Complete N00b's Journey Character #2: Nedandon, the High Elf Priest

[wizard44]

Alright, so this is another failed goal, due to Lorgan, Chief of the Easterlings summoning some monsters that almost screwed me over totally on D:40, which forced me to take a premature Recall back to town.

Complete N00b’s Journey: Part 2-7

Dropped all of the items that you mentioned, as well as bought some scrolls of recall. Until I get more WIS though, I don’t see how I can realistically get the regeneration intrinsic. Upon recalling to D:37, I got the Phial of Galadriel, which was an upgrade to my everburning Lantern, and dealt with Mim, betrayer of Turin, who damaged quite a bit of my equipment with his acid balls. He dropped a Fur Cloak of the Magi [3, +12] <+1 INT, +2 Stealth> to make up for the trouble, though. I also got to level 29 and found the Short Bow of Armas (x2) (+12, +15), a better Ring of Flames [+17], and a wand of fire bolts. I also cleared a bat vault there, where it contained a Long Bow of Lothlorien (x4) (+15, +13) <+3 DEX, +1 shooting power). D:38 proved to be *very* dangerous with a vault containing some very out of depth uniques such as Hoarmurath of Dir, the Queen Ant, and Kavlax the Many-headed. Suffice to say, I did not enter the vault and instead decided to go downstairs relatively quickly. D:39 was host to the Rapier ‘Forasgil’ (1d6) (+12, +19), a Potion of Constitution, and a marilith and a dark elf sorcerer which caused a LOT of trouble with their summons, and forced me to use almost all of my consumables. I did however, managed to dispatch them to get to level 30, and read-id a scroll of *Destruction* on the way out. D:40 had quite a few green dragons and Castamir the Usurper, which forced to use even more of my consumables. An encounter with a Death Drake there took off quite a bit of my exp, forcing me to use my lone scroll of Banishment to deal with them. I next moved to eliminate Nar the Dwarf, which dropped nothing. I picked up a fresh staff of Teleportation, a potion of Restore Life Levels to restore my lost Exp, and ran straight into Lorgan, chief of the Easterlings. Unfortunately, I was not able to kill him fast enough before summoning a nether wraith, forcing me to teleport around to recover from draining. However, I was able to kill the nether wraith, which dropped a welcomed potion of dexterity for me to quaff. However, Lorgan summoned an ancient multi-hued dragon, which prompted me to recall out of the dungeon for my life since it could kill me in one turn, and I was out of scrolls of phase door, bolts, and potions of Cure Critical Wounds. Once I reached the town, I bought 25 Scrolls of Phase Door, a scroll of *Destruction, a spare staff of teleportation, and 10 Seeker Arrows of Flame. With that, I concluded my run.

The next goal: Get to D:46 and clear it, or try to get as far as possible before I run out of Scrolls of Phase Door, healing potions, or missiles.

Which missile weapon is the best for me to use, out of the Heavy Crossbow and two types of Bows that I have? I plan to have at least 80 bolts or arrows the next time I go down there.

My wisdom stat is still garbage. Is it worth hanging around the current level to try to get potions of Wisdom or Contemplation before going down even further?

I still don’t have regeneration either besides the Defender Mace … what item should I be looking for to deal with this? I’d also like to know which items can provide the Hold Life attribute for experience drain, as I’m running into quite a few creatures that are draining my experience.

Nedandon’s status on the ladder has been updated, and any answers to the above questions are welcome!

[Sphara]

Amras is without a question your best ranged option. It has +1 shooting speed which in this version means two shots per turn. Just look at the damage those fire-branded seeker arrows do with it. It's also an excellent stat-item, providing Slow Digestion along with the more important resistances. One satisfy hunger lasts thousands of turns while SDigest is equipped.

I have no idea why you are not carrying Words of Wisdom prayerbook. It has Portal, Resist fire/cold and Satisfy Hunger. Getting teleportation, temporary 1/9 damage from fire and ice and complete ignorance of any food should be reasons enough

Also you can raise Anduril damage by wearing Ring of strength +4 instead of [+17] Flames. You already can make a double fire resistance with that prayer I mentioned. This is not necessary or even important but I just pointed it out.

This part of the game is just paranoid detecting of monsters/items and mapping areas until you get stronger. Avoid AMHDs, drolems, greater basilisks like plaque. Be very careful around dread-packs. If those things surround you, you're dead. It's very hard for me to give advice whether to dive or not. If you dive, be super alert.

Good luck!

[wizard44]

That’s a good question sphara. In the priest guides that I found, I was told that these prayers wouldn’t be too useful at this stage of the game. Nevertheless, I see your point and learned all of the prayers in the Words of Wisdom prayerbook.

Anyway, Lorgan somehow managed to spoil my fun and prevent me from fully clearing D:46 as planned.

