Complete N00b's Journey: The Series

[Adam]

I'm not familiar with the games you mentioned so these hints may be trivial for you.
If you play a low-strength character (like your first mage), watch your burden.
If the "Overweight" on your character sheet becomes positive, you'll suffer speed penalty. It's very easy to get -3 or even less speed if you start carrying extra copies of spell books, ammo (especially sling ammo), staves and heavy armors.
Low speed in Angband means almost certain death. If all enemies move twice as fast as you can, they'll kill you.
-1 is still ok, -2 is ok if you know what you are doing but I would avoid going further.
Therefore when playing a mage, don't take all armors for example. Those 20-30 lbs heavy pieces may improve your AC a lot, but since you don't want to be close to monsters anyway, it's useless. Resistances are more important if you are keeping a distance from the monsters.
Don't carry more than 2 copies of the books early in the game (< DL 20).
Check for the staves you are carrying (each is 5 lbs and easy to accumulate too much). By default you pick up any new items if they match something in your inventory. If you have a staff of light with 1 charge and pick up another one with 9 charges, you'll have 2 staves with 10 charges. But if you drop one, you'll have just 5. Better to drop that item with 1 charge before you pick up the other one.
Don't carry useless ammo. Also watch the weight of your weapons. I almost never use crossbows with a mage (except for Cubragol which has speed bonus).
You mentioned that you dropped some gloves - if they don't have FA/DEX bonus and are not alchemist gloves, they make you worse at casting spells so in general don't use them.
And the most important thing you should never forget: you don't need to kill everything. If you feel you can't handle the situation just flee.

[Pete Mack]

Don't worry about losing early. The usual newbie problem is playing (and leveling) so slowly that losing a midlevel character represents a lot of time lost.
When I start a mage I take:
MB1, MB2
~10 ?Phase
6 CLW
12 oil
1 potion of heroism
1 scroll of recall.
Extra torch, maybe food.

The important thing is to be able to kill a monster after running out of mana. The oil will let you kill almost any one monster up to DL 7 without much trouble. Avoid groups (detect monsters!) until you become effective with lightning bolt or archery.

Mage tends to be tough for newbies, because you are tempted to fight all the monsters, and don't know which ones to avoid.

[PowerWyrm]

Next time also remember to allocate your stating stat points. A mage starting with 13 INT or a priest with 13 WIS is like shooting yourself in the foot.

[Grotug]

Next time also remember to allocate your stating stat points. A mage starting with 13 INT or a priest with 13 WIS is like shooting yourself in the foot.

Human Mage with no INT bonus is definitely full blown challenge mode. Definitely not a good way to start!

[wizard44]

So after I stupidly did not know that Scatha the Wurm could breathe hundreds of HP damage of cold AND do it twice in one go on D:46, Nedandon got killed off in what I call the perfect ambush. May the RNG grant me a good combination to go with.

Complete N00b'€™s Journey: Character #3

Give a big hand to Anwe, the Hobbit Warrior. I chose to play with the “start with a kit of useful gear” birth option OFF, to truly maximize the random experience.

The first thing that I notice from the stores is that there is NO Dagger, Rapier, or Main Gauche for my warrior to get, so I decided to buy the other extreme necessities before deciding on what weapon to get. I bought 2 potions of Cure Light Wounds (since no potions of cure Serious wounds or Heroism were for sale), a scroll of Word of Recall, and 3 scrolls of Phase Door, before deciding on buying a Whip and a Short Bow as my starting weapons. I figured that the Short bow would give me enough of an edge at a distance to make up for having a crappy weapon. I then finished off my starting shopping by buying 2 additional scrolls of Phase door, a Potion of Boldness, 5 flasks of Oil and 20 Arrows to finish off my starting shopping.

So the first goal here is to get to D:8, or get as far as possible before we either run out of potions of Cure Light Wounds, Scrolls of Phase door, or Flasks of Oil and Arrows. For this run, I am going to take the first set of staircases that I find and descend, no exceptions.

The starting details have been posted to the following Angband ladder link below:

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=22382

Feel free to offer your tips for this character.

[Sphara]

Sorry to hear about the loss. Scatha breathes pretty often and this time he got the worst-case-scenario double breath.

This new one.. Man, you're not making things easy by randomizing the stat roll although I do appreciate doing this the challenge way. Hobbit warrior with only 13 STR is just about the hardest way I can imagine for a warrior to start a game. It doesn't make a big difference whether the shop had daggers or rapiers. You're relying on ranged damage for a long time unless you miraculously find a weapon with attack speed brand or something that does at least for 10 average dmg/turn in melee for christ sake Stack up lotsa arrows and hope for the best.

[wizard44]

Well, my policy regarding roguelikes is to leave every starting circumstances to chance whenever possible … after all, trying to scum for the highest stats or play the most uber powerful race/class combo is getting far too close to save-scumming in my book. After all, you can’t just reroll the board such that you’re born into a wealthy family, so I say this is supposed to teach you about life and about the necessary need to adapt or die. Of course, the RNG really wants to have it in for me in that regard, but the one true way to deal with it is to kick that disability in the nuts, or die trying.

Fortunately, this character survived the first dive, although his run had to be cut short with a mandatory Recall after running out of Scrolls of Phase Door against Mugash, the Kobold Lord. Check out the new thread I made for details.

