late game monster

[quarague]

I finally got a char who is in his late 40 level wise and approaching dungeon level 100, a half troll paladin. I noticed that since about -2500 all stronger monsters (say 10k xp or more) unique or not seem to follow the same pattern.
First their ranged attacks are much stronger than their melee attack. They usually do a few hundred points of damage with a ranged attack inspite of me resisting it but in melee often they do no damage at all and if they hit it is for 50 to 100 hitpoints. Second, summoning is the only attack that is any real danger. If a monster can't summon it is essentially harmless, I only have to get into melee range. If it can summon I go into melee range, if it summons little or harmless things I can defeat it, otherwise I run away and try my luck again later.
My ranged attack does about the same amount of damage as melee but if I'm not in melee range monsters will mostly use their ranged attack which is much more dangerous than melee. Using magic attacks from spells or items is mostly pointless because it deals so little damage. No real point in hitting a monster with few thousand hit points for 100 or 150 damage with some bolt or ball spell.

[debo]

You more or less have it right.

With summoning uniques, or difficult packs of monsters in general, learn to dig an "anti-summoning" corridor in the dungeon wall.

This involves creating a zig-zag tunnel like this:

X X X
 X X

and then scooting to the back of it. This way, summoned creatures can only attack you from one square, and will only be summoned into spaces behind the unique.

Battles against uniques in angband tend to be somewhat repetitive for each character type, with a few exceptions (with Morgoth being the most different, IMO).

[donalde]

Only problem are with disenchanting monsters, specially uniques: Gorlim, Gabriel, Ibun, Khim, Mim, Mouth of Sauron, Omarax, Saruman, Tarrasque.. Might be more.

[Therem Harth]

You're mostly correct about no summons -> no danger, but there are exceptions. The most notable is probably the Tarrasque, which breaths frequently and for very high damage; it's been known to kill fairly powerful characters.

[quarague]

Only problem are with disenchanting monsters, specially uniques: Gorlim, Gabriel, Ibun, Khim, Mim, Mouth of Sauron, Omarax, Saruman, Tarrasque.. Might be more.

not really if you have resistance to disenchantment.

I guess this thread didn't go in the direction I intended. Thanks for the tips, very helpful. I was more thinking along that it is rather sad that the game becomes monotonous in the later stages.
I felt in the early game, you have to be creative to survive, some monsters are best killed at range, others you should melee. If you find a random staff or wand, making good use of it makes your survival a lot more likely. Thus even if you play 10 half-troll paladins in a row, they will play out very differently until about level 20. After that they are pretty much all the same and you use more or less the same strategy against every single monster.
I wish there were still some high level monsters that kill a char in 3 or 4 turns in melee but are mostly harmless at range and others that are only dangerous if they can see you from a distance.

[donalde]

There are couple of heavy hitters, 1st comes to mind horned reaper, attacks 4 times with 11d11, that is significant amount of damage dealt. Other dangerous opponent is greater titan. On ranged attacks... canine packs are really dangerous. And already mentioned Tarrasque.

[Timo Pietilä]

There are couple of heavy hitters, 1st comes to mind horned reaper, attacks 4 times with 11d11, that is significant amount of damage dealt. Other dangerous opponent is greater titan. On ranged attacks... canine packs are really dangerous. And already mentioned Tarrasque.

Drujs. Those are monsters dangerous at distance, but not close. Teleporting when there is graveyard into level is a bad bad idea, even if you have already killed everything that moves in it.

[fizzix]

When evaluating damage per turn (ignoring side effects), I'm pretty sure even the heaviest of breathers do less damage at range than they do at melee. This is because at range, some amount of monster turns will be spent moving towards the player. If adjacent to the player, those same turns will be spent attacking. Even if the ranged attacks do more damage, the average damage should be higher in melee.

That being said, late game gameplay in angband is probably the weakest part of the experience now, at least for veteran players. For new players, it can be tempered by the novelty of the experience of playing so deep. There are lots of ideas floating around to improve it, but most are radical. They almost all involve limiting the players ability to remove monsters at will (or the player itself at will) and the corresponding changes to make late game monsters manageable.

[Derakon]

When evaluating damage per turn (ignoring side effects), I'm pretty sure even the heaviest of breathers do less damage at range than they do at melee. This is because at range, some amount of monster turns will be spent moving towards the player. If adjacent to the player, those same turns will be spent attacking. Even if the ranged attacks do more damage, the average damage should be higher in melee.

