Stupid Angband Questions

[Derakon]

Answer me this, Angband gurus.

An iron ball, designed for use in ye old slinge, weighing a hefty one pound, can deliver 1d4 damage. It can be thrown by early-level characters who have no launchers as part of a "keep me alive until I get a launcher" strategy.

Potions are fragile things. If you - or more specifically, the right kind of hound or dragon bat - sneeze on one, it might shatter and break. These things, which weigh a mere four-tenths of a pound, can, however, be hurled at various creatures and do *twice* the damage of a purpose made enemy-bonk weapon.

'Splain?

So far as I'm aware, the only "potions" that deal any remotely significant damage are Flasks of Oil, which you notionally are turning into ad-hoc molotov cocktails. All other potions should only deal 1d1 damage. Looking in object.txt, most of them don't even have a "combat" line...though, oddly, Potions of Augmentation, *Healing*, Life, and *Enlightenment* do. And deal 1d1 damage.

[Moving Pictures]

Ye olde screenshot attached. Potions did 7,7,8; iron shots did 3 and 2.

[Derakon]

Oh, huh. Potions of Confusion deal 3d4 damage; so do Blindness, Sleep, Poison, and Slowness. How odd.

But yeah, most potions only deal 1d1 damage at most.

[Moving Pictures]

Oh, huh. Potions of Confusion deal 3d4 damage; so do Blindness, Sleep, Poison, and Slowness. How odd.

But yeah, most potions only deal 1d1 damage at most.

So, let's see: 2.5*3=7.5, and 20,000/7.5 means 2666 of these to take out Morgoth.
Better rent a mule, methinks.

[Pete Mack]

Potions of blindness and the like are very rare compared to iron shots (or charges on a Wand of Magic Missile). So doing modest damage has minimal gameplay effect. I agree it's Interesting.

[Moving Pictures]

Potions of blindness and the like are very rare compared to iron shots (or charges on a Wand of Magic Missile). So doing modest damage has minimal gameplay effect. I agree it's Interesting.

Oh, it's minimal, but for those first levels, heck - ~8 pts of damage from a potion is by comparison, pretty hefty.

[luneya]

Oh, it's minimal, but for those first levels, heck - ~8 pts of damage from a potion is by comparison, pretty hefty.

Yeah, it exists purely as a way to help non-fighters survive through the first couple character levels. Especially mages, who really can't fight much of anything until they get enough mp to cast a decent amount of magic missiles.

[Drokk]

Hey! Could I get some feedback on my lil' gnome mage?

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=21594

He's down at DL61. Best character I've had so far, really want to see if I can push him to get the win.

[Pete Mack]

Looks good. There is no way you will use a ring of strength at this point, let alone 2. It's only useful pre-stat-gain for a mage. Also, no reason for mushrooms of second sight in inventory. (With those lovely arrows, you'd do better to carry !Heroism or ?Chant/Bless. !Berserk not so much, since it increases fail rates, which is bad for a mid level mage. High level mages can sometimes afford it.)
Edit:
You need CON more than anything else at this point. The way to get it is loot some vaults, which means: avoid everything, and go find some (you may need to go deeper, counterintuitive as this may seem.) Once you're getting to the midgame reliably, it is likely worth buying a bit of CON at the start, at the expense of melee (or STR/spellcasting for a full caster.) It's a shame you lost Nar-i-vagil, as the activation is exactly what you need to get CON, and the INT bonus can be pretty good, too.

[Drokk]

Heh, fair enough.

My house inventory game is pretty weak at this point, so I appreciate the thoughts.

Also, following up with a dumb question:

When a resistance is greyed out on the character screen, does that just mean I haven't found an item with that type of resistance on it yet?

I'm noticing that sound is white, I found an armor with it on there (but opted for my current armor for the nether resistance).

