Egoless ironman Hobbit Rogue

[PowerWyrm]

Since I'm getting tired of rushing paladins and rogues to beat an insane turncount in the current comp, I decided to do something completely different for my next game: go back to regular 4.1.2 and try an egoless ironman hobbit rogue. This is in the same vein as my bookless egoless hobbit mage (http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=20489), but this time I won't go bookless and choose rogue, adding ironman in the challenge to keep things very hard.

[PowerWyrm]

Town: I wanted to buy a wand of MM, but there are no light weapons, so I have to go for a Morning Star, 5 CLW, 5 ?Phase, some torches and food.

DL1: 1-1. I find some enchanted gloves and kill random stuff to get to CL2.

DL2: 1-1. I kill Fang, find MB1, waste one ?PD when pressing 'r' instead of 'R' for resting and kill more stuff to reach CL4.

DL3: 2-2. I find a dagger (2.3bpr), but the morning star (1.6bpr) does more than twice the damage, so I leave it behind. First wand of light. Scrolls of Deep Descent, which I squelch (turncount doesn't matter here, and you want to maximize the number of levels you visit). Tons of ?Treasure Detection, which should last for a while. 80% disarming fails me and I fall through a trap door before I could explore the whole level...

DL4: 1-1. First !Speed. Better gloves. More killing and reaching CL6.

DL5: 3-2. Enchanted war hammer (15 vs 12 dam). I squelch ?ID, because I decided to go with the "know flavors/runes" options at birth. ?WoR also gets squelched. Lots of missiles, but still no shooter. Can't kill Smeagol at this point. More killing of low level critters, reached CL8.

DL6: 3-4. Enchanted boots. Unenchanted halberd slightly better than the enchanted war hammer. Finally found a short bow with some enchanted arrows (11 dam). And I'm already at -3 speed from heavy pack, so I have to drop average shots and some staves. Kill some snagas to reach CL10. Slightly better weapon from random mob (17 dam).

DL7: 4-1. Mughash, which I decide to kill with phase + arrows. Drops an enchanted glaive (dam up to 23). I also kill Grip, which doesn't pose any problem anymore. Now CL12.

DL8: 2-1. Boring. There's Wormtongue, but I can't kill him yet...

DL9: 3-5. Rod of Magic Mapping. Finally something... I kill Brodda with phase/arrows (only 13 left now) and reach CL13.

DL10: 3-1. Amulet of resist lightning. My first CSWs. Nothing else except a wolf pack.

[PowerWyrm]

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=21757

[PowerWyrm]

Note: this time I'm actually playing with an empty ego_item.txt instead of discarding ego items. This should make things much easier, as the game won't generate stuff like ego DSMs instead of regular ones.

[geoff_tewierik]

Note: this time I'm actually playing with an empty ego_item.txt instead of discarding ego items. This should make things much easier, as the game won't generate stuff like ego DSMs instead of regular ones.

Does doing that increase the chance of it creating regular ones as it can't produce ego ones?

[PowerWyrm]

Does doing that increase the chance of it creating regular ones as it can't produce ego ones?

No, but in the endgame, something like 30% of items are ego items. If the game generates a PDSM, you DEFINITELY don't want it to be an ego PDSM. This happened on my egoless mage, I was really pissed...

[PowerWyrm]

DL11: 4-2. Better gloves. Finally found a lantern. Rod of Treasure Location for until I can cast the spell from MB1 (45% fail atm). Orfax brings me to CL15.

DL12: 3-5. Stuff keeps confusing, blinding and poisoning me. Out of CLW... not good, only 3 CSW left. Ring of Reckless Attacks (29 dam/round). Found one ?Tele for emergencies. Random mob drops 3 CCW. Oh and the feeling is... a wand of drain life. Four charges of 150 damage, I'll have to use that smartly... Random mob drops MB3 -- will be a long time before I can use anything in that book.

DL13: 4-3. More CCW. Ring of Resist Fire/Cold... now I just need a DSM and a ring of FA to be ready to pass 1k. The Golfimbul/Grishnak/Bullroarer trio dies, and again I get a slightly better weapon (31 dam/round). Random invisible mob drops MB2. Still slowed (-2), and now at CL17.

DL14: 3-2. Ufthak dies, but not before depleting my stack of CSW. Drops an enchanted cloak. Nothing else on the level, except for random mobs which level me to CL18.

DL15: 5-2. Amulet of Inertia (in case I don't find a ring of FA to protect against paralyzers). Note: already 14k turns passed, which means we've done 750ft while three attempts at the current comp already killed Morgoth. But we're now CL19...

