Complete N00b's Journey Character #3: Anwe, the Hobbit Warrior

[Adam]

I'm not sure how much you use the activations, people tend to forget those.
Cammithrim can be used every turn at your current speed for 3d4 damage (not much, but free ranged damage). If you know that your opponents do not paralyze you can switch to Paurhach for 9d8 fire damage around every 10-12 turns (3 times the damage of your arrows). Actually i'm not sure that 2 packs of arrows is needed, your weapon now does much more damage than basic arrows, do you still use them a lot?
The ring can be used for fireballs, i guess you know that (interesting that I do not see activation time there, to be honest I did not use those recently).
Please note that in 4.1.3 Staff of Light and Wand of Light do not invoke the same spells, staff is good for lighting rooms, wand is for corridors. The later is useful for example against snagas and similar light-sensitive creatures if you can hit more of them with the spell.
You wrote about "rod of light" but I don't see it in the dump, just a wand.

[fph]

Which is a good target level to get to this time around- D:35? Fph said that D:35 is the deepest level for stat potions (30-35). I’m open to a good target depth to reach. I'm especially interested in knowing which level would have the highest chance towards generating potions of strength!

Uh, no, sorry, probably I didn't explain myself well. Stat-gain potions don't stop showing up after DL35; you'll find them at every depth starting from DL30 onward (and there is a lower probability to find them earlier).

It used to be the case that DL30-35 was the optimal place to find them, so people spent a lot of time there (you can read this in old guides); the allocation probabilities now have been changed though, and lurking around those depth for a very long time is not recommended anymore. If you feel you can survive beyond that depth, go deeper; there's better loot there (fir instance, potions of augmentation at DL40).

The main reason I suggested that depth is that you get the additional payoff of stat gain potions, but you still don't find some dangerous monsters that come at a lower native depth; for instance, master vampires, liches, dreads inertia and gravity hounds, mature and ancient dragons all start to appear around DL35-40 (this is from some old notes of mine; it's possible that some of these changed in the latest versions). And from DL40-45 you get get ancient multi-hued dragons, drolems, death drakes, ethereal dragons.

TL;DR: it's not recommended anymore to stay at DL30-40 for a looong time; just go as deep as you can as long as it's not too dangerous. However, in general it's a good idea (in my opinion) to go at a slightly faster pace at DL20-30 and at a slower one at DL30-35.

[Pete Mack]

However, in general it's a good idea (in my opinion) to go at a slightly faster pace at DL20-30 and at a slower one at DL30-35.

This is certainly good advice, especially if you have FA and SI. I hate going without SI once dreads become a threat; FA is more optional.

[wizard44]

I probably should have mentioned that I dropped the rod of light before Recalling the dungeon for weight reasons, as I didn't think that rod was good enough for me to carry. I am aware of the fireball activations, gloves, etc, but they don't really solve the problem by too much. Before I started this next run, I dropped the staff of light and a full pack of 40 arrows, to get me under the burden limit. My goal was to get to D:35 in order to improve my chances of getting stat potions, particularly that of strength. Unfortunately, I did not get that far, due to a sorcerer giving me another near-death experience.

