Just chatting about a game

[Pete Mack]

The rod is what you want to illuminate hallways. The wand will kill some hallways full of trolls, but that is pretty useless for a HT warrior.
You don't need ring of SO since you already have SI on a helmet.

[Mondkalb]

If the shops don't take your equipment, it is cursed.

Enchanting above 14 has only a tiny chance of success.

A wand has a certain amount of charges; it can be recharged with the spell/scroll of recharging, but may be destroyed in the process.
A rod has unlimited uses, but it takes some time to recharge itself after use.

[Petoften]

What's the difference in a wand of light and a rod of light? I have each.

[Petoften]

Would I be wasting a scroll of enchant weapon damage using it on the Sling with (10 accuracy, 15 damage)?

[Petoften]

Get to 1600ft/DL 32 and you'll find Dex potions natively that'll sort that problem out. Also all your other stats too. Between where you are and that level you'll find stat swap potions, which is what you just encountered.

Didn't know that existed - need to be careful, not just try drinking.

Found a Ring of Ice [15]...

[Petoften]

None of the shops will take my unidentified amulet or rings.

[geoff_tewierik]

Now to get my dex back somehow...

Get to 1600ft/DL 32 and you'll find Dex potions natively that'll sort that problem out. Also all your other stats too. Between where you are and that level you'll find stat swap potions, which is what you just encountered.

[Petoften]

OK - thanks for the help answering questions. I just found a see invis ring.

So that and free action might be good, if not combat rings...

I had a ring that said cursed but no other info - I dropped it, so suspect the others might not be.

Now to get my dex back somehow...

[Pete Mack]

Don't worry about the price. If it isn't something obvious like Teleport Other, it'll be cheap. And the mysteries on your rings are probably just a pile of curse runes. The only non-obvious ring that is both useful and somewhat expensive is resist poison. It's easy to discover it, and it really isn't all that expensive anyway.

[Petoften]

So the activation is 'dragonbreath' - that's damage? Wonder how much.

Crap I drank a potion - it increased wis and lowered my dex.

Wonder if the magic items I tried but aren't identified will auto identify if I carry them around. Don't want to have to ell to store and buy back expensive.

What's the difference between copper, silver and gold?

[Pete Mack]

Wear it. The loss in AC isn't much compared to the resistance, and the activation is excellent.

[Derakon]

The {??} indicates that the item has an as-yet unidentified rune. All Dragon Scale Mails can be activated to imitate dragonbreath, and provide resistance appropriate to the type of dragon they were made from.

[Petoften]

Killed them all - then just killed Nar, and he dropped Blue Dragon scale mail [12, +12] {??}

So it seems worse than my current on the armor, but has an unknown bonus with the {??}. I tried it on but saw no stat change.

Man, everything seems to cause confuse.

I was fighting Nar and there was confuse.

[Petoften]

Bingo:
Hummerhorns are largely why you need staff of teleportation. Quaff speed, try to fight to a door, get on the other side, and keep trying to close the door. But you are probably dead without the staff. I strongly recommend trying to get through the first 20 levels (then first 40 levels) faster so you can learn to handle these threats.
Note that a staff of light could have saved you to, so you could reach a door and close it behind you before the Hummerhorns got you
Edit:
One other possibility:
Quaff speed
Zap wand of stinking cloud on your own location
Quaff CCW
Read scroll of recall.

Ya, they weren't any danger - I could kill dozens and dozens - it finally got tedious so I used stairs. They just kept coming.

I considered killing more and more for experience but it was like 3 exp per kill.

[Petoften]

Oh, great. I found myself teleported in the middle of a room filled with monsters.

I used phase door and the next turn it teleported me back into the room, 'something commands you to come hither'.

We'll see how this goes... deciding whether to use recall or try to kill them all.