ToME Wiki
General considerations
Dodging allows you to avoid monsters attacks. It is tested before the monster attack and if successful, you get a message as "You dodge the wild rabbit attack!". It also allows you to avoid bolts attacks but this more difficult (and is useless if your have reflection).
Dodging chance is determined by your level in the skill dodging, your level in barehand combat, your worn armor weight (body armor, cloak, gloves, boots, headgear, and shield counts, but not rings and amulets), and slightly by the total weight of your equipment and inventory.
Sounds good, but dodging can be completely useless if:
- your dodging skill is not maxed
- you don't have a high level in barehand combat
- you don't wear none or **VERY** light armors. It becomes useless if your armor is heavier than 7lb (for instance a paper armour and a mimic cloak).
The actual formula to compute your dodging chance (in percents) is (3*D+B-20*AW-TW/10)-M*5/6 where D is your dodging level, B is your barehand combat level, AW is the total armor weight (in pounds), TW is the total weight (of worn equipments and inventory) and M is the level of the monster that your are trying to dodge. To evaluate practically the effectiveness of dodging for characters with different CLev, we have made the following assumptions.
- Dodging and barehand combat are maxed with respect to the character level (either CLev+4 or 50 wichever is the smallest)
- you fight a monster whose level MLev is equal to your CLev (or higher if CLev=50)
- your total inventory and equipment weights 100lb.
and we considered different armors:
- 0lb (naked combat)
- 1.5lb (i.e. a cloak and SL gloves)
- 3.5 lb (i.e. a cloak, SL gloves and a robe)
- 5.5 lb (i.e. a cloak, SL gloves, SL boots and a robe or a cloak, SL gloves and a paper armour))
- 7lb (for instance a robe and a SL shield)
CLev |
skill level |
MLev |
0lb |
1.5lb |
3.5lb |
5.5lb |
7lb |
10 |
14 |
10 |
37.6 |
7.6 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
20 |
24 |
20 |
69.3 |
39.3 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
30 |
34 |
30 |
100 |
71 |
31 |
0 |
0 |
40 |
44 |
40 |
100+ |
100 |
62.6 |
22.6 |
0 |
50 |
50 |
50 |
100+ |
100+ |
78.3 |
38.3 |
8.3 |
50 |
50 |
75 |
100+ |
97.5 |
57.5 |
17.5 |
0 |
50 |
50 |
100 |
100+ |
76.6 |
36.6 |
0 |
0 |
Strategy recommandations
Dodging is a skill that has a great influence on your character strategy. Obviously, if you are not a barehand fighter, or if you want to dive for a nice Power Dragon Scale Mail, just forget it and dont spend a single skill point in it. If you do not intend to max it, you can also forget it. For instance raising it to 30 instead of 50 will reduce your dodge probability by 60%!
The main problem with dodging is that it can be completely ruined by any relatively heavy armor element. Any shield, any body armor other than a robe or a (eventually) a paper armor, a mimic cloak (3lb instead of 1lb for regular cloaks), even a set of cesti (bye, bye Fingolfin!), an helm, etc, and your dodging chance are rapidly null. And covering all your resistance requirements with the constraint of using only ultralight equipment is something very difficult to realize (and probably very frustating).
To my opinion, it is mostly useful if your have a body that already provides sufficient resistances, and many ring/amulet slots to deal with the other resistances, stat increase, to-dam/to-hit boost, etc. For instance, a Dragon possessor can quite profitably have it. Provided he succeeds to maximise simultanously, Dodging, Barehand Combat, and Possession. And do you really need Dodging if you are in the powerful body of a Great Wyrm of Power? 