Complete N00b's Journey: Part 3-5

Upon recalling back to D:29, the pathway to the nearest downstairs had nothing of note, so I immediately descended to D:30, which turned out to be a very dangerous level with lots of mummified trolls, grey wraiths, and skeleton ettins. Luckily, there was a potion of Brawn right in the room next to me, which I quaffed to increase my strength at the expense of Dexterity. Another black knight ruined the show with a blinding spell, forcing me to quaff one of my potions of Cure Light wounds to remove the condition. Luckily, a critical it in melee managed to finish it off without too much trouble. I also picked up a rod of Illumination in the level, which was a great find, and mowed down a group of uruks to get to level 25. I then ran into Wormtongue, who went down to melee fast and dropped a Pair of Steel Shod Boots of Free Action [7, +4]. I then proceeded to take out Mughash the Kobold Lord which I detected with detect evil, but not before finding a much-appreciated ring of Strength <+2 stealth, +2 speed>. Killing Mughash results in acquiring the Flail 'Totila' (3d6) (+16,+12), which was not nearly as effective as my Haradekket. I then quaff-id a potion of Healing, and find a rod of Treasure Location. I then take out Ufthak of Cirith Ungol through melee, who dropped a scimitar of *Slay Orc* that proved to be useless and was dropped. Slaying the orcish retinue yielded a potion of Dexterity. I then read-id the Scrolls of Trap Creation, Enchant Weapon To-Hit, and Acquirement, the last yielding Chain Mail of Resist Fire (-2) [32,+12], which was too heavy to offset the benefits of my artifact body armor. I then kill Nar, the Dwarf, who forces me to quaff my potions of Cure Light Wounds and drops a useless Pick upon dying. Not willing to further risk staying on such a dangeroud level, I then descend to D:31. There, I find a rod of Recall and a Wicker Shield [2, +7]. A wereworm does a number on my boots of Free Action and my Hard Leather Cap of Wisdom, but falls to my artifact sword. I also find a wand of Frost Bolts, which was useful in dealing with a 4-headed hydra. An eye vault proved too much for me to handle and destroyed quite a few potions of cure Light wounds as well as my potions of Cure Critical Wounds. I thus descend to D:32 and go to level 26 by killing a werebear and a young white dragon. Fire giants, however, force me to descend to D:33 to evade them. D:33 had a ring of Acid [+9} and a Indigo potion that was one of Resist Poison when quaff-id'd. I also found a fresh stock of Cure Serious Wounds potions, which were badly needed for me to continue the run. I then move to dispatch Grishnakh, the Hill Orc, who drops the Dagger Nimthanc, and Golfimbul, the Hill Orc, who drops the Rapier Forasgil. A load of apprentices and sorcerers almost do me in, forcing me to quaff my stack of cure serious wounds to stave off the assault. After summoning an ancient green dragon, I zap my rod of Recall and get the hell out of here, but not before picking up a wand of stone to Mud. Once at the town, I give one of my unidentified rings to the magic shop in return for them to identify it as a ring of Slow Digestion and stash the other unidentified ring at home. I then buy my scrolls of Phase door, buy 5 potions of Cure Critical Wounds, a leather shield of Resist Lightning [8, +7], and 2 scrolls of Recharging. I then re-gear up for the next dive.


I’ve updated the ladder with Anwe's current status. Based on what is there, do you have any input on a realistic depth to shoot for? I'€™m thinking that D:37 is the place to shoot for this guy, but I'€™m open to quality input here.

Can rods of Recall be destroyed in any way? If so, should I just ditch my Scrolls of Word of Recall at this point?

[Mondkalb]

Rods of recall can't be destroyed, but can be stolen.

[Pete Mack]

Sorceror is a dangerous foe, but it is native to dl 40. You shouldn't see them very often at dl 35. You will see gravity hounds and dreads. (Though for some reason dreads are moved to dl 44 in the master branch. No idea why.)

[wizard44]

So this guy is still alive, after the MOTHER of close calls from an ambush by Kavlax, the Many-headed and his damaging breaths.

