More Newbie Help? Oh yeah.

[Funksultan]

I've beaten NH several times back in the day, and Moria once in the Amiga-era, but have never beaten Angband, or any of the many variants, so took it up this week to try to finish vanilla.

Only decent start was with a warrior, who died around DLVL 17 due to terminal stupidity.

Now I've worked my way up with a ranger. Much tougher start, but as I've read here, much nicer to not have to carry around a bazillion items to do things like light, detect monsters/doors/stairs, phase door, etc.

Don't have a dump on me, but for the most part, am carrying around decent armor (with redundant FA), a light xbow of accuracy (+13,+9) and a ton of standard bolts. Melee is a heavy mace of extra swings (so 2/turn). I'm cLVL 20, and just found phial.

Few questions:

1. I enchanted up a +8,+8 long bow in town, and am pretty sure it was showing 2/turn ranged vs 1/turn with the xbow. Is that the way to go?

2. I'm still carrying a ton of stuff, even with my spells. 4 spellbooks (only using 3, but looking forward), 80 scrolls of ID, rod acid bolts, rod frost balls, staff of teleport, staff object detection, !heroism for big trouble, and a buncha other situational crud I probably can't remember. Just feels like I don't have enough room to haul out all the {good} items that I ID for operating cash.

3. What's my goal at this point? Uniques are tough, as I'm getting out speeded. Granted, I know I shouldn't be in "kill everything" mode, but I usually tool around any great levels looking for uniques/artifacts. At this level, things still feel dangerous (hounds, swarms of big orcs, and that damned unique yeek that summons help). Reading here, should I be diving faster? Should I just be looking for gear laying on the ground and avoiding the big fights? How far/fast is reccommended?

4. On uniques, some of them, (smeagol, a couple of the orcs) didn't go down to my arrows/bolts/little melee NEARLY as fast as I would have thought. Should I enchant a stack of 99 ammo to +9,+9 or something for the big fights? Will that make a big enough difference?

Thanks in advance!

D

[Pete Mack]

definitely swap bows-it will just about double your offensive power, and
It weighs a lot less too. You can carry the rods to save ammo, but I wouldn't carry more than one stack, probably of Acid since few monsters resist. You should also be deeper Md start focusing on stat gain. And don't kill all those monsters. It is much, much harder to win that way, never mind that you will run out of ammo all the time.

[PowerDiver]

4. On uniques, some of them, (smeagol, a couple of the orcs) didn't go down to my arrows/bolts/little melee NEARLY as fast as I would have thought. Should I enchant a stack of 99 ammo to +9,+9 or something for the big fights? Will that make a big enough difference?D

With a +8 longbow, that will roughly double your damage. Seems big to me. Actually, that is too expensive, and I wouldn't enchant ammo past +6 except when I wanted to merge two stacks.

But you should spend the money on a couple of staves of teleport self instead.

[Funksultan]

I figured as much. I've been saving up loot, and have enough ?+hit and ?+dam to last me a while, so I may as well go ahead.

I know I should be deeper, but when uniques at this level are giving me so much trouble, I'm worried that the next 500' is gonna bring about a one-turn death. :P

I'll try pushing down to around 1200' or so and see how I like the water.

[Pete Mack]

You won't do yourself any favors spending time before 1500' (or 1600'). Stat potions are far more important than any loot you find by loafing. The first really dangerous mosters are native to 1650': gravity hounds. Prior to that there's nothing that's likely to kill you in a single turn, given FA. Of course a staff of teleportation and !CCW are absolutely required, and escape scrolls should be carried when available.

[Funksultan]

K, done for the night, and can't believe I've gone this long without dying. Hanging out around 1500/1600.

Still having trouble doing enough damage to uniques with the bow (takes a TON of shots, and a good number of phase doors, even with !hero and speed staff). I haven't been bringing the !CCW like a good boy, because when I'm in trouble, I'm usually taking damage faster than !CCW will fill it. Still, it would make recovery after porting faster.

I know the lance keeps me at 1/turn, but doing the math, it's still about the same damage, but 2 speed, slay most, and rfear isn't bad. I'd swap it for a light weapon of westernesse I think, but the 2 I've found were both lances.


