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

[Sirridan]

Leaving the queen ant alive, along with orc uniques will let Morgy bring them out, along with their escorts which helps prevent his summoning of things like Greater undead and demons. However the escorts won't last long with his continued blasting of the terrain with his melee. Also his manastorms will fry them all anyway.

But yeah, Kavlax is a pita. Keep thorin though, use it once you can cover cold/elec. Not just for acid immunity and such, but those yummy four points of con. The str is a bonus too.

EDIT: Also you can now destroy black dragon pits with impunity! And not running from water hounds rocks.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

I got a Raal's with my new ranger a couple days ago. Rift is NOT available to me, in 3.1.2. Right now, around DL 36, I've been using it for Cloudkill; I believe it's more reliable than any other area spell I've got. It's good for the basic hounds. I wouldn't sell it, tho; at this point, cash shouldn't be a big issue for you, or at least, you can get it by selling 'junk' ego weapons/armor. If you sell it, you won't be able to replace it for probably quite some time. Note, tho, that since they're immune to damage, you can sell the 2nd copy you find.

The *sweet* book for me is gonna be the Tenser's I found this morning. Don't have a particularly good bow yet...+9,+7, no extra goodies...but the 2 shots from being a ranger is great. Can't cast Elemental Brand just yet, annoyingly...53 mana, need 60. Even found a +2 Magi cloak, but that only gets me to 59! Argh! Oh well, I can expect to find a =Int or !Int soon enough, and I might have an artifact weapon in the stash in my house that'll do it; then I'll just brand everything while in town.

The uniques that worry me, against any unique that can Summon Unique...is another summoner unique, from deeper levels. Like the Ringwraiths or the angel uniques. If they summon up some mid-level unique like Bert or the Queen Ant...the one potential problem is the clutter. You may not be able to readily *attack* the Serious Foe because of the junky stuff...or, have to spend time dealing with them, which will be doing little or nothing to the Serious Foe. When you're handling DL 65, you'll find that Bert or the Queen Ant...are speed bumps.

Heck, the QA wasn't a lot more than that this morning. On DL 38, I think. But last night and this morning were very good to me...got me up to 7 attacks with Harradekket. I think I'm close to swapping out my =Str +3 for another =Damage or Slaying...lost a +6,+6 to stupid energy hounds, tho...cuz I think I'll keep the 7 attacks now, even with the lower Str.

[Nemesis]

Already sold those Raal books, but I melee most things anyway and teleport melee-unfriendly monsters away. Out of sight, out of mind. Besides I already occupy five of my inventory slots with books and if I was to bring something from my home there are several things that would go before a book of attack spells.

I'm at dove down to dlvl 50 on my last trip, but I don't know if it's such a good idea to be there. It seems both more rewarding and exciting to be at a shallower depth doing vaults than to be here, detecting stuff from the ground and cleaning up giant and troll pits. However, I still really want to find an amulet of trickery, so maybe I'll keep on diving? With my 18 rods of detect treasure I can stair scum rather easily. Though maybe I'm asking for an untimely death if I go to lvl 70 with only 570 hp?

This is what my character looks like right now:

570 hp
+21 speed
resistance to: sound, chaos, paralyzation, blindness, fire, light, fear, shards
immunity to: acid
ability to cast: resistance, TO and haste self (among other things)
telepathy
stat gain is 99% complete (only one or two wisdom potions left!)
Wielding the Spear of Orme


At the cost of 3 speed points, I could also get resistance to cold, electricity and confusion - should I do this trade? And at what dungeon depth should I hang around?

[Sirridan]

The *sweet* book for me is gonna be the Tenser's I found this morning. Don't have a particularly good bow yet...+9,+7, no extra goodies...but the 2 shots from being a ranger is great. Can't cast Elemental Brand just yet, annoyingly...53 mana, need 60. Even found a +2 Magi cloak, but that only gets me to 59! Argh! Oh well, I can expect to find a =Int or !Int soon enough, and I might have an artifact weapon in the stash in my house that'll do it; then I'll just brand everything while in town.

What I did, and what others have done (which is where I got the idea ) is to keep int rings and such in home with tensers, and put it all on to brand ammo, then take it all off when you're done.

