lmeck@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Loren Meck) (09/22/83)
A letter from Chip Hitchcock prompted me to do some additional
investigation on the subject of weapons thrown and wielded. What I found
(most of my information comes from an assembly listing produced by running
adb on an unstripped binary) is that weapons have specific dice rolls for
wielding and throwing, and that a thrown weapon has the same dice roll no
matter what weapon is wielded. However, when throwing, the damage and
dexterity attributes of the weapon wielded only count if it is the proper
type to throw with (bow + arrow, crossbow + bolt). Thus, all wielding a
+1,+0 bow does is give 1 more dexterity point to the throw, increasing
slightly the probability that the arrow will hit. The dice rolls for
wielding and throwing selected weapons are listed below.
mace 2d4 wielded, 1d3 thrown
long sword 3d4 wielded, 1d2 thrown
two handed sword 4d4 wielded, 1d2 thrown
spear 2d3 wielded, 1d6 thrown
arrow 1d1 wielded, 2d3 thrown
dagger 1d6 wielded, 1d4 thrown
dart 1d1 wielded, 1d3 thrown
crossbow bolt 1d2 wielded, 2d5 thrown
Chip also questioned the probabilities for occurrance of weapons. As
nearly as I can determine, the code gives all weapons equal probability.
However, the vagaries of some UNIX "random" number generators have been
previously discussed in netnews; one person mentioned that two handed
swords never appeared in an early version of rogue due to deficiencies in
the random number generator. This might still be a problem on some
systems.
I also forgot to mention that the dexterity attribute (only) is affected
by enchanting/cursing done when the weapon is created.
Slasher {ihnp4 hplabs cbosgd allegra decvax!trw-unix}!sdcrdcf!lmeck