One Russian Angbander's Thread (mostly questions here)

[Derakon]

Certainly later in the game you don't need them; your STR gets high enough that you can dig through solid granite with your normal melee weapon. Which is silly. The alternatives would seem to be to force the player to carry a digger and do a lot of weapon swapping whenever they want to dig...or to just add an extra equipment slot for diggers, in which case a) what have we accomplished? and b) now we have another equipment slot to stack enchantments on, making the game easier.

I wouldn't really mind if the player had to carry a digger in inventory to dig through non-rubble, but wasn't required to equip said digger. But the game's not really set up to handle that kind of thing.

[Stan Belik]

Having hard time choosing an armor to wear
Need advice which one to keep.
The character is at http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=12964

[Derakon]

You're aware that permanent resistances don't stack, right? There's no reason to wear a Ring of Resist Poison when Himring already gives you that resistance. The only way to stack resistances is to combine permanent and temporary resists (like the kinds you get from casting the spells in Resistances of Scarabtarices).

I see two main options: wear Himring and the Ring of Damage +14 in your home, or wear the Ring of Poison Resistance and Rohirrim. Rohirrim has better AC and pConf, which I'd generally consider more valuable than rChaos; Himring has rNether which is getting more useful at these depths, and about +12 damage/blow (considering the +2 STR from Rohirrim will also give you some damage). Of the two I'd tend to favor Himring and the Ring of Damage, because damage is always helpful.

There's a third option, which is to wear Rohirrim and the Ring of Damage, and just be paranoid about casting Resist Poison whenever there's a big poison breather around. This requires you to cast Detect Monsters semi-obsessively and to know which monsters are big poison breathers, though. Perhaps not the best choice for a new player.

Thalkettoth isn't needed because you're already at +20 speed (so its +3 bonus is marginal, especially considering you can cast Haste Self).

[Stan Belik]

Thanks!
That's what I actually did before reading your answer!
Kinda feel like a pro

edit: I meant the fisrt main option.

[Stan Belik]

I've updated my current char at http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=12964

Do you think he's ready to go even deeper?

[Starhawk]

Yes! My only win was with a ranger that was a little weaker than this. You should be at the bottom of the dungeon finishing the game. You have plenty of consumables in your house.

If you want to be cautious for a bit longer, you at least should be down in the 90s picking off uniques and searching for even more ridiculous artifacts.

[Stan Belik]

Hi, All!
Thanks for encouraging, Starhawk!
Still, a few more questions coming from me

What does '18/***' in your stats mean? I can't quite figure out the exact conditions for it appearing - it just seems like it is there when your total bonuses for a stat (i.e. RB+CB+EB) get really high - but how high?

And at one moment, when my STR was 18/*** and it got drained (became yellow and still stayed at 18/***) I noticed that my damage per round didn't change. Does it mean that having a stat at 18/*** makes it impossible to be effectively drained?

Also, I have just updated my most-promising-char-so-far @ http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=12964

Seems to me, from all the really important things he's lacking only Sound & Shard resistances + pConf. Are they of significant importance when going down to DLvls 90+?

[Stan Belik]

Updated Narmir once again.
The last time for today, I guess
He only lacks Shard resistance, but I guess it's not that important, right?
I think he's ready to do down to 99 now. What do you think?

edit: he's #1 @ Dwarf Ranger ladder BTW

[Raxmei]

18/*** means the stat's as high as the game will recognize so there's little point to stacking on more bonuses. You can get drained to the point that numbers reappear but it looks like your stat exceeded 18/*** by a high enough margin that you were still 18/*** even after draining.

Shard resist isn't hugely important. Not many things use it, the damage cap isn't huge, and its special effect isn't crippling.

[Daniel Fishman]

18/*** means the stat's as high as the game will recognize so there's little point to stacking on more bonuses. You can get drained to the point that numbers reappear but it looks like your stat exceeded 18/*** by a high enough margin that you were still 18/*** even after draining.

Shard resist isn't hugely important. Not many things use it, the damage cap isn't huge, and its special effect isn't crippling.

To be precise, 18/*** corresponds to 18/220 or higher, and acts the same as 18/220.

[Stan Belik]

Well...
I never believed it was actually possible...
And of course I couldn't even imagine of doing it...
But finally...

I'VE *SLAIN* MORGOTH!!!
*YAY* to Narmir the Drarf Ranger!!!
I'm kinda so full of emotions right now that I can't actually describe all the feelings I have But it feels genuinely great and awesome!

Alas, I guess, I'll have to take a break from Angband for quite a while It was too much tension for me, I reckon

[Mondkalb]

Congratulations!

Most people will remember their first time, I guess.
It is really a great feeling, particularly after playing for a long time with loosing many characters ...

[Stan Belik]

Well, I've collected a couple of questions after I've recovered from the joy of actually winning the game
I've looked through other winner characters and some things remain a mystery to me.

1) Why would anyone bother to carry MB2 late in the game when playing a ranger? What spells from this book people consider usable by a ranger? I didn't find any.

The same question actually goes to Raal's Tome of Destruction & Tenser's Transformations. As to my view, a ranger cannot and is not supposed to rely on offensive magic from Raal's. And Tenser's is enough to keep at home for occasional recharging wands/staves & powering up armor that got affected by either acid or disenchantment.

That's three(!) free equipment slots to my understanding.

2) After looking through the winners ladder I noticed that my char has enormous turn/exp & turn/CLvl ratios (I have ~3.5M turns). I mean, people have won 3.3.2 with something like half a million turns (6 times better than me) using far less damage-efficient characters (like rogue)!

What's the secret? Just agressive diving? Or the reason might be that I had 'R&[ENTER]' macroed on my numpad '5'? No, seriously?

3) It was hard enough to fight Morgoth with a melee-focused character. How can a caster class possibly survive this battle? I guess the best way to learn about it is to try and play one, but I'm just over-curious at the moment

[Magnate]

2) After looking through the winners ladder I noticed that my char has enormous turn/exp & turn/CLvl ratios (I have ~3.5M turns). I mean, people have won 3.3.2 with something like half a million turns (6 times better than me) using far less damage-efficient characters (like rogue)!

What's the secret? Just agressive diving? Or the reason might be that I had 'R&[ENTER]' macroed on my numpad '5'? No, seriously?

That's a big part of it. If you subtract your player turns from your standard turns (/10), you can see how much time you spent resting.

But yes, going for low turncount is a totally different playstyle, which basically involves not resting at all. If you're low on hp or mana, you use some magic to restore them or, if you can't or don't want to expend said magic, you keep out of combat while you regenerate naturally (but keep on exploring and looting).

[Derakon]

Things about going for a low turncount:

* Don't rely on magic. Early game spellcasting will ruin your turncount due to resting.

* Get regeneration; it affects both HP and SP and is a great way to keep moving when injured. It also brings down your cuts timer much faster than usual, which is a pleasant bonus.

* Know which enemies to fight and which to avoid. Plenty of enemies in the game are not really worth fighting; their only reward is a big chunk of experience but you can get experience anywhere.

* Pick your battles and know when to run. Even if the enemies are normally worth fighting, terrain can mean it's not a good idea. Run away before you're in serious trouble, because the place you run to could be inhospitable.

* Dive aggressively. The rewards deep down are massively better than the rewards higher up. Because you may not be kitted out "properly" for your depth, you need to know which monsters can one-shot you or otherwise make your life very unpleasant, very quickly.

* Emphasis CON and damage per round. You need to be able to kill things, and you need to not get killed, so these are your most important stats (of course, speed increases your damage per round, one of the reasons it's so powerful).

That about covers the tips I can think of off the top of my head for playing aggressively.