Does air shield protect against seeking arrow?

[Argitoth]

You know that air shield magic item cloak thing? Does that protect against seeking arrow? If not, what's the best way to protect from that dam annoying spell?

[Micah]

yes, luck too.

[Argitoth]

guud.

[Baalz]

How about twist fate? How is that resolved against rituals?

[NTJedi]

Baalz said:
How about twist fate? How is that resolved against rituals?



The question has been previously asked on the forum, but I don't believe it's been tested.

[Xietor]

I do not think luck protects against seeking arrow. For certain it does nothing against mind hunt.

[Micah]

Luck does work against seeking arrow, unless you think it more likely that 4 of 10 seekers I just tested it on did 0 damage because of really lucky protection rolls. Mind hunt is different though, it's true.

[vfb]

Edited based on reviewing my tests after Micah's post

I did some testing with vanilla priests as targets:


Black Steel Tower Shield:

Priests wounded (edit) 53% of the time, instead of killed.


Pendant of Luck:

Priest escapes the arrow completely 50% of the time, with an "escape deadly fate" message. Otherwise the arrows usually kill the priest. Edit: "Usually" probably means around 50%.


Shroud of Battle Saint, S9 bless:

Priest always escapes the 1st arrow, with an "escape deadly fate" message. The second (and 3rd etc) arrows that hit the same guy have no twist fate applied to them, so they usually kill him. Edit: "Usually" probably means around 50%. I only cast a quadruple-seeking arrow once, and the priest died on the third arrow.


Amulet of Missile Protection:

Priest avoids arrow 80% of the time, with a "magical missile protection" message.


Robe of Shadows:

Did not appear to offer any extra protection.

[Dedas]

Robe of shadows would not offer any protection as seeking arrow does magic damage (etherealness offer no protection).

[Micah]

Odd...the naked priests should die less than half the time vs a single arrow (8AN vs 9 HP). And the shield thing just adds an extra layer of strangeness to the equation. Ah well, not like the first time the rulebook's been a little less than accurate.

[vfb]

Oops, I think I needed more testing with and without the shield.

Actual values for the "shield" test:

10 priests.

23 arrows to kill everyone, 1 caster automatically casting Seeking Arrow into the same province.

Did not replace wounded units.


15 arrows caused a wound.
8 arrows caused death.
2 priests died of disease.

Huh, 8 / 15 is 53%, which is really close to the DRN difference comparing 8 and 9.

With the pendant, amulet, or shroud, they escaped most of the time, so I was too lazy even to do 20 arrows.

So, thanks Micah!

I will update my original post.

[Incabulos]

I assume the robe of missile protection would have the same effect as the amulet of missile protection? Does the shield of valor apply the same "missile protection" spell as the robe and amulet? Or all are all three different effects?

[Edi]

Same effect, just a different source

[Ironhawk]

So regular shields dont protect against Seeking Arrows like they do vs. regular in game arrows?

[vfb]

That's right. There was a thread on Seeking Arrow a while back, and I think the result was that if your commander was targeted by a seeking arrow, only the following item (including shroud bless) effects would have a chance at helping him survive:
- Air Shield
- Luck
- Twist Fate

I'm not sure if the following help:
- Ritual of Returning (so he only gets hit by one arrow out of a Seeking Arrow barrage)
- Elixer of Life/Crystal Heart
- Twiceborn
- Immortality

The global Perpetual Storm also blows seeking arrows off course I think.

[analytic_kernel]

As supporting evidence, one of the strings in the executable seems to be a message for the blown-off-course outcome. (There's also a typo in said string.)


#strings dom3_amd64 | grep course
Mighty storms blew the arrow of course and it was not able to find any target.
Suddenly an arrow appeared out of the sky and headed straight for %s's heart. But %s's magical missile protection knocked the arrow from its course and %s got away without a scratch.

[lch]

That's right. There was a thread on Seeking Arrow a while back, and I think the result was that if your commander was targeted by a seeking arrow, only the following item (including shroud bless) effects would have a chance at helping him survive:
- Air Shield
- Luck
- Twist Fate
Didn't check, but AFAIK Ethereality helps, too.

[Agema]

Shouldn't do - Seeking arrow is not listed as a mundane attack, therefore should be magical and not stopped by ethereal.

[atul]

At least in Dom1 there was a message saying that the arrow passed through the target without wounding him, that happened if the target was ethereal. Of course they might've changed how things work, as with Wind Ride and so on...

[vfb]

That's embarrassing! The thread that I couldn't find is actually this thread, just page up a bit to 2008. I tested with a Robe of Shadows and it did not appear to offer any extra protection from Seeking Arrow.