Adventures of Ethyliel, the Sorceress

**Ycombinator** · June 22, 2010, 11:44

I'm sorry, but it's hard to keep up this third person style when nothing spectacular happens in the dungeon.

Witch-King, Pazuzu, Uriel and Gabriel were all caught alone and brutally killed. I guess they forgot to pay The Angband Transportation and Teleportation bills.
Gothmog decided not to summon too. Well, relying on breath against @ with fire immunity was a big mistake.

Khamul apparently has cruel enemies in the dungeon. I found him in this position:

Code:

#########
@     :W#
#########

Or is it just some tradition of wraiths, to bury themselves in rubble? Anyway, he woke up with mithril bolt of lightning sticking in his side, and soon was put out of his misery.

Finally I've taken my precious *Healing* potions and started the hunt on mana stormers. After killing The Mouth of Sauron and Vecna on one level I decided it's time for semifinals. I returned to the town, took all healing, switched from =CON+5 to this aggravating artifact ring for its huge to-hit bonus, and descended to dlvl 99.

Code:

The Ring of Naudhweno (+16,+5) (+3)
     +3 strength, intelligence, wisdom, dexterity, constitution, 
     charisma, infravision, tunneling.
     Provides resistance to acid, lightning, fire, cold, fear, 
     blindness, sound.
     Cannot be harmed by acid, electricity, fire, cold.
     Sustains intelligence, wisdom, dexterity.
     Prevents paralysis.  Aggravates creatures nearby.  
     
     When activated, it brands bolts with fire, in an unbalanced fashion.

Obviously, I planned to use mostly bolts of acid. Sauron teleported himself a lot, and I had to search for him in the dungeon over and over. I feared that regeneration can kick in, but his HP decreased steadily. I teleported myself only once, when he summoned uniques including Kronos, Ungoliant and Carcharoth. Taking two turns to teleport Sauron first and then destruct could be deadly. Finally, the last bolt of acid hits fleeing Sauron in his back... magical staircase appears... What's that, single object lying on the floor? Pick of digging?! The most disappointing drop *ever*. I wished I can inscribe it {of Sauron} and sell to the local museum as an artifact.

The final battle is near. I need to farm some healing and maybe level up a bit. I won't risk shooting at Morgoth. The floor of the dungeon will be scorched by mana storms and chaos strikes, and only one will survive.

**Timo Pietilä** · June 22, 2010, 11:58

Originally posted by Ycombinator

Code:

The Ring of Naudhweno (+16,+5) (+3)
     
     When activated, it brands bolts with fire, in an unbalanced fashion.

Did it really say that? "in an unbalanced fashion"? Someone writing code has already noticed that branding is unbalancing.

**Ycombinator** · June 22, 2010, 12:30

Originally posted by Timo Pietilä

Did it really say that? "in an unbalanced fashion"? Someone writing code has already noticed that branding is unbalancing.

Yes, it does. I wonder what is the reason behind including this activation effect and describing it like this. It's not used on any standard artifact.

**Timo Pietilä** · June 22, 2010, 14:01

Originally posted by Ycombinator

Yes, it does. I wonder what is the reason behind including this activation effect and describing it like this. It's not used on any standard artifact.

Maybe it is remnant of Cubragol activation. It used to have brand bolts activation instead of having brand as feature of the shooter.

**Magnate** · June 22, 2010, 19:52

Originally posted by Timo Pietilä

Maybe it is remnant of Cubragol activation. It used to have brand bolts activation instead of having brand as feature of the shooter.

Correct. It's the old Cubragol activation, which no longer appears in the standard game. It can appear on randarts, like any other activation - but it has a high power rating, so it doesn't appear often.

**Ycombinator** · June 22, 2010, 20:18

It was too boring to scum for !*Healing* and I decided to try it with limited healing supply: 6 !Healing, 2 !*Healing*, 2 !*Life*, 1 _Healing (4 charges, recharged many times). One thing I had abundant was !RMana: 13 of them or so, plus 2 _Magi. It was usual "chaos stirke -> summon -> banishment/mass banishment -> mana storm -> healing" cycle, but at some point I understood that I'm really running out of healing. And with one emergency !*Life* I employed the following tactics: teleport self after mana storm and spam CLW spell. Morgoth regenerated a bit while traveling from one corner of the dungeon to another, but stars disappeared one by one nevertheless. And finally he bites the dust.
This is my first mage winner and my fastest winner so far.

P.S. I killed Huan without rSound and rShards, and also killed Carcharoth and Azriel without rNether. That was kinda fun :-)

**Ycombinator** · June 22, 2010, 21:20

I laughed a bit at the artifact spoiler. RNG managed to come up with thematic artifacts.

