Adventures of Dive deep Hobbit Ranger

[Grotug]

Things have finally started to improve, and <+2> Extra Attacks armor (good AC, too!) mean my measly 1d6 spear now does decent damage. And a staff of summoning netted increases in speed and lightning/fire immunity.

...


and I didn't see Huan coming. I never see him. He always blends in. Gah, right after making key gains to my character like two !Augmentations, that super armor and the lightning/fire immunity. It's so classic; that rush of confidence and excitement when you reach the turning point in the game where you can feel confident at any depth, and the guard comes down. And again, was waiting for recall to kick in. Decided to teleport out of the vault to see if there might be any useful stuff to grab while waiting. Oh, look, a potion of experience. Tsekalus summons master dreadlords. While I'm dealing with those I don't see Huan saunter up to me and breathe shards as soon as he sees me. I had 497hp. Yeah, I'm slightly annoyed right now.

[Pete Mack]

I recommend trying this with standard artifacts, or no artifacts at all. If you're winning in 30K turns, you have pretty much solved the game. But randarts are kinda broken just now, so standarts might be more challenging.

[Estie]

There is an option to display all uniques in purple.

[Grotug]

There is an option to display all uniques in purple.

Mmmm... true. I wonder if it's possible to make them neon green or bright pink? (ala Netherwraiths and Lorgan). I probably wouldn't miss a bright green C coming at me. I see that in-game you can modify the colors or load a pref file. What would be the best way to change uniques from purple to bright green? Thanks!

I probably should have done this eons ago. I do like that I can tell which unique it is based on its color, but it's true, how many times do I start whacking away at the presumably young or mature black dragon, when it's our lovely friend Kavlax? Yeah, given that this adventurer has -2 to INT, I probably should have all uniques bright green.

In other news, my latest reckless diver is doing very well. No great weapon yet, but bought another ring of rPois in the BM and picked up a (+18) extra might light crossbow. A Xorn nearly killed me, though. Gave me terrible trouble. ?phasing does nothing. Meleeing was just too pathetic against him. It was virtually impossible to get him into pelting distance. Although I should have been firing bolts not meleeing him as my bolts do more damage than my main gauche. I teleported away right next to a deathmold pit! Wow, that was something. Never seen one of those before. Yikes! DL41 level 8 danger feeling. Seems like it should be a level 12 feeling. If I had teleported inside the pit it would have been gg (although, in truth, I suppose it's impossible to teleport inside it).

Anyway, I healed up some, teleported back to the xorn area. Quickly he is on me again. So I !heroed, engaged in some rather pathetic melee action, but just one bolt took one third of his health, sending him fleeing. But, yeah, I'm at DL43 and just over 10K turns.

[Thraalbee]

The monster definition file in the edit file defines monster glyph and color. Sometimes these are inherited from monster class but I don't recall if this is relevant for uniques or not and no angband on this computer.
This means that, although tedious, you can make all entries for the unique monsters to be exactly as you want them.

Myself I just go for the purple and the shimmer options already available

[Grotug]

I bought my first !healing {unseen} from the store between DL98 and DL99. Also, on DL 98, I picked up my first !Life and and then another one dropped from an enemy during ?Recall. And I ID'd by quaffing my first !*healing*. So, yeah, I will be bringing 80 potions of cure light wounds to the Sauron fight. At least I'm doing good damage (700 vs evil before buffs) and have 3 immunities.

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=22110

[Grotug]

And he wins two turns over the 30K goal. If I had been watching my turns during the fight maybe I wouldn't have ?phased at the very end. I didn't realize I was so close to doing it under 30k (I had given up on it when Sauron wasted a lot of my turns).

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=22110

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Now I am playing Dwarf Priest. Orb of Draining is quite the thing! Here is a short clip from my current adventure after diving pretty rapidly about twelve levels from early DL40s to mid-late DL50s:

https://youtu.be/QoT4vHds1BM

It's still uploading but should be done in a minute.

[Narry]

Nicely done, Grotug!
*drools at some of the equipment*

I hope some day I'm half as good an Angband player as you.

[Grotug]

I know most of you are tired of hearing about my adventure reports, but since we have some fresh blood on the forums these days and my forthcoming report entails some interesting equipment use I thought I'd share:

So, I am a hobbit ranger again. I put 8 points to STR, 0 points to DEX, 0 points to WIS, 6 points CON and 6 points to INT. Lately I've been experimenting with removing all the DEX points in favor of CON and mana points on spell casting characters.

At about the same time that I found an early ring of the mouse <+4 DEX, +3 STEALTH> I found a poison branded weapon. Now the interesting thing about rings of the mice is that they have a to-dam penalty which means usually you are doing less meaningful damage with them than if you were to not wearing them at all. But the one I found had a fairly low to-dam penalty of -6. I then found another good ring of the mouse <+4, +4>, also (0, -6). I had been wearing early elemental rings before the mice rings, but I did away with both of them in favor of the the mice rings as it overcame my initial DEX point penalties nicely. Now, the crucial point to pay attention to is that rings of the mice pretty much only boost the branding damage, not the base damage. I'm not entirely sure why this is, but with two rings of the mice, my branding damage went up even further than with just one, while my base damage I think remained the same or only went up slightly. Basically, this setup wouldn't have worked if I wasn't doing branding damage. I experimented with different weapons and rings and with the two mice rings my branding damage was significantly higher than any other damage any other weapon could provide me with or without the mice rings.