Complete N00b’s Journey: Part 2-8

On my return to D:40, I got both of my chants and blessings books burned by a sorcerer. Luckily, killing it gave me a potion of contemplation, where I sacrificed intelligence for wisdom. That’s a fair trade in my opinion. I also took out Gorbag on this level and descended to D:41, where a 7-headed hydra surprised me and nearly ended my life with a poison breath. Luckily, the staff of teleportation worked and I was able to heal up back to fighting speed. On D:42, I killed an ancient green dragon after another poison breath scare, which got me to level 31. I also killed Beorn the Shape-Changer, thanks to some arrows of Frost (1d4) (+5,+7) that I picked up on D:40. The Augmented Chain Mail of Caspanion (-2) [45, +20] <+2 Int, +2 WIS, +3 CON> that he dropped was pretty dang useful and covered the poison resistance weakness pretty well. I then killed Smeagol, of all Uniques, and quaff-id’d a potion of *Healing*. On D:43, I read-id’d a scroll of summon monsters, the last action of which forced me to reload the level by going upstairs and downstairs. In the second go-around, I ran face to face with a drolem, which caused me immediately cast a teleport spell to get the hell out of the way to avoid getting killed. I was unfortunately placed right next to an asleep ancient multi-hued dragon. I *somehow* managed to get away without waking the creature up, and let out a breath of relief. Before I descended to D:44, I read-id’d the dispel undead scroll. Upon entering D:44, multi-hued hounds showed up to destroy quite a few of my missiles. After dispatching them, I then proceeded to clear an undead vault, which had a chest containing the Steel Helm of Hammerhand [9, +20] <+3 STR, +3 DEC, +3 CON>, and a robe of Permanance [2, +19] (which can theoretically solve the hold life problem), a potion of Constitution (which I drank), a potion of Wisdom (freaking FINALLY-I drank that), and a potion of *Healing*. Very great finds. D:45 had nothing of note, although Detect Evil revealed the presence of Itangast the Fire Drake, which I did not attempt to hunt down since it was an out of depth Unique. I ended up descending to D:46 quickly to speed up this run. I found a potion of Dexterity and quaffed it, and did the same thing with a discovered potion of Enlightenment. I once again ran into Lorgan, but without access to Orb of Draining, I decided to just get the heck out of here with a Recall back to town. I restocked on my prayer books and bought a mixture of regular and enchanted arrows to get to 80 missiles, 11 Scrolls of Phase Door, 5 potions of Restore Life Levels, 4 Scrolls of Recharging, a Large Metal Shield of Resistance [12, +20], a Scroll of Mass Banishment, and a rod of Healing to close off this part.

Next goal: Get to and finish D:49, or come as close to it as possible.

Questions I have for you folks:

Should I wear an Amulet of Regeneration over my current Amulet of Wisdom?

Getting rid of the Dwarven Metal Scale mail, and the Long Bow of Lothlorien. I’m curious if the Steel Helm of Hammerhand is a better choice than my current artifact helmet because of higher AC. If I get a higher wisdom score, I’m definitely considering a switch.

Is the artifact rapier worth keeping around in the home, or should I just ditch it? Have the same question for Rilia.

[Pete Mack]

Good that you arent trying to clear levels anymore. Caspanion and Hammerhand are huge finds. You can probably take a single drolem breath now.

[wizard44]

YASD #2: Getting perfectly ambushed by Scatha the Worm and his successive breaths.

Decided to retain my Amulet of Wisdom and my current helmet for now, as I feel that the wisdom bonuses were too vital for me to ditch for now. So in my second go-around, I ran into Scatha the Worm, who surprised me by suddenly waking up (when I didn't notice) and breathing frost TWO fucking times in a row, killing me without even a chance to teleport away and recover. THAT is seriously fucked up, as I had NO prior knowledge that he could deal hundreds of points of damage even thought I had cold resistance. Even more fucked up is his ability to do it TWICE in one go, even with a guy with +1 speed. That’s a textbook definition of an unprepared instakill, and that really pisses me off and is a sign of a bad roguelike.

Ladder has been given a final update, and I am now moving on to another character.

[Nick]

Now you know

+1 speed is not very much. Scatha moves quickly, which means +10 speed; deeper you will find monsters which move at +20 and +30. So he was always going to get almost two moves to your one; it was unlucky that he used his first two to breathe, but in a long game you will get unlucky at least once.

To make it worse, you had the prayer Resist Heat and Cold, which would have given you temporary cold resistance; this stacks with permanent resistance, so you would have only taken 1/3 the damage from each breath and would have (barely) survived.

The other lesson to get from this is that uniques are designed to be nasty when you meet them at their native depth. You were right on Scatha's depth, and he's a dragon, so dangerous breaths are to be expected.

Actually, looking at your death messages, you had hit Scatha with Orb of Draining, he cursed at you (you saved), and then you drank a !CCW. Then he breathed twice.

One of the features of Angband is that it has excellent methods of escape balanced by situations that turn bad very quickly. So every move you need to think "Could I die before I get another move?"

[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, and quaffed speed. Hell, I really should have quaffed speed potions before facing any uniques on that point, but I was husbanding them for actively dangerous situations that I am aware of (Scatha took me by surprise on how dangerous he was with his speed and breaths, so this situation didn't count). Really wish there was a functional wiki so that looking up monsters would be less of an effort.

[Mondkalb]

You either learn it the hard way or try to be cautious around unknown monsters, especially uniques.
Also, yo will eventually find a rod of probing which you can use to get more information about foes.