Journal of the human ranger

[Grotug]

My last Half Troll Ranger won very easily once I found Telepathy. The 8d6 Morgoth/Sauron slayer made short work of both bosses. Now for a new adventure:

CL6 DL6

Bored of the repeating, winding passageways I fall asleep in a quiet corner of the dungeon. When I wake, my mind is foggy and my dream is still at the forefront of my thoughts; I go around smashing lesser creatures with my standard issue weapon but when a soldier doesn't yield I suddenly remember who I am. I am just a human ranger. I am not the huge, hulking half troll warrior of my dream. I flee from the soldier and then ?phase and restore my lossed health and easily pelt him with arrows.

Suddenly I realize I only have two arrows left in my quiver. Where did they all go? Shortly thereafter I wander into a stack of 31 arrows (+2, +1). Yes, I was not wanting to return to town so soon. I take the downstairs and come upon a nice whip (+4, +5) which doubles my damage output. None too soon, as I soon find that I have disturbed an ant pit. A corridor of furry legs and unfriendly mandibles come at me. I am bitten and weakened! I fight them back with arrows and magical whip. Fortunately I am gaining levels quickly and am periodically rewarded with renewed strength. A few times the ants surround me, quickly reducing my hp to dangerously low levels; ?phasing is my safest recourse, but lands me in the center of the ant pit! I ?phase again and land safely. As I escape, I hear loud shrieking. I flee and by some good fortune am somehow not pursued. When I recover I find the shrieking mushroom patch and kill it. A safe distance from the ants I quaff an unknwon potion. If it's useful, I want to use the buff against the ants; if it's sleep, I want to have enough distance that I will wake before they feed on me. The potion is speed, and I dispatch of the rest of the ants without much trouble and am well rewarded for my efforts: three weapons are scattered about inside the pit, each better than my whip. But the last is a special weapon . As I lift it I feel stronger and more dexterous. It is a spear with +2 STR and DEX and +1 CON and I feel my eyes tingle with super-sensory vision as well. Technically not an artifact, but a very auspicious find. I go forth with renewed hope and confidence.

(This is the latest nightly from around April 11).

[Grotug]

Not long after I come upon a slinking, sneaking creature and sense he is not up to any good. He dances around very quickly and I cannot keep my bearings on him. He keeps swiping at me and missing but eventually we engage each other after I hit him with my wand of wonder I've just found. I get in one smite of my weapon before he disappears in a puff of smoke. I decide since I only have 3 ?phase doors left (having used what little I had fighting the ants) that I will not pursue this creature. But he keeps pursuing me, stealing my gold.

I come upon Brodda and think he will not be much trouble, but my AC is only 8 and he has me fleeing very quickly (I engaged him with only 50hp). I use up my last three ?phase doors and he takes me to 9 health as I hit and flee him. Favorable ?phases are key to victory, especially the last one which put me back in a hallway I had just come from and was able to easily pelt him as he approached. He dropped me nothing, the wretch.

I return to town and smeagol and a hill orc harass me while I wait to be yanked upwards. After resupplying and learning !CSW, back in the dungeon I immediately come across a ?phase door scroll and realize I forgot to buy more. I decide not to return immediately as it would be nice to get enough gold to buy the =FrAct in the blackmarket. After a soldier stuns me, I find a ring of reckless attacks good for +5 dam and see Wormtongue (using magic) not far off in a lit room. I don't want to be robbed, but I want to see if there is something worthwhile in the room. After I haste him with my wand of wonder and tithe him, I find a short bow of accuracy and return to town.

