New to Angband and addicted

[Uplifter]

Hello everyone I have been playing angband for a couple weeks now and I must say is very entertaining. It has been a vigorous process to keep myself from dying around the 5th level I am just wondering if anyone can give me any pointers. I enjoy playing a high-elf paladin of which my highest level has been around 15. Pointers on making gold would be especially useful since it seems I can never buy enough identify scrolls.

[Atarlost]

Stop identifying everything. Don't ID flavoured objects until you've got the spell. Just sell them as is. Don't ID arms or armour until it gets marked as {good} or {excellent} or {special}. If it hasn't got an inscription by the time you get back to town with your load just sell it. By the time you're seeing lots of stuff worth IDing you'll probably have the spell.

[Uplifter]

I'm saying I can't ID any of the magical items that I have found becuase I have no cash right now I'm chasing around smeagol he stole a;; my money :-\

[Pete Mack]

Don't chase smeagol unless you can kill him easily. The way to do that is:
1. Make sure your character is strong when you start. Invest in base STR of 17, base DEX of 16, CON 16, rest in WIS or INT, depending on if you are a mage 1/2-caster or priest half-caster.
2. Make sure you are getting max blows. For a Paladin, this should be 3. This usually means using a dagger, main gauche, or rapier.
3. Use a longbow.
4. Enchant your bow and melee weapon with ?to_dam scrolls.

After that, it's a matter of staying alive, and not wasting effort killing worthless or too-dangerous monsters. Here are some newbie tips:

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.roguelike.angband/browse_frm/thread/bc39271613d35c9d/1a4d5bcef0bbf8b9?lnk=gst&q=diving+exercise+newbie#1a4d5bcef0bbf8b9

EDIT: And one more thing. You can't survive very well until you can afford the basics, and you can't afford the basics until after dl 5. So going deeper faster means you are more likely to survive.

[Uplifter]

Thanks peeps I just got killed by wyrmtongue on floor 8-9 which I do believe is my new record. So do the +dam scrolls stack? I know to use the most attacks per round weapons. I have read the http://www.thangorodrim.net/TANG/index.html guide which was really useful, but its hard to find anything else on the subject.

[Pete Mack]

to_dam scrolls stack, to a point. The higher your +dam, the less likely the spell is to succeed. It's fairly easy to get to +7, or even +9. It's increasingly hard to get beyond that, and impossible to get beyond +15. And the thangorodrim guide is of limited use. It doesn't focus on what's critical for survival; it's more a set of fairly arbitrary tips.

[tara_h]

I got my first winner last week and I'm working on a new character (dwarven paladin), and I can add a few things about getting money at low levels.


Detect Traps. Most characters can learn the skill from a spellbook. Paladins definitely can. If you don't have a reliable way to detect traps you start losing stat points from dart traps and that means having to buy potions to restore them. I was losing a lot of money with my early characters that way.

If you're capable of digging, you can get some amounts of money from the treasure veins (like 50-100 gold apiece), but it puts your turn count up a lot.

As people have said, run away from Smeagol. The best way I've found to kill him is to come back later with a good ranged weapon and tons of ammo. He likes to pick fallen ammo up instead of chasing you, so you can distract him by shooting at him then phase door when he gets too close. Hasting yourself with a speedpotion will also help.

[buzzkill]

Advice for the very early game, where you seem to be spending a lot of time...
You're likely to find a lot of useful stuff in the dungeon, so don't waste cash shopping (for weapons/armour) until after your initial dive.
Always carry Phase Door (as many as you can afford), a basic launcher w/ammo and at least 1 Word of Recall, and use them. Phase is far from a safe escape (but works well as phase and shoot), and WoR seems like it takes forever to kick in, so don't wait till that last desperate moment.
Check your "blows per round" and "damage per blow" on the C)haracter screen. Lighter weapons usually grant more blows and are therefore better.
Up to dungeon level 10 or so, I usually just use un-id'd potion and scrolls rather that wasting an identify scroll on them (you probably want to be standing on a staircase when you do this). If you have a {tried} item, re-use it or sell it, rather than identify it.
Same goes for rods/staffs/wands but you'll want to try these out on monsters that you could easily kill without their help. A Wand of Wonder is particularly powerful, though unpredictable, in the early game.
Carry un-id'd weapons and armours (as long as they don't slow you) until they are pseudo-id'd. ID the stuff that pseudos as {good} or better, destroy or sell the rest. Also ID the stuff that uniques, like Wormtongue, drops.
Detect more often. Buy and use means of detection (esp monsters/evil, and maybe objects. Traps aren't a big concern until later). If staffs seems to do nothing, they are probably some sort of detection. Keep occasionally using them.
Run away!!! He who turns and (then shrieks like a sissy girl and) runs away, lives to fight another day (if he's lucky).

[Zikke]

Short version of advice:

Until you're familiar with the game, detect monsters/evil as often as you can and always have an escape! Scrolls of Phase Door and Teleport are key. Run away a lot. You are not expected to kill things the first time you see them.

And the secret to melee damage in these games are maximizing the number of blows per round with light weapons, and then enchanting the weapon up to get more damage per blow. It gets ridiculous in the late game.

And get a long bow as soon as you can, and carry a full stack of arrows.

[PowerDiver]

(1) Start with 18/10 dex, or else as much str as you can, or probably both. Intial stat points in con or spell stats will help you in the midgame, but if you are not getting there, you might want to invest *all* of your stat points in STR and DEX for a few games.

(2) You're going to die. Every time, until you learn the game better. Your goal should not be to avoid death, but rather some smaller goal. Perhaps to get deeper than you have before, or to get to a particular depth in a particular number of turns, or to kill 5 new monster types you have never killed before. After each death, try to figure out what you could have done to avoid it.

[Uplifter]

Ok this is my initial start up build High-elf paladin +6 str +6 Wis +6 Dex +6 con I have a character now that is level 13 with a max depth of 500'

[buzzkill]

Ok this is my initial start up build High-elf paladin +6 str +6 Wis +6 Dex +6 con I have a character now that is level 13 with a max depth of 500'

Starting around 500' would be a good time to start looking for items that grant Free Action (FA) and See Invisible (SI). The need for these will become obvious as you proceed deeper. You'll also want a want a means of curing blindness. Potions of Cure Critical Wounds (CCW) are always a good choice.

[Atarlost]

High elves don't need to look for See Invisible. This is probably the main reason they're so popular.

Gnomes don't need to look for Free Action. They're also annoyingly fragile though so they're not so popular.

[Pete Mack]

You don't need Free Action until around 1000'. Before that, there are very few paralyzing attacks. (Floating Eye, Homonculus.) After 1100', they start coming thick and fast. You might want to hold at 1000' until you have the list of paralyzers more or less known.

[Uplifter]

Wewt!!! I am doing a lot better now I just found the helmet of thengel Level 17 now think im going to stick around this floor for awhile level 8ish things are hitting me a lot harder