Angband 4.2.3

[Pete Mack]

@sky--
Powerdive to DL 84. Greater Balrogs are DL 85, and Lungorthin or Gothmog from DL 90+ will bring more.
Also, detection is a necessity unless you have very high stealth. Greater Balrogs wake up very easily in ESP range. Detect at greater distance and they are more avoidable.

[archolewa]

@Sky Did you powerdive the second half of the game? I find that unless you're a mage or rogue, powerdiving and grinding the high 90s is not a particularly good idea. I do best if I descend fairly steadily. Map/Treausre detect most of each level, and go after any gear I can get to and uniques I can fight.

If I do that, I have little difficulty handling the bottom of the dungeon, especially as a paladin. Between Single Combat and Slay Demon Balrogs are almost loot pinatas.

[Sky]

well, during my escapades i died .. a few times. I decided to carry on just to see what was there.

I got cornered by Huorns a couple times. As they have the same speed as me, and they blind me, i cannot Phase. Taking down one is feasible, but at the cost of *many* CCW.

i walked into a room. I know, i know, bad mistake. But i only have detect evil, no rods of detection. Wiruin breathed on me, and fair enough, if only it didnt look like it came from a vortex, but it did.

I finally got to DL97 at CL39, and here, despite being fairly decent at this game, could simply not cope.

Tons of passwall ganking me. I move at +10 and have only 1x Rod TO and 2x wand, with very few charges. I carry ?Rech but regardless, too much stuff. Serpents of chaos, balrogs having passwall, Gothmog and .. well, Lungorthin likes sleeping, so, but Maeglin, maya of Aule, and i seem to notice that Nazguls are back en forte to their 3.x level, stronger and summoning each other.
I also note that, for weird reasons, now Adunabeth The Quiet has lost his passwall ability.

I use passwall and kill-wall as one and the same. can't be bothered.

Oh, and the black breath.

Oh and somehow, being drained despite sustains. And no, not a time attack.

No word of destruction, no portal, not even earthquake.
I even found a ring of power that, for some incredible stroke of luck, activates for portal !!! and i still couldn't survive.

so, i'm happy for you if you like this, but i'm gonna call time on my adventure in future angband development.
Good luck on your future adventures.

[sffp]

Playing 4.2.3 for the first time, my human warrior is noticing that the ten iron shots of slay animal purchased at the store have remarkable resilience. despite frequent usage in dispatching hydras, I still have the same ten shots of slay animal

(not that Ospenya minds...)

As a matter of fact, now that I look at it, ALL of my ammo says 0% chance of breaking on contact...

[normkewl]

Monster memory

Monster memory is not fully working on generational characters (a Roman numeral after the name). It is not remembering uniques, such as Farmer Maggot's Dogs, Lagduf(sp?) the Snaga, etc. This failure to remember monsters encountered by the player's ancestors is on all the nightly builds 4.2.3+

[archolewa]

The only one of those that is critical is resist heat and cold. I absolutely hate juggling !rHeat and !rCold depending on which uniques i want to kill. The others are trivial to replace with devices.

You don't even need !rCold. I regularly don't bother carrying those (just aren't enough big cold breathers to be worth it, and most of those are dragons who'll sleep through a nuclear holocaust). If I happen to find some on the same level as Scatha, I'll pop 'em and take him down, but otherwise ignore him until Con is maxed.

Even !rHeat, I don't usually look for until I'm in the endgame and want to kill off the Balrogs (I like to kill off all of the passwall and tunneling Uniques before fighting Morgoth).

[Pete Mack]

The only one of those that is critical is resist heat and cold. I absolutely hate juggling !rHeat and !rCold depending on which uniques i want to kill. The others are trivial to replace with devices.

[Sky]

no, there is no PB2. They can use PB1, PB3 and PB5.

a CL26 in 4.1 would have these additional spells:

1. portal
2. satisfy hunger
3. resist h/c
4. neutralize poison
5. sense surroundings
6. orb

with an investment of 500 gold. These are ALL fundamental utility spells that make up for the fact that i have 1.6 blows instead of 3.2. I currently deal 70 damage per round, against the 150-200 that a warrior would.

I found a stupidly OOD longbow of lothlorien which is how i've managed to make it into the low 20s but i am waaaay below my depth already.
There's no staves of teleport in the store. I am relying ton 5 scrolls of magic mapping, !phase and i've had to rest scum for potions. I can't dig so i need a slot for a ring. I can't see invisible so i need another slot for a ring. I'm wearing a damage +11 because otherwise i cant even kill orcs.
I need to carry food and arrows, another 4 slots. I dont resist blind or confuse so i need CLW, and i'm stashing CSW / CCW because things actually want to kill me.
PB1 is another slot.
i carry heroism or berserk because i dont resist fear and cant waste turns casting the spell. Obviously RLL because invisible breeders who drain life. !Mana takes another slot, although i honestly dont know WHAT i'm carrying it for, as i can only cast Light and CLW.

Im out of !Spd.
Luckily i have found ESP super early and also by absurd luck i have a shooter that deals 70 damage, but if i perchance run into Azog or anything OOD or that moves fast, my only hope is to recall and phase until it kicks in because i cannot kill it, i cannot evade it, and i actually have no idea where i am going because i can't even map.

i'm basically a shit warrior that has free Light; i could do that with a rod of Illumination.

[Pete Mack]

Sky--
Again: it is the third paladin book that is very powerful: Slay Evil, *Slay Demon*, Single Combat--and enchant weapon+armor, which are nice but not so lethal.

[Nick]

Playing a paladin? They cant read the P2 spell book. They only have three spellbooks, while priests have 5. The description of the book says "You can read this book" if you can use it.

well my paladin can't.

rioght, i wizarded a character and discovered that paladins cant use P2, they use P3, a book with minimum depth DL30.

OK, now just read what archolewa told you again

[Pete Mack]

@sky--
Be patient. PB 3 is *great* and relatively common. I agree early PB 2 spells are a bit underwhelming Heal2000.

[Sky]

Playing a paladin? They cant read the P2 spell book. They only have three spellbooks, while priests have 5. The description of the book says "You can read this book" if you can use it.

well my paladin can't.

rioght, i wizarded a character and discovered that paladins cant use P2, they use P3, a book with minimum depth DL30.

[archolewa]

ok so, i'm CL24 and i still cannot learn any spell from - or even browse - P2.

Playing a paladin? They cant read the P2 spell book. They only have three spellbooks, while priests have 5. The description of the book says "You can read this book" if you can use it.

[Sky]

ok so, i'm CL24 and i still cannot learn any spell from - or even browse - P2.

[Sky]

*heavy sigh*

why has the 'p' key stopped being the magic key?

You know i have idk what, 10k hours in this game and can't just casually change my muscle memory, right?