Back in the dungeon with 31 ?phase I am presented by a wonderful magically induced sight: Grishnak, Gorlfimbul and Bullroarer. I bubble with optimism for a fruitful quarry. Also here are an ironfist priest and a lone uruk and some wargs and two half orcs. I light a corridor to Grhisnak and my wand of wonder stuns him, strips him of half his health and sends him fleeing! I laugh with glee. I finish him off with an arrow and melee and collect a caestus. He does bring me to 28hp though. Bullroarer is next to fall in four very swift rounds of my spear. He drops the Flail of Angil, a decidedly unspecial "artifact", one that is for sure in the running for worst artifact to ever be recorded in all the annals of Angband history. Hyperbole this is not, my friends: (2d6) (+14, +5). I yawn as the flail falls from my hands and clangs loudly on the dungeon floor. After killing the wargs that pursue me I see Glorfimbul also drops me chainmail [32, +7], an ordinary item that is decidedly more special and useful. But I am now down to 27hp and face to face with the ironfist priest. The question becomes whether to ?phase or heal. Since the priest moves twice as fast as me and since I have not been on the level long I decide to ?phase. More later today, as I have to run now.

[Grotug]

I quaff a !CSW and suddenly my torch reveals the half-orc next to me, ready to finish me off. I engage him in melee but the ironfist priest surrounds me in darkness. I !CLW and sense that I am in a special room so I read a scroll of light room. Golfimbul is here sleeping. Though I only have 44hp I decide to try to kill the priest quickly with arrows, and he dies fairly easily before getting off another spell. The black orc is next, but I require another ?phase to get away from the uruk. Glorfimbul now wakes up and I find myself fleeing him, the injured uruk and the other half-orc. I then run into the other injured half-orc. Some favorable ?phases and fleeing and soon everyone dies surprisingly easily, though I am surprised to learn that Gorfimbul resists the elemental attacks of my wand of wonder. Arrows do him well enough, though, as does the bite from my orc slaying spear. Glorfimbul drops soft leather armor [8, +12] {??} (resistance?) and a cloak of Aman of stealth <+2> [3, +18] {??}. Very nice!

A short video of the fight. A good demonstration of favorable ?phasing.

https://youtu.be/4oi1H5zwmLs

I learn Stone to Mud spell, one of the key spells I will use throughout the game. My fail rate is only 19%, though I possess no wisdom boosting items. My starting stats were +6 STR, +4 WIS/CON and +6 DEX.

Short distance away I find an amulet of inertia (-1) and so I wear it as it provides FrAct. The level is a 4-1 feeling so I read one of my two scrolls of mapping. The stairs are close, but in a separate part of the dungeon separated by three granite tiles. I've learned stone to mud none too soon!

[Grotug]

At the bottom of the stairs (DL14) I magically perceive Lagduf and a large band of snagas. Child's play. Lagduf drops <+2> Stealth boots. I like the theme developing here. Feeling good, I run into a pack of wolves and their jaws and claws find their way through my armor. I've underestimated them and they quickly take me to 12hp. A !CSW doesn't take me to yellow hp, but it's enough to keep death at bay as my spear rings true and the lot of them are run through as they come one by one into the corridor.

I haven't been wearing the amulet of inertia since I'm not quite at depth where it is essential. But I learn that my spear protects me from the spell of a Tamer to keep me from moving. Still, I'll hold onto the amulet in case I find a better weapon. I am glad to know the important rune of FrAct. Seconds later I find a lantern. I attack a red mold and learn the rune of resist fire on my armor. I am now pretty sure my armor is Resistance since it still has runes to learn {??} and the high magical AC enchantment is consistent with Resistance armors. In search of the stairs I eventually come into contact with an unID'd ?Deep Descent.

DL19: I immediately come to a hill giant and melee him and learn my weapon also slays giants. He nearly kills me. I ?phase favorably into a large room and finish him off along with a pack of wolves that rush me, but bow is just enough to keep them at bay.

DL20: I decide to take on a row of lighthounds to see if my aman cloak resists light. It doesn't. The lighthounds are surpisngly damaging and I quaff !CLW to see what's going on and a tiger is having at me. I ?Phase and then try a staff I recently picked up and it teleports me to the other side of the level. Nice! I think this is the second staff I've tried this game (the first being light room).

[Pete Mack]

Grotug--
Are you finding it tedious to play non-warrior classes? The lack of any resistance spells (except poison for Ranger) means there are so many more fights you have to run from. So you end up buying a huge stack of !rHeat and !rCold no matter what class you are playing. And of course you won't go hunting swamp wyrms except as a ranger.

