I really dislike using Silva to disarm mines; the falling boulders and wall squares, as well as the general re-arrangement of the level, plays havoc with my OCD-impulse to explore every level and take anything of value to sell/sacrifice.

I think this was known; body armor provides half-defense to arms and legs. Cloaks on the other hand provide full defense value to all body parts, in addition to having a chance of preventing fluids from splashing on YOU (instead they would splash on the cloak).

Since this thread is diverging from information regarding special effects I've changed the title accordingly.

Not that this would ever really happen due to the lack of any sort of dark-vision, but apparently reading in areas below a certain level of luminescence abuses perception. Being unconscious appears to abuse leg and arm strength, too. Also, this may have already been known, but it appears that your intelligence influences how long it takes to read a book: namely, reading a book takes roughly (Time / (Int * 10)) units of time. I've also located formulas for the calculation of stat training; however I'm missing some information needed to for the information to really be useful, most prominently how much experience it takes for a stat to "level up".

I found this while looking up information regarding polymorphing: The code calls the person who breaks a wand a "terrorist" (as opposed to a "hitter", "enemy" etc which are other names I've seen regarding weapons). I thought it was funny Also, breaking a wand is a dexterity action, difficulty 5 (which from what I read before regarding experience is standard and should take about one turn). So breaking enough wands will train your dexterity. Good luck with that!

On to polymorphing. While I don't yet know exactly what danger levels correlate with what sorts of monsters, this is what I do know. When the CW triggers it's effect, it passes in (CurrentDanger / 4) for a minimum value (I'm assuming CurrentDanger is the danger level of the area, however that is formulated), and CurrentDanger or 999999 (whichever is less) for a maximum value, then does some random stuff for the duration. I couldn't find hard data, but I'm going to venture a guess that wands of polymorph work the same way.

Also I would advise strongly against using polymorph items against creatures that have polymorph control. For a player you are given a choice; for a monster, the min and max values are simply multiplied. By 10.

OK, on a second pass through the source code I see that I was incorrect in thinking that whip of thievery and chameleon whip did not trigger when not wielded by the player; rather, they have a flat 10% chance of triggering. Also, I misread the flexibility part: the flexibility of the ENEMY's weapon doesn't matter; rather, if the whip of thievery is not made of something flexible (>5) the ability will autofail.

I still don't see any code related to a weapon's magical plus, but seeing as I missed those two moderately important bits I may still be missing it.

During this source dive I've also located the formulas used to determine item values. Suffice to say there are a lot of them. If there's enough interest I could post them all. Good lord this is getting spoily; I'm starting to think it ought to be in the programming forum. :/

Well, I meant to look up polymorph information in this codedive session, however my show is on in ten minutes so that'll have to wait until later. I might be back in an hour or so. We'll see.

I'm sure you could find a softer material

Another note on the effects triggering: the line which makes that decision also appears to check if the attack was blocked by armor; thus, it seems you not only have to hit the enemy, AND be lucky, but you actually have to do DAMAGE with your attack.

I imagine a similar result could be achieved by, say, material changing a sword into cloth.

Training on the plants is a very dangerous game though; I've gotten myself killed on UT3 many times trying to practice my weapons, either by over-sized plants, being surrounded, or starving to death. Subsisting on kiwis alone is difficult.

Before, I'm assuming.
EDIT: Chao, I'll look into it. However I believe what you're seeing is simply the increased hit-rate; if the weapon misses it doesn't even go into the function to check for special effects. On the polymorphing, I noticed that the PC's danger level was passed in to the polymorph equation, so "more powerful polymorphs from higher plus weapons" may be an effect of increased danger level.

Slob: When you were poly'd you were still "the PC" and thus still had favor with the various gods. And yes, I forgot to mention the fact that it does raise your favor when it triggers.

Capristo: That's just my poor formatting; what I mean is that it does it's normal damage, and then an extra 5-10 damage on top of that.

Chao: Do the special abilities trigger when Sherry wields them?