Beginner's luck?

[TeKRunneR]

So, after two of my three first Angband characters died in a fairly unavoidable way (monster summoning trap at DL1, pack of time hounds as I entered a level), it seems like the tables have turned. Now, I have been playing for way too little time to really know how lucky I have been, but from what I've read, it is not very common to find a pair of BoS+6 at 1400', nor a RoS+15 at all (I didn't even know those things could go over +10), right?

So, uh, yeah, now I'm CL38 / DL84, and I'm wondering if I should be doing anything else than diving down to DL98, killing some uniques, gathering consumables, and hoping to find rChaos / rNether / sustains / HL (I actually lost an amulet of sustains very stupidly, as I mistakenly *destroyed* the area)?

Oh, also, is there a particular method for taking out dragon nests? I managed to beat a red one, but that was only thanks to Firestar's immunity to fire, and I still had to TO most of the Great Hell Wyrms. I mean, with temporary rFire the damage wasn't *that* bad, but without immunity every single flammable thing would have disappeared from my inventory...

Dump: http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=10336

[HallucinationMushroom]

Since you have telepathy, I would recommend finding the door that they will walk out of, and find/create a place where you can easily lure out a few at a time, to fight at a place of your choosing. Rinse/repeat.

That being said, keep an eye out for the ethereal drakes, or drakes that summon other drakes. If I greatly overpowered the dragon pit, I would make a long winding asc, get towards the front and lure them all out at once, and kill perhaps 6-8 before backing up a space before killing 6-8 more until you get to the end of the asc, or the dragons are all dead. The reason being you don't want to lose treasure, if Vanilla works the same as I remember, it will start to compact because the treasure will have no place to go.

[fizzix]

you don't even need ASCs. Dragon pits come in two kinds, ones with 3 wyrms and ones with 1 (I think, are there any with more than 3?) The kinds with 3 are rarer than the kind with 1, even at dlevel 99. The wyrms are faster and push past so they'll always come out first. You can separate them from the rest of the pack, since they're faster and will chase you farther away from the pit. If more than 1 comes, you can TO the extras and get it later.

Then as you approach the pit you can lure a couple dragons at a time, down a corridor. It's very similar to taking out an orc or troll pit when you can only handle 6 or 7 at a time. You'll get all the Ancients first, depending on how many turns it takes you to kill them you may get breathed on a decent amount unless you make an ASC.

[Timo Pietilä]

you don't even need ASCs. Dragon pits come in two kinds, ones with 3 wyrms and ones with 1 (I think, are there any with more than 3?)

I think that depends entirely of how deep you find that pit. I have seen 7 Wyrms in one pit. That one did have only few baby/young/mature dragons, and was almost full of Ancient ones.

[TeKRunneR]

Ah, my pit had 9 wyrms actually. So I guess my problems came from a combination of too many tough monsters and a somewhat weak character. I managed to clear a multi-hued pit yesterday with no problem, but that one only had a single wyrm (that I TO'd), and few ancients.

[Nick]

From generate.c:

 * The inside room in a monster pit appears as shown below, where the
 * actual monsters in each location depend on the type of the pit
 *
 *   #####################
 *   #0000000000000000000#
 *   #0112233455543322110#
 *   #0112233467643322110#
 *   #0112233455543322110#
 *   #0000000000000000000#
 *   #####################
 *
 * Note that the monsters in the pit are now chosen by using "get_mon_num()"
 * to request 16 "appropriate" monsters, sorting them by level, and using
 * the "even" entries in this sorted list for the contents of the pit.

So you could get 95 wyrms in a pit...

[Timo Pietilä]

From generate.c:

 * The inside room in a monster pit appears as shown below, where the
 * actual monsters in each location depend on the type of the pit
 *
 *   #####################
 *   #0000000000000000000#
 *   #0112233455543322110#
 *   #0112233467643322110#
 *   #0112233455543322110#
 *   #0000000000000000000#
 *   #####################
 *
 * Note that the monsters in the pit are now chosen by using "get_mon_num()"
 * to request 16 "appropriate" monsters, sorting them by level, and using
 * the "even" entries in this sorted list for the contents of the pit.

So you could get 95 wyrms in a pit...

Based on that that "seven" must have actually been "nine". I guess I lost count at some point, or killed two of the wyrms as ancient ones (had immunity).

[TeKRunneR]

Woo, I won.

I think I was way over-prepared for the final battles. Sauron was a joke, and I didn't even drink a single healing potion against Morgoth (I did zap my -healing, and used Elessar's activation). Of course, I had killed all the dangerous uniques, and I think I had quite a few of the most powerful artifacts in the game. Still, a bunch of runes of protection in a destructed area seemed to work wonderfully. I used something like 30 arrows (slay evil and wounding), and finished him off with melee.

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=10336

[Timo Pietilä]

Woo, I won.

I think I was way over-prepared for the final battles. Sauron was a joke, and I didn't even drink a single healing potion against Morgoth (I did zap my -healing, and used Elessar's activation). Of course, I had killed all the dangerous uniques, and I think I had quite a few of the most powerful artifacts in the game. Still, a bunch of runes of protection in a destructed area seemed to work wonderfully. I used something like 30 arrows (slay evil and wounding), and finished him off with melee.

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=10336

Woh? How do you have four shots with Bard? ....

Ah, someone has turned Haradrim shield to Bladeturner times two -class item. Anybody that finds that and does not use it at endgame is a moron. You were doing more damage with that bow / turn using enchanted ammo that has no effective slay than with Glaive of Pain.

Broken artifact. Shots and blows that are not in missile weapons or melee weapons (respectively) are overpowering beyond anything. If this allows randarts to have those I need to look twice next time before dumping any randart armor that has a pval. Who knows, maybe my next "incredible bow" is in fact a shield or a cloak.

[PowerDiver]

Woh? How do you have four shots with Bard? ....

Ah, someone has turned Haradrim shield to Bladeturner times two -class item. Anybody that finds that and does not use it at endgame is a moron. You were doing more damage with that bow / turn using enchanted ammo that has no effective slay than with Glaive of Pain.

It's not particularly unlikely to find Haradrim or Umbar before you collect enough consumables for M. I'd say 50% each for me.