Handy tricks for surviving in midgame
Glen
(level 40, clvl 36) and surviving while killing monsters efficiently is
getting complicated and I've had to adapt quite a lot to the midgame. Until
now, running away and just to regenerate a level was rarely an essential
strategy.
I encountered a lone Drolem and had to teleport and recall after one
exchange. It did almost 200 damage with one poison attack! Luckily I learned
to get properly scared fast enough
This thread is for posting the cunning strategies you've come up with for
dealing with mobs.
Carry two or three scrolls of recall. If one gets burnt read one right away.
I found Calris 8 levels ago and managed to enchant it to +9 to hit. Bank
your *scrolls* in your house!
-Never get down to your last 40 mana. You may need to teleport more than
twice to get to a safe recall place!
Hit new monsters with magic from each element. The game doesn't record what
works only what doesn't! Therefore it's best to record what it resists.
For dealing with high hitpoint mobs like strong Trolls I waste a few with
acid but save enough mana to switch my amulet of the magi for my amulet of
regeneration and go full melee with Calris/gondolin, haste self and shield.
magic missile is always the most efficient way to do damage. If you can keep
your distance use magic missile. I killed a Colossus easily this way without
running out of mana.
I have more and I'll post them as I either learn them or if this thread goes
well.
Antoine
Glen wrote:
> I'm a mage playing Angband 3.0.6. I've never gotten as far as I am now
> (level 40, clvl 36) and surviving while killing monsters efficiently is
> getting complicated and I've had to adapt quite a lot to the midgame. Until
> now, running away and just to regenerate a level was rarely an essential
> strategy.
> I encountered a lone Drolem and had to teleport and recall after one
> exchange. It did almost 200 damage with one poison attack! Luckily I learned
> to get properly scared fast enough
You were lucky, it could have done a lot more.
A.
pete mack
Glen wrote:
> I'm a mage playing Angband 3.0.6. I've never gotten as far as I am now
> (level 40, clvl 36) and surviving while killing monsters efficiently is
> getting complicated and I've had to adapt quite a lot to the midgame. Until
> now, running away and just to regenerate a level was rarely an essential
> strategy.
> I encountered a lone Drolem and had to teleport and recall after one
> exchange. It did almost 200 damage with one poison attack! Luckily I learned
> to get properly scared fast enough
Question: What do you do with red jellies at dl 3?
1. Walk up and fight them with your weapon.
2. Kill them with arrows.
3. Kill them with mana.
4. Leave them alone unless they are blocking the stairs down.
(The correct answer is 4.)
Why is a drolem, or a 'Z' any different? They don't drop anything
interesting. They do a lot of nasty damage.
For that matter, why is the Dog Lord of Waw different? He just has a
'good' drop, but so do Elemental Wyrms, and they are a lot easier to
kill.
> This thread is for posting the cunning strategies you've come up with for
> dealing with mobs.
Unless you can instakill them, teleport them, or you, or create stairs
down to the next level and leave.
* Do
> Carry two or three scrolls of recall. If one gets burnt read one right away.
>
Do carry 5 or 6 scrolls of recall. Then you have plenty of spares.
(Or carry 8, and you have spares even if the shop runs out.)
> I found Calris 8 levels ago and managed to enchant it to +9 to hit. Bank
> your *scrolls* in your house!
Not a bad idea, if you have space.
>
> -Never get down to your last 40 mana. You may need to teleport more than
> twice to get to a safe recall place!
And always carry a bottle of Restore Mana or two for emergencies, and
maybe for fighting a monster with an "excellent" (not just good) drop.
Also, don't teleport, create stairs. You can run up and down until you
are safe. If you have to teleport, the monster you are fighting is too
tough. You should only have to use Teleport Other or Phase Door.
> Hit new monsters with magic from each element. The game doesn't record what
> works only what doesn't! Therefore it's best to record what it resists.
And carry a bunch of rods and ego ammo to increase your throw weight.
> For dealing with high hitpoint mobs like strong Trolls I waste a few with
> acid but save enough mana to switch my amulet of the magi for my amulet of
> regeneration and go full melee with Calris/gondolin, haste self and shield.
Use rods (or arrows) instead of spells. They do more damage and
regenerate a lot faster.
For monsters with no distance attack and a high AC, you can also use
haste self and a combined arrow/magic missile attack. Magic missile
uses a lot less mana for the amount of damage it does, and Haste Self
first means you do twice the damage per round.
> magic missile is always the most efficient way to do damage. If you can keep
> your distance use magic missile. I killed a Colossus easily this way without
> running out of mana.
Don't kill any but the easiest 'g', it's too much work and they don't
drop anything. Teleport him away; he's like another silver jelly.
Chris Kern
the following:
>For that matter, why is the Dog Lord of Waw different? He just has a
>'good' drop, but so do Elemental Wyrms, and they are a lot easier to
>kill.
Yeah, but he's a unique. Part of the fun of playing the game (for me
at least) is killing the uniques; I often try to kill them even if I
know it's risky and the rewards aren't particularly worth it. It may
not be the 100% best playing style but the game's about fun.
(In an ironman game you can teleport the trolls and Lokkak away and
then they'll come back later with more escorts, but in a normal game
that's not worth it).
>> I found Calris 8 levels ago and managed to enchant it to +9 to hit. Bank
>> your *scrolls* in your house!
>Not a bad idea, if you have space.
>>
>> -Never get down to your last 40 mana. You may need to teleport more than
>> twice to get to a safe recall place!
>
>And always carry a bottle of Restore Mana or two for emergencies, and
>maybe for fighting a monster with an "excellent" (not just good) drop.
Don't stockpile Healing potions. You can put aside *Healing* and Life
for later but Healing are meant to be used on the fly, in standard
situations and minor emergencies.
-Chris
Chris Kern
For mages, try to find good rods. A rod of Fire Balls or Drain Life
(multiple if you can get them) can save a lot of mana.
CON is the most important stat for a mage next to INT, and in some
cases it can even be more important than INT.
-Chris
Glen
They last for ages and it makes even the strongest monsters waste lots of
turns that they would have spent attacking you.
Timo Pietilä
> For that matter, why is the Dog Lord of Waw different? He just has a
> 'good' drop, but so do Elemental Wyrms, and they are a lot easier to
> kill.
He's unique. Once he is dead you don't encounter him again. Makes next
100 levels a teeny weeny bit easier.
Of course you don't have to kill him as soon as you see him, but killing
uniques ASAP makes late game easier.
Timo Pietilä
Josh Hayes
news:1134015106.8...@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
> Question: What do you do with red jellies at dl 3?
> 1. Walk up and fight them with your weapon.
> 2. Kill them with arrows.
> 3. Kill them with mana.
> 4. Leave them alone unless they are blocking the stairs down.
>
> (The correct answer is 4.)
This is perhaps the most difficult lesson to learn of all:
You don't have to kill everything. (Well, except for quest monsters, if
you're playing a variant with extra quests.)
Discretion is the better part of valor.
Sometimes it's a good idea to RTF away, and I'm not talking about reading
the flames!
What's the most useful warrior trick? Closing the door.
He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day.
And so on. If you insist, for some reason, on killing everything that
crosses your path, you will NEVER win this game, in ANY variant.
-JAH
playing a most careful warrior these days
Eddie Grove
> "pete mack" <pma...@hotmail.com> wrote in
> news:1134015106.8...@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:
>
>> Question: What do you do with red jellies at dl 3?
>> 1. Walk up and fight them with your weapon.
>> 2. Kill them with arrows.
>> 3. Kill them with mana.
>> 4. Leave them alone unless they are blocking the stairs down.
>>
>> (The correct answer is 4.)
