New player. Am I doing it right?

[Skebet]

Hi all. I hope this is an appropriate thread for this forum. So I'm playing my first game of Angband. I have a lot of experience with unforgiving games but never played roguelikes before. This site has been an awesome source of information, but as I begin to actually start feeling invested in my character I think I could use some advice. So here's where I'm at (clvl 28, dlvl 34) EDIT: now clvl 35, dlvl 45

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=17208

I think I got lucky getting a weapon with telepathy pretty early, so I swap between that most of the time and Sting for actual fighting. Also holding onto Firestar for the fire immunity - which I imagine will come in handy (swap in for fire monsters I guess).

As a new player I have been methodically clearing every dungeon level, but I see a lot here about "diving." Is that the way to go? And of course the follow-up question is how far should one go? Any other important advice? What holes should I worry about with my character?

Thank you all for any guidance.
S

EDIT: update posted below.
EDIT: Ringil dropped on dlvl 45. Didn't even know was something to look forward to. And I thought I was happy with Anduril!

[Bogatyr]

Hi all. I hope this is an appropriate thread for this forum. So I'm playing my first game of Angband. I have a lot of experience with unforgiving games but never played roguelikes before. This site has been an awesome source of information, but as I begin to actually start feeling invested in my character I think I could use some advice. So here's where I'm at (clvl 28, dlvl 34)

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=17208

I think I got lucky getting a weapon with telepathy pretty early, so I swap between that most of the time and Sting for actual fighting. Also holding onto Firestar for the fire immunity - which I imagine will come in handy (swap in for fire monsters I guess).

As a new player I have been methodically clearing every dungeon level, but I see a lot here about "diving." Is that the way to go? And of course the follow-up question is how far should one go? Any other important advice? What holes should I worry about with my character?

Thank you all for any guidance.
S

I think one of the hardest lessons for me to learn was: 1) don't feel obligated to the level. See something there you're not ready for or that can 1-shot kill you? Just leave. There will always be other vaults, there will always be more treasure just waiting for you on the next level. Rods of probing are incredibly valuable for learning the types of attacks and resistances of the monsters. Another critical one: 2) Fight not going well? You're not doing enough damage versus what you're receiving? Run away. You'll be more powerful later, with a better damage dealing/more speed. 3) speed is everything. You can beat all but a handful of monsters in the game simply by being faster than them.

[Derakon]

Yeah, don't get too attached to any one dungeon level. There will always be more levels; Angband is fairly unique among roguelikes in that it regenerates levels every time you visit them. So there's no real reason to kill everything and identify every piece of loot. I know I had issues with the "But what if I miss something?" problem back in the day. But you're always missing something by choosing to play on this level vs. any of the other levels you could be looking at. Unless you know for a fact that this level has something that you need to check out, there's nothing special about it.

[bio_hazard]

Great job getting as far as you have as a new player. Well done!

[Tibarius]

welcome Skebet

Greetings and welcome in the Angband Society and to a great game. The good Thing about the game is, you can Play it in the Speed you like to. I would say your Equipment is very good for your Level, few things should Show up on dlvl34 that are able to realy one-shoot kill you.

Rangers get a 2nd shoot with bows at Level 20 and a 3rd shoot with bows (per round) at clvl40. So maybe look out to replace the heavy crossbow versus a bow (of power / of accuracy) maybe. Bows work differently than melee attacks in calculating damage. Your heavy crossbow will do (with normal ammunition) 4x9 damage per shot (=36), so 72 per turn. A Long bow of power (+10,+15) will do around 3x15=45 damage per shot, 90 per turn and 135 per turn on c.Level 40. That is remarkable more.

If you find Equipment with Speed, use it. As mentioned before in the thread, Speed is most likely the most powerfull Equipment, besides having a natural con 18/100. With enough Speed, you always have time to heal up, teleport away, and you take much less damage. If you fight a Monster that is fast(+10) and yourself has Speed (0,=normal) then it can attack you twice per round with all ist attacks. If you raise your Speed to 10, you are as quick as the Monster and it can only "nomally" attack you. So you halved the damage you will take from the Monster.

Resistances: you covered already a good deal of them. The two nastiest are not covered tho - Nexus and Chaos. What can happen if you get attacked with those Magics?
Nexus: besides doing damage Nexus attacks can
a) teleport you on the Level, b randomly Exchange your stats (!) (i.e. swap strength versus int and vice versa).
b) chaos has hallucination as possible side effect.
Both very nasty things. If you find Equipment that offers resistances to this type of attcks, i would wear it. I would consider them more important that light, dark, Sound or shard.
the side effect of light is, that it can you blind, but since you got already pBlind, that does not Trouble you.