[Grotug]

I haven't experienced any tedium playing Ranger in New Angband so far. Of course, in my last game my Half-Troll Ranger basically was a warrior since I ended up with very good hit-die rolls and found the broken (8d6) Sauron/Morgoth slayer. I really did play that game like a warrior who happened to have great utility spells to boot.

I guess that's partly why I'm doing Human Ranger this time, so that I will hopefully not be able to play it as a warrior. I'm still not sure why the broken Randart weapon generation isn't a priority for fixing. It has ruined a lot of games for me lately, by trivializing the game once I found it. It was fun the first few times I found such uber weapons after switching from Randarts to Standarts, but now it just causes me to roll my eyes; it really does have the feeling of breaking the third wall--of making me feel that I am playing a silly, trivial game, rather than getting lost in the super immersive game that Angband otherwise is.

Hopefully my current @ makes it deep into the dungeon and I will be able to better answer your question then.

[Nick]

I'm still not sure why the broken Randart weapon generation isn't a priority for fixing. It has ruined a lot of games for me lately, by trivializing the game once I found it. It was fun the first few times I found such uber weapons after switching from Randarts to Standarts, but now it just causes me to roll my eyes; it really does have the feeling of breaking the third wall--of making me feel that I am playing a silly, trivial game, rather than getting lost in the super immersive game that Angband otherwise is.

So I made an attempt to nerf randarts here, about a month ago. Do I understand that you are indeed letting me know, and the answer is they need more work?

[Grotug]

My understanding is the problem with weapons is separate from the rest of the randards. This is because it appears that the game's algorithm? that determines how powerful an 8d6 slay acid slay evil is way off. Meaning, the game might think such a weapon has a 300 power level when in fact it should view such a weapon as having an 800 power level.

As you are probably are aware I make a lot of posts about level feelings. I'm always curious about how the game determines the treasure feeling of a level. One such post I made had found an (8d7), I believe, with several slays. It was something like a 6 treasure level feeling on DL56 or something absurd like that. It was a weapon I found on the ground; not dropped from a monster. So what that said to me was the game's algorithm for determining power level of weapons was way off. Just to be clear, the only randart that I am finding too many of that are overpowered (and too shallow) are weapons. I don't have an issue with an other types of randarts. I will find the post about that uber weapon I found with low treasure feeling and post it here.

[Grotug]

Here is the post (I wasn't too far off in my memory). I named the found weapon Deathwreaker Lite because it was so similar to DW, but not quite as powerful, although since it doesn't come with aggravation it may be better than DW.

[snip]

Deathwreaker Lite was found in a diagonal non permanent vault on DL 51, feeling 7-7. Now I have to wonder if there isn't something wrong in the code that gives a 7d8 Lochaber axe of slay evil and slay dragons powerfully and pConf a 7 feeling on DL51. It activates for berserk strength and comes with +4 STR as well. This weapon should easily be an 8 on DL98. Oh, and it doesn't come with aggravation.

[Grotug]

Good fortunes with a wand of wonder and clever use of stone to mud to take down a sasquatch: https://youtu.be/OFdX7RNRm3E

I decide to take on an ant pit for the experience but it is quite a horrible experience. Silver ants drench me in their acrid spittle, destroying arrows and armor. Their range is quite nasty, reaching thirty feet.

As I am beginning to bore of the level when I come upon a sleeping Nar. I decide, even though I'm low on arrows and AC thanks to silver ants, I can take him. He proves a bit troublesome, though, when I run out of arrows and am forced to flee, but run into other monsters, including a Rogue who keeps harassing me and steals my wand of TO I recently found! I again nearly die foolishly in the fight. I need to stop playing it so close if I want a meeting with Morgoth:

https://youtu.be/70bpl4IW-IQ

[Grotug]

I am careless attacking dark hounds. I forget about a displacer beast and nearly pay for the mistake with my life. Must value my life more if I am ever to meet Morgoth.

https://youtu.be/0GElnPInFhg

Picked up a staff of power. That surprised me. I almost left it where I found it when I first tried it with no monsters around {tried}. Then I reconsidered and when I dissolved a cold hound I nearly fell out of my chair (that's an expression; obviously there are no chairs in the dungeon). Good thing I bought some scrolls of recharging.

