Could you play the game with the worst possible luck?

joluv

I was wondering what would happen if every time a random event occurred in the game, the outcome was as bad as possible. All your attack rolls would be 1, enemies would always have maximum-damage critical hits, any enemy with 1% magic resistance would always successfully resist magic, etc.

Applying this too broadly would make the game completely unplayable. For example, you could never travel anywhere; you'd just get waylaid by enemies forever and never reach your destination. So let's restrict the thought experiment to combat situations. That means stuff like HP rolls, spell learning, and spawning still works like normal.

I'd sort of like to see a mod for this so I could properly try it. Do you guys think it would be possible? Off the top of my head, I'm not sure how you could kill Sarevok. Maybe Arrows of Detonation ?

wubble

You'd die as certain enemies have to be killed and rolling one would be a critical miss so you couldn't hit things unless you were a mage/sorc at which point you'd be critted to death by repeated enemy hits.

joluv

@wubble Not necessarily. Even if you weren't a caster, there are ways to do damage without making an attack roll. The ones that come to mind are Wand of Magic Missiles, Necklace of Missiles, Oil of Fiery Burning, Potion of Explosions, Potion of Firebreath, Arrows of Detonation (which always hit), and traps. There are only three enemies you absolutely have to kill: Mulahey, Davaeorn, and Sarevok. Here's a guess at how those three battles might be relatively straightforward for a single-class thief, without even using traps:

Mulahey - Drink two Potions of Fire Resistance, a Potion of Clarity, and a Potion of Freedom. Use Necklace of Missiles maybe four times, running away in between.

Davaeorn - If I remember correctly, he's immune to fire. Drink two Potions of Fire Resistance and a Potion of Absorption, and use the Greenstone Amulet. Disarm the traps, absorb his spells, and drink a Potion of Invisibility when he summons a monster. Once it's unsummoned, drink an Oil of Speed and kite him with a Wand of Magic Missiles.

Sarevok - The basic idea would be kiting with a bunch of Arrows of Detonation. Go in with several Potions of Magic Protection, Fire Resistance, and Invisibility, plus the Ring of Invisibility and Oils of Speed. The biggest problem would probably be Angelo's ranged attacks, so focus on him first and hope you can drink Elixirs of Health fast enough to keep up with his damage. If not, you might have to fire, immediately go invisible, wait a round, and repeat until he drops, then proceed to the kiting.

(Running away from Sarevok is going to be a lot easier if you have Boots of Speed. Getting Drasus's seems possible, but it's probably simpler to just use traps on Lothander.)

I haven't actually tried any of this, but it seems plausible to me that it'd work. What do you think?

LordRumfish

I think you wouldn't be able to deal enough damage because of always rolling minimum.

joluv

That's a fair point that I hadn't really thought through. The Necklace of Missiles, for example, would be doing 6 damage, save vs. spell for half. So four shots isn't going to be enough to kill Mulahey.

Blackraven

joluv said:

I haven't actually tried any of this, but it seems plausible to me that it'd work. What do you think?

I think you should try it, and let us all know how you fare

Edit: btw, do Arrows of Detonation still inflict damgage if you roll a ciritical miss? If so, I'm not saying anything. If they don't then you'd have to rethink your Sarevok stretegy.

SionIV

You can do this without any trouble at all. No-reloaders make sure that they don't put themselves in a situation where they are dependent on good luck. You can roll 1 on every single roll and still complete the game without dying a single time.

Certain spells don't let the enemy make a saving throw, summons don't require any rolls at all either. Spells like magic missile don't really require luck, even if you roll 1 on each missile it's still 5 damage. Other spells will have reduced damage for a saving throw but can still kill.

Blades, Kensais and Clerics can both get spells/abilities that make them deal the maximum amount of damage on a hit, removing any need to roll well.

joluv

@Blackraven That's why I was saying I'd like a mod for it: I can't force the rolls to turn out that badly.

Blackraven

joluv said:

@Blackraven That's why I was saying I'd like a mod for it: I can't force the rolls to turn out that badly.

Maybe you could keeper your Thac0 and saves to the highest possible digits (20 maybe even higher)?
If not, then simply prohibit yourself from using any attack forms, be they magical or physical, that are effective in case charname gets a sufficient roll (thac0) or in case foes get an insufficient roll (saves). Because in your case they are assumed to be ineffective due to rolls.

LordRumfish

I considered summons, but they would always critically miss as well because they are your effect (if not... that's an easy way through). If a wand of Magic Missile was caster level 1 and had 31 charges, that would be 62 possible damage you could do (1d4+1 minimized). A couple of wands reroll 1's and 2's I think, so those would do mediocrely decent damage. Anyway... yeah, you could still kill things using spells, scrolls and wands, it would just take a lot of them, and it would take longer (allowing time for buffs to wear off, etc.).

SionIV

LordRumfish said:

I considered summons, but they would always critically miss as well because they are your effect (if not... that's an easy way through). If a wand of Magic Missile was caster level 1 and had 31 charges, that would be 62 possible damage you could do (1d4+1 minimized). A couple of wands reroll 1's and 2's I think, so those would do mediocrely decent damage. Anyway... yeah, you could still kill things using spells, scrolls and wands, it would just take a lot of them, and it would take longer (allowing time for buffs to wear off, etc.).

Summons are good meat shields and some of them will still be able to deal damage. You could also go through the game with Fireshield Red+Blue.

joluv

@LordRumfish Confession: If push came to shove, I might stoop to recharging a wand by selling it and buying it back.

DJKajuru

Isn't that the script of Cat Mario?

joluv

Blackraven said:

btw, do Arrows of Detonation still inflict damgage if you roll a ciritical miss? If so, I'm not saying anything. If they don't then you'd have to rethink your Sarevok stretegy.

There's no attack roll feedback on them, so I assumed that no roll was happening. This is discussed in the "Arrow of Detonation" thread, and the upshot seems to be:

Dee said:

Arrows of Detonation always hit their target.