What to do

[Adley]

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooooo
Had gabriel to one star, and he had retreated behind his minions. thought : destruct, then kill him. GAH, so much used
Well, i'll know it for next time.

[Adley]

New question : is getting any stat completely reduced dangerous?

[Derakon]

There's no death condition for reducing a stat all the way down, if that's what you're wondering. However, usually it's a bad idea to run around with crazy-low stats (except for Charisma, naturally). Crap INT means you can't activate magical items, crap WIS means you have a lousy saving throw, crap DEX means you can't hit anything and will have a reduced AC; CON and STR should be obvious.

[Adley]

Meant charisma, meeting my first Osyluths.

[Adley]

For HOW much damage does Azriel breathe nether??? he nearly killed me (at 400 near...)

[Derakon]

Nether has a damage cap of 550, and Azriel hits it. Nether resistance reduces damage by a variable amount; at worst case IIRC you still take 470 damage.

[EpicMan]

The basic five resistances (fire, cold, acid, lightning, and poison) reduce damage to 1/3rd, to 1/9th if you have resistance from equipment or race and a temporary resistance effect (potion, etc).

The 'high resists' (everything else) are pretty much worthless as far as damage reduction goes; their main purpose is to prevent the often-nasty side effects of those attacks. So nether resistance reduces XP drain (maybe like hold life does? I'm not sure), confusion resistance protects you from the confusion effect, etc

Why is that, by the way? If the high resists aren't meant to provide meaningful damage reduction, why not just remove the damage reduction outright and turn them into pure status effect protection.

Though my preference would be to make them all reduce damage to 1/3 like the Big 5. The different limits they currently use might have made sense at the time but they feel arbitrary now and are no end of confusion for new players. I don't know how many years I played before I learned rNether doesn't do much for reducing damage. It just makes sense that if I resist an element, I should be less effected by its damage as well.

[Adley]

It does.
this guy is going really well (well, now he's doomed by the rng...). just found my second greater vault. It has no artifact though, no special feeling. before having time to attempt it, though, i met the violet G. Which, in the end, was a push over... but he summoned ringwraiths. Two being Nazgul. One the witch king. Screwed, i thought.
First move : zap teleport other at Mr king. It catches mr G. One left to battle.
First, teleport away the disenchanters. Then, i see he's found of casting spell, so i go argue with hime, slicing with my scythe and arguing against his magical ways and dependance. he falls.
I find Mr king a bit farther away. since he's not managing to run across a special room to get to me on the other side of the wall, i spend time with my +7 shovel digging myself a nice cosy corridor. Then wait with haste mace in hand, Apply it, and destroy the last part separating me from him with my scythe.
Run down the corridor. he sees me and summons greater undead. In them, a black L. What's that??? a black reaver.... i've been told to avoid them. I go till the end of the anti-corridor.
The L arrives first. Teleport other him.
W stops the other from coming through the L tunnel. Well, slice him.
FIRST problem of anti-summoning corridors : they don't work against TP other. he teleports me.
Well, i meet mr G on the road back. slice at him in a wall. he summons his kin? protect vs evil. Slice him, and when he flees i start getting rid of his friends. he comes back, kill him. Meet Black L.
Since i don't see anything important around, *destruct* him.
Now, mr W again. new anti-corridor. new tp again, once. SECOND problem of anti-corridors : red V passes through. kill him, kill mr W. NOT A SINGLE DARN INTERESTING thing dropped by 3 uniques --'.
Am going to the vault later. Any thing i need to know about : Mr violet L, mr violet black easterling (W), mr father of dragons, mr eye Tyrant, or mr ungoliant?

[myshkin]

Am going to the vault later. Any thing i need to know about : Mr violet L, mr violet black easterling (W), mr father of dragons, mr eye Tyrant, or mr ungoliant?

It would be easier to give you advice if we could see a dump of your character, so that we know what its capabilities and weaknesses are. Use the ladder.

