Mages - Advice please!

[Sirridan]

Well after a ton of deaths, I think I've found a nice way to go with this character. Running away constantly, only fighting when I have a clear advantage. Running away when my advantage becomes less clear... etc.

Picked up a hat of seeing, I don't need the see invis or +search, but rBlind is too valuable to pass up, especially for the 2700 gold it was going for.

On to the meat and potatoes of this thread. I'm at level 17 (850') and have been doing quite well. I picked up free action and I would still like the two resists im missing, but oh well. I think I'm going to start diving to the mid 20's, but was wondering how I should go about it?

I still run at signs of danger, constantly check for monsters, doors, traps and such, and light up every room I get to. I try to avoid loot if its too risky to get to, and try to keep a good escape route open at all times.

Anything I should look for before I drop down like a stone or am I doing alright?

Thanks for your time guys.

EDIT: Attached my dump, in case anyone wanted to see. I know the -2 speed is bad, I'm dropping and opening the chest as soon as I recall down.

[buzzkill]

I'm no expert but, go deeper!!! You can make DL25 easy.
The Ring of Resist Fire isn't helping any.
Your weapon sucks, so keep your distance.
I'm assuming you can cast Detect Traps, otherwise take the rod from home.
Also assuming you can cast some sort of teleportation, but scrolls never fail.
You've got a little gold left, how about enchanting some arrows.

[Sirridan]

Blah, got too comfortable spamming my auto-fire macro and got wasted by half orcs.

No more of that then

Edit:

Thanks for the advice Buzzkill. I have been keeping my distance, pretty much I fight only with my bow and a few spells, but mostly bow. I use my SP to escape, and scrolls if I don't want to risk a spell failure. Couldn't get scrolls of teleport or staves of it either. The ring isn't helping but it isn't hurting either, figured I'd keep in on in case I found some other source of resist that would replace my other fire.

What I learned today - Auto fire very slowly, spamming it leads to death, heh.

[Fenrir]

My first win was a mage, so I guess I have at least some experience with this:

- Dive like a crazy and buy scrolls of detect treasure to find good equipment quick.
- But still don't stray too much from the stairs! Run away from everything and anything. Your hp will be tragic, assume everything onscreen can kill you.
- Use two rings of Escaping. And if you can't find that, use two of Teleportation. Only swap these for speed, con (if hp gets way too tragic) and power rings when you find them (or free action until you get a better source).
- Carry a staff of teleport as soon as you can afford one! They are doubly as important for mages than to other classes as they have lower fail rate and work when blind/confused!
- Once you have a source of rblind and rconf, use scrolls. Even at the endgame you should have scrolls.
- Hunt dragons. And if dragons hit too hard, hounds then dragons.
- Always detect doors/stairs/traps! Many doors crashing open will most likely mean a pack of hounds.
- Carry potions of speed until you learn haste self.
- Forget your bow as soon as you come across a good heavy crossbow. It should be your primary weapon until the endgame. You should _never_ melee anything if you can help it.
- Keep any rods of acid/fire/ice/whatever bolts you come across. Few uniques resist acid until the endgame ones, so once it has a low failure rate acid bolt should be your primary attack spell before you learn chaos strike (which, by the way, should always be used against uniques and never against normal monsters).

[PowerDiver]

- Carry a staff of teleport as soon as you can afford one!.

I'd amend that to carry 2 or 3, and recall immediately when you are down to 1, once you've made it far enough to collect and/or buy a few, until you have rBlind and rConf.

That's just general advice, not particular to mages.

[Sirridan]

Thanks for the great advice guys, my newest incarnation of Alaran is 12 now, self ID is nice to have... all I need is some permanent light and I won't have to go back to town. I have a scroll of teleport too, hoping more show up on the market soon.

[Arphod]

My first win was a mage, so I guess I have at least some experience with this:

You should _never_ melee anything if you can help it.

Mmmm. Can't agree here. My first win was also a mage, and I beat the bejeeziss out of Morgie with Eonwe for the win. Perhaps you meant _as_a_general_rule_don't rather than _never_.

[will_asher]

A saying I saw quoted recently said "Always and never are two words you should always remember never to use."