Returning to Angband; Some Questions...

[earthcrosser599]

Hello,

After the fact I realize this is quite long. Sorry if I ramble.

I've been playing Angband off and on for about ten years or so, never having gotten very far. My last attempt at seriously beating it was about four years ago and ended poorly.

Several days ago I decided to give it another try and saw that a new version was up so I downloaded it and started playing. I haven't ever had success with caster-type people so I went with a dwarf fighter.

I hope I did this correctly; here's his dump: http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=15968

I'm much further into the game than I've ever gotten before, and I'm not sure if it's because of new aspects of this version. I don't remember not being able to sell stuff to the vendors but I also don't remember anywhere near as much gold dropping. I hope I'm not jinxing it, but it has been far easier than previous plays through; I've had a few close calls but they've been in situations where I'm like literally surrounded by uniques and an ancient dragon or two, and I know I'm not that good at this game since I play it so infrequently. I don't know if my gear is good but I've never had anything remotely close to this stuff before so I'm operating under the assumption that it's at least average.

Questions: I've read enough about the game to know that sooner or later I'm going to start being in danger of being 1-shot'd by long-range breath weapons, and again, I've never gotten quite this far before. When do I need to start looking out for those?

I think my home inventory shows a bunch of elemental damage rings. I used to wear these because they gave me a sort of ranged attack that could handle groups of monsters like the hounds, but I replaced them with the damage rings because I was starting to run into more and more things that I couldn't kill quickly in melee. The hounds still seem to appear in almost every level. Are these elemental rings worth holding on to? Also, do the hounds ever stop spawning if you get deeper into the dungeon?

I'm noticing less and less in the way of useful things in town as I go back; I generally want scrolls of Identify and Cure Critical Wounds from the regular stores, but those seem to hardly ever show up anymore. Do the stores stop carrying these as you get deeper into the dungeon?

As a side note, some of the new information being presented to me is extremely useful. Coming from a history of tabletop RPGs, I don't think I ever figured out the real differences in damage between lighter weapons and heavier ones in Angband. I'm sure this plays a large part in why this current run has been so much more successful.

[dstyle]

At this point I would advise looking out for items to give you poison and nether resistance; it probably won't be long before you're running into drolems and dracolisks and other nasty breathers. Those will be your primary danger at this stage of the game.

Personally, I would dump the elemental rings. Damage is a better choice for the ring slot (generally, offense > defense). IMO the only things better than damage for the ring slots are rings of speed, constitution, artifact rings, or something that covers a critical hole in resistance (ie. resist poison for you)

Zephyr hounds never really stop spawning but they do seem to get less frequent as you go deeper, but are replaced by more powerful monsters. I've seen jackals and novice warriors spawn on level 90.

[UglySquirrell]

Looking good, but like "dstyle" said you absolutely have to get Poison resistance, nether as well if you don't know what breathes it yet.

Play carefully and assume that any new creature (Especially Uniques) can and will kill you. Use double resistances and other buffs until you know what you can handle. I also reccommend just to leave vaults alone until you have all your resistances covered. I play pretty carefully though.

This is a great thread, also about Warriors:

http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=5462

[MattB]

My first piece of advice is:

find telepathy, at all costs!

Secondly (and as your strength is nearly maxed this is too late for this character), as a warrior I like to drink one each of the potions of nimbleness, brawn and toughness at a time. That way the worst you can end up with is a net result of -1/+1/+1, and you'd have to be unlucky to get that result. Once you're in statgain proper, squelch them.

FWIW...

[Timo Pietilä]

Secondly (and as your strength is nearly maxed this is too late for this character), as a warrior I like to drink one each of the potions of nimbleness, brawn and toughness at a time. That way the worst you can end up with is a net result of -1/+1/+1, and you'd have to be unlucky to get that result. Once you're in statgain proper, squelch them.

STR +1 DEX -1
DEX +1 CON -1
CON +1 STR -1
0, 0, 0

Or

STR +1 DEX -1
DEX +1 STR -1
CON +1 STR -1
-1, 0, +1

as worst case.

Can't get -1, +1, +1: net result from them working against each other is always +-0.

If you get them all working against WIS or INT then you can get +1,+1,+1. Chances are that at least one of them does that is quite high.

[MattB]

STR +1 DEX -1
DEX +1 CON -1
CON +1 STR -1
0, 0, 0

Or

STR +1 DEX -1
DEX +1 STR -1
CON +1 STR -1
-1, 0, +1

as worst case.

Can't get -1, +1, +1: net result from them working against each other is always +-0.

If you get them all working against WIS or INT then you can get +1,+1,+1. Chances are that at least one of them does that is quite high.

Oops - that's what I meant!
Thanks for clarifying.

[jford_2505@hotmail.com]

If you come across a monster called the grand master mystic, DO NOT ATTACK IT! Run away! Do not let it hit you. They have the annoying habit of knocking you out, and then killing you slowly while you watch on helplessly.

Concerning poison resistance, to put things into perspective, the Ancient multi-hued dragon at full health can breath poison for 616 damage, and the drolem 733 damage; both enough to kill you in one hit. With poison resist, this damage is reduced to ~206 and 245 respectively.

For other unknown uniques or deep-dwelling dragons/demons, it's best to assume that they can hit you for ~533 damage in one attack (that's even with the appropriate resistances), and if they're faster than you (as most aforementioned monsters are), then they have the potential to kill you before you get a turn.

Also, to avoid stupid deaths, after swapping even a single item of equipment, I always go back and check that I have the essentials: rAcid, rElec, rFire, rCold, rPois, FrAct covered. (pConf and pBlnd too unless you have staves of teleportation).

[EpicMan]

Doesn't unresisted poison breath just outright kill you, regardless of hp, or am I thinking of some other game / varient? No

Edit: It doesn't kill you, unless it does more damage than your HP. I can't find reference to that in ToME2 or Zangband, either. No idea where I got that idea from.

[Derakon]

Doesn't unresisted poison breath just outright kill you, regardless of hp, or am I thinking of some other game / varient?

Some other game. Nothing in Angband outright kills you; it's all done by doing more damage than you currently have HP. If it did outright kill you, then Air Hounds would be the most reviled monster in the game...

[Timo Pietilä]

Doesn't unresisted poison breath just outright kill you, regardless of hp, or am I thinking of some other game / varient? No

Edit: It doesn't kill you, unless it does more damage than your HP. I can't find reference to that in ToME2 or Zangband, either. No idea where I got that idea from.

Nethack unresisted disintegration breath from black dragon?

[Patashu]

Doesn't unresisted poison breath just outright kill you, regardless of hp, or am I thinking of some other game / varient? No

Edit: It doesn't kill you, unless it does more damage than your HP. I can't find reference to that in ToME2 or Zangband, either. No idea where I got that idea from.

You might think of Nethack's poison, which is prone to instakilling if you lack poison resistance.

[EpicMan]

You might think of Nethack's poison, which is prone to instakilling if you lack poison resistance.

I think that is what I was remembering.