The Official Bad Advice Thread

[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!

[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.)

[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.

[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.

[Sirridan]

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

[jsv]

For example, pink monsters are usually pushovers.

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

[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

[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.

[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.

[Zikke]

Touche then.


I just forgot which thread this was. Curse you, fatigue!

[fizzix]

I don't think the general store has lanterns any more; you may need to scum in the Black Market for a while.

that was kind of the point.

[Zikke]

I don't think the general store has lanterns any more; you may need to scum in the Black Market for a while.

[fizzix]

The lantern is the most important item at the beginning of the game. If the general store doesn't have one in stock, you should restart until it does.

The dungeon is hard, it's probably a good idea to kill some townspeople to gain some experience levels first.

You can tell a lot about a monster by its color. For example, pink monsters are usually pushovers.

[Mondkalb]

When facing one of those annoying monsters that burn all your stuff away, like Vargo for example, drop all your staves, scrolls and books to the ground and back away around a corner to prepare for the fight.

( My poor poor word of recalls, teleports and lots of other stuff All I could do was watch them dissappear as Vargo crushed them under his feet... )

Well, I must admit I did something similiar stupid once. I had digged a tunnel and dropped some staves around the corner to prevent them to be drained by one of the unique Balrogs. I didn't account for the breath attack to destroy the staves around the corner though. ^^

[Joona]

When facing one of those annoying monsters that burn all your stuff away, like Vargo for example, drop all your staves, scrolls and books to the ground and back away around a corner to prepare for the fight.

( My poor poor word of recalls, teleports and lots of other stuff All I could do was watch them dissappear as Vargo crushed them under his feet... )