Fightless the full-casting mage

[SaThaRiel]

I've already stopped listing all the minor kills, except when they drop either useful or new stuff. But if it's lagging, I can speed it up by cutting out even more. Not sure what's best here.

Personally i really like to read details/ideas/options in the description of those adventures Its a good idea to write this down and show ppl like me how you Pros use to play.
Sure there will be differences in most playing styles but stuff like "The town has absolutely nothing for sale, not even stuff to learn flavors, so recall is almost immediate." are really interesting...i tend to travel through the town and hope that i missed something

I vote for the current (or maybe a bit more) detail All that can happen is that we learn something.

[buzzkill]

If your not opposed to it, try making your paragraphs even smaller. The three and four liners (when displayed full screen) are a breeze to read. It's something I've adopted with the latest installment of Onion, and am quite pleased with and plan to continue.

... and I'm learning about both your and my own play style. You seem to run more quickly than myself, often at the hint of danger. I like to encounter it (and be beaten back by it). Not a criticism, just an observation. It's probably got a lot to do with the low HP mage, and the fact that you actually beat the game every once in a while.

[fizzix]

... and I'm learning about both your and my own play style. You seem to run more quickly than myself, often at the hint of danger. I like to encounter it (and be beaten back by it). Not a criticism, just an observation. It's probably got a lot to do with the low HP mage, and the fact that you actually beat the game every once in a while.

Criticism noted, I'll try to introduce more paragraph breaks.

And yes, I play extremely scared. The only alternative I see is to go slowly enough that I know I can handle everything around me.

What may not be clear from the updates is how much I spam detection. I try to know what's around me at all times. Even then, I still get surprised by monsters that spawn nearby while I'm busy fighting other ones. An example of this are the trolls on DL23 who were definitely not there when I started fighting the orcs.

Detecting right after resting is the most important, because you often don't realize exactly how many turns go by while you were resting. There will often be something dangerous on the level now. Another common mistake is to not detect while going back through a previously mapped section. This can also cause problems with spawned (awake!) monsters.

[fizzix]

This one is a little long, hopefully it's not too much! I've taken to bolding the level breaks because of the extra paragraphs.

CL26 DL33
When recall kicks in, I'm 20 SP shy of full. RMon shows an Ooze elemental, a dark elven lord, and 5 vibration hounds to the south. The hounds make this possibly a region to avoid. 5 hounds are probably ok, but if there's more right outside my detection range, they could be trouble.

There’s a young gold dragon and a group of half orcs to the north and east (kill) and novice warriors to the west (kill). –dobj show’s Khomeini’s Rod to the southeast, I might try to pick that up also, if it's easy enough. The young gold drops a Kamerlingh-Onnes staff which gets ID’d as CLW (squelch). Khomeini's rod was trivial to get and is Illumination (squelch).

On to the halforcs. The orcs drop a Mozarty ring, wielded (Telep, squelch) and two weapons which are not splendid so not worth worrying about. Standing in the corner of the room I –dobj nothing worth getting, and head back towards the line of novice warriors. On the way I RMon Azog and 8 cave orcs to the north. He’s probably worth killing too, so I’ll get him after the warriors.

One of the warriors drops a new Callipygous potion, ooh! I’m not injured and I want to know if it’s !heal, so I ID it instead of quaffing. Alas, it’s !Neut Poison (squelch). A Haydenesque ring they drop gets wielded and is auto-ID’d as flames. An Orwellian ring does not get Auto-ID’d on wield so I ID it and it’s resist cold (squelch). The flames ring is worth selling and so is another =Escaping. Now to go off in search of Azog.

On the way DVis shows that the Vibration hounds are finally headed in my direction, so I need to be careful lest they find me. Azog drops some arrows and a non-splendid scale mail. Again I’m low on SP and there are no stairs nearby, so I’ll recall to town and back. I don’t mind this as I still have yet to find any !statgain.

CL26 town
I sell the =flames and the =escaping, I buy a –polymorph from the BM to learn flavor (Hypnotically Hyperbolizing, squelch) and a !Rwis from the Alchemist (Hermitian) But there's nothing else that I want.

CL26 DL33
I return once again a bit shy of full SP. There's a downstairs in this room, but I'd like to see if there's anything to get or kill. Rmon shows Ariel to the east, (OoD, definitely avoid, instant death). Ibun, a hell hound and some other weaklings in what I’m guessing is a 2x2 room. 2x2 rooms are the moated rooms with 4 smaller rooms, these rooms are usually very dangerous and are almost always to be avoided.

–Dobj shows !rmana near where Ibun is. I guess I can get this. 17 acid bolts are what it takes to kill Ibun. He drops a broad axe which I’m too weak to wield. However, I don’t mind lugging it around at all, because it's the first splendid weapon I've found. It’s a +1 westernesse, and will give me much needed SInv.

My -19 to-hit seems pretty spectacular I must say. The axe is so heavy that I’m slowed down to -9, but I’d rather have the SInv, so I'll deal with the burden. I TO the hellhound, and head back to the down stairs that were in my starting room. I rest to full and descend again.

CL26 DL34
I land in a corridor next to a door. Yet another superb feeling level, shame level feelings don’t actually mean anything. Or maybe it does this time, RMon shows a 'rock hard' vault very close by. The rock hard vault is the triangular one with the two single compartments in the souther corners.

