What Kills Warriors in Iron Man?

[Fiquin]

No trap detection... its nearly impossible to wear enough 'searching' to make up for a few rods of trap detection and when you're about to plunder that juicy 9 vault or you're on your way to grab 'x' item a trap door will wreck you. I had search on auto and was searching each space three times and I still missed a trap door in said vault with +8, 54% searching.

No food... miss a few levels because of trap doors? You'll run low on consumables and the one consumable that will kill you if you run out is food. Just a reminder that the warrior class in Iron Man plays like the original Rogue... as if everything else weren't hard enough you're on a food clock... it wouldn't be Angband if the levels were persistent however starvation is a harsh fate for the one class that can't conjure food from a book.

[Pete Mack]

For food, carry scrolls of satisfy hunger. They last longer. And don't use regeneration. Early on, use ring of Slow detection to protect your stash, especially if you are daring enough to play Half-troll warrior. Otherwise, so long as you keep moving, there should be plenty of food to eat (stacks of slime molds, food, mushrooms, waybread.)

Traps are just something you have to be ready for--ironman or not. And yeah, it's tough luck if you don't find a rod of trap detection early. But not as tough as not finding Kelek's as a mage.

[fph]

ring of Slow detection

Ha - THAT's why Fiquin couldn't see trap doors!

[Thraalbee]

The only real issue is ?phase door supply. Warrior is the only class that needs scrolls for this the entire game. Like all ironman characters eg rod of curing helps save potions but there is no rod of phasing to help there

[Pete Mack]

Grr. Slow digestion!

Ha - THAT's why Fiquin couldn't see trap doors!

Oh yeah. You run out of these fast, and will not have enough vs Morgoth. It takes significantly more !heal to kill him as ironman.

The only real issue is ?phase door supply. Warrior is the only class that needs scrolls for this the entire game. Like all ironman characters eg rod of curing helps save potions but there is no rod of phasing to help there

[Fiquin]

Indeed, my latest game was the first time I saw how starvation mechanics work to the bitter end. For an Iron Man warrior in particular never squelch any food or potential food item and you must always have an inventory slot completely dedicated to something that keeps you "full".

Needlessly to say I was doing this, however, around dl 20 I usually run out of inventory for all the things I need or would like to carry so I make stashes of items as I explore the level - my stack of 9 or so satisfy hunger scrolls was stashed to make extra space on my first major vault level but as I pointed out above if you hit a bad luck streak on searches and pop that trap door you better make sure you have the essentials in your pack... now I know and from here on out food will be one of them. Even if I have trap detection and disarm rods, a teleport level from some nasty can ruin an otherwise perfectly played game if you don't have a healthy stack of food in your inventory.

Angband, where the real challenge is...

[Fiquin]

But not as tough as not finding Kelek's as a mage.

Once I had played mage enough to find Kelek's I realized Kelek's is what makes a mage. That would be harsh to get to dl99/100 without Kelek's!

[Pete Mack]

My current character is a mage at dl96 without Kelek. It is HARD to kill unique, especially demons and undead. For others I can use wands of drain life for 250 damage, or put on a nice Ring of accuracy (+22,+0) and melee or shoot arrows. Add in !Berserk and !Hero, and I can play like a weak rogue.

Once I had played mage enough to find Kelek's I realized Kelek's is what makes a mage. That would be harsh to get to dl99/100 without Kelek's!

[Estie]

Keleks used to be so rare that most mages never found it. Even earlier, melee and archery was late game mages only relevant form of attack.

[Derakon]

And earlier than that, they got Globe of Invulnerability and were completely unstoppable so long as their SP held out.

[Pete Mack]

"Never" for some definition of never. If you played over 1.5M game turns, you were pretty likely to find it. Autoscum helped too. But I never really understood it: What's the point of playing mage if you can't cast the banishment and destruction spells (never mind doing spell damage)?

That said, I think it still should be native to dl 100; there's no reason to make it so common prior to DL 90 (where it's native in special rooms.) But I find it at shallow depth pretty frequently now. Just increasing the drop frequency was enough.

Keleks used to be so rare that most mages never found it. Even earlier, melee and archery was late game mages only relevant form of attack.

[Egavactip]

My current character is a mage at dl96 without Kelek. It is HARD to kill unique, especially demons and undead. For others I can use wands of drain life for 250 damage, or put on a nice Ring of accuracy (+22,+0) and melee or shoot arrows. Add in !Berserk and !Hero, and I can play like a weak rogue.

Yes, I just played a game in which my mage got to DL98 without Kelek's and I had to make the choice of whether to go hand to hand against Sauron and Morgoth with a mage or wait around until I found Kelek's. I did have an awesome melee weapon for a mage but I was going to have to wear a ring of constitution +6 to help my miserable hit points and that would have cut down on damage I could do. In the end, I decided to try one more attempt to find Kelek and after going through maybe two or three more versions of Level 98 I finally found one--stuck in a bitch of a place, but it was there and I got it. So the first time I used Kelek's was actually my fight against Sauron. To make up for lost use, I just manastormed the f*** out of him.

It's a pain going around the DL90s without any banishment or destruction or mana storm...