I can't play Paladin worth a damn...

[Pete Mack]

I just lost still another Dwarf Paladin to some combination of stupidity and bad luck.

I was at 2150', cl 26, HP ~220, and down on HP from meleeing some green orc unique. (My weapon was a Whip of Westernesse, with no Ring of Damage.)

Some nasty non-evil guy came in, and I Portaled away. (I had no Teleport Other the entire game.) I landed immediately adjacent to a Sorceress, who woke up and summoned an Ancient Green, who breathed. I suppose I could have survived using "deep descent" instead, but nevertheless, it was a pretty harsh death.

I just am not very good at diving with "bad" stealth, I guess... I did try Dunadan Paladin as well, but I just hate playing without infravision.

[buzzkill]

CL26 sounds pretty good to me... and getting killed by an ancient dragon isn't necessarily a shameful way to die. I just checked my scores and found, quite recently, a CL20 paladin killed by a brown yeek.

[aeneas]

I just am not very good at diving with "bad" stealth, I guess...

I find it difficult as well. I play a lot of stealthy characters, and lean on that, so it's a difficult adjustment. One thing that seems to help is not spending much time on any given level- basically get out before things can come find you. Also, though I don't know the specifics of your game, maybe it would have been better to avoid the orc unique- once you're deep enough to be easily whacked you might as well get deeper rather than try to kill something that is a challenge. Sounds like you had bad luck though, in not finding either -tele_away or =damage. Some games just don't work out well. I think I once got to ~3500-4000' without finding a single !Con... needless to say I got squashed pretty fast.