angband strategy guide

[Tibarius]

re: caruso

Thank you for your Input. I am already very deep in writing the guide. The first 3 of 5 parts are finished already, even tho they are more or less only the introductional part to the game. There are a couple of things left to do.... amoung that i have to Play the game with each class till the winner Point to be able to write a class-section in the Players guide.

I will take a look at the TANG Guide ... always good to know what exists. What my guide does not re-produce is the Manual coming with the game, which explains how to use different functionalities.

[Derakon]

TANG is flawed, and I should know. Those "important depths" are just representative of the groupthink at the time that the document was written. As Timo said, you can get by without a lot of the stuff that TANG says you "need". Really the only resists/abilities you have to have (read: are playing a very dangerous game by omitting) are free action, the basic 4 resists, and see invisible. But when you need them varies wildly by what race and class you are. For example, Warriors can wait longer on resists than Mages can, because they have more hitpoints. On the other hand, they need free action sooner, because their saving throw is worse and they're more likely to melee Carrion Crawlers.

[quarague]

all these 'have to have' comments gave me the idea of a challenge game, like win without ever having FA, or without fire res, or without any base res. Seeing that angband has been won by a bookless artifactless (gnome?) mage, and by using only your fist for damage I believe all of these should be possible.
In other words, all the 'have to's should be 'if you don't have that by depths, you will have to be extremely careful around the following and avoid them where possible'

[Tibarius]

re: quaraque

Not all that is possible is desireable

Playing a mage without spellbooks - what is the sense in there?

[PowerWyrm]

Not all that is possible is desireable

Playing a mage without spellbooks - what is the sense in there?

High Magic Device skill. Basically you kill everything with wands of annihilation at high level.

[Derakon]

all these 'have to have' comments gave me the idea of a challenge game, like win without ever having FA, or without fire res, or without any base res. Seeing that angband has been won by a bookless artifactless (gnome?) mage, and by using only your fist for damage I believe all of these should be possible.
In other words, all the 'have to's should be 'if you don't have that by depths, you will have to be extremely careful around the following and avoid them where possible'

There are tons of enemies with paralysis spells; if you spend a turn in LOS of them, you're basically rolling the dice that you won't get paralyzed. And while paralysis in the early game may be survivable, it very quickly becomes a death sentence -- certainly, well before you manage to achieve a 100% saving throw. I would not want to try to beat the game without Free Action.

Basic elemental resists...probably doable if you play as a class with access to Resistances of Scarabtarices.

[Tibarius]

re: Power Wyrm

Way too much hazzle to use Tensers and Wands of Annihilation. I do not even care to pick them up They are only good versus a small amount of Monsters.

[AnonymousHero]

Way too much hazzle to use Tensers and Wands of Annihilation. I do not even care to pick them up They are only good versus a small amount of Monsters.

Oh, you crazy guy, you! I guess that might change if you have no equipment?

(I must admit, I kind of follow the same philosophy, but then I haven't tried a Gnome Mage yet, so I haven't witnessed the full potential of WoA. I think I'm afflicted by previous experience with BG and other CRPGs before I leared that consumables can drastically improve chances in a no-reload solo run through BG. As in: Making such a thing even possible until you're high enough level to counter every possible threat.)

[Derakon]

Oddly enough, game designers usually design their consumables to be useful when applied on an as-needed basis. Then game players take one look at the consumables, go "but they're limited!", and refuse to base any kind of strategy around them.

[Estie]

Its not so much that "they are limited!", more like "but then I have no room for these potions of restore life levels!". If I find a good attack wand early on, I carry it till one of 3 things happens:

1. I find a good target (unique) to take down with it or
2. I fill up with consumables/swap items that I prefer (like scrolls of banishment, potions of enlightenment) or
3. it gets destroyed.

Recently someone made a post along the lines of "I killed Wormtongue with a wand of wonder, therefore wands of wonder are op!".
For a while I carried wands of wonder after reading that post and attempted to kill minor uniques with them; but every time something bad happened before they died, they got healed, hasted or the dungeon destroyed. So I have reverted back to my previous habit of squelch as found.

