Complete beginner advice

[PowerDiver]

I guess I have been pretty lucky...but I detect often.

We are talking about death on the turn after the turn you change levels, or the turn after the turn you teleport self. Detecting is a good thing to do, but it is irrelevant in those two cases, because all the detection does is to show you what is about to kill you.

[Fendell Orcbane]

The trick with exploring at 4900' is not giving your enemies a chance to wake up and come after you. You should be aware of what's around you and stay outside its alertness radius as much as possible -- that way, it can't wake up and start coming after you. This also means picking your battle locations so that new enemies won't interrupt you. None of this requires ESP; in fact, ESP's radius is less than your detection radius. ESP is a failsafe, that's all.

Also, I really wouldn't recommend fighting any deep unique that can summon without having a source of teleport other handy; the way you phrase it, it sounds like you would have taken on Ungoliant even without it

Oh hell no! I had all my escapes ready for Ungoliant. How do you think I got so far? TO and a staff a destruction is a must. If I take a lot more damage than I'm doing I bailout. I've bailed out on fights that I've almost won if summoned creatures turn up. In Angband I've learned that you don't take chances. If things look like they can get out of control then you get out of the situation. This is one of the best things about Angband. Although without this forum I might have given up in frustration a long time ago.

I and a lot of others have been fast tracked by all the vets here. So thanks again : )

[Zikke]

Oh hell no! I had all my escapes ready for Ungoliant. How do you think I got so far? TO and a staff a destruction is a must. If I take a lot more damage than I'm doing I bailout. I've bailed out on fights that I've almost won if summoned creatures turn up. In Angband I've learned that you don't take chances. If things look like they can get out of control then you get out of the situation. This is one of the best things about Angband. Although without this forum I might have given up in frustration a long time ago.

I and a lot of others have been fast tracked by all the vets here. So thanks again : )

I played uMoria and a very early version of Angband (and a few early variants) way back in the day for a couple years, got frustrated after a while from dying over and over, and quitting for a long time. Then I discovered these forums many years later and it rekindled my love for the game. Having an active (small but cozy) community and conversations with the maintainers makes it much more fun.

[Fendell Orcbane]

I played uMoria and a very early version of Angband (and a few early variants) way back in the day for a couple years, got frustrated after a while from dying over and over, and quitting for a long time. Then I discovered these forums many years later and it rekindled my love for the game. Having an active (small but cozy) community and conversations with the maintainers makes it much more fun.

Back in the day I didn't have a computer: ( Of course back in the day can mean 10 yrs ago. But when I think of back in the day I think of the 1990's. But I have the feeling that most of the people here are thirty something or older. I know we do have younger people but I have the feeling that most are well into adulthood.

Honestly I just tried Angband out on a whim. It was free and reminded me of the good old hack and Slash version of AD&D. It just seemed really cool. But I've been playing since March.

[TeKRunneR]

Ugh, I think I shot myself in the foot pretty badly... My high-elf ranger was doing pretty well, with, as far as I can tell, some great luck (BoS+6 at 1400', a bunch of relevant arts...). Then I find a certain iron helm of Gorlim. As I was not familiar with it, and was wearing a fairly crappy helmet, I think "oh hey, let's try to ID this by use!". Well, you can guess the rest.

So, I could survive the int / wis penalty, but aggravation not so much (especially infuriating as I had +2 stealth, and found an elven cloak +2 since....). This all happened at 1900'. I read that !*remove curse* is native of 2500', so I started diving like mad, using a couple of !deep descents I was keeping for some reason, and detecting / rushing to stairs. The plan is to stay at 2500' until I manage to get the curse off. So the question is, am I doing the right thing?

Dump: http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=10336

[PowerDiver]

Go to town and buy any scrolls of enchant armor. If there are none for sale, check your game turn count with 'C' and go down to DL 1 until it passes a multiple of 10,000 and check again. Repeat until reading the scroll on the helm breaks the curse.

[d_m]

Eddie's advice is correct. For what it's worth it's significantly easier to break heavy curses via enchantment than it used to be, so good luck!

[Timo Pietilä]

Go to town and buy any scrolls of enchant armor. If there are none for sale, check your game turn count with 'C' and go down to DL 1 until it passes a multiple of 10,000 and check again. Repeat until reading the scroll on the helm breaks the curse.

That helm has all of the enchantable values pretty high. Unless things have changed you need _successful_ enchant to break the curse.

That means you need to find disenchanter and let it disenchant it before trying those scrolls (take everything else off first).

That is, unless things have changed.

[PowerDiver]

That is, unless things have changed.

Every enchant now has 25% chance to break the curse. It is no longer necessary to search out a disenchanter mold at DL3. Life is easier for ironman players who want to test-use without waiting for pseudo. I don't think it makes much difference otherwise except for ease of explaining how to fix the problem.

[TeKRunneR]

It did work indeed (except that I bought out the store a couple times after getting tired of running in DL1, didn't cost that much at all after reselling everything). Thanks for the advice! I wouldn't have guessed that by myself.

Now to not die at 2100'...

[crimold]

Rod affect area

Angband is about detect and evade really, you detect your surroundings and evade that which can kill you. Rods of detect traps, doors/stairs, treasure are invaluable early on, and rods of detection are prized possessions, especially when you have more than two.

Hi, and thanks for great post.

I'm also beginning with Angband, it's superb. The story and amount of text describing different aspects of the game make such a lure. I just keep reading more and tapping the game at the same time.

It was a bit hard to get started, though, for me too.

I had problems getting used to lighting a torch, and other basic things like this. Some of the descriptions of keyboard shortcuts is so voluminous that I lost the red thread in some paragraphs. But the game keeps me definitely interested enough to find things out.

But anyway; what's the range of a rod? Does it affect the whole area (dungeon) or some parts of it?

/crimold

[Timo Pietilä]

But anyway; what's the range of a rod? Does it affect the whole area (dungeon) or some parts of it?

/crimold

Depends of the rod and what it does. Basically same as what equal spell would have.