Advice needed!

[Fendell Orcbane]

So, I've been lurking here for about two months and I thought that I should join the forum. Especially since I've been playing for about the same amount of time.

Although Angband doesn't have any flashy graphics its really addictive since you can't just try to kill everything in sight. I've had about twenty characters on 3.0.9 since I've started and the character that I have going now has gotten pretty deep. I'd say that I have a chance to win here but after seeing the last few people die, I doubt it. I'm playing really conservatively since I see that you can get caught up by monsters that are way too tough to fight if you keep going down regardless of the equipment/consumables that you have on tap.

I generally tend to flee at the sight of gravity,time and vibration hounds. I also will leave vaults if the monsters are way over my head no matter what tempting treasures they contain.

I will say that this isn't a "clean" character since I "force quit scummed" in order to test out the teleport other spell. And no you can't get a whole pack of hounds with it. Unless I did something wrong I don't know about.

Anyway here is my character. Let me know what I might change equipment wise. I know that I need more speed and rCon since rChaos doesn't cover both in 3.0.9. One thing that I hate in 3.0.9 is that healing potions aren't that great and the game is cheap with them. Ditto *Healing* so I've had to go up to find more since I don't want to get killed due to not having enough healing.

BTW will *destruction* kill a unique?

Thanks for reading : )
EDIT: here is a link to the character dump.

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=10133

sadly I'm not understanding how to post this dump as an image...

[Zikke]

The best thing to do is to upload a character dump to the ladder on these forums.

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder.php

That'll line everything up nicely and you can overwrite it as your character progresses (or dies). Just link us the URL of the dump

[Fendell Orcbane]

The best thing to do is to upload a character dump to the ladder on these forums.

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder.php

That'll line everything up nicely and you can overwrite it as your character progresses (or dies). Just link us the URL of the dump

Thanks dude!

[fizzix]

Swap the Chaos male for Thalkettoth. You need any speed you can get. Disenchanting and Chaos breathing monsters are rare enough that you can avoid them, and they can't breathe enough to insta-kill you.

Raal's is useless for a Ranger, probably shouldn't bother with it.

You need to get your speed up and you need rconf (and also rblind). Not having Rconf can get you killed. (watch out for titans) Keeping thengel as a swap is a good idea.

You should be killing everything with arrows. Keep an eye out for Tenser's, it's a game changer and with the branded missiles and 4 shots per turn rangers are a powerhouse.

Tenser's is native to dlevel 80 (i think) and that's about where speed rings are. My advice would be to drop down to that level and look for both of them. It's not that much more dangerous than where you currently are. Keep yourself hasted at all times. You have enough HP to not be instakilled by anything if you don't get double moved, but still don't fight anything you don't recognize.

As far as Destruction goes. It is probably the most powerful escape in the game. It will remove all monsters (including uniques) and non-artifact items from a 20 square radius, and mess up all the walls. You can use it to remove monsters from vaults and loot the artifacts if you choose, but some people look down at that tactic. You should definitely carry around any staves of destruction that you find and save the scrolls at home. Those are useful against Sauron/Morgoth who drain charges.

Scrolls of teleport level or deep descent are better than scrolls of teleportation for escapes since you are guaranteed first turn on a new level.

[Zikke]

To clarify, casting *Destruction* on a unique will remove them from the level, but they can respawn again if the RNG rolls them up either from a summon or a random monster spawn. i.e. it doesn't "kill" them in the permanent sense

[Fendell Orcbane]

Swap the Chaos male for Thalkettoth. You need any speed you can get. Disenchanting and Chaos breathing monsters are rare enough that you can avoid them, and they can't breathe enough to insta-kill you.

Raal's is useless for a Ranger, probably shouldn't bother with it.

You need to get your speed up and you need rconf (and also rblind). Not having Rconf can get you killed. (watch out for titans) Keeping thengel as a swap is a good idea.

You should be killing everything with arrows. Keep an eye out for Tenser's, it's a game changer and with the branded missiles and 4 shots per turn rangers are a powerhouse.

Tenser's is native to dlevel 80 (i think) and that's about where speed rings are. My advice would be to drop down to that level and look for both of them. It's not that much more dangerous than where you currently are. Keep yourself hasted at all times. You have enough HP to not be instakilled by anything if you don't get double moved, but still don't fight anything you don't recognize.

As far as Destruction goes. It is probably the most powerful escape in the game. It will remove all monsters (including uniques) and non-artifact items from a 20 square radius, and mess up all the walls. You can use it to remove monsters from vaults and loot the artifacts if you choose, but some people look down at that tactic. You should definitely carry around any staves of destruction that you find and save the scrolls at home. Those are useful against Sauron/Morgoth who drain charges.

Scrolls of teleport level or deep descent are better than scrolls of teleportation for escapes since you are guaranteed first turn on a new level.

Hmm, I actual get some use out of raal's not much but it doesn't hurt to carry it.

I've tried to just kill things with arrows but two things that seem to happen when I do that to the more powerful monsters is 1. they tend to summon more stuff 2.They use their distance attacks which tend to get my potions,arrows and scrolls. However slay arrows do tend to work better and if I can find a better bow I'm sure that will also help.

Well I did come a cross a titan that confused me, but lucky for me I had thengels handy. I did however switch my armor out and I do agree that you can avoid Chaos breathers. Down to 59....I've just been looking out for the exits pretty much and buffing before I enter the level. Shield, resistance and haste self go along way.

Thanks for the good advice!

[Derakon]

To my knowledge, the only part of monster AI currently that depends on distance is that if a monster chooses not to use a spell/special ability, if they aren't in melee range they will spend the turn moving towards you, while if they are in melee range they will simply attack you. Distance does not affect whether or not monsters choose to use their spells or special abilities, and thus does not affect whether or not your consumables get destroyed. Actually, if anything, staying out of melee range will protect your consumables from monsters with elemental melee attacks.