Keep the advice comin! It's helping! *grin*

[Angband 3.0.9b Character Dump]

Name Elric VI Self RB CB EB Best
Sex Male Age 115 STR: 18/30 +1 +2 +2 18/80
Race High-Elf Height 89 INT: 15 +3 +2 +0 18/20
Class Ranger Weight 203 WIS: 8 -1 +0 +1 8
Title Tracker Status 33 DEX: 16 +3 +1 +2 18/40
HP 244/244 Maximize Y CON: 16 +1 +1 +0 18
SP 34/40 CHR: 10 +5 +1 +0 16

Level 25 Armor [21,+51] Saving Throw Superb
Cur Exp 38733 Fight (+11,+10) Stealth Excellent
Max Exp 38733 Melee (+24,+31) Fighting Superb
Adv Exp 40250 Shoot (+18,+8) Shooting Heroic
MaxDepth Lev 30 Blows 1/turn Disarming Excellent
Turns 524155 Shots 2/turn Magic Device Superb
Gold 55597 Infra 40 ft Perception Superb
Burden 188.2 lbs Speed 1 Searching Superb

You are one of several children of a Telerin Ranger. You have light
grey eyes, wavy blond hair, and a fair complexion.



abcdefghijkl@ abcdefghijkl@
Acid:......+.+.... Blind:.............
Elec:............. Confu:.............
Fire:............. Sound:.............
Cold:............. Shard:.............
Pois:............. Nexus:.............
Fear:............. Nethr:.............
Lite:............+ Chaos:.............
Dark:............. Disen:.............

abcdefghijkl@ abcdefghijkl@
S.Dig:............. Stea.:.............
Feath:............. Sear.:....+........
PLite:............. Infra:.............
Regen:............. Tunn.:.............
Telep:............. Speed:+............
Invis:............+ Blows:.............
FrAct:..........+.. Shots:.............
HLife:............. Might:.............


[Character Equipment]

a) The Lance of Eorlingas (3d8) (+13,+21) (+2)
It increases your strength and dexterity by 2. It increases your
speed by 2. It cannot be harmed by the elements. It might have
hidden powers.
b) a Long Bow (x3) (+7,+8)
c) a Marble Ring of Protection [+12]
d) a Beryl Ring of Slaying (+5,+5)
e) a Mother-of-Pearl Amulet of Searching (+6)
It increases your searching by 6.
f) The Phial of Galadriel
It usually provides light of radius 3. It cannot be harmed by the
elements. It might have hidden powers.
g) Soft Leather Armour of Resist Acid [4,+9]
It provides resistance to acid. It cannot be harmed by acid.
h) a Cloak [1,+5]
i) a Large Leather Shield of Resist Acid [4,+6]
It provides resistance to acid. It cannot be harmed by acid.
j) an Iron Helm of Wisdom [5,+6] (+1)
It increases your wisdom by 1. It sustains your wisdom.
k) a Set of Leather Gloves of Free Action [1,+5]
It grants you immunity to paralysis.
l) a Pair of Metal Shod Boots [6,+6]


[Character Inventory]

a) 3 Books of Magic Spells [Magic for Beginners]
b) 2 Books of Magic Spells [Conjurings and Tricks]
c) a Book of Magic Spells [Incantations and Illusions]
d) 7 Metallic Blue Potions of Heroism
e) 6 Scrolls titled "izzy sumquae" of Word of Recall
f) 88 Scrolls titled "hicto so dio" of Identify
g) 8 Scrolls titled "plevisco mulum" of Recharging
h) a Runed Rod of Cold Balls
i) 2 Runed Staffs of Teleportation (13 charges)
j) a Mahogany Staff of Perception (4 charges)
k) an Eucalyptus Staff of Speed (3 charges)
l) 77 Arrows (1d4) (+0,+4)
m) 14 Arrows (1d4) (+0,+0)


[Home Inventory]

a) a Book of Magic Spells [Sorcery and Evocations]
b) a Light Green Mushroom of Restore Constitution
c) a Black Spotted Mushroom of Restoring
d) 5 Puce Potions of Restore Strength
e) 5 Tangerine Potions of Restore Intelligence
f) 3 Brown Potions of Restore Wisdom
g) 2 Dark Red Potions of Restore Dexterity
h) 4 Green Speckled Potions of Restore Constitution
i) 3 Purple Speckled Potions of Restore Charisma
j) 33 Scrolls titled "hicto so dio" of Identify
k) 26 Scrolls titled "spes chrum" of Enchant Armor
l) 33 Scrolls titled "reheme se ago" of Enchant Weapon To-Hit
m) 60 Scrolls titled "abillus" of Enchant Weapon To-Dam
n) 10 Scrolls titled "plevisco mulum" of Recharging
o) a Lantern (2272 turns)
It usually provides light of radius 2. It cannot be harmed by fire.

