Damage bonuses etc?

[fredfnord]

So here I am with my new portralis character, and I'm tooling around, and I notice a couple of cheap rings at the shop: a ring of damage +9 [50% off] and a ring of accuracy +9 [75% off] and I think hey, that could really give me a boost in the early levels!

So I buy 'em, and I equip 'em, and I set myself up with a dagger as a ranger, and I'm getting four attacks per round. And I have a dagger +4/+4 because I've boosted my crafting up to 9.

I guess I don't understand the new math, because with what I would have thought would be a +13 to damage per hit, I do... 1 to 3 damage, every time, with my dagger. Not that I would know this without the little 'enemy hit point' display. And what's more, I miss. A lot. I would think a +13 to hit against level 2 monsters would be enough that I would be hitting most of the time, but I seem to manage it only about 50% of the time.

What's the deal here? How do to-hit and damage bonuses work in this game? It's clearly different than it was in angband and all the variants I've seen up until now.

[Variaz]

to_d is a percentile bonus to damages. Having +13 to_d means you'll get +13% bonus. However, since you do only 1-3 damages, 13% doesn't make a difference, and you'll need to boost your Daggers skill to do more damages with daggers.

As for to_h, it's a static bonus to your total to_h bonus. Whenever you try hitting a monster, it's a comparison between your to_h and the monster's AC. It works this way:

Assuming you have a to_h of 30, and trying to hit a monster with an AC of 20. What happens is that a number from 1 to 30 is rolled for the player, versus a number from 1 to 20 for the monster. If you have a number equal or higher than the monster's, you will hit it. Otherwise, you'll miss.

+13 on level 2 monsters is okay, but not all monsters have the same AC, and it certainly could be higher. For example, a level 2 small kobold will have 2, a Small Panther will have 4, but a Bandit Warrior will have 16, so with only +13, you'll have a little less than 50% chances of hitting a bandit warrior. And of course, if it's an elite/boss, then it will be even higher.

Here's the most important tip I can give to melee characters early on: Raise your Dexterity!! Even if it's just the two starting stats points, it will make a huge difference early on. Each points of dexterity above 5 adds +10 to_h, but after that, it increases your total to_h by 5% for every points above 5, so having a good dexterity is very important. With a dex of 7 at level 1, you'd have a basic to_h of 26. Add to that your +13, and you'd have 39. This will make hitting monsters much easier! Even if it's not your main stat, make sure you raise it now and then, for no matter how powerful you become, it will be useless if you can't hit your enemies. Or, since you're going the Crafting route, you can make items to raise it. (though you'll need 1 more point into Crafting, as you gain the ability to customize your items bonus at Crafting 10.)

Also, here's some tips for Daggers characters:

- Add some Alchemy to brand your daggers. Branded daggers + tons of blows = fun.
- Why wield a dagger when you can wield TWO daggers? Even if you don't raise Dual Wield, you'll still get a good amount of blows from the off hand with daggers. And if you do raise it to 20, you'll get a really high amount of blows! Note that to gain any skills-related feats, you need to raise them to 20 naturally, not counting any racial/classes/items bonus, so that's a 4 levels investment.
- The Fighter ability "Critical Hits" combines very well with daggers.
- Putting only 5 natural skill points into Daggers will give you +25% bonus to_h when striking a monster with a dagger. So even if you're a Crafter, you might want to place 5 points in Daggers to get this bonus.

With this, this should give you a good start.

[fredfnord]

Ahh, I see now.

Well, anyway, that guy is dead and I've started another one, who found 'Bee Sting' on his first foray into the dungeon. I've already given him ten points of daggers and two points of dex, and we'll see about dual wielding. I'm eventually going to go the weapon finesse/craft fighting route, if I ever gain any class levels.

BTW, I highly recommend putting the class level/class kill table in the help file.