Hints and tips

[Derakon]

From this thread came the idea of collecting a selection of useful hints and tips for playing Angband. These are things that are important to know and non-obvious. The goal is to collect them and make them available to new players so they can avoid some of the more painful parts of learning how to play.

I'd recommend trying to meet the following guidelines:

* The hint should be something that is non-obvious. We don't need to tell newbies that 2 blows is better than 1 blow, but telling them that they get more blows with high STR/DEX can be useful. Even better is telling them to 'I'nspect their weapons to see how much damage they deal, since that will lead them to discover the STR/DEX relationship on their own.
* The hints should be brief; ideally, they should fit onto a single line in-game. Short and digestable, that's the goal here.
* The hints should be global. A warning about drolems is less useful than a warning about big breathers in general and a note on the poison damage cap.

I've copied my and bio_hazard's suggestions over from that thread; if you'd like to make your own additions, or edits to existing hints, feel free.

* Cure Critical Wounds potions also cure blindness and confusion. Carry lots; they're cheap.
* Potions of Heroism will keep you from being frightened.
* Staves of Teleport can be used even when confused or blinded.
* Breath attacks deal 1/3rd the monster's current HP in damage, up to 1600 for fire/cold/acid/electricity and 800 for poison (and less for others).
* Resistance cuts damage to 1/3rd for fire/cold/acid/electricity/poison, but are less effective for other elements.
* Resistances on your gear stack with temporary resistances from spells and items.
* Never underestimate the value of Constitution. Hitpoints keep you alive.
* Rods of Probing can tell you about a monster's abilities.

-Quivers can hold different types of ammo, but after 99 they will take up more inventory slots
-Many items are bad, but few are cursed to the point of needing magic to remove them.
-Congratulations on finding a nice item! if you don't want to accidentally sell, drop, or destroy it, consider inscribing it (the '{' command) with !s!d!k
-A bigger weapon isn't always better- make sure to check your damage using 'I'nspect
-Can't keep track of all the information on the screen? You can add extra windows to show previous messages, items on the floor, monsters present, and more. Set these up from the '=' menu.

[Sirridan]

-Flasks of oil do a large amount of damage when thrown ('t'), and are cheap. Carry lots if you're a weaker character to kill early tough enemies like Maggot's dogs or Bullroarer.

-If you use teleport other on a tough / dangerous monster, beware of teleporting afterward, you may run into your former friend.

-Resistances to higher elements (Nether, shards, confusion, disenchantment, darkness, light, chaos) are somewhat random (between 1/6th and 5/6 resisted).

-Hold life and Nether resistance will not block all exp drain, just most of it.

-Fire damage can destroy scrolls, books, and staves in your inventory. Cold damage can destroy potions, and electrical damage can destroy wands and rods. Consider dropping them in a safe place before fighting enemies that do these kinds of damage, but be sure they aren't in the line of fire!

-Immunity to an element prevents inventory destruction from that element.

(Edit, fixed, thanks fizzix!)
-?Phase door is a good escape if the terrain is appropriate, however in open rooms it may well waste a turn and keep you in the line of fire.

-?Phase door, and any other form of teleportation will always teleport you outside of a vault, no matter what.

[fph]

-Congratulations on finding a nice item! if you don't want to accidentally sell, drop, or destroy it, consider inscribing it (the '{' command) with !s!d!k

nitpick: don't you need to add !v to prevent accidentally throwing your preciousss?

[fizzix]

-Resistances to higher elements (Nether, shards, confusion, disenchantment, darkness, light, chaos) are somewhat random (between 1/6th and 5/6 resisted).

1/6 and 1/2 I think.

-?Phase door is not a good escape, it may well waste a turn and keep you in the line of fire.

?phase is a great escape if the terrain is appropriate. This is bad advice.

here are my suggestions, I specifically am limiting suggestions to things that are opaque from the interface, not tactical considerations. I.e. I would say 'staves can be used when blinded or confused, and not staves of teleport...

-resistances on equipment do not stack.
-+10 speed causes you move twice as fast.
-too much stunning will knock you out. Curing potions and spells lower or eliminate it.
-unresisted nexus attacks can either, teleport to, teleport away, teleport level, or switch two of your stats.
-time attacks are not affected by sustains
-drain charge attacks remove all charges from one of your stacks and partially heal the monster that drained them.
-you cannot cast spells or fire missiles at monsters who share space with the wall, although you can hit them with melee. They are free to cast spells on you though.
-rsound will prevent you from getting stunned by sound, plasma, gravity, or force attacks.
-acq scrolls produce items depending on the level at which they are read on.

