Talk:Tattered scrap of paper

Should there be mention that this can become a scroll of ancient forbidden unspeakable evil when used with a Disintegrating quill pen and an inkwell? --Gleezus 11:27, 22 September 2006 (CDT)

It seems to me that if you successfully use this item, then the combat which you escape from doesn't cost you an adventure, and none of your buffs have their durations decremented. I'm using the KoLMafia relay browser, though, so it might just be an obscure display glitch. Can someone confirm this? --Oddfellow 00:40, 28 September 2006 (CDT)

Okay, I've confirmed my suspicion - adventures you end with the tattered scrap of paper are freebies. I'm not sure that that was intentional, so I reported it as a bug. If it turns out to have been intended, I'll add it to the details of the page. --Oddfellow 11:50, 28 September 2006 (CDT)

I too got 'free' runaways with the paper. However, since there's a chance of failure to its use, it seems likely to be intended. --Yehman 13:23, 4 October 2006 (CDT)

I did some testing of the failure rate of these scraps.
Sample size: 500 scraps
Failures: 104
Percent of success: 79.2%

And some fun facts...
Occurances of more than one failure in a single combat:
Two failures: 15
Three failures: 4
Four failures: 1
Five failures: 1
--Whiskey Jack 14:51, 20 November 2006 (CST)

IS it usable on the Boss Bat, Bonerdagon and Knob Goblin King --Managwa 13:58, 8 June 2007 (CDT)

Funkslinging

As it is currently worded, the comment about funkslinging doesn't make much sense. It seems to be saying that because the paper is only in the top slot, you can't use it against tower monsters to escape. It may be true that you can't, but it wouldn't be because it is only in the top box. You could select the tattered scrap there, and select something else in the second one. --Club (#66669) (Talk) 12:55, 23 January 2007 (CST)

I agree that the recent funkslinging comment makes no sense. Funkslinging _always_ worked with tattered scraps. This is not new. The spading request should be removed. Everything works exactly as it always had, and exactly as how everyone always thought it did. --P4n1q 10:09, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Fail%

• the tiniest amount of spading suggests that post-NSXII the fail percentage has changed. i have a feeling more spading is required. --Evilkolbot 08:31, 29 July 2007 (CDT)
  • further to this, i'm getting four fails in a row much more than the 1/625 suggested by a flat 20% fail rate. --Evilkolbot 06:57, 11 August 2007 (CDT)

• • • Same here, I failed twice in a row. --Akatosh 07:05, 11 August 2007 (CDT)

I've used several thousand since NS13...haven't kept much data, but I've had to use a LOT more than before...I'd guess the fail rate is around 50% now, each time you use one, maybe even lower.--WhiskeyJack 12:48, 25 August 2007 (CDT)

• • Same here... I think it might be related to ML in relation to your moxie... I managed to escape from pretty much all low level monsters with it, but when fighting orcs and hippies in the Battlefield, I couldn't escape. --CG1:t,c,e 13:16, 25 August 2007 (CDT)
    • In all likelihood, this has been weakened due to the introduction of the green smoke bomb, a more powerful version of the item. --Quietust (t|c) 15:58, 14 September 2007 (CDT)

• I know I'm a bit late to the party here, but I finally got around to looking through some of my (6+ month old) logs... with >10,000 adventures worth of data, I can pretty conclusively say that the failure rate is 50%.

Also, if a tattered scrap fails to work, using one the next round has the same 50% chance to work. Here's a sample of one day's worth of adventures where I attempted to scrap out of 6,651 combats:

Scraps used in Round 1: 6651

Scraps used in Round 2: 3248

Scraps used in Round 3: 1620

Scraps used in Round 4: 792

Scraps used in Round 5: 387

Scraps used in Round 6: 193

Scraps used in Round 7: 100

Scraps used in Round 8: 49

Scraps used in Round 9: 30

--Pantsless 20:55, 15 July 2008 (CDT)

Counters that still Advance

Although most counters don't advance when the scrap is used succesfully, there are a few known exceptions. Most notably at the current time is the adventure O Cap'm, My Cap'm, which has a certain minimum number of turns in between occurrences. Using a scrap to run away from a combat adventure advances this counter, though. If you've been looking at the new plinth leaderboard, you'll have noticed some people have put in well over 60 spheres in a matter of hours. The scrap is how they do this. In certain limited cases the Semi-Rare Adventures counter also increments (only seems to happen if you use the scrap to escape a semi-rare combat). Furthermore, The Worm Wood counters are similarly affected. Using a scrap to get out of a combat on which a special non-combat should occur in the Worm Wood still increments the counter, and you lose out on the special adventure. --Flargen 12:48, 3 February 2008 (CST)

On further thought, I recall now that what I'm thinking of in The Worm Wood is that there is one special non-combat choice adventure there, one of the choices of which does not consume an adventure. However, choosing it and adventuring again in the worm wood does not give you a special non-combat again. I have not actually tested if adventuring in some other location when a special non-combat should occur, and then using a scrap to escape a combat, will prevent you from getting the special non-combat when you go back to the worm wood. --Flargen 13:09, 3 February 2008 (CST)

Ineffective for gaining trophy?

I've been burning adventures in the Haunted Library, attempting to get the Brave Sir Robin trophy by harvesting tattered scraps and then using them on any librarians or writing-desks.

Using the scraps, I've successfully terminated combats at least 130 times (130 since I started counting, at least) and still I can't get the trophy.

I'd assumed from reading the wiki that successfully using a scrap counted as running away. There's nothing to indicate that it does not: indeed, the page points off to the Run Away page.

I've counted my uses carefully, so it seems that successful scrap use doesn't count as running away, at least insofar as the trophy is concerned. Does anyone have any evidence that would contradict my observations? If not, I think the page should mention that scrap use doesn't count as 'running away'. --Kay Dekker 21:09, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Why would it count as "running away"? You are escaping from combat but you are not actually hitting "run away" -- therefore you are not "running away." Futhermore, why would you spend time farming scraps and trying to use them to run away instead of just... running away? It seems quite obvious to me that these would not count towards that trophy. --Lordebon 21:19, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

It wasn't clear from the Run Away page, the Brave Sir Robin page, or this one whether using combat-terminating items counted for gaining the trophy or not - the question was actually raised but remained unanswered on some of the associated talk pages - and the "you beat feet out of there" message text implied (at least to me) that there's some running-away being done :) So, having adventures to burn for a while, it seemed as though spading to settle the point wasn't an unworthy thing to do with them. --Kay Dekker 14:26, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, ending combat by other means is not "running away." I'll update the trophy page to reflect that. Er, uh... thanks for spading that for us. --Itsatrap 21:42, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you - I'm glad to have been able to settle even a minor issue. --Kay Dekker 14:26, 8 November 2009 (UTC)