The spoiler page answers many of the questions you have about monsters. Some of the spoilers are out of date, but they should be pretty accurate on monsters and monster attacks.

If you can beat the Witch-King, you should be able to beat Khamul, the Black Easterling. Ancalagon breathes powerfully; best to have all double-resists active if possible. Ungoliant has lots of HP and a big dark breath. Omarax is mostly a pain, and not that worth killing unless you're trying for completeness or worried about a Morgoth summons later. I'm not sure which unique L you're facing, but both Feagwath and Vecna have dangerous spell attacks and summons.

[Adley]

Yeah, i know about char dump. Sadly, my computer says Char dump successful, but it doesn't make it (or i can't find it --'. It's supposed to be in .../Angband.app/contents/Ressources , no?)
Beaten ungoliant, Easterling, Ancalagon (he breathed only fire and gas, and gas was his last move, and i had (preventivly) swapped for Immunity to fire)
Not going to bother with Omarax, and going to *try going very easily* (ie level port at first sign of danger) with Feagwath.
Thanks for the help!

[Nick]

Yeah, i know about char dump. Sadly, my computer says Char dump successful, but it doesn't make it (or i can't find it --'. It's supposed to be in .../Angband.app/contents/Ressources , no?)

Try Library/Preferences/Angband

[Adley]

Thank you, worked

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=10683

[Timo Pietilä]

Ancalagon breathes powerfully; best to have all double-resists active if possible. Ungoliant has lots of HP and a big dark breath. Omarax is mostly a pain, and not that worth killing unless you're trying for completeness or worried about a Morgoth summons later. I'm not sure which unique L you're facing, but both Feagwath and Vecna have dangerous spell attacks and summons.

"Father of Dragons" is Glaurung. Ancalagon is much worse than Glaurung.

Vecna is about as dangerous as Sauron. Maybe a bit worse. Feagwath is easier.

[fizzix]

"Father of Dragons" is Glaurung. Ancalagon is much worse than Glaurung.

Vecna is about as dangerous as Sauron. Maybe a bit worse. Feagwath is easier.

Ancalagon is one of the hardest monsters in the game. He becomes significantly easier if you can double resist (or have several immunities) and a _banish. He is guaranteed to summon high dragons 2 or 3 times during the battle.

Glaurung's most dangerous attack is summoning Ancalagon...

If I was rewriting monster levels, Ancalagon and Vecna would be mid 90s. Gothmog, Huan, Charcaroth and Tarrasque would be low 90s. Lungorthin, Cantoras, Ungoliant and Kronos would be in the 80s. And Feagwath would be borderline 80s - 70s. Gabriel and Azriel would move up to the 70s and Drauglin would drop to the 60s.

[Timo Pietilä]

Ancalagon is one of the hardest monsters in the game. He becomes significantly easier if you can double resist (or have several immunities) and a _banish. He is guaranteed to summon high dragons 2 or 3 times during the battle.

Glaurung's most dangerous attack is summoning Ancalagon...

If I was rewriting monster levels, Ancalagon and Vecna would be mid 90s. Gothmog, Huan, Charcaroth and Tarrasque would be low 90s. Lungorthin, Cantoras, Ungoliant and Kronos would be in the 80s. And Feagwath would be borderline 80s - 70s. Gabriel and Azriel would move up to the 70s and Drauglin would drop to the 60s.

For Tolkien reasons Gothmog, Charcaroth and Ungoliant should be deepest and very very dangerous. Huan should not be here at all (there is no need for it). Maybe replace with boosted Draugluin (recurring error: Draugluin, not Drauglin, you are missing an u). We don't need Kronos at all. Or any other of the giant uniques. They are basically just waste of time, and not belong to Tolkien universe anyway.

IMO there should be some monsters that are too tough to handle at their native depth, and Azriel has been one of those forever. So I wouldn't move it anywhere.