Overloaded dilemma

[ChrysFox]

I'm in need of some advice from my fellow adventurers
Running a Gnome Rogue, and I'm packed solid, to the point I need to drop stuff to get stuff, and I've been ending up reading my ?Recall off the floor.

At the moment, I'm carrying so much stuff, mainly potions, arrows and rings, that I'm running out of room for my Magic Books. I'm not carrying Sorcery & Evocations, because it doesn't seem all that useful to Grendalynn.

I've already dropped my Slings and what's left of my magical pebbles in favor of the Bow I got off a rather out of depth Law Drake on my previous trip down.
But I'm thinking it's time to settle on one hand weapon. Question is, which one ?
The Broad Axe 'Barukkheled' or the Cutlass 'Gondricam' ? Both have their good points and bad points. I think the Axe hits harder, but the Dex boost I get with Gondricam increases my hits over misses, so they sort of even out. (I think).
I'd like to keep my Shovel of Digging (for now, at least), since it carves through granite walls like a hot knife through butter.


Ladder: http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=16674

Gladly welcome any advice other than weapons choices, too

Thanks

[Derakon]

Okay, some general advice:

* Those rings aren't doing anything useful for you. Find Rings of Strength or Damage for preference. The more STR and DEX you have, the more attacks you get each round, which drastically improves your ability to kill things. Right now your melee is pretty weak, which means shooting things is your best offense...but that's not really something you can do to every enemy you meet.

* That amulet is pretty useless too. You're a rogue; you don't get much benefit from WIS. Regeneration is pretty handy (if you decide to switch out Gondricam, anyway). Failing that, Infravision can be surprisingly helpful.

* You should be leaving more consumables at home. What you bring with you should be about what you expect to use on any given trip, plus a buffer in case things start going poorly. I generally bring 15 Cure Serious/Critical Wounds potions (only one stack -- don't bother bringing both types), no Heroism potions, 5 Word of Recall scrolls (what if your only scroll gets burned?).

* You have a ton of attack rods in your inventory. Are these really competitive with your bow?

* Lose the Rods of Curing. Drink a potion if you need to clear status ailments. Potions have a 0% failure rate.

* The Rings of Acid are pretty useless too. I guess you keep them around to swap in and activate? Given you're at 1450' that'll still work for a bit, but it's not a great long-term strategy. First, because you want your ring slots for things that give you more useful bonuses, and second, because it takes two turns to swap a ring in and then activate it.

* Use Barukkheled for the damage, and leave Gondricam at home. Once you get your STR up, Gondricam may surpass it in damage, since it's a lighter weapon and thus easier to get multiple blows with.

* There's zero point in stockpiling spare books at home. The magic store has an infinite supply, and you have 62k gold already, so you'll never be unable to afford to buy replacements.

* Neutralize Poison is completely superceded by Cure Critical Wounds.

* Boldness is completely superceded by Heroism.

* Holy crap you have a Ring of Speed why are you not wearing it. Put that sucker on and never let it leave your finger except to be replaced by a bigger one! +7 speed makes you 70% better at literally everything you do.

* Incidentally, that Dagger of Slay Troll you have in your home does better damage than Barukkheled does, because it gets multiple blows/round.

* Those slings and pebbles aren't worth keeping.

Hope this helps! Really, equip that speed ring and your dagger and you should find it far easier to kill things. Never underestimate the power of being faster than your opponent.

[ChrysFox]

Okay, some general advice:

* Those rings aren't doing anything useful for you. Find Rings of Strength or Damage for preference. ... Right now your melee is pretty weak, which means shooting things is your best offense...but that's not really something you can do to every enemy you meet.
<nod> Now I know better - I left a =Damage behind - won't do that again.
Yeah, I arch out of game, too, so I'm used to shooting my problems before they can get near me

* That amulet is pretty useless too. You're a rogue; you don't get much benefit from WIS. Regeneration is pretty handy (if you decide to switch out Gondricam, anyway). Failing that, Infravision can be surprisingly helpful.
Haven't found Regeneration yet, mostly Resist Acid, and Wisdoms keep showing up. I didn't think of adding to Infravision, since I have it as a race attribute

* You should be leaving more consumables at home. ... 5 Word of Recall scrolls (what if your only scroll gets burned?).
I generally do have 5-8 ?Recall, but when I did the dump, most of them were on the floor a few rooms away so they wouldn't get burnt in a firefight.
Lighten up on the medicine cabinet - gotcha.


* You have a ton of attack rods in your inventory. Are these really competitive with your bow?
I think so, since I use them as a rapid repeater. I might not need 7 all of them, though I keep finding new ones in the hallway
I don't have a lightning attack in arrows yet, but I'll seriously consider dumping them when I do.

* The Rings of Acid are pretty useless too. I guess you keep them around to swap in and activate?
I've only got 2 right now because mine was in inventory when I stumbled across another.
Yes, that's exactly what I do with the rings, Activate and blast, then swap out; I recharge them later. I've used their resists, too - at this point, rings are much more reliable than my spells

* There's zero point in stockpiling spare books at home. The magic store has an infinite supply, and you have 62k gold already, so you'll never be unable to afford to buy replacements.
Okay. Valid point - I started with Moria, where spellbooks were rare and hard to come by past the first one. I'm not used to an endless supply of the basics.

