Equipment Questions

[celem]

Im just getting to the stage where items I find are giving me bonuses and I have options for slots. This is my first character past about dlvl 12 so I dont really know what I should be looking for. Can anyone offer a few hints on what I should be looking for as I move deeper?

A couple of recent aqcuisitions in particular seem pretty cool and I get the feeling I can descend somewhat faster for a bit.

Dunudain Fighter, clvl 22 dlvl 25. I'd been using a frost branded mace until recently. Never found so much as a vaguely useful light weapon so havent seen more than 1 strike per round since like '400. Got a defender mace at about 850 which made things easier. enjoyed the see invisible. At 1100 I hit my first thing with a name. Its a massive flail named totila or something similar. Has a confusion action, fire brand and slay evil. Pretty huge to hit/dam. Im currently exploring with the defender for the elemental and paralysis resists then swinging the flail and things are one-shotting like I remember from above '500.

Point is ive started getting a few ego items for other slots and wondering which stats im likely to need as i pass 1200-1500

[will_asher]

The most important thing is free action which you have with the defender, but you're going to want a different source of it especially now that you've found an artifact weapon you'll want to be using. Totila is very nice find for that level, its resist confusion is very valuable.

The next most important thing at that stage is the base resists: fire, cold, lightning, and acid, along with poison resist. But even those don't get really important until after 1500' (dL30)

[buzzkill]

You don't want to sacrifice see invisible either. Up till now invisibles have probably been pretty tame. Past DL 30 they start becoming more serious.

Find or buy some scrolls of teleport level. You'll thank me later.

[PowerDiver]

Find or buy some scrolls of teleport level. You'll thank me later.

Scrolls of deep descent are almost as good, if you cannot find sufficient teleport level.

[Timo Pietilä]

You don't want to sacrifice see invisible either. Up till now invisibles have probably been pretty tame. Past DL 30 they start becoming more serious..

Infravision helps a lot until you get See_Inv. Amulets of infravision are available early so use one. Totila is too good to not to use, so to get see_inv and Free Action (FA) use rings/gauntlets/helmets whatever to cover those.

Basic 4 is not that important until you start to see ancient dragons and after 2000' those become absolute necessity with addition of poison resist (instant death in single move using those five -monsters appear near that point).

Annoying hounds appear a lot earlier, so basic4 resists are obviously preferred even before that. Luckily items that provide basic 4 are plentiful and you need to find only one of those to cover all four.

Between 1500'-2000' you want get (in order of importance)

Detection of anything that can move and traps
Escapes
High HP
Speed
Healing
...
confusion, blindness (or dark and light resists), nexus (to prevent stat scrambling)

Everything else is more or less luxury which can be get if it doesn't hurt any of the above or damage you can make to enemies.

Note that speed affects everything, so 20% more speed increases your damage / monster turn by 20% (Totila) in addition to have more time to use detection, healing and escapes, and it gives monsters less time to wake up, so it boosts your stealth too.

I didn't include avoidance, because it isn't something you can get, it is a player skill and that is something you just need to learn. High stealth helps a lot in that department.

[celem]

Some good answers, thanks.

I located a Free Action Ring, which im now carrying for when im swinging Totila instead of the defender. Still trying to replace the see invisible but as suggested using an amulet of infra-vis for now.

I did just find a ring with 2 speed on it, but it also causes random teleports which are just too damn dangerous.

At '1200 I got an excellent feeling and just gathered in a few new pieces.

The Short Bow of Amrod (x4) (+12,+15) (+2) off a dark elven lord.
+2 str,con,shooting power and rLightning, rFire, rCold along with regen.

The set of gauntlets 'Paurhach' [3,+14] on the floor also at 1200
they have rFire, more interestingly they have a crazy strong fire bolt with a really short recharge timer.

Im wearing both of these for now as they easily beat the junk i've had till now. My helm is a pretty useless helm of wis (+2) which i'll try and swap out for something with useful attributes. I'd kinda like to free up the amulet/ring slots again, just now they cover resist holes (have a collection of resist rings)

Traps get me every time though, is it possible to find items that give a static detection bonus? At the moment I search roughly every 3-4 tiles in corridors to try and make sure im not walking into something nasty.

Also, i think i've had it pretty easy so far. Run into a few baby dragons and orc packs mainly. Closest call was using a WoR and landing by a pair of chimera on dlvl22. I fired my bow and suddenly an umber hulk comes barreling through a nearby wall with a pack of blink hounds on his tail. I burned 14 phase doors getting away from those damn dogs, who kept bringing me back or blinking after me. Blew teleport level eventually.

[Timo Pietilä]

Some good answers, thanks.

I located a Free Action Ring, which im now carrying for when im swinging Totila instead of the defender. Still trying to replace the see invisible but as suggested using an amulet of infra-vis for now.

I did just find a ring with 2 speed on it, but it also causes random teleports which are just too damn dangerous.

At '1200 I got an excellent feeling and just gathered in a few new pieces.

The Short Bow of Amrod (x4) (+12,+15) (+2) off a dark elven lord.
+2 str,con,shooting power and rLightning, rFire, rCold along with regen.

The set of gauntlets 'Paurhach' [3,+14] on the floor also at 1200
they have rFire, more interestingly they have a crazy strong fire bolt with a really short recharge timer.

Im wearing both of these for now as they easily beat the junk i've had till now. My helm is a pretty useless helm of wis (+2) which i'll try and swap out for something with useful attributes. I'd kinda like to free up the amulet/ring slots again, just now they cover resist holes (have a collection of resist rings)

Traps get me every time though, is it possible to find items that give a static detection bonus? At the moment I search roughly every 3-4 tiles in corridors to try and make sure im not walking into something nasty.

