A Few Questions/Observations From an Old Player

[fizzix]

Heh, in my current game my rogue found an early Mordenkainen's, and *three* times during ID frenzies I managed to m-f-c to another level when I meant to m-c-f identify. Once it was from a vault containing nothing but corpses and loot. I don't want to know what I might have missed.

Having played a lot of priests/paladins recently, I think it's down to m-d-c muscle memory rather than getting the c/f in the wrong order.

Some spells (specifically teleport, teleport level, word of recall and deep descent) should have a prompt before using them. Perhaps an optional prompt, but a prompt nonetheless.

[Derakon]

Heh, in my current game my rogue found an early Mordenkainen's, and *three* times during ID frenzies I managed to m-f-c to another level when I meant to m-c-f identify. Once it was from a vault containing nothing but corpses and loot. I don't want to know what I might have missed.

Having played a lot of priests/paladins recently, I think it's down to m-d-c muscle memory rather than getting the c/f in the wrong order.

This kind of thing is one reason why I set up keymaps for "safe" spells. Identify, Magic Missile, Detection, etc. all get keymaps, but Teleport, Word of Destruction, etc. don't. Thus whenever I'm using the 'm' command it's for a spell I don't use very often, and thus I can afford to take it more slowly. It doesn't guarantee that I don't accidentally cast the wrong spell, but it's a big help.

[scud]

Will have a tinker.

When moving from magic to prayer I always create more than a few 'ID earthquakes', too.

[Raajaton]

This kind of thing is one reason why I set up keymaps for "safe" spells. Identify, Magic Missile, Detection, etc. all get keymaps, but Teleport, Word of Destruction, etc. don't. Thus whenever I'm using the 'm' command it's for a spell I don't use very often, and thus I can afford to take it more slowly. It doesn't guarantee that I don't accidentally cast the wrong spell, but it's a big help.

That's a pretty good idea. I generally keymap almost all spells that I commonly use, since I like to play fast. Taking some of the more dangerous-if-fat-fingered abilities off of hotkeys is probably a smart call.

[Oramin]

Ok, I just accidentally read a couple Scrolls of Destruction.

So if I hit 'r' instead of 'R' and then hit '*' then that is going to set off the only scroll type that I happen to be carrying without my actually selecting it?

Yeah, I know, I should be more careful about my touch typing but why is there a default key as part of that portion of the interface design?

Correction: It isn't hitting '*' that does it; it is hitting the return key.

[fph]

Heh, in my current game my rogue found an early Mordenkainen's, and *three* times during ID frenzies I managed to m-f-c to another level when I meant to m-c-f identify. Once it was from a vault containing nothing but corpses and loot. I don't want to know what I might have missed.

Having played a lot of priests/paladins recently, I think it's down to m-d-c muscle memory rather than getting the c/f in the wrong order.

That's the problem inscriptions are meant to solve. If you inscribe the third spellbook with "@m3", then you can cast its spells with "m3f" rather than "mcf", independently from its position in the inventory (ever had all copies of the second book burned?)

The standard inscription for your books, which you can set with autoinscribe, should be @m1@b1@G1!s!d!k!v for the first book, the same with 2 instead of 1 for the second book, et cetera. Then you can retrain your muscle memory to m1a for magic missile instead of maa, et cetera. This: (1) reduces the impact of typos (2) eliminates the hassle due to missing books that change inventory letters --- this is important; you'll want to get rid of some of the first spellbooks to save an inventory spot eventually, especially as a priest.

[academic.sam]

The standard inscription for your books, which you can set with autoinscribe, should be @m1@b1@G1!s!d!k!v

With the newer version, inscriptions seem to be a bit smarter. Now you only need to inscribe it with @1 and will apply to any command.

[Timo Pietilä]

With the newer version, inscriptions seem to be a bit smarter. Now you only need to inscribe it with @1 and will apply to any command.