DL16: 4-2. Garbage level. We don't even get a level from the stuff we kill...

DL17: 3-2. Sigh... At least we kill a werewolf and reach CL20.

DL18: 4-2. More junk levels... We kill some hounds and Nar, find a Rod of Light, reach CL21, and proceed further.

DL19: 4-2. Copy and paste... This time we kill Boldor for nothing again.

DL20: 7-3. Interesting... Detect Monsters reveals a minor demon pit and a jelly pit in the immediate vicinity. Detect Objects says there's a wand of fire bolts in the demon pit, so we want to clear it. It'll require putting on the inertia amulet to avoid paralyzation. Very annoying all those tengus, but at least they don't hit too hard... We get the wand and reach CL22. We immediately forget there's a j pit and explore the rest of the level without finding anything else (well except MB4).

[PowerWyrm]

DL21: 4-3. Better armor (still only 33AC). Ring of Free Action (amulet of inertia gets squelched). Wormtongue dies and drops a weapon... which is in fact slightly better (33 dam/round). Long bow replaces short bow.

DL22: 5-1. Nothingness (no idea what the "5" was -- the only thing I killed was a few pack of hounds)... Well, we're CL23 now.

DL23: 4-3. Staff of teleportation (spell is at... 47% fail :/). Nothing else on the level, it's starting to get really problematic...

DL24: 4-1. I explore and detect object multiple times and every time being told there's nothing... I find one ?tele in a corner. I kill the Umbar twins (for crap weapons)... and before leaving the level I spot a black ooze in a room. Time to go farm some consumables! I go clear the level first to make room for the breeding, then spend around 10k turns scumming. The result is correct (?PD, CCW, _tele, !speed), but I'll need to repeat that deeper to upgrade my stats. And we reach CL26 in the process. Now with a full pack, and slow -4 from overweight...

DL25: 5-3. Bolg dies and drops a +12 mace (53 dam/round with +9 RoD). Of course there's Azog who drops better gloves. Finally my first DSM, and it's blue (so with ring of fire/cold and amulet of resist acid I finally get resistance to base elements). And that's a rechargeable source of 150 points of damage... Since we're slow -5, I decide to drop a couple _tele (had 5 of them).

DL26: 5-6. I map my first vault (lesser) and detect manageable stuff inside (most annoying is Khim). First item outside of the vault: a wand of annihilation! We want to conserve that as much as we can for the endgame... We kill Khim and loot the vault, but the only interesting item is a RoD+13 (61 dam/round). We now have 4 rings (damage, resist fire/cold, FA, SI), which we need to swap depending on the situation.

DL27: 5-1. Frankly I forgot to note anything worth mentioning on this level...

DL28: 6-4. Again mapping reveals a lesser vault. The troll trio is inside, as well as the only way to open said vault (=digging -- mine got destroyed by an energy vortex a while ago, and STM is still at 50% fail). Detect objects doesn't detect anything useful anyway, so I leave the vault untouched. Colbran destroys my only wand of TO , and potion of *healing* detected happens to be a mimic

DL29: 5-2. Another bland level. At least we're CL27 now.

DL30: 5-3. We're now at stat gain, we need to explore every corner of every level. Also we reach the depth of potions of enlightenement, which should help us greatly. Shagrath drops the first non equippable item... but it's a priest book , but we improve our weapon again (68 dam/round -- which is probably the best we can get until we start finding STR/DEX potions). Oh we also kill Beorn, Ulfast and Ulwarth. First potion of strength.

[PowerWyrm]

DL31: 6-4. Stat potions start to appear now, but in the meantime I get many things destroyed by elemental damage...

DL32: 5-4. First potion of constitution. More stat pots, and we reach CL28.

DL33: 5-3. Ogre mage summons ancient white dragon while we're not wearing our ring of resist fire/cold... and we're slow -2. We phase (fortunately out of LOS), equip our ring and quaff speed + heroism... and kill our first ancient dragon! Good rewards: a potion of dexterity, some ?tele and a ring or resist poison (which now makes 5 rings to swap). But we're out of space in inventory and I seriously have no idea what to leave behind at this point (everything seems to be useful). I decide to drop MB2, because the only useful spells (Teleport and Spear of Light) have too high fail rate to be useful in the short term.

DL34: 5-5. No idea why the "5" feeling, the only thing worthwile on the level was a stack of 2 potions of wisdom...

DL35: 5-3. Replacement wand of TO for the one that got destroyed earlier. I drop MB4 to pick it up (I just hope I'll find another copy later...). Something invisible hits us and drains our STR, which is not good, so we swap FA for SI and it is indeed a Dread. First potion of intelligence. Reveal monsters tells us that we have to face a pack of 4 dreads, not just a lone one... We get a STR pot as reward, and with that we're back at normal speed! And 88 dam/round with our weapon!

