Somewhere around nethack 3.6.3 I looked at a weapons proficiency chart. I saw two possibiliities for grandmaster on it: monk's grandmaster in martial arts, and rogue's grandmaster in short sword. Nowadays (and I've verified by playing) the chart removed the rogue's gm spot and all that is left is monk grandmaster in martial arts. This was a quiet change. Don't any rogue players miss the old days?

On 22.07.2023 23:38, Julian wrote:
> Somewhere around nethack 3.6.3 I looked at a weapons proficiency
> chart. I saw two possibiliities for grandmaster on it: monk's
> grandmaster in martial arts, and rogue's grandmaster in short sword.
> Nowadays (and I've verified by playing) the chart removed the rogue's
> gm spot and all that is left is monk grandmaster in martial arts.
> This was a quiet change. Don't any rogue players miss the old days?

Are you sure about the rogue's proficiency? - I've never seen what you
describe, and if I look into the sources of NH343, NH361, NH366 (some
versions I have here) I see only these proficiencies matching "MASTER"
(or "GRAND_MASTER"):

Bar { P_BARE_HANDED_COMBAT, P_MASTER },
Cav { P_BARE_HANDED_COMBAT, P_MASTER },
Mon { P_MARTIAL_ARTS, P_GRAND_MASTER },
Sam { P_MARTIAL_ARTS, P_MASTER },

Janis

On Sun, 23 Jul 2023 00:36:30 +0200, Janis Papanagnou wrote:

> if I look into the sources of NH343, NH361, NH366 (some
> versions I have here) I see only these proficiencies matching "MASTER"
> (or "GRAND_MASTER"):
>
> Bar { P_BARE_HANDED_COMBAT, P_MASTER },
> Cav { P_BARE_HANDED_COMBAT, P_MASTER },
> Mon { P_MARTIAL_ARTS, P_GRAND_MASTER },
> Sam { P_MARTIAL_ARTS, P_MASTER },

Only 3 months after I mentioned here in rgrn, that I /really/ liked
playing weaponless martial arts grand master samurai (which was possible
until v3.4.2) this skill slot was removed for samurai (and only left
for monk) with v3.4.3.

I've been very carefully not to mention (here in rgrn) things I happen
to like about the game, ever since... ;-)

BeAr
--
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= What do you mean with: "Perfection is always an illusion"? =
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On 23.07.2023 07:50, B. R. 'BeAr' Ederson wrote:
> On Sun, 23 Jul 2023 00:36:30 +0200, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
>
>> if I look into the sources of NH343, NH361, NH366 (some
>> versions I have here) I see only these proficiencies matching "MASTER"
>> (or "GRAND_MASTER"):
>>
>> Bar { P_BARE_HANDED_COMBAT, P_MASTER },
>> Cav { P_BARE_HANDED_COMBAT, P_MASTER },
>> Mon { P_MARTIAL_ARTS, P_GRAND_MASTER },
>> Sam { P_MARTIAL_ARTS, P_MASTER },
>
> Only 3 months after I mentioned here in rgrn, that I /really/ liked
> playing weaponless martial arts grand master samurai (which was possible
> until v3.4.2) this skill slot was removed for samurai (and only left
> for monk) with v3.4.3.

I don't recall this (two decades?) old version (I have no old sources
here to check). The OP anyway mentioned some newer version ("3.6.3")
and another character class and skill ("rogue's grandmaster in short
sword"); had the rogue role changed interim (or was the OP erring)?

Myself I had never played samurai as a martial arts role; the samurai's
two-weapon option with longswords or sabres is so powerful that it
didn't occur to me to strive to (or enhance) something else.

>
> I've been very carefully not to mention (here in rgrn) things I happen
> to like about the game, ever since... ;-)

Was that related to that proficiency change?

Any discussion at that time turned out to be moot anyway since the
subsequent NH-343 version went in hibernation and didn't change for
a very long time.

Janis

On Sun, 23 Jul 2023 08:42:36 +0200, Janis Papanagnou wrote:

> The OP anyway mentioned some newer version ("3.6.3")
> and another character class and skill ("rogue's grandmaster in short
> sword"); had the rogue role changed interim (or was the OP erring)?

