High lvl Mages

[Inquisitivephysicsguy]

Hi, I have a lvl 34 Mage who is currently roaming around dlvl 34-36, he's maximized all of his statistics, has attained all four of the primary resistances, has free action, confusion, and blind resistance. He also has +9 speed which can be easily enhanced to +19. I don't have poison resistance yet, which concerns me, as I've already seen my first Drolem (I avoided him like the plague "A giant dragon construct /w little intelligence" == dead Mage w/o Poison Resist)
I've never been below dlvl 35 before, I have a good feeling about this mage and I'd hate to see him die..
What do you recommend? Any survival tips? I would appreciate any input...

[new.ideas]

I had only to Chars below that depth and I think they were the only ones that had rPoison - I think rPoison ist *very* vital. You should find a RorPoision at that depth.

[Inquisitivephysicsguy]

Alright, thx new.ideas I finally found a ring of poison resist at 2050 ft, so I replaced my ring of protection +13 with that PoiResist, that should increase my lifespan a little, anyways...
My weaknesses are now dark,shard,nexus,chaos, and nether. Is there anything dangerous at this depth that's likely to kill me with any of these?

[Dramed]

On Important Depths:

There are certain depths in the dungeon beyond which it is important to have a certain resist or attribute. The depths given here are guidelines, and should not be taken literally. However, if you decide to go past the depth without the attribute, be very careful and don't complain if you get the dreaded "It breathes -more- You are dead" message.

1000': Free Action, See Invisible
1250': Basic four Resistances
1900': Maxxed Stats, Confusion Resistance, Blindness Resistance
2000': Poison Resistance
2500': Hold Life
2700': Chaos Resistance, Nether Resistance
3000': Permanent and Temporary Speed of +20 or greater
4000': Permanent + Temporary Speed of +30 or greater
4950': As much as you can get. Sustains, Speed, every resistance,

Notes:

If you have high infravision, you can probably hold off on See Invisible for a few levels. Not very many, however; Ghosts start showing up soon, and they're cold-blooded.
Without Free Action you are very dead. Carrion Crawlers (among other monsters) have a melee paralyzation attack, which can keep you immobile until death. Also, monsters start getting the paralyze spell about here. Nothing is more aggravating than watching a puny monster slowly kill your character as you watch, helpless.
Confusion and Blindness resistance are vital. If you have these, you can rely on scrolls of Teleportation to get you out of any situation. Before this, you need Staves of Teleportation which can be activated when blinded or confused, although with a decent failure rate. Scrolls are fail-safe.
Poison Resistance is necessary because two monsters, Ancient Multi-Hued Dragons, and Drolems, start showing up at about depth. Both of these monsters breath poison for huge amounts of damage (700 and 800 points, respectively).
Hold Life is very nice, but not important. If you can't get it, carry lots of Potions of Restore Life Levels.
Chaos Resistance is *vital*. It also covers Confusion Resistance (at least in versions before version 2.8.5 od Vanilla Angband).

This is from The Angband Newbie Guide, probably not still current, but it may help.

[Pete Mack]

Alright, thx new.ideas I finally found a ring of poison resist at 2050 ft, so I replaced my ring of protection +13 with that PoiResist, that should increase my lifespan a little, anyways...
My weaknesses are now dark,shard,nexus,chaos, and nether. Is there anything dangerous at this depth that's likely to kill me with any of these?

Not with maxxed stats and +10 permanent speed. If you have Resistances of Scarabatrices, you are good to go a lot deeper. Max breath damage from Nether is 550, from chaos is 500, and from the others is 400. You are safe.

Do stay away from anything that looks dangerous and 'moves very quickly'.

[AceRimmer]

My experience of dying at your depths is that it happens all at once due to lack of resistance -- most recently, it was Azriel and nether.

The guidelines on resistance and depths are nice, but you hate to hang around the dungeon getting bored while waiting for chaos or nether or disenchant or whatever... so, just be very careful. Know what can kill you. And if, like me, you don't want to rely on spoilers and you don't know that Azriel *breathes* nether...

Well, then be extra very careful.

Note: the other thing besides non-resistance that seems to kill other really good characters is grand master mystics (still a bit deeper for you). Don't mess with anything that goes by the name of 'mystic'.

[Inquisitivephysicsguy]

Alright, thank you for the input... My lucky streak has continued, I just ran into checkerboard vault... in it I found Ringil, Evenstar, and the gloves of Fingolfin, I'm quite happy with this, my speed can now be increased up to +28. (And yes, I have every spellook except for the last one...)

I'm a little nervous, when the RNG is this "nice" it's usually about to kill me in some awfully embarrassing way... so whenever I even *SMELL* gravity hounds, I'll leave the level...

Again, thank you for the advice...

[Garrie]

Alright, thank you for the input... My lucky streak has continued, I just ran into checkerboard vault... in it I found Ringil, Evenstar, and the gloves of Fingolfin, I'm quite happy with this, my speed can now be increased up to +28. (And yes, I have every spellook except for the last one...)

I'm a little nervous, when the RNG is this "nice" it's usually about to kill me in some awfully embarrassing way... so whenever I even *SMELL* gravity hounds, I'll leave the level...

Again, thank you for the advice...

Gravity hounds SUCK!!! talk about mega-@-killers...

[pav]

Too bad Vanilla does not list the monster that killed you in the character dump. But NPP and FA do, so I did a query over the dumps on a Ladder and the top @ killer is ... poison. Black orcs and master yeeks also seems to be quite successful. From the uniques top scores for Vecna, Scatha, Lokkah and Azathoth.

[CunningGabe]

Too bad Vanilla does not list the monster that killed you in the character dump.

This seems like a good and easy enough idea - I added it as a feature request to the bugtracker.

[Inquisitivephysicsguy]

Well, I HAVE seen Scatha, he makes my nose cold, but I beefed up my resistances and stabbed him to death with Anduril (which I was using at the time) It's usually a pretty close encounter when I run into a demi-lich, so I think I'll run away from Vecna if I see him untill I get at least +30 permanent speed and nether resistance...
Is there a depth that makes nether resistance necessary? I've read posts from multi-ascenders (people who have beaten angband multiple times) and they say that you don't need nether resistance to beat the game... I once descended into a dungeon and Azriel was standing right next to me... he got his first hit off of me before I could react, so I went right back up the stairs... That encounter could have killed my mage, I think...