Hobbit Ranger

[Grotug]

I am wearing a cap of Regen and an amulet of ESP and dropped a helm of Telepathy (stupid!) and just picked up a necklace of the Dwarves. So hoepfully I'll find another helm of telepathy soon!

Having 273 SP is fun. I can pretty much be perpetually hasted if I want. In fact, I just found a RoS [+7] but it knocks off like 80SP so I will not wear it (my two rings of INT are now +6 and +5). I'm carrying too many books, though. Not sure which I should drop. I also stupidly didn't hold onto, I guess, what was the second Raal's Tome of Destruction (I thought it was Gilmore of Power, but I got the books confused) I found because I thought I had stored the first one in my home but hadn't.

I've actually, surprisingly, been fine with my CON, except when I failed to phase using book spell after Catlord summoned me to her. After her turn I had 26 health and was confused. So I healed, but was again confused at the start of my turn (I had also foolishly dropped my _telportation)Got lucky and after !CCW I wasn't confused at start of my turn and ?phased away. Took awhile, but I did finally defeat her with bolts (not so easy given the constant summons).

Think I'm gonna forego Mordenkain's escapes for now, as nice as door and stair creation are. But Door creation can be a life saver if you have an instadeath breather down a long corridor. And since I just DD'd to DL76 I will be facing many many instadeathers now. So I think I will keep it. I did drop the book that self-teleports though, as it has no great spells.

Pete Mack, PowerDiver: yes,it's a blast going around with less than 300HP at these depths.

Wow, found another ring of INT <+6> bringing my INT to 190 but it didn't increase my mana pool at all. How come? SP is still at 273.

[Pete Mack]

Yeah, extreme diving with a mage is a lot of fun. Everything can kill you anyway, so you might as well go to dl 99 and scum for vaults. Any Divisi is likely to have a couple!CON or AUG. Another suggestion is to put some stat points into CON if you want to dive fast. You can mostly ignore STR as a HT mage.

[debo]

Isn't it invigorating?

I really hope that was a constitution pun.

[PowerDiver]

I'm on DL69 and my CON is 12..... This is a bit ridiculous. My max HP is 265.

Isn't it invigorating?

[Grotug]

So I never did go with the ToW. Instead I found a ring of INT <+4> and then a ring of INT <+6> and since the pair of rings triple my SP I decided to wear both rings and keep Oromë. Nevermind that I'm trawling DL60 without rPoison and 246HP and TO'd the Bile Demon who kept coming back (with my 31% fail rate book cause I have no other source) 6 times. I'm damn lucky he never breathed on me, though I did self haste as well so I could safely use hockey stick (I nevertheless failed many times and TO'd him next to me). 181 SP and regen and I'm still always running out of mana. I have 246 health and is very difficult to level up since I'm not able to kill anything of consequence. But I'll just stealth my way deeper into the dungeons (about to read a ?DD). I found some good bolts to go with my high damage xbow, but I really need a good bow.

I'm on DL69 and my CON is 12..... This is a bit ridiculous. My max HP is 265. When I was CL 21 it was over 200 back in the low DL30s. lel

EDIT: Wahoo! I got my first pot of CON! Now my max HP is 267!!

[Grotug]

Certainly, when strongly motivated and good chance of survival. Easier when you have a staff of destruction so you only need to lure him away far enough to allow destructing him without destroying the room in question.

I guess I should have ID'd the ?Destruction instead of just reading it. Woulda been handy! I don't think the resources I may end up having to expend trying to isolate Eöl will be worth whatever item is there. 5 feeling levels are dime a dozen at this depth.

This Hobbit is putting out some serious melee. Just as I was about to leave the Eöl level I saw a diamond ring I hadn't noticed earlier near me and it was +9 damage. Then on the next level after _teleporting away from a storm giant that confused me I killed a dark elven druid and it dropped ToW. Not sure if I should go with the extra damage or keep the speed and intelligence of Oromë, 264 vs non rFire and ToW does 340 vs non rPoison and 478 vs Undead. I'm kinda wishing I was just a warrior, although the excellent stealth is pretty cool since I can just sneak up and whack for the first hit on many monsters and device skill is nice, too. But what do I need these magic books for? Magic missile is replaced by my xbow and rods of frost/fire bolts, and I can teleport self using a staff which is better than using books which don't work when I'm confused. I think I like the paladin spells better since the 2 mana heal is so much more useful than the red book's 3 mana heal. I think I prolly go with ToW and maybe do away with the spell books entirely for a bit. I like the phase but is it worth an extra slot when I carry ?phase anyway?

