Sil 1.1

[Psi]

My current attempt took his first smithing points at 500' after finding a mithril longsword he could melt down into a Feanorian Lamp. Not attempted a build like this before

Well he survived until 700' which is currently my smiths graveyard. Krem and cat warriors are a horror combination. Got killed by an earthquake.

[HallucinationMushroom]

I would go a step further and advise new players to limit ability purchases rather severely and focus on the core skills of their character path. For warrior types, which keeps complexity down, I think simple evasion and melee pumping will get you pretty far, at least until darkness and invisibles may prompt inner light or keen senses. Also, good dex and con scores... 4/5 5/4.

This might just be a playstyle thing, but when I first started playing I couldn't help but to be tempted by all the amazingly cool abilities, and I would reach for something like loremaster or whirlwind or something equally sexy too quickly and crash and burn pretty hard. Or, pile up cheap 500xp abilities and neglect basics. I really disliked Sil at first, for that. It felt like cool abilities were promised, but that you really couldn't acquire them and survive. It took me, probably longer than most, to think about creating a solid foundation and working toward those abilities.

[debo]

Well he survived until 700' which is currently my smiths graveyard. Krem and cat warriors are a horror combination. Got killed by an earthquake.

50% of my smithing deaths come from Kemenrauko

[debo]

I would go a step further and advise new players to limit ability purchases rather severely and focus on the core skills of their character path. For warrior types, which keeps complexity down, I think simple evasion and melee pumping will get you pretty far, at least until darkness and invisibles may prompt inner light or keen senses. Also, good dex and con scores... 4/5 5/4.

This might just be a playstyle thing, but when I first started playing I couldn't help but to be tempted by all the amazingly cool abilities, and I would reach for something like loremaster or whirlwind or something equally sexy too quickly and crash and burn pretty hard. Or, pile up cheap 500xp abilities and neglect basics. I really disliked Sil at first, for that. It felt like cool abilities were promised, but that you really couldn't acquire them and survive. It took me, probably longer than most, to think about creating a solid foundation and working toward those abilities.

Also -- the precursor abilities to the "awesome" ones are actually quite useful before 500'. Lore-keeper will prevent you from wearing anything with a sticky curse, and Disguise is _awesome_ for what it costs. I think the jury is still out on Dodging, but +3 to evasion when you're on the run (which is often) is nothing to sneeze at either.

[Scatha]

A thought I had while talking to some beginner players last night is that I don't really know what the easy-build-for-newbies is. It obviously used to be charge, but this version regardless of relative power, charge is much more complex. Explaining what charge actually does for you and how to utilise it requires a knowledge of weapon weights and how strength interacts with it, which while the manual/tutorial does a good job of explaining, a new player just wants to play the game rather than try to understand the mechanics.

All fair points.

I'll throw out my recommendations. I'd be interested to find out how others' would differ.

- Play a Noldo with high Dex and Str 2 (e.g. 2543 House of Feanor, or 2453 House of Fingolfin).
- Split your experience (very roughly) 40/40/20 between Melee, Evasion, and other skills. You can adjust this later as you find certain things problematic (getting to 300-400', Will starts to be really useful).
- Take Power at the start.
- Other Abilities to think about experimenting with: Blocking (if difficulty with archers and have a shield); Keen Senses (becomes very useful from about 200'); Song of Elbereth; Hardiness; Sprinting

Strength 2 with Power is a balance where you don't really need to understand much of the combat mechanics -- you will do fairly well with any decent weapon.

For a slightly more advanced player who wants to try Smithing, I think there is something to be said for taking Armoursmith and Artistry at the start. With a Feanorian that will use half of your initial experience, but with high Dex you can survive until the first forge and make some good stuff which will let you catch up on your underinvestment in the combat skills.

Another thing is that it disables the pack AI, which is an important thing in the game to figure out.

Actually we tested with Charge aggravating the monsters (thus disabling the pack AI), but there were some oddities, and it didn't seem so necessary for balance with the weakened Charge. So that didn't make it into the release.

[Psi]

(getting to 300-400', Will starts to be really useful).

Maybe there is a trick I am missing here. I rarely go above 5 will (for inner light). Is there some benefit before Oathwraiths and Dragons that it particularly assists with? Now that insects go down in one hit, you don't really need to worry about stat drain until vampires.

One question that I've never seen raised is, is there any protection against damage from molds? I've lost two promising characters now being pursued around corners where a shadow mold and a violet mold respectively were lurking. As soon as that happens you know you are dead.

[debo]

Maybe there is a trick I am missing here. I rarely go above 5 will (for inner light). Is there some benefit before Oathwraiths and Dragons that it particularly assists with? Now that insects go down in one hit, you don't really need to worry about stat drain until vampires.

One question that I've never seen raised is, is there any protection against damage from molds? I've lost two promising characters now being pursued around corners where a shadow mold and a violet mold respectively were lurking. As soon as that happens you know you are dead.

I saw a message next to the damage roll for a Shadow Mold the other day that said "1/3rd", and I have no idea what that was all about. Maybe when they're exposed to light they do less damage? But for the other molds, I dunno...

I was surprised to discover that magical sources of protection will be applied to breath attacks!

[Scatha]

Maybe there is a trick I am missing here. I rarely go above 5 will (for inner light). Is there some benefit before Oathwraiths and Dragons that it particularly assists with? Now that insects go down in one hit, you don't really need to worry about stat drain until vampires.

