Memorable ego items

[fph]

g) Leather Scale Mail of Resist Cold (-1) [20,+8] {cursed}
Taken from a chest found at 300 feet (level 6)

It makes you vulnerable to cold attacks, but resistant to fire.
Provides resistance to cold.

More fancy than a simple armor of resist fire!

And strictly worse, because it has the net effect of removing rCold from the rest of your equipment if you have it.

[Estie]

g) Leather Scale Mail of Resist Cold (-1) [20,+8] {cursed}
Taken from a chest found at 300 feet (level 6)

It makes you vulnerable to cold attacks, but resistant to fire.
Provides resistance to cold.

More fancy than a simple armor of resist fire!

[emulord]

Bring potions of speed and take the one with more AC. Saving turns required to heal is effective speed, and speed gains drop off rapidly after +30.

[Ugramoth]

Currently
speed +32
AC 281
Thanks to these ego items that put most artifacts to shame:

Balance Dragon Scale Mail (Dwarven) (-2) [50 +29] <+1, +2, +3>
Found lying on the floor in a vault at 4900 feet

+1 strength
+2 constitution
+3 infravision
Provides resistance to sound, shards, chaos, disenchantment.
Prevents paralysis

Mithril Shield of Preservation [16 +44]
Dropped by a master mystic at 4800 feet

Provides resistance to shards, disenchantment.
Sustain strength, dexterity, constitution
Sustain your life force

Highest AC from shield I've ever seen, but all resistances are redundant, including sustains.... Could replace it with:

Wicker Shield 'Tancar' [2, +9] <+9>
Found lying on the floor in a vault at 1850 feet

+9 speed
Provides resistance to lightning

speed +32
AC 281
or
speed +41
AC 232

Either way, I think Sauron will be very dead soon (grinding at DL98 for elusive Wrath of God. Maybe I don't even need it)

[Grotug]

Farmer Maggot has a guaranteed good drop (=at least armor with a plus to AC).
He can be killed even at very low level, but it takes a while; it's maybe the only situation where I recommend holding a key down, and even if you do that when he's at one star he'll start running away and circling through stores.

I meant other than Farmer Maggot. I kill him all the time for some useless "good" item. But I don't recall a non-unique townsperson every dropping anything useful.

[fph]

Wow, I did not know townspeople could carry things better than 24gold pieces or scrolls of darkness.

Farmer Maggot has a guaranteed good drop (=at least armor with a plus to AC).
He can be killed even at very low level, but it takes a while; it's maybe the only situation where I recommend holding a key down, and even if you do that when he's at one star he'll start running away and circling through stores.

[Nick]

Reminds me of this.

[Grotug]

Wow, I did not know townspeople could carry things better than 24gold pieces or scrolls of darkness.

[Derakon]

That's pretty good, and not at all common! Reminds me of the time that Farmer Maggot dropped a Holy Avenger dagger for me. I still remember it, 20-odd years later.

[Ugramoth]

What are the chances of this:

Dagger of *Slay Animal* (+3, +7) <+2>:
Dropped by a battle-scarred veteran in town

+2 intelligence
Slays animals
Speeds regeneration


I did not bring that up from deep and drop it for him. He really had it

[Thraalbee]

FrogComponsband weaponmaster Polearms. As usual drops are wrong weapon type. I played with a +2 then +6 standard weapon until I found this.
Five brands, resist fire and poison, and light. Quite an upgrade!

a) a Broad Spear (Craft) (2d11) (+7,+2) {FiPo;Lu|AEFCoP}
Dropped by an Algroth on level 27 of Orc cave.
Identified: Day 8, 11:00, at CL 24.

Hand #1: a Broad Spear (Craft) (2d11) (+7,+2)               Accuracy
 Weight : 10.0 lbs                                            AC Hit
 Profic : Beginner (+8 To Hit)                                25 88%
 To Hit : 7 + 21 = 28                                         50 80%
 To Dam : 2 + 14 = 16                                         75 73%
 Blows  : 3.90                                               100 66%
 Damage                                                      125 58%
 Crits  : 1.07x (5.4%)                                       150 51%
 Normal : 111 [1.07x]                                        175 44%
 Acid   : 180 [2.56x]                                        200 36%
 Elec   : 180 [2.56x]                                        
 Fire   : 180 [2.56x]                                        
 Cold   : 180 [2.56x]                                        
 Poison : 180 [2.56x]

[Pete Mack]

Oh, ugh. Farming is just a hopelessly boring way to level up (if you must farm, use black oozes to get a bit of loot out of the process.)
You are better off using magic devices to do damage. A few light rods will take out tons of trolls and orcs.

[Sky]

Hmm ... i find half-orc rogue to be the easiest class to level up. And maybe half-orc warrior.
On 4.1.3 then half-orc blackguard is really all you need to win. Maybe. Depends on the shield bash nerf, i havent played in 5 months.

Mage is the class i most easily die with when high level; tele self, gravity hounds, #ded.

Dunedain Ranger 4.1.2 or earlier is the easiest win character: buy 40 CLW, 10 food, and 5 Mage1. Grind DL5~10 until you find a red worm mass.
Drop your recall scrolls, let them breed, kill 3000 of them. BAM! CL20+ and double bow damage.

Buy a longbow of power, and you are ready for morgoth.

[Derakon]

Meanwhile, I tend to recommend the opposite: a half-troll warrior. Damn the torpedos, full speed ahead! You may well die quickly from an undetected monster, but getting a new character to the deeps is very fast.

[Pete Mack]

@gglibertine-
Have you tried a high stealth character? I suspect they are the easiest for learning to dive. Also helps to have full monster detection in a town book. Try a high-elf rogue. The massive EXP penalty just forces you to go deep to get experience, and the class/race combo makes you tough enough to survive in tight spots in the early game. (Later in the game, intrinsic stats matter less.)