Come lategame, a single wand isnt going to cut it anymore, but there is the option to maintain stacks, that is permanently assign an inventory slot for a certain type of wand. Drain life and annihilation are the two candidates, and I am undecided on which I prefer. Eventually there comes a time when mages dont need anything with charges at all, and then I also abandon attack wands.

[Bogatyr]

Its not so much that "they are limited!", more like "but then I have no room for these potions of restore life levels!". If I find a good attack wand early on, I carry it till one of 3 things happens:

1. I find a good target (unique) to take down with it or
2. I fill up with consumables/swap items that I prefer (like scrolls of banishment, potions of enlightenment) or
3. it gets destroyed.

Recently someone made a post along the lines of "I killed Wormtongue with a wand of wonder, therefore wands of wonder are op!".
For a while I carried wands of wonder after reading that post and attempted to kill minor uniques with them; but every time something bad happened before they died, they got healed, hasted or the dungeon destroyed. So I have reverted back to my previous habit of squelch as found.

Come lategame, a single wand isnt going to cut it anymore, but there is the option to maintain stacks, that is permanently assign an inventory slot for a certain type of wand. Drain life and annihilation are the two candidates, and I am undecided on which I prefer. Eventually there comes a time when mages dont need anything with charges at all, and then I also abandon attack wands.

I went into the final fight with a human mage a little while ago with a stack of WoDL (about 50-60 charges) an WoA (about 12-15 charges?), The WoA's blew up a LOT more frequently with Greater Recharging than the WoDLs did. In fact I now never cast even Greater Recharging on important/rare wands/staffs unless they have zero charges left, one by one, dropping, recharging, then picking up the stack again. It's a huge pain, and I thought stacking was supposed to fix this, but apparently not, since charges get evenly distributed across the stack and non-zero charges blow up more frequently than zero charges.

In fact, I think that recharging cast on a stack of N wands with less total charges than (N-1)*C (where C is the "full" number of charges for one wand received when recharging from 0) should treat the recharge as if it were being cast on a wand with zero charges to avoid this stupid empty-the-charges-drop-one-by-one-recharge-one-by-one-pickup-stack dance. This because if you "moved" the charges to the N-1 wands in the stack, the last remaining wand would be empty.

I find WoDL and WoA useful in the final fight as a mage in this way: if you get to a point where you've used your mana up in attack spells, but want to leave enough cushion for an emergency *Destruct*, TO, and a few banishes, and Morgoth is still out of melee range, then using some charges from WoDL or WoA is not a bad idea. I prefer not to use "Restore Mana" unless I absolutely have to. But I'm probably conservative here (as noted above!), and I finished the fight with a huge pile of Restore Mana remaining, only using one or two.

[Tibarius]

re: recharging

I have to agree to the last post, recharging is somewhat a pain, even with tensers. I do not even care to use lesser recharge since it blows up anything regularly. I have made the same Observation - only Charge a wand/staff that has 0 charges left (which is quite unhandy, since then you Need to recharge during combat time and cannot boost the charges for preparation).

All in all - i use mainly only the acid balls for 125 damage, and the fire and frost breath for 200+ damage if i find them early enough. Everything else is too much hazzle

[Derakon]

Recharging stacks could be implemented better, I agree.

However, you should use the wand of Annihilation first; it has better damage than any spell in the mage's arsenal, once magic device skill is taken into account.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Recharging stacks could be implemented better, I agree.

However, you should use the wand of Annihilation first; it has better damage than any spell in the mage's arsenal, once magic device skill is taken into account.

I wish the magic device skill damage modifier was less opaque. The only way I understood the extraordinary benefit of wands of annihilation and drain life for mages was through Derakon's touting them on the forum. The damage modifier isn't shown in the information for the wands, on the character screen, or (if you have the option set to show damage) on the message screen since the damage dealt only shows up for blows and missiles, not for magic attacks.

[Tibarius]

re: annihilation

The damage is ok, but it does NOT work against undead, golem, etc.

So basically it is too much work to check for each enemy if the wand can be used. And if i find them early i am not able to recharge them ... and if i find them late, i usually have same or better damage from other attack forms.