>
> This is perhaps the most difficult lesson to learn of all:
>
> You don't have to kill everything. (Well, except for quest monsters, if
> you're playing a variant with extra quests.)
For an extreme example of this, check out my "Tales"
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.roguelike.angband/browse_thread/thread/68e0dcbf29c70743/3374580df2477dbd?lnk=st&q=tales+of+the+bold+author%3Agrove&rnum=3&hl=en#3374580df2477dbd
> Discretion is the better part of valor.
>
> Sometimes it's a good idea to RTF away, and I'm not talking about reading
> the flames!
>
> What's the most useful warrior trick? Closing the door.
>
> He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day.
>
> And so on. If you insist, for some reason, on killing everything that
> crosses your path, you will NEVER win this game, in ANY variant.
That's not true as a general principle. I had a winner who killed
everyone, although 2 uniques were killed the second time I saw them.
Eddie
Ojomax
> Josh Hayes writes:
>
>
> > And so on. If you insist, for some reason, on killing everything that
> > crosses your path, you will NEVER win this game, in ANY variant.
>
> That's not true as a general principle. I had a winner who killed
> everyone, although 2 uniques were killed the second time I saw them.
>
That brings to my mind a warrior I had approximately 2 yrs ago. He found a
"huge" vault at dlvl 13 and did try killing all the about 40 levels OOD
monsters that came to his way. He finished Scatha, Smaug, an Ancient Red, a
Lesser Balrog, a Night mare and a great lot of other monsters from levels
30-40, including some more uniques, at which point he had an amazing equipment,
but then the Great Storm Wyrm he met was too much. :(
Ojomax
pete mack
> >For that matter, why is the Dog Lord of Waw different? He just has a
> >'good' drop, but so do Elemental Wyrms, and they are a lot easier to
> >kill.
>
> Yeah, but he's a unique. Part of the fun of playing the game (for me
> at least) is killing the uniques; I often try to kill them even if I
> know it's risky and the rewards aren't particularly worth it. It may
> not be the 100% best playing style but the game's about fun.
Well, I like to kill the uniques too, but generally not at their native
depths. I can dominate the SOB's once I get near cl 40 and have good
enough speed and stats, somewhere between 3500' and 4000'. Before
that, I'm a bit picky about who I'm willing to fight. Or at least I
try
to be... All too often, I'm not picky enough :(
I figure that if I can kill the uniques safely, then most of the
regular monsters are probably not worth killing at all, and I must not
be deep enough.
The Dog Lord shows up in my "time to keep diving" zone, between 2000'
and 3750'. At that point, I have double resists on elemental attacks,
but not a lot of HP and not a lot of permanent speed. Fighting
Ar-Pharazon, Dog Lord, etc, at depth is just not in the cards. (They
have each killed at least 1 of my ancestors, who can bloody well remain
unavenged just a little bit longer.) I'd rather focus on strengths:
killing elemental breathers, until I get base CON to 18/90 and get a
speed ring.
I've attached the ego list from my current character. I had very low
CON and only modest (+5) permanent speed up to nearly 4000', so I just
couldn't face the more dangerous uniques. Zero-fail spells means you
never actually have to, even by accident. (Found Star at 1900', Phial
at 2100', which seems pretty much average for me these days.)
The nasty summoners got put off until pretty late, since they have some
combination of self-heal, immunity to the common ammo brands, and high
speed.
Linda Tripp the High-Elf Mage
Began the quest to kill Morgoth on 11/31/2005 at 08:26 PM
============================================================
CHAR.
| TURN | DEPTH |LEVEL| EVENT
============================================================
| 30621| 200 | 5 | Reached level 5
| 42311| 250 | 6 | Killed Fang, Farmer Maggot's dog
| 52541| 300 | 6 | Killed Grip, Farmer Maggot's dog
| 86073| 450 | 10 | Reached level 10
| 212612| 650 | 14 | Killed Golfimbul, the Hill Orc Chief
| 234924| 700 | 14 | Killed Brodda, the Easterling
| 242506| 800 | 15 | Reached level 15
| 341991| 1000 | 18 | Killed Bullroarer the Hobbit
| 357858| 1050 | 19 | Killed Smeagol
| 370735| 1100 | 20 | Reached level 20
| 425926| 1150 | 21 | Killed Mughash the Kobold Lord
| 520712| 1450 | 24 | Resistance armor
| 544515| 1550 | 25 | Reached level 25
| 570962| 1550 | 25 | Killed Ufthak of Cirith Ungol
| 587126| 1600 | 25 | Killed Grishnakh, the Hill Orc
| 623596| 1650 | 25 | Killed Sangahyando of Umbar
| 629467| Town | 25 | Killed Farmer Maggot
| 945668| 1900 | 29 | Killed Ulwarth, Son of Ulfang
| 974623| 1900 | 29 | Killed Nar, the Dwarf
| 978932| 1900 | 29 | Found the Star of Elendil
| 980783| 1900 | 29 | Found The Metal Brigandine Armour of the
Rohirrim
| 990889| 1900 | 29 | Killed Shagrat, the Orc Captain
| 1021818| 1900 | 30 | Reached level 30
| 1038245| 1900 | 30 | Killed Bolg, Son of Azog
| 1041825| 1900 | 30 | Destroyed Uvatha the Horseman
| 1051639| 1900 | 30 | Killed The Queen Ant
| 1052638| 1900 | 31 | Found The Steel Helm of Hammerhand
| 1081932| 2000 | 31 | Found The Flail 'Totila'
| 1088331| 2000 | 31 | Killed Rogrog the Black Troll
| 1099288| 2050 | 31 | Killed Ugluk, the Uruk
| 1105860| 2100 | 31 | Found The Set of Gauntlets 'Pauraegen'
| 1108893| 2100 | 31 | Killed Uldor the Accursed
| 1110358| 2100 | 31 | Found The Dagger 'Nimthanc'
| 1111480| 2100 | 32 | Found The Iron Crown of Beruthiel
| 1114992| 2100 | 32 | Killed Khim, Son of Mim
| 1117052| 2100 | 32 | Killed Ibun, Son of Mim
| 1117867| 2100 | 32 | Found The Phial of Galadriel
| 1118545| 2100 | 32 | Found The Scythe 'Avavir'
| 1133238| 2150 | 32 | Found The Full Plate Armour of Isildur
| 1181197| 2300 | 33 | Found The Cloak of Thorongil
| 1187466| 2300 | 33 | Killed Beorn, the Shape-Changer
| 1199078| 2350 | 33 | Killed Gorbag, the Orc Captain
| 1199484| 2350 | 33 | Found The Dagger 'Angrist'
| 1238323| 2650 | 34 | Killed Bill the Stone Troll
| 1242270| 2650 | 34 | Found The Dagger 'Narthanc'
| 1246681| 2700 | 34 | Found The Amulet of Carlammas
| 1258530| 2750 | 35 | Reached level 35
