Tweet
After a great deal of experimentation, and over a dozen serious attempts, I give you Jill: eschewer of artefacts, mistress of polearms, queen of free hits. (http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=13995).
I often play vanilla with no-artifacts, so I thought I'd try it with Sil. I had expected that this would not make a huge difference, since with few exceptions (e.g. Idril), most Sil artefacts are good, but not overpowering. But (subjectively at least) the game felt much harder without them. I am also a fan of polearm mastery. That extra free hit is very satisfying, especially combined with controlled retreat, especially combined with sprinting to repeat the move a little further down the corridor. But while I find polearms to be fun, I think in the final analysis a good sword is a superior weapon.
My initial build was a Noldor with 3 strength. There are a couple of reasons for this: the raw damage of course; the hope that I might find Gauntlets of Treachery; and the fact that I had lost a couple of promising earlier characters by being trapped in webs. At the first forge I made a glaive, a longbow, and a mattock. The glaive because that was sort of the whole point, the mattock because it is always good to have a digger handy, and the longbow because there are some things I'd rather not fight hand-to-hand (e.g. dragonflies, green worms). I invested 4 points into archery fairly early on, but left it at that until almost the end of the game (when for some reason that I don't remember, I put in a couple more). That, plus the dexterity, plus using +3 arrows (and later, the ring of accuracy, and Rauko-bane) gave me enough archery skill that on the rare occasions I did shoot, I hit most of the time. And with 3 strength, the longbow has good damage output.
I invested heavily in evasion early on, and took Flanking and Controlled retreat, along with Zone of Control. This is a really deadly combination for orcs, and later for cat warriors. The A.I. has them try to move past to try and surround you, in preference to hitting you immediately, and with a little practice (and some room to maneuver), you can score a great many free hits. And the extra +3 evasion from Dodging you get while doing a flanking attack makes you that much harder to hit when they do decide to attack you. It does take some experience to know when you can get away with this, and when it's better to fight in a corridor (or cut and run). And occasionally you unexpectedly fall into a pit or get stuck in a web trap and get surrounded and die (grrrrr). But it's addictingly fun to see a mass of bad guys sort of melt away as they die while trying to surround you. And high evasion (for the pits) and high strength (for the webs) somewhat mitigate the danger.
My cause was helped by finding two important pieces of equipment at 400 feet: Gauntlets of Treachery, and Studded Leather of Venom's End. I waited until I found a Sanctity staff before wielding (and then uncursing) the Gauntlets so I could remove them as needed. Opportunist is a great thing, but I didn't want to spend that many experience points on stealth just for the one ability. But I was willing to temporarily go down to two strength for it, at least for awhile. The poison resistance was nice because it meant that I could postpone putting points into Will, and instead concentrate on building up my melee score. I bounced around between 500-550-600 feet for quite some time building up experience points and preparing to face the cat warriors. Finding a ring of accuracy +2, plus a Corslet of Resilience and an Amulet of Constitution, really helped.
After that, it got a lot easier. The first few cat warriors were tough, but with a couple more melee points, they died in droves trying to force their way through the Zone of Control. The cat Uniques required the use of Quickness potions, but fortunately I had enough. I made the deliberate decision to just stay away from any dragons above hatchlings: too much potential for disaster, not enough potential gain (particularly with no artefacts). And Rauko-bane is a wonderful thing.
Light level was a problem. I came very close to taking Song of the Trees, but finally found a Fenorian lamp at 850 feet, which (coupled with the Amulet of the Blessed Realm) was enough to get by. I did have to do a lot of equipment swapping, since my only True Sight item was a Lantern. Fortunately, I did not run into too many cat assassins.
Right towards the end I took Opportunist (and ditched the Treachery Gauntlets) so I could take Rapid Attack. It would have been slightly cheaper to go the Finesse+Subtlety route, but since I took a lot of melee skills it wouldn't have been very much cheaper, and neither Finesse nor Subtlety was all that useful to this character, while Opportunist was.
The throne room was actually pretty easy. Less than 100 turns. I finally realized what I had been doing wrong all this time. In previous games, I sang Sharpness+Slaying. This time I sang Slaying+Sharpness. What a difference! The melee bonus rocketed up, completely overwhelming the reduced sharpness. I was especially amused to note that I killed Gorthaur, Thuringwethil, and Lungorthin, all on the same turn. The Silmarils popped out quickly, and as I was leaving I found a really sweet Greatsword of Hador's House (3d7, only 4.6 lbs). I was very tempted to wield it since it was significantly better than the glaive, but decided that wouldn't be in the spirit of the character. I got in trouble a couple of times on the ascent, but had enough consumables to deal with it.