Complete N00b’s Journey: Part 3-6

So I ended up taking the Rod of Recall in place of my scrolls, and proceeded to begin my fresh run to D:40. Back at D:33, I get to level 27 by dispatching a mage, ghost, and wolves. A chaos drake, disenchants my boots of Free Action before I can dispatch it in melee. I find a potion of Healing and use-id a staff of Confuse monsters and end up dropping the latter. Killing a shadow drake on the level yielded a Pink Potion that was a Potion of intelligence upon quaff-id’ing. I also found a supply of Cure Critical wounds there to stabilize my run and a ring of Ice [+8] in case I run into any cold-resistant monsters. Descent into D:34 saw me killing lots of orcs and trolls to get to level 28 and finding (and dropping) a Staff of Curing as well as wand of Teleport Other. I run into Shagrat, the Orc captain, who dropped a Partial Plate Armour of Resistance (-3) [40, +16] which was far too heavy for me to carry as my main armor. A fire hound there destroys my staff of teleportation, making the trip a lot more riskier. Khim, Son of Mim was also around to disenchant my shield, long bow, and boots of Free Action, before falling to melee. I finish off the level by read-id’ing a scroll of summon Undead. D:35 had nothing of note other than dark elven lords ruining my life and dropping nothing except a wand of Cold Balls. A dread there nearly ends my life and forces me to use one of my potions of Healing. On the flip side, I obtain a Potion of Wisdom and a better Ring of Strength upon its death. Another dread immediately greets me and luckily dies quickly before it casts nether bolts on me. Its death drop yields a Potion of Intelligence, which I happily quaff. Kiling a group of rangers yield nothing but an additional wand of Teleport Other. Another encounter with a chaos drake causes me to have my long bow completely disenchanted. I also read-id a scroll of *Destruction*, which causes me to lose an unidentified scroll. With no other items for me, I go to D:36, where I meet Lagduf, the Snaga and dispatch him, who drops the Dagger ‘Narthanc’ (2d4) (+9, +12) [+10] and wore down a colossus to get to level 29. I picked up a ring of Identify rune and learned that my unknown ring was a ring of bodykeeping. A mage and sorcerer get me to the low hitpoints, forcing me to quaff a potion of healing and teleport away the sorcerer. However, I was summoned to a sorcerer vault and was barely able to phase door out of the area. Upon killing the mages and apprentices that chose to lurk outside the vault, I find and quaff-id a potion of toughness that drains my intelligence. Not willing to risk losing my life to approaching sorcerer, I use my wands of Teleport Other to teleport them away and immediately decend to D:37 with a single potion of Healing in my inventory. It is there that I find a Rod of Magic Mapping and a Potion of Enlightenment that I quaff after clearing a hill orc pack. Unfortunately, Kavlax the Many-Headed decided to show up and stun me with his powerful breaths. I was barely able to teleport Other him out safely and was forced to use my Teleport Other wands towards a load of incoming monsters, having used my remaining potion of Healing to recover from the first breath. Luckily, Recall kicked in before I died to surrounding monsters. That was pretty damn close. Note to self: Always have *scrolls* of teleportation as an escape route. Once safely back at the town, I buy 5 potions of Cure Serious Wounds, 2 potions of Cure Critical Wounds, 4 scrolls of recharging (one to recharge my staff of detect Evil), and a fresh staff of Teleportation. I then decided to switch to my Crossbow of Accuracy and get the best bolts that I have for the next dive.

Is it better to have two Staves of Teleportation, or is one generally enough (and I just got unlucky)? The same goes for staves of Detect Evil and wands of Teleport Other.

What do you think the general strategy is here with regard to diving for the character? I REALLY felt that I was pushing my luck on D:37, so I feel that I can’t go too much deeper until I get a better strength score.

Which artifact weapons are worth keeping/wielding? I have stored several artifact weapons in my home that I can pull out for use when I have a better strength score and thus more blows.

Is it worth ditching my artifact armor to put on a non-artifact body armor that grants resistance to all four elements? I found several in the dungeons, but left them all behind thinking they were inferior. Is that bad reasoning?

I have updated Anwe’s status on the ladder and welcome answers to the above questions and other tips.

[Pete Mack]

Hold on to Narthanc for when you start getting multiple blows. (Your character has such low sttength, so it probably doesn't get enough now to beat a heavier weapon.)

[wobbly]

Is it better to have two Staves of Teleportation, or is one generally enough (and I just got unlucky)? The same goes for staves of Detect Evil and wands of Teleport Other.

I like to have 3x _teleport! (assuming I can carry them). Detect Evil it's better to have a spare, though they are common on the ground & you can recall if you suddenly need detect evil, that's harder if you suddenly need teleport.

