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Ancient Domains Of Mystery, forum overview / Spoilers / Torc

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Soirana
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4150 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes and 7 seconds ago.
Posted on Wednesday, June 04, 2008 at 12:49 (GMT -5)

i've lately played a few cursed sinners (Candle born assasins without healing wearing all autocursing type stuff - like crown of science and gauntlets of peace).

Somehow i think black torc is quite a decent thging to wear somewhere in teen levels. Cursing might be counteracted by things like lucky and fate smile.
Overall 4DV, 2PV, +10 speed (cursing actually counterweights xp drop as you get tougher monsters), cold resist (take it ogre magi), shock resist, well fire resit is easier to get, but still useful.

Definitely i would evaluate wearing it as an option, not only ratling foder
A root is a flower that disdains fame.
Kahlil Gibran(1883-1931)
Molach
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Lord of DurisMud


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5142 days, 6 hours, 26 minutes and 39 seconds ago.
Posted on Wednesday, June 04, 2008 at 16:51 (GMT -5)

I recently stumbeled across the same line of thought. Yeah, why not if you have luck/fate. Or mabye just anyway
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gut
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4898 days, 2 hours, 49 minutes and 12 seconds ago.
Posted on Thursday, June 05, 2008 at 00:59 (GMT -5)

Well, this is a funny thing. I also have been
thinking about using the Torc. Cursing is really
just another way of saying 'bad luck'. It's not
anywhere near as bad as dooming. There is only
one thing that keeps me from using it, right from
the start. Armor damage.

I absolutely hate armor damage, because I often
times will not even see it occur. The powerful
monsters, I can handle, the tougher battles, I'm
fine with, but armor damage just ruins my day.
There's not many things that makes me ill, like
taking a look at my equipment, and seeing my nice
[-3, +7] plate mail turned into [-3, +3]. Yuch!


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Sulangatori
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Tourist


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1442 days, 5 hours, 57 minutes and 4 seconds ago.
Posted on Thursday, June 05, 2008 at 05:32 (GMT -5)

Usually, if I make to the druid, I have no use for the Torc. At this point of the game I usually don't have a lot of holy water and scrolls of uncursing to spare, so equipping it could become a hassle. Of course, I do this quest fairly late in the first part of the game, if I do it at all.

Now, if only someone could post a comment saying "you mean you don't do that everytime?", just for the sake of completeness.
Darren Grey
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4240 days, 32 minutes and 16 seconds ago.
Posted on Thursday, June 05, 2008 at 07:50 (GMT -5)

The auto-cursing is way too much of a hassle, especially if you want to exchange in useful stuff like an amulet of free action. Want to take on a mimic whilst cursed without -Para? Besides I usually put off completing the druid quest till a little later, and by then it's not long before (or maybe even after) I get the ankh.
Waldenbrook, the dwarven shopkeeper, mumbles: "I'd offer 9 gold pieces for yer dwarven child corpse."
Molach
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Lord of DurisMud


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5142 days, 6 hours, 26 minutes and 39 seconds ago.
Posted on Thursday, June 05, 2008 at 09:15 (GMT -5)

...but the Ankh is not the end of the world either. This has better DV, and +10 speed is actually a fair bit...it is more than the combined speed-talents. And people get THOSE, right...resists icing on the cake.
J.
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5664 days, 19 hours, 26 minutes and 36 seconds ago.
Posted on Thursday, June 05, 2008 at 15:39 (GMT -5)

Hmm, the cursed sinners remind me of a challenge game for Diablo 1 (wow, that was a looooong time ago): The Beyond Naked Mage (naked mages just wore nothing). You'd only wear cursed stuff with negative modifiers, and always swap for an item with worse properties when you came across them :)

About the bad luck (curse) the torc (and Executor, for example) gives, it's offset if you have the "lucky" intrinsic. "Lucky" and "cursed" are about the same, but "doomed" outweighs "fate smiles" a bit. Ankh is like "lucky" + "fate smiles" + a second "lucky". In addition, the intrinsic "lucky", "fate smiles", "cursed", "doomed" are a bit stronger effects than the properties items give you.

So as an example, wearing Ankh + Crown of Sciense is pretty much like wearing nothing, except sometimes you have better luck and sometimes worse, without wearing anything you'd have 0 luck (not bad and not good) all the time. Lucky+Fate smiles+Ankh+Crown of Science is still on the "good luck" side of things.
If you're feeling happy, don't worry, it'll go away.

