Baby Dragons nest

[CivBesch]

I just encountered an interesting situation, having just arrived in the dungeon at level 10, myself being at level 16.

I have beaten about 5 individual baby dragons, but now to my east there are 18 baby dragons and 5 pseudo dragons. I wonder if I can handle this.

CORRECTION: there are now about 45 of them

[Oraticus]

You've run into a monster "nest" or a "pit". Pits/Nests are square rooms surrounded by a 1-tile-wide "moat". Pits all contain different tiers of monsters from the same family, such as a pit of ainu or a pit of trolls, and start off organized with lower tier mobs toward the outer walls, and higher tier mobs toward the center.

Nests, however, contain monsters from different families, but still in keeping with a higher level theme, such as "graveyards" that have many different kinds of undead (liches, wraiths, skeletons, etc.) or "zoos" that contain varied natural animals.

All monsters in a pit or nest start off the level "awake", so approaching pits can't be done stealthily, however this only one exit by default from the pit, so mapping the pit from a distance and managing your approach can prevent mobs from spilling out too rapidly.

Dragon pits can be an excellent way to gather up a large number of consumables and items due to dragons being great loot pinatas. If you're as over-leveled as you are for that depth, have the appropriate resists for the breaths and are careful about how you approach the pit to limit the number of dragons that exit at a time and not get caught in LoS for multiple breaths on you per turn, you could find it worth-while to loot that pit.

[CivBesch]

Well, with 'sense surroundings' I was able to see the area. It's more like an area with little rooms, in which there are 3-5 baby or pseudo-dragons in each. All asleep. So I can let them come out just a few at the time. The only problem is that I do not have enough arrows with me to kill 45 of them.

I also accidentally came to close, so 3 of them came at once.

The strange thing was that although I have resist fire, one of my books got burnt, so I lost some spells.

I hope the acid and lighting breathers will not damage anything else although I do have electricity and acid resistance.

[CivBesch]

They seemed too much for me.

I got stunned and the fire protection did not work. The only solution was a word of recall and drinking a series of potion to restore health.

I wonder if I should keep that small shield of resist fire - it apparently does not protect.

[Derakon]

Resistance is not immunity. You take 1/3rd normal damage from basic elements if you have resistance.

You should also have better ways to escape. Where is your Phase Door and Teleport?

[CivBesch]

Well, my mana was extremely low after twice using Orb of Draining, of which one failed, so Portal was not possible anymore.

Using the phase door might have brought me right in the middle of the dragons nest - probably too risky

Should resist fire not protect 100% against my books being burnt?

[Derakon]

Should resist fire not protect 100% against my books being burnt?

It should not. You need immunity for that, which is a lot more rare.

Always reserve resources for escapes. If you want to spend all your SP on Orb, then have teleportation devices in your inventory. Ideally, don't get into a fight where you rely on Orb succeeding twice if you're to win.

[Pondlife]

Was it like the "Q" monsters in this thread?

http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=8516

And that shield of resist fire reduced the damage to one third of what it would have been without any resistance; so it might have saved your hide.

[Pete Mack]

At a low CL, Orb can be a trap. The fail rate is relatively high, and your Mana pool is low. It's easy to exhaust yourself, leaving you relatively helpless against a stronger foe. In any case, baby dragons only drop gold, so you didn't miss much in the way of loot.

[PowerWyrm]

You've run into a monster "nest" or a "pit".

There are no baby dragon pits. This is more likely to be one of the new "room of chambers" special room, with one type of monster inside. Wait until you land on a level where there are only two "rooms", one being a GV and the other one being a room of chambers full of greater balrogs, pit fiends and horned reapers. And the stairs are in the room.

[Oraticus]

There are no baby dragon pits. This is more likely to be one of the new "room of chambers" special room, with one type of monster inside. Wait until you land on a level where there are only two "rooms", one being a GV and the other one being a room of chambers full of greater balrogs, pit fiends and horned reapers. And the stairs are in the room.

Sounds like a fun level.

I figured at DL500 if you encountered a dragon pit (is it even possible?) that it would be mostly baby dragons due to the depth. I'm surprised that the room of chambers had 45 dragons in it though! I think I've run across this kind of room, with Trolls, however.

[CivBesch]

Yes, indeed, I can confirm. it was indeed a 'chamber of rooms' like Pondlife and PowerWyrm describe.

I would not be astonished if there were more than 45 baby dragons, as I was not able to see the other side with 'detect evil'