All well that ends well (and vice versa)

[Ugramoth]

So, level 35 high elf mage with good gear, spell books (Raals and Resistance), high speed and stats confidently enters dungeon level 42.
"Omens of death haunt this place"
Party time

And there is this four-section kind of room (not a vault, mind you, everyday rooms) with gear and some critters. Telepathy and reveal monsters show that we have in one room: Uvatha the Horseman and Ariel Queen of Air (!)
Second room:
Stone Troll triplet Tom, Bert and Bill (yes, all of them!!), Scatha the Worm (!!!) and .... Witch King of Angmar (!!!!! :0 What the HELL???)

TOssed Witch King out the way, dealt with rest of the buggers one by one (stealth is good) and then decided to at least try a few rounds with the Big Bad.

The Nazgul party time
So I teleported (Yes, I know, bad idea) and of course landed right next to the Witch King and the next instance was standing next to not one but 3 Nazgul. OK, teleported out before anything happened.
Instead of recall out, decided to go ghostbusting. Tactical use of TO allowed me to off the ringwraiths one by one starting from the least scary (Yes, Witch King eventually summoned ALL of them), went 3 levels (!) up in the process (Balrog of Moria also joined the party and was dealt with) and finally beat the Witch King after lengthy spell casting competition that seriously depleted my restore mana and healing stockpiles (the bastard took about 1000 meteor swarms before agreeing to be dead already)

OK, ringwrights all dead and loot of about 10 artifacts, some really nice. Life is good.

Decided to clean up the dungeon and perhaps get one more level from the summoned undead and demons still hanging around. That was success again, indeed one level more after few nightwings and bile demons. Perfect, about the time go back to town soon... just kill these few remaining baddies.
...

Overconfidence, not paying attention to what's actually happening...

Got rather unceremoniously butchered by a horned reaper.

Bummer.

[gglibertine]

Overconfidence, not paying attention to what's actually happening...

That's what always gets me. Someday I'll win... someday...

(BTW, Tom, Bert, and Bill always appear together in my experience, so if you see one you know the others are lurking.)

[wobbly]

That's what always gets me. Someday I'll win... someday...

(BTW, Tom, Bert, and Bill always appear together in my experience, so if you see one you know the others are lurking.)

Not just in your experience, it's in the code same as the orc leaders & their packs + a bunch of others. If you look through the monster list a bunch of stuff have a tag for groups(friends: & friend-base: )

[Pete Mack]

Horned Reaper is very bad news in melee. He hits harder than any other monster in the game. Morgoth does more raw melee damage when he attacks, but he casts a lot more spells in between.

[Ugramoth]

Horned Reaper was summoned by Balrog of Moria. I kept evading him while cleaning up the level and finally when everything else was gone, decided to finish him for good 30k EXP he was worth.

My tactic was to hit him with meteor swarms and switch to rift when he got too close for comfort.

Maybe he was faster than I calculated or my haste wore off, anyway he's suddenly right in front of me. 'rift', in order to hurt him and get him out of my face. He ain't going nowhere, instead giving me serious whacking.

At that point, phase door would have been sensible. Or TO. Or even heal. But I did not do any of those things, and I definitely did not pay attention to how much damage I already suffered.

So I cast another rift (just hit repeat button...).
He's not moving. What a stubborn demo...
*low hitpoint warning*
...what was that?
*low hitpoint warning*, *low hitpoint warning*... you die.

???wait what? WHAT??? you got to be kidding me! Did that thing do over 500 points of damage in just 2 melee rounds?!

At least I achieved something probably no-one has ever done before: Killed all 9 in one sitting.

[Pete Mack]

Deep monsters have high save rate against rift spell, and Reaper is very deep indeed. Rift spell is no kind of escape then. Phase would work. If you want to use rift, it works better in conjunction with a glyph or two.

[Ugramoth]

Well, it was working well enough until it wasn't.