It feels like this character can win if I do it right - help me do it right!

**buzzkill** · April 14, 2010, 13:29

It way early to start thinking in terms of winning. There's still a 1001 ways to die, and a lot of nasty uniques waiting for you. You're feeling invincible because you're moving so slowly down through the dungeon. You can't TO an enemy in a wall, though I believe he can still do nasty stuff to you.

**Matthias** · April 14, 2010, 15:16

I would equip the const+4 ring (instead of delving) and Rohirrim. You have more than enough speed and confusion is much more important than shards. Sound is also very nice to have once you get into plasma breather territory. You should also put some of those healing potions into your inventory for emergencies. 17 rods of treasure detection sounds like overkill

Other than that, with a ring of resist poison you are looking very good

**Derakon** · April 14, 2010, 15:41

Resistances should be the next thing you focus on plugging. Blindness and confusion are a must, poison is important, and the rest are nice-to-haves, but you'll want more and more of them as you descend. You're also going to want more hitpoints; 18/103 CON isn't that much. The more HP you have, the harder it is to kill you, full stop.

**Sirridan** · April 14, 2010, 17:33

Beware of poison breathers (Basilisk, Drolem, Ancient Green Dragons), and get any kind of poison resist you can find, even a ring of rPoison does well for a while. Although if you find haradrim, Don't use it until you're higher level with more hp, aggravate will still be too much for you. But for god's sake, if you find it keep it, that is if the version you have is the one with haradrim having +1 blows/shots.

But yeah, you have more than enough speed, so drop the delving for the con (and later rPoison) And once you get rPoison, go down a little bit more to get some dungeon books and better loot. Be on the look out for resists & scabs, and Tenser's and Mordenkainens. The rest are really kind of meh.

One last thing, after getting rPoison, going down is the best answer, however don' go down deeper than you feel comfortable with. There's no shame in saving and looking up spoilers on a monster you find that you have no idea about.

**Nemesis** · April 14, 2010, 17:56

Originally posted by buzzkill

It way early to start thinking in terms of winning. There's still a 1001 ways to die, and a lot of nasty uniques waiting for you. You're feeling invincible because you're moving so slowly down through the dungeon.

Heh, I remember a thread title (on this forum I think, at least it was an Angband internet discussion) that went something like "Too easy, too easy, too easy, BANG!". Maybe I'm about to enter that dangerous mindset?

Anyway, I just found a ring of poison resistance at dlvl40. I guess I'll have to part with my ring of delving before venturing further. We shared many great memories together.

Maybe a macro'ed stone to mud spell could replace the ring of delving? Of course, I'd run out of mana when digging longer tunnels, but then again I'd dig faster when not out of mana, so that ought to even out the time I have to spend resting.

Is resistance to blindness really necessary when you have a good saving throw, both resistance to light and darkness, ESP detection and high speed? I mean, to suffer greatly from blindness, woulden't all of these stars have to align:

*Someone has to cast a spell burning my eyes
*I'd have to fail to resist it
*That someone then has to kill me before I quaff a potion and escape (with my speed, I could perhaps do both these things before the monster gets another turn)
*Also, I'd have to run into that dangerous foe in first place, as I can escape lots of dangers by just detecting and avoiding them before they engage me

**PowerDiver** · April 14, 2010, 18:05

Originally posted by Nemesis

Even though I've never seen the deeper parts of the dungeon I really believe I can win with this High-Elf Ranger if I just take it nice and slowly, but what should my next move be?

IMO the game doesn't really start until DL 40. What you've been doing so far is just warming up. To use a poor sports analogy, it is like moving from the regular season to the playoffs in the NBA [basketball in USA]. But the change is much bigger than that.

The recommendations for a con ring are good, but I wonder if you would be better off with bodykeeping, or strength if you cannot find bodykeeping. STR drainers are going to start showing up in sufficient quantities that you will be hard-pressed to avoid them all, particularly huge packs of dreads.

**Derakon** · April 14, 2010, 19:03

There's other ways to get blinded than the spell and light/dark attacks. In particular, the following enemies have blinding melee attacks: Bloodshot eye, King cobra, Catoblepas, Shimmering vortex, 7-headed hydra, Harowen the Black Hand, Gabriel, the Messenger, The Cat Lord, Giant brown tick, Chest mimic, and Giant firefly. You can also be blinded by the aftereffects of a Destruction spell, by ingesting blinding food/drink, and probably by a few other ways.

And of course, even with a perfect saving throw you always have a 5% chance to fail, IIRC. So no, you aren't perfectly safe.

