Hey guys.

I decided to get back to this game after a long while, and while I didn't care about knowing specific game mechanics back in the day, now I guess I'm spoiled and it really bothers me to not know some things. For instance:

1) What influences chance to hit? Only Accuracy, AC, bonus from weapons and an eventual bless or curse? Is the formula known?

2) Does armor reduce damage or only affects chance to hit? How are damage bonuses calculated?

3) What are the benefits of gaining levels, other than extra hit/spell points and more spells?

4) What affects robber disarm trap chance? Luck+robber's tools?

5) What about status effect-applying spells? Even on monsters with supposedly no magic resistance, spells like Sleep tend to not work at all unless they're really low level. So how does magic resist work exactly?

6) Is there any way to know what exactly is the "bonus on touch" of each monster? I mean, I imagine the Thief steals money from you, but I never noticed my money stash dwindling when fighting them...

Questions 5 and 6 specially bother me. For now, casting identify monster is just a way to ascertain how many hit points and AC a monster has, since "bonus on touch" and "magic resist" seem to be completely irrelevant.

Thanks in advance!

I am aware of 2 such benefits.
* Characters who gain extra attacks gain more extra attacks at higher levels. (I don't know if every class gets extra attacks or if it's just fighter-types.)
* Some spells scale with level. At higher levels, those spells will be more powerful, but also cost more. Examples include Energy Blast, Fireball, and Power Cure.

Note that this also applies to later games in the series, up through (at least) MM5.

The manual suggests that the Luck stat affects all rolls, but to a lesser extent than other relevant rolls do.

2:
Just chance to get hit. Strength mainly determines damage bonuses, though there could be other factors.

3+4:
I'm pretty sure that leveling also increases your chances of resisting spells and bonus on touch effects. According to the manual, knights gain more attacks per round, and robbers gain a better chance to pick locks and disarm traps.

5:
Monsters have specific types of magic resistances too, and they're not revealed in gameplay. For instance, fire beetles have fire magic immunity, even though they have no general magic resistance. The majority of monsters at level 4+ have sleep immunity.

6:
Not really, except by being victim to it once. In hex viewing, I've come to believe that some monsters are meant to have a reduced chance of a successful bonus on touch, but in practice they never succeed. For instance, Mummy, White Wolf, Werephase Mummy, and Killer Cadaver have a bonus on touch value of 9, and they all inflict disease. Rabid Leper, Rotting Corpse, Werebear, and Werewolf have a bonus on touch value of 137, but they don't seem to do anything when they hit you. 137 modulo 128 is 9, and it makes sense that they're all supposed to inflict disease, so I believe that the intended logic is that the bonus on touch type is always value modulo 128, and the 128 bit is supposed to indicate something like "allow saving throw," but in practice always nullifies the bonus on touch.

The Thief has a BoT value of 139, and the Pirate Captain has a BoT value of 11. So my prediction is that both monsters are supposed to steal items from you, but in practice only the Pirate Captain will ever succeed.

Thank you very much guys. This is really helpful

Another question, if I may: what's the point of detecting magic when searching for loot, other than detecting traps? What does that "Magic(Y)" mean?

It tells you that the item in the chest is good. I don't know precisely what makes an item magic or not, but I would imagine that anything +1, or with bonuses, or with the ability to cast spells would be marked as magic, while base stuff (even expensive base stuff like plate mail) wouldn't.

I think the idea is to let you know if the chest is worth the risk of disarming the trap or not. It would have been a useful spell in Wizardry, where traps are deadly and you REALLY don't want to die. But traps blowing up isn't that big a deal in M&M1, and I'll happily risk it just for the gold or gems inside. The only reason I might not do that is if my party is in bad shape and resting isn't an option.

Sorry, but the questions keep coming.

What are the benefits of donating to temples? They're supposed to give you some protection spells, but after donating and pressing P, nothing shows up on the list of spells in effect.

You have to donate several times for this to appear.

I can't remember.
It's a spell or group of spells, but I can't remember if you get different ones from different temples.

They behave normally though, so disappear after rest.

Ok thanks, good to know :)