Slinker - pacifist Angband killing only Morgoth (then Sauron)

[Lord Tom]

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=25279

Finally completing the challenge i attempted in 2014 - to beat the game while killing as few enemies as possible - I managed to make Morgoth my first kill.

I used id-by-use, trap disarming, and ! Experience to get experience. I had the rather incredible luck of finding a ! Experience on dl11.

For the endgame, I used a bug in 3.5.0 that lets you pass from 4950' to 5000' without killing Sauron. However, killing Morgoth did not result in the game deeming me a winner/letting me retire, so I equipped Grond and Morgoth's crown and easily killed Sauron afterwards, after which I got the "CONGRATULATIONS" message and was able to retire.

I was hoping to beat the game killing only Morgoth, but Morgoth-then-Sauron is apparently required. After a 90 minute battle with Morgoth and his many unique and otherwise nasty summons, it was actually a nice change to casually smash Sauron around with Grond!

I used connected stairs and allowed use of banishment/mass banishment, but did not use *destruction* as it pretty much kills things, even if they aren't recorded as kills under Monster Knowledge. A key early goal was getting rCold and free action and finding Wormtongue to let him cast create traps repeatedly. I got several levels via an ideal setup where I lured him into a corridor where he was trapped behind a mold, so was stuck there casting either stinking cloud or create traps. Eventually I failed to disarm a trap door and fell, but it was enough to get me cl 10 and the vital Detect Objects spell, which allows much more targeted exploring.

This challenge was interesting because of the perverse difficulty but rather laborious having to just sneak around looking for items and avoiding, using teleport-other on, or running away from every enemy. My 2014 attempt (Sniper forum thread) did beat the game, but I unintentionally killed 2 minor enemies along the way. I avoided that this time by keeping a = Escaping equipped until fighting Morgoth, so I was incapable of melee.

From the history dump, funny to see (3.5.0 apparently has a bug where turn counts don't show correctly):
113018 5000' Killed Morgoth, Lord of Darkness
113018 5000' Reached level 39
113018 5000' Found the Lance of the Eorlingas
113018 5000' Found the Massive Iron Crown of Morgoth
113018 5000' Found the Mighty Hammer 'Grond'
113018 5000' Found the Metal Brigandine Armour of the Rohirrim
113187 5000' Killed Sauron, the Sorcerer

[Estie]

Thats an awesome accomplishment!

Once you got lvl ~30 from your first !exp, did traps and id by use do anything anymore or was it only more !exp from there ?

[Nick]

That's amazing

[Lord Tom]

Thats an awesome accomplishment!

Once you got lvl ~30 from your first !exp, did traps and id by use do anything anymore or was it only more !exp from there ?

Thanks! I still got several thousand exp from traps after the first !exp but didn't seek traps out except in one instance where a !exp left me quite close to the next level up. And I pretty much stopped trying for experience from id-by-use after cl3-4 by which time I had enough hp and items (esp ? trap location and - sleep monster) that the risk/benefit favored going after traps.

[sffp]

That is mind-blowing. Congratulations

How did you kill Morgoth?

[Lord Tom]

That is mind-blowing. Congratulations

How did you kill Morgoth?

Thanks! I actually screen-recorded the Morgoth/Sauron fights with some commentary but it's over 90 minutes long so wanted to edit a bit before posting on YouTube. I made a few dumb mistakes like letting Heroism/Berserk Strength/Speed lapse or not realizing M had line-of-sight on me leading to unexpected summons, so it was more tense than it might have been, but I never lost total control fortunately.

For Morgoth, I got him down to 2 bars using the light xbow of Haradrim, so shooting power 4 and shooting speed 2, with mithril/seeker bolts of wounding/slay evil doing 400-500 damage/turn. I didn't dig anti-summoning corridors or anything but did use create doors to break up line of sight a fair amount. Eventually, I both ran out of bolts (I brought 120 with me, all of wounding or slay evil) and was low on healing potions, so I switched to using Rune of Protection scrolls and Ringil. That proved much easier - my recollection from the distant past (3.0.x or even 2.x) was that Morgoth would break runes after only a few turns, but the ones I placed here held up against both Morgoth and Sauron for quite a while...not sure if they were de-nerfed at some point.

For handling summons, I used a staff of Banishment, scrolls of Mass Banishment and rods/wand of teleport other. I decided not to use any *destruction* for this challenge, since it kills non-uniques, even if they aren't recorded as kills. A few times I used scrolls of teleportation when Morgoth summoned dangerous uniques and there was no way to guarantee getting out of line of sight of a possible one-turn death. Usually, however, I was able to either teleport troublesome summons away or teleport Morgoth away first, then teleport his summons, then try to collect bolts from the ground or otherwise prepare until he found me again.

[Sideways]

Great work!

[PowerWyrm]

I was hoping to beat the game killing only Morgoth, but Morgoth-then-Sauron is apparently required.

No, what is required to be tagged as winner is reaching level 40. You were only 39 after killing Morgoth.

IIRC the lowest level ever having killed Morgoth is 25. I remember it was a HT warrior using heavy xbow of ES and heavily enchanted bolts.

[sffp]

I had never even thought of trying this before.


So I made the attempt
Talk about an abysmal failure

> You have found a trap.
> You fall through a trap door!
> You die.

[Estie]

Hilarious. Whats harder, winning without killing anything or getting a hobbit rogue killed by a trap ?

[sffp]

I don't know if you can win like LT did any more. Every time I went down a level I found a cat or a bird which followed me through the level until I got to a level where it was kill it or die.

[Lord Tom]

Your death via trap door is hilarious for this goal...I imagine yelling 'WAIT, I WANT TO DISARM YOU FOR THE 5 XP!!!!' as you fall to your death! :O

I don't know if you can win like LT did any more. Every time I went down a level I found a cat or a bird which followed me through the level until I got to a level where it was kill it or die.

Enemies following you through stairs would be a challenge; basically if you can't escape via stairs early on you have to sleep them or WoR away.

I didn't wind up doing this in my recent successful attempt, but you can also use a low damage wand like magic missile to wound them into fleeing. That obviously carries some risk you'll overdo it and kill them, but if you're about to die anyway...

Now that I finally got this challenge off my bucket list, I'm eager to try a more modern version with the new breath functionality, etc., and playing the normal way.