Either erring or maybe the documentation (the OP referred to) was wrong.
Or the OP remembers not vanilla, but some variant?

Since introduction of master and grand master skill levels with NH v3.2.1,
there was always a comment in the source code, that all skill levels beyond
expert /only/ apply to martial arts _unarmed_ combat.

[v343: Samurai removed from possible martial arts grand master skill level]
>> I've been very carefully not to mention (here in rgrn) things I happen
>> to like about the game, ever since... ;-)
>
> Was that related to that proficiency change?

Of course. One (obviously) can never be too careful... ;-)

BeAr
--
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= What do you mean with: "Perfection is always an illusion"? =
===============================================================--(Oops!)===

Grandmaster martial arts for monk is the only possibility for
grandmaster. Samurai used to be able to achieve that too, but
they can become expert in a whole bunch of weapons so that
was removed. (It probably didn't make much sense anyway;
they aren't known for weaponless fighting. But the main reason
was so that monks would have an advantage in /something/.)

Nothing whatever to do with anyone posting about it being their
favorite way to play.... The change was made in Fall of 2003, in
time to be included in version 3.4.3.

No skill for weapon objects has ever been allowed above expert
in nethack. Barbarians and cavemen can become master in
bare-handed combat. They were originally allowed to become
grandmaster but that was taken away from them at the same
time as grandmaster martial arts was taken away from Samurai.

On 23.07.2023 22:26, Pat Rankin wrote:
> Grandmaster martial arts for monk is the only possibility for
> grandmaster. Samurai used to be able to achieve that too, but
> they can become expert in a whole bunch of weapons so that
> was removed. (It probably didn't make much sense anyway;
> they aren't known for weaponless fighting. But the main reason
> was so that monks would have an advantage in /something/.)

Re monks; the XL-depending intrinsics are also a big advantage
early to mid game,[*] the advantage of getting grand master
gets important only slowly in an advanced game, IMO, still,
the increases are good enough to rely on bare-handed/martial
art completely (at least in Vanilla, but not in all variants,
cf. the effect of "MR_PLUS{ONE..FOUR}" monster attributes).

Janis

[*] I'd only have changed the order of getting the intrinsics
from { fire, cold, shock } to { cold, shock, fire } (and would
have put them earlier at position of the searching intrinsic).

On Sun, 23 Jul 2023 13:26:12 -0700 (PDT), Pat Rankin wrote:

[Nerfing Samurai abilities]
> Nothing whatever to do with anyone posting about it being their
> favorite way to play.... The change was made in Fall of 2003, in
> time to be included in version 3.4.3.

Hm. I posted about liking to play martial arts grandmaster samurai in
August 2003 and got told by a couple of people, that I'm a weirdo and
samurai /shouldn't/ be played as martial arts hero. (What the heck
should they care??!)

Around the same time, 3.4.2 was released. Too late for anybody to
include BeAr-slapping changes. But okay: Come fall, there's plenty
time to include a change reducing samurai martial arts capabilities.
And when the next "bugfix release" (according to README) came out
in December 2003, it contained just /one/ change solely directed
to gameplay and game balance: the nerfed samurai.

You say "coincidence". I think otherwise. Probably, nobody else in
the Dev-team told you the /real/ reason for the proposed change.
They most likely just argued, like you wrote:

| But the main reason was so that monks would have an advantage in
| /something/.

So: No more posts about playing preferences, just to be on the save
side... ;-)

BeAr
--
===========================================================================
= What do you mean with: "Perfection is always an illusion"? =
===============================================================--(Oops!)===

On Monday, July 24, 2023 at 11:00:53 AM UTC-7, B. R. 'BeAr' Ederson wrote:
[...]
> in December 2003, it contained just /one/ change solely directed
> to gameplay and game balance: the nerfed samurai.

That's not correct. Barbarians were give the ability to reach expert
in short sword. Prior to that, their alternate starting weapons of
two-handed axe plus short sword instead of two-handed sword
plus one-handed axe was the only instance of a starting weapon
that couldn't be advanced to expert. To balance that out, they lost
the ability to become expert in pick-axe, and as already mentioned,
they also lost grandmaster for unarmed fighting along with cavemen
and samurai.

