A horrific noob's commentated 'band adventures

[smbhax]

Those nasty quests originated back from Zangband

Zangband is an interesting example of a game that kind of wrecked itself, at least as far as I can tell from reading about it now, and poking through its remaining web site and versions. At its height it was the hottest thing going in 'band-land, apparently, and had its own development team cranking out content--far more than Angband was, at the time. And variants like Hengband branching off, etc. But then they got really ambitious and replaced their small, fixed map wilderness with a completely procedurally generated wilderness--with no map view, clusters of boringly similar towns, and no obvious way to tell the level of the land into which you may wander, short of running into a dreadfully overpowered random monster--which appears to have been a big turn-off.

I might still be trying to play it except that the dungeon floor generation is either a) really plain and boring--early Angband style, I suppose or b) some really different styles but sometimes really hideous things like these sort of open levels with rows of houses or outbuildings flanked by hedges, which are just an awful, ugly slog. I hope those either came along *after* Hengband forked from it, or that Hengband didn't keep them. ; )

[smbhax]

Angband // Got my first-ever artifact from an ambush by two Numenorean uniques!

Level 27 human warrior at dungeon level 22:

https://youtu.be/4fGANn_Kj3w

0:00 - start & young blue dragon?!?
5:47 - druadan mages = ppp
12:37 - oh just a quylthulg
20:23 - everybody breathes on me
25:43 - "Elec" = "Lightning" resistance?
29:06 - Two Numenorean uniques!
39:15 - whotta haul! 'o' And my first artifact!
54:06 - wrap-up & what's next!

I think that was the first non-baby dragon I've ever fought, that was a nice welcome back to the game. ^_^

18:56 - I mean, with hitting Return in between each direction entry ; )

The character sheet calls it "Elec" resistance but items call it resistance to "Lightning"? 'p' (If the idea was not to confuse it with "Light" resistance on the character sheet, shouldn't it just be called "Electricity" in item descriptions?)

Those Numenoreans (or Númenóreans, if you must : P) were pretty wild! Uh Angamaite ("Angamaitë" :P) of Umbar and Sangahyando of Umbar:

https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Angamait%C3%AB

https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Sangahyando

The phat l00ts!!

And uh yeah Numenoreans are one of Tolkien's types of old super-men, like Aragorn was a Dunedain ("Dúnedain" ) one of the non-evil kind. : P

https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/N%C3%BAmen%C3%B3reans

And then there's well what these were

https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Black_N%C3%BAmen%C3%B3reans

: PP

I guess I probably won't get to fight Aragorn.

[smbhax]

Hengband \\ High-Elf Weaponsmith: 95% Judgment failure ; P

Level 8 High-Elf Weaponsmith @ Yeek cave Lev 5

https://youtu.be/2D4wNE-HxUw

Sophomore outing with a High-Elf Weaponsmith, character level 8, still in the noob dungeon, and it had been a month or so since I played which apparently means I forgot the buttons to use for basic game functions! ]_[ Also I don't really know how weaponsmithing works still, I tried their "Judgment" power gained at level 5 and found I have a 95% failure rate with it (it's basically "Identify"), and I didn't find any magic weapons so I didn't get any weapon smithing juice to work with--and I got one magic armor thing but then wasn't sure if I should use the essences I extracted. Basically I played really really lame! I did at least gain a few levels, get a few levels down in the noob dungeon, and found a decent magic crossbow in a shop. : P

Oh and I got a rod of trap detection or revealing or whatever weird word they called it--can finally clear a big hole in those "x" marks on the map. ^_^

0:00 - start
2:31 - Trying Judgment, Yeek cave Lev 5
12:17 - can't remember basic functions 'p'
16:28 - okay onward sheesh
30:52 - Yeek cave Lev 6
32:36 - extracting essences from {good} armor
35:09 - Rod of Trap Location
46:53 - Yeek cave Lev 7, statue of Ufthak
49:06 - Wis doesn't raise Judgment success rate 'p'
59:49 - junking it up in town
1:14:29 - wrap-up & what's next!

I don't know if there's anything I could have done with that "Wooden Statue of Ufthak of Cirith Ungol"; Ufthak is a unique NPC--on the town's wanted list, as it happens (1:12:39)--but unlike say the little figurines you can throw to create a pet, this statue's description didn't say it does that (just said it was smiling, or something). And it weighed 20 lbs. : P Wasn't worth too much in the store, either, so I dunno--maybe it was just a statue?

