[hackem] What is necessary to handle black dragons in Hack'EM?

[Janis Papanagnou]

I'm not sure whether I have already met and fought dragons in Hack'EM.

In my current game there is a black dragon at Ruggo the Gnome King's
"Deluxe"-level variant.

I already cleared the level, including the demilich - well, or rather,
I let my minion handle that 'L'. But my minion doesn't want to tackle
that black 'D', so it's my turn. What do I need? (I'm unsure about the
changes in Hack'EM.)

* Is an amulet of reflection sufficient against the dragon's breath or
is there only some percentage that it works?

* Has the dragon a passive disintegration attack that might destroy my
two artifact weapons when I hit him?

* Do adult dragons swallow a player or do they just breathe and melee
the Vanilla way? (Would swallowing disintegrate items, suffocate me?)

* Is cancellation from a wand effective, and does it help to alleviate
some threats of that dragon?

* I have HP:152(152) and AC:-14; I fear that this might not suffice?

* My two-weaponing melee weapons (two artifact long swords) are fine,
I suppose, but I fear a potential passive disintegration effect.

* Anything else I should consider?

Thanks.

Ah, and it just occurred to me; I think I have no way to cross the
water to reach the dragon's island, so I have to see what options I
actually have to reach him in the first place.

Janis

[RecRanger]

Post by Janis Papanagnou
I'm not sure whether I have already met and fought dragons in Hack'EM.
In my current game there is a black dragon at Ruggo the Gnome King's
"Deluxe"-level variant.
* Is an amulet of reflection sufficient against the dragon's breath or
is there only some percentage that it works?
* Has the dragon a passive disintegration attack that might destroy my
two artifact weapons when I hit him?
* Do adult dragons swallow a player or do they just breathe and melee
the Vanilla way? (Would swallowing disintegrate items, suffocate me?)
* Is cancellation from a wand effective, and does it help to alleviate
some threats of that dragon?
* I have HP:152(152) and AC:-14; I fear that this might not suffice?
* My two-weaponing melee weapons (two artifact long swords) are fine,
I suppose, but I fear a potential passive disintegration effect.

This behavior of dragons comes from EvilHack and is yet another
unbalanced element, in my opinion. It may have originated elsewhere,
but has been modified for EvilHack. Amulet of reflection works, but
only a perecentage. You will lose a small amount of max HP and will
receive some damage. They do indeed have a passive disintegration
attack and will indeed destroy artifacts, which is utterly ridiculous.

They do swallow, and you risk being distingrated if you do not escape.
They, fortunately (at least last I knew) do not disintegrate items
unless you hit them with said items.

Your options for attacking are severely limited: magic, wands,
potions, missiles or destroy your gear/weapons. You can keep weapons
around that you do not care about for dealing with black dragons (and
also anti-matter vortexes if they have also been added). If you have
distinegration resistance you can whack it with your bare hands. Also,
if you do not care about missiles, you can go that route.

Also, not sure if pet resistances have been carried over to Hack'EM
or not. In EvilHack, your pet can eat various corpses to get
disintegration resisitances and will then attack black dragons. Pet
resistance are one of the more brilliant things in EvilHack. NOW,
if they would only STOP attacking zombies and if dogs and cats
could get helmets/battle armor, it would be even more balanced.


--

[Janis Papanagnou]

Post by Janis Papanagnou
In my current game there is a black dragon at Ruggo the Gnome King's
"Deluxe"-level variant. [...]

[ dragon properties ]

Thanks for that information! - It seems my worst fears come true!

The option to just skip it seems worthwhile, or genocide them once I
get the scroll. (If I had knew that before I could have already done
that; I got two genocides from thrones, and I've chosen locusts and
basilisk.) I fear I have not enough missiles to kill such a tough
opponent, and (as a Samurai) also no effective magic available.

If only the scales would be guaranteed as prize for killing it, but
I seem to have read that the odds are not in favor of that outcome.
(Slow digestion as secondary property of the scales would be nice.)

Janis

[Janis Papanagnou]

Post by Janis Papanagnou

Post by Janis Papanagnou
In my current game there is a black dragon at Ruggo the Gnome King's
"Deluxe"-level variant. [...]

If only the scales would be guaranteed as prize for killing it, but
I seem to have read that the odds are not in favor of that outcome.
(Slow digestion as secondary property of the scales would be nice.)

Okay, skipped the dragon issue for later. Did Grund's level, did the
Lawful and Neutral quests, did most of the Samurai's quest - but not
the final level - it's anyway not very interesting; it is dangerous,
I have (as usual) seriously abused my alignment, so no quest prize
for me (which is anyway always stashed away in my games). But at the
quest I could at least collect a lot of shurikens, i.e. missiles for
the black dragon I left back. My plan comprises quaffing reflection,
while standing on a scare monster scroll, canceling the dragon, make
him asleep, slow him down, and then throw all the shurikens at him.
That worked well. Didn't take any hit or breath from him. But there
were no scales left, what a pity; their properties would have been
really great. Anyway, I've got the gray scales from the Lawful quest
to get MR-armor, so I would have to trade one for the other property.

Next steps are probably the Wyrm caves I had a peek into. Or maybe I
look for Sam's entry. I'll skip the Chaotic and the Samurai's quest.

Janis

[Janis Papanagnou]

Post by Janis Papanagnou
Next steps are probably the Wyrm caves I had a peek into. Or maybe I
look for Sam's entry. I'll skip the Chaotic and the Samurai's quest.

Cleared about half of the final Wyrm cave. Then some wyfern dragon
attacked me with (yet again) fear. My escape means were ineffective,
the Key of Access and the Ring of Proof both ignored me. A non-ID'd
scroll of teleport took me away, though.

In Sam's store I collected quite some interesting loot (including a
magic lamp) in a bag of holding that I left there for retrieval by
some domestic tamed creature. No one appeared. And I'm anyway a bit
scared from the entry messages, that no pets are allowed here. Not
that I again induce some catastrophic outcome there...

Janis