There’s something which I find unclear in DCSS, and even the unofficial wiki doesn’t help much: Which god-given abilities are usable while silenced or confused? For a start, I think the two passive martial art tricks by Wu Jian work, but it has a third trick that requires activation, and I’m also not sure about Gozag’s Potion Petition (curing to cure confusion?), for example.
I know for sure that Elyvilon’s Purification and Ru’s Draw Out Power work while confused, though. To be fair, that’s also clearly written in the ability descriptions. Not sure about when silenced, though.
EDIT: I’m more interested in activable abilities, that the character has to “call out” to its god to activate, rather than passive abilities that I naturally tend to think they work regardless of silence and confusion.
I think Ely and Ru have the only active abilities that work while confused. Even Zin’s Vitalisation, which protects against confusion, can’t be used to clear it, same goes for Potion Petition. Bottom line is - no active God abilities are usable during confusion or silence, unless stated otherwise.
So I have an ongoing run with Wu Jian, and recently I tried Wizard Mode for the first time, and I also tried to look in the source code a bit. TL;DR: This is a Wu Jian documentation thing only, apparently. I’ll update the thread title to reflect this after this post.
Wu Jian’s Lunge (passive), Whirlwind (passive), and Wall Jump (activable) abilities work while silenced and berserked, and not when confused. This is something that I feel is important to know but isn’t reflected in the Wall Jump ability’s description nor in the Wu Jian god screen (which does mention a more niche fact, for example, regarding martial attacks while digging as a Formicid, I think (don’t get me wrong, I appreciate this information, makes me feel like the devs try to pay attention to different kinds of players even if they’re playing a niche species)). (No other god-given abilities work while silenced or berserked, which is to be expected. Elyvilon’s Purification and Ru’s Draw Out Power are very clearly described in-game as working while confused; they don’t work while silenced or berserked, and no other god-given abilities work while confused — both of these are to be expected.)
I think the description of Wall Jump is unclear. Even the unofficial wiki was unhelpful, I think. To be fair, its description does say that it takes two turns to “complete the motion” (emphasis on complete), but intuitively I thought that activating Wall Jump starts a delay of 1 turn before making the wall jump, and when I tested it for the first time mid-combat I saw it immediately did the jump and I saw the time counter saying my last action took 2.0 turns, so I started suspecting the delay is actually a 1-turn paralysis. Anyway, this is how I understand that Wall Jump really works: Phase A: you jump to the destination and then attack (counts as a martial attack, e.g. it’s strengthened by Serpent’s Lash) all surrounding foes (your turn ends); phase B: it’s the monsters’ turn and the monsters surrounding you can retaliate against you (your turn now); phase C: you attack (counts as martial) all surrounding foes (your turn ends); phase D: like phase B (your turn now). If I didn’t look this up, I wouldn’t have known that Wall Jump makes two attacks (in two turns), the description just says you attack all surrounding foes, it doesn’t say that it happens twice.
What about polearms? If you’re wielding a polearm, is its reach extended during phases A and C? (My intuition says that no, because it’s less straightforward.) If monsters around you wield polearms, do they extend their reach during phases B and D? (My intuition says that yes, because I understand that all monsters do their turn like normal in these phases.)
Actually, now I’m wondering, do martial attacks disable all attacks of opportunity, or only the AOO from the monsters that are the victims of the martial attacks? What about swapping with allies, do I make martial attacks while swapping?
Wu Jian actually looks pretty fun! And I’ve heard good things about it. I hope my ongoing run will go well.
Monster and player movement systems don’t work the same way. That’s why monster speed is represented as 10 (normal), 15 (150% faster than normal), etc., but player speed is 1.0 (normal), 0.5 (100% faster than normal) etc.
From what I understand it goes like this:
each monster has a pool of energy. One standard action (moving, attacking, casting) takes 10 energy;
when player takes an action, monsters get energy based on their speed and length of the player action. So if you normal move (1.0 delay/length) a speed 10 monster will get 10 energy, and a speed 15 monster will get 15 energy; if you, say, swing a min delay dagger (0.5 delay) a speed 10 monster gets 5 energy, and a speed 15 monster gets 7 or 8 (or perhaps 7.5);
after player action is complete the game checks whether each enemy has enough energy to act, if the monster has 14 energy they spend 10 to act and are left with 4, if they have 27 (wyverns, bees and other very fast enemies get there) they get to act twice and are left with 7;
there are edge cases (ogres, juggernauts, ugly things, sixfirhies etc.) with some enemies, who have non-standard energy consumption. Ogres despite being speed 10 take more than 10 energy to swing a weapon, ugly things despite being speed 10 take less than 10 energy to move. I don’t know how exactly code handles this, but I assume that in case of ogres they go into sort-a “energy debt” after attacking.