What do you think the general strategy is here with regard to diving for the character? I REALLY felt that I was pushing my luck on D:37, so I feel that I can’t go too much deeper until I get a better strength score.

You can survive much much deeper, but that means a strategy of constant detect & avoid, looking for soft targets. Warriors aren't setup the best for it (bad stealth/bad device/no detection spells) but it mostly comes down to how you like to play the game.

Is it worth ditching my artifact armor to put on a non-artifact body armor that grants resistance to all four elements? I found several in the dungeons, but left them all behind thinking they were inferior. Is that bad reasoning?

Which do you want to die from: cold or poison?
You'll probably find a shield with base resist soon but if you find a ring with rpoison 1st it'll be worth changing.

Hold on to Narthanc for when you start getting multiple blows. (Your character has such low sttength, so it probably doesn't get enough now to beat a heavier weapon.)

Yeah but by that time Haradekket will do even more. I don't see Narthanc beating Haradekket (or Forasgil for that matter), but could be wrong.

[Pete Mack]

Oh, missed that. Yeah, Harradeket is a great weapon, and will most likely beat Forasgil (as well Narthanc.) Ditch the dagger, and Forasgil if you need space.

[fph]

What do you think the general strategy is here with regard to diving for the character? I REALLY felt that I was pushing my luck on D:37, so I feel that I can’t go too much deeper until I get a better strength score.

I agree 100% --- too many close calls here. Even if you are still alive, you are depleting your consumables to survive at this depth (!healing, -teleother, !ccw). Time to back up a little and look for stat potions and a better kit. A shield of resistance would help filling your holes. A second ring of strength may be a good idea, but see how it works for you.
The best find at this point would be an item granting telepathy, which would solve your detection problems and greatly improve your survivability, or some source of speed (you can't use Totila without seriously crippling your damage output).

[Estie]

With low str I carry only 1 staff of teleport. Also, its either staff or scrolls (of teleportation), not both - staff if you lack either rblind or rconf. Instead of doubling up on one feature, you can use that slot for something else like a scroll of banishment or a stack of berserk potions.

Poison and base are both essential resists; with a warrior who goes toe to toe, I would prefer poison given the choice. Whatever you do, hold onto that armor of yours, as having access to rpoison from multiple (non-ring-) slots gives you flexibility with your other gear.

Guessing from your tale, you play far too risky. If you want to dive deeper, the standard procedure should not involve exploring levels. As you arrive on a new level, treat the staircase as point of reference and only make one small foray into nearby territory; if you find nothing of interest, instead of going further away, return to the stairs and change level to repeat the procedure. If you teleport on every level you enter, youre doing something seriously wrong.

Naturally you detect before running around, and if anything looks like trouble, skip the level entiely and use the stairs. Kavlax on radar should prompt an immediate retreat unless there is some other very good reason that makes you want to stay, like a MHDSM in sight.

Trouble doesnt necessarily mean life threatening - for example, too many trolls which would take a long time to deal with, or a pack of unpleasant hounds is enough to warrant a retreat. Generally speaking, short stays make for long life.

[Pete Mack]

I agree with Estie...mostly. If you want to get diving practice, I strongly recommend high-elf rogue. You are sure to have good enough INT Aand mana to cast reveal monsters by CL 30, and you get full object detection around dl 20 (when the fail rate drops low enough.) Plus, you get great stealth and guaranteed SI.

Finally you *must* dive, because high elf (prior to v 4.3) needs a ton of EXP to level up.

[wizard44]

Okay, so I decided to get to D:40 and camp out there to try to get some stat potions and other necessities. After some stairdancing to reload the level, I managed to get another artifact weapon and raise my strength a tiny bit, but the resulting load mandated that I recall out of the dungeon before starting another fresh run, as well as a slight shortage of Cure X wounds potions.

