Ancient Domains Of Mystery, forum overview / Spoilers / Training the shield skill
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liptick Registered user The elf lover Last page view: 5239 days, 9 hours, 55 minutes and 31 seconds ago. |
I frequently play drakish fighters. they start with a negative 2 modifier to dv on there armour, they have low dex, and they start with a shield and 1 skill level in it. for these reasons its easy to reach shield skill level 3 before you reach character level 3 (a decent percentage of your defense is from your shield and this makes it easy to succesfully block an attack rather than dodging it). I run into the same scenario everytime i try this. at low levels (or possibly low monster lvl) i am only able to gain three skill marks in shields per monster, if something stronger than me comes my way i am able to get 6 per monster. i am carefull not to gain any dv bonuses (dodge, or armor) in order to fascilitate the training, however when i reach skill lvl 3 in shields i am no longer able to block attacks for a while and i am not sure why. my uneducated speculations include a few possible reasons... 1) the bonus gained from shield skill counts as a bonus to dodge and not to block an attack (rather than increase my ability to block due to it being from a shield) making me dodge and never block, which is the case. 2) at higher skill levels i might be restricted from gaining marks from very low level enemys, in which case the game might be forcing me to dodge when i would normally succesfully block, this idea seems strange to me but would prevent the game from being too easy in the beggining. i might have had some other ideas but i cant remember them now. basically i train in the village dungeon since the monsters are easy, and drakling fighters do not start with healing. after i knotice my shield is no longer on strike im usually on a deeper dungeon floor, at a higher character lvl, and fighting more than goblins orcs and kobolds ( i assume they are the lowest lvl monsters) does anyone have any speculation or knowledge that might explain this phenom? i would love to get my shields skill to lvl 6 and take the shield talents by character lvl 6. this would give me a strong early game advantage. EDIT: I just picked up a large mithril shield after writing this post. this brings the dv gained from my shield from 3 to seven, all of a sudden i am capable of blocking again and also gaining skill marks for it. I am going to assume that the bonus from the shield skill actually lowers your chance of blocking simply because you are more likely to dodge first. I'm no code diver so if anyone knows the truth behind the matter, or even just how exactly all this works id still apreciate some info. [Edited 1 time, last edit on 7/26/2009 at 22:36 (GMT -5) by liptick] |
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liptick Registered user The elf lover Last page view: 5239 days, 9 hours, 55 minutes and 31 seconds ago. |
I can't really imagine why this is (has something to do with character lvl versus monster lvl perhaps), but I've knoticed some monsters give me 3 skill marks right from the beggining of the game and that doesnt seem to change. some monsters give me 6, some 9, and even some 12. the aparent trend is that the stronger they are the more they give, the ones that give 12 and 9 seem as if they might be a higher level than me. my character is now lvl 5 and a grey ooze will give him 12 marks. |
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Toan Registered user Last page view: 5074 days, 15 hours, 23 minutes and 46 seconds ago. |
My Two Cents: 1.Shields inherently give you dv, that is, you get dv from upping shield levels. If you need low dv to block, it's kinda counter-intuitive. 2.You can throw shields to get marks. Just put the shield in the missile slot. Also, you don't gain marks if you're a cowardly wuss. (might not apply to shields), not sure) 3.Having a balance of DV and PV is essential. There will be monsters that can bypass either. i might be wrong but, that's just my thoughts. |
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liptick Registered user The elf lover Last page view: 5239 days, 9 hours, 55 minutes and 31 seconds ago. |
your shield has to have a high enough dv to block if your natural and/or armour dv is high, if this becomes too much higher than the dv from your shield you will dodge quite a bit more than you will block, you dont lose anything due to this, you just dont progress as fast with the shield skill. you can take of stuff that gives you bonus to dv and instead of dodging you will block or get hit. I tend to forget about throwing shields as ive never really done it before... there is no guaranteed way to receive pv. your armor is randomly generated, the only other way is to get high toughness, thats probably just as random, even if you start with high pv it becomes hard to train toughness past a certain point and then running into the things you need to further raise your pv is again at the mercy of the rng. so ya balance is ideal, but you have much more control over your dv, and regardless of your pv its still nice to increase dv. |
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Darren Grey Registered user Last page view: 4233 days, 3 hours, 48 minutes and 15 seconds ago. |
As the manual states, you can't train your shield skill higher than the DV level of your current shield. You start the game with a 3 DV shield normally, making your max shield level 3. Find a better shield and you an go higher. Monsters can only give a limited number of melee/shield marks each. For weak monsters this is normally 3 or 6. Spider factories are good for shield marks as tarantulas give up to 32 marks each. Waldenbrook, the dwarven shopkeeper, mumbles: "I'd offer 9 gold pieces for yer dwarven child corpse." |
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Molach Registered user Lord of DurisMud Last page view: 5135 days, 9 hours, 42 minutes and 38 seconds ago. |
And this is why shields are so good. A [5,1] shield will pretty fast synergize with skill and become [15,1]. And those mid-late game [13,4] shields can, with patience, become [39,4]. So think again before dual-wielding or using twohanders.... [13,4] is a basic eternium tower shield. In my extremely humble opinion, a very solid early-game wish. [Edited 1 time, last edit on 8/2/2009 at 15:19 (GMT -5) by Molach] |
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CheatMan Unregistered user |
If you don't want to chance getting poisoned by the spider factory, try Werewolves instead. Regular wolves give 9 marks each and Dire Wolves clock in at 15. no special attacks, just nice and safe shield buffing. |
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Cephas Unregistered user |
I noticed that shields are easier to train with higher shield skills, and lowering non-shield DV will not help - if it doesn't block, it would have hit without non-shield DV. A possible exception I noticed is with a higher level character -never- getting marks from jackals, etc. |
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Cephas Unregistered user |
Also, throwing shields will train it indefinitely, irrelevant of what kind of shield you throw, with higher skill level giving to-hit and damage bonuses similar to missile skills (but no range!) with shield quality making little difference (1d3 base damage for a small shield, 1d6 for a large adamantium shield). This could be most useful for training shields with very low shield skill, when it is hardest to block. |