A few questions

[TJS]

1) What do the numbers for melee ability and bow ability actually do? Do they add to your to-hit and to-damage values? Or something to do with the number of blows/shots? Never managed to figure that out.

2) How are you supposed to play priests in the early game? They don't seem to have any damage spells until orb of draining. At least mages have magic missile and lightning bolt.

3) What use are half-orcs? Does anyone use them often? They seem to be similar to dwarves, but worse in almost every way. I suppose they could make better warriors or mages. I could ask a similar question about half-elves too.

[tummychow]

I believe you play a priest like you would a really weak warrior, focusing on extra-wary physical combat until you get OoD at which point you can start to transition to a more magic-physical mix play. (I am not entirely sure.)

[Mondkalb]

There is a (slightly outdated) detailed description to question 1) in the spoiler files:

http://www.juti.nl/hugo/Angband/Spoiler/attack.spo

The overall principle would still be the same I think, there may have been some adjustions.

Other spoiler files can be found there:

http://www.juti.nl/hugo/Angband/Spoiler/characters.htm

I used to play half-elves in my early angband years, but never won with them. The don't have the experience penalty of high elves which makes them bearable.

[buzzkill]

1) What do the numbers for melee ability and bow ability actually do? Do they add to your to-hit and to-damage values? Or something to do with the number of blows/shots? Never managed to figure that out.

The first +/- modifier is a bonus 'to hit', the second +/- is a bonus 'to damage'. The plus 'to damage' is straightforward, 1 extra HP of damage per plus. The plus 'to hit' is a little more vague as it's hard to know what your natural 'to hit' ability is, plus your ability will be further modified by your enemies AC.

2) How are you supposed to play priests in the early game? They don't seem to have any damage spells until orb of draining. At least mages have magic missile and lightning bolt.

They are weak fighter with healing spells. Charge into combat wearing armour. Win the battle. Heal yourself. Repeat. Learn CLW, then Portal, then Orb of Draining (it's your only real damaging spell for quite a while).

3) What use are half-orcs? Does anyone use them often? They seem to be similar to dwarves, but worse in almost every way. I suppose they could make better warriors or mages. I could ask a similar question about half-elves too.

Some people like a challenge ?

[zaimoni]

3) What use are half-orcs? Does anyone use them often? They seem to be similar to dwarves, but worse in almost every way. I suppose they could make better warriors or mages. I could ask a similar question about half-elves too.

Well, RBlind is such a compelling resist....

If you want to "clean-sweep" STR/DEX/CON as a fighter (18+ on everything), Half-orc is a very reasonable way to go.

[TJS]

There is a (slightly outdated) detailed description to question 1) in the spoiler files:

http://www.juti.nl/hugo/Angband/Spoiler/attack.spo

The overall principle would still be the same I think, there may have been some adjustions.

Other spoiler files can be found there:

http://www.juti.nl/hugo/Angband/Spoiler/characters.htm

I used to play half-elves in my early angband years, but never won with them. The don't have the experience penalty of high elves which makes them bearable.

Thanks for the link, I'd always assumed that your to-hit value for fighting was how likely you are to hit something, I didn't realise there were a whole load of hidden parts of the calculation. That explains why I could never hit anything with a mage/priest character. Is there a way of displaying the total hit skill at any one time?

[TJS]

They are weak fighter with healing spells. Charge into combat wearing armour. Win the battle. Heal yourself. Repeat. Learn CLW, then Portal, then Orb of Draining (it's your only real damaging spell for quite a while).

Aren't priests a bit rubbish at melee fighting though for it to be their main source of damage? You've got the bless spell I guess, but I imagine they are still worse at melee than other classes except mages. Plus they only get one blow per turn.
CLW isn't great at the start either since you can't rely on it in case it fails. Later on it is too weak to be really useful (monsters can do more damage per turn than you get back from CLW).
Portal seems to take you too far away whilst fighting, so it isn't really useful for battle, unlike phase door.

I can't seem to get the hang of them at all.

[Derakon]

If I recall correctly, your "Fighting" skill is based solely on your to-hit, so if you get that up to Superb then you're in pretty good shape.

As for priestly melee, priests aren't terrible at it. All of the classes are capable of holding their own in melee with the right stats, even in the early game.

Finally, consider CLW to be more of a regeneration spell than an in-the-fight healing spell. Phase door out, cast it a few times, get back into the fight. Later on you can do the same thing with CCW potions.

[PowerDiver]

Most chars should prefer missile weapons over melee, and priests are no different. Your damage bonuses get multiplied by 3 with a longbow or light xbow, and to match that you need to be getting 3 blows with your melee weapon. If you are not getting 3 blows, you probably do more damage with a launcher.

The priests biggest advantage is portal. Use it whenever your current position is inconvenient.

[TJS]

Most chars should prefer missile weapons over melee, and priests are no different. Your damage bonuses get multiplied by 3 with a longbow or light xbow, and to match that you need to be getting 3 blows with your melee weapon. If you are not getting 3 blows, you probably do more damage with a launcher.

The priests biggest advantage is portal. Use it whenever your current position is inconvenient.

I should have pointed out that I normally play ironman mode (since I find it way more fun), so I normally don't find a decent launcher and ammo for quite a long time. All characters can use launchers though, so what are priests particularly good at? Are the dungeon prayer books much better than the first three books?

Portal tends to work up to when groups of hounds start showing up, but then you can't really rely on it when there are two or three separate groups dotted around the level. What would you do on these levels when in danger?

[Hariolor]

Portal tends to work up to when groups of hounds start showing up, but then you can't really rely on it when there are two or three separate groups dotted around the level. What would you do on these levels when in danger?

Leave the level?

[Pete Mack]

Priests are pretty good in melee against weak opponents--with weak heal spells and Prot Evil, they can take on indefinite numbers of orcs, trolls, and the like.

I dont know about Ironman priest though--the general rule is fight sparingly, and from a distance.

[fizzix]

Priests are pretty good in melee against weak opponents--with weak heal spells and Prot Evil, they can take on indefinite numbers of orcs, trolls, and the like.

I dont know about Ironman priest though--the general rule is fight sparingly, and from a distance.

In the early-mid levels I used Prot from Evil and fought until my mana was about half drained and PfE ran out then portaled away. Rinse-repeat. By the time I finished killing one mess of orcs another one spawned.