Not sure why auto-destroy didn't take out that Filthy Rag (turned out to be [1, -1]--not sure if that's normal for filthy rags : P), but if that happens again I'll have to add them to the auto-destroy list. = p

Since playing I've looked up what little info there seems to be on weaponsmithing; it's simpler than I thought it would be, so that clears up some confusion I had; going to play again as soon as possible, and I'll show the weaponsmithing documentation and try some armor enchanting!

I really didn't need to use Judgment that much; the "just hold it in inventory for a little while" auto-appraisal could handle most of that junk I was finding: ie, if it's just {average}, it isn't magic. : P And like the Weaponsmith's enchanting powers, Judgment only works on weapons and armor.

[Cryomaniac]

Judgment depends on INT stat; if it's too low, you'll have a large failure rate.

Statues are pure flavor items, as far as I know.

[smbhax]

Judgment depends on INT stat; if it's too low, you'll have a large failure rate.

Statues are pure flavor items, as far as I know.

Thanks! Dang it. Well, INT was my next guess after raising my WIS, my lowest stat, from 9 didn't help the 95% failure rate. But I mean, "Judgment," "judge," sounds like you'd want wisdom, right? Of course, the one sentence about it in the game documentation doesn't mention any stat it might rely on. My INT isn't even THAT low, it's 12. This is a fighter sub-class, for Pete's sake! Garhghl barghle

[smbhax]

Hengband \\ High-Elf Weaponsmith: Basic weapon & armor enchanting!

level 10 High-Elf Weaponsmith at Lev 7 of the Yeek cave noob dungeon

https://youtu.be/FgbvdxWyHso

0:00 - start in town
1:40 - Weaponsmith help documentation
6:30 - enchanting Cord Armour
9:10 - Yeek cave Lev 7, wooden statue of Imhotep 'p'
21:10 - enchanting Katana
30:20 - Mughash the Kobold Lord
38:07 - more enchanting Katana
48:01 - selling loot in town
1:04:11 - buying magic cloak, gauntlets, {Fi} ring
1:09:31 - wrap-up & what's next!

At my current level 10, and through 12 I THINK, my max enchant value on weapons and armor seems to be +7. According to this thread http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=8249 , in Hengband descendant variant PosChengband, the max enchant at level 50 is +20, so maybe it's the same for Hengband. And it seems you can only add a single property to items; you can always remove them and use those essences on a different item, though (?).

Enchanting armor not only improves their second stat, the magic AC bonus--it also improves the first stat, their base--non-magical--AC; both obey the same level max. I suppose it probably means that later on, when you've got access to armor type with base AC higher than your enchant maximum, enchanting them will convey a reduced benefit, since you won't be getting +1 to both stats per enchant.

[Cryomaniac]

Enchant bonus cap at level 50 is +15; and I don't think enchant armor boosts base AC in base Hengband. Also, removing essences won't give you those essences back - it just makes the item smithable again.

[smbhax]

Enchant bonus cap at level 50 is +15; and I don't think enchant armor boosts base AC in base Hengband. Also, removing essences won't give you those essences back - it just makes the item smithable again.

Oh huh, well that would be a downer; it also doesn't make much sense since they're just magic items, and normally you can suck essences out of magic items. Well, I'll have to try it at some point.

OOPS yeah you're right, it didn't raise the armor base AC, I confused it after the fact with the two numbers going up on weapons, not armor, yikes = P ; ).

I guess +20 sounded a bit much, but well dang.

[Cryomaniac]

There are two ways you can 'remove' essences:

-"Extracting" essence removes all magic properties from the item and gives you appropriate essences (I assume that would include any essences you used to enchant that item) - but you don't get back all of your essence you used smithing that item; I don't think you'll be able to re-apply without using extra essence.
-"Removing" essence removes any modifications you made to the item (aside from damage/accuracy/armor bonuses), making it smithable again while still retaining its pre-smithing properties, but doesn't give back any essences

[smbhax]

There are two ways you can 'remove' essences:

-"Extracting" essence removes all magic properties from the item and gives you appropriate essences (I assume that would include any essences you used to enchant that item) - but you don't get back all of your essence you used smithing that item; I don't think you'll be able to re-apply without using extra essence.
-"Removing" essence removes any modifications you made to the item (aside from damage/accuracy/armor bonuses), making it smithable again while still retaining its pre-smithing properties, but doesn't give back any essences

Ah yeah I was wondering if it was something more like that in the first case; I suppose that would be what I would expect.