| 1262312| 2800 | 35 | Killed Lokkak, the Ogre Chieftain
| 1270804| 2900 | 35 | Killed Ulfang the Black
| 1273576| 2900 | 35 | Killed Kavlax the Many-Headed
| 1287118| 3000 | 35 | Killed Scatha the Worm
| 1290442| 3050 | 35 | Killed Lagduf, the Snaga
| 1290507| 3050 | 35 | Destroyed Adunaphel the Quiet
| 1294295| 3050 | 35 | Found The Chain Mail of Arvedui
| 1297564| 3100 | 35 | Destroyed Draebor, the Imp
| 1318717| 3150 | 36 | Killed Itangast the Fire Drake
| 1320233| 3150 | 36 | Killed Lorgan, Chief of the Easterlings
| 1330585| 3150 | 37 | Found The Set of Gauntlets 'Paurnimmen'
| 1338252| 3200 | 37 | Killed Smaug the Golden
| 1345375| 3300 | 37 | Killed Orfax, Son of Boldor
| 1356337| 3400 | 37 | Found The Set of Gauntlets 'Paurhach'
| 1357828| 3500 | 37 | Found The Katana 'Aglarang'
| 1358653| 3500 | 37 | Killed Castamir the Usurper
| 1384647| 3600 | 38 | Found The Broad Axe 'Barukkheled'
| 1385206| 3600 | 38 | Destroyed Hoarmurath of Dir
| 1391282| 3600 | 38 | Found The Elfstone 'Elessar'
| 1403694| 3700 | 38 | Found The Ring of Tulkas
| 1414687| 3750 | 38 | Destroyed Ariel, Queen of Air
| 1417144| 3750 | 39 | Killed Harowen the Black Hand
| 1424178| 3750 | 39 | Destroyed Dwar, Dog Lord of Waw
| 1431992| 3800 | 39 | Destroyed Ren the Unclean
| 1436035| 3850 | 39 | Destroyed Akhorahil the Blind
| 1445023| 3850 | 39 | Killed Saruman of Many Colours
| 1445067| 3850 | 39 | Found The Broad Sword 'Glamdring'
| 1445082| 3850 | 39 | Found The Broad Sword 'Arunruth'
| 1445827| 3850 | 40 | Reached level 40
| 1446831| 3850 | 40 | Found The Arkenstone of Thrain
| 1451750| 3900 | 40 | Found The Set of Leather Gloves 'Cambeleg'
| 1453830| 3900 | 40 | Found The Dagger 'Dethanc'
| 1456521| 3900 | 40 | Found The Amulet of Ingwe
| 1463720| 3900 | 40 | Found The Ring of Power 'Narya'
| 1466926| 3950 | 40 | Killed Baphomet the Minotaur Lord
| 1472476| 3950 | 40 | Destroyed Ji Indur Dawndeath
| 1478613| 3950 | 40 | Destroyed Khamul, the Black Easterling
| 1478678| 3950 | 40 | Found The Long Sword 'Anguirel'
| 1482280| 3950 | 40 | Killed Ar-Pharazon the Golden
| 1482291| 3950 | 40 | Found The Executioner's Sword 'Crisdurian'
| 1486867| 4000 | 40 | Found The Leather Scale Mail 'Thalkettoth'
| 1490814| 4050 | 40 | Found The Mithril Chain Mail 'Belegennon'
| 1494310| 4050 | 40 | Found The Large Leather Shield of Celegorm
| 1498691| 4100 | 40 | Killed Shelob, Spider of Darkness
| 1499732| 4100 | 41 | Found The Shield of Deflection of Gil-galad
| 1508862| 4200 | 41 | Found The Metal Cap of Thengel
| 1521887| 4200 | 41 | Destroyed Feagwath, the Undead Sorcerer
| 1521964| 4200 | 41 | Found The Light Crossbow 'Cubragol'
| 1526355| 4250 | 41 | Found The Iron Helm of Gorlim
| 1537775| 4400 | 42 | Found The Palantir of Westernesse
| 1540672| 4550 | 42 | Destroyed The Balrog of Moria
| 1540907| 4550 | 42 | Found The Ring of Barahir
| 1544826| 4650 | 42 | Found The Necklace of the Dwarves
| 1548635| 4700 | 42 | Destroyed Lungorthin, the Balrog of White
Fire
| 1549345| 4700 | 42 | Found The Broad Sword 'Orcrist'
| 1549757| 4700 | 42 | Found The Jewel 'Evenstar'
| 1552976| 4700 | 42 | Killed The Cat Lord
| 1559299| 4700 | 42 | Found The Soft Leather Armour 'Hithlomir'
| 1561075| 4700 | 42 | Destroyed Waldern, King of Water
| 1564438| 4750 | 43 | Destroyed Gothmog, the High Captain of
Balrogs
| 1564516| 4750 | 43 | Found The Long Sword 'Elvagil'
| 1568492| 4800 | 43 | Killed Lugdush, the Uruk
| 1584657| 4800 | 43 | Killed Ungoliant, the Unlight
| 1589407| 4900 | 43 | Killed Maeglin, the Traitor of Gondolin
| 1589502| 4900 | 43 | Found The Heavy Crossbow of Umbar
| 1589791| 4900 | 43 | Found The Augmented Chain Mail of Caspanion
| 1590354| 4900 | 43 | Found The Cutlass 'Gondricam'
| 1592145| 4900 | 43 | Found The Long Bow 'Belthronding'
| 1600645| 4900 | 43 | Killed The Mouth of Sauron
| 1602078| 4900 | 43 | Found The Small Metal Shield of Thorin
| 1602914| 4900 | 43 | Found The Hard Leather Cap of Thranduil
| 1605562| 4900 | 43 | Found The Morning Star 'Firestar'
| 1606969| 4900 | 43 | Found The Dagger of Rilia
| 1607561| 4900 | 43 | Found The Broad Sword 'Aeglin'
| 1607683| 4900 | 43 | Found The Quarterstaff 'Eriril'
| 1611925| 4900 | 44 | Destroyed Tselakus, the Dreadlord
| 1613520| 4900 | 44 | Found The Shadow Cloak of Luthien
| 1613708| 4900 | 44 | Found The Battle Axe of Balli Stonehand
| 1613913| 4900 | 44 | Found The Cloak 'Colluin'
| 1614646| 4900 | 44 | Found The Iron Helm 'Holhenneth'
| 1615107| 4900 | 44 | Found The Spear 'Nimloth'
| 1616174| 4900 | 44 | Found The Rapier 'Forasgil'
| 1622892| 4900 | 44 | Killed Fundin Bluecloak
| 1624486| 4900 | 44 | Destroyed Cantoras, the Skeletal Lord
| 1624514| 4900 | 44 | Found The Beaked Axe of Theoden
| 1626759| 4900 | 44 | Killed The Phoenix
| 1631513| 4900 | 44 | Killed Carcharoth, the Jaws of Thirst
| 1639240| 4900 | 45 | Reached level 45
| 1639240| 4900 | 45 | Destroyed The Witch-King of Angmar
| 1640838| 4900 | 45 | Found The Mithril Plate Mail of Celeborn
| 1653544| 4900 | 45 | Killed Uriel, Angel of Fire
============================================================
konijn_
> Glen wrote:
> > I'm a mage playing Angband 3.0.6. I've never gotten as far as I am now
> > (level 40, clvl 36) and surviving while killing monsters efficiently is
> > getting complicated and I've had to adapt quite a lot to the midgame. Until
> > now, running away and just to regenerate a level was rarely an essential
> > strategy.
> > I encountered a lone Drolem and had to teleport and recall after one
> > exchange. It did almost 200 damage with one poison attack! Luckily I learned
> > to get properly scared fast enough
>
> Question: What do you do with red jellies at dl 3?
> 1. Walk up and fight them with your weapon.
> 2. Kill them with arrows.
> 3. Kill them with mana.
> 4. Leave them alone unless they are blocking the stairs down.
>
> (The correct answer is 4.)
>
> Why is a drolem, or a 'Z' any different? They don't drop anything
> interesting. They do a lot of nasty damage.
Z's are a good source of experience, as long as you can dispatch 1 in
maximum 2 turns.
Also, it is better to kill them off and explore the rest than ignore
them, get to low level hp and then teleport and then be totally
surprised you get breathed to death.
T.