[bulian]

Electricity can also destroy jewelry as well, no?

Staying on a level too long can cause awake random monsters to spawn.

Wands and staves sell for a good price even with 0 charges, so don't feel bad about using them.

Gold is mainly meaningless after a certain point, so walking around encumbered with lots of heavy weapons is not necessarily a good idea.

Carry around extra copies of spellbooks 1-4 in case one gets burned.

The shops partially reset their inventory every XX game turns.

Something about carrying swaps to cover resists, perhaps?

[bio_hazard]

nitpick: don't you need to add !v to prevent accidentally throwing your preciousss?

thanks! I will start doing that from now on.

[Derakon]

If you're that worried about messing with your gear, mark it with !* to get confirmation on anything.

[Lord Fell]

It might be beneficial to separate the most critical "Fundamental Knowledge" from advanced hints.

If I'm a newbie, and have never, ever played a game of Angband before, it's beneficial to know that there are different qualities of items (cursed, ego). It's beneficial to know that enemies have a variety of attacks, and in addition to healing health, that there are Resistances and Cures for all of these attacks, and that I need to build a collection of equipment and consumables to handle these contingencies.

I think really specific notes, such as the formula for a monster's breath-weapon damage is just a bit too arcane for a new player, and is maybe something they'd want to read through once they've figured out some basic concepts.

[Sirridan]

?phase is a great escape if the terrain is appropriate. This is bad advice.

Fixed, thanks for the catch

[Derakon]

Lord Fell: the goal is to cover things that are nonobvious and also not obviously important. Basic concepts of gameplay don't fall into that category, as the player is going to figure them out pretty quickly just through experimentation. If the player isn't willing to experiment there, then I am perfectly fine with directing them to the documentation.

[bio_hazard]

There are 7 stores, so it does seem at least possible that the information could be split up 7 ways somehow. One top-of-my-head scheme, each store could have a "Let me tell you about X" button.

General store(1): Important options/interface, what's in the options menu, very basic tips

Armory(2): Early defensive tips (speed, stealth running away, dangerous attacks, stairs are your friend, etc

Weapons Shop(3): Early offensive tips (sell your broadsword/mace, use flasks of oil, how quivers work, etc

Temple(4): Game information - term windows, monster memory, pseudo-ID, etc

Alchemists?(5): Streamlining play, particularly macros, keybinds, inscriptions

Magic Shop(6): Other miscellaneous strategies, char dump, forums (or something I'm not thinking of)

Black Market: hard core mid-late game survival tips and mechanics (breath damage issues, etc

[Derakon]

An interesting idea, bio_hazard. Personally I'm operating on the assumption that these hints are for people who will not seek out help on their own, so I'd rather they be automatically displayed to the user at occasional intervals (e.g. when traversing staircases). This would of course require an option to be able to turn them off.

Some more hints:

* Whenever acid hits your armor, you take half damage.
* Nexus attacks can swap your stats. Fancy being the smartest, weakest warrior alive?
* Word of Recall will send you to and from the dungeon.*
* Regeneration vastly increases the rate at which you recover both HP and SP.
* In truly desperate times, use Teleport Level or Destruction to escape. You always get the first move when entering a level.

* You laugh at this one, but as a kid I played dozens of characters in Moria (save-scumming all the way) without ever figuring out about Word of Recall. I used to hope against hope that I'd get that "trap that teleports you to the town" (which happened because I'd read scrolls that I didn't need to get rid of them), and then after restocking I'd start the long walk back down. I once had a character run out of fuel for his lantern, and found myself stuck casting Light Area every single step (since in those days it had a fixed radius of 1).

[Whelk]

Hah. I too fell victim to the recall "trap." I had a game saved while delving into a vault or something, and I kept getting pulled back to town before I could pick up the items. I kept re-opening the save file and trying to figure a way around it. Don't recall (har) how I ended up learning what Recall was.

[Adley]

-Regeneration makes you hungry
-If you're in extreme need of food, curing potions might do you good
-Under great weights of loot, you'll be less quick of foot.
-You're never invicible. Never forget that.

[stabbo]

-Regeneration makes you hungry
-If you're in extreme need of food, curing potions might do you good
-Under great weights of loot, you'll be less quick of foot.

The last two look like something you might find in a fortune cookie.

-Always carry around an escape option that you can use while blind and confused, such as a staff of teleport.