Mage's SP

[Wraitheist]

I'm rather disappointed with the amount of SP I currently have. I'm a lvl 21 Gnome with 18/50 INT and I only have 43 SP? Even my basic attack spells can take 1/4 of that. Will I see a significant SP boost from any forthcoming items or by increasing my INT?

[Slick]

might you be wearing some gloves?

[Wraitheist]

He was killed earlier this evening But I don't believe so because I made that mistake once before.

[roustk]

I'm rather disappointed with the amount of SP I currently have. I'm a lvl 21 Gnome with 18/50 INT and I only have 43 SP? Even my basic attack spells can take 1/4 of that. Will I see a significant SP boost from any forthcoming items or by increasing my INT?

You have exactly what you should at this point (without gloves or too much armor weight). Maximum mana is calculated as 1 + (clvl * mana_per_lvl). The full details are in the magic.spo spoiler file.

INT/WIS  Mana_per_lvl
 18/ 50    2.00
 18/ 60    2.25
 18/ 70    2.50
 18/ 80    3.00
 18/ 90    3.50
 18/100    4.00
 ...
 18/180    8.00

For each level you gain (at 18/50 INT), you gain 2 mana. For the first two /10 INT, you gain 5 mana (at clvl 21). For the remaining /10 INT, you gain 10 mana (at clvl 21).

Kevin

[Wraitheist]

That's rough. I usually play some type of mage in games, but Angband seems especially rough on them.

[Narvius]

I think spells should be much mightier. Magic Arrow should gain strength faster, so it is useable through the whole game. For me, mages are the ones who break all rules - you don't need anything to eat. You don't need identify. You don't need light (well, you *do* need light, actually - it would be very harassing to cast light all the time). You don't need wands, rods nor anything. But you still need [physical] ranged combat.

[Wraitheist]

I'm just having a lot of trouble with mages. They are incredibly fragile, which is to be expected, but their offensive firepower doesn't make up for it. They have a very small amount of mana, so they frequently have to run away, but their spells (at least from the first 3 books) are far weaker than a warrior with an enchanted bow (which is extremely easy to come by). They have great utility, but not the power that I expected. Perhaps I'll see thing differently if I ever get on past 21 or so.

[Narvius]

Ditto on all.
I basically Sleep and Lightning Bolt them - that doens't use up *all* your mana and you can >R<est for mana after sleeping them. You know, something like that.

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[kandrc]

Mages are fragile, true, but if that fragility bothers you, then you aren't deep enough. Mages have great detection (monsters, invisible, doors, stairs, traps, and they don't need objects because they get enchantment), cheep and low-fail escapes (pd, teleport, to, tl, create stairs, StM, create doors, banishment, MB, WoD, WoR) and great buffs (resistance, shield, rune, speed). Focus on stealth and take every down staircase (this is true for all classes, but especially true for mages. If you hang around trying to clear levels, you die. Every monster that is awake increases your chances of death. Newly spawned monsters are always awake. You want to take that next down staircase before anything wakes up or spawns.) The best loot is always the free loot on the floor, since it's always generated at level or out-of-depth, while monster drops almost never are. You want to get to 3750' as quickly as possible for two primary reasons: 1) RoS are on the floor, and 2) even snagas drop stat potions. I usually get there, independent of race/class, at around cl30, without rBase, and if I'm playing a mage or priest, without a primary weapon wielded.

How to play a mage:

