Gnome Mage

[Grotug]

Well, I learned something else about Angband. Monster's AC affects launcher missiles' miss rate the same as it does melee miss rate. "You see a large brown snake. You have a 12% chance of hitting it in melee, if you can see it." And what if I fire shots from my sling at it? Oh, I see, none of them are hitting because they also have a 12% chance of hitting the large brown snake.

The kobold and mold and mushroom all died readily to my sling's shots, but the large brown snake took over 20 shots and 1 magic missile which always hits.

[Grotug]

@Monkeyface-
Always put points in CON, whatever class you are playing. Better to be down a point in INT than be suffering under 300HP at dl 70.

I look forward to sneaking around at DL70 with less than 300HP. I did fine with low HP as a hobbit ranger (except I was having a little bit of a hard time leveling up).

[Monkey Face]

I forget I get Experience when I learn spells. I was presently surprised when I gained a level after reading a new spell.

Just to clarify you get the experience when you cast the spell for the first time, not when you learn it. Also, higher level spells are worth more than lower ones.

[Grotug]

I guess I was lucky my first few games because this is getting harder and harder. I just died to a louse as a CL3 with max HP of 11.

Wow, 13HP and step on a trap and you die..... I struggle to make it to CL3. Last two games I went from 8HP to 15HP when I reached CL2 yet I still died.

[Derakon]

Always put points in CON, whatever class you are playing. Better to be down a point in INT than be suffering under 300HP at dl 70.

Ehh, depends on how facile you are with the class. If you can hit 18/50 INT, then your mage gets substantially more SP and lower failure rates on their spells, which can help the early game an awful lot. The cost is needing to find 4 more potions of Constitution (and 1 less potiont of Intelligence) to get to the same point statwise that the character that invested in CON does. That's not a trivial cost, but it's also not so one-sided that I'd say you're always better off taking CON over INT, for a mage.

[Grotug]

grrr... keep dying. The more impatient I get, the more I die.

[wobbly]

I actually like extra str on a mage, not for the melee damage (you're missing anyway unless you carry a lot of buff consumables) but for the carrying capacity
Staves are heavy. Sling ammo is heavy. I tend to use a shooter & phase early. The advantage of not relying on magic missile to fight is your sps stay full for if you suddenly need them in an emergency

[bio_hazard]

Detecting traps doors stairs, and also frequent detect monsters, is vital. If I remember your HT warrior you had a really low turncount with almost no resting. With the mage you'll need to do a lot more resting, especially before you find an item with regen. Early on Call Light + Find Traps and Doors + Detect Monsters will take a decent chunk of your mana pool, and you want to make sure you are close to topped up before you take on something tough.

Just pick your targets carefully, and don't be afraid to leave areas and entire levels if things get tricky. Use attack wands liberally to save your mana, and remember for monsters in groups, just because you can take down one or two before you run out of mana, it doesn't mean you won't get in trouble when their 8 other friends wake up.

re: rings, escape is a good swap, as is =mouse. Element rings can be nice for softening up targets.

[Carnivean]

http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=7590

Ingwe's guide to starting and playing gnome mages.

[Grotug]

Thanks guys for all the tips. Ingwe's is guide is very helpful. And I quite enjoyed Fruede and Freude2's blogged adventures.

I don't suppose a =Teleportation has much use for a mage? I just got MB3 and am CL14 and have 2 staves of teleportation. Not sure if the +2 speed is worth the effect of random teleportation.

So I guess according to Ingwe's guide, I'm ready to dive? I'll be on CL21 when I return to the dungeon. But I also have two ?of DD so I could reenter on DL26.cI think I will read one ?DD and try my luck sneaking around. I also have 4 !speed and 2 mTerror

Think I'm gonna buy the =SI and do some reckless diving.

I assume !Heroism is better than ?Blessing?

[Adam]

If you don't have SI yet, be careful. Dreads can show up soon. I lost a character just 2 weeks ago on dlev 32 or so because some dreads were just outside of my reveal monsters range and they got between me and the stairs.
I was like 2-3 steps from the stairs and I suddenly saw some "You are hit by something. You feel very week" prompts and died
When I am going for low turncount I always carry tele self and ID staffs even with a mage (staffs and recharge is cheaper than always casting and resting).
I almost never carry !Heroism or ?Blessing? with a mage, i like to use wands instead of bow/sling.

[Grotug]

I do have SI. I bought a ring from the BM.

Yeah, I did just kill a Werewolf with ?blessings and 1 !Berserk Strength using a shortbow. My arrows are doing 5dam a round so maybe I should reconsider my approach.

After I ?DD'd I kept landing on somewhat dangerous levels (especially for my CL16) so I kept taking downstairs whenever I could get to them, not able to kill much on my way down. The last downstairs I just took, landed me in a room with a silent watcher! Immediately my thought was to teleport out of there. But then I saw a rapier and un ID'd wand. And I'm like, if there is an OOD monster in this room, there's a chance one of these items is useful. I saw that the SW was asleep so I tiptoed to the rapier, then the wand. Pick up the wand and guess what it is? You got it! TO baby. So do I TO the SW or just teleport out of there? I decided to Teleport out.

Maybe I should go back to town and see there aren't any wands for sale and not do archery until I find a decent launcher.

[Grotug]

Lovely. I was resting up using the macro I setup for reset 5 turns and a black knight came around the corner and killed me.

Well, I'm back at it as Gnome Mage after I tried to melee one of the early brown P uniques. He did 39 damage in one round of melee. Mage sure is bad at shooting arrows. Heroism helps a lot. Going to try to move away from launchers, though, unless I find a good one. Killed Agent of Saruman with three fires of the Magic Wonder wand.

Fragilistic mage. Dies again to level 20 elven lord or something dealing 40 damage in one round of melee.

[Pete Mack]

Bad luck that. The macro R5 will always break out when disturbed.

[Derakon]

Lovely. I was resting up using the macro I setup for reset 5 turns and a black knight came around the corner and killed me.

Well, I'm back at it as Gnome Mage after I tried to melee one of the early brown P uniques. He did 39 damage in one round of melee. Mage sure is bad at shooting arrows. Heroism helps a lot. Going to try to move away from launchers, though, unless I find a good one. Killed Agent of Saruman with three fires of the Magic Wonder wand.

Wand of Wonder can be very good in the early game. You just need to be ready to run if it produces the haste or clone effects.