Advice needed, please

[Remuz]

Hi all,

After playing a lot of Tales of Maj'Eyal, I decided to come back a bit to my roots, and was surprised to see that angband 3.5.0 was out. I must say, I love the new features, and am having a blast so far.

Currently playing this guy :

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=16408

I am at dlvl 42, and things seem easy. One real close call, because of a vault, which I had to leave untouched. Big guys(AMHD, U), I can handle with a potion of speed or two. My main problems right now is that I am in the middle of stat gain, and I lack some speed.

Could you guys please give me sone advice as to what I should do? Should I dive? Should I wait until i find more stat potions and feel stronger?

Thanks!

[quarague]

I've never really played warriors, but here goes anyways.
Looking through your equipment, it seems you use a helm of telepathy as your only means of monster detection, there are a bunch of monsters not detected by telepathy, not sure who relevant/ dangerous they are at this stage.
Your equipment seems fine, all the major things covered, the only thing lacking is speed. I think a bunch of stat potions will make your character stronger, but not drastically so. If you had say +10 speed from some item you could dive quite aggressivly, as is dive slowly and wait for luck to get some speed. Depths seems around right for your level.
So I wouldn't wait around, speed items become much more common the deeper you get, better have a ring of speed drop by a goblin at 4000 feet than fight all the nasties around 2000 feet

[jford_2505@hotmail.com]

I think it's mostly the golems that can be a problem who aren't detected by telepathy (drolem at your dl, and later bone golems and bronze golems). I guess vortices and Q-things can also be a nuisance.

With that many HP and all the necessary resistances I think you could dive a bit deeper, but be ready to run away from anything like a great wyrm, or nasty undead thing until you get your speed up.

[Raajaton]

You've got better gear than I tend to have when I'm at that level. You are in pretty good shape to continue down. As the others have already stated, just continue with caution. With any luck you'll find a Rod of Detection soon, which will help immensely with avoiding instadeaths. Finding speed items is fairly rare at that depth, so diving deeper is definitely the way to go.

[Remuz]

Thanks a lot for all your replies, this helps immensively. Indeed, the most annoying critters not detected by telepathy are 'Q's and 'g's, and even those are fine. I tend to play fairly cautiously, with lots of retreating and repositonning.
All in all, my biggest threat has been hell hounds, who lure me in the open when I don't want to, and burn all my scrolls. Big Gs (dread and dreadmaster) I found scarry at first, but are a good source of xp.

Oh, and before I could hit the submit button to post my reply, I found a rod of detection in the black market.

[Raajaton]

I tend to avoid hellhounds entirely unless I have fire immunity. I don't believe they can even drop anything, and generally speaking the scrolls and staves they destroy is hardly worth whatever exp they offer.

[krazyhades]

If you want to fight hellhounds (or other item destroyers/charge drainers, for that matter, such as balrogs) for their tasty tasty XP and drop chance (hellhounds don't drop items, but balrogs drop many), you can drop your staves and whatnot on the ground away from any tramplers/hit-to-earthquake/pick-up-item monsters and then take them out.

It's pretty safe and easy to do, just kindof an annoyance mechanically. And of course if you're for whatever reason forced to teleport, you may have trouble retrieving your stash.

[MattB]

I tend to avoid hellhounds entirely unless I have fire immunity. I don't believe they can even drop anything, and generally speaking the scrolls and staves they destroy is hardly worth whatever exp they offer.

I, for one, don't find them that easy to avoid!

[Raajaton]

I, for one, don't find them that easy to avoid!

With Telepathy and a Rod of Detection they are fairly easily avoidable. You should have ample warning when they're nearby to try to avoid those rooms. If they're pathing to me, I tend to just TP to somewhere else on the level. There have been instances where there were multiple packs of hellhounds on a level, and to that I say fuck it and just go down the stairs.

[Mark]

There have been instances where there were multiple [SCARY THINGS] on a level, and to that I say fuck it and just go down the stairs

Ah, the under-appreciated way of staying alive. I imagine this attitude as doubled the life-expectancy of most of my characters.

[Remuz]

Just try not to do it too often, or you might end up lower than you want to be.

[Timo Pietilä]

I tend to avoid hellhounds entirely unless I have fire immunity. I don't believe they can even drop anything, and generally speaking the scrolls and staves they destroy is hardly worth whatever exp they offer.

They are not very tough to kill. With a fast killing method and double-resistances they don't burn much, especially if you use the pack AI in your advantage (they stay in a room, and don't chase you). Rods of acid balls and good bow & arrows makes them easy XP. I categorize them as minor nuisance.

[Derakon]

They are not very tough to kill. With a fast killing method and double-resistances they don't burn much, especially if you use the pack AI in your advantage (they stay in a room, and don't chase you). Rods of acid balls and good bow & arrows makes them easy XP. I categorize them as minor nuisance.

I don't know how much you've been playing lately; they got a buff in one of the last few versions and have considerably more HP than they used to (or else they show up sooner in the dungeon; same effective difference). They're noticeably more annoying to deal with, anyway.

[krazyhades]

Timo, I have a new conduct run for you: blindfolded.

[MattB]

I don't know how much you've been playing lately; they got a buff in one of the last few versions and have considerably more HP than they used to (or else they show up sooner in the dungeon; same effective difference). They're noticeably more annoying to deal with, anyway.

But in fewer numbers, I believe... [?]
I guess that's why I fight them more often now* - they're not level-killers any more.

* Just checked: my current rogue (cl40:dl69) has killed 18 of them. Mind you, I seem to be running low on arrows...