Dealing with Drainers

[Swishtail]

Hi, all. My furthest ever progress is underway, and my loyal dwarf fighter is down to level 67. The biggest threats I'm facing (other than occasionally getting caught in the open by summoners) are life drainers and charge drainers.

My go-to strategy at this point is:

-- Pop into the level and map/detect like crazy with telepathy running constantly
-- Scoop up the easy loot and kill the easy monsters
-- Kill any easy / medium uniques
-- Liberally use teleport other wands and rod I have on scary things
-- Run as soon as the life drainers and/or charge drainers wake up and start pursuing me with vigor

I'm assuming at some point I'll find something that will sustain my life levels. For charge drainers, my thought is, if possible drop my all important staves and wands (speed, teleport, teleport other) in a safe corner before the fight... But that seems a bit risky.

Any tips?

[Derakon]

You have it basically right. Life drain is not a huge issue, though -- that is, it doesn't really impact your power in the moment, just make it take longer to get your next level. But your power almost entirely comes from your gear (especially as a fighter), so slowing down your next levelup won't hurt you much. You can find gear that prevents experience drain; it's 90% effective and the remaining 10% of the time, you only lose 10% of the experience you normally would have. But it's more important to get gear that protects you from HP damage, stat drain, etc.

Charge drainers are much more of an issue, not just because they prevent you from using your wands and staves, but also because they heal themselves whenever they drain charges. Dropping your charged items before fighting them is one way to deal with them; another is to stick to ranged combat and a third of course is to just teleport them away. There's basically no reason to fight Beholders and very little reason to fight Liches, for example, so you may as well just teleport them.

Good luck!

[Estie]

You are doing the right thing - avoiding unpleasant monsters. Avoiding isnt a firm rule, rather the rule is "avoid except when its profitable", for example when theres a vault you want to tackle or a high object rating fighting might be the best option. For cases when I decide to fight, I am in the habit of carrying restore life level potions. As for charge drain, it happens, but I drop staves and wands only when its a long boss fight because dropping bears the risk of losing. If the occasional monster drains a few charges its not the end of the world.

[Swishtail]

Ah! Thank you.

I had no idea the charge draining was healing the evil ones as well. How terrible of them!

I think my relatively good progress with this character has been solely due to reading this forum and finally getting a better sense of when to run. The only close calls I've had have been when greed kicked in and I tried to take on things beyond my ability. In those cases I've ended up barely winning, but burning through a huge portion of my consumables and then, as luck would have it, the enemies drop useless loot.

[Carnivean]

Not mentioned so far is that HOLD_LIFE items cap the amount of XP drained per attack to about 2000. Rings of Soulkeeping are probably the first you'll come across, but a number of normal items have the flag.

Early on 2000 XP might seem like a lot, but later on it's 1 or 2 kills to get back.

[Pete Mack]

I agree with earlier posters: Life drainers are a mostly harmless nuisance. Drain strength can be fatal, and drain dex can be disastrous to melee capability. (CON is bad too, but sustain CON is pretty common, and CON drainers are relatively rare.)
Keep an eye out for amulets of sustenance as a swap for undead pits--they are surprisingly easy to clear, and do minimal damage to gear. Shields of Preservation are good too, and a good Crown of Might is easily endgame quality.

[Werbaer]

Try to find a good ranged weapon and matching branded ammo. A heavy XBow with fire branded bolts and a few phase door scrolls wil take out most of the drainers quickly (but maybe you're not deep enough yet to find branded ammo)

[Egavactip]

There's basically no reason to fight Beholders and very little reason to fight Liches, for example, so you may as well just teleport them.

I certainly agree re Beholders. As for Liches, though, they are pretty easily killable (even Archliches are, by the end game), and they can have decent drops. I personally think this makes up for their drain risks.