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stats or percentage?

Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 11:26 am
by zubata
:?: help me out with this problem. I will use strenght spell and mage spell shield. Focus on mechanics, not on spells itself.

Case one:
Say i maxed INT, WIS to get max out of SHIELD spell. This result in lousy strength and con, so i pick few prac in spell STRENGTH and BOB to compensate.
- this way i will end up at 95% spell knowledge

Case two:
As i dont want to ruin primary class, i lowered WIS a little in order to get decent STR and CON. This way i can train fair wilderness and with some potions i can Skip STRENGTH and BOB completely, alowing me to max mage skills
- this way i max spell at 95% without need of wasting mana on str and bobing.

You can apply this mechanics for different case, but question stands. Which will give you better results? Which is better for spellpower?

Re: stats or percentage?

Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 12:22 pm
by Wobbler
The shield spell will be equally efficient in both cases.

Re: stats or percentage?

Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 1:48 pm
by Elestir
The spell will be more efficient in case 2. The percentage in shield spell is multiplied with your effective mage level which depends on your class pureness (which is higher in case 2).

Re: stats or percentage?

Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 2:24 pm
by ciúin
How does one tell one's effective level in the various classes?

Re: stats or percentage?

Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 6:14 pm
by Elestir
One can only guess. It was visible for a while when the new prac system was introduced, but later it was made invisible. Hence the % info in prac can be misleading.

Re: stats or percentage?

Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 8:38 pm
by Vortenos
There were some good explanations on Cross Class Training Pentalty earlier.

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=684

Re: stats or percentage?

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 10:05 am
by Eorberl
It is entirely possible to create a mage type character without bob or str (without str is rather common, bob less so), and therefore gain a small bonus to your mage spells (visible mostly through shield/armour, as they are the only things you see -- albeit 'soft' -- numbers for). But you have to ask yourself: What is the cost? The loss of str spell and bob (mostly bob) would render most mage characters unplayable simply because they do traditionally have rather bad moves. The example you mention, creating a character which has better moves and strength without bob or str is absolutely possible, but it wouldn't be significantly better than a character with those capabilities. Perhaps the greatest gain would be the ability to use those pracs in another area -- you could prac charm and a reasonable amount of command with those pracs. I would say that in most situations, a character which has the ability to bob, even with the cost of having worse moves and strength, is rather more versatile and capable than one which cannot -- even if it has slightly better moves.

In the end, the difference between said bobbing char and non-bobbing char's moves and move regen will be very small compared to the rather large loss of BoB, and strength spell to a lesser degree. Even if you spent those pracs in only endurance, or mostly endurance and some parry, you would still have significantly less ability to sustain constant motion than the char with bob -- Not to mention completely destroying your ideal of keeping the mage as pure as possible (see aforementioned thread on cross-class pracs).

So really, although it's possible, it wouldn't be worth it. IMO anyway, and I doubt many people will disagree on that particular point ;)

Re: stats or percentage?

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 12:37 pm
by Wobbler
No one at all would disagree, I think, but that is not the point:
zubata wrote:Focus on mechanics, not on spells itself.
To be quite honest, I think Elestir is wrong. I vaguely recall a statement that the class-fractional-level information was removed from the info command just because it had no direct practical use in this case and only lead to unwarranted complaints due to misinterpretation and confusion. Of course, that may have been a deliberate attempt to obfuscate and diffuse to hide details about the game mechanisms.

On a side note, the displayed skill percentage is a rounded integer while the actual value used is a floating point real value; even a fractional skill change can have impact, although it is not as noticeable as for non-linear skills, such as weapon skills, were for instance 9.9999 = 5.

Re: stats or percentage?

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 3:57 pm
by Caerroil
I am fairly certain that the shield spell would be equally good in both those cases, since the spell knowledge is assumed to be the same in both cases and as far as I know the shield spell has no direct relation to any stat. IMO the same would hold true for all/most other spells in which you would reach the same knowledge, and possibly even for some in which case you gain a somewhat lower knowledge.

As for which would give the "best" results I would say case one, simply because casters can almost never get good enough move-regen through non-magical means (not even all warriors can do that, with the exception of orc warriors relying on draughts for "regular" regen which other races would have a hard time doing).

Re: stats or percentage?

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 5:14 pm
by Wobbler
Caerroil wrote:as far as I know the shield spell has no direct relation to any stat.
I apologise for talking about a specific spell, but at least it is about the mechanics of that spell...

The shield spell efficiency is, in fact, reliant on strength and dexterity, and also dodging skill, since it yields a lower db increase when the "natural" db is high (which is why casters should normally not spend too many pracs on dodge) and a higher increase when the db is low (which is why casters can get decent db while wearing full metal).

Re: stats or percentage?

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 7:32 pm
by Vortenos
Wobbler wrote:9.9999 = 5.
Wobbler math?

Re: stats or percentage?

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 8:05 pm
by Elestir
Wobbler, why don't you compare 101% backstab of pure thief and 101% backstab of a thief-mage if you are so sure?
That itself proves the existence of "thief level". And if there is "thief level" there is also "mage level" and "cleric level". Don't you think?

Re: stats or percentage?

Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 8:39 pm
by Caerroil
Vortenos wrote:
Wobbler wrote:9.9999 = 5.
Wobbler math?
No, it is how the game calculates when it comes to giving bonuses from knowledge in weaponskills and parry. That is each whole 5% in any of those skills gives a bonus, and everything else is discarded. For most other skills and spells it isn't quite that strict, or at least much harder to see the gains so it isn't clear if it is or not.