[YAWP] Dunlin, the Dunadan Paladin

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  • Derakon
    Prophet
    • Dec 2009
    • 9022

    [YAWP] Dunlin, the Dunadan Paladin

    Ladder dump

    This was a randarts game, and on the whole, I think I would have been better-off with a standart set this time around. I found a vast profusion of worthless weapons (low +to-dam, low damage dice, useless slays, no stat boosts, etc.) and a lot of useless armor artifacts too. My final gear has only four artifacts! (arkenstone, body armor, cloak, and gauntlets). My cloak is pretty badass, though, with +2 blows, and I was using an artifact axe for most of the game.

    I've uploaded my artifacts spoilers here. Looking at it, there were some decent items that I never found -- Isirie, Ndiste, Amena, Marverot (which I must assume is Deathwreaker or Doomcaller), Sulir, etc. So I'm not blaming the randart generator for giving me a crappy set; just the RNG for not giving me useful ones from that set. Never did find an artifact launcher, for that matter...looks like there were some nice ones there. And plenty of lovely-looking body armors that just never showed up...not that the one useful randart body armor I found was bad, mind.

    In general this game just feels like I found tons of useless stuff and one useful item for each slot, if that. No useful randart launchers/rings/shields/boots, one marginally useful amulet, one early-game useful helm. One early-game useful weapon, one late-game useful weapon, one useful body armor, one (very!) useful cloak (and one reasonably useful cloak, Rogril), one useful set of gloves. That said, I still feel quite lucky, because a) I was able to do without for much of the game, and b) the items I did find ended up covering all of my important holes and giving me an impressive offense. Plus, I got very lucky with my ego items in the late game.
    Last edited by Derakon; June 8, 2010, 06:04.
  • Zikke
    Veteran
    • Jun 2008
    • 1069

    #2
    Congratulations on the win! You just win too fast and don't give the RNG time to give you leet gearz.

    I've had some really bad randart games too. At least with a paladin it matters a bit less.
    A(3.1.0b) CWS "Fyren_V" NEW L:50 DL:127 A++ R+++ Sp+ w:The Great Axe of Eonwe
    A/FA W H- D c-- !f PV+++ s? d P++ M+
    C- S+ I- !So B ac++ GHB? SQ? !RQ V F:

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    • Derakon
      Prophet
      • Dec 2009
      • 9022

      #3
      The weird thing is that I didn't really feel like I was playing very quickly. I did several recalls where I didn't take stairs at all around about 1750' -- I was missing basic resistances and see invisible, and didn't really want to go any deeper. Granted my actual dive to the basement went quickly, thanks to the batch of scrolls of Deep Descent I got from the black market. But then I hung around in the deeps for a decently long interval, going from running the heck away from almost everything to beating the snot out of a carefully-chosen subset of the uniques, and finally getting my stats up and important resistances covered.

      What I find interesting about my final loadout is how delicate my resistance coverage is. I have only one source each of resistance to poison, blindness, confusion, nexus, nether, chaos, and disenchantment -- and those latter four are each on separate items! I have one source of free action, one source of see invisible, and one source of telepathy. And of course I never found sound/shards resistance in a useful form.

      And yeah, playing as a paladin is very nice. You have good melee throughout the game, so no horribly slow start like the priests have, but that 300HP Heal spell came in handy so very often. While I was breaking down big dragons in melee, I was thinking to myself "Man, how do other classes manage to kill these things with so few Healing potions available?" and then I remembered, oh yeah, you buy out the Temple to get lots of CCW potions, and phase door and chug 'em like they're water. Or you play like a Ranger and shoot everything to death from outside melee range. Casting big healing spells is much easier, and more fun.

      Comment

      • Magnate
        Angband Devteam member
        • May 2007
        • 5110

        #4
        If +2 blows appeared on a randart cloak every few games then it would be silly - but since it occurs once in about a thousand games (and might then never be found), it's not too terrible! Interesting that your randart weapons sucked so badly though - even the Zweihander aggravated and lacked any extra dice ...
        "Been away so long I hardly knew the place, gee it's good to be back home" - The Beatles

        Comment

        • Derakon
          Prophet
          • Dec 2009
          • 9022

          #5
          Well, I'm playing a new half-troll warrior, and I'm already (after ~20k player turns) down in stat-gain; just found a randart helm with +1 blows on it. Not worth replacing my Metal Cap of Telepathy over, but it's worth carrying as a swap...

          Comment

          • Magnate
            Angband Devteam member
            • May 2007
            • 5110

            #6
            Originally posted by Derakon
            Well, I'm playing a new half-troll warrior, and I'm already (after ~20k player turns) down in stat-gain; just found a randart helm with +1 blows on it. Not worth replacing my Metal Cap of Telepathy over, but it's worth carrying as a swap...
            Et voila - if it's not worth wearing over ESP, it's not exactly overpowered ... would you have worn it if it had +2 blows?
            "Been away so long I hardly knew the place, gee it's good to be back home" - The Beatles

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            • Derakon
              Prophet
              • Dec 2009
              • 9022

              #7
              Tricky. At that point, any other class would be wearing it certainly. With a warrior, though, ESP is my only source of seeing other monsters (no -Detection yet). I honestly don't know.

