sciore (12/11/82)
OK you advanced roguesters! Can someone tell me when you would use a stick of drain life? It seems to me that any monster weak enough to die from half of your hp is weak enough to be beaten up w/o magic. And with a Troll (e.g.) you give him half your hit points and then a free shot at you. Perhaps it is useful for killing L's and N's in close quarters? Also, how exactly does a stick of striking work? It seems that you have to be right next to the monster to have any effect. Ed Sciore
avie (12/12/82)
Drain life does not do have your hit points damage to enemies. The damage is equal to all of your hit points. It is especially useful to use to kill Dragons and Purple Worms. However, you must decide to use it when at full hit points. Avadis Tevanian, Jr. seismo!rochester!avie
dan (12/13/82)
Yes, I have noticed that the staff of drain life is a lot less effective in version 5.2. They usually blow away minor monsters but only at considerable cost. I have been burned pretty badly experimenting with drain life on major monsters and now usually throw away a drain life staff almost immediately after picking it up. I believe someone recently announced that in 5.2 a staff of drain life affects all monsters in a room, not just the one you point it at. This is true, but I have yet to kill anything nastier than a gnome this way. It seems as if the power of the staff is divided up among all of the monsters affected. So using drain life in a treasure room is just a way of waking up all of the monsters in the room, perhaps the last thing you want to do.
bad (12/13/82)
A staff of drain life is very useful in that generally the rogue has more hit points then the monster does. I think trolls have around 30 hps to site one example. However since monsters get multiple attacks they usually can do more damage per hit than the rogue. So the usefulness of the staff is that it is a quick way of dealing with terrible nasties (such as U,X,and,T's). One warning though is that do not use the drain life when in the vacinity of more then one monster in that instead of taking the same amount of hits points that you lost from both monsters it spreads your loss over the number of monsters present. Also if you have a staff of drain life it is better to decide if you are going to use it at your first oppurtunity because this is when you have the most hit points. Bruce Dautrich Covenant the Unbeliever
emrath (12/14/82)
#R:idis:-16500:uiucdcs:9500109:000:749 uiucdcs!emrath Dec 14 04:39:00 1982 I tend to agree about the usefulness of drain life, but I still keep them if possible (ranking above say magic missile or striking). Once I was in a t-room that had 2 Fs inside. They were both holding me and after killing the first one, an X replaced it. I pointed drain life at the X and it killed the 2nd F! The X didn't finish me off, so I backed out and dropped a scare monster. The drain life saved me. Another time I entered a room with a sleeping D. I went back to the door and tried my drain life on it with lots of hit points. It took away about half (of 85 or something), but didn't kill the D. Then I rested up while it walked over to me and one swing finished it off. Drain life can be effective if you are careful about how you use it.
mcewan (12/14/82)
#R:idis:-16500:uiucdcs:9500110:000:204 uiucdcs!mcewan Dec 14 12:03:00 1982 The algorithm for drain life sticks in (I'm pretty sure) ALL versions of rogue is: n = number of monsters in room h = your total hit points for each monster in room monster hp -= h/n your hp /= 2
clp (01/23/83)
The algorithm for drain life is actually: monster hp -= (h/2) / n i.e., your total hit points goes down by a half, and that same number of hit points are taken from all the monsters equally... Charles Perkins 3.4 winner, and think 3.6 is easy.
mcewan (01/27/83)
#R:wjh12:-14000:uiucdcs:9500116:000:194 uiucdcs!mcewan Jan 26 18:20:00 1983 ***** uiucdcs:net.games.rog / wjh12!clp / 3:11 am Jan 23, 1983 The algorithm for drain life is actually: monster hp -= (h/2) / n ... ---------- The code I've seen has monster hp -= h/n