Originally posted by noob: "I'm everytime amazed how you people know to exploit every single little bug (or not-bug) for elaborated scumming tatics even if the feature seems completely useless or bad."
Darren Grey
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4240 days, 32 minutes and 16 seconds ago.
Posted on Thursday, June 05, 2008 at 16:47 (GMT -5)

It's not quite that simple - each luck status has effects beyond just the dice rolls. Cursed and doomed increase monster generation rate and monster difficulty, as well as number of wilderness encounters. Both increase armour damage and equipment destruction significantly (very bad in the tower), as well as the chance to set off traps. Fate smiles on the other hand has the great effect of bringing you down to 1 HP instead of death very often - I've had this happen far too often for comfort.

This is the problem with relying solely on code-dived info - you miss a lot of the real effects in the game ;)
Waldenbrook, the dwarven shopkeeper, mumbles: "I'd offer 9 gold pieces for yer dwarven child corpse."
MrChMfn
Unregistered user
Posted on Thursday, June 05, 2008 at 18:47 (GMT -5)

its also a returning undead slaying piece of ammo..



--
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Soirana
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Chaos Freak


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4150 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes and 7 seconds ago.
Posted on Thursday, June 05, 2008 at 22:11 (GMT -5)

>Cursed and doomed...

>Both increase armour damage and equipment

>destruction significantly (very bad in the tower)

i would like to see some facts behind your statement.

Edited: - sorry cited wrong part
A root is a flower that disdains fame.
Kahlil Gibran(1883-1931)

[Edited 1 time, last edit on 6/6/2008 at 11:37 (GMT -5) by Soirana]
Hallowed
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5117 days, 7 hours, 36 minutes and 53 seconds ago.
Posted on Friday, June 06, 2008 at 03:01 (GMT -5)

While being doomed you get hit with a wilderness encounter on almost every step in the wilderness and most of the time "you don't get away".
me unlogged
Unregistered user
Posted on Friday, June 06, 2008 at 12:07 (GMT -5)

Ya, I know something about armour damage, monster generation and such, I just thought those were the kinds of things where game made dice rolls against luck. Well, maybe monster generation is increased by dooming and isn't affected by luck, but getting armour damaged happens every now and then with 0 luck, not very often with good luck and cursed/doomed really increases the chance, so that's one thing I think is definately influenced by "luck".

The 1 hp save might as well be something given only by "fate smiles", or it could be just a roll against your luck stat. It's not really possible to tell one way or the other..

Unless there's also code-dived info on special effects of dooming/fate smiling of course:)
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Soirana
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4150 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes and 7 seconds ago.
Posted on Friday, June 06, 2008 at 12:15 (GMT -5)

And i played enough with torc and neck and been good dozen of times with CoS in ToEF. I didn't noticed any difference.

facts=some research and numbers for me. Or at least code diving.
A root is a flower that disdains fame.
Kahlil Gibran(1883-1931)
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gut
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4898 days, 2 hours, 49 minutes and 12 seconds ago.
Posted on Friday, June 06, 2008 at 15:22 (GMT -5)

You havn't notices how quickly your fireproof
blankets burn up, when you are doomed in the ToEF?
If I wear the CoS through the ToEF, I don't even
bother with the blanket, I just use the Water Orb
for healing.

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Soirana
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4150 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes and 7 seconds ago.
Posted on Friday, June 06, 2008 at 18:42 (GMT -5)

Nope i didn't notice. keep in mind i was lucky, fate smiled upon me and ankh was in correct place. Under these conditions i have not experienced significant difference.
A root is a flower that disdains fame.
Kahlil Gibran(1883-1931)
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gut
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4898 days, 2 hours, 49 minutes and 12 seconds ago.
Posted on Saturday, June 07, 2008 at 04:40 (GMT -5)

Here is a snip from the guidebook:

"There are a number of artifacts that grant fire resistance
or immunity. Two guaranteed examples are the elemental
gauntlets (resistance) and the Crown of Science (immunity,
but also dooms and curses). It is probably not worth wearing
the Crown of Science unless the situation is desperate,
since the bad luck it generates causes fireproof blankets
and rings of ice to fail much more often, in addition to the
usual bad effects. "

I wasn't going by that though, I just thought I recalled
seeing it in there somewhere.


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Soirana
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4150 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes and 7 seconds ago.
Posted on Saturday, June 07, 2008 at 06:32 (GMT -5)

i can cite few places were guidebook is plain wrong.

since i do not any facts behind this paragraph and i have some ideas how luck is handled in Adom...
Well, lets say it is doubtful.
A root is a flower that disdains fame.
Kahlil Gibran(1883-1931)
Darren Grey
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4240 days, 32 minutes and 16 seconds ago.
Posted on Saturday, June 07, 2008 at 07:51 (GMT -5)

The 1 HP chance from Fate Smiles is known from code-diving as far as I'm aware. At the very least it's been considered "common knowledge" for a great many years - the sum of many people's experiences. Extremely hard to test this though.