There’s a beholder in one of the single rooms and shagrat in the other. In the middle is a werewolf, a wolf chieftan, a colbran and a bunch of blink dogs. Dangerous for sure but not impossible, especially with hasted +20 speed. However, -dobj shows absolutely nothing I want in the vault. There’s some heavy armor and heavy weapons and PB5 and an unknown scroll, but that’s it. There is one soft leather armor but it’s not in one of the key spots for splendid items. Therefore, it’s unlikely to be anything worthwhile, I decide to leave the vault be.

There are some down stairs nearby, but RMon shows a group of cave orcs. Further north there are cave ogres in a treasure room with a basilisk. The basilisk is very dangerous with his poison breath and my low HP, but he can't one shot me with poison breath (barely). There's also a water vortex around in the vicinity that I should be mindful of.

I head towards the cave orcs but the path leads me below them, I get a ‘it breathes acid’ as I'm approaching a room, and I think the water vortex has found me. However, it’s a largish pack of water hounds, that were outside my detection radius when I last detected. Some frost balls thrown into the room kills the pack, and I rest to full. There are some algroths in the room that the water hounds were camping out in, and I want to kill them also.

Meanwhile the cave orcs have awoken and are filing down towards me. I kill the algroths but they drop nothing. The cave orcs can’t get to me either, looks like I’m going to have to phase over their way. First attempt gets me there. I first kill the water vortex in their midst for CLevel 27.

I learn haste self and fireball, the fail rate for fireball is very high though, so I don’t see myself casting that much yet. I StM a hole in the treasure room and get 5 Fire bolts off before the basilisk breathes. By that point the poison only does 37 damage. The cave ogres drop a wicker shield of Racid which I swap for my equally useless wicker shield of Rcold, and what turns out to be a glaive of frost. Low on SP, it’s recall time.

CL27 town
I buy and squelch a _slow monsters from BM (schwarzschild) and buy and keep a –acid balls (abstrusely abstricting). Nothing else that I want, so back I go, this time full on SP, oh my.

CL27 DL34
RMon shows brodda and a mature white. I want to kill both. Brodda dies first and he drops the battle axe of Mogrome which I am also too weak to wield. It gives +2 Int and Con so it would be an upgrade to my Westernesse if it had SInv, which it doesn’t. It has rfear and rshards, but I don’t care about those too much. It’s definitely something to save for later though. The mature white drops only gold. Rmon in its room shows Mughash and a fairly large escort, so I head off in their general direction.

I kill all of the kobolds, but don't find anything interesting in the loot. It’s time to return for no other reason than to drop off the heavy battle axe, so I do that.

CL27 town
I have to pick up ?WoR from home, because I've bought out the alchemist and the general store. I’ll be careful to let a restock go before returning to town again.

CL27 DL34
I land in a dark room with a Kafkaesque ring nearby. RMon shows a mature white to my left. There’s a colbran in the way which I will TO. To the right is a 4-headed hydra and a ghost. –dobj show’s an unid’d Brahmsian ring to the west, but I’m not going to go out of my way for unid’d rings at this shallow depth since I already know =Int.

The Kafkaesque ring doesn’t ID on wield, so I cast ID (soulkeeping, squelch). The exit in the room is going the opposite way that I want to go, so I phase on the other side, noticing that there are doors not too far away. After two attempts I’m across the gap. I TO the colbran and kill the mature white, (both are in a pillared room).

This dragon had some stuff on him. I’m wounded so I can test-use the unID’d potion (!Int, woo) Another staff of teleport, which I don’t want because of burden. Another brahmsian ring that winds up being =Con (+1), which I leave. A bathetically banjaxing wand of frost bolts (leave) and a scroll that I ID as curse weapon. There’s a stairs in this room, so I take them down.

CL27 DL35
I land in a room with a ton of fire hounds, so I read ?teleport rather than risk the 1% fail of the spell. This lands me in a much safer corridor.

RMon shows a mature blue to the south and a young black and young red further off. –dobj shows a new wand and not much else. The blue dragon’s drop is weak, but a blue ooze drops a new staff (Rayleigh) which I ID as mapping. I use it once and leave it on the ground.

I hear a door burst open but the only thing awake is a nexus vortex far to my south. Nexus is weaker in my adapted version because stat swap is changed to +1/-1, instead of a full swap of stats. Still though, teleport away is an extremely powerful enemy attack that gives a chance at death, so I’ll want to avoid it. The vortex looks cut off from me though, so I’m not concerned right now, I'll just have to cast dvis a little more often.

The young black drops nothing of use and neither does the Angel it shared the room with, but there is a randart Halberd here. IDing it shows it is pretty weak. It does have regen though, so I’ll use it when resting for now, and then drop it off at home. The young red drops a helm that has +1 Int, but my current hat is better so I leave it there.

Digging through rubble discovers a Faurean ring of Dex, which I squelch. I get to the new wand and test it, it’s a gastronomically galavanting wand of lightning bolts, and it also gets squelched. I kill some more monsters getting nothing for my troubles. I can’t recall yet, because the town hasn’t restocked, so downstairs I go.