<SNIP>
Werner Bär
"pete mack" <pma...@hotmail.com> schrieb...
> Question: What do you do with red jellies at dl 3?
> 1. Walk up and fight them with your weapon.
> 2. Kill them with arrows.
> 3. Kill them with mana.
> 4. Leave them alone unless they are blocking the stairs down.
>
> (The correct answer is 4.)
A red jelly isn't dangerous at all, and gives good experience early in the game.
I'd surely kill it.
Now, if it had been a yellow jelly...
> Why is a drolem, or a 'Z' any different? They don't drop anything
> interesting. They do a lot of nasty damage.
Sounds like it was the first drolem he encountered.
Aside from that, with double poison resist, they are easy kills for an mage.
So if you don't want to abandon the level, it's better to kill it,
otherwise you might meet it again later in the level when it's more
dangerous.
Werner.
Werner Bär
"Glen" <glen^bikernerddotcom> schrieb...
> I'm a mage playing Angband 3.0.6.
[...]
> I found Calris 8 levels ago and managed to enchant it to +9 to hit. Bank
> your *scrolls* in your house!
Real mages don't use Calris. They use spells ;-)
> -Never get down to your last 40 mana. You may need to teleport more than
> twice to get to a safe recall place!
Never teleport self if you can teleport other instead.
You don't want to land in a bad spot already damaged.
> Hit new monsters with magic from each element. The game doesn't record what
> works only what doesn't! Therefore it's best to record what it resists.
A rod of probing is a great item for a mage.
> magic missile is always the most efficient way to do damage. If you can keep
> your distance use magic missile.
Against groups of monsters, it's lightning bolt. A guaranteed beam.
Werner.
Tagore Smith
> And so on. If you insist, for some reason, on killing everything that
> crosses your path, you will NEVER win this game, in ANY variant.
Some people do like to hold to a "scorched earth policy", clearing even
the jelly pits. But if you do that you have to be very careful about
how fast you go down stairs. And if you're (the OP, that is) having to
tele away a lot, you're probably too deep to play that way.
In general I agree with you (Josh Hayes, that is)- pre-emptive fleeing
is best. Better to avoid a fight than to have to run away weakened,
having used resources and woken something too tough for you to take.
When you start getting bounced around a level from one threat to
another, survival becomes a matter of luck. And if you rely on luck to
survive, you'll die eventually. I tend to rely on luck a lot in the
early game, when I have little invested in a character, but I try to
get what I need to reduce the luck factor as early as possible. I'm
good enough at killing myself senselessly even when I don't take
foolish risks ;).
At 2000' you should try to avoid ever having to teleport out of a
fight. If you land in a room full of Gravity Hounds, or a few awake big
breathers, you're toast, unless you're quite fast. Tele away is safer
if you're dealing with a single entity, particularly if it's 0%. A
stack of Teleport Level scrolls, or the spell at 0% with a lock, is a
great thing to have. It's basically failsafe as long as you can do it
enough times to land in a situation you're sure is safe.
Part of this is knowing what you can and can't take, which is tricky
the first time you're in those depths. It also requires some experience
aside from just monster stats- when you assess that, you need to
consider what else is in the area, and how the local geography of the
dungeon will affect the fight.
I do tend to use various tele methods as a way of getting around the
dungeon. I will sometimes even zip into a room with something I don't
want to fight, scoop something off the floor, and portal or tele out.
But I only do this when I already know what is on the level, and when I
am at full strength. (or when I am intentionally playing on the edge to
try to play quickly- and in that case, I expect to die a fair bit).
The more information you have about the level, the easier it will be to
pick your fights. Even if your stealth is bad, detecting a lot will
allow you to avoid getting close enough to nasty stuff that you wake it
up, most of the time. A general rule I try to follow is that I don't
fight unless I have a compelling reason- experience is rarely a good
reason by itself (though there are exceptions), but drops often are.
It's also a good idea to avoid fights that you don't think you can win
with a margin to spare. You really need to refine your sense of danger-
this is why I would suggest that even if you prefer slow paced games
you spend some time playing right on the edge of survival.
If I get the right kit early enough, I will even hunt draco*s. They
have a good drop for the level they appear at, and I've killed enough
of them that I know exactly what they are capable of. Forced good drops
are very nice until you hit the levels where almost all items pass good
anyway, particularly when you are freshly at a depth where some nice
ego items have just come into depth. But I only do that if I know they
pose no threat, and that nothing else is going to intervene in the
fight. I almost never fight drolems, there's no percentage in it. There
are quite a few common deep creatures for which my monster memory
doesn't recall any battles to the death (this is a pretty new
installation though, and I didn't copy over my old history)- either
they lack a decent drop, or they are just too risky to ever be worth
fighting.
Light in the dungeon is important. Don't run down dark hallways.
Enlightenment/Clairvoyance is underrated by a lot of newer players (I
know it took me a while to get the point- specifically, until the first
character I ever thought was a sure winner- and he was, with good play-
got insta-killed running down a dark hallway that had 3 or 4 big
breathers in it). ESP is great, but remember that some really nasty
stuff (drolems, for instance) doesn't show up.
Don't tap a button for each step when moving around the dungeon. It's
too easy to go tap-tap-tap-tombstone. Run (i.e.shift+direction key).
Set your disturbance options so running works with ESP, and so stairs,
etc. stop you when running. Set your hp warning to 50%, at minimum. It
helps to have sound- I don't, as I think computers should be seen and
not heard, but I have considered hooking up speakers just for that. I
didn't start winning until I eliminated (reduced would be more
accurate) the tap-tap-tap-tombstone syndrome- for a while it killed all
of my promising characters, and no character is ever tough enough that
they can't die that way. Thinking your character is invulnerable is the
easiest way to lose a winner. Angband is more about temperament than
anything else, in a way- I had exactly the same problem when I used to
play tournament chess. I would achieve a won position and relax, which
is really the wrong thing to do- it's worse to blunder away an assured
win than an even game.
Look carefully at monsters when detecting. The Tarrasque can look
exactly like a cave lizard. Carcharoth looks like a hellhound. Great
Storm Wyrms look a lot like Ancient Blue Dragons, but there is a world
of difference between them. Stay away from Grandmaster Mystics- I tend
to avoid all mystics, but I once lost a good character because I
somehow mistook a mystic for a ninja or dagashi- different color,
but... I think I was pretty tired.
The difference between 0% fail and 1% fail is enormous for certain
critical spells- bigger than the difference between 50% fail and 1%
fail in some ways. You really need to internalize the reasons that
that's true (to reliably win against later uniques, and Morgoth in
particular you have to understand this well).
The principle applies in other areas as well- if you make a habit of
fighting monsters that can kill you 1% of the time, you will lose a lot
of characters. Don't do it intentionally unless you have consciously
decided that the risk is worth it in a given instance- I think Eddie
once wrote something about having a fixed percentage chance of losing
in mind when playing, and trying not to take chances that added up to
more than that percentage during a game. Good advice, though it
requires that you have enough experience to be able to calculate the
chances- in many cases the risk is actually precisely calculable, like
when opening up a cell of a greater vault with something fast in it
that can instakill you. If the chance of death there is 10% and the
cell contains something that is pretty much a game winner, you might
decide to risk it. If the chance of death is 75%, and you've never
found that item before you also might decide to risk it, just for the
fun of finding the item, but that's not a rational decision from the
point of view of winning the game. There is no one item you need to
win.