A lot of fun, and very challenging.
I often play vanilla with no-artifacts, so I thought I'd try it with Sil. I had expected that this would not make a huge difference, since with few exceptions (e.g. Idril), most Sil artefacts are good, but not overpowering. But (subjectively at least) the game felt much harder without them. I am also a fan of polearm mastery. That extra free hit is very satisfying, especially combined with controlled retreat, especially combined with sprinting to repeat the move a little further down the corridor. But while I find polearms to be fun, I think in the final analysis a good sword is a superior weapon.
My initial build was a Noldor with 3 strength. There are a couple of reasons for this: the raw damage of course; the hope that I might find Gauntlets of Treachery; and the fact that I had lost a couple of promising earlier characters by being trapped in webs. At the first forge I made a glaive, a longbow, and a mattock. The glaive because that was sort of the whole point, the mattock because it is always good to have a digger handy, and the longbow because there are some things I'd rather not fight hand-to-hand (e.g. dragonflies, green worms). I invested 4 points into archery fairly early on, but left it at that until almost the end of the game (when for some reason that I don't remember, I put in a couple more). That, plus the dexterity, plus using +3 arrows (and later, the ring of accuracy, and Rauko-bane) gave me enough archery skill that on the rare occasions I did shoot, I hit most of the time. And with 3 strength, the longbow has good damage output.
I invested heavily in evasion early on, and took Flanking and Controlled retreat, along with Zone of Control. This is a really deadly combination for orcs, and later for cat warriors. The A.I. has them try to move past to try and surround you, in preference to hitting you immediately, and with a little practice (and some room to maneuver), you can score a great many free hits. And the extra +3 evasion from Dodging you get while doing a flanking attack makes you that much harder to hit when they do decide to attack you. It does take some experience to know when you can get away with this, and when it's better to fight in a corridor (or cut and run). And occasionally you unexpectedly fall into a pit or get stuck in a web trap and get surrounded and die (grrrrr). But it's addictingly fun to see a mass of bad guys sort of melt away as they die while trying to surround you. And high evasion (for the pits) and high strength (for the webs) somewhat mitigate the danger.
My cause was helped by finding two important pieces of equipment at 400 feet: Gauntlets of Treachery, and Studded Leather of Venom's End. I waited until I found a Sanctity staff before wielding (and then uncursing) the Gauntlets so I could remove them as needed. Opportunist is a great thing, but I didn't want to spend that many experience points on stealth just for the one ability. But I was willing to temporarily go down to two strength for it, at least for awhile. The poison resistance was nice because it meant that I could postpone putting points into Will, and instead concentrate on building up my melee score. I bounced around between 500-550-600 feet for quite some time building up experience points and preparing to face the cat warriors. Finding a ring of accuracy +2, plus a Corslet of Resilience and an Amulet of Constitution, really helped.
After that, it got a lot easier. The first few cat warriors were tough, but with a couple more melee points, they died in droves trying to force their way through the Zone of Control. The cat Uniques required the use of Quickness potions, but fortunately I had enough. I made the deliberate decision to just stay away from any dragons above hatchlings: too much potential for disaster, not enough potential gain (particularly with no artefacts). And Rauko-bane is a wonderful thing.
Light level was a problem. I came very close to taking Song of the Trees, but finally found a Fenorian lamp at 850 feet, which (coupled with the Amulet of the Blessed Realm) was enough to get by. I did have to do a lot of equipment swapping, since my only True Sight item was a Lantern. Fortunately, I did not run into too many cat assassins.
Right towards the end I took Opportunist (and ditched the Treachery Gauntlets) so I could take Rapid Attack. It would have been slightly cheaper to go the Finesse+Subtlety route, but since I took a lot of melee skills it wouldn't have been very much cheaper, and neither Finesse nor Subtlety was all that useful to this character, while Opportunist was.
The throne room was actually pretty easy. Less than 100 turns. I finally realized what I had been doing wrong all this time. In previous games, I sang Sharpness+Slaying. This time I sang Slaying+Sharpness. What a difference! The melee bonus rocketed up, completely overwhelming the reduced sharpness. I was especially amused to note that I killed Gorthaur, Thuringwethil, and Lungorthin, all on the same turn. The Silmarils popped out quickly, and as I was leaving I found a really sweet Greatsword of Hador's House (3d7, only 4.6 lbs). I was very tempted to wield it since it was significantly better than the glaive, but decided that wouldn't be in the spirit of the character. I got in trouble a couple of times on the ascent, but had enough consumables to deal with it.
A lot of fun, and very challenging.
Comment