Leave tenser's at home, you'll only use elemental brand (!hero is better than the spell), and it's just not worth casting in the dungeon really.

edit:

[
At the cost of 3 speed points, I could also get resistance to cold, electricity and confusion - should I do this trade? And at what dungeon depth should I hang around?

OH GOD YES. Honestly, I would do this at a cost of 10 speed points. Ancient multi hued dragons and a few other nasties can show up at 50 I believe, and each of their unresisted elemental breaths does more than 600 damage, which will put you to the tombstone screen rather quickly. While confusion is curable, having to drink a pot to get rid of it is a waste of consumables and there's a chance you'll get confused again anyway right after. If you can get your con up to 18/200, you could easily hang around dlvl 98 with those stats, although you probably wouldn't feel comfortable there, it can get a little hairy. Right now though, dlvl 50 sounds about right.

[Nemesis]

If you can get your con up to 18/200, you could easily hang around dlvl 98 with those stats, although you probably wouldn't feel comfortable there, it can get a little hairy. Right now though, dlvl 50 sounds about right.

If I only could lay my hands on that Amulet of Trickery, I could replace my Ring of Poison Resistance with my +4 Ring of Constitution, and that would bring my CON up to exactly 18/200. Right now, that Amulet is right up there with Feanor and Ringil on my wishlist. Well, almost.

[Sirridan]

If I only could lay my hands on that Amulet of Trickery, I could replace my Ring of Poison Resistance with my +4 Ring of Constitution, and that would bring my CON up to exactly 18/200. Right now, that Amulet is right up there with Feanor and Ringil on my wishlist. Well, almost.

Or get lucky and find Vilya... (3 speed, res poison, immune elec, 3 all stats... mmm)

[Nemesis]

Or get lucky and find Vilya... (3 speed, res poison, immune elec, 3 all stats... mmm)

Ok, that would also do!

But Amulets of Trickery aren't that hard to find "just lying on the floor", I imagine. So to find one of those would just have to reach lvl70, stair scum/detect treasures until I see one that I can reach without running into something nasty, right?

[Tiburon Silverflame]

So to find one of those would just have to reach lvl70, stair scum/detect treasures until I see one that I can reach without running into something nasty, right?

The problem is, at those depths, MOST things are nasty.

Sirridan: I may keep the Tenser's in hand...I haven't decided. I did stash it at home with mage, but Heroism is cheap to cast and reliable. I'll take the boost, any time I'm getting ready to wail on something ugly. It can't hurt. And given a choice between carrying 1 book or a bunch of !...that's easy.

[Derakon]

I'd definitely be nervous about the lack of cold and electricity resistance right now. Consider that the max damage from those attacks is 1600HP; you are expected to have resistance to them by the time you start encountering monsters that get anywhere near that damage cap, to bring it down to the comparatively much more manageable 533HP.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

Heck, the game's scaled so you have a good chance to have *double* resistance to them. So NO resistance is wearing a BIG, SHINY target on your back.

[Sirridan]

Please tell me you have rcold and relec now!

[Pete Mack]

You just can't go without cold and electricity resistance. There are just too many monsters that do massive (800-1600HP) damage from these. RPoison you can do without, but there's just no way to avoid all the big cold-breathers so systematically.

Scatha has got me twice when I tried to go without rCold (and no ESP) below 2000'.
21 speed is way more than you need at your current depth. 10 is sufficient, especially with a haste self spell. You don't need base speed 20 until the final few uniques. You can wander around dl 90 with reasonable safety with base speed 15 or so.

[Nemesis]

The problem is, at those depths, MOST things are nasty.

Point taken, won't be going there yet.

Please tell me you have rcold and relec now!

Got them, and confusion resistance too. And with my Resistances book I can achieve double resistance whenever I want.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

Be VERY careful about relying on casting the resists. Fire and cold are reliable, but RPoison and Resistance are a pain...at least for me. The fail rates are uncomfortably high.

BTW, Pete, for rangers, Haste Self also has a rather high fail rate...but that just means one likes the consumables for it.

[Nemesis]

Be VERY careful about relying on casting the resists. Fire and cold are reliable, but RPoison and Resistance are a pain...at least for me. The fail rates are uncomfortably high.

Well, I'm not relying on casting to get resistance, I'm relying on casting to get double resistance when that is needed.