Any tips for a newbie?

[Pete Mack]

If you are lacking fire or cold resistance from a different source, wear the ring. With such a good melee weapon, I'd say wear accuracy, and replace with Damage ASAP. You can use Acid as a swap to soften tough enemies. RoCON(+2) is junk.
Kobold is safe vs poison, mostly

[MattB]

As a kobold am I already poison resistant?

I seem to remember monsters that breathe gas or shards killing off some of my characters back in the day, is there a resistance to that?

gas=poison (at least in Vanilla).
And yes there is a shard resistance. But there aren't many massive shard breathers (Great Crystal Drake, Gelugon, Great Wyrms of Law and Balance are the only ones that spring to mind - no doubt there are some others).

[dos350]

hi , be safe my friend

when u hav guaranteed escapes ur quite safe, just make sure u detect and remain safe at all times!

good luck bro and dont feel bad if u use stairs, use it again if u have to!!!!

[robbiodobbio]

Cheers for all the help so far guys, it's been invaluable.

I'm having trouble deciding which rings to wear, I've got these 4:
Ring of Cont +2
Ring of Acid [+8] fires acid ball when activated
Ring of accuracy (+14)
Ring of resist fire and cold

Also, I'm having trouble managing all the stuff I need to carry, since I got my sling of extra shots I have to carry iron shots, which are heavier than arrows, is there any pay-off for them in terms of durability? Are they less likely to break? When I was using a bow I was diving with 80-120 arrows in my quiver but that's just not feasible with sling ammo.

What are the absolute essentials I should be carrying?

[robbiodobbio]

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.

As a kobold am I already poison resistant?

I seem to remember monsters that breathe gas or shards killing off some of my characters back in the day, is there a resistance to that?

[Pete Mack]

With Harradekett, you can safely ignore ego weapons except the big three.
+2 attack and Holy Avenger are classic endgame weapons for these. You can go deeper than dl 30 so long as you use detect monsters properly. Gravity hounds, Kavlax, drolems, Castamir are the first genuinely dangerous monsters. Death Drake, Ethereal dragon and Great Crystal Drake are bad news too. By dl 50, there will be multiple dangerous monsters on essentially every level

[Bogatyr]

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!

I love Haradekket! It's still my primary melee weapon with my own kobold rogue at clev 41. It slays a wide variety of monsters, and with the extra attacks it still beats most other artifact weapons on average damage except the really big ones (Deathwreaker, Trident of Wrath), especially if you pile up on +to-dam items (gauntlets, rings, amulets, etc.).

[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.

[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.

[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?

[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!

[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.

[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.

[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.

[robbiodobbio]

Smeagol dropped Narthanc