[luneya]

It may have been boldness or even slime juice mold hah. Good point about slowness and sleep, didn't realize that!

Juice use-ids every time because it's a food source. But boldness is an even more likely candidate than the harmful potions, if you haven't found it yet. I generally make it a point to buy a potion of boldness in town ASAP because it's a pain to use-id and dirt cheap to buy.

[Thraalbee]

Certainly, when strongly motivated and good chance of survival. Easier when you have a staff of destruction so you only need to lure him away far enough to allow destructing him without destroying the room in question.

[Grotug]

It may have been boldness or even slime juice mold hah. Good point about slowness and sleep, didn't realize that!

So, normally I wouldn't be paying attention to the differences between most critters I can just clobber through as a warrior, but there is one lowercase critter I have come to be aware of, even as a warrior, and that is the skeleton ettin because he is tougher than most other lowercase critters of his ilk. But as a hobbit, I have to pay attention to everything. So I see a pit of lesser undead, and in it it has 5 mummified trolls that do more damage but have much less health than the skeleton ettin, but are higher DL and worth more points. I really don't get this. It seems to me their higher melee outpout is more than offset by their lower hitpoints. I guess I will find out when I take on the pit. It has 20 skeleton ettins and 5 mummified trolls. I'm much more worried about the ettins.

EDIT: I don't know if anyone has tried doing this, but I have a room with one single monster that I definitely can't deal with. Now if I could lure him out of the room somehow and then teleport back to the room (which might take a lot of tries) I could theoretically get inside the room and not have him pursue me, if I can lure him far enough away from the room, that is. The danger in mind is Eöl and I am native speed +9 and 225HP. I have a ring of escaping I could use to help lure him away, but I have no other means of hasting myself. I'm pretty sure if I can lure him far enough away from the room and then teleport around for awhile until I land in a position favorable to going back to the room without encountering him I could do it. The item in the room probably not worth it, anyway, though, (feeling 5) and I have already gotten good stuff from drops (gloves of power, !Augmentation). These gloves deal a serious penalty to my SP from 44 with gloves of FrACt to 33 with Power! But they allow me to maximize my speed and give Oromë a bit of a boost. Hmm... I'll probably pass on these shenanigans. But has anyone ever attempted such a ruse?

[luneya]

If you haven't identified all of the harmful potions yet, they're the most obvious candidates for a {tried} result once boldness and neutralize poison are known. If you quaff slowness or sleep while having free action, it does nothing. Likewise with the other status inflicters and the corresponding resistances, though those cases are rarer.

[Grotug]

So, not that anyone cares :P, but I am going to put newer stuff at the top of this post. So each paragraph block will represent an update, with the newest at top, and the oldest at the bottom.

Also found a heavy xbow of (+24) in that room with Oromë and Brukkelehed, but not sure the weight is worth it. Probably, though, since Oromë will compensate the loss in speed. Of course I get extra shots with the bow, but the bow only has (+8). I also have 17 bolts of frost I was keeping at home. I think I may go with the xbow.

Hallelujia Oromë!! Wahhoo, I have all the luck! Unbelievable. I will try not to kill this hobbit like I did the last one that found Oromë. Oromë is one of the best weapons an Intel relying caster can find (at least that I am aware of). I can't remember if it has FrAct, (I ID'd it, it doesn't, but that's why I saved a =FrAct at home) but man, I sure did luck out on this level. All the OoD monsters were 1) not that OoD, 2) relatively safe for my @ with his current abilities and 3) the one that was way OoD, was a sole hound, which by themselves are relatively easy to deal with.



Beorn and friends are in the room with the ? in it above where @ is. I kept ?phasing out of the top hallway into his lair. The Hydra/snake pit is in the middle of the level where another ? is. So I found two ?identify. These need to be used oh so carefully! Of course I could cheat and ask what powers Brukkelheled confirs (my current weapon is my only source of FrAct) but I do not want to cheat. Then there is an unID'd scroll that might be worth IDing (I already have ?teleport, but not ?telelevel and I opted to buy rod of frost bolts over ?banishment, which I am feeling a bit dubious about, but so often I hang onto ?banishments and have them destroyed before I use them.

I walked a little ways away from the far edge of the map, to help the RNG not put me back somewhere dangerous I had teleported from and went to pick up a ring, but got poisoned by said ring, so I teleported and ended up with a clear path back to the treasure room! Just a few more mature dragons to deal with and a pass-through-walls elemental and I'll be homefree to investigate all the loot. The brown E is hard to kill since I'm really trying to avoid taking off my ring of the mouse (I really don't want to wake up the beorn room).

