Sniper - the fewest kills challenge

[Ingwe Ingweron]

For such a challenge, I'd suggest manipulating the Edit file for mage spells to allow them the detect object spell. That in combination with their late stage banishment and mass banishment capability might get you there --- eventually.

[Philip]

I wonder if a mage wouldn't be better for this challenge. You lose detect item, which sucks, but magic is great for sleeping/confusing monsters, and teleportation is a way to get away from pretty much anything. It would probably make the early part even more of a pain though, and the loss of stealth would be bad. The main attraction for me though would be the ability to manipulate monsters during the final fight - free Banish, Mass Banish, Destruct, TO...

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Elevates grinding to a whole new level.

[Lord Tom]

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=17066

The Sniper bloodline is a series of rogues undertaking a challenge to defeat Morgoth while killing as few total creatures as possible -- with the perfect goal being 2: Sauron and Morgoth. The kill count in the monster information screen is used to double-check, but it's honor system for reporting any unseen kills.

Obviously getting experience is very difficult; there are small amounts of points to be gained from id-by-use and casting new spells, but disarming traps is the major mechanism early on, with the ultimate goal being to gear up, dive, and scum for potions of Experience.

Sniper V is a gnome rogue; my original thinking that a half-troll would be good proved tragically misguided - stealth is incredibly important for this challenge and saving throw is also good to have.

I posted now because Sniper V has achieved the major milestone of gaining the Detect Items spell, enabling vastly improved scumming for stat potions & a source of TO -- good timing, since I'm just getting to stat-gain depth.

Looking around for traps in the early going was very tedious and dangerous with detection limited to scrolls, and the need to buy or find such scrolls. Using a shovel to dig out gold and ring of digging to enable creative routes to traps has been key. Oh, and I managed to buy speed boots from the armoury; only +2, but I can outdistance normal-speed monsters (or quick monsters if I haste).

A fun if dangerous strat has been farming traps from Wormtongue. I was very lucky to find a shield of resistance very early, but his stinking clouds remain dangerous. It's kind of bizarre to be trying to disarm traps while a unique is bashing at you.

One other thing that took me a while to figure out is dealing with quick-but-weak monsters you don't even notice in a normal game (like fruit bats). I can't kill them and they're faster than me, so even a very weak monster can kill @, and panthers/stegocentipedes etc are deadly. Early characters had tried wands of slow/confuse monster; these seemed minimally effective as they only seem to work for a few turns. For a stealthy gnome, though, sleep monster is extremely valuable as it puts the monster out of commission for potentially much longer.

Sadly, somewhat early on Sniper V couldn't hold up from shoveling a white harpy to death in one round coming around a corner, though he hasn't killed any unseen creatures so far (prior incarnations punched out a clear mushroom patch or two). So best case for this attempt is 3 kills.