1) Roll for 17 base STR, INT, and CON
2) Sell your dagger and buy the best bow you can afford, and then as many arrows as possible
3) Gain detect monsters and PD
4) Take every down staircase (A level 1 mage can easily kill Grip and Fang, and depending on race goes straight to level 3 or 4)
5) Throw things away rather than get slow
6) Do your best to avoid all monsters. Only kill when you have to.
7) Recall when one of the following is true: 1) You reach level 10 (buy books two and three, gain and use spells, advance to cl11, ID your stuff, sell), 2) you reach 1500' and still haven't found a staff of teleport or book 2 (you need these escapes by this point)
8) At this point, you want to start collecting teleport other (rod and wand, you eventually want a stack of about 8 rods), and rods of fire and frost bolts. Some rods of acid balls are good, too, to quickly eliminate junk from the floor, as are other escapes (scrolls of TL and T, staffs of destruction)
9) While you have spell books, consumables, escapes, and plenty of arrows, and dl < 4900', do
Run away from monsters
Teleport monsters away from your free loot
Do not get in LoS of paralyzers if you haven't found FA yet
Take every down stairs
Pick up as much free loot as possible
Find Mordenkainen's and create stairs straight down to 4900'
10) Once at 4900', kill whatever you can handle (orcs and trolls are usually good choices) until you get 4 blows with a big dice weapon, have speed, rBase, and resistance spell, then start hunting wyrms. You'll be really surprised at how easy it is.
11) Really the only reason to return to town now is to restock on consumables. Sell all of the scads of dungeon books you find and use that money to restock the BM until you are broke. You want various forms of healing and restore mana. Destroy everything else.
12) With a nice stack of consumables, go to 4950 and kill Sauron. Using all your buffs + runes and an anti-summoning corridor + melee makes him easy, but I'm not sure if this is the easiest way. It doesn't matter if he disenchants all your equipment, because once he's dead, you're ready for M, and you're not going to melee him.
13) Take the magic staircase
14) Use runes to prevent summoning and rift M to death. TO him away when he gets close. His destroying of walls is to your advantage and actually makes him easier than Sauron, since he will always come to you.

Evidence that I'm not making all of this up: http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=7665
PowerDiver's comment is dead on. M was a pushover at cl47. and I should have gone straight down for him after taking out Sauron several clevels earlier.

The specifics of this post are mage oriented, but the spirit is true for all classes. If there aren't at least a couple of things on the level that could insta-kill you with a breath, you aren't deep enough. If you *are* deep enough, then warriors are just as fragile than mages, and have fewer options.

[Wraitheist]

That is awesome advice! I'm making a new mage and putting it to use now. Thanks!

[Garrie]

If you *are* deep enough, then warriors are just as fragile than mages, and have fewer options.

My problem remains, the number of things that insta-kill me the moment I step off the < that the > turns into...

[Wraitheist]

Heh, my next mage died the same way...went down the stairs in to a mass of 'Zs'. A few questions:

1)Stair scumming is the name of the game here, correct? At those depths, if I can't easily get to the next set of stairs, I need to go back up and come down again until an easily accessible '>' is generated?

2)What is rBase?

Thanks!

[Narvius]

2) The four basic resists: Fire, Cold, Lightning and Acid.

[kandrc]

No, don't stair scum. That's boring. The point of this is to get past the tedium. Shoot right past "stat gain depth." Hanging out there is boring. Don't waste time on orc pits. They're also boring. You want to get to a depth where interesting things drop from uninteresting prey. Even then, the best stuff is on the floor, but you've got to start putting a little more effort in killing bad guys sometime, so build up your kit and start killing wyrms. Their drops are almost as good as what's on the floor, but you don't have to run around for them.

The point is surviving, and with some practice, you'll find it's not that hard. I lose a lot more characters between 0 and 2000' than I do between 2000' and 5000', because at that point, I've got my escapes (usually), and I'm starting to build a reasonable kit.

You're right about hounds. Generally, the only times I die and don't consider it my fault are when I stair into a pack of hounds. There's nothing else that's particularly dangerous that isn't asleep. A stair-hound death is particularly unsatisfying because there's little to be learned from it.

I'd love to see my characters start the game with a scroll of "teleport 98 levels." I think I'd lose less low-level characters that way.

Another advantage of this kind of play is that you don't have much invested in a character, and you don't feel so bad when it dies. When I started playing this game, back in the frog_knows days, I would still be at 2000' after a week or more of play, and when I died, I'd lost a lot of work. Now, I'm at 2000' after 20-25 minutes, and I don't stop there. If I die, so what? Roll another and try again.

[Wraitheist]

Your insights are invaluable. Thanks a lot!