Melee stunning: un-resistable

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userjjb
Greedy Little Gnome
Posts: 14
Joined: Sat 12.09.2009, 13:30

Melee stunning: un-resistable

Post by userjjb » Wed 24.07.2013, 23:49

Prompted by my recent death to a Grand Master Mystic (http://www.mangband.org/Main/HighScoreC ... 4333715776) I figured I'd share the insight I've gotten from this event.

For the edification of others the relevant spoiler info can be found below. The important takeaway is that an attack that does 95% of maximum damage of the type "hit, punch, kick, butt, crush" can crit and therefore stun. Damage below 20 has a chance to stun equal to (damage+1)%. This stun is un-resistable any may permanently stun you.

The 95% damage requirement means that it is *extremely* unlikely an attack with many damage dice will crit. The chance of a 10d10 hit from The Tarrasque critting is 30 in a million (although if you were that unlucky, you would be immediately knocked out).

This leaves two likely crit possibilities:
-The more common one is attacks with only one or two damage dice. One damage die has an even chance of critting but the largest this gets is 1d12, below the 20 damage threshold. This means that generally 1dX attacks have a 1-2% chance of occurring and at worst put you at 40 stun, still in the lowest category. The only 2dX statistically worth mentioning are 2d10 (1.4%, Gorgimaera) and 2d12 (2.1%, Troll chieftain, Greater Titan, Pazuzu, and Kronos) In general the frequency of stunning is low enough to recover from before you are likely to be crit again.

-The other possible critting attack is many, small damage dice. Out of Xd2 the only statistically important one is 10d2 (1.1% any Mystic and the Barbazu). The most critical (pun intended) attacks to consider are 15d1 (16%) and 20d1; 20d1 attacks are guaranteed crits at full damage (which bump up the stun done). 15d1 is possible from the Trapper, and Master/Grand Master Mystic. 20d1 attacks only come from the Master and Grand Master Mystics. These attacks have a very good chance of perma-stunning you. They will occur so often that your stun counter will not have a chance to recover before the next crit comes and there is a very good chance you will die.

Code: Select all

MONSTER CRITICAL HITS
---------------------

If a monster scores a particularly effective blow against the player, it
may succeed in scoring a critical hit.  A critical hit either stuns or cuts
the player; a single critical hit cannot do both.

The description of an attack must be of a certain type in order to inflict
a critical hit.

An ordinary hit (i.e. the monster attack description says "hit") can either
cut or stun the player.  Punches, kicks, butts, and crushes can stun the
player.  Claws and bites can cut the player.  No other attack method can
cause a critical hit.

Here's how to determine if a hit is critical: first of all, the attack must
do at least 95% of maximum damage.  Also, if less than 20 damage is done by
the attack, it will only be critical (damage+1) percent of the time.

To calculate the precise effect of the effect, first find the +-------+---+
corresponding value of C on the chart to the right.  Then,    |Damage   C |
add one to C if the damage done by the attack attained the    |-------+---+
absolute maximum possible value.  After that, if at least 20  |  1-11 | 1 |
damage was done, there is a 2% chance that 1 more point is    | 12-18 | 2 |
added to C; the 2% roll is repeated until it fails.           | 19-25 | 3 |
                                                              | 26-33 | 4 |
Then use C on the following tables to determine the severity  | 34-45 | 5 |
of the cut or stunning.  The value is added to the cut or     |   45+ | 6 |
stun counter as appropriate.  (If either cutting or stunning  +-------+---+
is possible, choose one outcome at random.)

Value of C | Amt. of cutting | Amt. of stunning
-----------+-----------------+-------------------
         0 |            none |             none
         1 |             1d5 |              1d5
         2 |           5+1d5 |          10+1d10
         3 |         20+1d20 |          20+1d20
         4 |         50+1d50 |          30+1d30
         5 |       100+1d100 |          40+1d40
         6 |             300 |              100
 7 or more  |             500 |              200
-----------+-----------------+-----------------

Stun, Heavy stun, Knocked out
-----------------------------
* Your character is knocked out when the stun counter is greater than 100.
  It is the same as paralysis, but cannot be blocked as easily.
* Your character is heavily stunned when the stun counter is between 51 and
  100 inclusive.  This causes a penalty of -20 both to-hit and to-damage,
  and increases the minimum spell/prayer failure rate by 25%.
* Your character is stunned when the stun counter is between 1 and 50
  inclusive.  This causes a penalty of -5 both to-hit and to-damage, and
  increases the minimum spell/prayer failure rate by 15%.

Recovering from stunning: Every turn, 1 plus the bonus recovery rate from
  Constitution is subtracted from the stun counter.

               Recovery                      Recovery
 Constitution     Bonus        Constitution     Bonus
-----------------------       -----------------------
         3-13         0       18/120-18/129         5
        14-17         1       18/130-18/149         6
     18-18/49         2       18/150-18/169         7
  18/50-18/99         3       18/170-18/199         8
18/100-18/119         4             18/200+         9

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