On a run playing a paladin

[Mondkalb]

You got very lucky with finding Cambeleg early on, great handgear!

Keep an eye on your burden (your overweight or remaining weight is displayed on top of the equipment screen).
Like Philip said, drop a few of the heavy staffs, wear Arvedui and drop the DSM.
You are still at +2 speed due to Wormtongue's boots, but every bit of speed is precious (at least below 10 or even 20).
If you are faster, you can hit a melee-only monster, move one step and heal or shoot, and wait for the monster to come after you and hit it again.

[Petoften]

Dropped alchemist gloves with +1 dex and +4 searching to keep gloves with +2 str and con - both prevent paralysis.

[Petoften]

You got very lucky with finding Cambeleg early on, great handgear!

Keep an eye on your burden (your overweight or remaining weight is displayed on top of the equipment screen).
Like Philip said, drop a few of the heavy staffs, wear Arvedui and drop the DSM.
You are still at +2 speed due to Wormtongue's boots, but every bit of speed is precious (at least below 10 or even 20).
If you are faster, you can hit a meelee-only monster, move one step and heal or shoot, and wait for the monster to come after you and hit it again.

Thanks, I'll do that - I was keeping an extra spellbook in case one gets destroyed, and the DSM for the 200 damage activation...

It's come in handy against a unique or a bunch of monsters to be able to shoot the 200 down a row and take some out.

[Mondkalb]

It is wise to keep one or two copies of the spell books you really need, because they can burn up very fast if you get in an unfortunate situation.

Never drop Cambeleg, the (+8/+8) bonus to hit and damage is invaluable. And don't melee any disenchanters, you don't want to get them disenchanted!

[Philip]

200 damage is barely more than what you do in melee, and it only works on monsters who don't resist fire anyway. It's not worth keeping around.

Cambeleg is the 2nd most powerful hand slot item in the game. You will not need to swap it out ever unless you max out STR and CON *and* have Fingolfin. The reason is that +8 +8 to_hit and to_dam is extremely powerful, and CON boosts are pretty important too. +8 to_dam is 40-50 extra damage/round. It is currently responsible for about 2/5 of your damage output vs. others, from what I can tell.

The spellbooks are not what is weighing you down. It is the armor and the amount of staffs and potions you have.

[Petoften]

OK, practically unencumbered now, dropped the dsm.

Getting feared, wonder if a ring of the dog is worth it.

[Philip]

If there are monsters who make you afraid a lot, carry a couple potions of Heroism to deal with it - they're a handy buff and prevent fear. You're a Paladin, too, which means you should have remove fear as a spell. A ring of the dog will not be better than +14 AC, and even that ring isn't too great.

[Petoften]

I read a scroll that summoned undead... killed the first one, but this master lich, hit it several times and it's only down one *. Three mobs left.

[Philip]

Yeah liches are bad news. Run away. Note that they drain charges, which may make running away inordinately hard, but you should have reasonably reliable Portal at this point at least.

[Petoften]

Killed the lich finally, about 14k exp.

[Petoften]

Whoa. Ran into a bunch of stuff, then a patriarch. I was at 122HP and in one round he cast a power word and now I have 5hp.

[Petoften]

Killed the patriarch and the rest, whew, no good loot. 5HP! Now I have hallucination from the emergency mushroom...

[Petoften]

Trap, tried to disarm, it summoned three dragons including an ancient green.

[Philip]

You seem to keep putting yourself in nasty situations. Why were you at 1/3 of your max hp standing in front of a Patriarch? Why did you fight the Master Lich? I imagine you're going to fight the dragons too. Why?

[Petoften]

Is it worth respawning a level based on the danger?

I just went to level 42, and it said 'murderous'. I could go up and down...