buck-naked, no-artifacts, ironman

[bron]

I've been trying on-and-off to duplicate the feat from http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=2628 (i.e. a no-artifacts ironman game, starting with no inventory or equipment), but without the black ooze farming. I have finally succeeded: http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=10439

Unfortunately, I can't say as how I can really recommend this particular goal to anyone. I became a bit obsessed with it personally, but it is basically really, really long, and pretty much requires focused, careful play the whole time since even weak monsters with a fire and/or cold attack can potentially destroy some of your inventory and pretty much ruin your game. This was enough of a problem that for the last million turns or so, whenever I dropped to a new level I adopted the strategy of moving to a corner room, and leaving behind all the rare and valuable things I couldn't afford to have destroyed (e.g. my *Healing* potions, Mass Banishment scrolls, extra spell books, etc.). This in turn meant that I lived in constant fear of missing the fact that some weak low-level opponent cackled evilly, and that I would drop through a trap door and lose all of it. That didn't happen, but it was very nerve wracking.

I also had fairly spotty luck finding needed items. While the Fire Ball rod at dlvl 11 was certainly very handy and got me out of several tight spots, I went over 3 million (!) turns before I found a pair of boots of speed. And 3.3M before I found a good pair. And I never did find gloves of Combat, which I really coulda used, nor a really good melee weapon, even after nearly 4M turns of looking. On the other hand, I *did* have pretty good luck finding ego missiles for my sling/bow/crossbow. After the failure of http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=3052 where I went all the way down only to lose to Morgoth, I resolved to be fully prepared this time. I went into the final battle with:

. Sling of Buckland (x4) (+16,+10) (+2)
. Long Bow of Lothlorien (x5) (+10,+21) (+2)
. Heavy Crossbow of Extra Shots (x4) (+16,+16)

and carrying:

. 23 Seeker Arrows of Holy Might (4d4) (+24,+19)
. 22 Mithril Arrows of Holy Might (3d4) (+24,+21)
. 10 Mithril Shots of Holy Might (2d4) (+13,+21)
. 12 Arrows of Slay Evil (1d4) (+15,+15)
. 17 Seeker Arrows of Slay Evil (4d4) (+17,+9)
. 19 Rounded Pebbles of Slay Evil (1d2) (+15,+15)
. 21 Bolts of Slay Evil (1d5) (+12,+16)

along with 8 potions of *Healing*/Life and assorted other good stuff.
While fighting Morgoth I wielded a Westernesse weapon to get the extra HP, but never used it to take a swing at him, instead relying solely on the missiles. While no fight with Morgoth can ever be described as easy, this one went pretty quick.

[Djabanete]

Wow, nicely done! I like your "Die Hard" approach to the final fight --- bring a lot of guns and move on to the next biggest one when you run out of ammo. Congratulations on the win!

Next, you must do the same thing as a bookless mage.

[Nick]

Or egoless, like Timo had a go at a while ago.

[bron]

Or egoless, like Timo had a go at a while ago.

Egoless? Wow. Musta missed that one; is there a thread about it? I can't imagine how one could survive with no artifacts and no egos (unless you found some power-dragon scale mail or something).

[Nick]

This is the original thread on rgra. I'm sure Timo would be happy to give us an update

[bron]

Humm .. I looked at this briefly, but I just don't think it's possible as the game currently stands unless you are unbelievably lucky. Maybe if you could wear 8 rings (one per finger) instead of just 2 (one per hand).

[Timo Pietilä]

Humm .. I looked at this briefly, but I just don't think it's possible as the game currently stands unless you are unbelievably lucky. Maybe if you could wear 8 rings (one per finger) instead of just 2 (one per hand).

It's possible, just very very hard (and unfortunately boring). You need to use swaps a lot and avoid many usually pushover creatures because lack to side-effect resists.

Something like melee with MoD with branding ring, HXbow, MHDSM (and other DSM:s) amulets: Trickery, ESP, WIS (dwarf priest needs only this to reach 0% failure), resistance if not MHDSM, Magi, Rings of CON and speed, plenty of supplies including source to haste self. Armors should be mithril-based for ignore acid if possible, perhaps elvenkind cloak for stealth all slots covered to halve acid-damage. Ring of Lightning could provide good branding and you can use spells to cover fire and cold, which covers basic four.

