A Few New Player Questions

[Scampada]

They're very important for line of sight.

And that's all. That's why Angband 4 is looking as arcade for me

[MattB]

Plus, is it possible to modify the game or wait for an official release with appropriate changes... I would like to see currently available cool interface along with non-single-dungeon gameplay. ZAngband offers open spaces, but lacks many cool stuff that are present in Angband 4. I'm not even speaking of UI...

Have you tried FAangband?
It has more of the stuff you seem to be after than Vanilla.

[MattB]

Really, in that stage I see no sense in these doors.

They're very important for line of sight.

[Scampada]

You should be taking some game turns to pick locked doors, even though the real time delay is infinitesimal. As for lockpicks, I guess the thinking is that if they existed, you would HAVE to carry them. So everybody would. So what would be the point?

No, I wouldn't have if I wouldn't want to pick locks. Not all of doors are locked.
In addition to this, they would be very, very tiny. Say a 0.1 lb of weight? yeah, they would take a slot and the slots are limited, but... Don't you remember how this was solved in Nethack? There was boxes. So one could have additional slots in his inventory. Isn't it cool?

Jamming and bashing used to exist, but were removed for reasons of tediousness. If you want to play with them, you can download one of the v3.3 versions from rephial.org and see what you think.

But 3.3 will lack many of the 4.0 good sides, for sure!
Without locked doors and hardness of opening them the game appears to be a bit... arcadeous. Just slash'em'up or something... No intrigues "what is lying behind that door?", no hard efforts trying to open it, no finding a key...

I take your point though, that some monsters get through locked doors too easily. I suppose you would expect a sneaky hobbit (a burgler maybe?) to pick a lock in seconds and a massive Mumak to walk through one without even noticing, but a human acolyte? A firefly?

This also makes the game "arcadeous". What are they for, the doors, then? If jamming them is tedious then remove them at all. Opening the doors is tedious!
Really, in that stage I see no sense in these doors.

Angband has COOL UI.
Nethack has cool gameplay (and very non-friendly interface). A bit cooler then Angband 4.0, I regret to say

Plus, is it possible to modify the game or wait for an official release with appropriate changes... I would like to see currently available cool interface along with non-single-dungeon gameplay. ZAngband offers open spaces, but lacks many cool stuff that are present in Angband 4. I'm not even speaking of UI...
ADOM offers them too, but it is not possible to play it. Its movement is very slow down and I can't help it. It has even cooler gameplay than Angband, though. All those talents, backstabs. There aren't any dependencies in Angband between which item I'm using and which stats I have? Except of Strength or Dexterity, or something maybe. I mean exactly item-regarding stats. Affinity with bows, affinity with swords... all that glitz. One can play half a game with a dagger and then abruptly buy a super-battle-axe and nothing changes except of damage points.

By the way. Why all the merchants refuse to pay me in gold for everything? They agree to get an item when I press 's' (sell) but all these items are marked as '0 au'. I'm just giving them stuff.

[MattB]

Hello folks,
I don't know whether I'm asking this in the right place, but. Can I mod the Angband 4.0 so there would be goddamn normal doors, not these paper screens?

I mean I would like it much more if there were HEAVY doors; STRONG doors; really LOCKED doors. Really JAMMED ones and really UNOPENABLE ones.

Maybe I have to go deeper to find them... I'm at 17th lvl now and there is no sign of them!

Just wanted to play an old-school dungeon crawl, where you can find an unopenable door, which may be picked, or bashed, or something else. I mean, picked after a while (if you have good stats for picking!), and bashed with hard efforts.
Or even unopenable! Yeah, why is it so unlikely in the dungeon?

This frustrates me MUCH, not only because really locked, really strong and whatever doors are much more athmospheric (what are they for then if they are not, anyway?) but also because monsters are unlocking and bashing them as though they were Chuck Norris. A hobbit at 15th lvl of depth go through every door like he's a Terminator! Closing and locking doors doesn't even delay him! And, I beg pardon, how could I, the player pick locks without any delay AND any lockpicks?

This all is so strange. However, Angband 4.0 is one of the most playable *bands. At least it has more user-friendly interface and cute separate windows...

You should be taking some game turns to pick locked doors, even though the real time delay is infinitesimal. As for lockpicks, I guess the thinking is that if they existed, you would HAVE to carry them. So everybody would. So what would be the point?

Jamming and bashing used to exist, but were removed for reasons of tediousness. If you want to play with them, you can download one of the v3.3 versions from rephial.org and see what you think.

I take your point though, that some monsters get through locked doors too easily. I suppose you would expect a sneaky hobbit (a burgler maybe?) to pick a lock in seconds and a massive Mumak to walk through one without even noticing, but a human acolyte? A firefly?

[Scampada]

Hello folks,
I don't know whether I'm asking this in the right place, but. Can I mod the Angband 4.0 so there would be goddamn normal doors, not these paper screens?

I mean I would like it much more if there were HEAVY doors; STRONG doors; really LOCKED doors. Really JAMMED ones and really UNOPENABLE ones.

Maybe I have to go deeper to find them... I'm at 17th lvl now and there is no sign of them!

Just wanted to play an old-school dungeon crawl, where you can find an unopenable door, which may be picked, or bashed, or something else. I mean, picked after a while (if you have good stats for picking!), and bashed with hard efforts.
Or even unopenable! Yeah, why is it so unlikely in the dungeon?

This frustrates me MUCH, not only because really locked, really strong and whatever doors are much more athmospheric (what are they for then if they are not, anyway?) but also because monsters are unlocking and bashing them as though they were Chuck Norris. A hobbit at 15th lvl of depth go through every door like he's a Terminator! Closing and locking doors doesn't even delay him! And, I beg pardon, how could I, the player pick locks without any delay AND any lockpicks?

