acsccjk@sunybcs.UUCP (Chris Kracik) (12/11/84)
> > Now, how about those wraiths and phantoms? > > -- Clark > > "With friends like you, who needs enemies?" 1) wraiths not all that terrible. there is also an advantage to letting them hit you. let them hit you until you get a message 'you suddenly feel weak'. now kill them. upon killing the beasty, you will almost always advance a skill level. 2) phantoms also not a major biggie. if you have a potion of see invisible (umm.. this tastes like slime-mold (fruit) juice), quaff that. if not, try getting into a corridor. this way, they can only come at you in two directions. (alos, lets not forget the dreaded scare monster scroll..provided you have one!) chris kracik @ SUNY @ BAHAMAS
phd@harvard.ARPA (Paul Dormitzer) (12/12/84)
> > 1) wraiths > > not all that terrible. there is also an advantage to letting them > hit you. let them hit you until you get a message 'you suddenly feel weak'. > now kill them. upon killing the beasty, you will almost always advance a skill > level. > When you get the message 'you suddenly feel weak' It means that you have just lost an experience level. If you kill the wraith, you get the level back. Unfortunately, you get put back to the minimum number of experience points necessary to reach that level. Thus, if you were, say, 50 hit points from the next experience level, and there are 2000 experience points between levels, you have a net loss of 1950 experience points, rather annoying to say the least! However, the wraiths can also be put to good use. If you are only a few points into the experience level, and you got a miserable 2 hit point gain on your last advance, it can be to your advantage to go back to the previous level and try the random # generator again and see if it is kinder the second time around. -- Paul Dormitzer ...!decvax!genrad!wjh12!harvard!phd phd@harvard.ARPA
wws@whuxlm.UUCP (Stoll W William) (12/12/84)
> > > > Now, how about those wraiths and phantoms? > > > > -- Clark > > > > "With friends like you, who needs enemies?" > > > > 1) wraiths > > not all that terrible. there is also an advantage to letting them > hit you. let them hit you until you get a message 'you suddenly feel weak'. > now kill them. upon killing the beasty, you will almost always advance a skill > level. > > ... > > chris kracik @ SUNY @ BAHAMAS Uh, when you get the message ' you suddenly feel weak ', the wraith has lowered your skill level (and removed some exp points) so when you kill it, your experience points are almost always lower than they were before it "weakened" you. You "advance" back to the level you were on before the attack if you were lucky and were only hit once. Of course sometimes the software is nice and takes away fewer hit points for "weakening" than it gives you back when you kill it. The risk is not worth the certain loss of experience points to this roguer, however. Bill Stoll, ..!whuxlm!wws
kaufman@uiucdcs.UUCP (12/12/84)
/* Written 2:21 am Dec 12, 1984 by acsccjk@sunybcs in uiucdcs:net.games.rogue */ > > Now, how about those wraiths and phantoms? > > -- Clark > > "With friends like you, who needs enemies?" 1) wraiths not all that terrible. there is also an advantage to letting them hit you. let them hit you until you get a message 'you suddenly feel weak'. now kill them. upon killing the beasty, you will almost always advance a skill level. /* End of text from uiucdcs:net.games.rogue */ You've got to be kidding! The only reason you gain a level is because that weakness you felt was a level being sucked away from you! There is no way you gain in the exchange. Ken Kaufman (uiucdcs!kaufman)
barnett@ut-sally.UUCP (Lewis Barnett) (12/12/84)
> > > > Now, how about those wraiths and phantoms? > > > > -- Clark > > > > "With friends like you, who needs enemies?" > > > > 1) wraiths > > not all that terrible. there is also an advantage to letting them > hit you. let them hit you until you get a message 'you suddenly feel weak'. > now kill them. upon killing the beasty, you will almost always advance a skill > level. > > chris kracik @ SUNY @ BAHAMAS There's something missing here. When you see that message 'you suddenly feel weaker,' you have just LOST that skill level that you get back when you kill the Wraith. Wraiths aren't hard to kill, and if you've just increased a skill level and got less than five extra hit points, then you may come out ahead on the exchange, but occasionally a Wraith will suck away fully half of your experience points. This can be a real pain, not to mention deadly when your ep are way up there and you're down a good ways in the dungeon. When I run into sleeping wraiths, I leave 'em alone. When they're awake, I throw things at them until forced to switch to my primary weapon. Then I pray that they don't weaken me! I also use staves of cancellation on them if I have more than one. Lewis Barnett,CS Dept, Painter Hall 3.28, Univ. of Texas, Austin, TX 78712 -- barnett@ut-sally.ARPA, barnett@ut-sally.UUCP, {ihnp4,harvard,seismo,gatech,ctvax}!ut-sally!barnett
phil@amdcad.UUCP (Phil Ngai) (12/13/84)