I can't authenticate everything else I've said beyond this is what I've observed through years of play, and a great many others have shared the same experiences. I've seen a lot of other code-dived info that doesn't explain the full picture by half, so I'm quick to doubt that the intrinsics *only* cause a general dice roll modifier. ADOM has a lot of hard-coded features, and it takes an extremely skilled code-diver to track down every memory call related to what they're studying. And I've seen even the experts screw up royally on that. Of course just relying on my experiences is extremely wishy-washy, but it works for me ;)

The wilderness encounter thing though should be extremely obvious to anyone that tests it. I frequently use weapons of damnnation to help me find giant boars quickly, or when hunting for certain other encounters. Getting away from encounters doesn't seem to be affected much (or is at least offset by luck/Fate), but the sheer number of encounters you'll run into when doomed, even with several luck/Fate sources, is extremely evident.

I also regularly employ cursing or dooming items to increase monster generation for livesaccing, though I can't say for certain there's any quantifiable difference there. I've heard from others that monster generation never stops on a level if you're doomed, even if it's been "pacified", but I haven't tested that.

Anyway, gah, this is getting way off topic. When it comes to the cursed stat I'll fully admit it seems to be mostly, if not entirely offset by the luck/Fate smiles intrinsics. I've played enough with Executor to know that being cursed isn't that bad in general - if anything it adds a bit of fun. Still not sure I think the torc is worth it though...
Waldenbrook, the dwarven shopkeeper, mumbles: "I'd offer 9 gold pieces for yer dwarven child corpse."

[Edited 1 time, last edit on 6/7/2008 at 08:32 (GMT -5) by Darren Grey]
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Soirana
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4150 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes and 7 seconds ago.
Posted on Saturday, June 07, 2008 at 10:54 (GMT -5)

maybe i expressed myself wrong. I have no doubts dooming (and cursing) doers some nasty things.

The question was (or at least was supossed to be) if we take char with CoS, lucky, fate smiles intrinsic, ankh on neck and a char with no natural intrinsic or any relevant items...
In such case who will suffer more armor damage, random encounters... Or does dooming mater per se or only something like overall luck?

If we speak about not so clear features I for example do believe blessed ankh is significantly better than uncursed (at very least in two situations).
And if you press me hard i might come with some ideas how to check that (no code diving involved, maybe just a bit of Adombotting).
A root is a flower that disdains fame.
Kahlil Gibran(1883-1931)
Darren Grey
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4240 days, 32 minutes and 16 seconds ago.
Posted on Saturday, June 07, 2008 at 11:30 (GMT -5)

Very hard to test that... whatever idea you have would require an insane pool of results to be able to say for sure one way or the other.
Waldenbrook, the dwarven shopkeeper, mumbles: "I'd offer 9 gold pieces for yer dwarven child corpse."
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gut
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4898 days, 2 hours, 49 minutes and 12 seconds ago.
Posted on Saturday, June 07, 2008 at 11:40 (GMT -5)

Let's see if I remember how to test things : )
Generated an exp. level 1 gray elven wizard:

Testor St:12 Le:21 Wi:15 Dx:17 To:10 Ch: 5 Ap:22 Ma:19 Pe:18 N=
DV/PV: 21/36 H: 18(18) P: 32(32) Exp: 1/0 M: 195


Used AdomBot to supply unlimited wishes, and produced the following:

Head : blessed crown of regeneration [+0, +0] [55s]
Neck : blessed amulet of light [3s]
Body : blessed red dragon scale mail (-1, -4) [-1, +13] [220s]
Girdle : blessed eternium girdle [+0, +4] [12s]
Cloak : blessed cloak of protection [+0, +3] [20s]
Right Hand : blessed hefty eternium spear (+1, 2d8+12) [30s]
Left Hand : blessed tower eternium shield (-1) [+13, +7] [70s]
Right Ring : blessed ring of regeneration [1s]
Left Ring : blessed ring of regeneration [1s]
Bracers : blessed bracers of regeneration [+0, +0] [18s]
Gauntlets : blessed red dragon-hide gauntlets (-2, +0) [+0, +4] [10s]
Boots : blessed eternium boots [+0, +5] [55s]
Missile weapon: -
Missiles : -
Tool : -