So, wall jump:
Wall jump is a length 2.0 action (what description tries to communicate). You make all your attacks instantly after performing it (you make multiple attacks cause number of WJC martial attacks is based on your move speed vs. your attack speed, slow move with fast weapon - more attacks, don’t quote me on this though :)). So when your action is over and you’ve made all your attacks, every enemy gets 2.0 actions worth of energy, so a speed 10 monster gets 20, a speed 15 gets 30. They then spend that energy by attacking you a lot. It’s a fairly risky ability to use because of that.
PS. I don’t know for sure about polearms, but I don’t think reach interacts with WJC martial attacks in any way.
edit: corrected value for player speed 0.5, it’s of course 100% faster than normal, not 50%.
I think would also be helpful if “movement speed” is always displayed, even if it is normal speed. E.g., “Speed: 100% (normally travels as fast as you)”
I agree! I’ve been thinking about this for a long time I think. It should also consider the heavy brand, i.e. if I’m looking at a heavy-branded weapon, the base properties, the minimum attack delay, and the skill target to reach minimum delay should (IMO) describe the base heavy-branded stats. I’ve also noticed long ago that the lookup system (?/) lacks a reference of brands.
With that I disagree I actually think it’s brilliant that they made it hide info when it’s at the “default”/“mundane” state.
Heavy shows up as 0.7 speed reached at xl 12, while Flaming and no brand both show 5.0 reached at xl 12.
This is interesting. I’ve never noticed that the dmg from Heavy is baked into the damage rating “Base [11 + 8 (Hvy)],” but Flaming appears as “an additional one-quarter of any damage that pierces.” That’s not technically correct, is it? I thought Flaming was a range from nothing up to 50% of the dmg that connects.
So I just wanted to throw a comment here now that my run with Wu Jian ended: Wu Jian is amazing. I really enjoyed playing with it. Of special note is the Heavenly Storm ability, even though I only used it two times, it was extremely satisfying to use it (and I like the golden dust clouds): the first time, it was when a vault with a free dangerous monster generated and a small area with two tormentors constrained by iron grates (and since they’re not walls, the tormentors could invoke torment against me from there) — I used Heavenly Storm to block the tormentors from affecting me while fighting the free monster around them; the second time was when I descended to level 2 of the Orcish Mines and got surrounded by all the orcs and then the dangerous ones (orc high priests, orc sorcerers…) appeared — I annihilated the boss vault while the high priests and sorcerers couldn’t affect me from a distance. Actually I didn’t realize I was annihilating the boss vault, it was a bit underwhelming to fight the less dangerous monsters on Orc:2 after I finished that, lol. Also the noise the Heavenly Storm creates draws monsters to you so you can continue to make martial attacks and maintain the Heavenly Storm. Of another note, this was the first time the Shoals wasn’t completely brutal towards me. Actually a while back I swore that if I get the Shoals and Spider Nest I quit the run and start a new one lol. But I’m glad I didn’t quit. Even better, when I descended to Shoals:4 and read a scroll of revelation, the rune was right near me, in only a small room with some difficult monsters that gave me a challenging fight but I managed to get it. I then got to level 1 of the Spider Nest, got swarmed, and underestimated how strong berserk monsters are with a moth of wrath around. I think now that I had a major success with the Shoals I understand why people say the Spider Nest is terrifying (I was terrified of the Shoals). Its monsters are very complementary/synergestic, with monsters that berserk, confuse, cause slowness, malmutate…
The listed piety cost for Heavenly Storm seemed a bit exaggerated though, but I realize it might be because piety past reaching ****** can still be accumulated.
This stuff about monster speed is not very accurate. Player speed is represented as “1.0” only in the sense that the game is telling you how long your last action took (in tens of auts, “decauts”, where an aut is the smallest unit of speed and because 10 auts is how long a normal action takes). A player whose movement took 0.5 decauts would be a speed 20 player; a speed 20 monster would take 0.5 decauts to move.
The system you describe is that used by NetHack; player takes an action, every monster in turn takes one or more actions if it has sufficient energy, there isn’t really a state of play between player actions at all. DCSS counts each individual aut. This is easy to see by starting wizard mode and creating, say, a hornet and a killer bee and waiting - “The killer bee stings you! The hornet misses you. The killer bee stings you”. The killer bee didn’t take two attacks because it had enough energy for two immediately after you moved; it took one, then the hornet could act, then the killer bee took another.