CL27 DL36
I wake up in one section of a 2x2 room. There’s a mage and two algroths in sight. Rmon shows a load of trolls and the queen ant. –dobj shows a new rod, a new scroll, and nothing else. I kill the algroths to pick up the Xerxes’s rod. It’s –light (finally)

Rods of light get autoinscribed @z1, showing the importance I place on them. However, I usually pick them up much earlier in the game. With my 190 SP, casting spear of light isn’t too much of a problem. Nevertheless, I'll hold onto the rod for now.

The forest trolls in the chamber below drop a !enlight which I immediately quaff. There are two unid’d amulets in another 2x2 room to the north. This is worth checking out. I leave the ants and the water trolls in the other chambers resting and go off in search of the amulets. I bump into angamite on the way. Acid bolts kill him but I have to use 1 !CCW when he confuses me. He drops a quarterstaff of westernesse (also +1). It’s lighter than my axe, but amazingly still too heavy to wield. It’ll be my weapon for now.

The other 2x2 room has a mature gold and an emperor wight. I need to be careful about the wight as it has two attacks that can almost, but not quite, kill me. The cause wounds spell, and the nether bolt. The mature gold is in the room with the amulets, so I haste self and attack it with acid bolts. It gives me CLevel 28, and I immediately heal myself to full, need to stay at full health unless the wight comes knocking.

Something opens up a door below in the chamber with the wight. It’s an illusionist though. The wight is still slumbering. I check out the amulets while waiting for the illusionist. The Matisse amulet is Inertia (squelch) The Lichtenstein amulet is searching (squelch). Drat, I was still hoping for “regen.

It turns out that what I thought was an illusionist was actually a demonologist. Acid bolts kill him before he can summon and he drops a new potion (ignominious). I ID it as Healing.

I leave and the Emperor Wight comes at me. I drop it to 2 stars before it decide to nether bolt me leaving me at 29 HP. I'm in the west side of the moat and I calculate that a phase has a negligible chance of landing me in LOS so I read ?phase and it drops me back into the chamber that I started in. I quaff !CCW and wait for its return. It’s not coming because it failed its path-finding algorithm.

I have to go to it, but a druid joins me in the moat. It gets killed with 2 acid bolts but not before its fire bolt kills a copy of my MB2. Finally I lure the Emperor Wight back into my temporary home and kill it. It drops a new Perpendicular potion for my struggle which I happily ID. (Rcon, ugh). It’s time to leave this level. I recall.

CL28 Town
I sell the axe of Westernesse and drop the Halberd off at home. I buy a !Int from the BM. I also by a Rousseauan ring of light which I squelch. There are no MB2s available in the magic shop. But I’m able to fully stock my depleted supply of !CCW. Not much else to do here, time to recall after making another dump.

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=10402

[fizzix]

shorter update, just one level. But it was momentous.

CL28 DL36
I land in a dark room on a superb feeling level. Rmon shows some uruks, a red dragon bat and a baby green in the room with me. A demonologist is north of me and not too far away. I frost ball the red dragon bat killing it, then take care of the rest of the monsters. The demonologist summons a tengu and teleports away before I can kill it. –dobj shows a greater vault (I later determine it to be a jigsaw) with at least two unknown potions, visible from my current perspective. I will either crack this one or die trying. Actually, I notice that one of the potions is outside the vault, so I’ll go grab that. The Ethmoidal potion is !Con, bring my HP up to a stunning 142. A grey wraith drops a new Whistler amulet but it’s teleportation (squelch).

The jigsaw vault is a greater vault. There's a moat going around the outside. The two entrances are at the center of the north and south walls. Inside there are 6 separate sections divided by granite walls.

I approach the vault and there are lots of things that can kill me including 3 nexus vortices and 4 ancient dragons (and more). The vortices are troubling because they could teleport me away from the vault where all the stuff I've TO'd can get me. I break into the southern entrance of the vault, because that looks to be the least dangerous. Some army ants come out and then a nether wraith (TO) and then a dread. The dread may have picked up some stuff, so it's worthwhile to kill if possible. I attempt to kill the dread with acid bolts but it moves out into the wall allowing a storm giant to exit.

Since the giant can't summon me into the vault, I'm not afraid of teleport-to. I kill the ants and then start on the giant, but I have to phase away a couple times. (again no fear of landing in the vault) I manage to kill the dread during this battle as well.

Eventually I land in a room south of the vault with a bunch of fire ants. The giant is blocked from proceeding, so I go to kill the young white dragon and some of the ants in the room, (rest a little) and then take care of the giant. It drops a potion of !Chr and so does the young white. A Will O' The Wisp comes at me and it annoys the hell out of me for the rest of the level. I can't hit it with anything but magic missiles and it teleports away at inopportune times. Also, it hits to hallucinate and confuse, and both of those are very dangerous when I need to be careful with what's around me.

I also get three new rods (Ptolemy’s, Hatsheput’s and Lenin’s) and they are disarming, acid bolts and lightning bolts. I don’t care for any of them so I discard them. Also, I believe during this battle, I lost my -light to a lightning bolt from the storm giant. But I'm not sure. I'll discover I'm missing it later.