Priest can do most of his killings using various attack spells, protections and healings and has best detection capabilities including see_inv as spell. That allows adventuring with way less equipment than most other classes need. Resist blindness from Dwarf is a bonus to add survival chances.

Problem-area is the mid-game where you don't have access to most of the items you really need, but many monsters can already do a lot of damage using your resistance holes. I found out that you miss resist poison way more than you miss basic four.

[bron]

I'll think about this some more. While I agree that all the individual threats can probably be met, I don't see how to meet them all in concert. For example, to fight Morgoth you need to have base speed of 20+ (or get lucky) which means you need to wear 2 speed rings, which means you aren't wearing a Con ring, which makes melee hard. That sorta speaks in favor of being a mana-storming mage, but then See Invisible is hard to come by. If you can get your saving throw to %100, I think (?) its possible to dispense with Free Action since you get a saving throw against melee paralysis attack (someone correct me if I'm wrong there). You just don't get very many resists simultaneously since the only items that carry resistance would be rings, amulets, and dragon body armor (and I guess a Blade of Chaos). Hummm ... I'll think about it. At the very least I should experiment with how far I can get: getting to dlvl 40 or so is clearly possible.

[Timo Pietilä]

I'll think about this some more. While I agree that all the individual threats can probably be met, I don't see how to meet them all in concert. For example, to fight Morgoth you need to have base speed of 20+ (or get lucky) which means you need to wear 2 speed rings

+16 RoS & Trickery +4 is enough for that. You can risk by playing a bit lower than +20 base speed if you find good enough RoS. You need to use runes, restore mana and OoD a lot if playing priest. Luckily Morgoth doesn't do damage that needs resists. Barring unlikely double-manastorm something like +26 is probably enough to survive final fight with enough restore mana. I guess uniques Angels will be the hard opponents (no banish evil, no effective spells, no benefit from branding rings and those need to be killed before taking Morgoth).

...I wonder... mushrooms of terror do stack with haste, so you can get +15 speed bonus in final fight. I don't remember did they cause you to lose spellcasting ability or just terror. testing.... no, spellcasting is not affected.

[Derakon]

Angels can be dealt with by teleporting Morgoth away and destructing the area. It takes two turns, but it should still be safe.

I definitely think that either High-Elf mage or Dwarf priest is the way to go here. Mages get resistance spells, more effective damage spells, haste self, banishment (for dealing with all the many monsters you daren't face), and easier access to Word of Destruction; priests get infinite healing, Rune of Protection, Clairvoyance, and a spell to see invisible. And of course the dwarf gets blindness resistance, which is huge since there's no saving throw on most blinding attacks.

[bron]

mushrooms of terror do stack with haste

I did not know that; it certainly helps. To get 600+ hp for the final fight a priest (or mage) has to wear a Con ring, so you're pretty much stuck with just one +speed. I don't know about you, but I have never seen a +16 speed ring in all my years of playing (*once* I had one at +14). Trickery would help, but a priest probably has to wear a +Wis amulet instead in order to get zero-fail. A mage is kinda screwed on that score since the only +Int item is the ring.

[Timo Pietilä]

I did not know that; it certainly helps. To get 600+ hp for the final fight a priest (or mage) has to wear a Con ring, so you're pretty much stuck with just one +speed. I don't know about you, but I have never seen a +16 speed ring in all my years of playing (*once* I had one at +14). Trickery would help, but a priest probably has to wear a +Wis amulet instead in order to get zero-fail. A mage is kinda screwed on that score since the only +Int item is the ring.

I think best RoS I have seen was something like +25, but that was before recent changes in item generation. I think it is possible to find ring that is over +20 even now, but it may take a while to find one. A long while. I tested that by jumping with debug-char to dlvl 127 and creating a RoS and then re-rolling it repeatedly. Got one +19 after about 1000 rolls (and two +16 and several +15).

OTOH you can go with 18/150 WIS, which allows using trickery. 18/150 WIS means 1% failure rate, so phase door & heal is very useful.

Just tested that I can take Great Wyrm of Many Colours using spells and staff of magi and amulet of resistance wielding RoCON +6. It's possible. Killed it using OoD and teleporting summoned nasties away. It did breath poison once, but I had over 800 HP so it didn't kill me. One Healing from Purifications and Healings put me back to max HP.

[bron]

I guess its worth experimenting with. I certainly agree with Derakon that dwarf priest or High Elf mage seem like the two possible candidates.