[second update below]

So it was more or less working well, but I keep ?phasing into the Beorn room. The second time I did, I _teleported to a bad place; a hydra pit. I can deal with a hydra one on one, but not a pit of nasties. So I teleported again, but my position again did not improve. I teleported again and now I am as far from the room I was working on clearing as I could be (the one with tons of treasures and the likely spot for the 7 feeling, though I suppose the more dangerous hydra pit could also be). Teleporting back to it seems unlikely now. So my options seem to be to either work my way back over there the old fashioned way, and thus swap out my ring of escaping for ring of CON and the ring of the mouse for ring of strength (both <+2>). I don't think I'll be able to range attack my way back to that room. I think some melee is going to be necessary or I will run out of arrows. I am already out of normal arrows, and have about 40 between my poison and {excellent} arrows. The stealth has really been working well, though (superb, thanks to my class/race and the ring of mouse). I only have 5 teleport charges left. I also just picked up a book that allows me to teleport self, but it uses 1/3 of my mana. I used my last !restore mana already.

[First update below]

Yes, I hit the >. So this was interesting, I detected monsters nearby, saw a few OOD things, but nothing really of great concern. Beorn (not OoD) probably the biggest threat. Decided to try to kill the pukelman in the room, which I did without much trouble, though I lost my staff of identify to an acid bolt. I go to pick up the arrows and I am hit by a nether hound. I resist the effect, but I don't have rNether (I sustain my lifeforce natively, though). So I decide at (80) per breath 1 time in 5 I can risk trying to take it down with my arrows of venom. He gives me a little trouble since he passes through walls and I had to phase out when he got next to me, which took me into a hallway adjacent to the starting room where I started fighting him. Anyway, danced around some other monsters while trying to get him while not in a wall. Right before I had killed him I looked at the points I get for killing him: over 17,000 points! Holy moly. Its native depth was DL59. I think I was CL23 with 1000 points to go. Now I am CL26 with 1360 points till next level. I'm on DL32 with danger level of 5.

I'm low on supplies, though. No identify, a staff of CLW, 8 !CSW, 1 !CCW, 2 !healing, no speed buff except this =Escaping I'm maining. Not sure how many arrows I have left, since there are a few monsters between me and the rest of my arrows in the starting room, since I never got to pick them up. And only 5 ?Phase door. I do have 1 !Restore mana. I'm thinking I am not strong enough to try to go treasure hunting on this level. If I can avoid Beorn and if I do not mind using up my arrows of venom and my {excellent} arrows I might be able to get somewhere. I do not know the treasure feeling of the level, but considering I picked up a spell book with Teleother in it (I can't cast it yet) the level likely has something worthwhile on it.

Just quaffed an unID'd potion. I already know rPoison and nPoison, I had 205/209 health and 7 mana (already know !restore mana), yet the potion gives {tried}. I can't think what it could be.

[AnonymousHero]

FWIW, jelly pits are basically never worth it regardless of level and/or resistances. Conclusion: Skip or go further down.

[Grotug]

That's what ID by use if for. Shoot the next monster you see with the bow and it will tell you the to-dam plus.

Yes, yes, I know. Problem is is the next monster I'm likely to see is a jelly, since the pit has been woken and is not too far from the 'u' pit I just cleared. edit: (+12,+8) good enough to make comfortable for the DL I'm at (this was first level after DD from town).

And just picked up a ring of escaping, so given that my melee is max 58 against trolls, orcs, giants, seems I should main the RoS and keep heavily stocked on arrows. Hmm... maybe I will pick up that ring of the mouse I dropped earlier and swap it for the ring of reckless attacks.

is AC useful against enemy arrows? What other ranged attacks is it useful for? Wondering if I should swap out a robe of rCold (2, -2) for an average armor (42, 0). Probably not since the heavy armor slows me down.

[Monkey Face]

Presently, though, I'm on DL23 (hobbit ranger) with no good gear to speak of, though I just picked up a long bow of might. I do not know what its to-dam is. The level feeling is 6 and I am wondering if I should take on a mold and jelly (ochres and oozes) pit or head for the stairs.

That's what ID by use if for. Shoot the next monster you see with the bow and it will tell you the to-dam plus.

[Grotug]

HT Mage sounds reasonable; I may give it a go....

Presently, though, I'm on DL23 (hobbit ranger) with no good gear to speak of, though I just picked up a long bow of might. I do not know what its to-dam is. The level feeling is 6 and I am wondering if I should take on a mold and jelly (ochres and oozes) pit or head for the stairs. The only base resist I have is rCold though I may have picked up rAcid with this amulet I just picked up. I think I'll head for the stairs.