Rings

[kandrc]

Items like those mouse rings don't auto-id until you know all their runes, but are easily recognizable with only some of their runes known. But IIRC, simply trying one of them on and whacking a townsperson should suffice to learn everything about a mouse ring. It's more of a problem with dog and open wounds, which are both obvious on a cursory inspection but harder to get full identification on. But, on the other hand, those rings are often candidates for immediate squelching (where the lack of full id doesn't matter, as you'll never see them again), whereas people actually use mouse rings.

Warriors and paladins of a few races (most notably half-trolls) use rings of the dog. If you're waking everything up anyway, may as well not be afraid.

[luneya]

Warriors and paladins of a few races (most notably half-trolls) use rings of the dog. If you're waking everything up anyway, may as well not be afraid.

Sure, but even for them, it's a mediocre item. I play warrior a lot, and usually prefer to just carry potions of heroism and/or berserk strength until I get the intrinsic pFear at CL 30. As paladin, I'd similarly use potions until I reach a level where I can rely on the remove fear spell. I'll wear dog rings only if I have nothing better to put in the ring slot, which is usually only true in the very early game.

[Pete Mack]

If you see a Ring of mouse {??} or the like, the item is cursed.

[Sky]

well, it's not like you got much stealth at CL1, so ring of the dog can help you with those annoying accolytes.

ring of the mouse is just not a good ring. by the time you can do damage with it (offsetting the -6 *IF* it's -6, because you can as easily find a -11), there's better stuff.
if you are diving like crazy, then yeah, it can help you, but i'd rather go with Escaping, although i can understand Escaping not being as easy to find.

However, i prefer to level up a bit before i go even to DL20. You can literally grind CL20 with a long corridor and some red or blue worm masses. You don't even have to take it as far as CL20, CL15 is easy enough in 3 minutes.

personally, my choice is always a ring of digging, and a stat ring, both of which can be had by DL10.
i did mage with two Escaping, warrior with DEX and STR, and i have never once worn a ring of CON or rPois.

[Grotug]

Trying to figure out which rings that could be. Did you learn anything about the rings? Rings of the Dog would identify the stealth penalty once worn, but not the pFear, so shop price would be negative and they wouldn't sell until you find something able to scare you. Or it could be Open Wounds. Anyway, everything wearable is now sold at a price reflecting what you actually know about the item. So you're better if you can learn the positive attributes from mix blessing items first, and then the negative ones.

I used to sell Rings of mice for a pretty penny since I'd wear them, not attack anything, and then return to town and sell them. I also used to attack with reckless attack rings, but avoid being hit so I could sell them as rings of slaying.

[Philip]

Rings of the Mouse are actually very good. Sky has a very particular strategy for which they are not particularly useful, I suppose. But Stealth is one of the most important stats there is, and Mouse provides a lot of it, reliably, and early, which you can't exactly say for shoes, defenders, or elvenkind. The suggestion that you can't do damage with one is confusing, since =Mouse doesn't even touch ranged combat, devices, or magic. Also, the vast majority of characters with selling off will have free slots they can use to swap =Mouse in or out, mitigating its only negative property significantly. I contend that =Mouse are unbalanced, since they are extremely powerful (two ok ones will give you 4 times as much monster sleep time), yet only have bad effects for some classes.

[Estie]

Rings of mouse are no more unbalanced than amulets of wisdom; there is no rule that requires every item to have the same value for all classes.

As someone who values mouse rings highly, I would rate them similar to int rings for mages. I have prefered one over the other both ways in the past, depending on circumstances.

For priests they dont compete with the main stat, but one choice I remember coming up that had me thinking was mouse ring versus poison resist.

[Philip]

The reason I think they're unbalanced is that they're extremely powerful for their depth and rarity. Not having any adverse effects is a minor point in comparison to the issue that you have +stealth on a ring. In theory, this would be compensated by said adverse effects, but it is not. Even worse, it's a powerful early object, but it only helps people who know the power of stealth. Someone who starts a human warrior and finds a ring of the mouse is probably going to think it's trash, and will probably stick with that assessment for a while.

It does sort of mess with class balance in that warriors are powerful early, weak in the middle, and ok late. Mages are weak early, but rapidly gain power. But with rings of the Mouse, mages are much safer early on, while warriors don't get nearly as much of a spike, because stealth is less valuable for powerful characters.

[Mondkalb]

To each their own. ^^
Hobbit rogues whith mouse rings can sneak around and snitch everything they want.

[Pete Mack]

@Mondkalb--yep. For weak rogues, they're very good indeed. The other big stealth item is a Defender weapon, which I also recommend for weak characters. Regeneration is wonderful, too.

[Monkey Face]

As for the moment I am trying to kill every monster on every level, this has actually been very useful to me, being able to kill 1 or more creatures in one go, rather than getting a whole horde on my back at once.

Be careful. While complete level clearing may be doable early on, there will come a time when some of the monsters just become to dangerous. This is especially true of some uniques when you first meet them as well as monsters that are significantly out of depth.

[Derakon]

Moreover there are a lot of monsters in the game that are usually more trouble to kill than they're worth. You can win by killing everything, but you should be open to the possibility of avoiding fights and allowing annoying monsters to live.

[CivBesch]

Yes, I have come to realise that. I am already becoming much more careful in my approach to the new monsters I am encountering. Their attacks are much more powerful - but I am sure they are nothing compared to what is coming deeper still.

At the moment I am at DL 17 with CL 23. For veterans that is probably still much too easy. What I like about it, is that as a new player, by eliminating all creatures, you learn the different capacities of monsters and tools in a more relaxed, but studied way. There are so many aspects to learn that for a newbie it's rather overwhelming. I can also now easily imagine that an experienced player doesn't want to go through DL1, as those monsters are really pathetic compared to where I am now and the way of playing at DL1 is extremely simple compared to the complexity in the deep.

I am now at turn 784033.

The most difficult thing now is to evaluate which artefacts to keep (either to sell or to use) and which ones to throw away, as the possibilities are becoming more and more complex. I presume the game has evolved through time: as most people probably do not sell anymore, the focus for room in the inventory is on carrying items that are being used and not for having room to sell. An extra inventory with items to sell would be handy.

[Pete Mack]

Very few artifacts from the first 20 levels are worth keeping. You can post a character if you want more comments on this. You're learning very bad habits in your current game. I will repeat (for the nth time): gameplay after DL 40 is very different from gameplay in the first ~40 levels.

[Oraticus]

You're learning very bad habits in your current game. I will repeat (for the nth time): gameplay after DL 40 is very different from gameplay in the first ~40 levels.

He is learning, though, and filling out his bestiary the old way. Taking time to understand the mechanics of the game, even if it is lethargic like this, is better than rocketing to the bottom as a complete noob and getting nuked before you made even a significant step toward understanding mobs/gear/bestiary.

When I started, I was in no rush to keep my Clvl = Dlvl, and it helped to learn even the basics about gear and combat. Now I dive faster than I level, and death is rare until > DL 60.