Sil Builds/Challenges/Concepts/Stupid-Ascension-Tricks

[HallucinationMushroom]

I've always assumed that song of slaying wouldn't apply to a blunt weapon. If not, that would be good to know... and probably should be fixed as well. I've never thought to try.

I managed the throneroom with melee and evasion only http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=13744, and was standing on the doggone crown and couldn't get the dang silmaril out. I think I could've won that one if I had managed a good roll, or something sharp along the way. A fun challenge, only possible now with the change to trancing.

Melee only would have to be impossible, I think. A fun competition would be who could amass the most experience with only melee, or kill the deepest unique, or some such arbitrary goal. In this same vein, I've often thought about which 1 skill is the most important. If you could win with only one skill, would it be stealth? Let's say you got lucky and found angrist, could you manage to hit the crown twice to knock it off, nab a silmaril and get out?
I know I couldn't do it, but, it seems plausible.

[taptap]

For people like me it is quite embarassing that Sil seems too easy for some that they discuss challenges... Either way: How about not spending the initial 13 stat points and just taking the plain starting stats?

[HallucinationMushroom]

If it makes you feel any less embarrassed, my win to death ratio is really bad and it took me, and, I would guess most everyone, a good amount of time before they bagged their first win. For me, a lot of the fun, if not all with Sil, is the character build. The actual fighting and collecting loot isn't a draw for me like it is for me with say, Entroband/Heng, or O/FA. So, I don't mind dying many many times trying out wonky concepts. I learned a lot about the game from asking questions and trying out strange builds. There is a lot of depth in Sil, playing with restrictions really helps train my brain.

[HallucinationMushroom]

Your plain starting stats challenge sounds grueling. I couldn't do it... I can't even to the edain with all their points, which would have to be a little better.

[bron]

Wow. This thread is mighty serendipitous. I just last night managed to complete the "no-artifacts polearm-master" character I've been experimenting with for the last month or more (http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=13995). Actually, I had been trying to do a *Naugrim* no-artifacts polearm-master, but never could quite manage to do that (without save-scumming anyway).

This run was definately challenging. Polearm mastery is a lot of fun, but after considerable experience with it, I consider it worse than just using a sword (or an axe for a Naugrim). I was surprised at how much harder no-artifacts seemed to be for me. Most Sil artifacts are not overpowering, so I hadn't expected playing without them to make much difference. But (subjectively at least) the game seemed much harder without them. I hope to spend my lunch hour writing up something about this character for the After Adventure Report.

[Psi]

Melee only would have to be impossible, I think. A fun competition would be who could amass the most experience with only melee, or kill the deepest unique, or some such arbitrary goal. In this same vein, I've often thought about which 1 skill is the most important. If you could win with only one skill, would it be stealth? Let's say you got lucky and found angrist, could you manage to hit the crown twice to knock it off, nab a silmaril and get out?
I know I couldn't do it, but, it seems plausible.

I've never looked closely enough at how staves work, but would a _Slumber help instead of actually trying to attack Morgoth?

In terms of winning with one skill, then song may be your best bet. Silence, Elbereth, Lorien and Mastery to get you past the bad guys. Freedom to get past obstacles. Lorien to drop the crown and then sharpness to prise the silmarils. With mastery and sharpness you could even kill lower evasion monsters with a big dice weapon... Voice management would be tough.

For me the biggest challenge is WildKhaine's turncounts at the top of the ladder! I lose nearly all of my characters through pushing too deep too quickly at the moment.

[Psi]

The other thing I'd like to throw out in the "tricks" section is the use of potions *against* monsters. Out of curiosity I once threw a !Slowness at a bad guy and he was immediately slowed. I must admit I haven't done it again to know if I just got lucky or whether it is a reliable way of incapacitating the enemy. I'd love to know if there is a save against it and if so, high likely. Does anyone else have any experience of this? Could it be useful enough to dedicate a slot to !Slowness or !Confusion and does !Blindness or !Awkwardness have any effect?

[HallucinationMushroom]

I suppose you could slumber Morgy with a staff, but wouldn't your will have to be really high to even sport a fair chance? As far as staves go... back in the first public release I purposefully saved a charge of revelations to use to map the throne room and it didn't work... I can't remember the message, but it boiled down to I couldn't overcome Morgoth, I believe.

I tried only a small handful of singing only characters a long while back, and didn't get very far. The baddies didn't go to sleep fast enough, or didn't flee on demand. I don't know much about singing, though, other than slaying and sharpness. If you could survive the opening game I guess you'd be set.

