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Post by richterq87 on Oct 31, 2018 13:30:40 GMT -5
I know there's topics similar to this which discuss what the 'unplayable' stat thresholds are, but I have a pretty specific question in mind that I don't think was covered in those topics.
If you've ever played an elf, then I can assume you know that their strength rolls leave a lot to be desired. You've probably had to put up with your attacks 'bouncing' off of the enemies tough hide, such and such. My question is: what's the bare minimum until your strength is high enough for your attacks to actually pierce the toughest enemies hide?
I've rolled an elf or two with 'good' strength or below (which apparently is a 10-11 or lower), which usually did the job against most standard enemies. But against particularly tough ones, they fell short. If I had to guess, I'm guessing the threshold is around the 'good' stats for a human (14-15).
Can anyone confirm?
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Post by shakes on Oct 31, 2018 13:57:25 GMT -5
It also seems to be tied to a weapon. I have had trouble with "below average" humans who can't pierce through a scrab but when I switched to a spear I can get them.
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Post by richterq87 on Oct 31, 2018 13:59:57 GMT -5
That's a point. Usually as an elf I either do slashing or piercing weapons, and I think you're right when you say that piercing weapons have an easier time getting past the hide than slashing. Still, I wonder what the limit is for a slashing weapon?
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Post by lechuck on Oct 31, 2018 15:08:43 GMT -5
So, here's the strength table:
/* strength apply */ /* to_dam, carry_w, bend_break */ {-9, 1, -1}, /* 0 */ {-6, 5, 0}, {-5, 10, 0}, {-4, 20, 0}, /* 3 */ {-4, 35, 0}, {-3, 50, 0}, {-3, 65, 0}, /* 6 */ {-2, 80, 0}, {-2, 95, 0}, {-1, 105, 1}, /* 9 */ {0, 110, 2}, {0, 115, 3}, {0, 117, 4}, /* 12 */ {0, 120, 6}, {0, 125, 9}, {1, 140, 12}, /* 15 */ {1, 155, 18}, {2, 170, 24}, {3, 195, 32}, /* 18 */ {4, 230, 40}, {5, 290, 48}, {6, 380, 56}, /* 21 */ {7, 430, 64}, {8, 500, 72}, {9, 640, 80}, /* 24 */
And here are the racial stat parameters for humans, elves and dwarves:
Human Human STR/AGI/END Human WIS 3d4+7 4d4+4 Absolutely Incredible | 20+ 21+ Exceptional | 18-19 19-20 Extremely Good | 17 17-18 Very Good | 16 15-16 Good | 14-15 14 Above Average | 13 12-13 Average | 12 10-11 Below Average | 10-11 8-9 Poor | < 10 < 8
City Elf cElf STR cElf AGI cElf WIS cElf END 3d4+3 3d6+8 4d7+5 2d4+8
Absolutely Incredible | 16+ 27+ 34+ 17+ Exceptional | 14-15 24-26 30-33 16 Extremely Good | 13 22-23 27-29 15 Very Good | 12 20-21 23-26 14 Good | 10-11 18-19 20-22 13 Above Average | 9 16-17 16-19 12 Average | 8 14-15 13-15 11 Below Average | 6-7 11-13 9-12 10 Poor | < 6 < 11 < 9 < 10
Dwarf Dwarf STR Dwarf AGI Dwarf WIS Dwarf END 3d4+9 3d4+6 3d4+6 2d4+13
Absolutely Incredible | 22+ 19+ 19+ 22+ Exceptional | 20-21 17-18 17-18 21 Extremely Good | 19 16 16 20 Very Good | 18 15 15 19 Good | 16-17 13-14 13-14 18 Above Average | 15 12 12 17 Average | 14 11 11 16 Below Average | 12-13 9-10 9-10 15 Poor | < 12 < 9 < 9 < 15
As we can see from the strength table, you don't get a damage bonus until 15 strength, and you need 17 for +2. Exceptional strength for an elf is 14-15, so you can roll exceptional and get no damage bonus at all; and to get 17, you'd have to hit a natural 100 (1% chance), be of an age where you get no strength penalty (which is surprisingly old, like over 30 in human years--whatever that is in elf years), and be a warrior. Suffice to say that you're stuck with a strength cap of 16 for elves, which means they never get more than +1 damage at most, and are unlikely to get even that.
I'd say +2 damage is the minimum for being noticeably strong. It means a lot more than a single point of damage over 15-16 because the bonus is applied before the location multiplier, so +1 from strength might yield, say, 4 actual damage on a hit to the neck. This is why strong characters can do insane damage to the head and neck but will still do 'lightly' to the arms and legs. Someone with +3 damage and a 2d5 sword could do 30+ to a vulnerable location or just a couple of points of damage to an armored limb, even though the damage range is technically 5-13.
