The Official Bad Advice Thread

[konijn_]

With good melee, you can safely fight Homunculi if you are careful about waiting to get the first blows. They have few HP and lousy AC. With 4 blows, you can be quite confident of defeating (killing or frightening) them in a single turn.

Yeah, a Homunculi cannever paralyze you with its first hit

T.

[Lord Tom]

It's generally safe to assume that uniques within a race are only marginally more powerful than the nastiest non-unique. Hence, if you have resist poison and free action, and have successfully killed a greater basilisk, you're probably ready to take on the Tarrasque.

[Philip]

Save those wands of clone monster, then use them to farm Wyrms late in the game. Basic strategy: duke it out until the GWoChaos is down to one star, then clone it. This guarantees that you'll never take more than ~500 breath damage in any one turn.

Yep, that works well. And if you find a Morgul weapon, wield it. Near nothing has poison resist and you don't have to worry about undead.
If you kill Sauron but are afraid of M, go to dlvl 100 to find Bladeturner or the one and if you ever see a vault, tunnel with your normal weapon so you will be ready if something comes out. Heheheheheheheheheheh.

[Pete Mack]

Save those wands of clone monster, then use them to farm Wyrms late in the game. Basic strategy: duke it out until the GWoChaos is down to one star, then clone it. This guarantees that you'll never take more than ~500 breath damage in any one turn.

[Dragonboneman]

Finding Ringil early means you're definitely going to win.

[Papayouki]

Never run, just keep your finger on the key. Only scums are crawling corridors, so you will bash them easily.

[Donald Jonker]

Teleport to the secret graveyard level!
Macro F1 to the following: "Qy@" and press it!

[Hariolor]

if you encounter a unique you've never seen before, hidden in a vault on a fairly low level, he's probably an easy kill that you've just missed in the past. This is particularly true if he's just a "p"

[buzzkill]

Shovels can double as weapons, and the damage they inflict can really add up after a awhile.

Speed and 'shrooms are for losers. My character doesn't use drugs.

Poison resist is useless. After all, poison usually wears off very quickly, and poison never killed anyone.

Focus on collecting gold rather than equipment. It weighs nothing!!!, and it's a little known fact that most uniques can be bribed by holding down the 'd' (donate) key.

[Zikke]

Always remember that a unique monster's possible spell damage is always in-line with their race. Kavlax and Cantoras can breath/cast just as hard as a regular dragon/skeleton.

Furthermore, you can just assume what the monster is by looking at the letter representing it. If you start trying to target or [l]ook at it, the monster will know your hands are off the attack keys and go in for the kill!

Plus there's no chance that Shelob would be hiding in a group of spiders wearing her OWN color. That's just bad fashion.

[buzzkill]

You should continue to stay in the fight with a big melee'ing monster like a Great Wyrm as long as you're winning. You'll probably kill it next round, and in the unlikely event that you don't, there's basically no chance it'll hit with *all* of its melee attacks. Or something else will join the fray. After all, this is your last chance to kill a Great Wyrm - and you know it's carrying a tasty Ring of Speed (+18).

I'm really really really really guilty of this. On practically every dungeon level I visit.

[buzzkill]

I normally try to quaff potions with I'm very very slightly injured or poisoned, etc. You don't want to quaff a potion of poison when you're at 2 HP though.

or do you???

Personally like to save those scrolls of summoning for the deepest part of my dive. That way, I sure to get some good enemies to fight.

Also drop all means escape and healing, teleports, recall, potions, staffs. Keep only offensive items with you when entering battle. That why you won't have to worry about backpack space when gathering up the post-victry loot. (As an added bonus, if you should die, the monster that killed you won't know where to find your stuff, esp. if you drop it really far away.)

It's really to bad that you can't bury your gold, you know, to keep it safe.

Maybe I'm just not keen on your tougne and cheek houmor Big Al. But me's think'est you had best'st checketh thy thread title once again.

[Pete Mack]

elemental wyrms have good drops and EXP for the amount of danger they represent, so you should generally go out of your way to melée them if you have the appropriate resistance. Great Storm Wyrms are particularly good targets since they can't damage your spellbooks or escape scrolls and staffs.

[Patashu]

Don't bother looking at items on the ground before walking up to them. Death swords? What a ludicrous concept.

[Djabanete]

If you're fighting a bunch of weaker monsters in a long corridor, just hold the arrow button down, letting the messages fly by, till they are all dead. It's very gratifying and totally safe.

I used to do that all the time, until one day there was a Great Wyrm of Balance on the other side.