DL36: 5-4. Another ancient white D, this time asleep so we can use devices from afar. We reach CL29. I swap +3 heavy xbow for +9 light one, at this point 9lbs is a lot of extra weight to carry. There's a black ooze on the level... which means another session of farming, and at this depth we can actually get stat potions from them (in fact, it's not the case, since drop averages monster and dungeon depth and we would need to be at 1850ft to actually get stat potions -- so I waste a good 2k turns getting my armor wrecked by acid instead).

DL37: 6-5. Mushroom of vigor... no idea what to drop to pick it up, everything I carry is useful. I get rid of STM wand, the spell even at 46% fail will do. Second wand of annihilation. Mapping reveals a LV, which is doable except for a night mare that would be tricky to kill, so I use a charge of TO on it. I have the bad idea of meleeing a pack of giant fire ants and get both my _tele destroyed for my stupidity... Nothing really useful either in the vault (black+red DSMs, but blue at this point is better -- I'm stuck with alot of swaps until I can get either an amulet of resistance or a MHDSM). Oh yeah... before running into that night mare again, better leave the level -- it's almost cleared anyway.

DL38: 8-4. I will need to use my potions of enlightenment now, can't dedicate a slot to them. And this is a good level to do so. A LV, but nothing useful on the object list. We reach CL30 by killing random troll packs. And we kill Ibun.

DL39: 5-4. We get a _tele back. Wand of Dragon Breath (sorry, but that's more important than the 2 !enlight I had left, so they get ditched). Second -TO. More stat pots. Melee dam is now 120/round.

DL40: 6-3. Big room filled with dark elves. 128 dam/round with a +7 trident. We kill Lokkak for a useless priest book. Storm giant destroys =SI, but we find a replacement almost immediately. We find our first permanent speed item: an elven cloak! Oh hello black ooze... this time you should be on depth for stat pots. And it's the case... so we'll spend as much time as it'll be required to max our stats! 141 dam/round with a +5 main gauche.

Note: I should try to be more careful when pressing R to rest, I have wasted dozens of ?PD while fat fingering the command.

[Pete Mack]

47% fail is enough to crack a lesser vault, surely.

[PowerWyrm]

Black ooze farming goes really nicely: tons of stat pots (since CON was way behind, I also used all !toughness I got from the oozes), amulet of ESP, scroll of banishment. And we're CL31 now. Strangely, no potion of healing found yet (and I'm pretty sure the oozes dropped everything else I can think of...)

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Black ooze farming goes really nicely: tons of stat pots (since CON was way behind, I also used all !toughness I got from the oozes), amulet of ESP, scroll of banishment. And we're CL31 now. Strangely, no potion of healing found yet (and I'm pretty sure the oozes dropped everything else I can think of...)

Ah, reminds me of the days of Leon the artifactless ranger....

[PowerWyrm]

DL41: 4-3. Cavern level. I find a scroll of *destruction* (there's another one on the level, but reveals to be a mimic), but cannot figure out what to drop to pick it up. I decide to equip the amulet of ESP and ditch the amulet of resist acid, which is still partially covered by armor (and I hope to get R&S soon).

DL42: 6-2. Seems that I didn't kill Lagduf yet... now it's fixed. Another ?Ban. Oh and Gorbag gets pasted too. While I'm at it, I also dispatch the troll trilogy.

DL43: 5-4. More orc uniques that I didn't kill yet: Ugluk and Lugdush. Enchantress drops 2 INT pots, STM now at 25% fail.

DL44: 5-4. Tricky encounter with gravity hounds outside the starting room. We reach CL32 by killing some of them then we ?PD away.

DL45: 7-6. We're welcomed by Ren the Unclean and dispatch him with much trouble. But the reward is worth it: an amulet of trickery (he also drops Holy Infusions, but we don't care about that, and a +11 lucerne hammer which is a slight upgrade over our current weapon). We ditch the now useless ring of resist poison. We kill a dreadmaster and finally get R&S! Both resist fire and resist cold spells are now available with 5% fail rate, so we ditch the ring of resist fire/cold. We're also CL33 now. We open a small room? vault? and are immediately stunned and warped and at 42/378 hps... happens to be an aether vortex breathing gravity and shards and poison before we have a turn to react :/, but at least we can now dispatch the bugger without more trouble. Looks like the only item in the vault (as told by inspecting an item on the floor) is another useless priest book... First potion of *healing*. I make a mistake of waking up Ariel before realizing I don't have anything powerful enough to kill her at this point without wasting my charges on the annihilation wands. I simply leave the level.