This all is so strange. However, Angband 4.0 is one of the most playable *bands. At least it has more user-friendly interface and cute separate windows...

[Monkey Face]

Edit: Any reason a Priest shouldn't wear all the armor he can find?

At some point if the total weight of your armor becomes too much, you'll start getting a mana point penalty. Up until then, pile it on (and even then, it's not a huge penalty unless you have way too much).

BTW, although priests have it tougher at the start, they eventually become somewhat easier than many other classes since they can get 0% fail rate on healing prayers (as long as they also have confusion, blindness, and stunning resistance). So while it might die quicker than with a warrior, if you do survive the early levels, you may get much deeper.

[Derakon]

Also, do I get XP just for casting spells/prayers? I thought maybe I was when I was playing last night but I wasn't sure.

Edit: Any reason a Priest shouldn't wear all the armor he can find?

You get some experience the first time you cast each spell. A good WIS score can get you a decent chunk of your early-game experience just from casting new spells.

As for armor, sure, wear what you like. Weight can be an issue, but there's no spellcasting limitation as far as I can recall.

[marlowe221]

Priests have a pretty rough start, as they are very limited in their ability to kill things. They don't have the STR/DEX needed to get multiple attacks per round, so they're generally best off getting the largest-dice weapon they can wield (a Mace, say), casting Bless before each fight, and hoping for the best.

Once you get the spell Orb of Draining in the third spellbook, things will become much easier. You should prioritize getting that spell over basically everything else. Because of the random way you learn new spells, try to have 3 "unlearned" spells saved up by the time you reach the level requirement (level 9? I forget) so that you're guaranteed to get Orb.

I will definitely do that next time. It's a little weird to me that a Fighter wants a light/fast weapon and a Priest wants a slow/heavy weapon but it makes sense when you point how it works.

Also, yeah I can see where choosing Dunadan didn't help me much - a Priest needs to level up as fast as possible it seems.

Also, do I get XP just for casting spells/prayers? I thought maybe I was when I was playing last night but I wasn't sure.

Edit: Any reason a Priest shouldn't wear all the armor he can find?

[Derakon]

Priests have a pretty rough start, as they are very limited in their ability to kill things. They don't have the STR/DEX needed to get multiple attacks per round, so they're generally best off getting the largest-dice weapon they can wield (a Mace, say), casting Bless before each fight, and hoping for the best.

Once you get the spell Orb of Draining in the third spellbook, things will become much easier. You should prioritize getting that spell over basically everything else. Because of the random way you learn new spells, try to have 3 "unlearned" spells saved up by the time you reach the level requirement (level 9? I forget) so that you're guaranteed to get Orb.

[Mondkalb]

I am not really the priest expert but Dunadan are probably not the best class for priests. They have high stats but they get the experience penalty which makes them slow to level up. (You want to get Orb of Draining as soon as possible.)

Dwarfs make good priests - bonus to WIS and blindness resistance come in very handy.

[marlowe221]

Well, my two attempts at priests have gone really poorly!

The first one died on DL 2. I learned that enemies are WAY harder than they were for my Dwarf Warrior.

The second one died on DL 7. I opened a door on a room full of snagas and cave orcs... I ran but they were faster than me.

I have been going with Dunadan for my priests - is that a good choice for that class?

[Carnivean]

I think ultimately, from a big picture perspective, what killed me on this run was being a few levels too deep in the dungeon relative to my CH/HP.

You can survive on any level if you know what is around you, and run, run, run away if anything scary is nearby. Grabbing nearby, unguarded items is the way to increase your power. From level 30 you get stat gain potions to increase your hit points (via CON).

Meanwhile, I am interested in branching out a little when it comes to characters. Priest, Paladin, and Rogue all sound like interesting classes to me, though I am sure they will be more painful ones.

In the vein of the above advice, Rogues are fun to dive with. They get a spell at level 10 that tells them what objects are around them, and high enough stealth to walk past sleeping dangers rather than bash their way to the prize.

On the other hand Paladins are like your current warriors, but eventually able to heal their ills. Priests are like crappy warriors, but can tank their way through many fights with their healing spells, and get Orb of Draining to clear the mid levels.

[bio_hazard]

Rogue is pretty good for getting through the early/mid game. High stealth and detection means you can pick your battles.

[marlowe221]

This is a great thing to learn! I usually try to carry 20-30 ?phase just so that in desperate situations I can just read and re-read over and over until I get away (or out of LOS, or to a non-connected area, etc).

In other situations, when you're on a really dangerous level and you just need to get out of there, I've read ?recall and just ran around (using ?phase as needed) to try to stall for time until it kicks in.

Every monster has a ratio of danger to reward. You've also learned that hydras are relatively high danger for very low reward, and best avoided.

Good luck!

Yep, Phase Door has quickly become my most coveted scroll. I buy every one I can afford and apply liberally when in danger.

I think ultimately, from a big picture perspective, what killed me on this run was being a few levels too deep in the dungeon relative to my CH/HP. I really didn't spend much time on DLs 25-29 compared to say, the 15-20 range and so I am sure that my character's power level had fallen behind the curve that I had been on before.

Re: Staffs/staves - my WIS score was so low (6 or 8) that I was never able to activate one successfully. Eventually, I stopped even picking them up. That was probably a mistake. I also had a lot of trouble using rods with any reliability at all.

Meanwhile, I am interested in branching out a little when it comes to characters. Priest, Paladin, and Rogue all sound like interesting classes to me, though I am sure they will be more painful ones.