There were tons of other changes already in place in what was then
known as 3.5 but eventually got released as 3.6.0, but this skills
one was so trivial that it had no risk of it introducing new bugs,
hence didn't wait.

> You say "coincidence". I think otherwise. Probably, nobody else in
> the Dev-team told you the /real/ reason for the proposed change.
> They most likely just argued, like you wrote:

Since I made the change myself, I really doubt that someone
else conspired to not to tell me why I was doing it.... The old cvs
commit is still present in the publicly accessible git repository:
https://github.com/NetHack/NetHack/commit/5b9c037

The primary reason for the martial arts change was to address
complaints that monks were far worse off than samurai: besides
not being able to become expert in any type of weapon, they take
a substantial to-hit penalty for martial arts if wearing anything in
the suit slot. It was ridiculous for samurai to outperform them in
martial arts.

First, let me assure you, that everything I wrote or write on that matter
was/is meant "tongue-in-cheek". ;-) The game is, as the dev-team
decides it to be. I deal with it, just the way it is. If everything was
optimized /exactly/ to my liking, I probably wouldn't be fond of the game,
anymore. Irritating game mechanics and less-than-ideal ways to prepare
(for the dangers to come) are - for me - part of the fun.

This preface out of the way, lets have a look at your reply:

On Mon, 24 Jul 2023 13:20:04 -0700 (PDT), Pat Rankin wrote:
> On Monday, July 24, 2023 at 11:00:53 AM UTC-7, B. R. 'BeAr' Ederson wrote:
>> You say "coincidence". I think otherwise. Probably, nobody else in
>> the Dev-team told you the /real/ reason for the proposed change.
>> They most likely just argued, like you wrote:
>
> Since I made the change myself, I really doubt that someone
> else conspired to not to tell me why I was doing it.... The old cvs
> commit is still present in the publicly accessible git repository:
> https://github.com/NetHack/NetHack/commit/5b9c037

Cited from this commit:

| This also addresses an earlier complaint that monks are no better in
| martial arts than samurai even though the latter have lots of choices for
| good weapon skills.

I read this as you acting on behalf on somebody else, who (strongly)
"suggested" the change. ;-)
> The primary reason for the martial arts change was to address
> complaints that monks were far worse off than samurai: besides
> not being able to become expert in any type of weapon, they take
> a substantial to-hit penalty for martial arts if wearing anything in
> the suit slot. It was ridiculous for samurai to outperform them in
> martial arts.

Trained with armor, martial arts moves just adapt to the more limited
range of movements, but hits are no less deadly. A hit rather carries
even more impact, because of the additional weight behind each hit and
because weak parts of the human body get additional stabilization, which
enables to hit with less restraint reserved for self-preservation.

What's more: With worn armor, fighters can concentrate on offense,
while armorless fighters have to use a high portion of all movements
just for basic defence. Therefore, the attack-to-moves ratio of
armorless fighters is considerably lower than the one of adequately
protected ones.

And to address the matter of in-game (in)consistency: Monks who /carry/
but not wear armor (without being burdened) get no penalty for this
armor, although carrying things is much more of a hindrance in martial
arts combat, than wearing those items. ;-)

For me, monk armor restriction in Nethack was always a religious (or
political, if historical causes for armor- and weaponless Shaolin monk
fighting is taken as a basis) matter. No need to boost up this role in
any way. It is /meant/ to be a difficult one. And (compared to samurai)
monks do not gain any fighting advantage by restricting samurai to master:
A well-trained samurai two-weaponing his well-enchanted 2 long swords at
expert will always outperform any grandmaster monk of the same strength
and agility. ;-)

For me, playing grandmaster samurai (with the backup safety-net of
switching to weapon combat if matters grew to dire) was training for
successfully playing monk, later on. This way I got an impression, what
a grandmaster can achieve and what moves are dangerous. And of course,
what difference certain levels of strength and dexterity make.

Therefore, restricting samurai martial arts was, IMHO, reducing possible
in-game training capabilities /and/ removing a (for me important) source
of fun... <Sigh> ;-)

BeAr
--
===========================================================================
= What do you mean with: "Perfection is always an illusion"? =
===============================================================--(Oops!)===