Complete Noob’s Journey: Part 3-7

Alright, so I went down with only one staff of teleportation that had 8 charges, bought 10 potions of Cure Light Wounds to make up for the shortage of better healing potions, and Recalled down to D:37 begin my fresh run. I decided to get to D:40 with this recent run to try to generate potions of Augmentation, but I resolved not to explore far beyond the stairs to do so. My initial run saw me dealing with a spirit naga, umber hulk, killer slicer beetle, and a smoke elemental to make it past a dangerous room containing lots of sleeping animals. The way to the down stairs was blocked by cave trolls, who easily went down to melee attacks and took me to level 30. D:38 was a short trip where I picked up a supply of Cure Critical Wounds potions before going downstairs to avoid some dangerous uniques there. D:39 had a room full of muchrooms, most of which were useless to carry. I also found, use-id’d, and dropped a rod of polymorph in that level and killed a group of snagas. Having eaten a mushroom of Second Sight and with no other useful nearby items found, I quickly took the downstairs to D:40 and hoped that I could acquire potions of Augmentation there. D:40 had no nearby items upon zapping my rod of Treasure Location and a nearby downstairs staircase, so I went down to D:41 after killing a pukelman. A minotaur on D:41 forced me to go back upstairs to D:40, which took me in the middle of an ogre vault. Keeping the stairs very close by, I take out the ogres and find a stack of unknown scrolls that turn out to be Summon Monster. Not seeing any nearby objects from the rod of treasure location, other than a Second rod of Magic Mapping, I descend back to D:41, where I slay a mature green dragon for gold and again find nothing of interest nearby. My third visit to D:40 yielded nothing of note, though I had a brief run-in with Uvatha the Horseman that necessitated a zap of Teleport Other wand and a descent back to D:41. This generation also yielded nothing of note, forcing me to continue repeating the ascent-descent cycle between D:40 and D:41 several more times. Notable events is dealing with a bunch of Ologs that force to use my supply of Cure Serious Wounds to deal with them, finding a Steel Helm to replace my corroded Leather Cap of wisdom from a gelatinous cube encounter, falling through a trap door to the middle of D:41 and dealing with a mature black dragon and Medusa the Gorgon, the first of which damaged my leather shield of Resist Lightning and the other being zapped away from the level with a wand of Teleport Other for Safety, and dispatching Lugdush, the Uruk on D:40 as well as his orcish retinue and a group of ghouls, none of which dropped anything worthwhile. Potions that I happen to quaff-id include potions of Intellect, Nimbleness (which drained my strength ), and Augmentation () and I also find the Beaked Axe of Hurin (3d6) (+12, +15) <+2 STR, +2 CON, +1 Light>. I get to level 31 by killing a balance drake, a shardstorm, and a group of barrow wights, and finally quaff-id a Potion of Strength and a Hard Leather Armour of Resistance in my last go-around of D:40. Being weighted down with the extra armor, I decide to Recall to drop off some things at my home, and buy 10 more potions of Cure Light Wounds, since there were no stronger potions for sale in any of the stores.

How useful is a staff of power and a Rod of Teleport Other? Both are available at the Black Market.

Is the plan to stay at D:40 and D:41 until I gain (at least) two more points in strength valid? Or should I go to a different level to maximize results? Which items should I look for before going deeper, and which dungeon levels are the most likely to have them? Specifically, confusion and blindness resistance are the two big holes in my current character, and I’m not sure how exactly to address them.

What do you think is the most suitable equipment setup for this next dive, out of my current inventory, equipment, and home stash?

[Pete Mack]

Uvatha has no disrance attacks. He is a trivial target with a good bow and a huge stack of ?PD.
Also, I see you are carrying a Ring of Acid as well as Fire. The former is useless. Acid just doesn't do much damage, since armor cuts it in half. OTOH, fire and cold grant double resist against some early ancient dragon uniques (Smaug, etc), and there are a ton of horrid fire breathers around DL 40. (Hell hounds, for example.)