Iron Dwarf

[Fiquin]

I'm running an iron man Dwarf Pally, "Azaghal" with RandArts. This is my second attempt at this toon

You could say I'm now finished with the "early game" since my first high resist dropped on a pair of Stability Boots. However without free action Azaghal is in grave danger and I'm concerned he'll be stuck soon, dreading every downward step.

Nothing interesting in the early game, pretty easy going with no level more dangerous than a 3 and no treasures better than a 5. Meh,

Let's hope for some excitement in the next update!

Here's the ladder link: http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=19379

[Pete Mack]

The "early game" for ironman stops with the discovery of the first staff of teleportation. Everything else is secondary at that point.

[Estie]

A serious problem is

j) 2 Scrolls of Phase Door.

My last 2 ironman paladin attempts both died when ?phase ran out before they found the blink book. I would recommend assigning the lions share of starting money towards ?phase.

[Thraalbee]

I play Ironman most of the time. ?Phase door is my top priority. I set the game to allow selling so that I can sell the initial armour and ?recall scroll. Then I buy a few !clw, one or two !csw, some food and then ?phase door for the rest (10+)

See my current ironman paladin: Focus on melee rather than spells

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=19386

[Derakon]

I play Ironman most of the time. ?Phase door is my top priority. I set the game to allow selling so that I can sell the initial armour and ?recall scroll. Then I buy a few !clw, one or two !csw, some food and then ?phase door for the rest (10+)

You should be able to buy more items if you turn selling off and also turn off the "start with basic equipment" option. Your basic equipment is "purchased" with your starting gold, and reselling it won't give you all of that gold back.

[Fiquin]

Indeed I turned off basic equipment and used my starting money to buy the beginning spell book, 4 or so healing potions, and as good weapons and armor as available after that. I forgot to buy a shovel however I lucked out with a good digger drop from a boss and so I was able to penetrate every vault I came across with that. The second level spell book dropped too so I had no escape issues.

This run ended in dramatic fashion around depth 29, character level 28, for one reason... Ninjas!

Iron Man is definitely a different game than regular... Not only are resists a strategy gateway in the mid-game so are sustains and I wasn't prepared for my strength to get sapped down to 15 and then using too heavy a weapon seemed to ding my strength further. If you take a beating in any category in vanilla you can just port back to town and at the very worst reroll a safer level and grind your way to another level up to recover your stats... not so in Iron Man!

The level spawned 4 bosses, including Uldor the Accursed, who summons lots of friends to fight with him, including ninjas and mystics and then the mystics start summoning too. Over the course of a couple of hours of play my Pally defeated all the bosses mainly because I had a good x bow, nice AOE rings and a really nice White Dragon Scale Mail artifact drop (with Nether resist, woot!) that I had to rely on once my melee was reduced to a limp-wristed slap by strength drains from red bugs and ninjas. Azaghal was finally trapped in a hallway by Uldor's summons with no Mana, no Bolts, all cool downs burnt and not enough luck to save him. I wish I saved the file but I kept the randarts and quit out of there before remembering to get the file dump.

So, back to the drawing board... hopefully I'll see that Dragon Scale Mail again because Nether resist seems so hard to find in vanilla... and I'll be sure to post the save file on my next death too... or victory, right?

[Pete Mack]

If your strength gets drained too bad, drop a character level to weak wraiths and recover it that way. EXP is easy to get, and restore life is way more common than vigor.

[Derakon]

If your strength gets drained too bad, drop a character level to weak wraiths and recover it that way. EXP is easy to get, and restore life is way more common than vigor.

I still feel like this is an exploit and the only free stat refills should be when gaining a level for the first time. The "proper" way to handle that level should have been to leave.

But permanent stat drain is pretty not-fun to begin with, which is why I also complain sometimes that stat drains should be much larger but also temporary. Having your STR dropped to 10 is a huge hindrance in the current fight, even if you can "rest it off" once the encounter ends. Likewise, XP drain should be temporary but larger; see how you like being level 30 instead of level 45, because you got tagged by too many undead in short succession...

[Pete Mack]

It may be an exploit, but it's the rules as they exist. If that goes away, mushrooms of vigor need to be more numerous. Very often I don't find even one before DL 50.

[Derakon]

I've played plenty of characters, ironman and otherwise, without resorting to the level-drain exploit or scumming for Restoring or anything like that. As long as you're careful around stat drainers (and, well, know which monsters can drain stats before they hit you, which is a separate issue), the game is perfectly reasonably balanced.

If you do get badly drained and aren't near a levelup, keep an eye out for the stat-swap potions; as I recall they'll restore the boosted stat before they give it a +1. Sure you'll drain another stat in the process, but it can be worth the tradeoff.

[Pete Mack]

I've only ever used this intentionally once, and fortuitously another time. Getting mauled by dreads or a death quasit isn't common, but it does happen. (Especially the death quasit, which really can come out of no-where, and is hard to spot on detection with its normal color.)