Talk:Shadow dragon scales

correct description?

I have recently noticed that the description isn't accurate. Shadow dragon armour provides only 3 (not 4) levels of stealth. As prove I've uploaded a 0.17 screenshot. I'll change the description to be correct. -- Bwijn (talk) 16:33, 22 January 2016 (CET)

This is incorrect. Heavy armour has stealth penalties. Shadow dragon armour modifies your stealth the same way as a storm dragon armour artefact with Stlh++++ would. This works out to be like a robe with Stlh+ (-150 due to ER, +200 from Stlh++++). I'll try to make this clear on the page. -- Medar (talk) 08:48, 25 January 2016 (CET)

Hey Medar, that's not much more than an affirmation that you think you are right. But your wording ("like a robe with Stlh+") doesn't explain anything and is more confusing than understandable. Please try again and find words /examples that support your claim. Up to the moment you provide that 'logic pove' I'm still convinced that the resulting(!) stealth+++ is the correct parameter for Shadow dragon armour. I'm fully aware that this type of dragon armour is a heavy one with penalties but insist on the fact that the end result and NO intermediate result is to be the number of stealth#. -- Bwijn (talk) 21:02, 25 January 2016 (CET)

The % screen shows your character final stealth. Clearly more goes in to that than just the armour. You could just test yourself by taking off the armour, and notice that the stealth drops to two pips, not zero. You can also use wizmode to test that. Here is the actual code that sets it to 4 pips. Here is the change log entry mentioning it. -- Medar (talk) 08:49, 26 January 2016 (CET)

Okay, I accept you were right. The arguments you've brougt forward are solid. That leaves me still with a problem: which strange formula conception eats up that much stealth that 3 of 4 pips are swallowed? -- I stripped the armour and found indeed 2 pips instead of zero. Interesting as well that it didn't make any difference if I wielded a shield or not. Wearing a pearl dragon armour made it stealth# which is not desirable. The 3 pips did indeed help a lot to survive the abyss two times! Still I'd much prefer to have four. -- Alas, I'm not the math juggler type of guy. You seem competent in that. Could you please help out to identify which part of the stealth formula makes disappear such a lot of the usefulness of the shadow dragon armour? Three out of four pips are not a trifle. Would you please give a hand? -- Bwijn (talk) 14:44, 26 January 2016 (CET)

It's the penalty from encumbrance rating (ER) of the armour. Simply put it's not supposed to be easy to be stealthy in a heavy armour, and shadow dragon armour is as heavy as chain mail when it comes to that (and as good for AC as plate armour). You wouldn't expect being able to sneak around while wearing chain mail. So shadow dragon armour gets the huge bonus to offset this penalty (and then some). It wouldn't make sense for it to have low ER, as that would affect dodging and spellcasting penalties etc., not just stealth. The stealth page lists all the factors that make up the final number. Mostly it boils down to needing lots of dex + stealth skill and not wearing heavy armour. Smaller races (and naga) have much easier time, Dithmenos gives big bonus. Hope this makes sense. -- Medar (talk) 15:52, 26 January 2016 (CET)