Also, i think i've had it pretty easy so far. Run into a few baby dragons and orc packs mainly. Closest call was using a WoR and landing by a pair of chimera on dlvl22. I fired my bow and suddenly an umber hulk comes barreling through a nearby wall with a pack of blink hounds on his tail. I burned 14 phase doors getting away from those damn dogs, who kept bringing me back or blinking after me. Blew teleport level eventually.

Amrod is a d*mn good find this early. Use it. Note that it is effectively x4 bow, so it takes a while before you find anything better (if ever because resists and +2 to CON and STR).

Umber hulk and those blink dogs should not have caused you any trouble. They are all relatively weak, just kill them with Totila.

For traps, there are rods of detect traps. If you haven't find one yet then you have bad bad luck. When you find one, it detects all traps in quite a big radius, and game marks the border of that detection with green line. When you reach that border (running stops there) just use that rod again.

There are two early rings with speed bonus, teleport (which is basically useless) and Escaping. Escaping can be useful, but with it on you can't melee, so usually I don't use them with warriors.

[celem]

Ive found 2 rods of trap detect. I sold both though since when I found them the traps were still tame. This is my first time past about '500 so everything is still new to me.

The incident with the hulks was right before totila and I struggled with the defender mace. My defender sustains str though so the hulks werent awful. Was the hounds caused me drama.

Im also overflowing with gold due to a disinclination to leave saleable stuff lying and frequent town trips. Have now bought 4 identify staffs and id everything on the spot, only taking ego and better really now. I'll buy back the trapdetect i think, sounds awesome

edit: got my trapdetect rod now, very cool. Also found a Ring of Lightning [+7]. If I wear this while swinging Totila will the electric brand replace fire? Noticed I get zap instead of burn as damage message. Either way its awesome for beefing up my defender. Also bagged Phial of Galadriel off an orc unique on the same level that paurhach and amrod came from which has replaced my lantern of brightness. Thinking I might sell off my oil and free up some more inventory

[buzzkill]

Your weapon will use the brand that is most effective. Since more thing are susceptible to lightning than fire, you'll probably see the 'zap' message more often. That's another early find on that ring also. You're finding a lot of very good stuff early.

I'll quibble with Timo on the effectiveness of infra-vision as an alternative to see invisible. It won't allow you to see 'non-living' invisibles. These are the ones that are going to cause you problems.

Blink dogs are a pushover, a one hit kill without much offensive power. An annoyance more than anything unless they are paired up with something else, and an umber hulk doesn't qualify once you're wielding Totila. You're a fighter, stand and fight!

Phase doors at this point aren't wise escapes. Use them for offense not defense... phase and shoot.

Just squelch the oil (and all the other useless stuff). It'll get your game moving a bit faster which should in theory make you less susceptible to YASD #1, boredom.

[celem]

You got it right on infra vs seeinvis. Im meeting enough of these ghosts with 'clipping' style movement that I have to explore with the defender anyway. Between that and Amrod owning everything at range and the new electric brand off the ring im only getting totila out for the uniques or confusers. Saves me the free action ring slot the flail necessitates too.

Need fear resist...that seems to be the hole. Im chugging boldness potions like soda.

[buzzkill]

Fear is kind of an odd-ball, a luxury, resist. I normally don't worry about it too much. If it can fear you, attack it at range. Retreat when afraid. Don't get feared multiple times (it increases the duration). A single fear-effect should wear off fairly quickly.

How deep are you? I'm thinking that FA need to be on full-time by now, not just as swap. What's your other ring? Lightning and what else?

Heroism is better than boldness. Berserk... even better.

[Jude]

Free action should be on permanently. Leave it off and you will get paralyzed and die, question of when and not if.

[Timo Pietilä]

You got it right on infra vs seeinvis. Im meeting enough of these ghosts with 'clipping' style movement that I have to explore with the defender anyway. Between that and Amrod owning everything at range and the new electric brand off the ring im only getting totila out for the uniques or confusers. Saves me the free action ring slot the flail necessitates too.

Need fear resist...that seems to be the hole. Im chugging boldness potions like soda.

Potions Heroism give you temporary resist against fear that lasts the duration of the heroism effect. They are usually available at the temple. After some clvl (30 IIRC) warriors get resist fear.

For infravision +2 is not very good, and as Dunadan you don't have any innate ability, so you see only as far as your light reaches (shorter if you have +3 light range). However with higher infravision and some other race it works nearly like poor mans ESP showing you monsters way out of your light area. That can save your butt when entering new level (but again, not having any innate ability, gain is small).

Obviously See_Inv is preferred, because Infra doesn't show you ghosts (and few other monsters), but OTOH see_inv is limited to your visual lite range and infravision is not, so both is better than just one.

(something like Dwarf with Zarcuthra as weapon & Trickery +4 & wearing helmet of Infra +5 and Dwarven SomeDSM +2 has infra range of 20, which is same as your visual range)

[celem]

Im now at '1450, encountering carrion crawlers quite often so im very careful about putting on the FA ring when totila comes out. The second ring slot is either FA or sustinence when using the defender. I just havent found anything else to go in there.

Just dropped into an excellent feeling on 1450 and hacking my way through a seeming endless wall of ogres, trolls, half-trolls and so on sprinkled with some stuff totally new to me. Defender time till I see whats got what for abilities

[celem]

There goes that character at last. Wasnt paying attention and got killed by Lokkak, ogre chieften at '1500. Forgot to run detect trap and fell into an ogre pit while wounded from the level above. Now that I've got a better handle on 1-30 I hope to get another guy there soon