Help a newbie?

[Cashondeliveri]

I've become hooked on angband recently, been ignoring the warm and sunny outdoors and been staring at my computer screen instead.

There are some questions i would very much like some answers to. I've read most of the ingame help files and quite extensively on this wiki on rephial.org (which seems incomplete and/or out of date to some extent), but still some things i feel i need to know that i haven't found, quite a few questions actually. If you can't answer all of them feel free to answer those you can. So here goes, in no particular order.

1. The shops in town never seem to offer anything good, have i had bad luck with the random generator? If not, do they get better as i descend deeper into the dungeon?

2. I'm playing as a warrior and the light weapons always seems better than the heavy ones. Right now i'm using a dagger (+7 +7) that i've enchanted myself and if works wonderfully, but it seems maybe a warrior should be using a longsword or a battleaxe or something along those lines. Will those kinds of weapons eventually become as good as light weapons or do i have to use light weapons all the way if i want to kill efficiently?

3. Are hitpoints completely randomly generated at every levelup? If that's the case i feel like i've had bad luck as it seems i get very few each levelup (I may be wrong, i have 258 as a dunadan warrior with 18/30 CON). If so, then I feel it's kind of unfair that i end up with a gimped character through no fault of my own. I've considered starting over because of this issue alone.

4. I've squelched some items that have seemed worthless to me, but i've been nervous about squelching weapons and armor. The reason is that i'm not sure how it works. If i squelch a dagger (+0, +0) will all daggers disappear from the game or only those that have those stats? If someone could explain the squelching system in detail or point me in a direction where it is explained i'd be grateful.

5. As i understand, the potions that increase your stats are important for any character. I've believe i read somewhere that they start appearing at DL30, is this correct?

6. If the answer to the previous question is yes i'm wondering if i'm ready for DL30. Things have been very easy so far and i haven't been close to dying since the very first levels. I'm now a level 24 dunadan warrior and i'm at DL21, i kill things very quickly and hardly take any damage, even from uniques, which i think is because i have a high AC at 142 (of course, i could be a newb who doesn't know this is at best an average AC at that level). The reason i haven't gone down further is that i've read that I need resistances to survive. I didn't have much of that, but i recently picked up a ribbed plate armour of resistance that makes me believe i might survive DL30 and i also have a ring of poison resistance. In short, am i ready?

7. This question relates somewhat to the previous one. There are so many consumables in this game that it's hard to know what to carry with limited inventory space. I have oil and rations of course, mushrooms of emergency (that i haven't actually used yet, but they seem to be a good, well, emergency item), potions of cure critical wounds, and some detection scrolls, magic mapping, treasure detection and trap detection. Also some means of identification, scroll or staff. So two questions then really, first are there better alternatives to these items, and second, are there other items that i should use, especially considering i'm thinking about going down to DL30?

8. On a similar note it would be handy to know what resistances are needed at what dungeon level. could anyone point me towards some information on this topic?

9. I currently have no way to detect invisible creatures. This hasn't been a problem so far since i just move to a corridor and hit in the direction i think the creature is and then get the message: "you hit it, you killed it". I'm wondering though, will this become a problem when more powerful invisible creatures appear, and if that's the case, how do i best deal with this problem?

10. Lastly, I'm curious about the paladin and i would like to know how a paladin plays, what particular strengths this class has compared to the others.

That's it. Now i'll eagerly return to angband while i await some answers from all the helpful boys and girls on this forum.

[Max Stats]

I've become hooked on angband recently, been ignoring the warm and sunny outdoors and been staring at my computer screen instead.

Welcome, you might as well say goodbye to all your free time right now, because you will likely be spending all of it on this game.

1. The shops in town never seem to offer anything good, have i had bad luck with the random generator? If not, do they get better as i descend deeper into the dungeon?

The regular shops probably won't have anything to get really excited about. Occasionally you might find a nice ego weapon, but you will get most of your finds in the dungeon. The Black Market is allowed to generate much better items, so it is worthwhile to keep checking it.

2. I'm playing as a warrior and the light weapons always seems better than the heavy ones. Right now i'm using a dagger (+7 +7) that i've enchanted myself and if works wonderfully, but it seems maybe a warrior should be using a longsword or a battleaxe or something along those lines. Will those kinds of weapons eventually become as good as light weapons or do i have to use light weapons all the way if i want to kill efficiently?

Enchanted light weapons are the way to go early in the game, since they give you more attacks, which overcomes the fact that they give you less damage per attack. Later, as your STR and DEX start increasing, the heavier weapons will give you more blows and become better.

3. Are hitpoints completely randomly generated at every levelup? If that's the case i feel like i've had bad luck as it seems i get very few each levelup (I may be wrong, i have 258 as a dunadan warrior with 18/30 CON). If so, then I feel it's kind of unfair that i end up with a gimped character through no fault of my own. I've considered starting over because of this issue alone.