There are lots of monsters with different attack speeds, movement speeds (swimming maybe different to land movement), missile firing speeds, and spellcasting speeds. There’s nothing very odd about having one of these be slower than your base speed.
I appreciate your details and everyone else that contributed details, but my focus isn’t really on the low-level details, they’re of less interest to me as a player. I know that every action has its own speed (and AFAIK haste, for example, is special in that it makes every action faster), but still, my point still stands, it was easier for me to think that there’s a delay incurred before the wall jump springs into action. Think of a scroll of teleportation, you read it but the effect isn’t immediate, but the effect is instant when it happens after a delay.
The killer bee didn’t take two attacks because it had enough energy for two immediately after you moved; it took one, then the hornet could act, then the killer bee took another.
Are you saying that there’s no energy pool for monsters? How does +/- 1 random energy increments work then? Or are you saying that monster having 20 energy is processed aut by aut rather than in bulk, or maybe that monster gains energy aut by aut depending on its speed and acts once it gets to 10 or whatever?
There are lots of monsters with different attack speeds, movement speeds (swimming maybe different to land movement), missile firing speeds, and spellcasting speeds. There’s nothing very odd about having one of these be slower than your base speed.
What would be the monster with different spellcasting speed? Can’t think of one, maybe something in extended?
Also, if it’s not too much trouble, could you describe how the whole speed system works mechanically, or at least which parts I was wrong about?
What would be the monster with different spellcasting speed?
I spellforged servitors (60%) and orb spiders (55%) both have reduced magic attack speeds. I think the orb spiders work a little differently though, and they take .9 auts (or 9 energy) to charge and gain a “charged” status, then another .9 to cast once they have the status. That’s completely based on intuition, though, so I could be totally wrong.
My general point was that I feel the documentation of Wu Jian feels exceptionally somewhat problematic given the philosophy of being pro clarity/against spoilers/etc. (“Exceptionally” because it’s a Wu Jian–only issue, not because it’s severe.)
But to answer your question directly, in the post I made above with the four points, point #3 and #4 remain unanswered for me, except that I did see that I did martial attacks while swapping with allies during my recent run.
The wiki says no on Cleave, so by association we can assume it doesn’t work on Reach - obviously this doesn’t affect the ambiguity of the docs, this is more for your reference in the future. Taking a quick look at the code I see this comment:
// Monsters adjacent to the given pos that are valid targets for whirlwind.
static vector<monster*> _get_whirlwind_targets(coord_def pos)
My basic review of the following code seems to confirm Reach isn’t triggered, but you’re welcome to dive further.
As far as monsters extending reach, when you say monsters “attack” you should just call it monsters “act”, the entire world around you moves forward at the same time. So you could be getting reach attacks or smite or monsters coming in from offscreen hitting you with Damnation. Unlashed Wall Jumps are tactically risky.
Wiki clearly answers this one, I didn’t look to see what the in game docs were on it (Note: “all” and “immune”):
All martial attacks and Serpent's Lash make you immune to attacks of opportunity.
As far as updating the documentation, I’m not in any position to update either the in game docs or the wiki. I could point you in the direction of the PR system and provide some basic guidance, but beyond that there’d be some dev buy in and work you’d have to do. If you’re interested in submitting a change to clarify the docs yourself, maybe other forum goers have more direct experience than the handful of issues I’ve submitted.
“aut by aut” is a good way of putting it - I don’t know the actual implementation (because what matters is what happens), but the behaviour is just as if it was gaining energy aut by aut. The monsters with different spellcasting speeds have been listed.
What I think is (not very) relevant to the player is the gameplay implications - where in NetHack monsters will take their turns in a predictable order (if orc A acts before orc B, you know that every subsequent turn they will act in that order if they get to act at all) in Crawl if monsters have different speeds they may change the order in which they act. A fast monster might hit you once but then get polished off by your ally before it can hit you again. However, it’s hard to see that it affects play very much (but one case that comes to mind is that orbs of destruction (which are secretly monsters) targetted on fast-moving monsters would have different tracking behaviour in a NetHack-style world).
(This doesn’t make any practical different for wall jump, of course - in either system you’d have to weather two movement’s time worth of attacks after landing…)
Ok, cool, thank you! I never worried about monster action order, cause you as a player can’t influence it anyway, but it’s nice to know how it works regardless.
zikada: sorry for the derail, I just really wanted to know the answer :).
I actually think it’s brilliant that they made it hide info when it’s at the “default”/“mundane” state.