questions about artifacts and "superb" level

[Plybuf]

I got the "superb" feeling for the first time playing the game again (played 2-3 years ago and started again) as a level 30 dwarven warrior. I quickly found that there is the Phial of Galadrial. When I went to go there, I found that one of the monsters was a lesser titan!! He is normally found at level 56, but I was at dungeon level 21!! I had a few questions to the forum:

1) What is the largest difference between the "typical" dungeon level and when the monster can actually appear? This is a 35 level difference! And the titan was summoning monsters that were themselves meant for level 50 dungeons.

2)I have "restrict creation of artifacts" set to no, along with "lose artifacts when leaving level." Am I correct that this means that I can get the phial at another time if I leave? I was able to escape using phase door.

3) seems like a silly question, but do I have any chance in the world of killing the titan? At level 30 with clock of aman, sword (defender), cap of thengel, and boots 'Dal-i-thalion" as my best pieces of equipment.

Thanks for the help / advice.

[dos350]

if u can move that titan, try it,~ sounds deadly to me tho lol, ,plz no rage~

[SSK]

1) What is the largest difference between the "typical" dungeon level and when the monster can actually appear? This is a 35 level difference! And the titan was summoning monsters that were themselves meant for level 50 dungeons.

35 levels out of depth is pretty steep--don't think I ever saw that big a gap. But it tends to occur in greater vaults--do you have a greater vault on the level?

2)I have "restrict creation of artifacts" set to no, along with "lose artifacts when leaving level." Am I correct that this means that I can get the phial at another time if I leave? I was able to escape using phase door.

If you have "lose artifacts" set to "no" that's the same as "preserve" mode. But of course if "lose artifacts" is set to "yes" then you will lose everything by leaving the level. To me the phial is not much more important than an everburning lantern but maybe there are other goodies on the level, particularly if there is a nice vault. If there is a nice vault and you have preserve artifacts off = "lose artfacts" ON, then there is real incentive to get creative and try to explore the vault for the loot... Actually if you know for a fact there was an artifact on the floor and you did not get a "special" feeling, then you know you must have "lose artifacts" set to off--you always get a "special" feeling with an artifact if "preserve mode" is off. Maybe you can teleport other the titan and the nasties he summoned...

3) seems like a silly question, but do I have any chance in the world of killing the titan? At level 30 with clock of aman, sword (defender), cap of thengel, and boots 'Dal-i-thalion" as my best pieces of equipment.

Lesser Titans are pretty nasty, but the biggest problems they pose is their confusion melee attack and you have that covered with thengel and dal-i-thalion, and the summoning. I'd have to know what kind o HP and speed you have, but I think it's likely you can take the Titan if you are faster than him with a source of temporary speed and have some healing capabilities--not sure you can handle the summoning though... if you have some banishment and teleport other those will be critical to success in this fight.

[Zababa]

Am I correct that this means that I can get the phial at another time if I leave?

if both restrict creation of artifacts and lose artifacts are set to "no", you will see the Phial of Galadriel again. Similar thing happened to me. I saw the Phial while divig 30 levels below my crawling depth in a impossible vault. I left the level. After several hours of gameplay, A unique dropped the phial for me and I finally got it.

[Derakon]

Titans have a number of nasty capabilities which make them dangerous to fight even if you're at a similar depth:

* They're fast.
* They hit to confuse.
* They have four melee attacks per round at high damage (lesser: 9d9 each; greater: 12d12 each). Even with confusion resistance they really hurt to melee.
* They can summon other monsters. Usually this means you want to fight them in a cramped space, but their melee damage means you want to keep your distance...this doesn't matter much anyway because
* They can teleport you to them.

So basically, unless you can take, oh, 100 damage/round in melee from lesser titans, or 150 damage/round in melee from greater titans, you shouldn't consider fighting them. And that's at speed parity and assuming they miss at least some of the time. Peak damage from a greater titan that's faster than you with no AC damage reduction is 1152 damage...

[Timo Pietilä]

that's at speed parity and assuming they miss at least some of the time. Peak damage from a greater titan that's faster than you with no AC damage reduction is 1152 damage...

....and there is no AC damage reduction because attack type is confuse. Those go thru without any damage reduction. One reason they hit harder than you would expect them to.

[fph]

Unless I am mistaken, the idea behind "preserve mode" (i.e. lose artifacts=no) is that if you see an artifact but do not identify it, then you can get it back in the future. So if you only know that there is 'a Phial' somewhere on the level, for instance because you see it after casting Detect Objects, that still doesn't count as identified.

I have no idea how this interacts with the recent ID-by-use patches though. What happens if you see a Phial, wear it, discover that it can be activated for light area, but do not find out its hidden power, and then throw it away?

[Nolendil]

In the version 3.2, artifacts give their name as soon as you pick them up (I'm not sure if this is intended or a bug), so maybe they would get lost even if you just pick them.

[Magnate]

In the version 3.2, artifacts give their name as soon as you pick them up (I'm not sure if this is intended or a bug), so maybe they would get lost even if you just pick them.

This is correct - artifacts are known on pickup, which means that if you then drop them again, they are lost.

If you leave the level without picking them up, though, they can be generated again (in preserve mode). In non-preserve mode, they can't, so you have to get them while you're on that level.

[Plybuf]

Thank you everyone. I had never seen such a difference in levels for a monster. I'll hit recall and pray that he doesn't find me while it is loading.

[Chud]

I met Ren the Unclean on DL10 not too long ago. I think that's the biggest gap I've personally seen - not sure how many levels that is offhand, but it's quite a bit.

I didn't survive that enounter. :-)

[myshkin]

Another entry in "Tales from the Old"

The best story I could find from rec.games.roguelike.angband dates back to 1995 and MacAngband 2.0.3. I'll let you follow the link to see the whole story; let's just say it involves an out-of-depth L and what I'm pretty sure was a bug.

[Timo Pietilä]

I met Ren the Unclean on DL10 not too long ago. I think that's the biggest gap I've personally seen - not sure how many levels that is offhand, but it's quite a bit.

I didn't survive that enounter. :-)

I have seen AMHD 10 levels OoD sleeping comfortably in a moated room (not in a vault) not very long ago. That was scary.

In NPP I got Vecna from CGV at beginning of stat-gain. NPP Vecna can teleport to you from practically other side of the dungeon. I survived, but that required like 20 turns of Vecna not killing me, but instead doing something less dangerous.