They are more or less random. When a character is generated, all the HP increases are determined at that time. They are constrained in the amount of variance they can have over the life of a character, so if you have a hit die of 12, you can't roll all ones or all twelves. Characters who roll for very small (or large) values early on should even out at least somewhat as time goes on.

4. I've squelched some items that have seemed worthless to me, but i've been nervous about squelching weapons and armor. The reason is that i'm not sure how it works. If i squelch a dagger (+0, +0) will all daggers disappear from the game or only those that have those stats? If someone could explain the squelching system in detail or point me in a direction where it is explained i'd be grateful.

You can either squelch that particular item or all items like it. If you squelch a +0,+0 dagger and select the "squelch all" option, you will only squelch "pointy" (swords, daggers, etc.) weapons that have zero or negative enchantment, so you can continue to find good weapons. The squelching only happens when you have identified the weapon either by using it on a monster, using a scroll/staff of identify, or carrying it long enough that you get the feeling that it is average.

5. As i understand, the potions that increase your stats are important for any character. I've believe i read somewhere that they start appearing at DL30, is this correct?

That is when they start being common, although you will find +1/-1 stat potions at earlier levels than this. These are potions that raise a particular stat at the expense of another randomly selected one.

6. If the answer to the previous question is yes i'm wondering if i'm ready for DL30. Things have been very easy so far and i haven't been close to dying since the very first levels. I'm now a level 24 dunadan warrior and i'm at DL21, i kill things very quickly and hardly take any damage, even from uniques, which i think is because i have a high AC at 142 (of course, i could be a newb who doesn't know this is at best an average AC at that level). The reason i haven't gone down further is that i've read that I need resistances to survive. I didn't have much of that, but i recently picked up a ribbed plate armour of resistance that makes me believe i might survive DL30 and i also have a ring of poison resistance. In short, am i ready?

Conventional wisdom is to descend when the enemies at your level are no longer a challenge. Warriors especially can usually descend quickly in the early going.

7. This question relates somewhat to the previous one. There are so many consumables in this game that it's hard to know what to carry with limited inventory space. I have oil and rations of course, mushrooms of emergency (that i haven't actually used yet, but they seem to be a good, well, emergency item), potions of cure critical wounds, and some detection scrolls, magic mapping, treasure detection and trap detection. Also some means of identification, scroll or staff. So two questions then really, first are there better alternatives to these items, and second, are there other items that i should use, especially considering i'm thinking about going down to DL30?

I would recommend having several scrolls of phase door and a staff of teleportation or two. The staff of teleportation will get you out of a lot of scrapes. If space is an issue, you probably don't need treasure detection and magic mapping, although the latter can be kind of handy.

8. On a similar note it would be handy to know what resistances are needed at what dungeon level. could anyone point me towards some information on this topic?

I don't have hard numbers for this, although it has been discussed a few times. You have poison resistance, which is good at this point. You might also want something that gives you free action (prevents paralysis). As far as what to have when, I think this depends a lot on individual style, and you cant always rely on being able to get what you want when you want it anyway.

9. I currently have no way to detect invisible creatures. This hasn't been a problem so far since i just move to a corridor and hit in the direction i think the creature is and then get the message: "you hit it, you killed it". I'm wondering though, will this become a problem when more powerful invisible creatures appear, and if that's the case, how do i best deal with this problem?

A staff of detect invisible will detect them until you make your next move, although you will need a ranged attack (bow, crossbow, or wand) to take advantage if you aren't right next to it. Eventually you will find equipment that lets you detect invisible all the time.

10. Lastly, I'm curious about the paladin and i would like to know how a paladin plays, what particular strengths this class has compared to the others.

A paladin is a somewhat weaker fighter than a warrior, but with the benefit of some priestly spells. The ability to heal is nice, and you get some offensive spell capability, although probably not enough to rely on all the time.

That's it. Now i'll eagerly return to angband while i await some answers from all the helpful boys and girls on this forum.

They do tend to be a helpful bunch around here. Good luck.

[Cashondeliveri]

Thanks for all the answers! That cleared up a lot of things. I found out i actually have free action on some boots of mine so i guess i'll start descending to DL30 now. I'm excited! And a bit scared...

[Timo Pietilä]

1. Yes, though dungeon items will be better for majority of game. BM might have something useful every now and then even very deep in dungeon.

2. Heavy weapons will get better when you get high enough STR and DEX.

3. Yes, though I think there is some minimum HP for each class/race combination.

4. Squelch depends of the version you are playing. There is quality squelch which squelches all items that are below certain quality, and then there is "squelch this particular item type" IE. daggers. Most recent dev-version makes that more obvious and there you can squelch individual items. Official stable release doesn't have that.