Tools (']')
heap of 4 blessed torches [40s]
blessed box with flint and steel (9999) [5s]
blessed tinderbox (9999) [3s]
blessed fireproof blanket [10s]
Wands ('\')
blessed wand of wishing (9994 charges) [3s]
wand of teleportation (3 charges) [4s]
wand of teleportation (0 charges) [4s]
Potions ('!')
heap of 97 potions of holy water [388s]
Food ('%')
blessed loaf of elven bread [3s]
stomafillia herb [2s]
Valuables ('$')
196 gold pieces [1s]


I will enter the ToEF with the dynamic display set to show turns (197),
and repeatedly press the '5' button. The crown, amulet, cloak, and
bracers will be observed to measure the worn item destruction, and
their destruction times will be noted. Each re-load shall feature
only one fireproof blanket (blessed), and it's time of destruction
will also be noted.

In the first test runs, the PC will be completely un-doomed. For the
second run the PC will wear a ring of doom, which also grants the
cursed intrinsic). Each test shall be repeated ten times.

UNDOOMED:

1. cloak 209, amulet 235, fp blanket 410, the rest soon follows.
2. cloak 198, amulet 203, fp blanket 250. 
3. cloak 202, amulet 219, fp blanket 353.
4. cloak 202, amulet 230, fp blanket 418.
5. amulet 203, cloak 204, fp blanket 326.
6. amulet 204, cloak 224, fp blanket 266.
7. amulet 201, cloak 202, fp blanket 205.
8. cloak 202, amulet 256, fp blanket 368.
9. cloak 238, amulet 267, fp blanket 308.
10. cloak 228, amulet 238, fp blanket 359.


DOOMED VIA RING:

1.  crown 213, cloak 220, bracers 247, amulet 257, 721 I died.
2.  cloak 201, light 207, crown 208, bracers 278, 3797 had to eat,
    fp blanket 4331.
3.  cloak 212, crown 233, amulet 248, bracers 295, 3797 starving,
    6309 have to eat again, fp blanket 7103. 
4.  cloak 207, light 244, fp blanket 265.
5.  crown 204, protection 206, amulet 223, bracers 280, used a wand
    to kill a giant at 634, 3616 got sick of hitting 'w5'.
6.  cloak 205, amulet 212, crown 218, bracers 272, fp blanket 456. 
7.  amulet 198, crown 199, cloak and bracers 202, fp blanket 1947.
8.  cloak 208, bracers 214, amulet 237, crown 239, I'm not testing
    over 2000 anymore (as most can do the tower in that).
9.  crown 198, cloak 222, amulet 264, bracers 340, over 2000 again.
10. cloak 203, amulet 205, bracers 248, crown 395, 1288 died.

Notes: Despite having =fire from the RDSM, I still took fire
damage while eating. ?

I don't know what to say about these results, other than they
just don't mesh with my memories. Perhaps this is something that
changed with the versions. If anyone wants the save files I used,
they are here:

http://myfreefilehosting.com/f/3286a5be01_0.02MB


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Soirana
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4150 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes and 7 seconds ago.
Posted on Saturday, June 07, 2008 at 13:43 (GMT -5)

since i've got banned from certain activities on internet i decided to test some ideas abouit blessed ankh:

First one ankh (blessed) might help with your skill checks. In particular there was report on rec.games.roguelike.adom with low literacy and blessed ankh and chances to read tombstones...

graveyard read - human assassin Le -22, 58-literacy, no ankh, luck+fate smile from precrown
100 walks on tomb-49 reads--roughly 50percent
same+uncursed ankh:
100-51--roughly no improvement
after blessing ankh:
50-30. I stoped here since even getting 60 wouldn't be good result. But again 58 isn't low skill, iirc, report claimed something in single digits.

So i Adomboted heap of daggers into cursed corpses of dark sages

no ankh literacy at 2:
100-1 (that one surprised me)
uncursed ankh
100-3 - improvement? don't know (at this point i thought i might been to extreme, you see 10 into 30 would be a result, but 1 into 3?)
blessed one after 40 failures i get literacy increase so i go back to Adomboting

literacy 11
no ankh-100-11
uncursed - 100-9 pretty same
blessed - 100-11 great same as with nothing on neck.
end of theory number 1. Busted.

2. Blessed ankh might act as light version of amulet of balance. Source some rumour on net. I actually believed it to be confirmed by personal experience.

Well i did some grave digging and vampire corpse eating with ankh, blessed one and without. I've checked my alignment via AdomBot. I will spare you of exct numbers but there was no diference at all.
In end i tested amulet of balance, no surprise this one was working.

Theory number2 - busted.
Just to stop questions i used enuine ankh from pyramid not a hacked one.

