rPoison (please read as ARR Poison)

[Sergio]

Hey, a friend and I are playing vanilla (he's on 3.0.9b and I'm on the nightlies), and I was reading a comment someone made on his ladder page, about rPoison (yes, Pete, it was you).

He said "you can do without rPoison". A couple of weeks ago I was told in #angband "you'll die without rPoison". Of course, different people have different experiences, but I'd like to hear more opinions so I can inform myself. Those ugly swamp wyrms made rPoison a must for me, and perhaps I didn't fully get Pete's comment.

So, what are your opinions on arrPois?

[JohnCW9]

In my experience going with out rposion is fatal, there are too many insta-kills possible.

John

[Sirridan]

You don't *need* rPoison if you can detect the poison breathers, its a *very* good thing to have if you can get it though.

[Pete Mack]

With 800 HP, poison can't kill you. With < 800, it can. But if you have ESP, and detect sufficiently often for big poison breathers, you can survive for a very long while (though perhaps not indefinitely)

Without ESP and detect monsters, your expected survival time is pretty short--just long enough to dive to dl 50 and find PB6, so long as you carry a source of detect objects and don't do much exploring.

[buzzkill]

Always carry Resist Darkness after a certain point. That's my seldom heard, good advice, for the day. RIP post coming soon...

[Sergio]

Thanks for your replies. Doesn't rBlind make rDark and rLight obsolete?

[d_m]

Thanks for your replies. Doesn't rBlind make rDark and rLight obsolete?

It means you won't get blinded, but you will take a lot more damage from light and dark breathers (particularly big ones like Huan or Carcaroth).

[Bad Tempered Geezer]

Thanks for your replies. Doesn't rBlind make rDark and rLight obsolete?

No. Enemies lower in the dungeon can use dark and light attacks that do huge damage to you if you don't have the resistances.

EDIT: Oops, I didn't refresh the page or something so I didn't see that was answered already.

[Mondkalb]

It means you won't get blinded, but you will take a lot more damage from light and dark breathers (particularly big ones like Huan or Carcaroth).

It's not only breathers. You might be optimistic about knocking them down to a few stars and think they couldn't do any severe harm. That is wrong! Some of the uniques can invoke darkness storms. (Ungolianth, The Mouth of Sauron, Sauron, Tselakus, Omarax, The Beholder Hive Mother). I'm not sure how much damage that is in the new version, I think it was about 550.

Regarding rPoison, besides the breathers that are detected by telepathy the even more dangerous is drolem, which is not detected by telepathy.

[Sergio]

Yes, I just fought both Ungoliath and MoS and now I respect rDark, thanks

[buzzkill]

No. Enemies lower in the dungeon can use dark and light attacks that do huge damage to you if you don't have the resistances.

I was blissfully unaware. I thought that light and dark breather were pretty much the hounds, and blindness, while annoying, is hardly life threatening (with the proper cure). I was fighting a unique spider, with my resist poison, and not really realizing that the title "queen of darkness" might actually mean something. It was a long, drawn out battle but I wasn't worried because she didn't seem to have any attacks that could cause substantial damage. Then, when she was down to about 50% she breathed darkness... and I died. Bummer.

[Bad Tempered Geezer]

I was blissfully unaware. I thought that light and dark breather were pretty much the hounds, and blindness, while annoying, is hardly life threatening (with the proper cure). I was fighting a unique spider, with my resist poison, and not really realizing that the title "queen of darkness" might actually mean something. It was a long, drawn out battle but I wasn't worried because she didn't seem to have any attacks that could cause substantial damage. Then, when she was down to about 50% she breathed darkness... and I died. Bummer.

That sucks. I know how you feel; the same thing happened to me with the Winged Horror breathing poison and killing me at >270 hp. Though I probably am more to blame than you are, not having RPois at DLVL 55 or so.

[PowerDiver]

I was blissfully unaware. I thought that light and dark breather were pretty much the hounds, and blindness, while annoying, is hardly life threatening (with the proper cure). I was fighting a unique spider, with my resist poison, and not really realizing that the title "queen of darkness" might actually mean something. It was a long, drawn out battle but I wasn't worried because she didn't seem to have any attacks that could cause substantial damage. Then, when she was down to about 50% she breathed darkness... and I died. Bummer.

So was that fun? I ask in all seriousness. I think that incrementally learning monster memory is a stupid idea, and that the description should have included "can breathe for xxx damage of darkenss" from the start. The overall sentiment is that such deaths add to the enjoyment of playing the game, and I simply cannot understand it.

[buzzkill]

So was that fun? I ask in all seriousness. I think that incrementally learning monster memory is a stupid idea, and that the description should have included "can breathe for xxx damage of darkness" from the start. The overall sentiment is that such deaths add to the enjoyment of playing the game, and I simply cannot understand it.

I should have known better. I was fighting Shelob, Queen of Darkness, without resist dark. And even then, if she would have breathed earlier in the battle, when I had more HP's, I would have survived. I did survived (barely)and learned to avoid several other uniques through this very mechanic earlier in the game with this same character. I had 400HP max, and she breathed for <300. I was intentionally being stingy with the healing because I was kinda low on mana and consumables.

Was it fun? Yes. It's what keeps me coming back. I never win, but every once in a while the RNG makes my think that I have a chance, someday, just not today. I've got mixed feelings on the issue of full monster info. I like the idea of learn by use. I also like the idea of discovery by battle. If you're going to include spoilery info in the game from the start, then you should also play with the smartAIcheat on, just for a level playing field. Maybe enhance the whatever of probing to reveal full monster info. That would be useful (maybe give uniques a save). What I'd ideally like to see is once an attack type is discovered, that the game lets you know the severity of the attack. So that after you know something can hit, hit, hit, bite and breathe, you would know that it can hit for 3d6, 3d8, and 3d10, bite for 2d4+poison, and breath darkness for ~300HP damage with your current resists. What would really help is if the MONSTER MEMORY WAS STORED IN A SEPARATE FILE (or an option to save it separately included the options menu (for competition play)), as well as in the save file.

Thanks for your advice PowerDiver. I don't always follow it, but I do appreciate it. Maybe it will sink in someday.

What I'd like to stress to the rookies, like me, it that DL 50 is really as tough as it gets, and the drops do get better as you go deeper. I've read it a bunch of times here in the forums, but never really believed it. Sure every once in a while you'll encounter a level that is over run with ancient dragons, dreads, and uniques of all sorts, but once you come to your senses and get the hell out of there (which is where I used to turn back, thinking it would be crazy to go any deeper), you'll find the next 16 DL's to be completely harmless. Regardless of how you play your early/mid game, once you reach 50, just dive, you won't be sorry.

[Sergio]

Nitpicking replies

I have probed all uniques (and most monsters) before attacking them, so I have a pretty solid ancestor file for my next of kin

However, it's rather disappointing that you can't know how bad a breath can be with a -probe, like you can know hit damage.

Diving requires more patience than just staying in one level, or so I've learned. Because you need to pick your fights and sometimes saying 'goodbye for now' to a unique.