The Warrior's Descension Kit (tm)

[Donald Jonker]

I submit that the following kit will be enough to let you survive and prosper on any given trip, however deep.
EDIT: All the pure essentials are reliably available in town.

4 Food
4 Light (torches/flasks of oil)

12 !CCW

20 ?Phase
15 ?ID
5 ?Recharge
10 ?dObject
5 ?WoR

2 _Tele
1 _Enlightenment
1 _dEvil

99 Arrows

Equip:
a (+9,+9) weapon w/ 4+ blows.
a (+9,+9) longbow

Luxuries:
1+ -TA
1 -Light
5 ?teleportLevel

Optional:
Armor
Resistances

I estimate the cost (excluding luxuries) to be around 25k AU, which is easily attainable by 1000'.

[Aristobulus]

Now if only you could buy kits... that'd be awesome..

[Donald Jonker]

Now if only you could buy kits... that'd be awesome..

You can, actually. All this stuff is commonly available in town - although it's a la carte. It just struck me as fascinating that you can dive down to 4950' with a kit built entirely out of standard items you can get without getting lucky in the dungeon or town-scumming, or even visiting the black market.

[Aristobulus]

You can, actually. All this stuff is commonly available in town - although it's a la carte. It just struck me as fascinating that you can dive down to 4950' with a kit built entirely out of standard items you can get without getting lucky in the dungeon or town-scumming, or even visiting the black market.

Well I meant in the sense of a convenient little box with everything in it.

But yes, that is extraordinary. It's just the same how you can make bombs and other trivial items from household chemicals.

[Jude]

I've been wondering what people recommend as the kit to have with you in the dungeon.

For me, !CCW isn't good enough; it'll give back 40-50 hp tops, and the only time I need to use it is when I'm fighting a monster strong enough to knock that or more off of me in one round. The next step up is !Healing, which is fairly rare to find (at least so far...maybe it becomes more common lower down?) and so I'm always reluctant to bring them down with me since I can lose them to balls of frost and such.

I also like bringing !speed with me; no other potion gives that much bang for the buck. It can turn me from evenly matched against a horde of monsters, to stomping all over them without breaking a sweat. I think these are mostly found at shallow levels though and the idea of scumming around looking for them seems agonizing.

Also, I'm a Chaos Warrior (Zangband) and basically all my spells are attack spells besides Light, Trap-Door Destruction and Teleport Self. What I'm wondering is, once I have RBlind, RConf and Free Action, is it safe to ditch the staffs of Teleport and just rely on my spell? Or are there things that can suck up all my mana? Also, if not, but if I have those resistances, are scrolls a better idea than staffs?

Finally, as a class that uses magic fairly heavily, are Restore Mana potions a must, and where do you find them other than just getting lucky in the dungeon or black market?

[Nick]

I've been wondering what people recommend as the kit to have with you in the dungeon.

Always:

• Food
• ?Phase, ?TSelf, ?TLevel, ?Recall (or -Recall)
• !CCW (or failing that !CSW), !Speed

After about CL20:

• !Heal
• _TSelf

When available, unless there's a replacement (spells are fine for these):

• _Perception
• -StoneToMud
• -DTraps,-DDoors/Stairs,-Enlightenment

For me, !CCW isn't good enough; it'll give back 40-50 hp tops, and the only time I need to use it is when I'm fighting a monster strong enough to knock that or more off of me in one round. The next step up is !Healing, which is fairly rare to find (at least so far...maybe it becomes more common lower down?) and so I'm always reluctant to bring them down with me since I can lose them to balls of frost and such.

!CCW is most useful early on, and for fixing blindness, confusion and cuts. It can also be handy later if you can phase away from a big fight and quaff a few quickly.

I also like bringing !speed with me; no other potion gives that much bang for the buck. It can turn me from evenly matched against a horde of monsters, to stomping all over them without breaking a sweat. I think these are mostly found at shallow levels though and the idea of scumming around looking for them seems agonizing.

Agreed. How available they are is a bit variant-dependent.

Also, I'm a Chaos Warrior (Zangband) and basically all my spells are attack spells besides Light, Trap-Door Destruction and Teleport Self. What I'm wondering is, once I have RBlind, RConf and Free Action, is it safe to ditch the staffs of Teleport and just rely on my spell? Or are there things that can suck up all my mana? Also, if not, but if I have those resistances, are scrolls a better idea than staffs?

If the spell is 0% fail, and you have RBlind, RConf and RSound, and you never let yourself get stunned in melee, it's safe to rely on the spell. I like to carry scrolls (failsafe) and a staff (for if I'm blinded).

Finally, as a class that uses magic fairly heavily, are Restore Mana potions a must, and where do you find them other than just getting lucky in the dungeon or black market?

I count these as final equipment - If I'm running out of mana routinely then I need to run away more.

[d_m]

What about traps? On the lower dungeon levels it can be pretty lethal not to have detected them.

[Jude]

Do you recommend _TSelf in addition to, or instead of, ?Tself? If I have Rblind and Rconf then it seems pointless to have _Tself since scrolls are failsafe and can't all be destroyed by a single acid/fire attack...

About stat gain, what are usually the optimal dlvls for picking up potions and how high do people generally get their stats before calling it quits and moving on?

Also, what the heck do rods of Disarming do? I have yet to find any use for them.

[Donald Jonker]

Do you recommend _TSelf in addition to, or instead of, ?Tself? If I have Rblind and Rconf then it seems pointless to have _Tself since scrolls are failsafe and can't all be destroyed by a single acid/fire attack...

They're redundant. Use scrolls.

About stat gain, what are usually the optimal dlvls for picking up potions and how high do people generally get their stats before calling it quits and moving on?

You'll start finding pots on the floor at 1500'. If I'm not mistaken, monsters will drop them if their native depth and the current dungeon depth average to 1500'.

Some people wait to be maxed out... which is boring. If you keep diving you'll get more pots per second of real-time play. You just have to religiously detect and stick to a limited set of monsters until your equipment improves (which will happen faster if you dive). Basically if you stick around 1500'-2000' something out of depth will eventually kill you once you get complacent. If you keep going those same monsters will still be able to kill you, but you'll be more cautious in avoiding them. This is the fundamental philosophical question of Angband... you'll find a lot of discourse on it here and at rgra.

Also, what the heck do rods of Disarming do? I have yet to find any use for them.

Reveal hidden doors and unlock them, and disarm traps. I find them to be useless.

[Zikke]

Kits are nice, but patience and intelligence are unfortunately also required to survive down on 4950'.


And bribing the RNG...

[Djabanete]

I find them [rods of disarming] to be useless.

There are some variants with chests that are trapped so fiendishly that it's worth carrying -Disarming just for that --- at least, I do. But they're pretty pointless in general.

[Pete Mack]

I carry them in npp for the topnotch chests and for the really dangerous traps at a distance.