Stupid Angband Questions

[Moving Pictures]

How did I never learn this word? I guess I never used it in writing. I always thought it was "segway" and I never remember ever being told otherwise.

Segue, hornswoggle ... we bring the vocabulary here at Angband.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Aww, don't look up monster history; that's cheating! You got to earn your knowledge through many unhappy deaths.

Some of us old-timers, maybe it's only me, don't have the memories we once had and find it useful to have a memory aid. I've already killed every monster in Angband many times, and before the monster/lore trick, had methodically played several @'s in a row, avoiding as many uniques as possible until getting "probing", then using that on every new monster and unique to create a perfect monster memory savefile (including Father Christmas and his Elves).

I now feel no compunction whatsoever in looking up monster history. I still get confused about Nightwalkers and Nightcrawlers. Which one was it that breathes acid, or is it the one that disenchants...?

[Drokk]

So. I've sent an army of paladins into the dungeons of doom. I'm having a lot of issues just dealing damage. By CL20, i was doing about 20 a round with a +3 +6 spear.

Dex seems to really be the primary obstruction, at least for my dwarf paladins. Do I just need to be running more until I can find some dex gear?

Another stupid question:

Is paladin the best class to learn a magic user? I'm going to dive into some mages so I can do some learning maybe the hard way, but if anyone has some specific recommendations for learning the ways of magic in Angband I'd massively appreciate it.

[Sky]

Plain ol' high elf mage is the way to go. Ultra low fail rate and generous mana pool.
Just dont expect to reach CL50.

[Derakon]

Paladins basically play as warriors with healing magic, and they especially play as warriors for the first 20-30 levels of the game because they don't have the stats to use spells effectively. If you want to learn to play magic users, there's nothing wrong with just going straight for a priest or mage; you should just expect to die a fair amount early on because they (mages especially) have fairly small margins of error.

High-Elf Mages level so slowly, I cannot bear to play them. I'd prefer a gnome or hobbit myself, but there's also an argument to be made for half-trolls! Pretty bad INT (though not so bad that they can't use spells effectively), but their innate regeneration also regenerates SP quickly, and their great physical stats are just as useful for mages as for any other class.

[Pete Mack]

High elf mage is ok up to around cl 35, IF you dive hard and pick fights carefully. But it's a pain reaching a level where Mass Banishment hits 0-fail. You have to kill a ridiculous lot of monsters.

[Drokk]

Going to splat some mages.

Created my first one, had an oh god moment when I smacked a jackal and realized that I only had 8 hp.

I figure the experience of picking my fights will make me better with every character type.

Any good playthroughs anyone can recommend? While I can stumble down to 50 with a warrior no issue, i don't see myself getting to 20 right now.

[Thraalbee]

Use wands a lot until you have plenty of mana. Buy ?recharge when available. Shooters are great as a complement in the beginning too, but not very accurate so keep the distance and bring loads of ammo. An early sling of accuracy or similar is a godsend. Bring 30 ?Phase Doors from town for each trip. Rinse, repeat. Confusion resistance is not critical but you'll want to be able to recover from blindness and confusion, thus loads of curing potions are important. Also a staff of teleportation is helpful but expensive early on. A potion of speed plus some curing potions and a ?teleport is often also a workable escape when attacked by one or more confusion auras

[Drokk]

Right. I guess initially its all about learning a hard lesson on what to engage and when. Once I get to the stage where I have tools to use, then I can move on to dying because Im using those wrong

Thanks for the advice.

Ill splat a couple of gnomes, a couple of hobbits, and post the bones of the one I get the furthest on.

I really love the spells that are available, looking forward to using more of them strategically.

Glass cannon takes on a whole new meaning in Anband; I feel like even at later levels once I have my god-slaying spells, the potential of being one hit by something is still incredibly real.

[Pete Mack]

Don't neglect constitution when initializing the character. Base starting CON of 14 can make a massive difference in the midgame. Eddie Grove wrote a song about it:
All I wanna do
Is find some CON
I got a feeling
I'm not the only one.

[Drokk]

Don't neglect constitution when initializing the character. Base starting CON of 14 can make a massive difference in the midgame. Eddie Grove wrote a song about it:
All I wanna do
Is find some CON
I got a feeling
I'm not the only one.

Hah!

That actually brings me to ask a different stupid question! This one may be stupider than the rest.

Ive just been going with the default point values when creating a character, Im wondering if those have been specifically initialized for a specific class/race combo, or if theyre optimized for maximizing something specific, like blows per round?

Might be nice if the default point values were some generally agreed upon to be solid for an individual class/race so bumbling rookies like me could have a solid initial footing.

[Pete Mack]

No, the starting values are...not quite arbitrary, but tend to be optimized more for
A. Starting characters
B. pure melee
I always move at least 3 points into CON, for example.

[Derakon]

The defaults are generally pretty reasonable, but they do tend to dump CON. Whether, say, 1 extra point of INT is worth 4 points of CON is a tricky question to answer. If you're dying before making it to the midgame, then no, it is not, because CON makes very little difference in your HP until you're able to get a lot of it. If you're dying after that point, though, then it's mostly a question of how long you're willing to wait before you get max CON vs. how valuable that extra point of INT is. CON is HP is what you need to keep from dying, and in the long run you should be maxing it regardless of where you start. Putting a good valuation on how quickly you max it is hard.

[Drokk]

The defaults are generally pretty reasonable, but they do tend to dump CON. Whether, say, 1 extra point of INT is worth 4 points of CON is a tricky question to answer. If you're dying before making it to the midgame, then no, it is not, because CON makes very little difference in your HP until you're able to get a lot of it. If you're dying after that point, though, then it's mostly a question of how long you're willing to wait before you get max CON vs. how valuable that extra point of INT is. CON is HP is what you need to keep from dying, and in the long run you should be maxing it regardless of where you start. Putting a good valuation on how quickly you max it is hard.

Looking around I found an earlier post you wrote about CON which helped put things into perspective.

Really appreciate you super knowledgeable folks swinging by. I think if I pushed it I could win with a warrior, but for some reason Im really hungry now for that mage victory. A lot of short wizards are about to meet their demise.

[Moving Pictures]

why .....

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?