So, apparently, Lord Dredmor hits like a tank.

Well, he might have more than 200 on Going Rogue (in theory, he'd be a higher level and have more HP like pretty much every other monster). I killed him on Dwarvish Moderation and 200 HP was listed on the wiki and that felt about right with what I pumped into him in that "Hit and Run" volley of ranged pain and death.

Hrm, looking at http://www.dredmorwiki.com/wiki/Lord_Dredmor, all it says is that his "bonus stats" include 200 Health. So he may have 250 or even 300? It's probably something like 200-250-300 from Elvish to Rogue difficulties.

 

Don't know. In my experience, and watching Let's plays on Dwarvish moderation, the health gain monsters get doesn't seem to be working.
Diggles for me take 3 hits to kill with starting gear on floor 1, on Elvish easy. Let's assume that they have 7 health.
According to the difficulty wiki page, monsters get a HP bonus of 1.35 and an extra 9 health per level, and a level bonus of +1. This is for Dwarvish moderation.
That would mean that on level 1, diggles should have + 1 level, making them level 2, I guess, which would mean that they get a bonus 9 health.
They don't.
They don't even have a total of 9 health.
So, either something is wrong with this game, or HP doesn't work the way it does on the Wiki.

Meaning that monster health is hardly multiplied at all. Which would make sense, because +9 health per level would make an Arch Diggle have more health than Lord Dredmor if it spawned as a boss class on floor 10, on Going Rogue.

 

I'm pretty sure that website is wrong. Or at the very least when they mean Monster Level +3 they mean the level of monsters that can spawn on a given dungeon floor or something like that. However, when I play GR many monsters seem to have about 12 and 24 on the first and second floor. That would be consistent with 9 for the 1st Floor and 18 for the 2nd Floor modified by the 1.35 Global.

 

Well, the Wiki can't really be wrong, per se, because the TweakDB file is what moderates how the difficulties are adjusted, and it's the exact same there.
And no, 9 wouldn't work because Elvish easy is 1.25 global health.
So, we're looking at a difference of .10 that causes a difference that's extremely noticeable.

So, yeah that 9 bonus health works. Apparently though, it's the same on Dwarvish. But I saw Let's plays. The amount of health wasn't that much higher. Maybe 2 HP.
I don't know. I'll go load it up and start a new game real quick on going Rogue.
Yeah, they do have a crazy amount of health. At least twice that what they have on Elvish easy.
I can't believe people beat it on Going Rogue. You'd never be able to one-hit kill anything.

 

The Wiki says the HP are a base of 3 on Elvishly Easy, so at least that part seems to be somewhat accurate.

 

@incendax That is not what the wiki says at all.
It says, Additional monster HP per level 3
Not monsters have a base HP of 3.
Well, regardless, monsters seem to have a hidden health, because the mondb.xml has nothing on health.

All I know is that the game seems only marginally harder health wise on Dwarven difficulty, and about 250% harder on Rogue.

 

Additional Monster HP has to mean something besides what it appears to mean because the numbers don't add up correctly. However, I am becoming increasingly certain that Monster Level + or - refers to the level of monster that can spawn on a given level.

 

Fair enough. But if that's the case, how come I can run into Deths on Level 1 on Elvish Easy? I mean, if what you said is correct, I shouldn't run into anything on level 1 that's not supposed to be there.
And no one's ever said they saw a mustache golem on level 1.
That would be 3 levels out of depth.

 

Having beat the game in Going Rogue + Permadeath with a mostly melee class (Staves / Dual Wield / Vampirism / Smithing / Blood Mage / Mathemagics / Psionics), I think that Game Difficulty is just right - at Going Rogue, the other two being far too easy to be a roguelike game.

Once started a game in Dwarvish Moderation for error, and found myself asking "Hey, i'm just storming around the levels without even a bit of care, there is something wrong". It felt almost like Diablo. Which isn't bad, but it's not what a RogueLike should be.

The only thing that should be needed is a little love for the melee - without Vampirism/Haywire at the moment i do not think the latter floors are winnable, even if i'm trying exactly that, now. Piercing Damage should be able to be mitigated at least a bit, and i'm seeing that this is being addressed in the patch.

Another thing that need a bit of tuning is the Health Regeneration Rate, far too hard to bring it to decent levels. As Wizards archetypes can boost their mana regeneration up to 1 per turn without any real problem due to the itemization, i think that heavy armor and shield should boost Health Regen to reduce the amount of food required to play without closing our Eyebrowy Hero in a room, waiting for his health to refill. This is taking notice of the Vampirism/Haywire nerf, otherwise just go for it and there is no real problem in keeping the red bar full.

Oh, and you *can* seldom find monsters from one level below in any dungeon floor.

Edit: The Diggles in Going Rogue mode have like 14-17 hit points.