[Pete Mack]

Looks like I posted my edit 2 minutes too late. Do check it. The reason those extra 4 points of INT might help is 0-fail, which is hugely important for a low-HP mage. Zapping monsters with 0-fail TO at a knight's move away as they drain out of a GV is very different from zapping them with 1% fail, let alone 2%, which is pretty much guaranteed to fail at least once on a diagonal vault. In that case, 0-fail is more important than ESP. Wandering around the dungeon, sure: ESP is better.

And one last thing: the rod of TO Is worthless, and the rod of drain life isn't much better. For a mage, the only time saving mana on TO actually matters is while draining a vault. Wands actually are useful for this, and have lower fail rate than rods.

[Sky]

Hey! Could I get some feedback on my lil' gnome mage?

ugh .. no pConf, no pBlind, no speed, and you dont resist chaos or disenchantment .. or shards. At DL61 you are way too low for your gear, even a pack of earth hounds can rip you to shreds.

you also have extra mage books at home which you do not need, instead you should have kept your artifact cloaks, in case you can switch them later for better resists.

mushrooms of ESP need to be with you to be of any use.

[Derakon]

ugh .. no pConf, no pBlind, no speed, and you dont resist chaos or disenchantment .. or shards. At DL61 you are way too low for your gear, even a pack of earth hounds can rip you to shreds.

That's rather overblown in my opinion. All three of those resists are optional, you just need to be careful about what enemies you engage. Plus, with only 262 HP it's not like resists are going to matter if a powerful enemy breathes.

My advice would be:

* Get more CON. You have a lot of it on your gear, which is good; you mostly need more potions. 262 HP is going to get you killed unless you play very smart.
* One of Hithlomir and your shield is redundant; you only need one source of permanent resistance and more don't matter (but you can combo permanent and temporary resistance to get ~90% damage reduction). I'd use the Dwarven armor instead of Hithlomir, for more CON.
* I'd ditch the Cure Serious in favor of more Cure Critical Wounds potions, just to save on a slot. Carry more Phase Door too; scrolls are cheap.
* Inscribe (the '{' command) your scrolls of Destruction with "!*" to get confirmation before doing anything with them. You don't want to typo and accidentally blow up the dungeon.
* Gurthang isn't doing much for you besides permanent poison resistance, and you can cast Resist Poison if you see a drolem / Ancient Multihued Dragon / Great Swamp Wyrm. So keep an eye out for other weapons that have nicer passive abilities, like more CON (surprise! ) or ESP or speed or something.

[Pete Mack]

@derakon--
At 262 HP, single resist rPois isn't worth much.

[Estie]

That's rather overblown in my opinion. All three of those resists are optional, you just need to be careful about what enemies you engage. Plus, with only 262 HP it's not like resists are going to matter if a powerful enemy breathes.

My advice would be:

* Get more CON. You have a lot of it on your gear, which is good; you mostly need more potions. 262 HP is going to get you killed unless you play very smart.
* One of Hithlomir and your shield is redundant; you only need one source of permanent resistance and more don't matter (but you can combo permanent and temporary resistance to get ~90% damage reduction). I'd use the Dwarven armor instead of Hithlomir, for more CON.
* I'd ditch the Cure Serious in favor of more Cure Critical Wounds potions, just to save on a slot. Carry more Phase Door too; scrolls are cheap.
* Inscribe (the '{' command) your scrolls of Destruction with "!*" to get confirmation before doing anything with them. You don't want to typo and accidentally blow up the dungeon.
* Gurthang isn't doing much for you besides permanent poison resistance, and you can cast Resist Poison if you see a drolem / Ancient Multihued Dragon / Great Swamp Wyrm. So keep an eye out for other weapons that have nicer passive abilities, like more CON (surprise! ) or ESP or speed or something.

With 300 hp, I take Hithlomir for the stealth over a measily +2 con every time. Also, Gurthang gives regen, which is great to have when resting for any length of time is dangerous. With that character, I´d use exactly the same setup.