Chance to learn spell?

Bruce Lee · Post by **Bruce Lee** » Wed Apr 11, 2001 5:48 am

This seems to be malfunctioning. I have a gnome illusionist and he has 95% chance to learn spell but he fails to copy one out of three. In theory he should fail one in twenty but he is nowhere near that. Which factors come into play when scribing scrolls?
Has anyone else noticed the amount of failed scribing?

Edwin · Post by **Edwin** » Wed Apr 11, 2001 6:03 am

I also noticed this....i think the computer does what he want here....

rapier · Post by **rapier** » Wed Apr 11, 2001 6:05 am

Yes, scribing spells fails far to often, with a 85 percent chance I failed 5 out of 10...

Loredweller · Post by **Loredweller** » Wed Apr 11, 2001 6:13 am

I even suspect the program gets the seed for random number calculation from system clock. There are times you're failing every throw and times you never miss in spell learning.
However in the light of theory all is right. It's illusion you should hit 9 of 10, if probability is 90%. The events are independent in fact, and there should be number of throws great enough to be sure that it would be about theoretical.
L.

[ 04-11-2001: Message edited by: Loredweller ]

C Elegans · Post by **C Elegans** » Wed Apr 11, 2001 8:15 am

I have also noticed that the failure rate seems much higher that expected. Of course you need quite a large sample to really evaluate if the rate is too low or not, but so far I think it seems unlikely that my mage with 5% failure rate should miss about 30%. Anyway there seems to be a linearity, so when I use potions to rise his INT, he misses less often, although still more often than expected. So what I do is to save all important spells until I find a potion of Mindfocusing of Genius, then I scribe them all at once.

Sojourner · Post by **Sojourner** » Wed Apr 11, 2001 8:46 am

IMO, the random number calculation is stacked against you. Even when I used SK to boost the INT to 25, theoretically giving me a 100% chance to scribe a spell, I still saw a high failure rate.

Steve · Post by **Steve** » Wed Apr 11, 2001 8:54 am

This pissed me off in no time at all. so I set the game to auto-succeed every scroll. It saves time, money and many Strokes, Headaches and Smashed Keyboards.

Sojourner · Post by **Sojourner** » Wed Apr 11, 2001 9:12 am

That's what I did, too. It's better than having to buy a new computer.

Loredweller · Post by **Loredweller** » Wed Apr 11, 2001 9:24 am

Hey, there's another thing, though i cannot explain mechanics (i do not know them, i only guess). It's the same thing, i guess, because 100%+ stealth fails and 100%+ pickpocketing is going caught.
IMO, every spell has its own roll dice, what may depend on the level, school - your and spell's and etc. (who knows the mind of development team?) Note, here *always* is at least 1% chance of failure, or so it is said. So, when all dices are rolled, you may fail. As analogy: your 100% is something like your THAC0, but item has its AC and, maybe, even saving throw.
Just guessing,
L.

Bruce Lee · Post by **Bruce Lee** » Wed Apr 11, 2001 3:54 pm

The only thing good about this is that it gives the sorceror an advantage... I want to play on normal difficulty but it is very frustating to fail learning spells all the time.
Does anyone know if what you are wearing effects it at all?

Loredweller · Post by **Loredweller** » Thu Apr 12, 2001 11:25 am

No item gives high INT, only potions. There is also stated in manual the wisdom should have some impact, though. Well, my elf mage/cleric (19 DEX, 18 INT and WIS, the rest what spares, hard with HP, though) have little problems. Happens, however, i have to reload.
They have removed books, what a pity.
L.

[ 04-12-2001: Message edited by: Loredweller ]