If you stumble across +con Equipment i would consider wearing it, even it reduces your damage Output slightly. Better have 500hp and 250 dam/round than having 300hp and 500 dam/round. The difference of 200 hp could save your live if you get a high damage attack on you.

So in conclusion i would say you can move 10 more Levels down without getting too nervous. But then the first quick Monsters will Show up. On the other Hand, if i see what uniques you already killed - i find that quite impressing for that clvl.

Good luck and don't be too disappointed if the char shouldn't make it to winner Status - it is so damned easy to make a stupid move in this game

[Timo Pietilä]

As a new player I have been methodically clearing every dungeon level, but I see a lot here about "diving." Is that the way to go?

The way to go is whatever is most fun to you.

Diving teaches you to be better, but I find diving tedious which leads to boredom. Might be fun couple of times, but that's it. However there are several people here that "dive" almost excusively, so I guess it doesn't get boring to everyone.

[quarague]

Making it to char level 28 and dlvel 34 with your first or one the first few characters is very impressive, well done. As mentioned before, one of the features of angband is that you can regenerate dungeons levels as often as you want to and no cost, every time you enter a new level it is generated new from scratch. This means that you can and should pick your fights. Learning when to run away and not fight is an important part of playing angband successfully. There is no penalty for running away and picking a different fight instead, make use of it.

[quarague]

Oh another comment, there is difference between diving and picking your fights. Diving (quickly) usually means that you are at a fairly deep dungeon level relative to your character level. To win the game you have to defeat Morgoth on dungeon level 100, the max char level is 50 which most (but not all) people reach before they confront Morgoth. For anything before that deep is a relative term. If you are deeper, you will face more dangerous but more lucrative enemies, so you will have to be more careful and run higher risks but level up faster and find better stuff. If you do not want to go deeper at a point you can always go up and down stairs at your current depth and generate new dungeon levels at this depth forever, so you are never forced to dive. Descend the dungeon at whatever speed is most fun for you.

[Skebet]

Wow thank you all for such insightful replies. In the hope that the discussion will be helpful for other new players, I'll offer an update and some follow-up questions.

So after posting three days ago I continued down one level at a time until reaching dlvl 40 at clvl 31. And there for the first time I started to see stuff that really scared me, like the unique king of water elementals (can't remember name). Luckily I had found Rods of Probing so I could see what to run/teleport/recall from.

Over the last few days I've run dlvl 40 about a half-dozen times trying to gear up and level up. And it has paid off, yielding Anduril (yay dps), Holhenneth (yay scanning), Hithlomir (yay stealth), a Rod of Restoration (convenient) and a Helm of Telepathy (which I now carry and switch out with Holhenneth regularly).

On my last dlvl 40 run I found my first real vault that I had to tunnel around into. And holy crap there's Radagast (normally found on dlvl 64, my Rod told me). Obviously I couldn't kill him but I learned something very powerful: When you cast phase door inside a vault, it automatically teleports you outside the vault!

Using that trick, telepathy and my staffs of teleport I was able to kite Radagast to the far end of the level and then teleport back toward the vault. Because I was off-screen Radagast never came back and I was able to (very slowly) clear the vault.

The final piece of loot from the vault (from a Marilith) was Boots of Speed +4. Great, except that equipping it means taking off my trusty Boots of Stability, which had been granting me nexus resistance. And as Tibarius pointed out, nexus resist is very important.

SO... my first tactical question at the moment is whether to equip the Speed boots or stability boots as my "main" or to simply make room to carry both so can switch to Stability as needed. That would be painful from an inventory standpoint but I'd understand the need.

An additional Ranger question: I have also found and equipped a Heavy Crossbow of Extra Shots, so I am now getting 2 shots/round with that. I take it Rangers only get extra shots with normal bows (not xbows)? Even so, it would seem that the double xbow damage makes it worth using over a longbow?

Thanks again all for such a helpful community. I'm loving this game! Stay tuned.

[Derakon]

Speed, no question. Nexus resist is a nice-to-have, not an essential. Getting hit by nexus attacks can teleport you, including teleporting you off the level, which are both annoying and potentially very dangerous. There's also the (incredibly rare) chance that two of your stats will get swapped by a nexus attack. However, +4 speed makes you 40% better at literally everything you do. This is absolutely worth not having nexus resistance.

Ideally you'll stack up speed bonuses until you have at least +20 permanent speed. You need to be able to hit at least +30 speed for the endgame, or else Morgoth may double-turn you.

