Experience
Contents |
Overview
As with most roguelikes, POWDER has an experience system for gaining levels. As usual, experience points (XP) come from killing monsters. Unlike some games, XP in POWDER are only tracked from level to level -- every 1000 experience points, you gain another level, and the thousand points are subtracted from your running total. Naturally, the higher level you are, the less XP you get for killing a given monster. The exact formula is complex:
- The 1000 experience points of the level are divided by (10+Level) to yield the number of experience points you get for killing a monster of your own level. That is, killing (10+Level) monsters of your own level should get your to the next level.
- For each explevel above you the monster was, this value gets multiplied by 1.10.
- For each explevel below you the monster was, this value gets multiplied by 0.08.
- Note that if you're polymorphed or possessing a monster, it's your current level that counts. So a 15th level character possessing an Iron Golem (level 27) will lose most of their experience even for higher-level kills. And if you've taken the form of Baezl'bub (level 50), just forget about experience..
- If you are in a polymorphed form, both the polymorphed form and its hidden "base form" gain full experience and levels.
- If you are possessing another monster, your host keeps any experience. However, when your pet gains experience, you additionally get 50% of what they did. This applies even if you're currently possessing the slave -- your dormant body gets the 50%.
Experience Table
| Attacker | Victim | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Level | peer exp | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 7 | 10 | 15 | 20 | 25 | 50 |
| 1 | 90 | 90 | 99 | 109 | 120 | 132 | 159 | 212 | 342 | 550 | 886 | 9605 |
| 2 | 83 | 66 | 83 | 91 | 100 | 110 | 134 | 178 | 287 | 461 | 743 | 8052 |
| 3 | 76 | 49 | 61 | 76 | 84 | 92 | 111 | 148 | 239 | 384 | 619 | 6703 |
| 4 | 71 | 36 | 45 | 57 | 71 | 78 | 95 | 126 | 203 | 326 | 525 | 5693 |
| 5 | 66 | 27 | 34 | 42 | 53 | 66 | 80 | 106 | 171 | 276 | 444 | 4811 |
| 7 | 58 | 15 | 19 | 24 | 30 | 37 | 58 | 77 | 124 | 200 | 322 | 3494 |
| 10 | 50 | 7 | 8 | 10 | 13 | 16 | 26 | 50 | 81 | 130 | 209 | 2263 |
| 15 | 40 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 7 | 13 | 40 | 64 | 104 | 1124 |
| 20 | 33 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 11 | 33 | 53 | 576 |
| 25 | 28 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 9 | 28 | 303 |
| 50 | 16 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 16 |
Using XP for Spells
Your "current XP" pool is a resource; There are several spells which cost XP as well as mana, and to cast them at all, you need to have that many XP "free". You can't "cash in" a level to get XP. In fact, nothing in the game can take away your levels, but you can abandon them with a body hop!
The spells consuming XP are:
- Summon Familiar and Resurrect: Both let you gain pets, see the spell pages and Pets guide for a comparison.
- Identify gives knowledge, at a quite reasonable price.
- Transfer Knowledge "donates" a quarter-level's worth of experience to another creature. If they are your pet, you will get back half of the donation as a bonus, but you still need to have 250 free XP to cast the spell.
- If you teach your pet this spell, you can possess them and make them give you their experience more directly. (It works on non-pets too, but they're not likely to have enough XP to be worth the trouble and book charge).
- It's not exactly "using" the XP, but if you cast a spell forbidden by your current deity, your current XP total will be zeroed (among other punishments).
Experience Levels
Your experience level as such is only used directly in a few placed in the game, and doesn't even appear on the main screen. The major impact of gaining levels is the hit dice and magic dice you gain along with them, which come with skill and spell slots, HP and MP,.
These are the ways that your accumulated experience level as such matters:
- The biggie, of course, is that it's used to determine how much experience you get for various monsters!
- It's also used in computing your final score.
- When a god chooses to punish you with a swarm of monsters, your experience level is consulted when selecting the monsters to send.
- Monsters (such as pets) can also gain experience and levels, and a few species can evolve into more powerful species at key levels.
- An important case in which it's not used: Random monsters in the dungeon are generated to match the sum of your hit dice, magic dice, and current depth.
Hit Dice and Magic Dice
Each time you gain a level you will be offered the choice of worshiping any god that's sufficiently friendly to you (at least 10 piety). Depending on which god you choose, you will gain varying amounts of hit dice and magic dice, along with increases to your maximums for hit points and mana. Internally, hit and magic dice are stored as "half-dice". An odd half-die will not appear on the screen, but will be remembered until the next time you get an "extra" half-die. Most gods will award 2d2+1 HP or MP for each physical or magical half-die given. As usual, Xom is different: He offers d5-1 half-dice of each sort, but then the matching points get a flat roll from 0 to 10×(halfdice)-1.
You will gain one skill slot for each full hit die you earn, and one spell slot for each full magic die. Most gods (not Xom or agnosticism) may also give you either a skill or a spell on level-up, with the possibilities varying according to the god.
| God | Class | HD Gain | MD Gain | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agnostic | adventurer | ½ | ½ | No Boons or Punishments |
| Klaskov | Fighter | 1½ | 0 | easy to please |
| Belweir | Wizard | 0 | 1½ | hates crowds |
| Quizar | Rogue | 1 | ½ | hates loud noises |
| Tlosh | Necromancer | ½ | 1 | No healing |
| H'ruth | Barbarian | 2 | 0 | No magic |
| Pax | Cleric | 1 | 1 | no death magic |
| ><0|V| | Cultist | 0-2 | 0-2 | HP/MP vary |
