YACD - cut me down to size

[Capital-T-Tim]

I've been playing Angband off and on for about 15 years, and I've never really come close to winning. I'll get a character up to the mid-30's, die, weep quietly in a corner, and put the game aside for a few years.

But I feel like I have a real chance with this character! I've been paying much close attention to my resistances; I have badass speed; I just cut down The Mouth of Sauron. I'm getting pretty cocky! And also a little bored, because things have gotten grindy. Cocky + bored: that means I'm in danger of being stupid and dying.

So I'm just looking for some basic advice on what, if anything, my mage is missing. My feeling is that my AC is a bit low, and that my missing resistance-to-Dark might be a problem (I've encountered a few heavy-Dark-breathers). Anything else? How deep should I be going? And are there any basic checklist items I need to do before I face Morgoth?

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=11390

[Philip]

First, why so many books? Second, why not colannon? Three speed and three stealth I personally value more than shard resist. Third, why the wands of teleport other? You have 0% fail on the spell. Fourth, why aren't you at dlevel 98?

[Timo Pietilä]

I've been playing Angband off and on for about 15 years, and I've never really come close to winning. I'll get a character up to the mid-30's, die, weep quietly in a corner, and put the game aside for a few years.

But I feel like I have a real chance with this character! I've been paying much close attention to my resistances; I have badass speed; I just cut down The Mouth of Sauron. I'm getting pretty cocky! And also a little bored, because things have gotten grindy. Cocky + bored: that means I'm in danger of being stupid and dying.

So I'm just looking for some basic advice on what, if anything, my mage is missing. My feeling is that my AC is a bit low, and that my missing resistance-to-Dark might be a problem (I've encountered a few heavy-Dark-breathers). Anything else? How deep should I be going? And are there any basic checklist items I need to do before I face Morgoth?

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=11390

Put on Caspanion, find better ring. While searching that better ring wear Elessar (+ Sting when you get resist blindness from other sources). Elessar has 500point healing activation which can be useful to save healing potions.

You rely on resistances too much. What you need from resistances is prevention of death (basic4 + poison) and prevention of side-effects (blind, confusion, stun (sound)). AC is irrelevant at this point of game. Just getting best possible gear otherwise gets you high enough AC naturally.

Against M you need more speed (or keep yourself always hasted), better weapon, healing and method of getting rid of summons when needed.

Check the wands. In 3.2.0 you get bonus to damage from device skill. Wand of annihilation makes huge damage if you play hi-elf mage. Not so much if you play h-troll warrior.

[Max Stats]

So I'm just looking for some basic advice on what, if anything, my mage is missing. My feeling is that my AC is a bit low, and that my missing resistance-to-Dark might be a problem (I've encountered a few heavy-Dark-breathers).

Yep, watch out for Ungoliant and Shelob. Ungoliant more so, because she can cast darkness storms in addition to breathing, and they can do more damage and don't let up as her HPs dwindle. She can't insta-kill you from full HP without a double-move, but given the mage's lack of easy healing, she can force you to bail or burn through your healing potions if she decides to go to that well a lot.

You might as well drop to DL75. Speed rings are native to that depth, and the difference in monster difficulty will be small. Maybe you can find an upgrade to that +8, or even a companion to it if you can get one more point of INT somewhere else and take off that INT ring.

[Derakon]

Ungoliant is a top-tier unique; she has more hitpoints than Sauron (13000 vs. 10500) and her darkness/poison breath and darkness storm can hit hard. Not as dangerous as Sauron (he casts more often, has more nasty spells, and has stronger melee) but she's no slouch and takes a very long time to wear down. I generally don't bother.

Shelob in contrast is fairly easy meat.

[Capital-T-Tim]

Nice, thanks for the replies!

Re: why so many books - what's the recommended # for each? I know that the special books can't be destroyed by fire, but can they be stolen? Is there a reason to carry more than one of each special book?

Timo, re: swapping out Himring for Caspanion -- I'll lose my nether resist if I do that... I'd assumed that was a bad idea? Or do I have enough HP to withstand the heavy nether breathers?

[Timo Pietilä]

Timo, re: swapping out Himring for Caspanion -- I'll lose my nether resist if I do that... I'd assumed that was a bad idea? Or do I have enough HP to withstand the heavy nether breathers?

Yes. Not two, but OTOH in worst case not two even with the resist (471 max with resist, 550 without). You have actually enough to survive single full-strength poison breath too, but with very small margin, so losing that is not recommended.

[Philip]

Re: why so many books - what's the recommended # for each? I know that the special books can't be destroyed by fire, but can they be stolen? Is there a reason to carry more than one of each special book?