DL46: 6-4. Now doing an amazing 160 dam/round with a +7 spear! First potion of healing found on the floor, so they actually still exist in the game (oh and I also have to throw away another useful item to pick it up -- this time the ?PD since I can cast the spell). We dispatch Scatha and upgrade our weapon to a +13 halberd. We spot a LV and clear it (meaning killing Ulfang in the process), but nothing useful is found inside. Potion of augmentation -- our stats are almost all maxed.

DL47: 8-7. Mapping reveals a GV with raals and mords inside. Should have enough charges of TO to clear the inside. In fact we only have to TO an eye druj and a GMM, we kill Itangast and Smaug, upgrade our weapon to a +12 katana (174 dam/round), get a slightly better trickery amulet, and learn what we can from the mage books. We won't waste a slot for raals, but we'll carry mords for now (door creation is nice). Unfortunately our encounter with both Itangast and Smaug (and other things in the vault) dealt irrecoverable damage to our supplies (lost all my ?Ban, !heal, !*heal* from fire/cold breaths -- and considering it took us 47 levels to find ONE potion of healing I'm not really happy about that). Seems like we gained 2 levels in the process and we're CL35 now. We leave the level by learning Teleport Level and casting it.

DL48: 6-4. First kill on the level is Akhorahil who drops a +15 tulwar to pump our damage to 202/round! We find a staff of speed, which should be helpful until we can cast Haste... as long as it doesn't get destroyed of course. Nothing else on the level (we kill Smeagol, we avoid Ariel).

DL49: 5-4. Labyrinth level. We kill Uvatha and that's pretty much it.

DL50: 4-4. Cavern level. We find MB2 again and teleportation is at 5% fail so we replace _tele by the book. Alchemist gloves (this means our cesti have to go). We kill some stuff and get the last stat potions we need to max our stats! Buuut we get breathed on by an acid vortex... and of course we have to say goodbye to our staff of speed , fortunately there's a copy of MB4 on the level, and I decide to pick it up again now that Haste is at 31% fail.

So here we are at mid-point... Things are going to get trickier now, as 200 dam/round won't cut much of the stuff we'll have to face, and our spells (mainly TO) aren't reliable yet (28% fail). Not mentioning the limited amount of devices we have (couple elemental rods and few charges of drain life -- I really don't want to use annihilation on things other than Sauron and Morgoth).

[PowerWyrm]

DL51: 5-6. Nothing on the level except a potion of augmentation which is now obsolete (well we get a +13 heavy xbow that we can carry now). We reach CL36.

DL52: 4-4. I kill random stuff for a bit of exp.

DL53: 4-2. Potion of healing! We kill Adunaphel and more random stuff...

DL54: 6-3. Potion room (one extra healing). V pit (I wish I had more rods of fire bolts at this point to make clearing that thing a lot easier...). We reach CL37.

DL55: 5-4. We obliterate Shelob (now that we have double resistance to poison -- however she breathed darkness once and we had to use one of our heals).

DL56: 5-4. Another bland level and still no groundbreaking item... We find an amulet of resistance, which could be useful if we want double resistance.

DL57: 6-3. Wand of Dragon's Flame. Would be nice, but what to drop? I decide to ditch the wands of TO and rely on the spell. A nasty combo of Balrog of Moria + Learnean Hydra + Cat Lord makes me leave the level (there doesn't seem to be a vault here either -- not worth taking risks at this time).

DL58: 7-7. Mapping reveals a vault in the vicinity. Thuringwethil and Ar-Pharazon (as well as an archlich) have to go away, the rest is manageable. Third -annihilation. Finally a blade of chaos (225 dam/round, 248 when "trickery is equipped), probably my final weapon. Ring of Speed +8, which means I'll risk going without FA from now on (saving throw at 88%).

DL59: 6-7. Hydra pit with =speed inside. I decide to burn a ?Ban (can't risk losing flammable items to the hydras). Ring is only +7, and I really want to keep melee damage high enough for now so I leave it behind.

DL60: 7-7. We dispatch a pack of nether hounds and reach CL38. Then we kill Hoarmurath of Dir, not before getting paralyzed and drained below 100 HPs before the effect wears off (I guess 89% saving throw is still not enough, but there's no way I can waste a ring slot for FA now...). Only interesting item is another "trickery, but it's again inside a hydra pit, so we keep our current one.

[Grotug]

If you find "Weaponmastery will you swap it in for "Trickery?

Good luck!