Where people kill uniques varies, but I suggest leaving the uniques
with forced excellent drops till pretty late in the game (I tend not to
kill any uniques at their native depth, as I am usually pretty far out
of depth, and they are too tough to kill easily). The early uniques
with forced excellent drops include Smeagol, Wormtongue and Mim. The
difference between killing Smeagol and Wormtongue at their natural
depth, and killing them quite a bit later can be pretty big (or you can
get complete junk from them anyway- and there is a chance you'll get
something really nice even at their normal depth, where it will be big,
so this is a judgement call).
Don't make the mistake of using items that are sexy, but not as useful
as something more mundane. For quite a while I would always wear two
speed rings if I had found two, even if my speed was fine for the depth
with one, and I had less than max con. That's often a mistake. As Timo
pointed out recently, a lot of the early artifacts (and some of the
late ones) are pretty useless. Concentrate on what you need to survive,
first.
I know this is kind of long, and doesn't contain any big revelations,
but in my opinion this, along with tactical experience and knowledge of
the monsters, is most of what you need to win V.
Tagore Smith
Protection from Evil is pretty useful, actually. Don't underestimate
the utility of stacking up small advantages, like that and
chant/prayer/etc., heroism, berserk, etc.
atarlost
> This thread is for posting the cunning strategies you've come up with for
> dealing with mobs.
A lot of people seem to give short shrift to Earthquake, Destruction, and
*Destruction*. These, along with teleport level, are what I consider "super
escapes" Teleport is always a risk and teleport away may be inadiquate. In
some variants there are foes that resist it and in any case it only works on
single opponents. *destruction* in particular has the effects of mass
banishment/mass genocide within its area of effect but doesn't damage the
player, and all are good for breaking up LoS. Hand in hand with this is the
ability to dig easily. I haven't played V recently and don't remember if stone
to mud wands are routinely stocked by the magic shop, but if they are you should
carry them even if you have the spell. I rarely carry any other consumable
escape methods once I start seeing these because I consider them of
questionable worth.
Make redoubts like hockey stick corridors or corridors that snake through the
dungeon allowing you to use running Ball against the Wall tactics withot a
slower monster ever having LoS at the start of its turn. Do so as a matter of
course and run to them if you catch a fish that's a little too big to take on
in a room or straight corridor. Groups of enemies can often be broken up
simply by hoofing it down a twisty prepared corridor. Monsters seem to prefer
to flow by sound even when flow by smell is enabled, and if nothing else
antidummoning corridors work quite well against non-summoners that come in
groups.
Never put yourself into a position where you cannot escape by taking a single
step, and if you can't survive two turns of combat against the current odds
don't wait a turn before escaping. You might get slowed or blinded or confused
or otherwise lose your zero fail escape method the next turn. Don't be afraid
to carry and use high end consumables like *healing*. After all, they're no
good to you in your home if you get killed looting a vault, but if you have
them with you you stand a better chance of surviving when your greed gets the
better of you.
Speed is important. If you're faster than an enemy and can take it one on one
in prepared terrain it doesn't matter how tough it is unless it can dig or pass
through walls. You can, for example, set up for pillar dancing with two
diagonal corridors cutting into the walls positioned so they are diagonally
adjacent: a line of pillars. Use standard pillar dancing, but instead of
conting turns for your double moves target next to the enemy with a ball spell
or rod every time it fails to move into your LoS. This works even in variants
with randomised energy application. You can use the same setup against
monsters that can match but not surpass your speed as a substitute for hockey
stick corridors in variants that have symmetric LoS, though there is some
danger if they also have randomized speed since even a slower monster would
then have a chance at a double move.
Jelly pits are perhaps the best source of free experience in the game. Use
stone to mud to punch diagonal corridors into the pit starting at one end and
use ball attacks to cut your way through the pit. I think the only monsters in
them that resist all major elements are Death Molds, which you can mop up with
magic missile since they have no ranged attacks. None of the mobile jellies
have ranged attakcs, so once you open the pit you can hammer them from the end
of a corridor as long as you can throw a spell. You can use the same method of
punching a long diagonal corridor with stone to mud to open orc, troll, and
giant pits. You might as well. There's virtually no risk and you might get
something useful out of the effort
Always pick up boosters like !oSpeed, ?oBlessing, !oResistance, and the like
once you've got enough strength to not worry about slowing. Even if you have
the spell and have it at 0% fail you might as well use the scroll or potion and
save mana in most situations. You can always ditch your cheap scrolls and
potions as you find better loot, but you never know when you'll be intensely
glad to have the mana you didn't spend powering yourself up.
camlost
I think "Jelly pits are perhaps the best source of free experience in
the game."
should read "Jelly pits are perhaps the best source of *boringness* in
the game"
I certainly didn't come to Angband to fight *unmoving* monster. Plus,
not all characters have ball spells. Wasting ammo on a jelly pit is
kinda silly. Just move past the jelly pit. Experience isn't hard to
get, if you choose your fights wisely. Also, most jellies drop nothing.
Joshua
Tagore Smith
atarlost wrote:
> Always pick up boosters like !oSpeed, ?oBlessing, !oResistance, and the like
> once you've got enough strength to not worry about slowing. Even if you have
> the spell and have it at 0% fail you might as well use the scroll or potion and
> save mana in most situations. You can always ditch your cheap scrolls and
> potions as you find better loot, but you never know when you'll be intensely
> glad to have the mana you didn't spend powering yourself up.
Mmm- and playing the small percentages consistently adds up, when it
costs you nothing. The first time I ever found Ringil (which was the
first time I ever found any good artifact) I had picked up a restore
strength potion on the ground just 'cause I had the inventory space,
and I could destroy it later if I needed the slot. I tried to enter a
small vault, and got my strength reduced by a Ninja to the point that I
would have had to recall if I had not had the potion. Instead I quaffed
it, killed the Ancient Blue guarding the vault in a long scoot and
shoot, and he dropped Ringil. So grab anything that might be useful,
you can always destroy it later.
pete mack
> "pete mack" <pma...@hotmail.com> schrieb...
>
> > Question: What do you do with red jellies at dl 3?
> > 1. Walk up and fight them with your weapon.
> > 2. Kill them with arrows.
> > 3. Kill them with mana.
> > 4. Leave them alone unless they are blocking the stairs down.
> >
> > (The correct answer is 4.)
>
> A red jelly isn't dangerous at all, and gives good experience early in the game.
> I'd surely kill it.
Maybe. But it takes so long... I'd rather get about the business of
killing the various mages, shamans, archers, and dark elves, who are
the first useful targets. (probable drop, good exp, and not a lot of
hit points.) Once you get to cl 2 or 3, and the first critical
detection spells, you can go as deep as you need to to find worthy
targets. (You need a bow, CSW and ?Phase, since you don't have a lot of
mana at cl 3, and many of the good targets have a slight chance of
confusing you.)
With detection, you only need to kill something like 10% of the
monsters, initially. (If you count individual orcs, it might be as
little as 3%.)
> Sounds like it was the first drolem he encountered.
> Aside from that, with double poison resist, they are easy kills for an mage.
> So if you don't want to abandon the level, it's better to kill it,
> otherwise you might meet it again later in the level when it's more
> dangerous.
Of the two monsters below, which would you rather kill? (And there are
a lot of other easily killed Elemental Wyrms. For mage, all except
Hell Wyrms are easy.)
Drolem: Speed +10, 2500 HP, EXP 12000@dl 44
Spells: (1 in 5) BLIND, SLOW, CONF ARROW_3, BR_POIS
Drop: None
Great Swamp Wyrm: Speed +10, 3500 HP, EXP 20000@dl 63
Spells: (1 in 4) BLIND, CONF, SCARE, BR_POIS
I:120:35d100:30:150:80
W:63:2:0:20000
Drop: 9-18 guaranteed good items. (That probably means 5 ego items or
artifacts at that depth!)