On the next level down I use the staff of power on Azog and his son. Overall the battle goes well, but when my !Speed runs out and I am stubborn to reup I nearly leave a tombstone on the dungeon floor once again: https://youtu.be/YUK5ioTbrnw

Really must start to take more care if I am ever to have that coveted meeting with Morgoth.

[Grotug]

I empty the staff of power in a large room with the confuser brothers and a bunch of lesser humans and giants. Everyone dissolves but the brothers who I remove from existence with my bow. My long bow has been very serviceable despite only being (+4, +8). I've actually come to like the gradual increase in extra shots. It really has the sense of providing just enough extra help to get me by.

Time passes... death is always at my heels.

A few visits to town and each time I am taunted by a mass banishment scroll I cannot afford. But I find five more scrolls of recharging in the shop.

DL32

I only bring one ?recharging into the dungeon for use on the staff of power. This proves a grave mistake (well, not quite grave). I find myself in a terrifying place. A hdyra/snake pit filled with terrible horrors and two vaults are nearby. I =escape to the easiest of the two vaults and am making good progress dealing with the not too scary monsters there, but I stupidly am not bringing a staff of detect evil with me. As I enter the heart of the vault a hand druj teleports me away.

https://youtu.be/cT2mkaBSLJo#t=20s

I start to run low on arrows as I work my way back to the vault and when I reach it my last TO charge somehow doesn't remove the abyssal spider (no idea why it didn't); but instead seems to summon two, monstrous bears. I ?phase away from the lot right next to the hydra pit. Time to read that scroll of GTFO (aka Teleport Level) I've been holding onto.

I return to town and spend 9000 of my 9167 gold on the Mban scroll. The rest is spent on 77 arrows, and 6 ?phase doors.

For my troubles I did find an amulet with +2 speed with some useful resistances that sustains my strength; also found an amulet of regeneration.

https://youtu.be/QYMp927VHGE

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=22465

The next trip into the dungeon sees me being harassed by dark hounds and massive trolls that I am too weak to take down easily. Somewhere during my struggles something teleports me across the level into a room with a short bow. I look at the short bow. I feel there is a pretty good chance it will be better than my current (+4, +8) Long bow. And it is! It is my big break: A 'Lorien bow <+2> (X4) (+17, +15) which brings me parity with the depth I'm at. Funny how fortune works sometimes.

I finish clearing out the areas where I think interesting things might be and while the dark hounds still present a bit of a challenge I escape the level leaving behind a bunch of dead trolls with a Ring of the Mouse <+4> (0, +9) a pConf <+3> CON amulet (which replaces another pConf amulet I already found) and my first stat potion; a !CON.

DL36:

With the =Mouse I am now become a true Ranger; tiptoeing about and taking down only high value targets. Back in the dungeon I become frustrated when I cannot take down a room of Ologs. The fact of the matter is I'm a lousy shot. I thought all my training in the Guild would have prepared me for nasty trolls, but their hide is thick and half the time the arrows bounce off. But I find very useful items, including an artifact cap of seeing <+3> speed good for +31 AC. Shortly after an Uruk drops an artifact telepathy helm <+2> CON. The Troll Trio drop me an amulet of acid immunity with <+3> Speed.

Back in town I find 4 more ?recharging and am glad I did not drop the _Power (I very nearly decided to leave it behind).

DL39

Lokkak and his entourage fall easily. The staff of power to remove the chaff and isolate Lokkak alone in the room was quite instrumental. He drops a great flail with <+1> extra attacks with slay evil and dragons (Powerfully) {??}.

