Any tips for a newbie?

[Bogatyr]

ving-heavy strategy, where you keep descending through the dungeon before you're "ready" to. The theory is that you're always at risk of dying to some surprise out-of-depth monster, so better that you know that you're at risk, and play smart, rather than grind and grind and grind until you think you're safe, then die anyway. Play fast, die early, move on to the next character. Part of why I recommended avoiding High-Elf is because the experience penalty slows the game down, and the more time you spend with any one character, the more attached you get to them, which makes the inevitable death all the more painful.

Good luck!

I didn't accept this new meta at first but now I whole-heartedly embrace it. My general approach for single-stat classes (mages and priests) is maximize the casting stat ASAP by any means possible, including any gain/lose potions of the right type you find and stat gain rings. For mages this gives you 0% teleport other which means you can dive dive dive. For rogues I hang out more at stat-gain (dlev 30's) playing for stat gain potions via detect objects, and when I have "enough" I then dive again.

[robbiodobbio]

Ok, cheers for all the tips, let's see what happens.

[robbiodobbio]

My second Kobold Rogue is going well so far, the first met an untimely demise.

What's better infra-vision or telepathy? Got two different leather caps to choose from.

[Derakon]

My second Kobold Rogue is going well so far, the first met an untimely demise.

What's better infra-vision or telepathy? Got two different leather caps to choose from.

Telepathy, no question. Most of the monsters you can see with infravision you can see with telepathy anyway, and telepathy also lets you see monsters that aren't in LOS.

[bio_hazard]

My second Kobold Rogue is going well so far, the first met an untimely demise.

What's better infra-vision or telepathy? Got two different leather caps to choose from.

TELEPATHY. Infravision just increases your ability to see warm things in the dark. Not bad addition for low level characters. Telepathy lets you see most monsters in detect range even when behind walls, etc. Very powerful, particularly for a rogue. Still good idea to detect evil/detect monsters because there can be some powerful mindless monsters

[robbiodobbio]

So I'm now level 15, how deep should I be diving? I've got some deep descent scrolls, should I risk it? Or is that asking for trouble?

[Derakon]

So I'm now level 15, how deep should I be diving? I've got some deep descent scrolls, should I risk it? Or is that asking for trouble?

How do you feel like you're doing against monsters at your current depth? Is it easy? Then dive. (EDIT: even if it's merely semi-difficult, dive anyway! Only stop when you're feeling in serious threat of your life) Deep descent is fine to use; with 100 levels of dungeon, you aren't going to notice a huge difference by just changing 5 at a time (outside of the very early game, anyway).

The only really big gotcha in the game is Free Action, which provides immunity to paralysis and is desirable by somewhere in the 800'-1500' range. As long as you have that, you should be able to see most other big dangers coming. Engaging Mature- or older dragons without resisting their element is a dicey proposition, for example.

[robbiodobbio]

Smeagol dropped Narthanc

[robbiodobbio]

Ok so, now I've got narthanc can I basically ignore any weapon that says (ego) or (magical)? The whole no selling thing is cool but the old hoarder mentality is hard to shake off and I keep surfacing to identify stuff and dump it.

[bio_hazard]

Narthac is a great find at the depth that Smeagol typically appears, but you should still look at egos. Probably safe to squelch {magical} though. Pretty soon you should be running into things like Defender or Westernesse that might provide free action & see invisible, or maybe a *slay* that has a nice stat bonus or something.

Particularly once you start finding !Str and !Dex, you'll get more blows with the heavier weapons and they may start to outpace your dagger...

Remember that [i]nspecting the weapon, whether in inventory or equipped, will tell you the average damage per round.

[Derakon]

Ok so, now I've got narthanc can I basically ignore any weapon that says (ego) or (magical)? The whole no selling thing is cool but the old hoarder mentality is hard to shake off and I keep surfacing to identify stuff and dump it.

Ignore magical. There's always the chance of finding, like, a Scythe of Slicing (Holy Avenger), though. Or just a big weapon of Extra Attacks. Big ego weapons can be endgame-quality. That said, you're fairly unlikely to find, say, an ego Dagger that you want to replace Narthanc with.

[robbiodobbio]

Narthang is already old news! Gorbag dropped Haradekket! 3.6 hits a round +2 DEX and slays undead! I also got a sling of extra shots! Getting some great drops!

[robbiodobbio]

So I'm diving to around lvl 30 now, what monsters should I avoid? Aren't there ones that can 1 hit kill me down here?

I read somewhere about hanging out around the 30s looking for stat potions, is that a good tactic or just keep on diving?

[Derakon]

So I'm diving to around lvl 30 now, what monsters should I avoid? Aren't there ones that can 1 hit kill me down here?

I read somewhere about hanging out around the 30s looking for stat potions, is that a good tactic or just keep on diving?

If you lack Free Action, there's lots of enemies that can kill you. If you lack the basic four resists (fire/cold/acid/elec) and have low HP then you can get burned down quick by massed elemental damage. Those are the big killers, but of course you're never truly safe.

The level-30-for-stat-gain advice is out of date and dumb anyway. Stat potions are lower, and it's almost never worth scumming/grinding for them anyway. Just play the game and you should naturally find potions at a good rate.

[Mondkalb]

You should be wary about poison resistance sometime. There are potions, so as long as you know your enemies, that's enough, but if you don't know all of them, there are some nasty poison breathers deeper down.