Code:

The Small Metal Shield of Rogrog (+15,+2) [4,+20]
-------------------------------------------------
+3 intelligence, dexterity, charisma, stealth.
Provides resistance to acid, lightning, fire, cold, poison, fear, chaos.
Cannot be harmed by acid, electricity, fire, cold.
Slows your metabolism.  


Min Level 43, Max Level 127, Generation chance 1, 6.0 lbs

Too bad it wasn't dropped by Rogrog himself, this would be really fun.

Code:

The Set of Mithril Gauntlets of Arwen (+3,+3) [5,+20]
-----------------------------------------------------
+3 strength, infravision, speed.
Provides immunity to fire.
Provides resistance to lightning, fear, disenchantment.
Cannot be harmed by acid, electricity, fire, cold.
Sustains intelligence.
Slows your metabolism.  Speeds regeneration.  Aggravates creatures nearby.


When aimed, it allows you to breathe confusion for 120 damage.
Takes 132 to 242 turns to recharge.

Radius 1 light.

Min Level 42, Max Level 127, Generation chance 1, 2.0 lbs

Wow, it looks like the daughter of Elrond was quite skilled in combat...

Code:

The Large Metal Shield 'Beria' [8,+18]
--------------------------------------
+4 intelligence, wisdom, dexterity, speed.
Provides resistance to acid, lightning, fire, cold, chaos, disenchantment.
Cannot be harmed by acid, electricity, fire, cold.
Feather Falling.  Prevents paralysis.  


Min Level 45, Max Level 127, Generation chance 1, 13.5 lbs

This one is missing activation for banishment (I hope no one is offended by bitter historical humor here.)

And this one is simply the big-dice super-weapon:

Code:

The Cutlass of Calohtar (7d8) (+21,+28)
---------------------------------------
+3 strength, wisdom, constitution, charisma, tunneling.
Slays evil creatures, orcs, trolls.
*Slays* dragons, demons, undead.
Branded with flames, venom.
Provides resistance to acid, light.
Cannot be harmed by acid, electricity, fire, cold.
Blessed by the gods.  Prevents paralysis.  Grants the ability to see
invisible things.  

When aimed, it creates a lightning ball with damage 64.
Takes 90 to 162 turns to recharge.


Min Level 52, Max Level 127, Generation chance 1, 7.2 lbs

**Derakon** · June 22, 2010, 21:51

Holy cats, my priest could use that scimitar. 60 base damage/hit not counting external damage bonuses, and more than half of that is dice damage for some massive slays.

But nope, instead he found the Mattock 'Dildo'. Not even kidding.

**Timo Pietilä** · June 23, 2010, 05:51

Originally posted by Derakon

But nope, instead he found the Mattock 'Dildo'. Not even kidding.

Good thing I'm at home this time so no one was watching me laughing like a crazy person.

Seriously, though, that name should not exist. Kids play this game and if they google for "which character has this name" they end up looking at rather dubious pages...

**Ycombinator** · June 23, 2010, 10:23

Originally posted by Timo Pietilä

Seriously, though, that name should not exist. Kids play this game and if they google for "which character has this name" they end up looking at rather dubious pages...

Then you need to check generated names against the stop-list. Do kids read Angband source code? :-)
And RNG can still easily come up with name homophonic to something nasty in languages other than English.

**Magnate** · June 23, 2010, 12:05

Originally posted by Ycombinator

Then you need to check generated names against the stop-list.

It's easier than that. All you need to do is check lib/edit/names.txt and ensure that nothing in there is offensive in your language.

**Ycombinator** · June 23, 2010, 12:37

Originally posted by Magnate

It's easier than that. All you need to do is check lib/edit/names.txt and ensure that nothing in there is offensive in your language.

I thought that game uses some kind of Markov chain generator initialized with those names.
$ grep -iR <name of the mattock Derakon's priest found> angband-trunk/*
$

**nppangband** · June 23, 2010, 13:19

Yes, the names are generated randomly. What is does is read a long list of names that are from Tolkein works, and figures out the frequency of each letter, and the frequency of each letter of the one that follows (and I think it even factors in the frequency of each letter once removed as well). Then it starts with a random letter, and continues with random letters ased on the weighted probabilities until a name is formed. So it can conceivably occasionally generate some dirty words.

One time I got a randart titled "fukme". Thankfully the "c" wasn't there. But I think this is an anomoly, and the odds of it happening are pretty slim.

**Jungle_Boy** · June 23, 2010, 14:12

Is anyone else surprised that the gloves of a beautiful elven woman allow you to breathe confusion?? I thought that women did that naturally.

Adventures of Ethyliel, the Sorceress

Adventures of Ethyliel, the Sorceress

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