New forum goer, mage question

**Marble Dice** · August 5, 2009, 16:21

When I play mages, I go high elf and split my points evenly between str, int, and con. That's a total of 13 str, 18/50 int, and 16 con.

I hate grinding (scumming, farming) so even in 3.0 when ranged weapons were cheaper, if there was no long bow in the shop I'd just start diving without one. I sell my dagger and buy phase door and some oil for throwing. In the words of PowerDiver, "oil has gone nuclear," and inflicts ~21 damage on non-fire-resistant enemies. It breaks 100% of the time, but it's useful to kill Fang and Grip when they show up and you're still level 1. Oil is probably going to be toned down but I expect it to remain a viable (cheap, available) early-game ranged weapon. As you dive pick up any ranged weapon you can find and buy some ammo for it next time you're in town if you can't afford/find a long bow.

You won't be able to kill snagas, or anything else you can't m1a to death from not quite full mana (since you'll be using m1g and m1b a lot and trying not to rest all the time). You've gotta keep running and looking for the really juicy targets - lower depth enemies with high xp payoffs and not many hp. From dungeon level 1-20, I have good luck with Fang/Grip, kobold shamans, kobold archers, purple mushroom patches, red naga, night lizards, giant salamanders, orc shamans, king cobras, single gnome mages, and dragonflies, among others. Basically, when you detect monsters, look at the memory for the top few enemies in the list (they'll be the lowest depth) and if any of them give a really good xp payoff and aren't too difficult to kill, consider making a detour to kill them.

**Bill Peterson** · August 5, 2009, 18:24

If you're intent on getting a long bow as soon as possible you might consider picking up a shovel in hopes of finding treasure veins early on. Although with the new ID scheme in 3.1.1 you might be able to find enough salable items to give you the $ you need.

If you're going to depend on a bow for damage early on you should think about boosting DEX rather than CON at birth. Neither is going to have much effect until you get it above 18, but I play low level mages so that I don't get touched or breathed on, and any increase to accuracy is good. Look at the source file tables.c to see what effect each stat level has and decide how you want to play.

**will_asher** · August 5, 2009, 19:01

You could settle for a short bow for awhile. They aren't that bad especially in the very early game which is what you're talking about.

**grapejoose** · August 5, 2009, 19:53

Well my latest attempt got me clvl 20 at dlvl 44. Got nether-bolted for instant death by getting greedy, my bad.

Stupid dreads, I knew I should have TO'd him when I saw him instead of risking it. :b

So, what about Deep Descent scrolls? I had about 15 on me on this char, wouldn't it be faster to just recite them all and go hog wild down there? :b

joose

**Napsterbater** · August 5, 2009, 19:57

Stay away from King Cobras until you have cure potions. I don't dive with them on my first dive.

I played mages for awhile until I switched over to rogues. Don't mess with snagas or groups of monsters in general, unless there's stairs handy. You don't need to kill them anyway. Just keep diving, killing off the odd baby dragon.

Pick up every ring you find on the first ten levels, you're bound to find a =tele(+3 speed) Those are very useful for getting away from orc hordes, if you really want to tangle with them. Wands of sleep and confuse are really helpful if you find something you want to kill, but not sure if you can take.

I thought I needed a launcher until I started diving without them, and it made me a better player. Apparently the devs thought it was overpowered to bring a longbow down with you on your first dive, hence the price increases. Which is great, now the first few levels plays a lot more like the rest of the game where anything can kill you if you take a wrong step. I felt like superman diving down with a +3 longbow and 99 arrows. That false sense of security killed off many of my characters. Now I'm diving deeper and smarter.

Recently I had a rogue around Dlev 35 or so lose his WoR to hounds, so I trekked back up to ?WoR depth so I could get back to town and buy more escapes and arrows. Dlev35 is a harrowing place to be without escapes or a launcher. It took hours to get back up.

**will_asher** · August 5, 2009, 20:14

Originally posted by Napsterbater

Recently I had a rogue around Dlev 35 or so lose his WoR to hounds, so I trekked back up to ?WoR depth so I could get back to town and buy more escapes and arrows. Dlev35 is a harrowing place to be without escapes or a launcher. It took hours to get back up.