That said, if a monster summons at range, you may well become unable to hit them with ranged attacks because of newly-created monsters that are in the way. This isn't a problem in melee range.

[Fendell Orcbane]

To my knowledge, the only part of monster AI currently that depends on distance is that if a monster chooses not to use a spell/special ability, if they aren't in melee range they will spend the turn moving towards you, while if they are in melee range they will simply attack you. Distance does not affect whether or not monsters choose to use their spells or special abilities, and thus does not affect whether or not your consumables get destroyed. Actually, if anything, staying out of melee range will protect your consumables from monsters with elemental melee attacks.

That said, if a monster summons at range, you may well become unable to hit them with ranged attacks because of newly-created monsters that are in the way. This isn't a problem in melee range.

This is funny because I just met up with Saruman on 60. I was able to create an ASC and I started to melee him. It looked like might have been able to take him out, but he teleported me away. At which point I killed a bunch of half trolls hoping for a healing potion. Which I did get and then I bailed. But I'll consider using more distance attacks in the future.

Thanks again.

[Fendell Orcbane]

Swap the Chaos male for Thalkettoth. You need any speed you can get. Disenchanting and Chaos breathing monsters are rare enough that you can avoid them, and they can't breathe enough to insta-kill you.

Raal's is useless for a Ranger, probably shouldn't bother with it.

You need to get your speed up and you need rconf (and also rblind). Not having Rconf can get you killed. (watch out for titans) Keeping thengel as a swap is a good idea.

You should be killing everything with arrows. Keep an eye out for Tenser's, it's a game changer and with the branded missiles and 4 shots per turn rangers are a powerhouse.

Tenser's is native to dlevel 80 (i think) and that's about where speed rings are. My advice would be to drop down to that level and look for both of them. It's not that much more dangerous than where you currently are. Keep yourself hasted at all times. You have enough HP to not be instakilled by anything if you don't get double moved, but still don't fight anything you don't recognize.

As far as Destruction goes. It is probably the most powerful escape in the game. It will remove all monsters (including uniques) and non-artifact items from a 20 square radius, and mess up all the walls. You can use it to remove monsters from vaults and loot the artifacts if you choose, but some people look down at that tactic. You should definitely carry around any staves of destruction that you find and save the scrolls at home. Those are useful against Sauron/Morgoth who drain charges.

Scrolls of teleport level or deep descent are better than scrolls of teleportation for escapes since you are guaranteed first turn on a new level.

Honestly I don't know why people would look down on using *destruction* to get at some loot. Or for that matter why people look down on pillar dancing. I say use anything you can since you only have one life.

[Pete Mack]

DL 68 is a lousy place to hang out. Tenser's is native to dl 70, and speed rings to dl 75. Since drops are determined by max(mon_level, depth), you can get a lot more good stuff at dl 75 or 80, but it's not any more dangerous than dl 68.

And you need speed pretty badly. You can't mess around at that kind of depth at speed < 10 for very long.

[Fendell Orcbane]

DL 68 is a lousy place to hang out. Tenser's is native to dl 70, and speed rings to dl 75. Since drops are determined by max(mon_level, depth), you can get a lot more good stuff at dl 75 or 80, but it's not any more dangerous than dl 68.

And you need speed pretty badly. You can't mess around at that kind of depth at speed < 10 for very long.

Yeah I hear you on the speed. But I keep myself buffed with speed most of the time. I'm trying to get lower but I end up having to run from stuff. But I'll make it ...I hope. I'm pretty much just trying to get to the stairs.

[Pete Mack]

Yeah I hear you on the speed. But I keep myself buffed with speed most of the time. I'm trying to get lower but I end up having to run from stuff. But I'll make it ...I hope. I'm pretty much just trying to get to the stairs.

You have Superb stealth and Mordy's escapes at cl 44 and INT 18/170. Why are you worrying about getting to the stairs? If you don't detect stairs in easy walking distance, just bore a hole down 7 levels.

[Fendell Orcbane]

You have Superb stealth and Mordy's escapes at cl 44 and INT 18/170. Why are you worrying about getting to the stairs? If you don't detect stairs in easy walking distance, just bore a hole down 7 levels.

How do I bore a hole down 7 levels? I'd love to do that!

As for worries about the stairs, well I had 3 great Ice Wyrms on my ass at the same time! Honestly I might have taken them since they can't do that much damage if you are buffed...but that thinking gets people killed. I have 2 healing,2*healing* and two potions of life....now I just need some more speed damn it! I can see how speed just makes your character a killer. Sure buffing is nice but I'd love to at least get up to 20 without buffing...it would make most of the other uniques a cakewalk. That and a few runes of protection. Gotta love that Rune of Protection.

[PowerDiver]

How do I bore a hole down 7 levels? I'd love to do that!

Repeatedly cast "create stairs" until you get one heading down. Go down. Repeat.

For some reason, that seems too easy to me. I prefer to restrict myself to hunting for stairs or casting teleport level.

[Fendell Orcbane]

Repeatedly cast "create stairs" until you get one heading down. Go down. Repeat.

For some reason, that seems too easy to me. I prefer to restrict myself to hunting for stairs or casting teleport level.

Now I feel like a dumbass. See the first few times I tried to create stairs I'd only get them going up...so I thought that that was the only direction that they went in. However sometimes it seems worth it to get a few easy kills to get some healing potions or arrows of seeking.

But this is the first character that I've been able to get so deep. I know you believe in diving at all cost, but you also probably can pull off the pillar dancing and you have a good idea of what each weapon does damagewise. So for me I have to do baby steps for now.