Talk:Archon

I just saw an Archon for the first time (this game) in Gehennom level 34. I'm not convinced that the part about them never being generated in Gehennom is correct. Although, upon further reading of this discussion page, someone mentioned that an archon could possibly be in a bones file. I did once have a pet archon when I died around this level, perhaps it is from a bones file. Also, I have not yet collected the amulet.

74.78.251.142 04:25, August 8, 2010 (UTC)

Pretty much a bones file's the only way you're going to see one; they really can't be generated in Gehennom. Bones files are also much more likely to be created if you die on a deep dungeon level, so it strikes me as quite likely you would be running into your old bones. Shapechangers will never imitate Archons, as the nopoly flag applies to monster polymorph as well. I don't think level teleport from the main dungeon is possible; you can't levelport into Gehennom, and neither do I think can monsters. If you want to know for certain without approaching the Archon if you have a bones file, you could change the symbol for ghosts to something like X or 8, and use telepathy to see if there is one on the level. -Ion frigate 09:01, August 9, 2010 (UTC)

I modified this page to remove the line about level 22 or below characters never seeing an Archon before collecting the Amulet. It is possible to see one in Vlad's Tower, which may have a high enough dungeon level while not being considered part of Gehennom. 134.84.168.112 19:01, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Archon also could be in bones, couldn't he? --79.111.89.101 20:47, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

Archon care: polytrap

Going atheist pacifist this game, I'd like to take proper care of my archon. How do I give it 100% magic resistance (against polymorph traps)? It won't wear cloaks or armor, and I'm not sure it would make use of magicbane or quest artifacts. -Tjr 12:41, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

As far as I know, there's no way. Magicbane is not high on the list of weapons that it will wield, and although Archons do pick up quest artifacts (including cross-aligned artifacts, which is a bug IMO), they don't hang on to them. The safest strategy is to wish for a blessed Orb of Fate and PYEC and detect the traps on every level. Once you detect the traps, you can disable them by digging a pit on the square, or in the worst case (if the floor is undiggable) activating the trap yourself (have a ring of polymorph control handy). If your intelligence is at least 20, a regular crystal ball + PYEC also works. If you don't want to abuse wishes like this, you can use other trap detection methods, like a pile of scrolls of gold detection. djao 03:56, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, so there is no silver bullet.

How about magic cancellation? I could give it an enchanted cornuthaum (not in this game), does that affect inter-monster combat?

What other items are essential to make an archon happy? So far, I gave it a blessed unicorn horn and speed boots. -Tjr 07:54, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I've never paid much attention to magic cancellation for pets, but my guess is that it makes no difference (so the cornuthaum won't help). Generally speaking, the best defense is a good offense. Archons prefer long swords over other weapons, so a good artifact like a +7 Frost Brand or +7 Excalibur is ideal. Gauntlets of power, speed boots, shields of reflection, and amulets of life saving are great too. Wearing armor does not seem to affect an Archon's spellcasting ability, so go ahead and load up on armor. I think that's all the equipment they can use, other than a unicorn horn and maybe a skeleton key, but you won't need the skeleton key anyway once you have a magic whistle.

With maxed out weapons and armor, a level 35+ Archon can handle anything except foo-trices and purple worms/trappers. Even double-troubled Wizards go down in like two turns. It's quite amazing. djao 00:39, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

almost guaranteed to see one to several?

Really? In my 11 trips to the planes, I think I've seen about 4. Have I been exceedingly lucky, or is "almost guaranteed" quite the overstatement? Does anyone know the true likelihood? Derekt75 20:17, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Archons are eligible for generation as soon as you leave gehennom with the amulet unless you've leveldrained yourself below level 7 AND have the shallowest possible sanctum (45). I usually see archons on the plane of fire, sometimes on the plane of air. Both are large open areas so if an archon is generated anywhere it's sure to find you. I'd say your chances of meeting an archon are therefore largely determined by how long you spend on these two levels. If you go in and out quickly you aren't giving them as much chance to spawn. I don't have exact numbers; someone more familiar with monster generation might be able to crunch some numbers to get probabilities of an archon being generated over x turns at y (level+sanctum depth). -- Qazmlpok 20:32, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