To kill a swamp wyrm in complete comfort at 3500', you only need around
400 HP. (You won't even to rest or heal, if you have a good bow and
Tenser's.)
Polarhound
My Pos Demon got a Superb feeling at 2450' which turned out to be a
large Hound vault with every type in the spectrum. I made a large
diamond-shaped ASC so I could lure them around to me 1 by 1 while still
having a safe place to rest and heal.
Of course, with 2 melee weapons and 10 attacks per round, they didn't
put up much of a fight even at +6 speed. :)
Polarhound
> On 2005-12-08 04:27:25, "Glen" <glen^bikernerddotcom> wrote:
>
>
>>This thread is for posting the cunning strategies you've come up with for
>>dealing with mobs.
>
>
> A lot of people seem to give short shrift to Earthquake, Destruction, and
> *Destruction*. These, along with teleport level, are what I consider "super
> escapes" Teleport is always a risk and teleport away may be inadiquate. In
> some variants there are foes that resist it and in any case it only works on
> single opponents.
While the SPELL Teleport Away only works on a single opponent, wands and
rods are a beam attack. Keeping these around is a must.
pete mack
> While the SPELL Teleport Away only works on a single opponent, wands and
> rods are a beam attack. Keeping these around is a must.
That's not true in Vanilla anyway. Teleport Other is a beam.
Polarhound
Other is what I meant to say.. Rented fingers.
Chris Kern
the following:
>Werner Bär wrote:
>> Sounds like it was the first drolem he encountered.
>> Aside from that, with double poison resist, they are easy kills for an mage.
>> So if you don't want to abandon the level, it's better to kill it,
>> otherwise you might meet it again later in the level when it's more
>> dangerous.
>
>Of the two monsters below, which would you rather kill?
You can kill both, though, and then they won't surprise you later. If
you abandon levels easily then it's not so important but if you're
going to be sticking around for a while you don't really want
dangerous creatures prowling about in case you need to run away or
teleport.
I agree that discretion is often good, but "never kill a drolem
because it's not worth it" isn't really the 100% solution either.
-Chris
pete mack
> Glen wrote:
> > I found Calris 8 levels ago and managed to enchant it to +9 to hit. Bank
> > your *scrolls* in your house!
> Not a bad idea, if you have space.
> >
> > -Never get down to your last 40 mana. You may need to teleport more than
> > twice to get to a safe recall place!
Am I the only one who thinks these two things together suggest some
kind of death wish? If you are aggravating, you don't want to
teleport haphazardly around the dungeon. Try to find tactics where the
results are more controlled, either with dodging around a corner, or
phase door, or teleport other. Phase door requires a nice twisty
network of hallways or a destroyed area to really work as an escape.
(Anyway, if you're going to aggravate, you really want ESP & Mordy's at
the least. With Kelek's, aggravation is no problem at all.)
Eddie Grove
> pete mack wrote:
>> Glen wrote:
>
>> > I found Calris 8 levels ago and managed to enchant it to +9 to hit. Bank
>> > your *scrolls* in your house!
>> Not a bad idea, if you have space.
>> >
>> > -Never get down to your last 40 mana. You may need to teleport more than
>> > twice to get to a safe recall place!
>
> Am I the only one who thinks these two things together suggest some
> kind of death wish? If you are aggravating, you don't want to
> teleport haphazardly around the dungeon.
Even if you are stealthy, don't teleport haphazardly.
My last death was when I saw a time hound and decided not to fight. I
teleported, all of the way across the dungeon, into a huge room with
a score of time hounds that finished me before I got a chance to try
again.
I think I may have to add staves of teleport to my list of objects
that appear useful but are actually dreadfully cursed.
Eddie
Garrie Irons
> them, get to low level hp and then teleport and then be totally
> surprised you get breathed to death.
>
"get to low level hp and then teleport"
Garrie.
(may be a little different if that said Teleport Level though)
konijn_
>"get to low level hp and then teleport"
My take on this is that inevitably you will get to low level hp at one
point, so plan for it.
I have been teleporting at low level hp and havent been killed since
years.
My YASD's are all hubris related or interface related.
T.
Timo Pietilä
>>The HINT for surviving in MIDGAME (and later!) is to NOT
>>"get to low level hp and then teleport"
>
>
> My take on this is that inevitably you will get to low level hp at one
> point, so plan for it.
It is better to teleport monster away than teleport yourself away if you
can do it reliably.
> I have been teleporting at low level hp and havent been killed since
> years.
I have been killed by teleporting between three _nasty_ places. One had
some very nasty unique I couldn't handle (Azriel IIRC), next was big
room with pack of gravity hounds and third had (IIRC) wide open undead
pit (black reavers opened it up very effectively).
No *destruction* or teleport level and no stairs close enough.
> My YASD's are all hubris related or interface related.
Boredom or typo-related usually.
Timo Pietilä
pete mack
> On 8 Dec 2005 12:45:11 -0800, "pete mack" <pma...@hotmail.com> posted
> the following:
>
> You can kill both, though, and then they won't surprise you later. If
> you abandon levels easily then it's not so important but if you're
> going to be sticking around for a while you don't really want
> dangerous creatures prowling about in case you need to run away or
> teleport.
>
> I agree that discretion is often good, but "never kill a drolem
> because it's not worth it" isn't really the 100% solution either.
You are talking about tactics. I was talking about strategy. It's not
a matter of 'abandoning' levels so much as skipping them entirely.
(Unless you get a superb feeling from a GV, or see some un-ided magic
flavor on the floor.)
Diving early makes the game easier. Much, much easier.
If you've got your bases covered, you can go down deep enough to pick
up a ring of speed off the floor, if you need it, and then start
killing Wyrms.
If you are at +0 speed, and you have:
* Resistances (for mage)
* RBase
* RPois, at least for a swap.
* a resistance lock (RConf, RSound, and either RBlind or at least
RDark+RLight)
* ESP,
* zero-fail teleport other. (For really scary monsters and no zero
fail, create stairs will do.)
* magic mapping
* haste self or a +shots bow. (Shooting at the floor gives you +10
"resting" speed.)
You never have to take more than a single attack from speed +10 or +20
monsters. (The only legitimate danger is passwall monsters and trying
to actually kill stuff.)
Glen
posting them as I learn them.
So long as you can get 1 free move, even if it's every 3 turns, you can
outmanoever even a strong and fast monster in a room without getting
attacked. The goal is to leave him in the room and he will follow you along
the room's wall instead of along the corridor you fled in. If you time your
moves intelligently, with chess-minded precision, you can rest and recoup
mana just past the door and leave him bonking his head against the room's
walls in your direction.
Experience with DOOM will help you understand this technique.
When you are ready, move back toward the door, and resume your fight!
I just outlived and killed Uvatha the Horseman and Kavlax the Many Headed on
the same level in the same room with this technique. Both of these monsters
can take way more than I can dish out.
Glen
"pete mack" <pma...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1134108847....@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
I haven't noticed any difference in monster behavior due to Calris. If there
is one, I must have adapted to it without noticing. I know what aggravate
should do, but I guess perhaps it is making me stronger by making it easier
for me to predict monsters. Maybe the post I just made about manoevering
wouldn't be possible if I weren't aggravating. You should really reply to
that and fill me in if this is the case.
I've never gotten this far so I started this thread to talk constructively
about the the changes the game has caused in my playing at this new level.
Recommending items is pointless. I am working with the best I have like
everyone.
This line is getting off topic.
Timo Pietilä
> mana just past the door and leave him bonking his head against the room's
> walls in your direction.
Does not work well if you turn on intelligence-options. And in 4GAI
variants does not work at all.