Yes, theoretically they can be stolen, but with a DEX of 18/140 and the fact that nobody around there is strong enough to manage to steal from you, with the exception of Harowen, whom you can tele away. And secondly, five books is way too much anyway. Two is enough even if you're really paranoid. Keep another two of each at home.

[Timo Pietilä]

Yes, theoretically they can be stolen, but with a DEX of 18/140 and the fact that nobody around there is strong enough to manage to steal from you, with the exception of Harowen, whom you can tele away. And secondly, five books is way too much anyway. Two is enough even if you're really paranoid. Keep another two of each at home.

It used to be different when item destruction from inventory was calculated before resistances. Now that this has changed even single resist usually reduce damage so much that you hardly ever suffer item loss, and with double resist even less. Only theft is real danger and that is very small one.

[Derakon]

It used to be different when item destruction from inventory was calculated before resistances. Now that this has changed even single resist usually reduce damage so much that you hardly ever suffer item loss, and with double resist even less. Only theft is real danger and that is very small one.

I honestly don't think this is as big a difference as you're making out. The thresholds for increasing odds of inventory damage are at 30HP and 60HP damage in one attack. Practically all melee attacks fall below the first threshold even before resistance, as do all the massed firebreath attacks (except hellhounds).

[jens]

I noticed a big change, earlier I needed a lot of books, and my main reason to get imunities was to be able to go down to just 1 of each bookm, and save potions and scrolls. Now I hardly loose any books, so don't really need the immunities any more... Must say I prefered the older system, or possibly a middle ground, feels too easy now :-)

[Timo Pietilä]

I honestly don't think this is as big a difference as you're making out. The thresholds for increasing odds of inventory damage are at 30HP and 60HP damage in one attack. Practically all melee attacks fall below the first threshold even before resistance, as do all the massed firebreath attacks (except hellhounds).

Sorcerer fire ball, plasma hound breaths, young and mature dragons, demons of various types, fire ants (these were real killers of books with ant queen previously), fire giant (2x 6d8 fire), Chimaera & Gorgimaera breaths, 9 & 11 headed hydras etc. etc.

It is a big change.

hmmmm.... Actually I think there has been two changes here, 11-headed hydras used to burn books like religious zealots (it was a reason to avoid them like plague), but looking at monster.txt and based on what you just said that should not have been the case:

11-headed hydra hits:

B:BITE:FIRE:3d12
B:BITE:FIRE:3d12
B:BITE:FIRE:3d12
B:BITE:FIRE:3d12


Average damage is just 19.5 / hit. Same applies to giant fire ants, they too have 3d12 fire bites.

Two changes? Threshold increase and resistance added?

[Derakon]

In any event, it's demonstrably a good change to have resistance kick in before inventory damage is considered. Witness the fact that practically everyone thought that was how it did work and was surprised when I did the code dive and discovered it wasn't the case. The game should be intuitive.

If that's now lead to too little inventory damage, then the correct response would be to make another change to make inventory damage more common. I'm not yet convinced that inventory damage is that much less common though. Consider your counterexamples: most are from spell-like attacks from monsters that appear singly; thus, I don't count them as significant contributors to inventory damage. Fire ants have a 3d12 melee attack -- odds of passing the threshold about 5% per attack.

I'll give you fire giants, but again gorgimaera only has a 2d10, chimaera a 2d6, and most demons actually don't have fire melee at all! Just balrogs and pit fiends.

Incidentally, the chance is 1% per-item for damage below 30HP, 2% for damage below 60HP, and 3% otherwise. Each item in a stack is considered individually.

[Timo Pietilä]

Consider your counterexamples: most are from spell-like attacks from monsters that appear singly; thus, I don't count them as significant contributors to inventory damage.

I'll give you fire giants, but again gorgimaera only has a 2d10, chimaera a 2d6, and most demons actually don't have fire melee at all! Just balrogs and pit fiends.

Not only melee, breaths and spells too. Even if those monsters are mainly single monsters there are so many of them that it really affects the game balance to rip that effect out completely (as it looks like the case is now).

I'm pretty sure I have lost inventory items to much weaker monsters than just those I mentioned, which would indicate that there has been threshold raise as well as resistance change.

[Magnate]

Not only melee, breaths and spells too. Even if those monsters are mainly single monsters there are so many of them that it really affects the game balance to rip that effect out completely (as it looks like the case is now).

I'm pretty sure I have lost inventory items to much weaker monsters than just those I mentioned, which would indicate that there has been threshold raise as well as resistance change.

Timo is right - at the same time the resistance effect was introduced, the basic chances of item destruction were lowered a bit (IIRC). Personally I'd support increasing them slightly again, but not to the previous levels.