After 17 strength, the damage bonus starts to rise rapidly, a full +1 per point of strength all the way into mul territory. The carry_weight substat also accelerates in a similar manner. This is why high strength is so insanely important for any combat character; going from average to very good is nowhere near as useful as going from exceptional to absolutely incredible. Going from 10 to 14 strength gives you literally nothing but +15 carry, but going from 14 to 17 gives +2 damage and +45 carry, and 17 to 20 is a ridiculous +3 damage and +120 carry. It's completely broken and was based on AD&D rules where damage bonus and carrying capacity was nowhere near as important. The scaling is totally out of control in the upper ranges of human/dwarf strength.
Strength is an offensive stat and a better defensive stat than agility. A dwarf warrior will easily roll 20+ strength, which gives a huge damage bonus and the ability to wear any armor you want. Someone with a carrying capacity of 140 (15 strength) will struggle to wear anything more than leathers while 300 lets you strap on the heaviest armor in the world without penalties, as well as several backup weapons. That's in addition to the special weapons you can use--a dwarf with high strength can use weapons meant for half-giants, and people will do that no matter how absurd and twinky it is to run around wielding a club that's bigger than yourself. That's just Armageddon for ya. Nobody tells people not to do it, so they do.
A combat character's endurance and agility will affect their power by a combined factor of maybe 25%. Their strength, however, will easily increase power by 100% or more. As in, a character with max strength is at least twice as effective in combat as a character with medium strength. A character with max agility is only slightly better off than one with medium agility, and the difference will diminish with skills since they basically do the same thing as agility's bonuses while strength scales with skill since landing more hits to vulnerable locations increases the value of your strength bonus. Heavy armor does way more for your survivability than some modest bonus to defensive rolls.
So, in short, there isn't any real "minimum strength threshold for optimum efficiency." More strength is always better (unless perhaps if you're a mul/giant), and always better than all the other stats. Just bear in mind that anything under 15 strength is basically worthless, and 17+ is when it really starts to take off. You can have an effective fighter without super high strength, but it would have been a much better fighter with more strength. Far, far more than the difference between a normal and a very agile fighter.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2018 15:15:03 GMT -5
I know there's topics similar to this which discuss what the 'unplayable' stat thresholds are, but I have a pretty specific question in mind that I don't think was covered in those topics. If you've ever played an elf, then I can assume you know that their strength rolls leave a lot to be desired. You've probably had to put up with your attacks 'bouncing' off of the enemies tough hide, such and such. My question is: what's the bare minimum until your strength is high enough for your attacks to actually pierce the toughest enemies hide? I've rolled an elf or two with 'good' strength or below (which apparently is a 10-11 or lower), which usually did the job against most standard enemies. But against particularly tough ones, they fell short. If I had to guess, I'm guessing the threshold is around the 'good' stats for a human (14-15). Can anyone confirm? Str score + weapon damage mod + possible two handed mod + possible head/neck mod + weapon skill + base O skill
"Average" elven strength, high jman weapon, and a decent quality one handed weapon will allow you to inflict damage on all foes except meks. Ankhegs and silt horrors are half the armor of meks, if that much. By decent quality I'm referring to the leaf bladed or double edged bone shortswords, or fanged rugged spears and the other reasonably good pc craftable weapons.
The issue is that such a fighter is still much less effective.
An advanced skill, average to good strength elven warrior with a decent weapon can kill sandy spiders and rantarri. It just takes three to five times as many blows as a max strength elf. The max strength elf still takes three times as many hits as a decently statted and skilled HG or mul.
Defenses ramp with agility, but not that well. The good str elf with AI agility is not a big game hunter. He will get master weapon skills more easily than anything else in the game and be wonderful for skilling other pcs, especially if you get vgood elven wisdom or better and "abuse" the timers.
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Post by shakes on Oct 31, 2018 15:43:11 GMT -5
What governs head and neck shots?
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Post by sessizlik on Nov 6, 2018 2:17:52 GMT -5
If you've ever played an elf, then I can assume you know that their strength rolls leave a lot to be desired. You've probably had to put up with your attacks 'bouncing' off of the enemies tough hide, such and such. My question is: what's the bare minimum until your strength is high enough for your attacks to actually pierce the toughest enemies hide? As your base offense and weapon skill improves, you'll do more damage even if you use the same weapon and remain having the same strength. Your below average strength human won't be able to pierce scrab shells at day one. He'll wound them at day 10 even if he uses the same shitty weapons. (I'm all for shitty weapons all the way until you master that weapon for twinkish reasons. You may improve your armor, that's sensible, but shitty and light weapons are better for twinking.) I had rukkians with armor/stoneskin who fight with animals. At first 50 fights, you run because even on top of armor+stoneskin the scrab still hits you and your all strikes bounce. Then suddenly you manage to hit consistently and in time your damage just improves. That proves even if you have no weapon skill, your damage still improves with the invisible "base offense" stat.
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