I was one shotted by Kavlax. What just happened?

[Timo Pietilä]

But I got the idea that I was faster than Huan but he could do 2 moves. Or is Huan faster than speed +44?

No, nothing is, but you might have been slowed and Huan hasted. Or something like accidental double-tap on keyboard. We would need an character dump to analyze what happened, and even then it might be mystery.

Was there a shrieker of some sort nearby? Like shrieker mushroom or Crebain?

[Amnekian]

But I got the idea that I was faster than Huan but he could do 2 moves. Or is Huan faster than speed +44?

[Timo Pietilä]

Well, don't!
They still don't tell you everything, but at least something which would make you careful.
In general, the game has some mechanics you can't know about whithout experiencing dangerous situations or death. Nothing tells you about how much damage certain spells or breaths can do and how resistances work.

One of the "gotchas" in angband is stunning. Nothing in game warns you that after "heavily stunned" follows "knocked out" which is basically paralyzation without saving throw to recover. Free Action doesn't help, only pStun prevents that, and since that is rather rare (only crowns of serenity and few rare artifacts are guaranteed to give it) players usually don't have it when they meet monsters that can stun you. Pack of gravity or plasma hounds are deadly. Well, big pack of gravity hounds can kill you in single turn even with pStun so that's another gotcha.

Grand master mystic can KO you in two turns. One, if you are slower than it is.

[Timo Pietilä]

You mean a monster that would never be worth fighting by anyone without abusing LOS shenanigans?

N:548:Guardian Construct
T:golem
C
I:110:4800:20:100:10
W:90:2:0:12000
F:SMART | ATTR_FLICKER
F:NEVER_BLOW | NEVER_MOVE
F:FORCE_SLEEP
S:1_IN_1
S:BR_MANA
D:Huge hideous statue of immerse proportions, it guards passage and
D: dispatch anyone stupid enough to enter its line of sight.

It's a obstacle you need to find way around. Not necessary thing to kill, but it could add something to the dungeon. Get that in interesting vault and you need to figure a way to get rid of it before entering.

[Timo Pietilä]

Actually it's this for acid, cold, lightning, fire, poison and (oddly) time. For all other things it's min(damage cap, monster HP / 6).

Gravity is also HP/3, but with rather low damage cap. Relevant, because Kavlax breathes gravity. 1300/3 is 433 which hits the damage cap of 200, but it also means that you can damage Kavlax to half of its HP and it still does 200 points of damage with that breath.

Good thing that nothing breathes raw mana (cap 1600, /3, no resists).

[Timo Pietilä]

Kavlax is one of Angband's gotcha monsters. I'm not a big fan of gotcha monsters, but he's a big one. Other gotcha monsters are Ancient multi-hued dragons, drolems, Osse (although he's a lot tamer than Azriel), the Tarrasque and probably some more.

I think Kavlax is biggest "gotcha monster" because it is represented as minor dragon. I think it should be "D" instead of "d". It is more dangerous than early "D" uniques (smaller, but with way more deadly breaths).

Taking Kavlax early and allowing it to have first turn is a bit Russian roulette, if it doesn't use its most deadly breaths immediately you can kill it, if it does, you are toast.

[EDIT] typo fixed

[Raxmei]

First off, I hope it is ok to just post here my questions instead of flooding the forum with them.

Ok, so I spent my afternoon playing angband and I got from DL 60 to DL72. I need some advice. I think I am very tough but my firepower is very low. My OoD does not kill summoning monsters quick enough to end the battle before they have the chance to do so.

...

What are some good strategies to deal with summoners?

At DL 60 you're past the point that OoD falls behind in damage output. Tactics shift to luring monsters into winding passages where you can face them one on one in close combat. The antisummoning corridor is a major part of late game tactics. It prevents anyone who doesn't have LOS to you from summoning and mostly lets you avoid getting ganged up on. By this point you should be good enough at digging to make your own even without a dedicated digging implement and monsters are mostly dumb enough to walk right into you.

There are a few things nasty enough that you don't want to do this with. You just noticed disenchanting melee attacks. Thankfully these tend to be rare. If you simply must fight them and don't have the relevant resistance it's obviously preferable to do the old shoot and scoot.

[LostTemplar]

Yes, angband characters are never too powerfull, so next time don't overprepare, try win fast. Gaining that extra shining piece of equipment never saves.

[Amnekian]

Welp, died against Huan. Guess he really enjoyed breathing shards. Funny, because I found it in a vault when I was at DL60. When I saw that he was native to DL90 I stood the hell away from it. Guess I should've backed off again. I had +44 speed, yet he seemed to move faster.

[Derakon]

So that means I can test the waters on Sauron and I get my ass kicked I'll Recall out of there...right? God I soooo want to win this thing.

Correct. Also if you recall from 4900' (level 98) then you can reset your recall depth to there so you won't recall back to 4950'.

[Amnekian]

So that means I can test the waters on Sauron and I get my ass kicked I'll Recall out of there...right? God I soooo want to win this thing.

[LostTemplar]

Unless changed in 3.5 nothing special, as well as dlvl 100. recall is possible, going upstairs too and you can destruct Sauron and explore level normally.

[Amnekian]

What about heading back for town?

[LostTemplar]

Nothing. Sauron may appear, but teleporting away works on him.

[Amnekian]

I don't know. I want to improve my gear before facing Sauron. If I go to DL99 what happens?