Detecting monsters shows that somehow that nether wraith got back into the vault. There’s also an ancient gold roaming around outside, which I might be able to take on with some care, since I have rsound. The second dread to come out of the vault gives me CL29. I rest and go back to the vault, TOing that nether wraith.

After clearing the first section I haste myself and kill the ancient gold. I could survive a breath but it decides not to breathe. It’s drop is a lantern and some gold.

There’s still an awake nether wraith somewhere outside on the level that can easily kill me, so I need to try and avoid getting teleported out of the vault. I check very carefully for pass-wall monsters and there aren’t any besides a glutton ghost. I’m kind of hoping the ghost picked up some stuff in its path to my section (it didn’t).

The loot of the first section was a teleologically tessellating wand of acid bolts (dropped) a 'gwizzy conn' scroll of *destruction* (i liked the name gwizzy conn). An anemically analyzing wand of lightning balls (dropped). A gregariously Greenmailing wand of stone to mud, that thankfully did not poke a wall through to the next section when I stupidly test-used it.

I set myself up to TO everything that comes out of the next section (southwest), and stone to mud it. This section looks a lot less dangerous than any of the other adjacent ones. The first thing out is an Ancient Blue TO’d. Some wolves and trolls are bolted to death. I kill wormtongue who picked up a bunch of stuff and TO lorgan. Ulfast and a nexus vortex are the last guys out and they’re TOd.

I quaff an Unhinged potion that wormtongue brought out (Wis). I’m down to about 40 SP, so I need to rest before fighting some more. In the second section is a Mendelssohnian Ring of the Dog (squelched). And a randart elven cloak. The cloak is not as good as my current one, but I’ll hold onto it for now.

The next section (northwest) has the phial and MB6. I rest to full and then examine what’s in it. An ancient black and rogrog will be the first two out, and after that there isn’t much. Rogrog has picked up almost everything in the room that wasn’t nailed down, but I can’t kill him, so he gets TO’d along with the ancient black. I try and kill a lot of the trolls, but wind up having to TO some because they're coming out too fast.

At one point I have to quaff !rmana. When speed runs out I quaff !speed instead of trying to recast. I do manage to clear out the section and get the phial and MB6. I also get an artifact shield (Threst) that replaces my wicker shield. It gives me +1 dex, RDis, and can activate for Relec. I also pick up an artifact flail that gives +3 Str, dex and wis and activates for haste, but I can’t use that yet, because I need SInv.

The next section (North, center) has MB5. A fire elemental has destroyed a lot of the items in it. There's also a quylthulg, and an ancient green. The sections after that are considerably more dangerous and I think this will be my last one. I pick up MB5 and yet another artifact cloak (useful only to sell). There are two more sections but I don’t feel like attempting them. One has a master quylthulg in it that will get a summon before I'd be able to get LoS. That's a very high chance of death. There's also a nightwing and some other ancient dragons.

Now if I was lame I’d just destruct the vault and take the artifacts, but I refuse to do that. 2/3 the vault is enough for today, I recall.

CL29 Town
At home I drop off the flail, the better cloak, and sell the weaker one. I buy a scroll of banishment from the BM and stash it at home. I also clean out my inventory a bit. With MB5 I can take out Ancient dragons, so it looks like it’s time to go a bit deeper into the dungeon (not that I've been pulling punches on diving). There’s not that much gear change after the vault level, but there is some (namely the new shield). The big difference (and it is big) is the two dungeon books. Still no regen sadly.

[Pete Mack]

Since the giant can't summon me into the vault, I'm not afraid of teleport-to.

You are just lucky -- teleport-to near a GV is extremely dangerous. I have lost at least 1 character to this.

Something like:
< a Blink dog appears out of nowhere >
The Blink dog commands you to return--more--
Smaug breathes fire--more--
You die.

[fizzix]

I assumed that teleport to didn't work into icky spots. I guess that was a bad assumption.

Regardless, I'm not entirely sure, but it's possible that I didn't even have a single turn where the storm giant had LoS to me in the moat of the vault, and no subsequent phases could bring me into the moat. There certainly were no turns where he had LoS to me in the vault.

How does teleport-to work? Does it automatically default to an adjacent square if there is an adjacent square and then work outwards if no unoccupied adjacent squares exist. If that's the case, then there's only one turn where the giant could have summoned me into the entrance. This would be the turn after he left the vault. This is provided the entrance wasn't occupied by an ant or something.

There were certainly two unoccupied squares next to the giant in the moat that would have provided no danger, and that I would easily be able to phase away from.

[fizzix]

CL29 DL36
I land in a dark room. RMon shows a mature red, and a vampire bat in the room with me. There’s a pukelman farther south that I’ll want to avoid. Not that I can't handle it, but it's annoying. I cast rfire for the first time and try out explosion on the bat (dam 78). Next I try out acid ball (dam 69) and then finish the mature red off with acid bolts.

Dstairs show none nearby and –dobj shows nothing interesting, so I head away from the pukelman. I run into a mature green on the way, cast rpois, and kill it with acid bolts. Like the mature red before it, it only drops money. The path from the first room leads to a dead end. I stand in the corner and attempt to phase twice, but that gets me nowhere, so I retreat.