              Note that I'm pretty dang lucky to have ESP this early. I got a Defender broadsword off of some unique, and then went to town and saw the ESP cap in the armorer's shop, at a price of 1 Defender broadsword.

              Comment

              • Tiburon Silverflame
                Swordsman
                • Feb 2010
                • 405

                #8
                But a helm of +1 blows may well become the choice when a source of ESP comes available in a different slot. The power of a feature can often be how it combines.

                But, +1 blows, or even +2 blows, is less of an issue than +1 shots. +1 shots means +100% damage; +2 blows even to a mage means only +50%, and to a warrior it's only +33%. That's maxed out, of course; prior to stat gain, one could find a nice heavy weapon that only gives one high-damage swing. Now the extra blow == +100% damage.

                Comment

                • Magnate
                  Angband Devteam member
                  • May 2007
                  • 5110

                  #9
                  Originally posted by Tiburon Silverflame
                  But a helm of +1 blows may well become the choice when a source of ESP comes available in a different slot. The power of a feature can often be how it combines.

                  But, +1 blows, or even +2 blows, is less of an issue than +1 shots. +1 shots means +100% damage; +2 blows even to a mage means only +50%, and to a warrior it's only +33%. That's maxed out, of course; prior to stat gain, one could find a nice heavy weapon that only gives one high-damage swing. Now the extra blow == +100% damage.
                  Which is of course a rather nice side effect, making heavy weapons possible choices in the early game, which they otherwise wouldn't be.

                  I think perhaps the solution to shots and blows on nonweapon randarts is to make them supercharges - i.e. they don't appear alongside (m)any other attributes.
                  "Been away so long I hardly knew the place, gee it's good to be back home" - The Beatles

                  Comment

                  • PowerDiver
                    Prophet
                    • Mar 2008
                    • 2820

                    #10
                    Originally posted by Magnate
                    I think perhaps the solution to shots and blows on nonweapon randarts is to make them supercharges - i.e. they don't appear alongside (m)any other attributes.
                    You do realize that the difference between a warrior and a rogue is +1 blow? I.e. the old wisdom is that a single additional blow is, although not as good, at least comparable to all of the spellcasting and stealth and whatever else a rogue gets. An additional blow is a *really* big deal.

                    Comment

                    • Magnate
                      Angband Devteam member
                      • May 2007
                      • 5110

                      #11
                      Originally posted by PowerDiver
                      You do realize that the difference between a warrior and a rogue is +1 blow? I.e. the old wisdom is that a single additional blow is, although not as good, at least comparable to all of the spellcasting and stealth and whatever else a rogue gets. An additional blow is a *really* big deal.
                      I'm half with you here - the other half being that warriors are generally acknowledged to be a "harder" class than rogues, so +1 blow is *not* quite equivalent to all that stuff.

                      But yes, I accept that +blows are currently dramatically underrated on nonweapon randarts, as are +shots. 3.1.3 will fix this.
                      "Been away so long I hardly knew the place, gee it's good to be back home" - The Beatles

                      Comment

                      • Timo Pietilä
                        Prophet
                        • Apr 2007
                        • 4096

                        #12
                        Originally posted by Magnate
                        I'm half with you here - the other half being that warriors are generally acknowledged to be a "harder" class than rogues, so +1 blow is *not* quite equivalent to all that stuff.
                        I don't think warriors to be harder than rogues. I find warriors much easier than rogues. Only in mid-game where detection is a key for survival rogue is stronger than warrior, but in beginning and in end warrior beats rogue any day. +1 blow makes a big difference.

                        To me rogues are the hardest class to win the game. Rangers get gazillion spells and insane artillery, paladins have every utility spell priest has + very good fighting, priests have 0% failure healing, mages get banishments and other "get rid of everybody now" spells. Rogue has only stealth.

                        Comment

                        • Derakon
                          Prophet
                          • Dec 2009
                          • 9022

                          #13
                          Paladins don't get Clairvoyance, and I'm a bit surprised they get Word of Destruction; seems like that one ought to be priest-only (Banish Evil is entirely good enough for paladins).

                          I'm playing a half-troll warrior right now to see how it goes. I made it to 1000' in maybe an hour; very very fast, anyway. Things have slowed down a bit now that I'm past 2000' with still no cold resistance (and relying on a ring for fire resistance). Lack of Resistance/Elvenkind gear is a pain. Still, thanks to telepathy I'm spotting 98% of monsters I need to know about before they run into me. Honestly my biggest peeve is that the bread-and-butter detection rods, specifically Trap Location and Illumination, are vulnerable to destruction by lightning. As far as I can tell this change only serves to annoy warriors, so I reverted it in my objects.txt.

                          Comment

                          • PowerDiver
                            Prophet
                            • Mar 2008
                            • 2820

                            #14
                            Originally posted by Derakon
                            Trap Location and Illumination, are vulnerable to destruction by lightning. As far as I can tell this change
                            That's not a change, is it? Have they ever been immune to elec?

                            Comment

                            • Derakon
                              Prophet
                              • Dec 2009
                              • 9022

                              #15
                              I don't know when the change was made, but certainly back in the 2.8 days (and possibly 2.9 as well) all rods were immune to electricity.

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