Re: CF: Answers to Scott Yelich's questions

[Peter Mardahl <peterm@langmuir.EECS.Berkeley.EDU>]

> > > (1) What is pray?  Holy word? Deities and gods? and Altars?
> 
> > Praying is how you gain Grace, which is the "fuel" for priest spells. 
> > Praying on an altar consecrated to your god lets you gain grace above
> > your normal maximum.  Without praying, your grace will only regenerate
> > to half-maximum. 
> 
> Ah! Is that why my grace is always 2 of 5.  Nevermind that the altars
> seem to be random (ie: I still haven't found one for jehovah as was
> suggested ina few messages back).  Normal maximum, ok...  but how do I
> *increase* my grace permanently?  I have prayers that need like
> 60 grace, but I have only 5 -- same as with spells?  Seems lame
> that I will need to get 120 grace (I figure that's like level 
> 30 or something) ...

Wow, you either need potions in a big way, or you need to kill
lots of stuff with mage spells and priest spells.  For maxgrace,
you need Wis and Pow, while for maxsp, you need only Pow.

> I have holy word, but it just says a random spirit ignores
> my prayer (or something) which I took to mean that I had
> to find an altar for jehovah and do something (as of yet
> undetermined).

Yeah, you're unaligned.  Get on an altar of jehovah and pray while
you're over it.  You'll set your allegiance to Jehovah, and then
holy word will work on undead and demons.

> > Priest spells are "prayers", which are different from praying.
> > Holy word is a priest spell, which causes damage to enemies
> > of your god and no one/nothing else, which means you can
> > kill monsters with it without touching their equipment.
> > Very nice.
> 
> That's the rumor!
> 
> > > (2) How do I make my sp go up?  They seem so low
> > > that I can't kill things to get experience?  
> > sp?  You mean maxsp I suppose.
> > sp goes up with time, with quaffing magic potions, and by using
> > a power crystal.  sp regen is retarded by wearing armor.
>  
> > maxsp depends on your Pow stat, and your level.
> 
> ah, ok.  I wasn't so much worried about that, but at level 7
> magic I have 40+ sp.  Now I'm level 8 and I can't seem to
> harm things with magic before I either have to run away
> or clobber them with a physical attack.

Use more effective spells.  If you're shooting magic bullet at them,
and just one magic bullet, it won't hurt most monsters that much,
if you're fighting decent monsters.  You might have to fire 3 or 4
small fireballs to kill some creatures, and really tough monsters
might require you to empty your fuel tank.

> I haven't watched too closely... but it seems that experience
> is an all or nothing bonus.  That is, hit something 3 times with
> magic (so that you're all out) and then hit it once with a sword

Your magic is too wimpy if you're out before killing something.
Get yourself some more spell points by using:  improvement potions,
Pow stat potions, rings and items with Pow bonuses.

If you want to kill just one thing, I recommend bolt spells of various
sorts, like firebolt, lightning, frostbolt.  Also, you might
be attacking something which is simply immune to magic, or protected
against the particular attack you're using.  For example, VERY FEW spells
work on beholders and Dreads, and fire spells do NOTHING to wyverns or
demons (except Raas, which can be hurt with fire.)

Anyway, do the rest of you see what I mean about making crossfire too
hard?  Beginners don't have the expert knowledge we developers do....

> and kill it, you get physical experience.  Was there ever a 
> discussion into turning damage directly into experience (or
> was that hinting at the strength of the opponent? I vaguely
> remember something about that).

Well, do the reverse.  Hit it a few times, and THEN kill him with magic.
I don't really see much need for awarding experience for anything
but kills.  It is so much simpler that way.

> > > (3) How do I apply a scroll of weapon bonus?
> > > It always says weapon not prepared?
> 
> > You use the Prepare Weapon scroll first.  THEN you can apply the
> > other scrolls. 
> 
> Aha!  Strange that I have seen one of these.  Perhaps I need to
> look closer.

Enchanting weapons is really for high level characters, IMHO.  You're
better off trying to find something nice.

> > > (5) what is alchemy?
> > 
> > The conversion (using a cauldron, the alchemy spell and a recipe) of
> > raw materials into useful items.  You can make things like dusts which
> > act like wands:  they cast spells.  However, the advantage of alchemically
> > made stuff is that the spells don't have the MAGIC attacktype set.
> > 
> > So for example, if you used many dusts of conflagration on beholders,
> > you could kill them.  Beholders are immune to magic.  You can also
> > make arrows of slaying, or Assassination (which are instant killers
> > if they hit).
> 
> Ah! ok.  I thought I read something on this list about making
> piles of garbage and running alchemy on it.  It kind of
> reminded me of polymorph -- but as I recall, polymorph
> would reduce the value of the item each time until it
> basically became a flower or something worthless.

You MIGHT get something nice doing that, but more likely, you
just destroy all the garbage.

PeterM
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