> 1) wraiths > not all that terrible. there is also an advantage to letting them > hit you. let them hit you until you get a message 'you suddenly feel weak'. > now kill them. upon killing the beasty, you will almost always advance a > skill level. What you fail to mention is that 'you suddenly feel weak' indicates the wraith has taken you down a level. Assuming he only takes you down once then when you kill him you will be back at the same level you started from. I had the impression (in 3.6 at least) that you were given just enough experience points to advance to the next level. That means if you were at level 14, almost level 15, and the wraith took you down to 13, when you kill him you'll be at 14 but near the bottom not the top of 14. In any case there is no advantage to letting them hit you and going down a level. -- I'm not a programmer, I'm a hardware type. Phil Ngai (408) 749-5790 UUCP: {ucbvax,decwrl,ihnp4,allegra}!amdcad!phil ARPA: amdcad!phil@decwrl.ARPA
robert@gitpyr.UUCP (Robert Viduya) (12/13/84)
> > I had the impression (in 3.6 at least) that you were given just enough > experience points to advance to the next level. That means if you were > at level 14, almost level 15, and the wraith took you down to 13, when > you kill him you'll be at 14 but near the bottom not the top of 14. > > In any case there is no advantage to letting them hit you and going > down a level. > I believe the advantage is that the wraith takes you down a level, but it doesn't drop your max hit points. Then, after killing the wraith, you go up a level and, doing so, get more hit points added to your max hit points. robert -- Robert Viduya Office of Computing Services Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta GA 30332 Phone: (404) 894-4669 ...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,masscomp,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!robert ...!{rlgvax,sb1,uf-cgrl,unmvax,ut-sally}!gatech!gitpyr!robert
robison@eosp1.UUCP (Tobias D. Robison) (12/13/84)
Long experiments with rogue3.6 (where it's useful to keep your
experience level below 10) have shown that getting wraithed many times
gradually lowers your hitpoint total. You can gain in the short run
but not the long run.
In rogue 5.2, when trying to get the last 50% or so experience points
to get to experience level 10, the danger of getting wraithed is
severe, and it's worth using quite a bit of magic to prevent wraiths
from hitting you, especially the wands of drain life and cancellation.
- Toby Robison (not Robinson!)
{allegra, decvax!ittvax, fisher, princeton}!eosp1!robisonron@wjvax.UUCP (Ron Christian) (12/15/84)
Well, you don't get "just enough experiance points to go up
the next level", after killing a wraith, as a few people alluded
to, rather, you get whatever the wraith point value is. When
the wraith takes you down a level, it takes you to just below the
experiance point value of your current level. The point value
of killing the wraith puts you over again. (This is nit picky,
I realize, but what the hell.)
OK, what happens when "you suddenly feel weaker" TWICE before
you kill the sucker? I don't remember if you actually go down
TWO experiance levels or not. Anyone know?
--
"Where can you find Ron Christian
a stale work environment Watkins-Johnson Co.
with excellent pay?" San Jose, Calif.
--bay area newspaper {pesnta,twg,ios}!wjvax!ronmcewan@uiucdcs.UUCP (12/15/84)
> I believe the advantage is that the wraith takes you down a level, but > it doesn't drop your max hit points. Then, after killing the wraith, > you go up a level and, doing so, get more hit points added to your max > hit points. Maybe in some versions, but in 5.2 and 5.3 (and I think 3.6, but its been so long since I've played 3.6 that I don't remember for sure) you hit points are lowered 1 to 10 points. Would people PLEASE say which version they are talking about when they submit something to this newgroup. There is considerable variation between versions. Scott McEwan {ihnp4,pur-ee}!uiucdcs!mcewan Just because something is obvious doesn't mean that it's true.
srm@nsc.UUCP (Richard Mateosian) (12/16/84)
In article <34500042@uiucdcs.UUCP> kaufman@uiucdcs.UUCP writes: > >You've got to be kidding! The only reason you gain a level is because that >weakness you felt was a level being sucked away from you! There is no way >you gain in the exchange. This is a correct assessment of expectation. There seems to be some confusion on this subject. In an exchange with a Wraith in which you only go down one level and then come up one level, your HP lose 1D10 then gain 1D10. This is a net change of between -9 and +9. This is independent of how much you went up the last time you increased level. Thus, for example, if you only went up by 1 HP when you reached 1300 experience, fighting a Wraith and only being weakened once can still cost you 9 HP, so it's not true, as someone else suggested, that this is a good tactic to use after a disappointing HP increase at a level change. If k is the number of times you are weakened by a Wraith before you kill it (k=>1), then the expected change in HP from the exchange is (1-k)*5.5 This expectation reaches a maximum of 0 when k=1. Thus, fighting Wraiths is fun if you like to gamble, but remember that you shouldn't expect an increase in HP. -- Richard Mateosian {allegra,cbosgd,decwrl,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo}!nsc!srm nsc!srm@decwrl.ARPA