In wizard mode, I created a lawful arc and drank 29 potions of gain level. I wished for the Amulet of Yendor, a tin of floating eye meat, and a blindfold. I ate the tin, put on the blindfold, and saved. I loaded the game, and 20 times, I climbed the stairs, levelported to -2, levelported to -3, and quit. Not once did I see a purple A or purple H. Next, I levelported down to the valley of the dead, then the sanctum (lvl 48), then level 1, and saved. Ten more times, I climbed the stairs, levelported to -2, levelported to -3, and quit. Still, the only purple creature I ever saw was Rodney. Is my experiment somehow flawed? I was sure I would have met an archon or titan after 30 tries each on earth, air, and fire. I did see As and Hs, just not purple ones. They were not in the same place every time, so it's not like the RNG seed was always the same. Derekt75 23:32, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Assume that the Sanctum is level 53, and that you are experience level 30. Then, in the Endgame, your effective dungeon depth will be 68 (depth of Sanctum plus half of your experience level). Therefore, randomly generated monsters must be difficulty 11 or higher (68/6 rounded down). Adding up the frequencies of all monsters of difficulty 11 or higher that do not have the "does not appear outside of Gehennom" flag, I get 66. Thus, a randomly generated monster in the Endgame will be an Archon with probability 1/66. In the Endgame, there is a 1/25 chance of a random monster being created each turn. Thus, there is a 1/1650 chance of an Archon being created each turn. This means you should expect to find, on average, one randomly generated Archon every 1650 turns. One Archon every 1650 turns (on average) isn't a lot of Archons, assuming my reasoning is correct. (I'm not sure it is.) --Erica 03:57, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Don't forget monsters generated with the initial level. Though I will add that my own personal experience is that I also don't see Archons that much either; maybe about 1/3 to 1/2 of the time. I could be underestimating the number, since I tend to play lawfuls and a peaceful Archon is a lot less memorable than a hostile one. 1/1650 chance of generation per turn means that a player using gold detection is pretty unlikely to have an Archon generated on the planes *while* they're there, so what would probably be best would be to look at the chances of Archons being generated with the levels. -Ion frigate 06:06, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I think initial generation is the most likely way for one to get generated. I think the random generation calculation also needs to include the "frequency", and Archons have a frequency of 1 (very rare). Alignment would matter, too, if the planes have any alignment (but they don't, do they?). Anyway, I deleted the "almost guaranteed" line. I don't know the numerical odds, but I'm confident it's less than "almost guaranteed". Derekt75 17:25, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Erica's calculations do take frequency into account. It also assumes level 30 and level 53 sanctum, which eliminates the chances of some weaker monsters spawning. Lower level characters would have a somewhat greater range of possible monsters and thus less chance of seeing an archon. -- Qazmlpok 23:18, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

There is something I forgot to take into account. When you're in the Planes, randomly generated monsters must be able to survive in the plane's hostile environment. For example, on the Plane of Air, the monsters must be one of the following: flying (other than a monster with symbol "t"), floating, amorphous, noncorporeal, whirly. This means that in the situation I described earlier (hero level 30, Sanctum level 53), the probability of a random monster being an Archon is not 1/66, but rather 1/22. This means an average of one Archon every 550 turns on the Plane of Air. --Erica 02:38, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Interesting. Never heard of that before, although it does match my experiences now that I think about it. Plane of fire would also favor archons slightly since they're fire resistant and water will never have archons because they aren't swimmers. -- Qazmlpok 02:49, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

For the Plane of Fire, I can only find five monsters that are fire resistant, difficulty 11 or higher and can be generated outside of Gehennom (Archon, iron golem, red dragon, fire giant, xorn). They all have frequency 1, so a randomly generated monster has a 1/5 chance of being an Archon. This translates to an average of one Archon every 125 turns. For a lower level character, difficulty 10 monsters would become eligible, and three of them can be randomly generated on the Plane of Fire (fire elemental, fire vortex, flesh golem). In that case, a randomly generated monster has a 1/8 chance of being an Archon. So if you remember meeting more Archons on the Plane of Fire than elsewhere, that's the explanation. --Erica 04:50, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

With confused gold detection you can generally cross Fire in 40 turns or less - so Archons would still be fairly infrequent from turn-based generation. But I definitely do recall seeing Archons a lot more on Fire and Air than anywhere else. Do you know what the chances are of the levels being generated with one or more Archons? -Ion frigate 07:33, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

My understanding is that the monsters that each of the Planes is generated with are all pre-determined; for example, the Plane of Earth will always be generated with the same 63 monsters that are listed in the Plane of Earth article. The only plane that includes random monsters in its initial generation is the Plane of Water (four of the monsters are "random"). But those monsters will never be Archons, because Archons are not swimmers. Therefore, none of the planes can be generated with an Archon, unless some of the monsters that would normally be generated are genocided or extinct. In that case, those monsters are replaced by random monsters, which can be Archons. --Erica 06:04, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

These are worthy points being made here. I wasn't aware that the lower end of the monster spectrum gets chopped off from random generation with enough level (experience and effective dungeon combined). Based on the above the chances of encountering an Archon on fire and air would be considerably different between heroes of experience levels 14 and 30. I stopped maxing my level a long time ago because of the diminished gains and all the nasties that go with it. This explains why I haven't met one in a loong time (aside from blessed figurines of course). Kynde (talk) 11:18, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Archons peaceful for lawful characters

Archons have the M2_MINION flag, which peace_minded checks for after checking that the monster is coaligned, but before using the normal formula to determine whether or not the monster is peaceful: makemon.c#line1586. If I understand the formula correctly, the result is that an Archon will be generated peaceful for a lawful hero if and only if alignment record is >= 0, and always hostile for neutral and chaotic heroes. --Erica 03:01, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the correction and the explanation. Derekt75 17:53, 8 February 2012 (UTC)