DL40
A mummified chieftain shrieks, hastening a bunch of monsters and has me bouncing all over the level trying to kill everything. Now I couldn't tell if there were two mummified chieftains or if the one was running around the level wreaking havoc, but after my first _Teleport I came upon a long corridor of mumaks and an awake mummified chieftain. The staff of power was instrumental in ridding the dangers, but it wasn't an easy affair.

DL42
Shortly after arriving on the level I come upon boots of elvenkind <+5> <+2>. A very happy find.

DL45
I find a small perma-vault in the shape of swimming goggles with some scary things in it including a DL71 Maia of some kind and Glaurung. Seems a good place to use my ?Mass Banishment. Inside I'm rewarded by a <+3> Speed (+19) 3d5 weapon with lightning brand, an elven cloak of stealth and elvenkind armor (rNexus) that allows me to replace the cloak of rNexus I'd been wearing for awhile. I should like to find the spell book with haste self in it. Otherwise things are moving along just fine.

I am now CL31.

[Grotug]

Oh how sweet it is!

I enter another vault on DL46. I'm not finding anything even remotely decent except for some Brigandine Elvenkind armor which I'm not strong enough to wear. Since I'm immune to acid I decide to try and take on Ragrog (also, I'm getting low on TO charges, even though a low level monster dropped me my second wand not long ago).

Anyway, I'm pelting Mr. Rogrog and I run out of arrows and get a favorable ?phase. He has to go all the way around, and I would have healed up a little waiting for him but he keeps hurling boulders at me. Feeling like I need to do something to improve my situation while I wait for him I quaff two !Toughnesses that I bypassed earlier. Both make me feel healthy, but also weak. So very weak! I ?phase again, brilliantly, taking me back to the vault and where my arrows are (or at least the ones he hasn't picked up). I shoot him as he comes back into the vault, and with one arrow left I have him down to one purple *. My last arrow doesn't kill him but one weak round of melee finishes him off. What does he drop? The answer to all my prayers: an X5 light crossbow with regeneration, +4 shooting speed and +3 STR! And seriously good to-dam of +23. It is the light crossbow of Ardacilya. The crossbow of heroes.

Rogrog also had picked up middling mithril bolts which he drops with the crossbow which do a whopping 264 damage per round! I rest up and return to the bastard sword he was guarding: +31 to-dam and plenty of top tier slays including evil. It only does 54 dam to evil, though, thanks to my lousy stats.

A nexus Q sends me to the other side of the level but my _Teleporation sends me back to the vault. The Q plays nice and lets me kill it before teleporting me away again. Squelch stacking unknown staves and a scroll I learn _Speed.

Since I'm still quite weak, even with the crossbow of heroes, I am wearing lightweight blue dragon armor of craftmanship with high AC enchantment, despite better armors sitting at home.

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=22465

[Estie]

Ah, a fellow connaisseur of fine mouse rings!

[Grotug]

Feeling emboldened by my new crossbow I hit the stairs as they come and soon pick up a rod of Teleport Other. I basically have everything I need now, besides adequate stats, to dive as deep and as fast as I like: I have speed, I have stealth and I have TO. I'm still wearing the ring of the mouse for the stealth and DEX.

On DL51 I investigate a six compartment vault and the first compartment has gauntlets of power <+5> (+4, +4). Very nice find! To keep the operation running smoothly I use my staff of speed. I TO the sleeping sundries no problem and take down my first ancient dragon with ease since it's a Golden one and I resist sound.

I kill some more things, including a DL43 Maia with ease. I replace my ring of STR <+2> with a ring of speed <+5>. This brings my base speed up to +20 while not wearing helm of telepathy and +17 with the helm of telepathy.

I am a bit careless, wearing the helm of speed instead of telepathy. Suddenly a bunch of spiderwebs appear in the vault's outer corridors. I detect monsters and see Shelob approaching me, her breath of poison or dark will kill me instantly as I have a mere 291hp at the time. I teleport her away.

I run out of bolts after clearing two p pits (culminating with 5 ranger chieftains in each; one of the pits also has kobolds, which is kind of amusing). Back in town I swap out the lightning armor for the dwarven now that I have the strength to wear it, boosting my HP to 410 (also quaffed another !toughness at the expense of wisdom). I forgot my SP suffers from the bigger armor, and so I only have 28 SP now.