**fph** · April 14, 2010, 22:36

Originally posted by Derakon

And of course, even with a perfect saving throw you always have a 5% chance to fail, IIRC. So no, you aren't perfectly safe.

I thought "perfect saving throw" meant 0% fail. Is this the same also for paralysis? Just to be sure if I can forget about wearing FA or not --- it would be disappointing to find out the hard way.

**Tiburon Silverflame** · April 14, 2010, 22:43

Diver's right. The game's got a few phases:

--The warm-ups: through about DL 20. Almost no hard monsters; even the uniques are pretty much 1-trick ponies. There are almost no attacks against high resists (ie, poison *breath*)...or, the critter(s) that have them are weak.

--Pumping Iron: DL 20 to about DL 35-40. Starting around DL 20, the gear is getting MUCH better, and of course, starting on 25 you're boosting stats. The monsters are getting more complex and/or a good bit tougher. Critters with specials are getting a heckuva lot tougher, and may have multiples.

--It Did WHAT?: DL 40 to about DL 55-60. Uniques have multiple aspects to them. BIG attacks start hitting (drolems, ancient dragons, etc).

--Oh Please, Oh Please Get Me Through This One: 60 to 98. Uniques now have *most* of the nasty characteristics...high hit points, multiple defenses, high speed, AND special attacks or summonings (or both sometimes).

**Sirridan** · April 14, 2010, 23:22

One more thing, with your strength digging tunnels shouldn't be a problem, even without delving. The spell stone to mud is useful, or wands if you feel you need a quick way to dig a hole. In either case, delving is really a waste of inventory space once you get some decent STR going (which you have)

**PowerDiver** · April 15, 2010, 02:01

Originally posted by fph

I thought "perfect saving throw" meant 0% fail. Is this the same also for paralysis? Just to be sure if I can forget about wearing FA or not --- it would be disappointing to find out the hard way.

There is no minimum fail on saves. However, perfect save does not completely protect you from paralysis, if e.g. you set off a trap. That in particular has happened to me.

You generally do *not* get a saving throw for melee attacks such as confusion, but for some reason you do get one versus paralyzation. At least, Timo says you do and that it's always been that way.

The recent change that you cannot be further paralyzed while paralyzed means I have survived a couple times when in the old days I would have been toast. FA is a little less necessary than it used to be.

**Derakon** · April 15, 2010, 03:48

However, if you do have Free Action then you are completely immune to monster-induced paralysis effects. Though you can of course still be knocked out, which has the same effect. Don't melee mystics!

**Nemesis** · April 15, 2010, 10:13

I found the small metal shield of Thorin on dlvl 41 and eager to try out my acid immunity I started meleeing the first black dragon I saw.

"You hit Kavlax, the Many-Headed. You hit Kavlax, the Many-Headed. It was a good hit!"

By removing my old shield (which gave all the base resistances but nothing more I think) I had lost my resistance to cold and electricity, could Kavalax have one-shotted me with one of those breaths (I had 500-something hit points)? However, I wisely decided to withdraw from the battle. Kavalax had already taken some heavy damage, but even if I would have beaten him, my inventory was full and the air around me was charged (recall on its way). So instead, I teleported away. I was a little nervous that I'd fail to concentrate hard enough, Murphey's law, you know. But everything went well. Found the Resistances dungeon book at the same vault as Thorin's shield too.

EDIT: A couple of more questions:

-Is Raal's Tome of Destruction worth using? Can I sell it?

-I've heard that if Morgoth summons the Queen Ant, you can use her brood as a human (or insect) shield against him. Which uniques can I benefit from sparing? How about the Stone Troll Trio? Are they too low level to be summoned by Morgoth (he only summons high level uniques, right?)?

**Derakon** · April 15, 2010, 15:22

Kavlax can breathe the basic four elements, sound, confusion, shards, gravity, and nexus. He also has 1300 hitpoints, so at full health one breath of the basic 4 would deal 433 hitpoints, unresisted. Getting the heck out of dodge was a good idea.

Raal's Tome has attack spells in it. Being a ranger, you should be dealing most, if not all, of your ranged damage with a bow; however, you might find Rift useful for its limited teleport-away effect (keeps enemies out of melee range without sending them too far away to shoot).

When Morgoth summons uniques, he can pull any uniques that can appear at his depth, which is all of them still alive. He could theoretically pull Grip or Fang, though he couldn't grab Farmer Maggot. But honestly, I wouldn't worry too much about leaving specific uniques alive in an attempt to bias Morgoth's summons, since it'll only work if you go to the effort of hunting down every single other unique and killing them.

It feels like this character can win if I do it right - help me do it right!

It feels like this character can win if I do it right - help me do it right!

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