As for that crossbow, you're correct: rangers only get extra shots with shortbows and longbows. But they "only" get +2 extra shots, so a Heavy Crossbow of Extra Shots (+2) will match a high-level ranger's output just fine.

[bio_hazard]

Wow thank you all for such insightful replies. In the hope that the discussion will be helpful for other new players, I'll offer an update and some follow-up questions.

So after posting three days ago I continued down one level at a time until reaching dlvl 40 at clvl 31. And there for the first time I started to see stuff that really scared me, like the unique king of water elementals (can't remember name). Luckily I had found Rods of Probing so I could see what to run/teleport/recall from.

Over the last few days I've run dlvl 40 about a half-dozen times trying to gear up and level up. And it has paid off, yielding Anduril (yay dps), Holhenneth (yay scanning), Hithlomir (yay stealth), a Rod of Restoration (convenient) and a Helm of Telepathy (which I now carry and switch out with Holhenneth regularly).

On my last dlvl 40 run I found my first real vault that I had to tunnel around into. And holy crap there's Radagast (normally found on dlvl 64, my Rod told me). Obviously I couldn't kill him but I learned something very powerful: When you cast phase door inside a vault, it automatically teleports you outside the vault!

Using that trick, telepathy and my staffs of teleport I was able to kite Radagast to the far end of the level and then teleport back toward the vault. Because I was off-screen Radagast never came back and I was able to (very slowly) clear the vault.

The final piece of loot from the vault (from a Marilith) was Boots of Speed +4. Great, except that equipping it means taking off my trusty Boots of Stability, which had been granting me nexus resistance. And as Tibarius pointed out, nexus resist is very important.

SO... my first tactical question at the moment is whether to equip the Speed boots or stability boots as my "main" or to simply make room to carry both so can switch to Stability as needed. That would be painful from an inventory standpoint but I'd understand the need.

An additional Ranger question: I have also found and equipped a Heavy Crossbow of Extra Shots, so I am now getting 2 shots/round with that. I take it Rangers only get extra shots with normal bows (not xbows)? Even so, it would seem that the double xbow damage makes it worth using over a longbow?

Thanks again all for such a helpful community. I'm loving this game! Stay tuned.

Speed is always good, while nexus is only good in a few situations. Nexus monsters are usually pretty easy to spot, especially with telepathy. Even though +4 is in the "good but not great" category, I'd still go with that as your everyday footwear.

You're getting to the point where teleportation gets more risky- landing in the middle a pack of exotic hounds is a good way to die.

[Tibarius]

go for speed

I also recommend using +4 Speed over rNexus. +10 Speed is double as fast as +-0 Speed. For the heavy crossbow ... the damage modifier on it is not sooo good, i would start looking for a bow ... once you hit clvl40 you will have another extra shot.

[mushroom patch]

In the vein of what other people are saying here re: don't get attached to a level or committed to getting an item you've seen/detected to such a degree that you risk dying and also the discussion of teleportation, two of your best and readily available options in the mid-game for escaping trouble are teleport level and teleport other. Teleport level in particular is really great because when you arrive on the new level you get a free turn. No one gets to take a shot at you before your next action. Teleport other is great because once something worth teleporting away is gone, there's no reason you ever need to see it again. You can just leave the level after you've finished whatever nearby business you're doing.

I remember a time when I didn't appreciate the power of these effects, mainly because I had the mindset that I had to get whatever stuff I was after on the current level, but the reality is that even if you know the stuff is good, it's still not so special you need to get it (at least with default birth options) and it's definitely not worth dying for.

A follow up is that if you're willing to accept a 1% chance of death that can be avoided, you tend to end up accepting such chances over and over again. Over the course of a whole game, you get to a nearly 100% chance of dying this way. In for a penny, in for a pound. Don't take chances you don't have to take. In practice, unavoidable risks quickly disappear as you get out of the first hour of typical play.

[dstyle]

As for that crossbow, you're correct: rangers only get extra shots with shortbows and longbows. But they "only" get +2 extra shots, so a Heavy Crossbow of Extra Shots (+2) will match a high-level ranger's output just fine.

That being said, don't write off the ranger's extra shot bonus completely. At level 40, with the longbow of Bard (or anything giving +2 shots), you can fire 5 shots per round. This bonus stacks when you have +10 speed advantage on an enemy, giving you 10 shots per round! With this kind of advantage, your ranger can easily match the damage output of a mage or warrior.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

And keep an eye out for Sauron killers (Acid branded arrows, especially the mithril and seeker variety) and Morgoth killers (Holy Might arrows). With Belthronding or Bard in the hands of a Ranger, these arrows will make short work of the bosses. Good luck!