[HallucinationMushroom]

The other thing I'd like to throw out in the "tricks" section is the use of potions *against* monsters. Out of curiosity I once threw a !Slowness at a bad guy and he was immediately slowed. I must admit I haven't done it again to know if I just got lucky or whether it is a reliable way of incapacitating the enemy. I'd love to know if there is a save against it and if so, high likely. Does anyone else have any experience of this? Could it be useful enough to dedicate a slot to !Slowness or !Confusion and does !Blindness or !Awkwardness have any effect?

I sometimes read through Patashu's secret techs posts for fun, because they are actually interesting and a little snarky, and amuse me. Anyway, http://angband.oook.cz/forum/archive...hp/t-5216.html
Half goes on to answer the potion question but doesn't crunch numbers, but here it is pulled from that site anyway.

//Slowness, Quickness, True Sight, and Confusion. I'm not sure how useful it is. It is something I inherited from NPP, which was almost certainly influenced by NetHack (perhaps via some other variant). It could easily be removed if people think that is best. I'm not sure what I think. I wouldn't have added it myself. If it worked neatly for all potions and was well balanced, I'd like it. As is, it is a bit odd. I'm not sure if Slowness and Confusion are powerful or not (consider that you have to waste an inventory spot to carry them, and won't find many).//

[debo]

I suppose you could slumber Morgy with a staff, but wouldn't your will have to be really high to even sport a fair chance? As far as staves go... back in the first public release I purposefully saved a charge of revelations to use to map the throne room and it didn't work... I can't remember the message, but it boiled down to I couldn't overcome Morgoth, I believe.

I tried only a small handful of singing only characters a long while back, and didn't get very far. The baddies didn't go to sleep fast enough, or didn't flee on demand. I don't know much about singing, though, other than slaying and sharpness. If you could survive the opening game I guess you'd be set.

I tried keeping !slow and !confuse until 600'+ and found them to be useless at that depth. I think monsters get a chance to resist (based on will?), because e.g. orcs fall victim to it almost every time, but deep monsters shrugged it off like it was nothing.

I threw 4 slowness pots at Morgy once and none of them stuck

YMMV

[debo]

Also, I don't remember blindness or awkwardness (or weakness) having any effect.

[taptap]

I never have open inventory slots... but I like the idea that almost everything in Sil has a purpose and nothing is wasted. No variety just for the sake of variety etc. So having an application for those potions other then ID-ing danger is good. I really would like to be able to use poison to poison arrows btw. - if it is only a very low number per potion this wouldn't change balance I guess, but maybe even this is unnecessary complexity.

Slowness against normal speed enemy has a stronger impact on that fight than any buff you could give yourself. So if you go against an orc unique as an Edain it might be worth it.

[HallucinationMushroom]

Don't forget the skellies! A stupid ascension trick would be to carry out all the goodly dead that you come across to give them a proper burial. The only good orc is a dead orc, so no orc skellies.

[bron]

Scatha's no magic challenge: (I don't think this has been won either)
- Never use any {special} items, artefacts, jewellery, feanorian lamps, lesser jewels, or shadow cloaks.
- Don't use Staves or Trumpets
- No Songs
- Only Weaponsmith, Armoursmith and Artistry allowed in Smithing
- No Lore Master, Flaming Arrows, or Inner Light

This sounds interesting, but I guess I'd like Scatha (or someone) to define it in a little more detail. Is the above list of abilites to not use exhaustive? Does that mean that, say, Majesty in the Will tree is acceptable? How about Poison Resistance? If Lore-Master is forbidden, does that mean Lore-Keeper is a no-no as well, or not? How about Bane and Master Hunter? I assume Herbs are not counted as magic (?), but how about potions? All potions or only some potions (e.g. is Miruvor ok or not?). I assume Dwarf Masks are ok since they are not marked {special} ? Should I modify the source to not generate these items at all, or to generate something else acceptable in their place, or not modify the source at all and allow them to be generated but then ignore them?

Basically, I would really hate to spend 3 months working on something like this and then post a winner, only to have someone say "What? You took the Constitution ability? No, that's not allowed, this one doesn't count."

[HallucinationMushroom]

I asked about Dwarf Masks... they are fair game as they are not magic... At least one source of rfire seems crucial.

I tried it here: http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=13402
And Clouded tried it here: http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=13760

All the particulars... I dunno.