I think i will probably stop blessing my ankh ASAP.
A root is a flower that disdains fame.
Kahlil Gibran(1883-1931)
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Soirana
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Chaos Freak


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4150 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes and 7 seconds ago.
Posted on Saturday, June 07, 2008 at 13:44 (GMT -5)

gut: blanket was made via AdomBot? cause i've heard some complains about hacked items (mainly some artifacts) not working properly.
A root is a flower that disdains fame.
Kahlil Gibran(1883-1931)
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gut
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Painted this one too.


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4898 days, 2 hours, 49 minutes and 12 seconds ago.
Posted on Saturday, June 07, 2008 at 18:13 (GMT -5)

I only AdomBotted one item, the wand of wishing 9999.

The blanket and everything else was wished.
Well, not the torches, but the amulet, cloak,
RDSM, etc...

The dooming really does make the blanket last
longer, but it's a killer for worn equipment.
Put me in the 'fool filter', where I belong!


[Edited 1 time, last edit on 6/7/2008 at 18:15 (GMT -5) by gut]
Darren Grey
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4240 days, 32 minutes and 16 seconds ago.
Posted on Sunday, June 08, 2008 at 09:08 (GMT -5)

Very interesting. Quite insane in fact, about the blankets. Technically it means you're better going into the tower doomed wearing all fireproof equipment... which is just madness. Could do with some testing with lucky and fate smiles too - might give it a go some time. I must say I've very rarely had blankets burn in the tower... except for games where I don't have the ankh. Hmm, I wonder...

As for Soirana's testing, I don't think you can really call it conclusive, since you don't know how much luck takes effect in such skill rolls. However, I still find it hard to believe that blessing would make much difference.
Waldenbrook, the dwarven shopkeeper, mumbles: "I'd offer 9 gold pieces for yer dwarven child corpse."
FantomFang
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5799 days, 11 hours, 2 minutes and 31 seconds ago.
Posted on Tuesday, June 10, 2008 at 01:02 (GMT -5)

It probably offset, but when I did the ToEF with both + intrinsics, the ankh, and both - intrinsics, i didn't notice any significant increase in item destruction as compared to the other characters i have had there (who always had the +'s and ankh)

Might be memory bias, and i don't have conclusive information, just thought i'd put it out there (although memory bias is generally negative...)
Going for 2nd win
J.
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You'll never get rid of me


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5664 days, 19 hours, 26 minutes and 36 seconds ago.
Posted on Wednesday, June 11, 2008 at 11:51 (GMT -5)

Just a quick off-topic question: is quadruple-regenaration four times better than a single item of regeneration? Do they stack so that the effect increases linearly?
If you're feeling happy, don't worry, it'll go away.

Originally posted by noob: "I'm everytime amazed how you people know to exploit every single little bug (or not-bug) for elaborated scumming tatics even if the feature seems completely useless or bad."
Silfir
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Writer of Overly Long Guides


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4069 days, 1 hour, 14 minutes and 26 seconds ago.
Posted on Wednesday, June 11, 2008 at 12:40 (GMT -5)

Doesn't normal regeneration regain 1 HP per turn, double regeneration 2 and so on?

I'm not too sure. I've had highly regenerating equipment before, but generally I didn't pay much attention to my HP because I didn't have to :)
You drop the golden ball.
You kick the golden ball. It slides to the west.
Suddenly Harry Potter, the apprentice wizard, appears! "That's not how you play Quidditch! are you even listening?"
Which direction? (123456789) 4
Harry Potter, the apprentice wizard, is hit by a bolt of acid! Harry Potter, the apprentice wizard, is annihilated.
You hear the ecstatic cries of a large crowd!
Nezur lurking
Unregistered user
Posted on Wednesday, June 11, 2008 at 16:12 (GMT -5)

Regenerating equipment heals 1 point every turn and the effects stack. Thus you will gain 4 health points every turn if you wear 2 rings
of regeneration, bracers of regeneration and a crown of regeneration.
Silfir
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Writer of Overly Long Guides


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4069 days, 1 hour, 14 minutes and 26 seconds ago.
Posted on Thursday, June 12, 2008 at 07:19 (GMT -5)

Dual-wield knives of endurance and wear the bracers of war and Preserver, and immortality is right about achieved...
You drop the golden ball.
You kick the golden ball. It slides to the west.
Suddenly Harry Potter, the apprentice wizard, appears! "That's not how you play Quidditch! are you even listening?"
Which direction? (123456789) 4
Harry Potter, the apprentice wizard, is hit by a bolt of acid! Harry Potter, the apprentice wizard, is annihilated.
You hear the ecstatic cries of a large crowd!
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