Start at clvl/dlvl 20

[Derakon]

Swinging in the air prevents you from going charging through the pit when there isn't an enemy in front of you to attack. It does nothing to save you from incoming dangerous monsters.

[PowerDiver]

To PowerDiver: interesting point about resting. I think you're being a bit overcautious

I wonder how many people on this forum would describe me as overcautious?

Some risks are worth taking and some have no benefit. Exploring the current level after you rest is risk without benefit. Also, with shops as they are, it is good to return to town every 10K gameturns, so long as you can sell items to produce significant excess of the cost of replacing 2 ?recall. Resting to clear an orc pit should certainly qualify in both turns and items.

[Djabanete]

Djabanete, it'll be tricky to make it back to that rest area. And it's really, really easy to screw up when you've got the arrow key (or whatever) mashed down for an extended period.

Don't EVER mash the arrow key.

Escaping orcs is pretty straightforward if you keep a wand of slow/confuse/sleep monster handy until you have reliable teleportation (which is a good idea in any case IMO, until your pack is full).

EDIT: My method is to be liberal with game turns and sparing with real-time in the shallow levels, and sparing with game turns (resting can be hazardous to your health as PD pointed out) and liberal with real-time in the deep levels. When I see an orc pit at <20, I just think of it as free items and experience for maybe 10-15 minutes of real time, and it sets me up better for the levels to come. Everyone has their own methods though.

[ewert]

OMG 10-15 mins to clear an orc pit? =P

How slow do some people play I wonder. Sorry no disrespect intended, it's just that I have used computers and played with computers for 25 odd years, combined with 10 years of piano playing, and combined with 5+ years of MUDs (text based MMORPG's, those improve your reading speed and spotting-what-matters speeds immensely ), so I know I am probably pretty far on the fast real time played side of things, but I never really though about how much faster I play in real-life time than many others. :P

Good points from PD anyways, but yeah I feel it tends to matter more at levels past 40 I'd say, where monsters start to get iffier for divers. 30-40 is still pretty safe whatever pops if you play carefully, IMHO.

[Derakon]

I dunno, it's not at all uncommon for me to arrive on a level, notice an orc unique and his horde, and say "Right, I have a short window to explore here before they'll start waking up. Let's move!"

Something I've noticed in other games, and it applies to Angband too: it's profoundly liberating to not feel that you have to kill every enemy you encounter. It's amazing how much pointless little combats slow down the actually interesting gameplay. This is one reason why I don't play JRPGs any more...

[Tiburon Silverflame]

I'm with ewert. Granted, I actually think the time would be just 3-4 minutes, using the attack/Spacebar attack/Spacebar routine...but when you're SpeedKilling a pit, you can do it in 30 seconds. And there's little reason NOT to...but I'm also watching to see if there's

a) actually any real damage being done to me
b) anything trying to creep up around me

Yes, there's a *slight* chance that, oh...an umber hulk is coming up from somewhere else and letting maybe a few dozen hounds trail on behind. But it just doesn't happen that much *when dealing with orc or troll pits*. Those are the shallowest, weakest pits. And, there's no orc or troll summoners (except maybe the uniques) so the situation won't change drastically. You can't safely SpeedKill an animal pit (except in the moat) because Q's might be sitting in there. You can maybe SpeedKill a dragon pit (assuming immunity to their breath attack), IF there's no Great Wyrms in there, or after you take them out...but not before. I don't think you can ever SpeedKill an undead pit.

For me, the stupid deaths happen when I'm either playing tired (always a bad idea) or getting bored. I get bored, most easily, by NOT! SpeedKilling junk like a DL 55 troll pit. Attack, mash space bar. Attack, mash space bar. Attack, mash space bar...over, and over, and over. Mind-numbing. Mash down attack, keep it held down, watch orcs/trolls get mowed down

[Djabanete]

OMG 10-15 mins to clear an orc pit? =P

How slow do some people play I wonder. Sorry no disrespect intended, it's just that I have used computers and played with computers for 25 odd years, combined with 10 years of piano playing, and combined with 5+ years of MUDs (text based MMORPG's, those improve your reading speed and spotting-what-matters speeds immensely ), so I know I am probably pretty far on the fast real time played side of things, but I never really though about how much faster I play in real-life time than many others. :P

It just depends on class, level, and damage output. Sometimes an orc pit takes 15 minutes and sometimes it takes 2.

[Pete Mack]

It just depends on class, level, and damage output. Sometimes an orc pit takes 15 minutes and sometimes it takes 2.

If it takes 15 minutes, it's not worth doing. The time you spend resting and retreating is better spent going down to where the loot is better.
If it takes 2 minutes, you probably won't go below 70% of HP anyway, so you won't have to rest:

You hit the orc<4x>
The orc dies. (Or the orc is too frightened to hit back)

This is the converse of Eddie's point about avoiding resting: excessive resting probably means you can spend your (real) time better by doing something else.

[Pete Mack]

Wouldn't swinging into the air give them the same amount of free turns?

That's true, but you won't accidentally run into a room full of dragons, or run down the hall into that death mold.

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[Rizwan]

First, you should hold down the control key when attacking. This causes you to swing into open air if there are no enemies, rather than move.

Holding the control key prevents me from attacking!!! Is this in the normal keyset?
Edit: Ok the control key does not let you use the number pad keys but you can use the arrow keys to attack.

[Derakon]

Holding the control key prevents me from attacking!!! Is this in the normal keyset?
Edit: Ok the control key does not let you use the number pad keys but you can use the arrow keys to attack.

Curious. I use control + numpad all the time without difficulty. I'm on OSX, though. Maybe Windows has different behavior. You might try toggling the numlock.

[Rizwan]

Curious. I use control + numpad all the time without difficulty. I'm on OSX, though. Maybe Windows has different behavior. You might try toggling the numlock.

Yeah that works. With the numlock off i get the message "You spin around". Thanks

[Derakon]

I've never liked numlock anyway. The keypad is for inputting characters, not for some weird implied meta-keyset. All the numlock key does is cause trouble when you forget to have it set properly.

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[Nero]

I have the script working, it requires Python 2.6 to work and its effective though hard to get started considering you're going into dlvl 20 with crap equipment.