First big vault

[vorondil]

I was playing a human warrior at cl32 tonight, went down some stairs and down some more...

I got a superb feeling on 1850', turned out it was a troll pit and a mirrored quartet vault. Killed Bill the Troll in the troll pit, lost all my _TSelf playing with fire and water hounds outside the vault. Alarm bells are ringing, but I still have a -TA and another one got dropped. I try to spread my buffs around the dungeon, not carrying them so I can use them when I go up against the vault.

I was wearing "regen, which I think is partly why I survived, and partly why I didn't get as far with the vault towards the end of my stay on the floor.

I met fire ants for the first time, which are tough little guys! I suppose five blows with Anduril doesn't mean that much to them since they resist fire and aren't evil, but it's weird to kill a troll per turn and have to really sink two or even three turns into killing an ant.

Anyway, turned out "it" was summoning more and more of "its minions." meaning ants. I took a couple of shots in the dark hallways around and it was the queen ant, who I somehow got to chase me and killed.

Then I had to clean up the fifty or so ants. I suppose it didn't really matter I had lost my _TSelf. That was sort of the "duck in the room, get surrounded, run back out" game for a lot of turns. At this point I was starting to notice my provisions getting a little low (which I now know was due to the "regen) but I wanted to keep going.

I started digging anti-summon/breath boltholes left and right when I saw Medusa was trapped behind a bunch of cold hounds. She got to me and I panicked, -TA'd her because I didn't have any buffs.

I went towards my buffs, she was basically right on top of them (daggnabbit!). I get into some of the boltholes I dug around there, a master thief tries to surround me and I have to teach him several lessons before he learns not to steal ever again. I kill medusa by melee. Hydras are pretty great for treasure!

On to the vault. I take the south middle corridor no problem, just some trolls with the occasional wallpass dread. The central chamber has a hand druj, which worryingly amnesias me, but I -TA and the amnesia seems to pass.

I crack open the seal on the real baddies and they come pouring out. I melee a vampire lord, a grip of trolls, couple of mumaks, some young and baby dragons an ancient bronze and an ancient green before I start to run back to the central east west corridor.

They all run out in a nice little line, and then I start to get tired of a shardstorm and chaos wyrm breath combo. In the midst of bat country I manage to -TA the whole darn corridor. As I try to heal in the boltholes I helpfully dug for myself just outside the vault, the shardstorm comes back and I have to do some emergency beatdown.

I go back to the maw of heck and melee off the rest, but it's not too bad...except I'm weak from hunger! I take off the "regen and curse myself for only bringing 4 pieces of food. I eat even mushrooms of disease to try to stave off the weakness.

Finally I crack the wings of the vault open, and it turns out that dagashis and barrow wights and master mystics aren't that hardcore against a berserked-up blessed-up warrior with five a turn from Anduril. I -recall, weak with hunger, after realizing that even mushrooms won't help me against the other half of the vault which is stuffed chock full of multiplying rats which will slow me down and never let me get to the other treasure rooms.

The dump: http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=8387

The haul:

Medusa dead
Bill the troll dead
Queen ant dead

cl 32 -> 34
!con, !cha, !int

!selfknowledge
=slaying

ribbed plate armour of resist lightning
robe of resist fire
golden crown of lordliness
tulwar of frost
pike of SE
katana of westernesse
Thengel
Dethanc
Taratol

I'm kind of kicking myself over the "regen/food thing, but I guess these artifacts are better than a tombstone for having cracked the vault at all...

Oh and I got Gorlim from the troll pit but I dropped it, I figured I'd probably pick up less ambivalent items if I took on the vault.

[Nick]

Most of the stuff you've got there is only good for selling, but Thengel and Taratol are both good to carry as swaps (although you need to be careful about free action if you swap in Taratol).

[vorondil]

Would I just use Taratol as a poor man's 'rod of speed'?

[Nick]

Would I just use Taratol as a poor man's 'rod of speed'?

It's more that it's good against, say, blue dragons...

[buzzkill]

It's more that it's good against, say, blue dragons...

If survival is your goal, sure, it's good to have in hand. But I'd use a bow, against, say, blue dragons.

[vorondil]

I now have way, way too many melee weapons at home and in backpack. I'll probably hold on to Calris, Anduril and Taratol. Which of the following is useful to keep around?

-Totila
-A Defender sabre
-Theoden
-Osondir

Here's the dump: http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=8387

[Atarlost]

I'd keep none of them.

I don't see the Defender in your dump, but it's just going to give you rFire and the damage on a sabre is going to be poor. It would let you replace the ring of rCold, and it has a hidden power which I don't remember what it can be, but I don't think it's worth using and if it's not worth using it's not worth keeping.

Totila has rConf and stealth, but is otherwise a subset of Anduril. Thranduil has rConf already covered. If you can use its activation it might be interesting for that, but a lot of monsters resist confusion I think.

Theoden's big thing is Telepathy, which you already have from Thranduil so that axe gets axed too. It also loses you Anduril's rFire.

Osondir gets you rSound, but it's heavy and doesn't do much else for you.

I wouldn't use Taratol either, but for one thing: You have Telepathy. You can stair-scum for blue dragon pits within telepathy range of the stairs if you have the patience. imElec isn't normally the most useful thing, though.