Not too much later I then found a 3d5 (halberd I think), branded with acid. Now I was doing more acid damage with this weapon than poison damage with the other. Acid is the best brand as fewer monsters resist it as compared to poison which is pretty lousy. I think I started out doing 57 acid damage with the weapon. Pretty soon I was finding a lot of dexterity/nimbleness and Strength potions and it seemed in short order I was doing 4 blows per round and well over 100 acid damage with two rings of mice. This allowed me to tip toe around a small vault with Maeglin in it on DL41 (yes, Maeglin!) It's been pretty sweet tip-toeing around super dangerous foes while still doing decent melee damage (I only just found TO on DL47).

This character is already pretty boss (except that I have way too low CON and will probably die as a result of it). DL36 was very kind to me. Some nobody dropped Arkenstone with regen on my way to a vault, in which I found a telepathy/INT/magi cloak. Also, lying on the floor outside of the vault was a long bow of power (+6, +18). This is a game changer as I was CL27 when I found it and that means two shots per turn. I found an awesome necklace as well <+4 STR, +5 DEX> and one cubby over from Maeglin a decent band with <+3 STR, +3 INT, +3 DEX> that I replaced one of my mice rings with.

So, yeah, everything going really well, except that I have 209hp Even so, I had the audacity to take down an ancient green dragon when I had 198hp and no rPois. I sorta had to because he was sitting on top of a crown of the magi that I wanted in the maeglin vault. So I hit him with an arrow while in favorable knight's move to him, and since I get extra shots, I didn't need to use my one and only speed potion. The second arrow was a good hit and he was already down to about 2/3 of his hp when I ?phased and engaged him in a corridor above the still sleeping vault (upon arriving at the sleeping vault I did have to lead a beholder away from the vault when a zephyr hound breathed fire on him, but I didn't have any trouble leading him away). But once the ancient green dragon was down to 2/3 health, I didn't have to worry about him killing me in one breath anymore. And my arrows were flying fast and furious and finding their mark, and he died before he ever breathed.

In another open non-perma-vault I was tip-toeing around an ancient multi-hued dragon. And if he woke up and breathed on me, *any* of his breaths would have insta-killed me, even with base resistance. I don't mind being woefully unhealthy, as the stealth makes up for it! Although I did nearly just die when scary monsters appeared out of nowhere.... Video of some of this current adventurer's highlights coming soon!

[Nick]

Now, the crucial point to pay attention to is that rings of the mice pretty much only boost the branding damage, not the base damage. I'm not entirely sure why this is, but with two rings of the mice, my branding damage went up even further than with just one, while my base damage I think remained the same or only went up slightly. Basically, this setup wouldn't have worked if I wasn't doing branding damage. I experimented with different weapons and rings and with the two mice rings my branding damage was significantly higher than any other damage any other weapon could provide me with or without the mice rings.

The critical thing here, I think, is that brands multiply the damage dice only, and have no effect on +to-dam. It's really interesting that you were getting better enough damage because of the DEX bonus to outweigh the -to-dam - I'd never really thought of that happening.

Oh, and there's always room for more adventure reports

[Grotug]

here is an edited video of the above adventures: https://youtu.be/bbKZ8FD465o

Yeah, it's not the first time it's happened with me and rings of the mice, but usually a situation where I break even on the damage and have yet to find a ring of damage or dex.

[Grotug]

Well, as I mentioned, the frail hobbit ranger died to a winged horror, but my current half troll warrior is kicking serious butt! A 9d3 whip of lighting and acid does 570+ of those brands, and does 800 to undead, and I already have 2 !lives and 5 !*healings* which means I'm ready to take on Sauron @ 20K turns in. I'm on DL70 and I'm pretty sure one of these unknown scrolls will be deep descent. At one point my adventurer had +30 DEX equipment bonus. (!)

No single piece of equipment has been amazing, but very good pieces means I am very powerful: a helm of telepathy, pStun, with dex and con sustain with rDisench, rDark and See Invisible mean I don't even need !Life potions. I found a rod of TO very early (I think DL4).

Every slot has an artifact except one finger with a speed ring and an amulet of trickery from DL28 but I'm gonna swap it out with a better statted artifact as soon as I'm home again.

Good AC Speed armor <+4> with rNether.

@ has everything: speed, damage, AC and the resistances and sustains that matter to me: rDark, rChaos, rDisench, rPois, pConf, pStun, hLife. I'm missing sound and shards, but I will keep an eye out for those breathers. All my other pieces are nice, too, with useful stats and resistances/protections.

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=22137

[Grotug]

Another Morgoth fight video with HT Warrior: one of my more accurate playthroughs and thus a better demonstration on how to fight M than other videos I've posted in the past, despite lackluster damage output and no immunities. I remembered to re-up on speed this time! https://youtu.be/kUNpngusCws

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=22137