Reducing value of CON

[Tibarius]

CON impact

Hello,

i just lost another gnome mage at clvl 33 dlvl43 to a one hit breath attack. I had the resitances: standard 4+poison+nexus+confusion+dark

I had con 18, and Kavlax breathed sound for more than 180 hp (being my max).

Last time i lost a gnome mage with con 18/100 to a nether breath from a dracolich. That is pretty frustrating.

It feels utterly wrong for me, that CON is far more important than INT for a mage. It is said mages have banishment (not used myself yet). But playing this way is no fun (for me).

And i would support the claim that elves are even harder to play because of -con race bonus.

I thought the game should leave the option on how to play a char to the player? It does not look like a mage has many options.

Currently i would say spell power is way too low. I had INT 18/50 normal 18/140 with equipment and the spells doing damage to 1500+ HP monster around dlvl 40 (namely meteor swarm and rift) had spell failure of shortly below 50%.

Comments on how to improve gameplay are welcomed

Cheers,
Tibarius

[Derakon]

Gnome mages are horribly fragile. Monsters in Angband are horribly powerful. If you want to play a glass cannon, then you should expect the glass to shatter unless you're very, very careful.

As for spell power, I'd say it's more or less good right now. I've played a mage through to beating Morgoth, and while I left a lot of uniques alive, as a mage I was able to deal with that during the Morgoth fight anyway (via teleport other and destruction, both at 0% fail). Remember that you have potions of restore mana, as well as powerful devices, to back up your spells. There's more than enough available to spend a few on earlier fights; they certainly don't need to all be hoarded for Sauron and Morgoth.

[buzzkill]

i just lost another gnome mage at clvl 33 dlvl43 to a one hit breath attack. I had the resitances: standard 4+poison+nexus+confusion+dark

Seems to me it's more of a resistance issue than a CON issue. Low HP characters are susceptible to big breath attacks. Mages are traditionally low HP characters. Sound cannot be double resisted, and in this case doesn't even appear to have been resisted at all. Live Die and learn.

[Estie]

I wouldnt say that con is more important for a mage than int at that stage; given the choice with your gnome, I´d take =int over =con. The thing is that you have a 150 hp character. It doesnt matter if its a lvl 10 fighter or lvl 30 mage, you need to know what you can and cannot do with 150 hp. Getting LOS to Kavlax falls under the latter.
Avoiding that situation is easier for a mage than it is for a fighter, so a mage can venture to Kavlax depth and feel more comfortable than a warrior.
At some point you need to expose your character to the kind of dangers Kavlax poses and worse; preferably, that should happen when you have a healthy amount of hit points, low chances for spellfailure and important resistances covered.