New guy here

[runequester]

I didn't see a "new guy" forum, so here goes.

I am actually a rather recent rogue-like player, but now I can't stop

I have played Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup for several months, dabbled with Dungeons of Dredmor, Doom RL, Frozen Depths and now Angband. I must say, despite being "less sophisticated" in some ways, Angband has me hooked.

I am trying so hard to not read spoiler stuff, since I really love the experience of adventuring into the unknown.

In any event, kudos and hope to have some interesting conversations on this forum.


As an aside, playing the game on linux, and with straight up ASCII. No tiles for me for this one

[BlueFish]

ASCII is absolutely the best way to play, regardless of the beauty of the tiles (and current ones are stunning). Lots more information can be packed into a few pixels with ascii than it can be with a picture.

Enjoy the game. Good instinct not to read spoilers. You'll have a blast.

[Derakon]

Welcome to the forums! Be forewarned: we're really open with spoilers here, so you'll have to be careful about which posts you read.

I hope you continue to enjoy Angband! If if ever manages to get dull for you, there's a bunch of variants available as well that change things up.

[runequester]

yeah, I looked at some of the variants, but I figured I'd start with the original. I had wanted to do one of the "big old ones" as far as roguelikes goes, and nethack does my head in.

[Timo Pietilä]

Welcome to the forums! Be forewarned: we're really open with spoilers here, so you'll have to be careful about which posts you read.

Also be warned that some people fail to win even with every single piece of information that game has down to specifics of how RNG has been coded.

Game is not very hard if you just remember to bail out whenever in immediate danger of dying. Everything else is making that "immediate danger of dying" as rare as possible. Boredom is also major killer, so don't play too slow. Find your own balance between too fast and too slow. Pay attention to what you are doing. Learn from your deaths, so that you don't repeat the mistake you made that time. Think what could have saved you, if you didn't have that something that could have saved you and prepare next time.

Luck plays a role here and every now and then even the most experienced players with almost constant winning record die to unbelievable bad set of sequential event, so don't feel bad if you die "without your own fault".

[runequester]

Thanks, I appreciate the advice

I think one of the things I enjoy the most is making it just one level further than Ive survived before.
Suddenly things get tense and nerve-wracking again.

[Derakon]

Yeah, it's important to have a goal for each character beyond just "win the game", because it's probably gonna be awhile before you achieve that one. Making it deeper is always good, as is killing a particularly challenging monster (especially the one that killed you last time!).

If you aren't aware already, there are also options that you can set during character creation by hitting the '=' key, which can change up how the game plays. For example, you can play with randomly-generated artifacts, or disable the town.

[runequester]

aaaand... I died again

Managed to get to level 17, and found a rather excellent sword and armour (half troll fighter).

Ran into a couple of magic users that kept summoning monsters, and mowing through them, untill a werewolf showed up. Having a bad cold, and not paying attention to how quickly the mob was whittling down my hit points.

So...death by not paying attention

[Djabanete]

Do you know how to post character dumps? Press Shift-C for character sheet, "f" to create a character dump (which is a simple text file that the game automatically generates, showing all the character information.) You can then upload a chardump to this very site using the "Submit your dump!" link at the bottom of any chardump. Alternately, you can copy paste the text into a thread. The idea is that people can give you good advice if you have a chardump

For example, I'm curious about the sword and armor you refer to.

I understand you don't like spoilers, so I'll avoid them, but in general it's good for warriors to purchase quite a few Scrolls of Phase Door from the Alchemist ("5" in town). They're good for getting out of tight spots. A lot of Angband is about avoidance and escaping. Good luck!

Edit: Also, there's the business of fighting in doorways/corridors if you're afraid of being overwhelmed. Despite that Angband is turned-based, it's surprisingly easy to lose your cool and make bad decisions in the heat of the moment. (It's funny how that works!) Sometimes you'll find yourself button-mashing in the most dangerous situations when you can least afford it. So keep your common sense about you --- fight one-on-one in hallways, don't go biting off more than you can chew, and have an exit strategy at all times. If you keep the fundamentals in mind you'll soon surpass your expectations!

[runequester]

yeah, I hear ya
The stupid thing is... I had multiple phase door scrolls, and some other gadgets. I had deliberately stashed and carried "escape" items to avoid such a situation.


Is it possible to do the character dump for a previous, dead character?

Appreciate all the help!


edit: The sword was a sword of "westernesse". It probably wasn't like an epic artifact or anything, but it was the best I had come across so far. Pretty decent bonuses, some small stat boosts and extra damage against orcs and trolls. I think it also let me see invisible and protected from paralysis.

[Derakon]

Westernesse weapons are handy, yeah.

I don't think you can make dumps for dead characters after you exit the program. However, when you're looking at the tombstone, there's a command to generate the dump; I think it uses the 'f' key.

[runequester]

ah okay. Too late then. I'll remember next time though.

Im pondering whether to try my hand at a ranger, or another paladin. I had done one paladin and it worked decently though I didn't make it very far.


Question: When creating the character it lists a hit die based on race, as well as for class. Im assuming these works similar to AD&D hit dice, however... why are there two listed? Do you receive hit points from both race and class each level or?


Cheers!

[Derakon]

Yeah, your hitpoints each level are 1d(race hit die + class hit die) plus any CON bonus you get. This can make a big difference in durability in the late game -- a half-troll mage might be comparatively stupid but he'll have a lot more hitpoints than the gnome, even if they both have fewer hitpoints than your average warrior. The CON bonus is generally small early on, but it's recalculated whenever your CON changes.

[runequester]

Is there a reason to lug around a lantern, after finding the Phial of Galadriel, which seems to do the same thing, only better?

[Derakon]

Nope. The Phial is strictly better than any non-artifact light source in Vanilla.