The Official Bad Advice Thread

[Zikke]

Respond to posts on these forums after getting literally 30 minutes of sleep the night before.

This is also the perfect amount of sleep required to keep your Angband character alive.

[Nick]

Respond to posts on these forums after getting literally 30 minutes of sleep the night before.

This is also the perfect amount of sleep required to keep your Angband character alive.

Potions of Sleep will fix this problem.

[Pete Mack]

[V] Blades of Chaos do the little-known Vorpal damage vs the Jabberwock. You have a very good chance of a critical lethal hit, so you can safely take them even with a weak character. The Resist chaos also protects you effectively vs his otherwise dangerous chaos breath.

From Jabberwocky:

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back

[jsv]

For example, pink monsters are usually pushovers.

Pink monsters *are* pushovers. Just don't try fighting them from a distance. Go for melee!.

[Sirridan]

D's are easier than d's because they are bigger and therefore easier to hit.

[PowerDiver]

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back

From Jabberwocky:

Since Pete was kind of enough to quote just what I wanted, let me note here that I was let down by the recent Alice movie. There was neither a snicker-snack nor any galumphing with the head. The movie was quite enjoyable otherwise.

[o-o]

Okay. There's a lot of lice in that room--but there's also a lot of loot. And lice can't do much damage. It's not like they could poison you or anything. And at any rate, if things get rough you should be able to cut your back to the door.

If you've got to grips with the lice that killed your predecessor, you can take on a room full of hounds. They're just dogs, after all.

Spoilers schmoilers. If you're finding this level easy, and nothing's happening, and you're finding that slaughtering the hounds that killed your predecessor is easy, what could possibly go wrong anothr 100 feet down without Hold Life?

...Life-draining might have done for your predecessor, but: "Spoilers Schmoilers!" I say. Poison can't do that much damage. Go down another couple of hundred feet.

You're resistant to pretty much everything, right? Poison's not going to kill you--like it did your predecessor. And your saving throw is awesome. "Spoilers Schmoilers!" I say. A little bit of confusion won't kill you, so don't bother with "Resist Confusion;" wear the helmet which increases your speed instead; that way you can dash quickly towards those Great Wyrms of Perplexity! It's not like they are any different to Ancient Bronze Dragons.

You may be starting out, but your predecessor was the sort who took out ancinet dragons. Orcs aren't a problem. There is, after all, no real difference between those snaga you've been nailing one by one and this room full of uruks.

That great vault may have a whole lot of characters you haven't seen before, but a black lich can't be much worse than the normal kind you've been facing.

[Therem Harth]

Warriors are tough; they can just wade into the middle of a big combat and soak up damage whilst slicing everything around them to bits with their l33t Samurai swordsmanship.

Capital Ds are no more dangerous in groups than alone; dragons, after all, are very big on honor, and like to attack one at a time.

It's okay to take on Sauron when you're slower than he is, because he never mana storms twice in a row.

A really lucky character will refuse to die nine times out of ten. Hey, if it works in Exile it works in Angband.

If you see a harmless looking black orb, don't bother shooting arrows at it; just step right up and blast it with magic. (You ToMErs know what I'm talking about.)

[dhegler]

Free Action? Resist Confusion? Monsters can't do damage simply by paralyzing you or confusing you. Be sure to have 4 items with rFire instead!

Mace of Disruption? They are only useful items to priests! Warriors prefer sharp weapons!

Never buy Word of Recall scrolls! The stores rip you off! You can find them for free in the dungeon!!!

(Random ToME hint) Wield that Phial before identifying it. Everyone knows it will be the Phial of Galadriel!

[Sirridan]

Just go for it, a 1 in 5 chance of death is pretty good odds.

[o-o]

No matter how late it is, you can always do another level.

[Pete Mack]

Once you have free action, there aren't any really dangerous monsters between 1000' and 1350' so you should start doing stat gain around 1250' until you feel like you can kill everything with ease.

[ekolis]

Shouting "Magic MISSILE!" when typing "maa" maxes your damage dice, and greatly improves your chances of getting a beam.

Likewise, pounding the arrow keys with your middle finger as hard as you can increases weapon accuracy, and improves the chance of a critical hit. (I still fall into this habit myself! :P)

Magic missiles are the best spell to cast throughout the game - they do decent damage, and only cost 1 mana, so you can cast 'em practically forever! Those other spells like "fire bolt" - look at the mana you'll waste, and the damage isn't all that much better! Not to mention monsters can resist fire...

Somewhere, deep in the dungeon, there is a mystic tome, the legendary "Fifth Mage Book", the "Book of Black Magick", which teaches mighty elemental spells no denizen of Angband can resist... this book contains the secret spells FIRAGA, BLIZZAGA, THUNDAGA, METEOR, QUAKE, and BIO.

Priests, don't get jealous... there's also a Book of Summonings which lets you summon chocobos, ifrits, and even several Hindu deities!

[dhegler]

Just go for it, a 1 in 5 chance of death is pretty good odds.

Unfortunately, I do think this from time to time....

[buzzkill]

Unfortunately, I do think this from time to time....

Nothing wrong with that. That's a base 80% chance of success. Add to that your 'lucky feeling', your desire to succeed, and the fact that you've had such bad luck in the past. All that certainly pushes your chances for success, or at the very least survival, well into the high 90% range. It's a no-brainier. In the end, the reward will certainly be worth the risk. You will probably be granted the exact item you were seeking. I can't tell you how many times I've acquired boots of speed following this advice.