5. Yes. The deeper you go the more common they get (because of how monster drops are generated).

6. Yes, though you might want to get see invisible and free action before going there. Then I think you can go straight past that depth to around 1800'. HP and speed are what you want. You want somewhere around 500 HP for levels past 2000' and 800+ and 20+ speed hasted for levels past 4000' (though you can survive with less if you know what you are fighting, monster descriptions give hints what they can do and probing reveals everything).

7. Yes and yes. Eventually you will be using mainly rods for detection and scrolls and staves for escapes (teleport, phase door).

8. There are no hard limits. You want to have poison resist and basic four before meeting Drolems and Ancient Multi-Hued dragons, otherwise everything is debatable are they needed or not. Confusion resistance (or "protection" in dev-version) is good to have, though you can have that as swap, and disenchantment resistance protects your gear against disenchanters so that is valuable. There are few monsters that hit to confuse hard so you need that when/if you fight them. Blindness resistance allows you to be able to read scrolls unless you are confused. Nexus resist prevents stat swapping (which is important during stat-gain, especially for warriors (weak saving throw) and level teleports (saving throw)). Disenchant, blindness and confusion are also something that few uniques do in melee, so for melee-char those are needed at the point you go after them.

9. See answer 6. There are monsters deep down that are both invisible and can kill you in single round. Especially undeads are dangerous. Infravision works as poor mans see invisible against most other things (and it allows you to see things beyond light range. that can be life-savior sometimes). Telepathy shows almost all invisible monsters except Q:s (quite major exception, most deep Q:s are quite nasty summoners).

10. Paladin is like warrior with priest spells. They are quite boring to play. Nothing especially strong in them, but nothing especially weak either.

11. Fear stunning. Mystics especially are dangerous, but bunch of plasma/impact/gravity hounds can kill you too in single round of not paying attention by knocking you out.

[Derakon]

On hitpoints: your character has a "life rating", which is a hidden value that indicates how their hitpoints at level 50 compare to the average. E.g. a life rating of 105/100 indicates they have 5% more HP than average. If I recall correctly, if your life rating is below 80/100 then your hitpoints are automatically rerolled.

In any event, you get a significant portion of your HP from your Constitution score. Increasing that will help a lot.

On weapons: small weapons are useful right now because they're the ones you have the STR/DEX to get multiple blows with. As your STR/DEX increase, this will become true of more weapons.

On diving: it helps to know which enemies to look out for and what they can do to you. Get Free Action if you don't have it already, since there's plenty of monsters with paralyzing attacks, and paralysis is a near-guaranteed death. Otherwise, the basic 4 resistances (fire/cold/acid/electricity) become more and more important as you go down. The max damage from a breath of one of those elements is 1/3 the monster's HP, or 1600, whichever is less. Finally, poison attacks have a max of 1/3rd or 800. Ancient multihued dragons and drolems can both breathe for big poison damage. You can certainly dive into their home depths without it, but you have to be prepared to run at a moment's notice -- carry some form of teleportation or level teleporting.

Stat potions have a native depth of 30, but will just generally become more and more common as you dive, since more items get dropped.

For warriors, I generally carry the following consumables:
* 15 Cure Critical Wounds. Gets rid of all status ailments, and the HP healing can be helpful.
* 5+ Heroism. Warriors get permanent fear resistance at level 30, but until then, getting frightened completely nerfs their ability to kill, and Heroism gives temporary fear resistance.
* 15 Phase Door. Mostly useful for staying out of melee range when I want to shoot a monster to death.
* A few scrolls of Teleport Level (i.e. my entire stock), for when I absolutely positively have to leave right now.
* Staves of identify.
* Staves of magic mapping.
* Staves of teleport (can be used when blinded and confused, unlike the scrolls)

[d_m]

For warriors, I generally carry the following consumables:

Don't you carry staves of detect evil? They are the only monster detection warriors get until they find ESP and/or rods of detection.

[Timo Pietilä]

* Staves of teleport (can be used when blinded and confused, unlike the scrolls)

Note on that: your chance of success is decreased while confused, and warrior magic device skill isn't great to start with, so if you get confused and have no other means of getting out start trying before it is the last chance. I prefer swaps and mushrooms of clear mind because they guarantee that you either can prevent getting confused in first place or cure confusion with temporary resistance (just like heroism gives temporary resist and cures fear).

As with vigor, those mushrooms are common at shallow depths where they are not needed, not deep in dungeon, which I find quite odd. I don't think I have found any clear mind mushrooms after dlvl 1500'.

[d_m]

As with vigor, those mushrooms are common at shallow depths where they are not needed, not deep in dungeon, which I find quite odd. I don't think I have found any clear mind mushrooms after dlvl 1500'.

This is something I intend to fix for 3.4.