Yikes! I *never* go deeper than dl3 without at least 2 ?WoR. If I get down to one, I read it right away.

I also seems kinda funny to me to tell him to stay away from king cobras when he just mentioned getting killed by dreads. @grapejoose: If you see a group of dreads, get off the level asap.

**Marble Dice** · August 5, 2009, 20:28

Originally posted by will_asher

I also seems kinda funny to me to tell him to stay away from king cobras when he just mentioned getting killed by dreads.

I think he was just responding to my advice to hunt them in the very early game, which isn't too hard if you're playing a mage, as cobras move somewhat erratically at normal speed. They've only got ~44 hp, so you should be able to magic missile them to death as early as level 4, and will gain a full level from it if you find one that early.

To a mage, King Cobras aren't especially more deadly than any other melee-only enemy, which is to say they're no problem if you don't get close, and almost certain death if you do.

**Napsterbater** · August 5, 2009, 20:30

I might have had two, I'm not sure. I just looked up one time and saw I didn't have any. I haven't been down to that depth much, basically I'm just trying to get deep, fast, every game, so I can find out what's down there. I've never even seen a Dread before. It's fun dying to stuff I've never seen before, and getting tore up by critters I thought were harmless and still managing to survive. I'm tempted to just read every single DeepDescent scroll I come across, but they're so useful as escapes that I always just end up keeping them. I still remember dying to a Mystic. I thought he was a summoner, so I wanted to see what he'd come up with before _tele. Big mistake. Bruce Lee kicked my little mage butt, one turn.

**SerPounce** · August 15, 2009, 00:08

That's quite a devotion to diving to be unwilling to go to L1 and pick up a bunch potions, scrolls, etc and sell them in order to buy a more complete set of basic equipment. Do you just not want to spend a little time on the early levels or do you see it as "scumming" in the in the negative connotation sense?

**buzzkill** · August 15, 2009, 00:33

To each his own. There's nothing wrong with fully exploring any level, or every level. Do what makes you happy. IMO this whole diving thing, while widely practiced, is over rated.

**LCC** · August 15, 2009, 01:07

Originally posted by buzzkill

To each his own. There's nothing wrong with fully exploring any level, or every level. Do what makes you happy. IMO this whole diving thing, while widely practiced, is over rated.

I agree with buzzkill. To me it makes no sense to dive so fast that your character gets killed. Slow steady progress with a survival strategy will win the game even for newbies. Trying to dive like the bored experts just gets you killed...

**grapejoose** · August 15, 2009, 03:15

I both agree and disagree. I agree with your statement at face value. Yes, you do die a lot, while you're learning. But no, it' s not a bad idea. I've learned a lot more about Angband in the last couple weeks by diving with mages than I ever did in the years I played it off and on trying warriors and going slow and killing everything. I've seen more of the game than I ever did, and that's done nothing but make me a better player.

After all this diving fun recently I tried a warrior again. Had my best attempt in Angband ever thus far with him and it's because I knew what I was doing this time.

I've learned what not to do, what to avoid, etc.

Died on dlvl 65 to an elder vampire when I ran out of escapes by not paying attention. Stupid *Destruction* staff got drained in my inventory by Balrog while I wasn't paying attention and my tele staff and scrolls got burnt. I should have recalled when the teles gone but I just wanted a liiiiiittle more stuff. lol

-joose

**Pete Mack** · August 15, 2009, 03:36

The only thing on dl 1 that's worth spit is !speed. Which is great, but if you really need it you can go back and scum dl 1 once you can afford to detect objects. The #1 goal in the game is stat gain--any turns spent wandering around before that are in some sense wasted.

**PowerDiver** · August 15, 2009, 04:12

Originally posted by buzzkill

To each his own. There's nothing wrong with fully exploring any level, or every level. Do what makes you happy. IMO this whole diving thing, while widely practiced, is over rated.

That's mostly because the game has gotten so much easier with 3.1. In older versions, slow and steady was often a deliberate march towards an unlucky death. You may be right now, I don't know.

However, take a look at my favorite rgra post ever. http://groups.google.com/group/rec.g...ly+yawp+worked

New forum goer, mage question

New forum goer, mage question

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