p) a Mace of Extra Attacks (2d4) (+8,+8) (+1)
It increases your attack speed by 1.
q) a Light Crossbow of Accuracy (x3) (+16,+9)
r) 23 Bolts (1d5) (+6,+5)
s) 76 Bolts (1d5) (+0,+0)
t) 63 Arrows (1d4) (+0,+0)
u) 20 Rounded Pebbles (1d2) (+6,+3)

[Elsairon]

Potions are generally for curing blindness, confusion, stun, etc, rather than healing HP, although they do in a pinch.

[Pete Mack]

You are asking for trouble going without !CCW given that you don't have rBlind and especially without rConf. Even stunning can be very dangerous.

[Funksultan]

*hits head* Had no idea they cured the basic badnesses.

Ugh, one more potential loot slot gone it looks like. On the upside, 55k gold, so I can probably stop bringing up most of the generic +x,+x magic items to sell. The 600-900g just isn't gonna be worth it anymore.

[Big Al]

I think that you'd enjoy the game much more and have much better survival rates if you stop collecting {good} items. There's no way that you'll need over a hundred ID scrolls all at once, or the several dozen enchant x scrolls. I normally largely ignore {good} items - {excellent} weapons are almost always worth five times as much. I'll go around and might hold on to some good weapons as long as they don't slow me down, but never specifically return back to the town to sell them unless I'm returning to town to do something else. As a bonus of playing this way, if/when you do end up dying, you lose much less of an investment in that character. *shrug* Everyone has a different play style, but the less time you spend running around collecting junk, the less of a chance of something unexpected killing you.

[Djabanete]

I think you're carrying around a somewhat ludicrous amount of ?Identify. It just doesn't make sense to identify every little weapon or armor that gets dropped --- focus on the stuff that has a high likelihood of being good, such as unique drops and stuff that comes out of vaults. Remember that artifacts cannot be destroyed, so whenever you pass over a weapon or armor without identifying it, make sure to try to destroy it on the off-chance that it's an artifact.

Also, don't bother selling anything that's not an ego item. (Example: Dagger of Flame (+5, +5) vs Dagger (+5,+5)). Ego armors tend not to sell very high unless they're Resistance or Elvenkind; weapons sell much higher. The purpose of all this is to spare you trips to the town; if you destroy junk weapons and armor, and identify potentially good weapons and armor, and only sell the ego weapons, you'll maximize your dungeon exploration time.

You should always carry CCW, since it cures basic status disorders.
You should always carry Scrolls of Holy Chant and Potions of Heroism, since they *really* have an effect when you get into a tough fight.
The Staves of Teleportation and Speed are good. So are the Scrolls of Recharging.
The Rod of Cold Balls seems nice, but possibly redundant with all the arrows.
I think you should have Scrolls of Phase Door and Scrolls of Teleportation too, because sometimes you need that 0% fail rate when it's time to escape.
All this takes up inventory slots, but when you stop obsessing over selling every little item (), you'll realize that you only need a couple of free slots anyway. Try not to carry so much that you find yourself slowed down --- that +2 speed is precious.

You should also familiarize yourself a bit with macros. (The command used to be @, but maybe now it's under =, which is the options menu). My typical configuration is to set Tab to full rest. In addition, with a ranged character like yours, you should do the following:
Inscribe ( "{" ) your primary arrow stack "@1 =g". The "=g" means that you will pick them up automatically when you step on them.
Now make a macro so that pressing "1" will execute "f1*t", which will then shoot an arrow at the nearest monster.
Sorry if any of that is out of date, I haven't played V since 3.0.6.

In terms of RNG karma, you're due (if you'll excuse this butchery of probability theory) to find a decent melee weapon soon, something that actually gives you more than one blow and does some damage. Ideally you'd want a Defender or a Westernesse, and there are some nice artifact weapons that could turn up at this depth.

