Help for a long time player (Never won)

[Steven]

Hi all.

I've been playing Angband on and off for... Well a long time. I've never managed to win.
I decided to have another go at playing, since despite never killing the big P I always enjoy myself, and after reading on these forums I decided I should try diving.

So I created my character and off I went into the dark, deep yonder. Funny thing. I died.

Now I know that this is going to happen to me and I've tried several times so and I'm not adverse to having characters snuff it. What I would like to check is that I am approaching diving. I get the impression that people go down very fast till they reach the levels where stat gain is common but I tend to get to lvl 10 and die. My question is really a simple How Fast?
How fast should I be going down levels, I tend to skip lvl 1, level up on dl 2 and then carry on to 3. I'm playing a human ranger (maybe that's part of my problem I don't know) so by the time I hit lvl four, even if I just look for the stairs I'm usually CL 3-4 I'm basically going down roughly in sync with my CL...

Any tips on what I can do to get a bit more success?

[fizzix]

Hi all.

I've been playing Angband on and off for... Well a long time. I've never managed to win.
I decided to have another go at playing, since despite never killing the big P I always enjoy myself, and after reading on these forums I decided I should try diving.

So I created my character and off I went into the dark, deep yonder. Funny thing. I died.

Now I know that this is going to happen to me and I've tried several times so and I'm not adverse to having characters snuff it. What I would like to check is that I am approaching diving. I get the impression that people go down very fast till they reach the levels where stat gain is common but I tend to get to lvl 10 and die. My question is really a simple How Fast?
How fast should I be going down levels, I tend to skip lvl 1, level up on dl 2 and then carry on to 3. I'm playing a human ranger (maybe that's part of my problem I don't know) so by the time I hit lvl four, even if I just look for the stairs I'm usually CL 3-4 I'm basically going down roughly in sync with my CL...

Any tips on what I can do to get a bit more success?

The trick with diving is avoiding many fights and running away when you need to. For me diving is solely to satisfy a single purpose, to keep me from lazy, avoidable deaths. Being in dangerous environments keeps me on my toes, and ensures that if I die it's because of RNG meanness, not personal error. Personal error deaths make me kick myself.

Detect monsters is an early spell and should be what you use most. Detect early and often, know what's there and know where you shouldn't go. As a ranger, don't bother meleeing, you should be firing missiles at all but the wimpiest of monsters. Keep many escapes handy, if you're having trouble getting past a certain level, scum there for enough money to buy a staff of teleportation. This is your most reliable escape until you have Teleport other, ?teleport level, and _destruction. Up until you get _teleport, use phase door, wands and staves of confuse, sleep and slow monster, and rings and amulets of teleportation as escapes. Keep these ready and run away several turns before you *need* to. After all, you might find not so nice things where you've landed.

I'm not really a great diver. I'll wind up dying about 75-90% of the time before reaching stat-gain depth.

[Steven]

Thanks.
I do try and use staff's scrolls etc. But I don't seem to end up with enough of them to be useful. Maybe I am just going too fast. I probably need to find a balance between my old snails pace of clearing every level and the suidive tactics I'm currently employing.

[Marble Dice]

Are you enchanting your long bow up to (+9,+9) until you find something better? The usual advice also applies: find sources of phase door (scroll/spell), recovery (!CSW,!CCW), teleportation (spell/staff), speed (potions/staff), and teleport other (wand/rod) as soon as possible. Check the black market and buy them if at all possible. I'd also pick up any ?Teleport Level or ?Deep Descent you see. As soon as you hit 900', skip all the way to 1500' (hound depth sucks).

What usually kills you? If it's random melee mobs, you're probably just being careless. Diving requires a different mindset, one where you treat every turn as a decision, and it takes a while to get into that mode where you're thinking about everything you do. However, since it goes so much faster it's easier to keep your focus.

[d_m]

Thanks.
I do try and use staff's scrolls etc. But I don't seem to end up with enough of them to be useful. Maybe I am just going too fast. I probably need to find a balance between my old snails pace of clearing every level and the suidive tactics I'm currently employing.

So, there are much better divers than myself on the site. But here's my approach:

Make sure you know which enemies are faster or slower than you. Don't fight anything that is faster than you until you get pretty strong and have some escapes. Don't fight anything difficult if you can help it.

Learn Detect Monsters as soon as you can, and make sure you scope out which monsters are in an area before exploring there. If you can arrange to get telepathy this will get a *lot* easier.

Diving is really about finding items and gold. So try to collect detect items scrolls/staves and use them to scope out interesting areas of the dungeon. Otherwise, just take down staircases when you find them. You shouldn't clear levels because the risk of dying outweighs the items you'll find (you'll find much better on deeper levels).

