Questions on 'Red Storm's

[Fragbait]

Greetings!

I have a strange experience to relate:
Some days ago, I was strafing through some nightmare levels with my clvl 27 Rogue Berkashyr-Nimsu, and I went down to the caves.
I had just given her Windforce with the help of the CoW, (yes, forgot to mention: I'm talking 'bout Hellfire 1.01), and it seemed that she was pretty invincible.
Well - she was not. Not only that I encountered the first version of lightning demons, the Red Storm demons, these beasts are pretty adept in dodging my arrows, too. So I ended up being swarmed and outnumbered by them and lost my life.
But I lost it really quickly!
I couldn't believe it, loaded and replayed the situation, slightly more carefully.
Same result. Two of them standing next to me and hitting me quickly led to another death scream.
Next logical step: Open JG and look up their stats:
Red Storm/Nightmare: HP131-215; AC80, ToHit165%; Dam20-40.
I was surprised, to put it mildly.
Berkashyr has an AC of 131 and 164 life.
I thought that, to calculate the real CtH of the monster, you simply subtract your own AC from the demons CtH, that would have left a chance of 34% for the Red Storm to hit me.
Unfortunately, he hit me with nearly every strike, maybe 2 out of 3.
Plus: The second hand attack. With it , he should have been able to hit me even less:

'Lightning demons may hit with their second hand as well. Such an attack has the To Hit decreased by 20% and the damage increased by 4'

but still, he hit me very often, maybe 50%.
Thus, I was dead actually faster than I could react - thinking the beasts wouldn't hit me to much. My question is : why?
It may have something to do with a reduction of own AC while being in the midst of doing something - casting a spell or trying an attack, similar to the AC decrease in DII while running, but I don't know about that.

Does anyone know?
I'd appreciate your explanations.

Greetings, Fragbait

[Yogi_Baar]

Clvl: 27, mlvl: 33, AC: 131

According to the Bible:
CTH: 30 + 165 + 2*(33 - 27) - 131 = 76% for Red storms to hit you.

One dead rogue.

I think I didn't make a mistake.

[Rhydderch Hael]

Well, you cannot block while in the motions of spellcasting. Then again, you have a bow, so blocking doesn't even exist here. And your AC drops while moving.

You can block while making an attack, but then that interrupts your attack.

[the Langolier]

The formula Yogi used is the one that calculates the final chance to hit which includes mlvl/clvl penalty and a "hidden" 30% bonus for monsters attacking players.

[the Langolier]

And your AC drops while moving.

No, you just lose the ability to block when moving.

[Zenda]

Hello Fragbait,

First of all, the chance to hit your rogue is higher then 50%, as Yogi pointed out. But the real danger with Lightning Demons (and Magma Lords) is their second attack. While tohit might be lower, this second attack finds place in the same animation as the main attack (only .40 seconds later). So, every time a Red Storm attacks you, it tries to hit you twice.

[Fragbait]

Hail Yogi_Baar,

So that's why.
I checked Berkashyr once again and she has had 136 AC when she was lvl 27 (28 now).
That would be a chance to hit of 71% - almost the two out of three I believed to see.
Now that explains it quite good.
Thanks to Zenda for the info on the second hand hitting time of .4 sec., I believe JG just mentions 20% less CtH and 4 more Damage.
Thanks to all the others.

Greetings, Fragbait

[Rhydderch Hael]

In Hellfire?

[Jarulf]

Thanks to Zenda  for the info on the second hand hitting time of .4 sec., I believe JG just mentions 20% less CtH and 4 more Damage.

You need to check the "Hit time" table in chapter 5.3.4. Not everything can be fit into a single table for each monster :)

[Fragbait]

Hail Jarulf,

Seems like there are not only three kinds of people in the world, those who can count and those who can't, but there are also those people that fail to read / check properly. (guess that makes it 5 kinds of people B) ) My fault.
I agree with you, that would result in huge tables.

Greetings, Fragbait


PS: Thanks for the bible.