Rangers are pretty durable, so an experienced RL player like yourself actually has a shot at winning even if you're new to the game. But don't be surprised if you die, it's the expected outcome
Have fun, explore, and just remember: as you get better, you can become *WAY* faster at getting to this stage of the game; it won't be far-fetched to get to depth 30 in just a couple hours of realtime. So if you die, don't sweat it, next time it won't take as long.

[Funksultan]

Excellent advice! Thanks guys!

A stack of !CCW is gonna be with me soon. Remember though, I'm a ranger, so {good} and {cursed} is all I'll ever get outta puesdo-id, and even then, it's not fast. Other than IDing everything, not sure I can tell the difference between potential artifacts, and junk.

Some of this stems from my last char. Warrior, and was selling off stuff in town. Almost everything had puesdoed, and I ?IDed everything that was good or better for the cash. The ONLY thing I sold without IDing was a metal cap. Yeah, Thengel. He wanted 35k to buy it back, and I only had 17k. Not sure what I'm supposed to do besides ID everything, excepting broken swords, etc. Hell, even a dagger of westernese, defender or x-attks is gonna be worth it.

I could definitely use a primer on macros. Is there one posted somewhere that can give a good guide to a few basic ones? (love the fire arrow one btw) I have a few other basics that would be great as well (detection spells, use phial for light, otherwise cast light, etc).

While diving, I get a "superb" level feeling. Looking around the level, for the most part I just see a few bricks of mobs (usually orcs and trolls). Are these generating the feeling? Are they ever worth clearing out? I've cleaned a few of them, but they are ammo-drainers, and I still can't take a pounding in hth. (do I need more armor?) Granted, a *lot* of stuff drops from clearing these messes, but I can't tell if it's worth it, or should I be avoiding it and looking for artifacts and !+stat laying on the ground on the next level.

Thanks! (expect me to have a YASD story and a new char by the start of next week)

[PowerDiver]

I agree that with a ranger you need to ?id a lot. The trick, IMO, is to dive faster and kill fewer monsters.

[Djabanete]

Re:Thengel : that's why it's better to destroy items rather than sell them un-ID'd. (If you had tried to destroy it, you'd get a "can't destroy" message and you'd have a Metal Cap {indestructible} which you'd know was an artifact. Or you can wait for pseudo-ID.)

Re:Level feelings : Level feelings tend to get jacked up when there are:
(A) Vaults
(B) Pits
(C) out-of-depth monsters or items.

Packs of orcs or trolls won't make a "superb" level feeling. If you find a superb level that doesn't have a vault or a pit, make sure to scan carefully for out-of-depth items.

[aeneas]

I think that you'd enjoy the game much more and have much better survival rates if you stop collecting {good} items.

How is he supposed to tell the difference? He's a ranger. His pseudo won't tell him the difference between good and excellent, so he's going to have to ID everything good anyway. I wouldn't carry 80 ?ID, but I often do carry 30 or so as a ranger, and I might also keep the other 80 at home.

And, if you still need money, throwing away a dagger of flame rather than selling it is just.. bad advice. It's light and it's worth a lot. And Iding only things you "think" might be good is also terrible advice, IMHO. As a ranger, you should carry enough ID that you can ID almost everything. If you start tossing stuff that Ids {good} you will wind up tossing daggers of Westernesse, etc. 80 ?id is too many (because they're heavy), but it's better than having too few.

Anyway, this guy is not diving. He's dicking around in the lower levels, learning the game. He'll get killed a few times doing that. He'll eventually learn a few lessons from that, and hopefully they won't be "don't id things if you're a ranger" or "throw away light ego weapons while you still need money and you have slots to spare."

What we usually get here is someone who has been playing Angband for years without getting much past 1500'. It makes sense to give that sort of player counter-intuitive advice... the obvious is certainly not working for him, so he might as well try the counter-intuitive. He knows so much about the game that once you give him permission to do the "wrong" thing he posts a winner pretty quickly.

Funksultan is different. First, his combination of avatar and name is an obvious ploy by the enemies of the funk.. who actually posts an avatar to a board with this few posts anyway? And I need sunglasses to look at you wearing sunglasses, man... incredibly thick sunglasses. But I digress.

Sir Nose D'Voidvfunk says that the longbow is better. Go ahead and die a lot in the 30s. Find your own strategies. When they stop working, the starchild will bring you back here for further instruction, and Sir nose will dance the funky funk.