"Removing" not returning essences is a bit of a downer, I guess it explains the name at least. ; )

[smbhax]

Angband \\ {Human Warrior} Lorgan "summons some friends"! = ooo

https://youtu.be/5wXjLmeVU7w

Level 27 human warrior at dungeon level 22. After a few floors, things got real vs a unique EIGHT levels above me, who could summon both ME and assistants of nearly his own level!

Plus surprising loot: A ring of digging! A +40 cloak!! A helmet with telepathy!!

0:00 - L22
7:40 - Phase Door around a strength loss dart trap 'p'
10:47 - L23 - winding cave 'p', more traps 'p'
23:00 - Rod of Detection
32:32 - L24, Meat & Honey-cake
47:30 - Ring of Digging
52:40 - Staff of Destruction = oo
1:05:20 - Khim, Son of Mim & his Brigandine of Resistance
1:19:21 - L25 ("nervous") & back to town
1:30:51 - Rod of Hold Monster 'p'
1:34:14 - Lugdush, the Uruk & his +40 Cloak of Gilinach!!
1:51:26 - black oozes are hard to see?
1:57:38 - Lorgan, Chief of the Easterlings -- & his minions!!
2:36:07 - Steel Helm of Helote (telepathy!) & Wand of Teleport Other
2:39:06 - L26 & back to town
2:51:16 - Light Crossbow of the Haradrim

Wearing the Ring of Digging let me tunnel as if I had a pick or shovel, at a fraction of the weight. Still, it takes an inventory slot...so I guess I'll just keep relying on Phase Door for those hopefully rare times I may have to skip past a bad trap.

I'm surprised I'm spotting just about every trap! It's a lot different from Hengband where I think my Weaponsmith almost always runs into them blindly.

The Rod of Hold Monster turned out to be a bust--it would hold tough enemies...for a turn or so. ; P

A +40 cloak!!!! = ooo It raised my AC from 129 to 165!!!

I was level 28 when I got bushwhacked--summoned, blinded, and surrounded--by the (I saw once I got my vision back, when I was almost dead--thank goodness I had some good curing potions--oh yeah and those cured the blindness, I forgot they did that : ) level 36 Lorgan; and he, over the course of a long and roving battle, summoned multiple level 30+ critters! And kept moving me into inconvenient positions with his summon ability. I guess that's what Phase Door's for, though--that, and a lot of Speed and Cure potions. Wish I knew how to tell how long the Slow Monster was lasting on them.

I guess that young multi-hued dragon he summoned was "only" level 30. The level 35 wereworm turned out to be a total wimp, and the level 34 troll priests didn't seem to do much. That invisible level 34 blinding "shade" was a bit of a pain though, and the level 27 vampire (I think) did drain my XP--but only by 200 or so, huh. The level 34 "Eog golem" was the real brick; that guy took forever to wear down; didn't hit much, but when it did: ouch!

That Steel Helm of Helote has telepathy (as well as a Light beam, Acid & Fire resist, and good armor)! Which made the enemy-sensing of the Rod of Detection near obsolete, I think, since it seems to be able to monitor any intelligent creatures (not something real dumb like a gelatinous cube or whatever) nearby constantly, rather than single pings. I guess I can see why telepathy is always so talked about!

I wish the descriptions of ranged weapons included a clear explanation of what all their numbers mean. At least this "Light Crossbow of the Haradrim (x4) (+14, +12) {+4, +1}" explains its two ADDITIONAL numbers (which are actually in pointy brackets rather than wiggly brackets): the +4 is "shooting speed" and the +1 is "shooting power" which means eh I don't know. (And I had thought the x4 was speed or something? Oy. Now I dunno what that is.) Now that I look, my regular bolts fired from this thing are doing even more damage/round than my silly light-weapon-exploit rapier: 84.8 vs the rapier's 83.7--and a "turn" is 1.4 of these crossbow shots or 2.3 rapier "blows," apparently.

Clear as day! ; )

At the end I realized the medium-lightish blue I've been using for the text color is now not bright enough for my eyes--which have recovered a bit from recent months of photo-sensitivity caused by bad lighting and sleeping--so I'll have it at a very light gray shade next time--a bit brighter than what I've been using in Hengband (which I'll also have raised to this "EF" shade).

[smbhax]

Hengband \\ High-Elf Weaponsmith: orc trash stack crash in the newbie dungeon!

