC

[Graeme Dice]

Round three, SliceyDicey casts Astral Weapon and attacks. All four attacks appear to miss. She has 22 total attack (four stars plus quickness plus pearl) - one ice devil has 20 def, the other 26.

What was his attack rating listed for each weapon when you right clicked on the attack rating.

Round four, SliceyDicey appears to miss eight times. The astral weapon spell should ensure that the minimum damage from a successful hit is well over 20 (~25 str plus 3 from the main gauche).

The actual damage dealt by an armour negating weapon in this case would be 28 + 1d6oe - 1d6oe.

Can somebody tell me how flanking is supposed to work? It's -1 def per attack beyond the first each round, I think. Does that include attacks from the same creature?? ie. is my nataraja's 8th attack going to be with a -7 def penalty for the defender, if all 8 attacks are on the same target?

It's this case.

And if you can't beat ice devils with 43 def and astral weapon, how do you beat them? They both have >20 MR so spells are unlikely to succeed ...

Well, for one, don't cast returning, since you are bound to get hit once in a while.

[magnate]

Graeme Dice said:
What was his attack rating listed for each weapon when you right clicked on the attack rating.

22,22,22,22

The actual damage dealt by an armour negating weapon in this case would be 28 + 1d6oe - 1d6oe.

?? Oh. I never knew that. Even so, the chances are good that the damage would be higher than 2!

It's this case.

Er, sorry, I didn't understand that.

Well, for one, don't cast returning, since you are bound to get hit once in a while.

I didn't cast it, it's intrinsic to the Virtue armour - but that was just a precaution. I wanted to see how much damage I could do before getting hit. That would be a good guide to see whether I could kill an ice devil or two without too much risk. I'm not surprised about getting hit at all; I am surprised that I did no damage whatsoever, despite 8 armour negating attacks, and that the flipping ice devils are draining life when they didn't damage me! Given my 22 att and their 20|26 def, cf their 20|28 att and my 43 def, I would expect to hit a *lot* more often than them - given that there were 8 attacks per round on each side.

CC

[Oversway]

I recall reading on the forums that special effects are somehow 'seperate' from the weapon attack - so that accounts life drain and accursed shield. Some may call it a bug, especially for life drain.

You may just have had unlucky rools. Also, against ID, why not try the +damage vs undead and demons weapons like herald lance.

[magnate]

Oversway said:

I recall reading on the forums that special effects are somehow 'seperate' from the weapon attack - so that accounts life drain and accursed shield. Some may call it a bug, especially for life drain.

It's definitely buggy for life drain - makes no sense at all. I guess one could argue that the cursed shield effect could trigger on a blocked attack (ie. a miss).

You may just have had unlucky rools. Also, against ID, why not try the +damage vs undead and demons weapons like herald lance.

I don't think I need more damage, I need more hits! If I could hit the bastards I'm fairly sure the astral weapon would be enough. One hit should have a ~10-20% chance of giving them a battle affliction, and it'd be downhill from there. 8 attacks per round should make short work of them, if only they were hitting.

While I'm here, can *anybody* confirm or deny whether Frozen Heart works on ice devils? Logically it shouldn't work on anything with 100% cold resistance, but you never know with this game - maybe it's not classed as a "cold" attack ...

CC

[Cainehill]

I've seen ice devils not taking any damage from my Astral-Weaponed Freaklord for like ... 20 rounds of battle. Thought it was a bug with Astral Weapon not affecting trample, but possibly Astral Weapon doesn't affect Ice Devils?

[OG_Gleep]

There are lots of ways to kill an ice devil. Ice Devils are classified as SC's, and there is a very recent thread on magic vs SC's. 20 resistance doesn't make them immune to spells.

What weapon is the athame. I don't recognize it and I couldn't find it in the magic item list.

The Naj has the ability to conifg a lot of different ways weapon wise. If the Athamme doesn't give fire protection, the dragon scale armor won't give 100% resistance to fire, so you could use any of the multiple fire weapons.

Vine Shield/Eye shield could also work.

And as Oversway mentioned there are a few +demon weapons that you could use. The flambeau does fire dmg + 3x dmg to demons. You could use 2 of them, 1 + weapon + shield or 1 + 2 weapons.

Also, why not use more of the buffs you have available?

A3 has Mistform and Mirror Image
S3 gives you access to Astral shield and Body Etheral
W2 gives you access to cold resistance

And if I'm not mistaken Naj are cold blooded...you could be going in with a stacked deck if the province your fighting in is cold. Not only does it effect you, but it buffs ice devils.

Anyhow, Ice devils are great, but theres a ton of ways to beat them.

[Endoperez]

Blood Athame, IIRC - Blood booster, and a life-draining dagger. The life-drain is good enough even in such a small form.

Natarajas aren't cold-blooded, but they are affected by cold dominion more than other pretenders because they make more attacks. The normal slight increase for extreme cold affects every attack IIRC.

[Saber Cherry]

Attack is decreased by high fatigue. So after casting all those spells, with no reinvigoration, what was the Nat's fatigue? Also, if it fell asleep, the Ice Devils would hit it 100% of the time, and (IIRC) ignore the armor.

[magnate]

Cainehill said:
I've seen ice devils not taking any damage from my Astral-Weaponed Freaklord for like ... 20 rounds of battle. Thought it was a bug with Astral Weapon not affecting trample, but possibly Astral Weapon doesn't affect Ice Devils?

If that's true, it makes IDs even more unbalanced than we already know they are. How come nobody's noted this in a bug thread in the past ~3 years? (I can only assume it's a bug because the game gives no indication of this.) Is anything else unaffected by AW?

It would certainly explain the observed combat results though - both IDs had prot 28.

CC