 

@Niymiae Hmm. Okay. I disagree with you on the other two besides Going Rogue being too easy.
I've been playing Roguelikes since 1997, and hard games since 1990.
If what you said was the case, I wouldn't face any challenges like I do on Elvish Easy.

Why do people think all Roguelikes are super ultra hard?
Not every game is supposed to be Nethack combined with Omega. "A cosmic Ray strikes! You die."
Angband was nice and balanced.

And I know about the monsters found a floor above where they normally spawn. I'm simply stating I don't think Incendax was correct.

 

I don't think it should be "super ultra hard". I think that being a turn based game, the only real challenge that can provide is to force the player into thinking a lot on what they should do next, plan their moves and so on.

Apart from that, there is just a bit of study of Game Mechanics, to understand why things work as they do, and use it to find solutions and optimizations to the problems you encounter in the dungeon.

A well built melee/hybrid character can go up to 70 damage per hit around Floor level 5, supporting his melee damage with a lot of spells and utilities, and i don't think there are any challenges left if you one-shot just anyone, anywhere on the way to Dredmor. But it's just me

And that's why i love Dungeons of Dredmor, because the challenge is mostly "how will you do this, now?". And that's why i deeply love NetHack too.

 

I'm still a bit surprised Nethack is still played. Angband also has died out. Sad day, but this may be the last year of the Roguelikes.

Also, At doing 70 damage. Unless you get two Doul's Possible swords, that's not happening in melee. Unless someone has been carefully tweaking my copy of this game to ruin my ability at playing it.

 

You can, with Berserker Rage procs, and there are weapons far better than the artifacts, not counting all the extra damage from non-weapon slot. Just be strong enough vs Uniques to open all the Chest of Evil without risks.

And donate Lutefisk. It also helps a lot, expecially on the first floors.

And there will not be a "Last year of the Roguelikes"! Games like this will always have their (small) communities, just like MUDs.

 

Er, Doul's Possible Sword does 30 slashing. There is no better weapon in the game hands down. Unless you get handed a really powerful chest of evil reward.

Nice to know though. Never tried Berserk Rage though.
And I've never really gotten anything good from the Lutefisk god. He's kind of a jerk.

 

Berserking + Dual Wield + 2 weapons pumped repeatedly with double Anvils of Krong (via Achaeology) = pretty insane damage numbers. 70 damage/swing at level 5 is quite do-able if you're willing to Double Krong and "This Translation is all Wrong" your weapons until you get a majority of + Damage stats on them.

 

@DavidB1111 You are right about the Deths on Level 1 of Elvishly Easy. I honestly don't know what to make of it then, because the numbers from the wiki just don't add up no matter how you run the math without selectively ignoring certain parts. Of course, considering how the trap formulas and haywire currently work it is entirely possible that certain parts were completely ignored despite being written partially into the game.

 

@Marak Well, yes, you could abuse the Translation is wrong, but I was talking legit.
Heck, I could make a weapon that does 300 on a critical if I wanted to, using Translation.

@Incendax It's probably a mystery. Like how there's a monster drop multiplier tweak in the TweakDB, but it does nothing because monsters never drop anything but 5 gold.
Do I have pay extra to get that fixed?
Roguelikes are well known for having loot drop from monsters.

also, adjusting the Anvil of Krong related tweaks doesn't make them spawn all over.

 

Hey, i was talking without bug abusing.
It just needs a bit of luck in the Chest of Evil findings to reach up that damage, with Berserker procs and Dual Wield.

I used to hit for about 60 with Dual Staves which aren't the best damaging weapons available, and had no Assassination or Berserker Rage. This - again - around Dungeon Level 4 or 5.

My girlfriend is playing a full melee character and she hits around 70 (having only one Doul's Possible Sword), and she just started level 7 of Dungeon. It's far from unreachable, just needs a bit of luck and a good build.

Edit: If it wasn't clear, my "70 damage per hit" is an average, counting criticals, procs and so on. Not the single number displayed on hit, but the effective average damage.

 

Yeah, my Vampire Fencer on floors 9 and 10 with a Doul's Possible Sword (got lucky and Brax was selling one!) and some random sword boosted by about 15 Krongs (thanks Archaeology) was putting out some insane damage numbers, esp. with Offensive Maneuvers and the various Berserking Procs and the 2 Astrology buffs up. The only thing that I feared where Arch Diggles: *takes a swing* *Diggle counters* *I take 65 damage and suddenly have 40 health* *fffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu...."

 

Wow. Arch Diggles only do 24 or so slashing and piercing damage each. You must have been hit for a critical.
Also, I guess I've had bad luck, while I can and usually reach 40 to 50 damage, I've never gotten more than that. Without at least one Doul's Possible sword.