Have you learned about "hockey stick" yet? That is combination of
tunneling and LoS -trick. With that you can kill just about anything
using ranged attacks especially if you can fill that corridor with runes.
Timo Pietilä
pete mack
Glen wrote:
> I haven't noticed any difference in monster behavior due to Calris. If there
> is one, I must have adapted to it without noticing. I know what aggravate
> should do, but I guess perhaps it is making me stronger by making it easier
> for me to predict monsters. Maybe the post I just made about manoevering
> wouldn't be possible if I weren't aggravating. You should really reply to
> that and fill me in if this is the case.
Your post is about hack-n-back or pillar-dancing when player speed is
faster than monster speed.
There are many variations on this, some of which are so effective they
turn the game into an utter bore. (Having a +Shots bow helps a lot,
here.) It has nothing to do with aggravation.
With Aggravation, all monsters immediately wake up in the 20 square
range. Eveen monsters that "prefer not to take notice of intruders"
will be chasing after you the moment you are in range. So if you
teleport into a room, they all wake up immediately. And if you
teleport into a room you'd already been close to, the monsters will all
attack before you get another move. Teleporting is always risky, but
it's a lot safer if you have good stealth.
Basically, you are making everybody behave like a 'Z'. It's usually
something you want to do only in the endgame, when you are
uber-powerful anyway.
One thing you can do is to carry two swords. A Defender, say, or ESP
weapon, for just wandering about quietly, and Calris when you need the
extra HP in a major battle.
Glen
Thanks for making me understand how aggravation works in Angband. Carrying
two ego enchanted swords is something I've started to do and was the next on
topic post I was going to start on this thread.
My secondary sword is a gondolin +20+13 short sword that I keep handy just
to resist blindness. It has been made useless by my renewed respect for a
staff of curing that I found. I keep it Recharged. :)
Tagore Smith
Glen wrote:
> Thanks for making me understand how aggravation works in Angband. Carrying
> two ego enchanted swords is something I've started to do and was the next on
> topic post I was going to start on this thread.
> My secondary sword is a gondolin +20+13 short sword that I keep handy just
> to resist blindness. It has been made useless by my renewed respect for a
> staff of curing that I found. I keep it Recharged. :)
I didn't see a full dump of your character, I don't think, so I'm not
sure if you have RConf or not. But at this stage in the game you will
want to carry a big stack of !CCW (and stockpile more at home) unless
you resist at least both blindness and confusion, particularly if
you're a pure spellcaster. You can carry curing too, if you have the
room, but inventory slots are valuable. The !CCWs are nice because they
restore some hp at the same time- not a lot, but sometimes it's the
margin between life and death, particularly if you have to drink a few
in a row before whatever is blinding you or confusing you stops doing
so. If Curing is your only means of dealing with blindness/confusion
you will be in trouble if it gets burned out of your inventory.
Tagore Smith
Glen wrote:
> This thread is for posting the cunning strategies you've come up with for
> dealing with mobs.
If you lack detect, and you see an unlikely configuration of related
monsters coming for you, there is likely a pit nearby. Get out of there
(this is particularly important if they are undead, as wall passing
undead from a graveyard will kill you more quickly than almost anything
else). Animal pits are also lethal, as they often contain gravity
hounds.
On the subject of buying desirable items and selling them back to
establish their identity, I'd also suggest that when you have enough
gold it makes sense to buy undesirable items and sell them back, so you
don't wind up crossing a level and fighting a dangerous fight to find
something you have no interest in.
David Howdon
> On 2005-12-08 04:27:25, "Glen" <glen^bikernerddotcom> wrote:
>
>
>>This thread is for posting the cunning strategies you've come up with for
>>dealing with mobs.
>
>
> A lot of people seem to give short shrift to Earthquake, Destruction, and
> *Destruction*.
I'm one of those people. Basically picking my way through a level once
it has been destroyed by those things is just really tedious and
frustrating (and therefore likely to cause the common typo / boredom
YASD) so I would only use them to escape if there was nothing else I
wanted on the level.
> Jelly pits are perhaps the best source of free experience in the game.
Are they really worth it? Most jellies are not worth that much XP.
>Use stone to mud to punch diagonal corridors into the pit starting at one end and
> use ball attacks to cut your way through the pit. I think the only monsters in
> them that resist all major elements are Death Molds, which you can mop up with
> magic missile since they have no ranged attacks. None of the mobile jellies
> have ranged attakcs, so once you open the pit you can hammer them from the end
> of a corridor as long as you can throw a spell.
Although fast moving acidic things can still be a bit annoying and take
a lot of points of your armour.
--
To contact me take a davidhowdon and add a @yahoo.co.uk to the end.
pete mack
David Howdon wrote:
> atarlost wrote:
> > On 2005-12-08 04:27:25, "Glen" <glen^bikernerddotcom> wrote:
> >
> >
> >>This thread is for posting the cunning strategies you've come up with for
> >>dealing with mobs.
> >
> >
> > A lot of people seem to give short shrift to Earthquake, Destruction, and
> > *Destruction*.
>
> I'm one of those people. Basically picking my way through a level once
> it has been destroyed by those things is just really tedious and
> frustrating (and therefore likely to cause the common typo / boredom
> YASD) so I would only use them to escape if there was nothing else I
> wanted on the level.
Destruction is great, but too rare to use except on really good vaults.
And in the mid game I'm carrying a ton of detection, so I don't need
to worry about picking my way through.
As many of these as I can handle without being slowed. (Up until the
first source of full Detection, at least.)
*Magic Map
*DTraps
*DObjects
*DEvil
*ID
k2g...@gmail.com
Mana Storm while they're at it).
Are you still planning on making your own variant?
Timo Pietilä
Yes. I'm pretty busy at work just now. Few of our licenses expired and I
got an info of that just few weeks ago. Now I have to upgrade around 700
machines by end of the year which means quite a lot of work.
But after it is done it will be rather close to vanilla. More like
GWAngband was to vanilla 2.8.X than NPP is to 3.0.X.
Timo Pietilä
konijn_
>should do, but I guess perhaps it is making me stronger by making it easier
>for me to predict monsters
When I play with a warrior I often carry an uncursed ring of
Aggravation just for that purpose.
T.
David Justiss
news:ovWdnXFaSeE...@rogers.com
> Those worthless scrolls of Protection from Evil are actually freakin solid.
> They last for ages and it makes even the strongest monsters waste lots of
> turns that they would have spent attacking you.
What exactly does protection from evil do?
x-amining the item doesn't say
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Hugo Kornelis
>"Glen" <glen^bikernerddotcom> wrote in message
>news:ovWdnXFaSeE...@rogers.com
>
>> Those worthless scrolls of Protection from Evil are actually freakin solid.
>> They last for ages and it makes even the strongest monsters waste lots of
>> turns that they would have spent attacking you.
>
>What exactly does protection from evil do?
>x-amining the item doesn't say
Hi David,
Scroll down for spoiler information
Scroll of Protection from Evil 30 1 50
Protects you from evil for 1d25+level*3 turns: all melee attacks by
evil monsters have a chance of 50 in (your character level + 1d100)
to be repelled, unless the monster's level is higher than your
character level.
Best, Hugo
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Glen
to make a few grand in town for free. I imagine enchant weapon/armor work
the same way.
I have over half a million now so the real struggle is finding something
cool at the Black Market.
"Tagore Smith" <tag...@tagoresmith.com> wrote in message
news:1134296563.3...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Glen
corridor.
A J shaped corridor allows you to rest at your leisure against mobs. When
you are ready for the next monster, stand 2 squares short of the corner and
waste some turns. Eventually one of them will come around. Fight it and move
3 or more squares away from the corner and rest all you want.
pete mack
Glen wrote:
> I've discovered a position even stronger than the "hockey stick" or L shaped
> corridor.
