I Never Knew I Could Do X Until Just Now...

I say we start a rumor that it doesn't work if you change fingers.

 

That's what she said!

 

I tried it up to 10,000. The oridginal myth was 1000, and then the myth was 10,000.

I suppose when someone reaches 100,000 the myth will change to 1 million.

Do not waste your time.

 

I believe the odds are 1 out of 6 to the 18th power, if you were rolling 3 6-sided die to get each stat. But I believe the game is modeling best 3 die out of 4, which has a different probability distibution.

On a similar note, assuming it took only a second to reliably recognize whether straight 18's were rolled (nonsense), it would take 11 days, 13 hours, 46 minutes and 40 seconds to roll stats one million times. This performance would, in reality, be degraded by inattention, fatigue, blindness, unconciousness, coma, then death.

This is less than the month or so it would take to actually verbally COUNT to a million, without allowing for breathing and other necessary biological functions, of course.

I think Maalri has got this one right. And now for the witch hunt to find the person responsible for this rumor...

 

I looked at the disassembly of the temple.dll, there are checks in there for 100,000 rerolls, that reference the corresponding text-strings from the message-files. 100,000 also really makes sense since it's the overflow point for the re-roll counter. They limited it to 5 digits (99,999).

 

So besides saying "Get a life!", does it actually give you all 18's?

 

I could hack the temple.dll to run that portion of the code after 10 rerolls and check it out. But since it's doing something with the number 18 (besides printing a message ofcourse), I guess it actually does give you all 18s.

Regards,
Storm

ps: Okay this bugged me and I did replace the 100,000 with 10 and after 10 rerolls I got the following result:


And after clicking an 11th time I got:


So yeah, the code actually does something

 

yes!! We have confirmation! I can stop clicking! I WAS UP TO 87,461!

 

While working on how to speed run the game, I discovered an ending where you become Zuggtmoy's thrall and die as a nameless soldier in battle. I haven't seen any reference to this ending online, so I was fairly surprised when I got it.

 

So it's 100,000! I STAND CORRECTED! :notworthy

So, what file do I have to hack...?

 

These are a few things that I figured out and thought I would share. My apologies if I repeat anything that someone else has covered in another post:

1) There are a couple maps which you cannot see the edge of. One of these is the Moathouse Cave Entrance. If you would really like to see the all of the map, move your party to the very edge of the screen. Then press F12 to do a quicksave. Once it is done, press F9 to do a quickload. The load will center on your party. So you can now move them over to the edge of the screen. Be sure not to scroll the map in any way or it will reset to a viewable area. In the case of the example of the Moathouse Cave Entrance, you can do this trick repeatedly to completely map this area (but it really doesn't do you much good other than peace of mind).

2) If you would like to use a lower level spell in a higher level spell slot, just left click on the lower spell and drag it over to the higher spell slot. I do with my clerics as I like the Cure Critical Wounds spell better than the Cure Light Wounds, Mass

3) I like to get my wizards as many of the spells as possible. So I create 4 generic wizards and start the game with them plus the wizard that I am going to use. When I create my wizard, he starts with the first 6 spells. Then the first generic wizard starts with the next 6 spells in line. The second generic wizard starts with the next 6 spells after that, etc. The starting vignettes give enough experience that once they are completed and you reach Hommlet, the generic wizards can scribe scrolls for the spells that they know. They pass their scrolls to my one real wizard and he learns their spells. Doing this lets him learn all the 1st level spells in alphabetical order. Note that you need to leave the last 2 spells unlearned so that your wizard has something to learn when he levels up to the second level. I have also found that I have been unable to scribe Identify (untested in 5.8.1) but you can purchase it from Burne or get it from the scrolls chest when you are creating your party.

 

I thought that I would add another pair of possibly little known things that I have discovered:

4) When you begin the NG scenario, if you have a wizard in your group that knows the Sleep spell, you can cast it on the murderous thief. If he fails his saving throw (you can save before you cast to make sure he does), you can run up to him and pick him clean of items. He actually has a good array of starting equipment for a thief but no thieves tools. Once you have his items, you can kill him so that the scenario continues.

5) When you first enter the waterside hostel, one of the servering wenches will attempt to steal an item from you. She doesn't always choose the best member of your party for this attempt. If you have a character who has a sufficiently high enough intimidate skill to resolve a successful catch of her attempt, there is a way to ensure that that character will always be the one chosen. Before you enter, simply set all the members of your party into sneak mode - except the one you want to use to detect and deal with the theft.

 

I like to do this, but last time I took a Sorcerer and didn't take Sleep, so I moved mt fighters and cleric in and pummeled him with subduel damage until he fell (which can take a while since its at a -4 to hit), but watch out, he can hit hard.

 

I never knew that a large creature (such as Oohlgrist or Scorpp) that is wielding a reach weapon has an even longer (15 foot?) reach and larger area that they threaten (see image below).

I never knew that you could view the to-hit probabilities of NPCs in your party that are using natural (nonweapon) attacks by holding down the Alt key while having the mouse pointer over their target (see image below).

I never knew that you can heal nonlethal (blue number) damage with healing spells.

You can use spells like Fireball to locate enemies nearby that are out of your sight (visual) range by selecting the spell and moving the blue disc (which indicates the spell's area of effect) around the map (so long as you have at least 1 visible enemy within the blue disc) (see image below).

It took me ages to realize that always having the rolls history window open is essential for gameplay.

It took me ages to figure out that clicking on any of the blue text within the rolls history window opens a pop-up window that contains heaps of essential statistics and information.

It took me a long time to figure out that a character can attack a target that is a yellow distance away (when you hold down the Alt key while the mouse pointer is over the target) if you select the Charge Attack option from the radial menu (but only so long as the character can move to the target in a straight line).

It took me a long time to realize that my spellcasters could cast defensively by ticking the relevant box in the radial menu. I didn't realize that casting defensively makes spellcasters SO deadly in 3rd edition D&D! All spellcasters who cast defensively have to do is make 1 skill check and then no enemy can make an attack of opportunity against them!

I didn't realize just how deadly having and using the Improved Trip feat is!