I kill a grey wraith, who also drops money. I don’t even bother traversing the room to pick it up. I continue down the east side of the map, but –dobj and dstairs continually reveal nothing. Finally on the bottom of the map I see some stairs. –dobj shows a new ring and I decide to detour to get it. It is the same flavor as one in the vault from the last level (whitmanesque).

A young gold drops dwarven mail. It’s only +1 and I don’t see myself wearing it anytime soon, so I leave it. A young green and a frost giant meet their end in the room with the ring, and it gets ID’d as sustain charisma (definite squelch). I kill a fire giant on my way back to the stairs and rest before descending.

CL29 DL37
I land in the moat north of a jelly pit. Dstairs shows the door on the opposite side. I try zapping my rod of light and this is the point I realize that I lost it, oh well. There’s a black pudding that’s coming out and I want to kill it, It’s immune to the elements so I have to use explosions.

An ethereal drake near the moat drops a !Wis but before I can get it a acidic cytoplasma comes out and I have to retreat. I explosion it and its friend having to phase away into another room. I finally retrieve my !Wis, and after –dobj shows nothing else that I want, I head towards the nearby stairs.

I have to take a long route to the stairs because I don’t want to phase across near the pit and wind up in a room of death molds. I run into some bats of gorgoroth who are sleeping. I quickly cast rpois. Sadly they drop nothing. I have to acid bolt a plasma vortex, and I’m still not quite heading in the direction of the stairs. Finally, I find the right path, I rest and descend.

CL29 DL38
Land in a corridor. RMon show a mature black and group of algroths and a group of water trolls. The water trolls might be tough, but otherwise there’s nothing to fear. –dobj shows naught but a ?teleport which I guess I’ll grab.

The algroths are first, they drop nothing. I grab the scroll bringing my total to 3 and head back down to face the mature dragon. I cast resistance and kill the mature black with firebolts. I get Clevel 30 and the ability to learn meteor swarm. Rmon shows another larger group of algroths and Lokkak and escort.

They seem like easier targets than the water trolls, so I head to them. Ice storms and acid bolts make short work of the algroths, but I need to rest before trying the same trick on lokkak and his 50 ogres. Unfortunately Lokkak wakes up and comes out before I’m rested.

I lure him away from the scroll that one of his cohorts dropped, haste myself, and empty my wand of acid balls on him. Alas the wand is destroyed on recharge and I’m forced to use spells of acid bolts. I’m at 68 SP after his death. I eventually manage to rest to full, having to kill intermittent ogres as they wake up.

I kill the rest of the escorts with cloudkill because I don’t want to destroy any drops. Loot is a new scroll (trap/door destruction, squelch) A new, dirac staff (confuse monsters, squelch) and a bunch of equipment I don’t want. There are no stairs nearby, but I see a trap door, so I rest and jump down.

CL30 DL39
Thud, I land in a dark room. Rmon shows several things surrounding me that I want to kill. Mature red, mature gold, smeagol, basilisk. They’re pretty much in all directions. A shambling mound comes first because a) it’s the closest and b) I don’t want it waking the others.

My path leads southwards so the mature red comes next. RMon shows a 5-headed hydra to the north, I’ll avoid that. Next comes smeagol who drops only gold. There’s another 5-headed hydra near the mature gold. I check my monster memory and decide that it’s not too much of a threat, provided I cast resistance beforehand. –dobj shows a !Int on the way to the mature gold, so I make a beeline for that. My Int is now 197, my SP did not improve with that potion.

I’m getting close to the point where I’d gladly swap my =Int for a =Con. Another –dobj shows a !Con to the northwest of the room with the mature gold and the Int potion. RMon shows the hydra on the way and nothing else. I haste, resist and it only takes 6 acid bolts to eliminate the hydra. For some reason I thought it was tougher. The !Con bumps my HP to a stately 156, and I rest and go down the down stairs in this room.

CL30 DL40
RMon shows 7 nexus hounds to the north and 16 ologs to the southwest. I don’t really want to fight either, but I should take stock of my surroundings in case fighting the hounds is unavoidable. I’d rather fight the hounds and risk them teleporting me than teleport myself (wouldn't even think about it if stat swap wasn't changed).

I’m in an empty room with doors on all four sides. –dobj shows another !Con to the southeast. DVis shows the hounds heading my way. I haste and seek out the potion. I get to it well before the hounds find me. RMon show the hounds entering the room I started in. My path leads out to the northwest away from any danger (a basilisk is here, but nothing else) so I head that way. The basilisk is around a corner, so I station myself at the previous corner. I light the hallway in both directions so I can see if the hounds have found me, haste, rpois, and wake up the basilisk with a SC. The basilisk breathes gas twice in a row which wouldn’t even have killed me without the rpois, but as it stands, it only took off 40 HP. I get a !CCW for my trouble, which I quaff, because, why not.

I continue heading east and RMon shows the hounds are not on my trail anymore. Still no stairs in sight. A shadow surprises me and nether bolts me dropping 100 HP. I’m in a corridor so I phase. I quaff 2 !CCW and when it appears in the wall, I phase again. Another !CCW and I’m back to full. I retreat into a room, and it decides to come at me through the corridor. 2 Firebolts later, it’s dead. I should not have let it surprise me like that!

