                 Magical Cancellation vs. Magic Resistance
                ===========================================

                    by Peter Snelling (snelling@bnr.ca),
                 and Boudewijn Wayers (dedos4@win.tue.nl).


Magic resistance - which can be obtained by wearing gray dragon scale
mail or a cloak of magic resistance, by wielding Magicbane, or by
carrying the Orb of Detection, the Sceptre of Might, the Magic Mirror
of Merlin, the Platinum Yendorian Express Card, or the Eye of the
Aethiopica - provides complete protection from some magical things such
as polymorph traps, teleport traps, or level teleport traps, and touch
of death attacks.

However, gray dragon scale mail doesn't provide "magical cancellation",
which is something different.

Your magical cancellation factor is determined by the better of the
cancellation factor of your body armour and of your cloak. For example,
all dragon armour has a cancellation factor of 0. Other armours vary
between 0 and 3. All cloaks have a cancellation factor of at least 1.
A list of all armours with a cancellation factor of at least 1 is given
below.

Cancellation affects the chances of special attacks (like level drain
attacks, fire attacks, cold attacks, electrical attacks, sleep attacks,
paralysis attacks, were-attacks, ...) succeeding. For example, if a
level draining attack hits you, it will attempt to drain a level 1/3 of
the time. Whether this attempt succeeds depends on your cancellation
factor:

  Cancellation = 0: 150/150 (100%)
  Cancellation = 1: 101/150  (67%)
  Cancellation = 2:  52/150  (34%)
  Cancellation = 3:   3/150   (2%)

So, if you have a cancellation factor of 3, less than 1% of all wraith
attacks will drain a level. If your cancellation factor is only 2, 12%
of these attacks will drain a level.

The following armour gives you magical cancellation (AC = armour class;
MC = magical cancellation):

Armour                    Weight   AC   MC
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~   ~~~~~~   ~~   ~~
chain mail                   300    5    1
crystal plate mail           450    7    2
dwarvish mithril coat        150    6    3
elven mithril coat           150    5    3
orcish chain mail            300    5    1
orcish ring mail             250    2    1
plate mail / tanko           450    7    2
splint mail                  400    6    1
studded leather armor        200    3    1
 
cloak of displacement         10    1    2
cloak of invisibility         10    1    2
cloak of magic resist         10    1    3
cloak of protection           10    3    3
dwarvish cloak                10    0    2
elven cloak                   10    1    3
mummy wrapping                 3    0    1
oilskin cloak                 10    1    3
orcish cloak                  10    0    2