...until you use command that could be used with multiple different item types. Like drop. But yes, that works for usual commands.

[Oramin]

I *hate* Maeglin, the Traitor of Gondolin. He's really annoying because he tunnels through walls so it is kind of nice when he shows up in a Major Vault with permanent walls. Well, 'shure 'nuff, he did - and in a fairly enclosed spot so I could go pound on him with little damage from his Summons.


Well, the first thing he did was Summon a bunch of Gravity Hounds. A pack of these can kill even high level characters so I had to Banish them. Next, he decided to Summon Uniques. Yep, that's right, he plopped Ancalagon the Black *and* the Tarrasque right next to me plus a few sundry Great Wyrms as escorts for Ancalagon. I Teleported the Uniques away and Mass Banished the rest. Next, he Summons "Fiends of Darkness" - what does that mean? A Greater Balrog *and* the Witch King of Angmar. More Teleports Away.


Finally, I kill the little twerp but now I have a bunch of Uniques wandering around the level.


This should amply demonstrate why I make sure all the Uniques are dead when I take on Morgoth.

[Raajaton]

Good kill. My heart was racing just reading that.

[Mondkalb]

Summoners summoning summoners is always annoying. Qlzqqlzuup in an open vault garanties loads of uniques and other troublesome monsters.
What is a Quylthulg supposed to be anyway? Certainly nothing Tolkien invented. ^^

[Derakon]

This should amply demonstrate why I make sure all the Uniques are dead when I take on Morgoth.

The difference between Maeglin and Morgoth is that Maeglin's only spells are summoning spells; Morgoth also has mana bolts/balls, nether storms, and brain smashing. That said, it sounds like you got pretty unlucky with the summons, since Maeglin's summons are slightly weaker (in terms of the level he pulls from and his selection of spells) and he's not supposed to cast as often as Morgoth does.

[Oramin]

It was somewhat funny with the Tarrasque since I'm using Eonwe and the Tarrasque decided to breathe Frost in his 2 attacks before I could get rid of him. Didn't hurt me (Cold Immunity) but damaged the other monsters (killed one, in fact).

Also, I *did* pick up Vilya in the same Vault before going after Maeglin, so I'm definitely happy about that. Handy to be running at +32 when facing Uniques running at +20 or so.

Glaurung was in a single square nook and got clobbered quickly. I Teleported Carcharoth and Lungorthin out of the Vault before looting it.

That leaves me with:

The Tarrasque
Ancalagon
The Witch-King of Angmar
Carcharoth
Lungorthin

And sundry high level critters like a Great Wyrm of Chaos wandering around the level. Might as well chop 'em up while I have them looking for me. Time to start digging tunnels.

[Oramin]

I just realized that I'm an idiot.

I could have created doors around myself prior to attacking Maeglin. No open squares = no Summons.

[Oramin]

After I realized that I could have avoided the problem by simply using the Create Doors spell so there were no empty square available for Summons to land in, I realized I was an idiot and took it out on the Uniques of Angband. My kill list for the day includes:

Maeglin
Glaurung
Carcharoth
Lungorthin
The Tarrasque
Ancalagon
The Witch-King of Angmar
Qzzqllzuup, the Emperor of the Quylthulgs
Pazuzu
Draugluin
Kronos
Gothmog
Vecna

I've dived to 98 and I'm going to hang out on 97/98 for a bit. My rampage has only left me with a few Uniques other than Sauron and Morgoth. They are:

Huan
Cantoras
Polyphemus

and, of course,

Bert, the Stone Troll

Who, for whatever reason, hasn't spawned. Go figure.

Edit:

I also found a Mace of Disruption of Extra Attacks (+1). What I found odd is that I'm getting the full 6 attacks/rd with it. I thought we had discussed earlier that it wasn't possible. Is this because I have:

STR: 18:230
DEX: 18:240

In other words, does the calculation for blows/rd not stop at 18:220?