Mine was really a recommendation for beginners rather than a claim it's optimal for experts.

In my experience they often get hit by worm masses, so there are stat drain worries there. Resisting stat drain is also useful around the time you start trying lots of unknown herbs and potions. Then there are things like Fear and Slowness which can kill you if you don't know how to handle them.

[Scatha]

I saw a message next to the damage roll for a Shadow Mold the other day that said "1/3rd", and I have no idea what that was all about. Maybe when they're exposed to light they do less damage? But for the other molds, I dunno...

No protection roll against the spores from molds. The other molds are non-elemental, but Shadow Molds do darkness damage. That's affected by your darkness resistance (light level on your square) in the usual way.

[debo]

No protection roll against the spores from molds. The other molds are non-elemental, but Shadow Molds do darkness damage. That's affected by your darkness resistance (light level on your square) in the usual way.

Whoa cool! I didn't know your light level functioned as your darkness resistance. That is really neat!!

[clouded]

I would go a step further and advise new players to limit ability purchases rather severely and focus on the core skills of their character path. For warrior types, which keeps complexity down, I think simple evasion and melee pumping will get you pretty far, at least until darkness and invisibles may prompt inner light or keen senses. Also, good dex and con scores... 4/5 5/4.

This might just be a playstyle thing, but when I first started playing I couldn't help but to be tempted by all the amazingly cool abilities, and I would reach for something like loremaster or whirlwind or something equally sexy too quickly and crash and burn pretty hard. Or, pile up cheap 500xp abilities and neglect basics. I really disliked Sil at first, for that. It felt like cool abilities were promised, but that you really couldn't acquire them and survive. It took me, probably longer than most, to think about creating a solid foundation and working toward those abilities.

Yeah good points. I agree that figuring out how to spend XP is a difficult thing to do, I remember being quite overwelmed with not knowing what I was supposed to be doing. This is where watching other people play and reading morgues really helps out, I know the tutorial mentions stuff about it too.

I'll throw out my recommendations. I'd be interested to find out how others' would differ.

What've said so far is:

Use Fingolfin and get 2/4/5/3. Start with 3 in perception and put the rest into melee/evasion leaving enough XP for whichever melee ability you'd like. Get keen senses a few floors later and raise melee/evasion to around 10, then consider what to branch out into. I've also had the mantra that the first rule in Sil is: Don't get surrounded.

I've been hesitant to write a mini "how to win sil" guide because a) it's lame just to tell people "get these skills and these abilities." b) I don't think there's one best build. c) I usually have a couple of skills I want to try in a particular game, but often I base what other skills I get on what I find.

I have been wondering about trying to collect general advice and making some sort of guide, though I wouldn't want to spoil the game by going too far with it. (I'm also bad at organising things like that)

edit: debo's vids are good for getting a feel for how to play, though it suffers for requiring a fair investment of time and not being easy to reference while playing.

Actually we tested with Charge aggravating the monsters (thus disabling the pack AI), but there were some oddities, and it didn't seem so necessary for balance with the weakened Charge. So that didn't make it into the release.

Ah I see, I hadn't realised that didn't get in. Probably for the best, it did feel a little weird to have that sort of special case.

[Psi]

Ah I see, I hadn't realised that didn't get in. Probably for the best, it did feel a little weird to have that sort of special case.

I actually wondered if charge was worth getting just for that ability. It was great for forcing one on one combat.

[clouded]

I actually wondered if charge was worth getting just for that ability. It was great for forcing one on one combat.

I thought that too.



I've a possible bug report, might not actually be a bug but it seems odd to me: I used a staff from the floor which apparently is entrapment and noticed that some traps sprung up outside of my LOS visibly on the map and stayed there, until I used the look around key at which point they vanished. The staff didn't ID as an aside.

[Psi]

I've a possible bug report, might not actually be a bug but it seems odd to me: I used a staff from the floor which apparently is entrapment and noticed that some traps sprung up outside of my LOS visibly on the map and stayed there, until I used the look around key at which point they vanished. The staff didn't ID as an aside.

I saw that a couple of times in 1.02 too

[WaveMotion]

I would go a step further and advise new players to limit ability purchases rather severely and focus on the core skills of their character path. For warrior types, which keeps complexity down, I think simple evasion and melee pumping will get you pretty far, at least until darkness and invisibles may prompt inner light or keen senses. Also, good dex and con scores... 4/5 5/4.

This might just be a playstyle thing, but when I first started playing I couldn't help but to be tempted by all the amazingly cool abilities, and I would reach for something like loremaster or whirlwind or something equally sexy too quickly and crash and burn pretty hard. Or, pile up cheap 500xp abilities and neglect basics. I really disliked Sil at first, for that. It felt like cool abilities were promised, but that you really couldn't acquire them and survive. It took me, probably longer than most, to think about creating a solid foundation and working toward those abilities.

Everything here is great advice. I started surviving to '500 a lot more once I stopped treating skill levels as just requirements for abilities and started thinking about the actual scores.

I'll second the Armoursmith/Artistry(/Heavy Armour Use/Critical Resistance) build for new players after they've gotten the hang of how the game works. You don't have too much damage output with a shield so play can be tedious, but you get ridiculous survivability so I think it's a great way to see more of the game and to get in a position to try out a lot of late-game abilities (except Stealth, of course—I've yet to get the hang of that).