1400' Down and no Recall!!!

[Larvitz]

GAAAH, I'm 1400' down and I was brutally trapped through a long series of events where all my recall and teleportation was melted...

And now I'm crawling back up to the surface level by level with a rod of stair/door detection...

Any advice?

[Donald Jonker]

Give thanks for the rod and your shallow depth. If you can detect objects, do so in hopes of finding a ?WoR, and if you're low on light or food, take off your light when you don't need it, wear slow digestion and take off anything that gives you regen. But that probably won't be necessary.

[Larvitz]

Thank you. ^^ I'm up to 1000', so I may just survive this. =]

[Larvitz]

I broke surface! I is alive!!! ^o^

[Jungle_Boy]

When that happens to me I usually just go deeper and figure I'll find a ?WoR eventually. But I also carry far more food and light than is usually necessary so that's not a problem.

[Pete Mack]

The easy way to solve this problem is: stay away from Water (and Fire) hounds! And don't melee many things that B:HIT:FIRE: or B:HIT:ACID:

There are plenty of other monsters that are more rewarding. You might want to carry sources of Detect Treasure, which will still let you find loot without having to fight through nasty hounds. Magic mapping, Light rods, ESP, etc, all help too.

You might want to try playing a Half-Troll Rogue, who is almost as good in melee as a Warrior, but has adequate detection spells from about cl 20. Carefully optimized High-Elf Rogue also gets 3 blows.

[buzzkill]

Always carry one extra recall. You should alway have at least three when finished shopping, so you will have two left once you recall into the dungeon. If you lose one to fire (or anything else), and only have one left, recall immediately. Do not risk losing that last scroll. (and don't do what I did once, which is to read my last recall (at like 2250'), to cancel my previously read recall, because there was some nice loot lying around).

[Donald Jonker]

Always carry one extra recall. You should alway have at least three when finished shopping, so you will have two left once you recall into the dungeon. If you lose one to fire (or anything else), and only have one left, recall immediately. Do not risk losing that last scroll. (and don't do what I did once, which is to read my last recall (at like 2250'), to cancel my previously read recall, because there was some nice loot lying around).

I usually carry 5 for this purpose... getting wedged into an uncomfortable situation nvolving a unique that prompts you to recall, but eventually ends in victory and a probably great drop happens too often. Sometimes cancellation is necessary. Not to mention getting triple teamed by a wereworm and several packs of your favorite flavors of hounds before your instincts kick in, and wouldn't you know it, you forgot to buy arrows last trip to town.

[tigpup]

If ?recall is not in good supply in (NPP) shops, I sometimes take down a small stack of other cheap scrolls (phase usually), even if I don't really need them. That can help to reduce the risk of any ?recall I do have getting burnt.

-Neil

[CunningGabe]

If ?recall is not in good supply in (NPP) shops, I sometimes take down a small stack of other cheap scrolls (phase usually), even if I don't really need them. That can help to reduce the risk of any ?recall I do have getting burnt.

-Neil

That's a clever tactic, if a little unrealistic. If you carry more scrolls with you, shouldn't they spread fire more easily?

The Fire hound breathes fire.
One of your Scrolls of Kindling (e) was destroyed!
Your pack goes up in flames!

[Daniel Fishman]

I'm pretty certain that each item has an chance of being destroyed individually, so that tactic doesn't work. And some source diving confirms this.

[Donald Jonker]

I'm pretty certain that each item has an chance of being destroyed individually, so that tactic doesn't work. And some source diving confirms this.

This seems very counter-intuitive. I don't ever recall having more than 3 or so things getting torched by a single breath. If what you say is true, carrying 8 spellbooks, 5 staves, 30 scrolls and 99 arrows vs 5 scrolls, one staff and no arrows would get you a ton more burnt in the former situtation, which my recalled experience strongly suggests being otherwise.

[CunningGabe]

This seems very counter-intuitive. I don't ever recall having more than 3 or so things getting torched by a single breath. If what you say is true, carrying 8 spellbooks, 5 staves, 30 scrolls and 99 arrows vs 5 scrolls, one staff and no arrows would get you a ton more burnt in the former situtation, which my recalled experience strongly suggests being otherwise.

It does seem to be as Daniel suggests (the inven_damage function in spells1.c takes care of this). Probably you (and others) thought it was different because we all remember those times when the fire breath took out that 1 staff you really needed, but not the times the fire breath burned up many items from a big stack.