Level 12 High-Elf Weaponsmith at Lev 8 of the Yeek cave:

https://youtu.be/FweA3q53egU

The game froze after a big fight on Lev 9 and I had to restart! = o (I've reported the bug to the Hengband team and sent them my recovery save files, I don't suppose those will give them enough data to debug it, though.)

0:00 - start
2:30 - Yeek cave Lev 8
16:59 - Yeek cave Lev 9
19:10 - Lagduf, the Snaga, & horde
25:59 - freeze!
31:09 - restoration
32:09 - Lev 8 again...
36:03 - Muzgash, the Snaga, & horde
43:33 - weapon extracting & enchanting
58:33 - armor extracting & enchanting
1:01:43 - Outpost - shopping
1:11:53 - extracting old armor, enchanting new armor
1:15:29 - Lev 9 again...
1:27:27 - Yeek cave Lev 10 (messy!)
1:35:50 - Brodda, the Easterling
1:42:57 - Outpost

At the end I said I'd play Angband next time, but I think maybe I'll keep playing Hengband--because I'm really getting antsy to see a non-Yeek cave, non-Angband dungeon! The variety of races and classes are kind of fun to mess with and all, but the Yeek cave is too easy to be that fun, and what I've seen of Hengband's version of the Angband dungeon is just Angband with kludgier floor generation--and the "quests" proved to be death traps--so the make or break for me in Hengband may be whether playing the OTHER dungeons is compelling. (Starting to think this is unlikely, since the real genius of Moria/Angband is the self-balancing nature of the single, down-makes-harder, infinitely replayable dungeon, whereas breaking the game up into multiple dungeons necessarily breaks, to at least for some time and to some degree before you get re-acclimated in the next dungeon, that self-balancing. And I've yet to find that sort of compelling experience in Hengband's Yeek cave and "Angband" dungeon.) (Also, that crash was kind of a downer.)

Was actually using a Rod of Trap Location this time--after embarrassingly forgetting once and getting my Dex drained : PPP--so that was kind of interesting, it's sort of fun to zap the Rod and clear out all those detection "x" marks from the map.

[ster]

Starting to think this is unlikely, since the real genius of Moria/Angband is the self-balancing nature of the single, down-makes-harder, infinitely replayable dungeon, whereas breaking the game up into multiple dungeons necessarily breaks, to at least for some time and to some degree before you get re-acclimated in the next dungeon, that self-balancing..

So like.....what do you think the purpose of having dungeons and quests is?
Do you really think characters that can instantly go to dlvl 60 aren't going to be able to dive like crazy as a ""self-balancing"" act?

[smbhax]

So like.....what do you think the purpose of having dungeons and quests is?

I haven't been to many of them in Hengband, so I don't really know. To guess, probably for variety of gameplay and scenery, and possibly to provide different or faster ways to increase your character's power. I know that a couple of the quests are there to teach players a specific gameplay lesson, possibly by killing them the first time.

I've wondered if there are other reasons, such as specific story or item progressions threaded through multiple areas, but I haven't gotten far enough to see anything like that.

I've been told that the quests are optional, but that they can give good rewards. A couple of the quests I've seen had fun looks and themes.

I had thought I'd read that you still "beat" Hengband by retrieving the item from the boss at the bottom of a 100-floor Angband dungeon, but come to think of it I'm not so sure about that, or that you can just go straight through Angband itself.

Do you really think characters that can instantly go to dlvl 60 aren't going to be able to dive like crazy as a ""self-balancing"" act?

I've never been to dungeon level 60 in any 'band so this question is definitely over my head--I didn't know that there are characters that can instantly go to dungeon level 60, for instance. I don't know the progression levels of the various dungeons, races, classes, items, towns, etc, and I have no idea where or how far any characters can dive. All I meant to say was that, as a noob, when I start going through a new dungeon with a new character, it takes me a level or two, if the dungeon progression is steady, to get an idea of where my character stands in relation to the dungeon's difficulty; so if I go to a new dungeon, it will take me another level or two to re-orient myself.

I've tended to play very slowly so far, and up until yesterday, when I got impatient to see SOME other dungeon, it hadn't even occurred to me to try skipping past stuff, aside from the quests. Now though I can definitely at least see the point of skipping at least some of the Yeek Cave, with which I've become bored through repetition. But I'm still too much of a noob to know where I can jump ahead to with any character; I skipped the bottom of the Yeek Cave and got myself killed--by a particularly foolish mix of stubbornness and negligence--in the first (?) level of the Orc Cave.

