Spell ranges, darkness, monster vision question

General discussion about the game. Pull up a stool and tell us your tale!
Post Reply
Minstrel
Seedy Looking Human
Posts: 17
Joined: Thu 02.10.2008, 01:05

Spell ranges, darkness, monster vision question

Post by Minstrel » Thu 27.11.2008, 15:47

So I've leveled up fairly high but still consider myself a bit of a newbie as to how things work, and I'm wondering about the following, specifically with a ranger in mind:

If I've tunneled out a fairly long corridor, filled it with runes of protection, and lead a unique down it with me at a dead end, as follows (lets say it's Saruman):

############
p;;;;;;;;;@#
############

He's 10 squares away here, but that's arbitrary. Assuming the tunnel is dark, is there any way I can be able to hit him with my bow, (assuming I've got enough infravision to detect him at whatever range), but he is too far away to cast spells at me, or breathe on me (if he were a different monster that did so)?

I'm hoping to buy a few rounds to avoid getting clobbered by two quick nether breaths/balls or other powerful attacks, since I dont have the fastest reflexes on the planet to both be hitting my arrow macro and heals. Unfortunately I know nothing about at what range monsters can cast/breathe, or how their sight works. Is it tied to their detection range somehow, or a different measure? Any tips?

schroeder
Giant Mottled Ant Lion
Posts: 204
Joined: Sat 14.06.2008, 04:23
Location: Somewhere in Illinois in the USA

Re: Spell ranges, darkness, monster vision question

Post by schroeder » Thu 27.11.2008, 18:43

if their is no line of sight obstruction, if you can range attack him, he can range attack you. If you have enough infravision, you can hit him. If you have telepathy you can hit him. You can also just have a macro fire off in that direction which will hit him.
Anything worth being done, is worth being overdone.
My Mangband videos; http://www.youtube.com/user/Schroederband

Minstrel
Seedy Looking Human
Posts: 17
Joined: Thu 02.10.2008, 01:05

Re: Spell ranges, darkness, monster vision question

Post by Minstrel » Fri 28.11.2008, 01:21

schroeder wrote:if you can range attack him, he can range attack you
Does the reverse then apply: If I cant range attack him (assuming the exception would be blindness), he can't range attack me?

So could I purposely drop telepathy and lower my infravision in order to hit him by firing arrows blind down the corridor and he wouldnt be able to cast/breathe on me? (Or just dig a sufficiently long corridor and fire arrows down it before he gets into my detection range)

On a related note, is the max range of ammo fired directionally dependant on bow/crossbow type?

serina
Crystal Ooze
Posts: 373
Joined: Sat 15.09.2007, 18:42

Re: Spell ranges, darkness, monster vision question

Post by serina » Fri 28.11.2008, 02:46

I did some tests on PKill server.

Player spell range is 18 squares. Monsters can breathe, cast and use any abilities if they're within 18 squares of you. Targetting is also limited to 18 squares I believe.

Line of sight is 21 squares.

I just tested the range with a light crossbow of accuracy and it fired 26 squares and I hit a townie that was 23 squares away. So this might be possible.

The problem is that the farther you're shooting, the harder it is to hit what you're aiming for. If you cannot see what you're aiming for, it gets even harder. So I'm not sure you'd be able to hit Saruman if he is that far away.

Another problem I see is getting Saruman to come to you at the right time in such a corridor since he follows you from very far away. Even if you cannot see him he's moving, unlike regular monsters. He's sort of like a Z with even longer detection range.


So to sum up. Fight Saruman when you're ready for him (18/200 con) and enough speed/damage/healing to get by. And the most important detail is to be deep deep down. Maybe 6350, because 1 turn at speed 0 takes more actual time the deeper down you are. So fighting Saruman at 2000 feet and you might get 0.3 seconds to react. At 6350 you might get 1 full second to react. That matters ALOT.

Another way to avoid the intensive keypresses would be to make your bow firing macro like this \ef1*tf1*tf1*tf1*t etc. Maybe 10-30 f1*t. That way you only have to press the healing macro as needed, and not worry about pressing the fire arrow macro fast enough, but just press it every 3-5 secs or so.

ZAL

Minstrel
Seedy Looking Human
Posts: 17
Joined: Thu 02.10.2008, 01:05

Re: Spell ranges, darkness, monster vision question

Post by Minstrel » Fri 28.11.2008, 03:10

I'm around +60 to hit, so it might be worth a try anyway. I'll have to do some testing with my short bow on the range to see if it's as long as the crossbow you were using. Would like a longbow for the multiplier, but +21/+30 is keeping me with the short until I find better.

By line of sight being 21 squares, do you mean in a lit corridor, you can see something at 21 or that that's the max at which your bow will target? I know I've had situations in which I could see the nasty in a direct path, but firing my bow just resulted in a pile of arrows at my feet.

Agree on it being tricky to lead something into the corridor and get to the end in time.

Thanks for the advice on the depth. I didn't realize that time got slower when you're deeper. Sounds like incentive to dive a bit more. Think I'm at 3100 currently. Already got Saruman but have plenty of nasty casters and breathers to go.

I'm using 9x f1*t at the moment. Since my per round shots are 3, I figured my 27 speed would mean I could get somewhere around 11 arrows per round off. If I go to more than I can fire in a single round, won't I lock myself into firing arrows non stop until that's up though? Or will hitting my heal macro in the middle of it break the firing and quaff instead? And if so will I resume shooting after?

Sorry for all the ?s and thx much for the answers...hoping to avoid dumb deaths due to lack of knowledge.

serina
Crystal Ooze
Posts: 373
Joined: Sat 15.09.2007, 18:42

Re: Spell ranges, darkness, monster vision question

Post by serina » Fri 28.11.2008, 04:10

Pressing an arrow key won't break the macro, but running with shift or having a \e ín front of any macro should break all previously entered actions. Keep in mind that I say "should". I'm not 100% sure it works this way all the time.

ZAL

User avatar
Flambard
King Vampire
Posts: 258
Joined: Wed 20.06.2007, 10:49

Re: Spell ranges, darkness, monster vision question

Post by Flambard » Fri 28.11.2008, 17:06

If your quaffing macro starts with "\e" it will cancel the shooting macro being in progress.

Post Reply