Died to starvation!

[TJS]

Playing as an ironman half-troll paladin and wasn't doing too badly for my ironman attempts, but ended up getting both my pb2 books burned by a giant salamander (in one breath which I didn't think was possible) and never found another one.
Had 8 scrolls of satisfy hunger and a ring of slow metabolism on, but they got used up gradually and it started to feel a bit inevitable as my food supply was never replaced.

Tried farming black oozes for ages (about half an hour my time), but no food, satisfy hunger or pb2 dropped. Don't think I saw a mushroom the whole game.

In the end had to quaff all my potions, which didn't seem to do much good at all. Then had to cast CCW to keep my health up whilst teleporting about looking for food. No luck alas and slowly starved to death.

Any tips to avoid this happening in future?

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=9735

[Derakon]

Burn chance is done per-item, not per-stack. So as long as you're vulnerable to the element in question, any attack can theoretically destroy every vulnerable item in your inventory.

[buzzkill]

I don't know. I'd have thought that 8 satisfy hunger's w/slow digestion would last just about forever, and I'm always finding mushrooms, even if they are not beneficial you can still eat them. You didn't have food and (a lot of) mushrooms squelched, did you? or maybe had 'squelch worthless' turned on?

[tummychow]

What about WoR?

[takkaria]

What about WoR?

It's an Ironman game.

[tummychow]

Oh right....

[Philip]

How about not playing a half-troll?

[Magnate]

I don't know. I'd have thought that 8 satisfy hunger's w/slow digestion would last just about forever, and I'm always finding mushrooms, even if they are not beneficial you can still eat them. You didn't have food and (a lot of) mushrooms squelched, did you? or maybe had 'squelch worthless' turned on?

That is amazing. Satisfy hunger sets you to 15,000 food, which is 7,500 player-turns of life for a half-troll, 15,000 with slow digestion. So you had 120,000 *player* turns of food, which is more than some whole games. Let's call it 100,000 if we cut out the faint/starving stages. To me it's incredible that you found no food at all during that time.

[TJS]

Burn chance is done per-item, not per-stack. So as long as you're vulnerable to the element in question, any attack can theoretically destroy every vulnerable item in your inventory.

Seems a bit harsh to me, might be better to cap maximum damage at half a stack maybe.

I don't know. I'd have thought that 8 satisfy hunger's w/slow digestion would last just about forever, and I'm always finding mushrooms, even if they are not beneficial you can still eat them. You didn't have food and (a lot of) mushrooms squelched, did you? or maybe had 'squelch worthless' turned on?

A couple of scrolls were burned/melted, but I used up the rest.
Trouble is that as far as I know you use up more food with slow digestion + regen than you do with neither. Might try a dwarf next time instead.

[TJS]

That is amazing. Satisfy hunger sets you to 15,000 food, which is 7,500 player-turns of life for a half-troll, 15,000 with slow digestion. So you had 120,000 *player* turns of food, which is more than some whole games. Let's call it 100,000 if we cut out the faint/starving stages. To me it's incredible that you found no food at all during that time.

Yeah pretty bad luck I guess. I must have got 200 drops from black oozes and the only things that gave me any extra food at all were two potions of boldness. Maybe the number of consumable drops could be increased slightly again?

[PowerDiver]

Playing as an ironman half-troll paladin and wasn't doing too badly for my ironman attempts, but ended up getting both my pb2 books burned by a giant salamander (in one breath which I didn't think was possible) and never found another one.
Had 8 scrolls of satisfy hunger and a ring of slow metabolism on, but they got used up gradually and it started to feel a bit inevitable as my food supply was never replaced.

Tried farming black oozes for ages (about half an hour my time), but no food, satisfy hunger or pb2 dropped. Don't think I saw a mushroom the whole game.

In the end had to quaff all my potions, which didn't seem to do much good at all. Then had to cast CCW to keep my health up whilst teleporting about looking for food. No luck alas and slowly starved to death.

Any tips to avoid this happening in future?

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=9735

Portal when you see the salamander. If you have to face it, use a precious !speed or your extra-special ammo or whatever. Fire attacks should scare you worse than a drolem.

Ironman is hard, and you cannot survive without PB2. Death to starvation is superficially different from death to lack of portal or lack of remove curse, but the real death was to lack of PB2. When both copies were burnt, you had essentially lost the game.

[TJS]

Portal when you see the salamander. If you have to face it, use a precious !speed or your extra-special ammo or whatever. Fire attacks should scare you worse than a drolem.

Ironman is hard, and you cannot survive without PB2. Death to starvation is superficially different from death to lack of portal or lack of remove curse, but the real death was to lack of PB2. When both copies were burnt, you had essentially lost the game.

Yeah I should have escaped when I saw the salamander, I just wasn't aware of the fact they could destroy both my pb2 books in one attack.

Are you essentially saying it is almost impossible to win with an ironman warrior due to lack of food source once your initial rations are used up?

Also would you suggest buying two copies of pb2 instead of one each of pb2 and pb3 at the start?

[PowerDiver]

Yeah I should have escaped when I saw the salamander, I just wasn't aware of the fact they could destroy both my pb2 books in one attack.

Are you essentially saying it is almost impossible to win with an ironman warrior due to lack of food source once your initial rations are used up?

Also would you suggest buying two copies of pb2 instead of one each of pb2 and pb3 at the start?

The book choice is a hard one. I was diving with my ironman priests, so I don't know how likely you are to find PB3 with a more sedate descent rate. Can you live without it until DL40? It might take that long. I found ways to live without it, but that might not be fun for everyone.

I still haven't tried ironman warriors, so I don't know what I would expect to kill them long before they died of starvation.

[PowerDiver]

FWIW, I just checked, and the ironman priest I posted to the ladder "Vandim" started with PB3.

[bron]

Satisfy hunger sets you to 15,000 food, which is 7,500 player-turns of life for a half-troll, 15,000 with slow digestion.

No, it doesn't work like that. Normal food consumption rate is 20, regeneration (intrinsic in a half-troll) adds 30 to the rate, slow digestion subtracts 10 from the rate. So a half-troll with slow-digestion burns food twice as fast as a regular character.