Ah hm well so yeah, maybe I can see how multiple dungeons enable a faster form of power diving--or maybe even just getting to gameplay you find more enjoyable?

The multi-dungeon 'bands I've tried so far haven't offered much obvious guidance on where to go (except maybe FAangband?); but then, I couldn't even get past the newbie burrow in Frog, so what do I know?

For myself, one thing I'm thinking is that maybe sticking to Vanilla for a while will put me in a better position to appreciate WHY--language support aside--the popular variants do the things they do. Maybe I have to get a little sick of Vanilla before I can really start to appreciate that. Currently, as a horrific noob who hasn't gotten very far in anything, it's hard for me to see aside from well they have some cute alternate powers and dungeon colors.

Update: Ah I see, I hadn't noticed before that the Orc cave, which says "level 10" on the surface map, actually starts at floor "Lev 10." Maybe there would be less re-orientation necessary than I'd thought. Although there are different encounter types in the different dungeon themes--big crowd of orcs on Lev 10 of Orc cave, for instance--so I dunno. And I think one significant mistake I made was interpreting the "level" number on dungeons on the Surface map as character level, whereas it looks like it's probably more like dungeon level--so I jumped from dungeon level 5 in Yeek cave to dungeon level 10 in Orc cave, silly me. Yeek cave is too easy though so it actually would have been all right I think, if I'd retreated sensibly.

[smbhax]

Hengband. Starting with my level 16 High-Elf Weaponsmith at level 11 of the newbie Yeek cave, not watching my health and dying like a fool (might've helped if the low health warning was in red like in vanilla Angband, but that's just an excuse; I'm really not heads up enough to have the skip-more options set like I do 'p'; oh well and in Vanilla the arrows would have been visibly animated, I suppose that might've clued me in), rolling a new random character--a Half-Giant Mirror-Master--and skipping out of the Yeek cave at character level 10 to try at least SOME new dungeon...

https://youtu.be/IzhDCwkMhgI

0:00 - start (Outpost)
1:44 - Yeek cave Lev 11
3:24 - The Quiver slots 'o'
9:17 - Gremlins eat all my food 'oooo'
19:57 - Yeek cave Lev 12
26:47 - Outpost, more food
35:57 - new Yeek cave Lev 12
36:57 - the huge dark room
46:37 - Servants of Glaaki and gear curses
50:17 - Yeek cave Lev 13
1:00:36 - just ignore those arrows...
1:03:14 - rolling a Half-Giant Mirror-Master
1:14:21 - Yeek cave Lev 1
1:22:07 - making a bolt macro
1:27:37 - Yeek cave Lev 3
1:36:43 - Yeek cave Lev 4
1:44:03 - town
1:51:20 - Yeek 4 again
1:57:57 - Yeek cave Lev 5
2:07:57 - Outpost, stocking up for wilderness
2:12:47 - Hunter's office, prize
2:13:14 - Surface & Wilderness
2:15:11 - Orc cave Lev 10
2:19:51 - here be orcs
2:27:25 - wrap-up & what's next!

Mirror-Master sounded pretty different from the description, and it was nice just to get spells in a menu and not have to bother with spell books, but the low level spells at least were all pretty much generic-style mage things: detection, bolt, teleports, light. Except that last, level 10 one, "Robe of Dust"--couldn't tell what that "Mirr" status did. Magic armor of some kind? Wish the spells had help text.

Did have fun insta-zapping people with my macro'd light bolts, though! Maybe playing mage classes won't be so bad!

I pretty much always die when I'm rushing around trying to get somewhere else. Maybe that's why I'm doing better in Vanilla--only one dungeon, so there's no where else to be. (I guess maybe it's a little more randomized, too, since the single dungeon doesn't have a specific theme.)

Also I'm going to have to learn how to retreat for real as a mage and not stubbornly faff about.

Also I'd thought the "level" indication on the dungeon entrances on the Surface map was character level, but given that Orc cave is labeled "level 10" and the first floor in there is "Lev 10," I guess their map label is actually dungeon floor level, so I jumped from Yeek cave "Lev 5" to Orc cave "Lev 10." Yeek cave is way too easy though so I probably could'a managed okay in Orc cave if I'd retreated sensibly.

Anyway, trying to sort of make my mind up or compare or whatever between Hengband and Angband was kind of driving me crazy. Now that I've at least seen a different style dungeon in Hengband, I feel like I'm good for a while there, and I'll settle down to focus on some Angband adventuring.