The problem here is that average damage is rarely the value that players are concerned about. Average damage has a big impact on how long you can stay in a fight, sure, but what determines when you have to cut and run is peak damage. I don't want to stick around if there's a Dracolich in view and my HP are below 550, even though it only has a 1 in 24 chance of breathing nether on any given turn and its melee attacks are not especially threatening (peak damage 194, 96 of which is subject to AC damage reduction). Doing otherwise is basically playing Russian roulette, and if you do that enough you will lose.

[fizzix]

The problem here is that average damage is rarely the value that players are concerned about. Average damage has a big impact on how long you can stay in a fight, sure, but what determines when you have to cut and run is peak damage. I don't want to stick around if there's a Dracolich in view and my HP are below 550, even though it only has a 1 in 24 chance of breathing nether on any given turn and its melee attacks are not especially threatening (peak damage 194, 96 of which is subject to AC damage reduction). Doing otherwise is basically playing Russian roulette, and if you do that enough you will lose.

Certainly. However the point I was trying to make is that, I don't think the 1/24 chance changes whether you are next to the dracolich or far away. So then it's *slightly* better from a damage perspective to be far away from the dracolich than to be next to it. I could be wrong though, it's been a while since I pored over that section of the code.

[Philip]

Yes, the original post contains the incorrect claim that if he is not in melee range the monster is much more likely to use the ranged attack than he is to spend his time moving. IIRC the monster always has the same chance to attempt to move onto the square the player is on. In certain variants the AI has been improved in this respect, but I do not recall the AI being substantially improved in this respect in V.
This means, along with overpowered ranged damage that being next to a monster is only useful when you don't have a good bow and arrows or when there are monsters in the way otherwise. Of course as Derakon says, always get away if a nearby monster has more maxdamage than you have HP.

[quarague]

it is true that monster at range will use some of their turns to move closer to the player (do all monsters do that? some should prefer to stay at range) but in my experience a monster at range would either move towards me or do something like 300-500 damage at range attack, while the same monster standing right next to me would only do around 50 damage per round average attacking me (and still occasionally use the range attack for large damage). So minimizing the damage my char takes is equivalent to minimizing the chance a monster uses its ranged attack, which means I should stand just adjacent to it so that it will use most of its turns on the rather harmless melee attacks.
My issue with that was that while this strategy seems perfectly fine for some monsters it seemed to be the optimal strategy for every single monster I encountered, no matter whether from lore/description it looked more like a fragile ranged attacker or like a melee brawler.

[fizzix]

So minimizing the damage my char takes is equivalent to minimizing the chance a monster uses its ranged attack, which means I should stand just adjacent to it so that it will use most of its turns on the rather harmless melee attacks.

Monsters with ranged attacks have a 1 in N spell chance. That means every turn they have a 1 in N chance of casting a spell or breathing. They choose randomly which spell to cast (exceptions if they are scared). If they do not choose a spell, they move. If they are adjacent to the player, they will melee attack, otherwise they'll move towards the player (if scared, away from the player).

You're comparing a pointless melee attack to an even less damaging move. Also there are monsters that have very strong melee. titans and horned reapers come to mind. There are also monsters with annoying attacks like drain charges or stat drains which a cautious player may wish to avoid.

In general, I do think that some balance can be made, especially in the late game, with buffing melee and reducing ranged damage. This could come with reduction in archery, bolts, and breaths as a function of distance. Maybe... I haven't really thought this through.

[Timo Pietilä]

Certainly. However the point I was trying to make is that, I don't think the 1/24 chance changes whether you are next to the dracolich or far away. So then it's *slightly* better from a damage perspective to be far away from the dracolich than to be next to it. I could be wrong though, it's been a while since I pored over that section of the code.

I think the point of original question was to determine if you should engage monster at distance or wait for it to come at melee around a corner. Especially for strong melee chars like warriors and priests near is better than distance, because then you can kill the opponent faster and that way significantly reduce time used in battle, some others like rangers other way around is true, you don't want to get those extra melee-attacks while you turn opponent into pincushion.

(if you wonder why I count priest as strong melee, saving mana for heals is in many cases way better tactic than use distance spells to dispatch opponents. With enough mana priest can melee pretty much anything to death without needing to retreat to heal)

My example of drujs is that they have (relatively) weak HP but high AC, so hitting them from distance is difficult but they die in melee in no time (with good enough weapon).

[LostTemplar]

Even if the ranged attacks do more damage, the average damage should be higher in melee.

This is allways true due to how a.i. function.
Chance that monster uses ranged attack does not depend on range e.g. if a dragon breaths every 4 turns at range it will be the same at melee. The only difference is that if monster does not use ranged attack it attacks im melee or move towards player depending on range.