* Use Barukkheled for the damage, and leave Gondricam at home. Once you get your STR up, Gondricam may surpass it in damage, since it's a lighter weapon and thus easier to get multiple blows with.

* Incidentally, that Dagger of Slay Troll you have in your home does better damage than Barukkheled does, because it gets multiple blows/round.
Really ? It didn't look that way, when I looked at the damage stats. Maybe I wasn't understanding it correctly. I guess I'll be taking it out again for a while, then.

* Holy crap you have a Ring of Speed why are you not wearing it. Put that sucker on and never let it leave your finger except to be replaced by a bigger one! +7 speed makes you 70% better at literally everything you do.
Ah. I haven't had it long, and I didn't realize quite how it worked. Gluing it on before the next trip down.

* Those slings and pebbles aren't worth keeping.
Figured as much, but they were such NICE toys

Hope this helps! Really, equip that speed ring and your dagger and you should find it far easier to kill things. Never underestimate the power of being faster than your opponent.

Thankies - that's exactly the kind of advice I was looking for. It's been a LOOOONG time since I crawled down into a dungeon, deliberately looking for trouble <LOL>

[Derakon]

Regarding attack items: they're taking up space in your inventory. 7 rods of Lightning Bolt aren't that bad because that's still only 1 slot, but the others might not be so helpful. Though I have to say, that Rod of Drain Life is nice -- 150 damage against any living target is quite useful. And of course if you have nothing better to do with your inventory then they aren't really harming you, so long as the load doesn't slow you down. But realistically, you're best-served in the long run to optimize your weapon and bow damage, rather than your magic item damage, because the latter doesn't scale well for you. It'd be a different story if you were a mage.

For weapons, remember to 'I'nspect them, which gives you a breakdown of how much damage the weapon does against all relevant enemy types. You get multiple blows/round with the Dagger, and every one of those blows gets all of your equipment bonuses applied to it. The stats line for the weapon itself is not sufficient information.

For example, say you have +10 to-damage from STR and a Ring of Damage, and you're comparing a 1d1 (+0, +0) stick (4 blows/round) to a 2d8 (+0, +6) maul (1 blow/round). The stick gives you (1 + 0 + 10)*4 = 44 damage/round. The maul gives you, on average, (9 + 6 + 10)*1 = 25 damage/round. This is a big part of why Rings of Damage are so useful, and why you want to be emphasizing STR and DEX gains.

[Timo Pietilä]

damage/round. This is a big part of why Rings of Damage are so useful, and why you want to be emphasizing STR and DEX gains.

... STR also increases your damage output, not just blows. 18/200 -> 18/220 increases damage by four. Below that by one/10 points over 18/100 and below that some points every now and then.

Total what you can get from STR alone is 20.

So Ring of STR +6 might actually give you more than RoDam +10 if it does both: adds to blows and damage.

[MattB]

My current warrior (clvl24) is doing 71 damage per round with his fists, which is more than with some weapons.

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=16693

[fizzix]

But realistically, you're best-served in the long run to optimize your weapon and bow damage, rather than your magic item damage, because the latter doesn't scale well for you. It'd be a different story if you were a mage.

I'm not sure this is true. Rogues have the second best device skill and I think gnomes as a class have the highest innate bonus. If they can't use wands/rods effectively, then we've messed up with the weightings.

[Derakon]

I'm not sure this is true. Rogues have the second best device skill and I think gnomes as a class have the highest innate bonus. If they can't use wands/rods effectively, then we've messed up with the weightings.

Mage gets 36+1.3*level to device skill; Rogue gets 32+level to device skill. I guess that's not such a huge difference -- only 19 points by level 50. Race only affects starting skill, not skill gain per level (Gnomes do get +22, which is the largest boost; High-Elves have +20 and Hobbits have +18). I was going to say that INT makes a bigger difference, but it turns out the INT bonus to device skill doesn't scale with level, and caps out at only +13 at 18/220 INT! That seems kind of minimal.

So, yeah, go nuts with your devices, I guess. Mages will still have a major advantage here in that they can reliably and cheaply cast Recharge Item though. And Rogues are good enough at combat that it's likely to be a preferable primary offense most of the time.

[MattB]

My current warrior (clvl24) is doing 71 damage per round with his fists, which is more than with some weapons.

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=16693

Yep, I've just checked in at the weapon shop.
I'm currently using bare fists which give me 3.4 blows at 1d1+20.
This is twice as much as a Broad Sword (+5,+4).
Hell, I'm doing more damage to trolls with my hands than the Lance of Slay Troll (2d8) (+5,+8)!
(Which doesn't seem quite right to me.)

[HallucinationMushroom]

For how long has Vanilla allowed for multiple blows barehanded? Has this always been the case? I thought it was just one attack.

[Timo Pietilä]

For how long has Vanilla allowed for multiple blows barehanded? Has this always been the case? I thought it was just one attack.

I think somewhere in 3.x series. Before that barehanded definitely was one blow and no more.