Just chatting about a game

[Petoften]

Wow. Put on the boots of stability I'm glad I brought, finally killed the vampire lord - then a bunch more came and another lord and meantime a 'great crystal drake' that was very hard came from the other side, and a third vampire lord - got them all after another of my healing potions, almost all gone.

[Petoften]

Well crap. I found a room of vampires and started killing them... then a master vampire... then an elder vampire.

The elder was quite hard, got me under 100hp, power word attack, I had to use 2 healing potions but got him.

Starting finishing off some others - and then a 'vampire lord'! What the heck - hard again - sounds harder than an elder.

Wasn't sure how it was going to go and tried to move away to get him alone and found I was confused.

And then I was summoned into a room full of them. Yeesh, about to teleport.

[Sideways]

It's hard to overstate how useful rods of detection are to a warrior. They're one of the best and most important warrior utility items.

Ideally, though, you'll want to carry a whole pile of them; one is much better than nothing, but often you'll need to detect many times in quick succession.

[Sideways]

Mass genocide/mass banishment, unlike banishment, has an area of effect; so it only affects monsters near you, not the whole level. It is also a very silent scroll (you don't get any message when the monsters disappear), so it's easy to miss it working if you can't see the monsters. You take a small amount of damage for every monster banished, so that's one way to tell.

(Note also that uniques are immune to both banishment and mass banishment.)

[Petoften]

I bought the rod of detection and just used it, and everything it showed disappeared from the map the next turn...

[Petoften]

I see - I wonder why when I read a scroll of 'mass genocide' it didn't do anything.

[Petoften]

What does a rod of detection detect? Edit, bought it so I see that info.

What's the point - does it replace trasure location, detect evil, etc?

[Sideways]

Can you elaborate? Is it like genocide? Why wait?

It is like genocide (indeed, in most variants, it is called genocide); but it doesn't remove a monster type from the game permanently, it only removes all monsters of that type from the level you read it on. Most people save scrolls of banishment for the end fight so they can read them on Morgoth's summons.

[Petoften]

I wonder if I could kill an ancient multi-hued dragon with this bow and the dragon slaying arrows.

[Petoften]

Store it at home for later use.

Can you elaborate? Is it like genocide? Why wait?

[Sideways]

I got better boots of speed - +5 instead of +3 - but my weapon shows the same damage each round with either.

Speed doesn't affect how much damage you can do in one round - it gives you more rounds per unit of time. Effectively you'll be doing 15% more damage at +5 speed than +3 speed, assuming you spend all your turns on melee.

(Even more importantly, the faster you are, the fewer opportunities dangerous monsters have to double-move you.)

[Sideways]

Got a scroll of banishment - what to do with it?

Store it at home for later use.

[Petoften]

Ring of bodykeeping - not worth using, right?

Got a scroll of banishment - what to do with it?

[Petoften]

Ran into an ethereal dragon - very hard. Had to use 2 potions of healing and recall - he was outdamaging my CCW and had me under 100HP and confusing every turn.

Finally got him, getting a few hits in while confused - dropped white dragon scale mail of craftsmanship, but it doesn't look good. And an unknown scroll.

[Petoften]

Zweihander of Acid dropped by Uvatha the Horseman... about 50 to 75 less damage, so I'll drop it.