Try unknown flavors on a down stair case. This way if it's a summon monster spell or something you can escape. Don't worry about potions of weakness or bad scrolls--you'll get XP for reading them which is worth temporary stat loss.

The escapes I use start with phase door (which is not great but cheap). Then I get teleport scrolls if possible (or ideally teleport level). Eventually I get the 2nd spellbook with teleport and a staff (for use when confused or blinded). You'll want to avoid using these if possible, but sometimes you'll need to take a calculated risk.

Based on the current code, you will probably get better items by scavenging from the floor than fighting things. So, resist the temptation to clear levels or fight difficult fights since the rewards you get will mostly not be worth the consumables you use up.

Hope this help!

[Philip]

I second what was said here, and maybe you should change your race/class combination. For starters, use a High-elf ranger/rogue or a hobbit/kobold rogue. Never kill stuff without a drop unless it's attacking you or blocking your way. Clear only special or superb levels. And don't stop anywhere early, your first trip should take you to lvl15 or deeper.

[Steven]

Thanks for the help guys. I think I see where I've gone wrong. I've always just tried to kill stuff to get items. I'll try just scouting for items and gold.
I take it a staff of object detect would be a good thing to pick up somewhere.

[PowerDiver]

I'm playing a human ranger (maybe that's part of my problem I don't know)

Humans are the hardest.

Do you prefer melee? I think a half-troll ranger can start with 3 blows with a dagger. Do you get killed by blindness? Try a dwarf. For general purpose, high elves are the best. Or, play any other race and it will still be better than a human.

Int is a primary stat, but it isn't all that important to a ranger, and it is quite unimportant up to the point where you are dying.


My wife likes to hack with occasional spells, is playing a dwarf rogue with starting base stats Str 18 Int 13 Dex 16 Con 13.

[Psi]

I've been on a run of diving HE Rangers. I try to average 3k turns per level at the beginning (though it often drags out to 4k...).

With 18/30 Str and 18/10 Dex, you get 3 blows with anything up to rapier weight. I sell the sword and bow, buy a dagger, MB2, oil (as a thrown weapon) and plenty of ?DetectTreasure (and whatever escapes/healing I can afford). I drop to 450' before starting to use the scrolls. Once I have enough gold+items to afford a _Teleport, I'll pop back once there isn't a downstairs close enough. I tend to have found a launcher rather than buy one, but then enchant it (if necessary) as others have said. At that point I'll start playing more like a ranger again rather than a rogue.

Finding a -DetectTreasure helps a lot. Also having enough SP to be able to cast detectStairs.

[buzzkill]

Play with dis-connected stairs if you don't already. I know it sound counter-intuitive, but you'll learn to walk faster without the crutch. After a few games, you won't even notice the difference. Detect objects/stairs/monsters, repeat.

[Magnate]

I use High-Elf Rogues, with 18/20 STR, DEX and INT, and the remaining points into CON. 3 blows with a dagger, whip or main gauche. Get a launcher ASAP, pref longbow or xbow. All the other advice is sound: dive to ~700' on your first trip, ~1400' on your second. I probably still recall too often, and waste many turns in town. But even I (who am a crummy diver by standards here) can now get to 4000' in under 400k turns.

[PowerDiver]

C'mon folks. This guy is dying by CL 10. Recommending high speed diving may not be best.

There's nothing wrong with mostly clearing levels to learn the game, so long as you know enough to avoid pits and have 3 blows with your melee weapon. Some people have fun clearing levels after they know the game.

The main point is not to get surrounded. That may mean waking a monster in a room and then fleeing to a corridor before continuing the fight, and carrying plenty of ?phase at the beginning. One use for iron spikes is to throw at a monster in a room to wake it up, although arrows [even without a launcher] work better.

[Steven]

I'm not too fussed about going fast or slow. I'm just trying to avoid the trap of getting bored plodding through levels. I used to make sure I had a CL/DL ratio of 2:1 at all times. I think you can see how that killed the game for me.
At this point, diving down is far more fun even when all my characters die pretty early on. Atleast when I die it's due to a big nasty monster chasing me down than getting bored and holding down a direction against a group of orcs I could take down easily if I just took my time.
Once again thanks for the suggestions.

[PowerDiver]

Oh, in that case you should dive like a madman. If you are ever holding down a key, you are going too slowly.

[the Invisible Stalker]

I think the most important thing to remember is that sleeping monsters can't kill you. The three lessons to draw from that are:
1) Don't wake one without a very good reason.
2) Have high stealth.
3) Don't stay on a level too long. Initially almost all monsters on a level are asleep. The longer you stay there the more of them will wake up.