>
utterly lethal with a good bow.
With a long enough hockey stick, a Ranger can kill just about anything
without taking a single hit in return. It's not designed to take on
mobs, it's designed to take on powerful uniques.
And if you are a little lucky, a teleported Morgoth will Hockey-stick
himself, with a judicious application of Create Door.
> A J shaped corridor allows you to rest at your leisure against mobs. When
> you are ready for the next monster, stand 2 squares short of the corner and
> waste some turns. Eventually one of them will come around. Fight it and move
> 3 or more squares away from the corner and rest all you want.
I don't fight mobs unless I can kill them all at once.
Glen
you get strong and it's easily taken away. A vampire lord did me for like
100000xp in one hit and I had to recall for a pot of restore life levels. I
keep having to do that. It takes forever to gain levels after 35 or so.
I don't think there's a potion of Gain Level in angband like in Nethack. I'm
a superb Nethack player with many consecutive ascensions. I'm posting here
as I learn about angband.
"pete mack" <pma...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1134668290.5...@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
Josh Hayes
news:Bc2dnawbT5YF9T7e...@rogers.com:
> I always kill mobs and everything I can. Experience is hard to come by
> when you get strong and it's easily taken away. A vampire lord did me
> for like 100000xp in one hit and I had to recall for a pot of restore
> life levels. I keep having to do that. It takes forever to gain levels
> after 35 or so. I don't think there's a potion of Gain Level in
> angband like in Nethack. I'm a superb Nethack player with many
> consecutive ascensions. I'm posting here as I learn about angband.
Okay, Glen, well, in Angband (and variants) there is a property that
certain weapons and armor and assorted magical garb possesses, called "hold
life" -- this gives you a good chance of not having any XP drained at all
("You keep a firm hold on your life force!"), and even if you fail that
chance, the drain is reduced considerably (IIRC, to about 10% of the
unprotected drain?).
In vanilla angband, there are a couple of light sources which provide this,
as well as several armors, at least one sort of ring. several artifact
weapons....one doesn't really need it, IMO, until below about 2000 feet
preferably, and nearly required below about 2600 or so. (Although once you
get maxed out on level, it's astonishing how much XP you can lose without
any effect.)
-JAH
Chris Kern
posted the following:
>Destruction is great, but too rare to use except on really good vaults.
It used to be much better when Word of Destruction was in the 4th mage
book; I cast that several times per level just getting rid of annoying
stuff -- that combined with Genocide and Mass Genocide meant you
hardly had to fight anything except for uniques and good drop monsters
(XP being meaningless once you reach level 45 for GoI).
-Chris
Chris Kern
One other piece of advice is HP warning -- I've heard of people using
warnings as low as 10%, and I don't see what good that does at all. I
usually put mine at 60% or 70%, and I find that is much more helpful.
-Chris
pete mack
Glen wrote:
> I always kill mobs and everything I can. Experience is hard to come by when
> you get strong and it's easily taken away. A vampire lord did me for like
> 100000xp in one hit and I had to recall for a pot of restore life levels. I
> keep having to do that. It takes forever to gain levels after 35 or so.
If your stats and resists are good, you aren't nearly deep enough.
There are 100 dungeon levels, but only 50 character levels. Once you
pass 1000', start keeping that in mind...
Deeper in the dungeon there are monsters reasonably easy to kill that
give 20K experience each.
> I don't think there's a potion of Gain Level in angband like in Nethack.
There are potions of Experience, but they are native to 3250'. They
give 100K experience each. At 4950', even young dragons drop them.
As you discovered, fighting powerful undead is a good way to lose
experience. If you don't have Hold Life, flee them, or Teleport them
away. (Teleport Other is something to buy in the blackmarket whenever
it shows up. Carrying 6 or 7 wands is a reasonable thing to do.)
Some obvious things to avoid are:
* Experience drainers. (Use ammo, or evade them. If you happen to have
hold life, then you can fight them, but don't sweat it.)
* Things that drain charges (Beholder, various Undead and uniques.
Evade them like the plague.)
* Things that Drain stats, depending on whether your stats are critical
or sustained.
* Things that destroy inventory to no gain. (Fire ants, Aranea, Water
Hounds, etc.)
* Things that can kill you too easily.
Thus endeth lesson one in "don't kill all the monsters."
(Lesson two is don't kill anything like all the monsters. It's not a
matter of avoiding the bad ones, as of actively hunting for the good
ones. If you are good at tactics, it pays off *big* to go deep--around
3100' is a good first goal...)
Eddie Grove
> As you discovered, fighting powerful undead is a good way to lose
> experience. If you don't have Hold Life, flee them, or Teleport them
Or fight them, and lose the experience. It's really no big deal.
In view of the fact I've been saying this all month, I've stopped
using potions of restore life levels. I don't even miss them.
I did get hold life around 2650', but I don't think that mattered.
Eddie
pete mack
With hold life, you never need to restore it. (The next monster you
kill will recover your losses.)
Without hold life, you have to be diving at a reasonable rate to live
without !rLife. You can't really get by if all you are killing is
Ancient Dragons all day.
R. Dan Henry
>I always kill mobs and everything I can. Experience is hard to come by when
>you get strong and it's easily taken away. A vampire lord did me for like
>100000xp in one hit and I had to recall for a pot of restore life levels.
Of course, if you'd not fought that vampire lord, it wouldn't have
drained you. Pick your fights.
--
R. Dan Henry
danh...@inreach.com
Timo Pietilä
> Eddie Grove wrote:
>
>>"pete mack" <pma...@hotmail.com> writes:
>>
>>>As you discovered, fighting powerful undead is a good way to lose
>>>experience. If you don't have Hold Life, flee them, or Teleport them
>>
>>Or fight them, and lose the experience. It's really no big deal.
>>In view of the fact I've been saying this all month, I've stopped
>>using potions of restore life levels. I don't even miss them.
> Without hold life, you have to be diving at a reasonable rate to live
> without !rLife.
Not too fast for normal player. Even when drained your max XP improves
10% of what it could othervise for each kill and just avoiding
melee-drainers is enough to restore your XP to normal fast enough. You
can still fight them, just don't melee with them.
What I hate most without Hold Life or nether resist is ethereal hounds.
Those are hard to avoid because they are always awake, quick, pass walls
and detect you from long distance. And each breath you take drains XP
(Now that I think of it XP drain might not be relative to breath damage)
XP -drain is mostly just annoying. It is dangerous only rarely.
Timo Pietilä
Polarhound
> Glen wrote:
>>I don't think there's a potion of Gain Level in angband like in Nethack.
>
>
> There are potions of Experience, but they are native to 3250'. They
> give 100K experience each. At 4950', even young dragons drop them.
They can, however, show up much earlier. My latest Pos winner had one
show up at 600'. I did NOT drink it right away as you get the lesser of
100k or half your current XP.. Drinking it with less than 200k already
on the clock is just cheating yourself.
Timo Pietilä
> pete mack wrote:
>> There are potions of Experience, but they are native to 3250'. They
>> give 100K experience each. At 4950', even young dragons drop them.
> They can, however, show up much earlier. My latest Pos winner had one
> show up at 600'. I did NOT drink it right away as you get the lesser of
> 100k or half your current XP.. Drinking it with less than 200k already
> on the clock is just cheating yourself.
It has best effect in near 200k XP, but half your XP is big bonus for
any early level. And early levels are those hard ones unless you are
powerdiving. I usually drink them ASAP even lower than 200k XP, and I
don't regret that.
Timo Pietilä