I pulled a Dumb one

[will_asher]

I was meaning that acid-rst is better for lower levels. You usually find something better by the time you find big breathers, especially hell hounds (at least I do, being a kindof slow diver). Besides shadow knight is, in his/her own words, a noob, so I was kinda assuming lower levels. Acid resist is also better if you have a different source of the basic 4 (or 3).

[Shadow Knight]

Ahhhh I died again what am I doing wrong... at least I got a lot farther then the others greatest yet! Dump-a-thon I figured out which the dagger was about 5-7 minutes before I died it was very good check it. =)

[roustk]

Ahhhh I died again what am I doing wrong... at least I got a lot farther then the others greatest yet! Dump-a-thon I figured out which the dagger was about 5-7 minutes before I died it was very good check it. =)

A few notes that might help:
1) Based on your last messages, you were fighting at least 3 Water Hounds. Hopefully, you were only standing in a doorway, and not in a room... Don't let yourself get surrounded, and as much as possible don't fight Hounds. (They usually won't follow you when you leave a room.) If Hounds, Spiders, or similar packs swarm you in the middle of a room, use Phase Door to get out of the middle and run for a hallway. Even better is a hallway with a door you can 'c'lose.

2) Your armor was trashed (total [25, -21]), probably by fighting too many Water Hounds. As a Warrior, you have excellent pseudo-id, so weapons and armor will be partially identified (as good, average, etc.) in a few thousand turns. If you are wearing damaged armor, you probably want to 'w'ield a replacement that pseudos as average or better (even without identifying it). Average is +0, good has positive +, pseudos better than good (like excellent) mean ego items or artifacts with powers in addition to the +.

(I take this to extremes -- sell off my initial armor before my first dive, avoid floating eyes, and come home with a full kit of {average} armor. I also track with inscriptions '{' how much damage my un-ID'd armor has, so I know when to replace it. I haven't bought anything from the armor shop in years, and the weapon shop is used only for my initial dagger/main gauche, initial bow, and replacement ammo.)

3) You were slow (-2) because you were carrying too much stuff. Worse, it wasn't loot. You don't need that much food (42) and satisfy hunger (30) -- this was some 50lbs of the 195lbs you were carrying. You probably don't need to carry more than 20 food *or* 10 satisfy hunger even for a long trip, but you should test this out. I've been playing too many Half-Trolls, who (with regeneration) need far more food than High-Elves (especially you, with slow digestion).

4) You had no arrows -- maybe this was late in a dive. An enchanted bow (with scrolls of Enchant To-Dam) with plain arrows does lots of damage, without exposing you to melee. Even a plain bow (like yours) helps in a pinch -- shoot fleeing enemies, wait outside a room and shoot Hounds that enter your line-of-sight, pick off worms/lice/mice before they multiply. You will soon encounter enemies who are very bad to melee, because they can "disenchant" your armor.

5) You don't have any offensive wands (or rods) on you, although as a High-Elf you should be able to use them well. A wand of magic missle or wand/rod of <something> bolts is great against uniques and other single monsters; a wand of stinking cloud will take care of a lice problem (but walking away is a better choice).

6) You torch is almost burned out. You should not let it get below about 1500 turns remaining, because at about that point it only lights the squares immediately next to you, rather than those two squares away. 'F'ill your torch with another torch to combine their turns. The difference will be more obvious if you have the 'show torch-lit squares' option on.

7) The 'thanc' daggers are nice early weapons, but you won't always find them. You should experiment 'w'ielding light weapons that pseudo-id as average or better, to check your 'C'haracter screen and see how many Blows you can get. Warriors always get as many blows with Main Gauches and Whips as they do with Daggers, and you have enough STR and DEX that you could probably could have gotten 3 blows with a 5lb weapon. If you keep your STR at 18/40 (through potions of restore strength or rings of strength) and your DEX at 18/10, you should get 4 blows with a Dagger, Main Gauche, or Whip.

These Blows are an important element of the Angband combat system, although they are a bit counter-intuitive. It is generally better to use a light weapon to get the most Blows rather than to use a heavier one. For example, you were carrying a (heavy) battle axe -- you would have gotten 1 Blow, for 2d8 (average 9 points) of damage per turn with it. Your dagger, even ignoring the enchantment, got 3 blows at 2d4 per turn -- an average of 3*5=15 points of damage. (The +6 is also multiplied by blows, so you had more like 33 points of damage per turn with your 'thanc.)

Kevin

[Pete Mack]

That dump is one of the reasons I say: acid resistance is overrated. There is almost no reason to fight water hounds, especially a roomfull of water hounds*. Just walk down a corridor and leave them behind. I carry Rods of Light to illuminate corridors so I can see whether the bastards are following (and need to be shot), or not, so I can just leave the area.

* The only exception to this is if they are guarding something valuable like an obvious artifact or stat potion.

[Garrie]

I will add to Roustk, work out macros so you can shoot your arrows like a machine gun instead of having to go
fx*(arrowkey, arrowkey etc)(enter)
I'm sure someone can point out the newbies guide to macros that works for V309...

[Big Al]

The in-game help documentation has a pretty thorough explanation of how to use macros and such.

A could handy ones are:
"f1*t" - inscribe your basic arrows with "@f1", and use this to fire at the closest enemy.
"m1a*t" - inscribe your first level spell book with "@m1" to similarly magic-missile the closest monster.

I normally macro a couple detection spells as well (eg. "m1g", "m1b").

[Seany C]

A quick'n'easy shortcut alternative to macros. (at least in the variants I play - probably in V too)? is to press 'n' to repeat the previous action.

You want to fire a bunch of arrows down a corridor? Then 'f 0 4', for example, and then 'n n n n n' will fire another five arrows in the same directions (or at the same target if you targeted a monster and it's still alive and visible)...

[Shadow Knight]

Thanks for the help Im gonna take a small break from Angband I will tell you all about my next Dive.