At this point I’ve explored the entire east side of the map, and I’m at the top. North and east of where I started and heading back west along the top of the map. The nexus hounds will be coming back into my detection radius momentarily. And sure enough, soon I see them, but I also see some stairs. I’m pretty sure I can make the stairs before they find me, but I detect often to ensure I’m right. I get to the stairs, decide against killing the cave troll pack because I don’t want to mess with the hounds if I can avoid it and down I go.

CL30 DL41
I land in a treasure room, with blink dogs, wargs, werewolves and a wolf chieftan nearby. An ancient blue is to the south and I want to kill it. I have to StM my way out, picking up a ?banishment dropped by a bandit. I kill the chieftan and a bunch of the dogs, but the Ancient dragon wakes up. I activate my shield for relec. It moves towards me, and I phase away further down the corridor and haste myself. I start acid bolting it and it doesn’t even get an attack off. (drop is only gold)

I finally clear out the treasure room, and rmon shows a couple mature dragons to the south as well as an unknown (dvorakian) ring. Before I can get to the ring I spy orfax and escort. I kill them. Orfax drops a magical shield and his escorts drop nothing. I ID the ring as reckless attacks (squelch) and head towards the second dragon. It drops a !speed.

I explore quite a ways into the level but find nothing. I feel like I’ve been on this level for too long. but I’ve only found 2 up stairs, no down ones. I'm still looking for the stairs I see an orc pit. Definitely want to kill it. A dark elven lord fire bolts my ?*destruct*. Drat, that was my escape.

I STM one of the walls and fire a bunch of cloudkills in it. When my sp drop to 100 I retreat to a corridor and start MMing the orcs as they round the corner. One drops a =Con but it’s only +1 so not worth it. I pick up a +2 spear of westernesse, which will now replace my previous weapon. The only other items of note were 2 new wands, a bucolically bumfuzzling wand of fire bolts (squelch) and a quixotically quitclaiming wand of cold balls (keep) I still can’t find the stairs and decide that I should recall, having apparently lost one scroll at one point, leaving me with only 2.

CL30 Town
I sell my +1 westernesse quarterstaff, and drop ?banish at home. I pick up a Pauli staff of *destruction* and a scroll of destruction to replace the one I lost from the BM. I buy some more ?recall and an MB2 to replace my burnt one from a while back. I also buy out the temple of !CCW and drop most of them off at home, keeping 10 with me. That’s all for the town, time to return!

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=10402

[fizzix]

CL30 DL41
I land in the middle of empty dark room. Rmon shows an ice elemental in the room with me, Boldor and escort to the northwest, queen ant and escort to the south and a bunch of araneas to the east. There's a downstairs near boldor and another one closer to me. –dobj shows nothing I want. The room exits are only to the east and south, directions I didn’t want to go, I try standing in the northwest corner and phasing a couple times, but no luck.

I decide to take the westernmost southern door, and am delighted that the path brings me in the direction I want to go (around the room to the north and west, towards Boldor). Another Rmon shows an Ancient red north of boldor, and Uvatha and some other monsters in a 2x2 room. The ancient red I’d like to kill. Uvatha, I'll half-heartedly avoid for now.

I phase into the room with Boldor and kill him with frost balls. He drops MB5, which I no longer need. Another yeek drops a Zolaesque ring (slaying, squelched). I also ID and squelch the curse armor scroll that I find.

DVis shows Uvatha has awakened. Uvatha has no ranged attacks, and while the 1800 HP is high, I have enough firepower to overcome him. Uvatha dies to a flurry of acid bolts dropping PB6 and giving me CL31. After the battle I rest to full. I phase into the room with the dragon and kill it and a lich, getting me another wand of cold balls, but costing me 2 !CCW to clear conf and blindness.

Uvatha started out in a treasure room, and there are down stairs there, so I head back, rest, deal with a room full of lice, and descend.

CL31 DL42
It's always lucky when you start in a corridor, like on this level. It's less lucky when RMon tells you that you're in the moat of a 2x2 room. However, this time there are a lot of monsters that I want to kill here, and not much danger. The only item around is armor.

One thing I don’t want to mess with are the fire ants, but one comes out and burns an MB1 with the one hit it gets on me. After killing the denizens of the 2x2 rooms (to no gain) and checking out the useless armor, I head south.

There’s an OoD Marilith here. I kind of want to fight it, but will have to bail if it summons other demons. After resting, I manage to kill it before it can summon, and pick up a ball and chain of *slay evil* which I don’t care to carry with me. I’m in the far southeast corner of the map. To the north is the 2x2 room I started in, and beyond that a jelly pit. But I take another path to the east instead.

There’s a patriarch to worry about, but nothing else besides him. My path leads me to the patriarch, and he drops a !speed and a splendid weapon that I don’t care about. I detect a stairs nearby, but also an Ancient Blue which I want to kill. Phasing across a gap to the ancient blue proves exceedingly difficult despite that I know it’s possible because I see some copper lying not too far away. After about 10 attempts I give up and go back to the stairs and descend.

CL31 DL43
I land in a room with a mature multi-hued and a disenchanter bat. I kill the bat and then Rmon and see an ancient multi-hued to the north. That is dangerous and I want nothing to do with it. Dstairs shows downstairs right by the dragon, but I would prefer to head a different direction if possible.