[buzzkill]

Everyone else seems to have answered your question, so let me chime in with this. Angband is a game of trial and error. IMO, the best way to learn to game is to play it, not that you shouldn't ask questions (because much of the game is poorly documented at this time), but you're never going to learn to be a great player by reading a book.

IMO your moving downward too slowly. If just beating the hell out of things with very little risk is fun for you, then stick with it. But, as someone else mentioned, living on the edge is a better overall strategy. You'll find better stuff sooner and it'll keep you on your toes. Learning to survive, not merely surviving, is key. Resistances? You'll find out when you need then when something nearly kills you, or does kill you.

You didn't mention having any fail-safe escapes, teleport level and destruction being the most common. These become increasingly important as you move deeper. You will encounter things that you can't beat and can't run from.

Have fun!

[Derakon]

Don't you carry staves of detect evil? They are the only monster detection warriors get until they find ESP and/or rods of detection.

Whenever I make a list of items I use, I'm bound to forget one. Thanks for chiming in.

[Cashondeliveri]

Thanks to everyone for all the answers! I feel wiser now, and some of my fears, like the hp thing, have been put to rest.

I went and got myself a staff of teleportation and some scrolls of phase door as that seemed like a smart thing to have.

As for the shop question, the weapon shop suddenly had a spear of westernesse which took care of my see invisible problem and upped my dps, so it seems the shops have some good items occasionally after all.

I've now gone down to DL30 and wow, did i get some loot! Found my first stat boosting potion (STR, which made me happy) and now i just ran into what i believe must be this vault thing i've read people talk about, (rectangular room with diagonal pillars and lots of nice loot and tough creatures) where i ran into a minotaur who is the toughest creature i've fought yet. He took about 2/3 of my hp. Anyway, in the vault was an artifact called the Phial of Galadriel, which is simply awesome!

Considering going even deeper now, but the monsters have certainly gotten tougher, so i'll be cautious.

[Derakon]

I'm a firm believer in always being at the edge of your competence zone. That is to say, dive until you're barely managing to survive. It's a lot more fun than playing cautiously. Though, I recognize that it can be hard to tell sometimes if you're in over your head, without knowing what depths different monsters call home.

The game has a number of "moat" rooms that all share the same basic pattern: a 5x19 rectangular room (with possible interior rooms) surrounded by a one-tile-wide corridor, the moat. This is the format used for monster pits and nests (like orc pits, jelly nests, etc.); there's one that subdivides the room into quadrants with separate entrances; a few more put more rooms inside the room. There's also a variant that has a checkerboard pattern, and I'd wager that's what you found. I'm not aware of any actual vaults that match your description. Generally you can recognize a vault by unusually dense and symmetric trap placement.

[fizzix]

I'm a firm believer in always being at the edge of your competence zone. That is to say, dive until you're barely managing to survive. It's a lot more fun than playing cautiously. Though, I recognize that it can be hard to tell sometimes if you're in over your head, without knowing what depths different monsters call home.

The game has a number of "moat" rooms that all share the same basic pattern: a 5x19 rectangular room (with possible interior rooms) surrounded by a one-tile-wide corridor, the moat. This is the format used for monster pits and nests (like orc pits, jelly nests, etc.); there's one that subdivides the room into quadrants with separate entrances; a few more put more rooms inside the room. There's also a variant that has a checkerboard pattern, and I'd wager that's what you found. I'm not aware of any actual vaults that match your description. Generally you can recognize a vault by unusually dense and symmetric trap placement.

there're vaults that take the 2x2 room and the checkerboard room format. I added them in a moment of deviousness. You can tell them apart because they have more treasure in them. But they're crazy dangerous, especially if you're not suspecting them.

[Cashondeliveri]

I'm a firm believer in always being at the edge of your competence zone. That is to say, dive until you're barely managing to survive. It's a lot more fun than playing cautiously. Though, I recognize that it can be hard to tell sometimes if you're in over your head, without knowing what depths different monsters call home.

The game has a number of "moat" rooms that all share the same basic pattern: a 5x19 rectangular room (with possible interior rooms) surrounded by a one-tile-wide corridor, the moat. This is the format used for monster pits and nests (like orc pits, jelly nests, etc.); there's one that subdivides the room into quadrants with separate entrances; a few more put more rooms inside the room. There's also a variant that has a checkerboard pattern, and I'd wager that's what you found. I'm not aware of any actual vaults that match your description. Generally you can recognize a vault by unusually dense and symmetric trap placement.

I'm still going deeper. At DL33 and still no real problems, but yeah, i'm cautious as i don't know what to expect and i'm nervous about running into a monster i can't handle.

And yes, the room had a checkerboard pattern.

[Madoka]

Funny how Angband can play so differently sometimes. I'm at DL31, and I've yet to see a vault. I've only had 1 jelly pit, 2 troll pits, and about 5 orc pits. But then I found the Phial on level 5.