DL55 I'm feeling confident having my HP above 400 now. I'm skipping along through the dungeon, taking out this and that. A room full of vrocks crumbles before my bolts. Suddenly I'm one square away from a drolem and in a flash I am reminded how I can still die in an instant at any moment. This is why I wear a ring of the mouse: this drolem is still asleep. I TO him away and head for the stairs.

DL56: as I'm killing a lesser creature something breathes on me confusing and draining me. I shoot at where I can tell the chaos vortex is, but I should have TO'd it: it breathes about 6 more times taking me from 350k exp to 270k exp and from level 35 to 33. I don't pConf so it uses up several curing potions. I kill an ancient green dragon and where he falls I quaff a yellow potion. I feel very strong! I feel very smart! I feel very wise! I feel very dextrous! I feel very healthy! And I imagine I am more charismatic, too, but that might just be the !Augmentation talking. A song and a dance follows.

I come across Ar-Pharazon and while I know it's not wise to fight him at 183 damage per round (average bolts), I am bubbling over with newfound confidence and am eager for more adventure, fortune and glory! The battle turns out very uneventful. I blast him with bolts; he teleports me away. I teleport back. Blast him with bolts and he falls, dropping a mattock of cold immunity, which I keep as a swap (my current weapon confers +3 speed).

Upon entering DL57, Scatha the worm is nearby. How handy the mattock already is. He falls without a fuss bringing my experience back into the green and drops me yet another amulet that isn't remarkable enough to keep.

DL58: I decide to take on a demi-lich who proves significantly more troublesome than Ar-Pharazon (they are about the same level). Demi-lich summons me to him a couple times draining experience and dexterity.

DL60 and DL61 have each a potion of strength in the corridors bringing my Lucerne hammer up to 3 blows per round and decent damage despite the -9 damage penalty (159 shock value).

I enter DL63 near the stairs and just behind a wall are two potions of Strength! and another book I cannot read. The last ten levels have been pretty boring and uneventful. I yearn for adventure! I'm about to hit the stairs when I notice a small 4 chamber special room. On my way over I see kavlax and take him down easily with _Speed but he does breath chaos near the end of the fight, confusing and hallucinating me. NOTE to maintainer: I shot a hallucinating character coming toward me as I was waiting for the hallucination to wear off and "the sabre-tooth tiger flees in terror!". How do I know its a cat if I'm hallucinating it to be a bunch of other things? Which gives me an idea: in real life, when you are hallucinating, things aren't changing from one thing to another so rapidly; it would be interesting if an object or monster was represented by one character, and then maybe periodically would change (say every 5 to 15 turns or so) into something else. Would make hallucination a little more dangerous but also a bit more fun! The game would basically be giving you false information. And there wouldn't be any messages like "the hyrdra changes!" you'd simply see it change and the message about what you were hitting or whatever would change to what you see it to be.

I reach the special room but there is nothing special inside. I'm about to hit the stairs again when I notice Saruman of Many colors. Even though I have been hitting the stairs quite rapidly the last 10 levels I feel perfectly adequate to take on Mr. Saruman. He awakes as I approach him, but his timing is impeccable. I will wait for him to enter my hallway of annihilation. He proves even easier than Ar-Pharazon thanks to some "good" bolts I picked up. The ball of acid he conjures at me I am immune to and when he is near death he summons *lesser* animals. He leaves me 18 seeker bolts of wounding (+21, +15) which do 364 damage per round.

I enter DL64 near The Phoenix who wakes shortly after I start making my way to the nearby stairs. He doesn't quite reach me in time.

I enter DL65 right next to the stairs and a pack of plasma hounds and treasures are to my south. I fail to map with spell and don't have enough to recast so I hit the stairs.

DL66: more plasma hounds nearby. Between me and the hounds is Mughash and his crew. Should I let him live? Tune in next time to learn his fate!