I cast resistance and haste and kill the mature multi-hued with explosions. He drops 6 !CCW and a new scroll (dispel undead) I don’t bother with it. The staves are ok, but the scrolls are useless unless you get stacks of them, which, of course, is impossible. I check to make sure the AMHD is still asleep (it is) and then choose the east exit over the west for no particular reason (-dobj showed nothing I want).

I explosion-kill an acidic cytoplasm, although it gets a hit on me damaging nothing. Rmon shows that a pack of gravity hounds are not to far from me. Uh-oh. I’d destruct them but I can’t get the whole pack, and would rather not give a path for 5 or 6 of them to get to me. I’m hemmed in between the hounds and the AMHD at this point. TOing the AMHD to get to the stairs seems better than recalling so I haste, resist, and head in its general direction. I successfully get to it before it awakens, TO it, rest, and still hasted, take the stairs down.

CL31 DL44
I land in a dark room that I share with a blue jelly. Rmon shows a pack of energy hounds nearby and a troll pit to the northeast. I want to take out the troll pit, but I have to go through the energy hounds first. I activate my shield and kill them as they enter the room I started in.

The trolls meet me halfway to the pit and I note a new Incorrigible potion nearby. I have to rest halfway through the pit. I also use my wand of cold balls agains the eldrak who was the pit leader. it drops a !Chr which I drink. I make my way to the incorrigible potion (*healing*) which I will drop off at home. Another eldrak, from outside the pit appears along with a patriarch as I'm mopping up the pit remainders, and I empty my frost ball wand on them. One of the trolls drops Bolivar’s rod and I zap the next troll to exit the pit with it. (fire bolts, squelch). A new scroll that the trolls drop IDs as TL, and I happily snatch that. It get’s autoinscribed with !*. I kill the last of the troll pit, saddened by the 0 stat-gain but happy about the ?TL and decide to recall to drop off the *healing* and rest for SP.

CL31 town
The BM has some new items. I buy a =SI for flavor (Thoreauan), a staff of dispel evil for pit clearing (Lorentz), and a –dragon’s frost for damaging (Pharasaically Phagocytizing). I also drop off the ?*destruction* at home, now that I have the ?TL and the staff for escapes. Lastly I buy a backup MB1, and recall, returning to the dungeon at 245/249 SP.

no more posts this weekend. Hope you guys are enjoying the story so far.

[fizzix]

CL31 DL44
I land in a corridor. Rmon shows a death knight, a young white, and a pack of cave trolls. The death knight is dangerous but I can probably kill it. –dobj shows some hard leather armor by the young white. I get the armor, and kill the young white. The death knight doesn’t hit me once and dies to explosions (highest damage per turn at this point, factoring in failures). I kill the cave trolls and rest to full. To the north I detect bill and escort, a little ways past a stairs, so I head up to meet him. I kill bill (hehe) with acid bolts and his escort with an assortment of spells, rest, and take the down stairs.

CL31 DL45
I land in an empty room with a young green. RMon show an ancient white, a death knight and some black ogres. I take out the death knight first because it’s the most dangerous. It curses me dropping me to 85 HP, a !CCW will heal me enough that its most dangerous attack (nether bolt) won’t kill me, so I do that. 2 more explosions after that and it’s dead, and I have CL32.

Still hasted I rcold and go after the Ancient White. It breathes once killing one of !speed and one !CCW. Low on SP I take out the Ogres with my cold ball wands, being sure not to kill any potions they may drop. RMon again shows an Ancient black and a troll pit that I’d like to kill, but first I rest.

The ancient black dies without breathing once. From the pit I get a !Con (bringing me oh so close to 200 HP) A new griegish ring of rpois, (not worth it when I can’t even survive a full resisted breath). A landau staff (_speed). A Rontgen Staff (rem curse, squelched). And an elven cloak of protection. I grab a !speed nearby and zip back to town, and realize that I had forgotten I had the staff of dispel evil when taking out the troll pit. Oops!

CL32 town
Drop off the cloak of protectoin, the ring of rpois and the staff of speed. I clean some stuff out of my home also. Buy a knottily knolling wand of fire balls from the BM for knowledge. I'll use that instead of my empty wands of cold balls. I return, full on SP right before recall.

CL32 DL45
I land in a dark room. Rmon shows absolutely nothing nearby. –dobj shows a new rod which I might as well get. dstairs finds none. The montezuma’s rod is polymorph. I see a MMHD, but can’t find a path to it. I wander around a bit and detect a bunch of Vrocks, I'll try to kill them when I find a way to them.

I find a randart battle axe, but it’s much worse than my westernesse spear as far as I’m concerned (+2 Wis, Con, rfear, rlight) Half-orcs drop a !Wis and a new scroll that IDs as deep descent. A shade drops De Gaulle’s rod (frost bolts, squelch) I kill an Ancient black and go to take on the Vrocks.

They fill a chamber of a 2x2 room and there’s nothing else of danger nearby. I lure them out one by one and mow them down with acid bolts. The vrocks drop 2 !speed and I use one of them. After the battle is over, I rest and take a nearby downstairs, noticing that I’m now CL33 and have over 200 HP (203 to be exact)

CL33 DL45
I land in a dark room at the top of the map. Rmon shows a Vampire Lord, that I want to avoid (probably could have killed it in retrospect), and nothing else of concern. I kill a plasma vortex and a mature green and while I’m sorting through the treasure I get surprised by an ice bolt. I'm one square away from safety so I hide under an alcove and RMon, determining that it’s just an Ice Elemental. Its life is soon ended, and down the stairs I go again.

