Posted by Proud Blade(VIP) on October 17, 2000 at 13:26:43:
In Reply to: If -ac is not important at high ranks, why does everyone buy petite fillets and use wands posted by wondering on October 17, 2000 at 12:42:56:
... many things which show up under "affect" as a drop in AC also give damage resistance of various kinds. Stone skin, aura, shield, and barrier are some examples of this, and they all have helpfiles. Damage resistance means that incoming damage (sometimes only certain kinds of incoming damage) is reduced by some percentage. This effectively gives you more hit points, with the added bonus that it is a lot easier to recover. (You lose less hp. but healing still affects you normally.) Multiple damage resists are multiplicative: Two different effects which meant you were only taking 80% of incoming damage would yield a total effect of (.80*.80) 64% incoming damage. Pretty nice. Many of these effects are somewhat difficult to find. In decreasing order of difficulty, most can be found as potions/pills, staves/scrolls, and/or wands. (Thus, mages are the most likely ones to use them.) There are other effects which do similar things, several of which are the rewards of quests, or side effects of hard-to-acquire items. Exact locations and such are considered quest/secret information. My favorite hint: They're often in the places you would think powerful magical things might be. With a few exceptions, very few seem randomly thrown into areas.