[Grotug]

The DL40s are still the scariest part of the dungeon for me when I play Angband. It's where things really start to ramp up in a non-linear fashion, whereas @ is often still quite feeble. Getting double breathed is a bit unlucky but not out of the norm by any means. (In the annals of Angband lots of @s have met their end this way).

Your @ looks like he is doing fine for his depth so far. I don't really have any advice at this point. It will be interesting to see you struggle with all the compromises you are going to have to make as you start collecting gear, especially if you find a good, heavy armor, given your handicapped strength. Hiccup found a way, so I have faith that you will (heh, that would have been a good name for your little hobbit warrior).

I've never played with standard roller before. With the default point based roller you'd have +5 more STR (the most important stat for a warrior).

[Adam]

From the middle of the game uniques start to have twice the base speed.
Base is 10, you had 11 - Scatha has 20. Even if you had 19 speed there would have been a small chance for him to move twice, but with 11 it was almost certain. Two consecutive breaths are bad luck but in general, try to avoid dangerous monsters having two actions against you.
You can haste yourself or teleport them away (you already had Ethereal Openings, i don't know the failure rate though). Wands/rods of Teleport Other are very useful items, always keep them.
As Grotug says around DL40 monsters (especially uniques) grow in a non-linear fashion. And things will be worse with summoners soon.
One more thing to point out (though it was mentioned before): in Angband base 5 resists work in a way that temporary and permanent resists stack. If you have permanent resist (no matter on how many equipment pieces), it cuts damage to 1/3. If you have temporary resist (potion, activation, spell) that also cuts damage to 1/3. If both are present then you suffer only 1/9 of the damage. Against big breathers you need the double resist. You play the game in hard mode by using the roller and I think you also do not know the monster abilities which also does not make your life easy.
Reaching DL40 with your second try is quite nice

[wizard44]

Yeah I screwed up badly by not looking Scatha up in the database before figuring out how to deal wit him... absolutely would have cast Resist Fire and Cold had I known. Couldn't find a wand of teleport Other, otherwise I would have used them quite a few times.

[Pete Mack]

If you have full lore enabled, the monster knowledge menu makes a pretty good reference.

[wizard44]

So after stupidly neglecting my health after getting lightning breathed upon by a Great Wyrm of Many Colours AND miscalculating my speed in a pillardancing attempt to kill it, Anwe gets killed by a fire breath that took him to -82 HP. After cursing my neglect and waiting a few days, I pray for the RNG to give me a better character for this next one.

Complete N00b's Journey: Character #4

It grants me Barel, the Elf Warrior, which has slightly better starting stats that Anwe did, but clearly has a long way to go on that front. At least this obstacle has been overcome before. As before, I have the 'start with a kit of useful gear' OFF, to maximize the degrees of freedom here.

This time, the stores *do* have a Dagger for sale, so I get it. I then get 1 Potion of Cure Light Wounds, 1 potion of Cure Serious Wounds, 1 scroll of Word of Recall, 5 Scrolls of Phase Door, and 1 Potion of Boldness. I then get a Short Bow, 10 standard Arrows, and 4 Flasks of Oil.

Since we have another warrior, the plan here is again to get to D:8, or get as far as possible before we either run out of potions of Cure Light Wounds, Scrolls of Phase Door, or Flasks of Oil and Arrows. Speed diving is again the strategy.

The starting details have been posted to the following Angband ladder link below:

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=22433

As always, feel free to offer any input for this character.

EDIT: This character has failed to get to D:8, and has only made it to D:7 before running out of his Potions of Cure Light Wounds, Cure Serious Wounds AND Scrolls of Phase Door and needing to Recall back to town. However, a new thread has been made, since I believe that this character is still capable of surviving.

[wizard44]

So after getting knocked out by a master mystic and getting killed without a chance to recover on D:55, Barel is no more. After waiting a few days before playing again, I once again pray to the RNG to give me a character with decent stats.

Complete N00b’s Journey: Character #5

I am thus left with Duntir, the Dunadan Ranger and realize that my prayers are not answered, as the ranger is left with a mediocre DEX score and a terrible STR score. Oh well, Duntir will adjust soon enough, or die trying. This guy also has the “start with a kit of useful gear” off to maximize the degrees of freedom for starting the character out. I do NOT find a dagger, rapier, or main gauche in the weapon shop and instead opt for a sling and 20 iron shots, 1 Potion of Cure Light Wounds, 1 Potion of Cure Serious Wounds, 1 Potion of Heroism, 1 Scroll of Word of Recall, 7 Scrolls of Phase Door, 5 Flasks of Oil, and a Whip.

Since we’re playing this guy like a warrior, the plan here is to get to D:8, or get as far as possible before we either run out of curing potions, Scrolls of Phase Door, or Flasks of Oil and Iron Shots. The goal is again to speed dive.

The starting details have been posted to the following Angband ladder link below:

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=22460

As always, feel free to offer any input for this character. Oh, and I’m curious about the randart option-are the randarts generally less beneficial than the standard artifact set? Thanks!

[Sphara]

Get lots of ammo and the first mage book. It provides even some help for this miserable start. Your melee damage is worse than most of my mages have at start.

So its gonna be very rough, but we've seen you make a good run from an awful start

[wizard44]

Thanks for the hint Sphara. So this character has actually accomplished the first goal, and has thus earned the right to have its own thread. Check it out.