CL33 DL46
I land in the southeast corner. Rmon shows just a banshee and a centipede. no stairs or objects to get. Going on the bottom of the map, I slaughter some cold hounds. Haste, rfire, and dispatch a Nalfeshnee, -TO a dreadmaster, and get to some stairs.

Before descending I –dobj a !Con, so it looks like I’m detouring to get that. The !Con brings me up to 214 HP. I retreat to the stairs and rest. There’s an ancient blue on the other side of the stairs, so I decide to kill it too. It drops a !Wis. I empty my –dragon’s frost into some cave orcs, and take the nearby down stairs.

CL33 DL47
I land in a corridor. Rmon shows I’m in the moat of a zoo, and I’m close to the door. There’s also a vault below, but it has time hounds in it along with smaug and akhorahil. I destruct, killing the whole zoo. There are no potions in the vault, in fact there’s likely nothing I want in it at all. I find a Gustavus’s rod of TO. A winged horror comes at me, I don't have enough HP to survive a poison breath, so I read ?DD rather than risk a failure casting rpois.

CL33 DL50
I land once again in a corridor. There's a jelly pit nearby, and no monsters of concern. Moving northwards I spy a monster vampire and a !Con. Getting to either turns out to be a pain and eventually I just decide to phase landing adjacent to the vampire. Luckily it’s still asleep. I retreat a few steps, note that I’m still hasted, and acid bolt it down. It drops yet another !Wis. And the !Con bumps me all the way up to 247 HP. Before descending I spy a ?banish and a pack of novice rogues, so I go to meet them. I pick up the ?banish, kill the rogues and descend again.

CL33 DL51
I detect Smaug and not much else, want to take him out, although it might be tricky. I manage to phase into the room with the sleeping smaug, hasted and fire resistant. I empty the dragon’s frost wand and successfully recharge 3 times, and he dies without breathing once.

He drops two useless weapons, oh well. Rmon later in the dungeon shows Rogrog with escort, and a vampire lord mixed in. A winged horror is in my path, and with 247 HP I can survive a resisted poison breath or a nether breath, so I haste, rpois and kill it with some fire ball charges and acid bolts. A vampire drops a +2 crown of might. Wearing it gives me 20 more HP but raises fail rate, and costs me 30 SP and rsound. So not yet. I can’t find the stairs on this level, and I’m low on SP, so I recall.

CL33 town
I drop of the ?banish and the crown of might at home. There’s nothing I want in any of the stores, so I make a character dump and recall.

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=10402

[Atarlost]

You left rPois behind because you can't survive a full resisted poison breath, but you later mention not wanting to rely on the rPois spell because of fail rate. Can you survive a full double resisted poison breath?

[fizzix]

You left rPois behind because you can't survive a full resisted poison breath, but you later mention not wanting to rely on the rPois spell because of fail rate. Can you survive a full double resisted poison breath?

You can't double resist poison.

If I detect in advance I can cast rpois and engage, the problem with the winged horror is that it was already in LoS when I noticed it. This was lax on my part.

I don't have telepathy so it's not like I'm going to let a drolem sneak up on me anyways. I'm detecting like mad because I'm so fragile. I just have to be careful with spawned monsters and remember to detect after any resting or any length battle.

I considered the probability of dying to a poison breath and the probability of dying to a double move. I decided that keeping the +4 speed with the =escaping and the 50 or so SP with the =Int ring was more important than rpois, provided I'm careful. Perhaps that will be my undoing, we will see.

[Pete Mack]

Yes, you can have temp + permanent poison resistance for 1/9 damage, just like ordinary elements.

[fizzix]

are you sure about this:

from constants.h

#define BR_COLD_MAX				1600
#define BR_COLD_DIVISOR				3
#define RES_COLD_ADJ(dam, dam_aspect)		(((dam) + 2) / 3)
#define DBLRES_COLD_ADJ(dam, dam_aspect)	(((dam) + 8) / 9)
#define VULN_COLD_ADJ(dam, dam_aspect)		(((dam) * 4) / 3)

#define BR_POIS_MAX				800
#define BR_POIS_DIVISOR				3
#define RES_POIS_ADJ(dam, dam_aspect)		(((dam) + 2) / 3)
/* #define DBLRES_POIS_ADJ(dam, dam_aspect)     (((dam) + 8) / 9) */

you'll notice that DBLRES_POIS_ADJ is commented out. It also does not appear anywhere else in the code.

This is different than for the four elements.

[Timo Pietilä]

are you sure about this:

from constants.h

you'll notice that DBLRES_POIS_ADJ is commented out. It also does not appear anywhere else in the code.

This is different than for the four elements.

In current version (3.1.2v2) you definitely can double-resist poison. Apparently it doesn't actually use that constants.h line to determine double resists.

Current vanilla code is much harder to read than it used to be. I have no idea where you get that additional /3 divisor, but you do get it.