Playing a rogue

[Pete Mack]

Once you are down under 100 HP, you are on borrowed time. Any number of creatures can one shot you with cause wounds or nether bolt, never mind the breaths from any ancient dragon or higher demon. Later in the game, the minimum HP in a big fight goes up, eventually reaching 600 vs Morgoth.

The moment you realize you dont have enough healing to finish a fight it is time to abandon it. Against a vault, this means teleport self, or teleport level, or *destruction*.
It really is time to make that save file at dl ~40 and use it as a starting save file. Repeated save scumming won't help.

[Sky]

There's a few mobs who can cause high damage *occasionally* , for example the Black Reaver is generally content to melee you, but sometimes can cast mana storm just like morgoth, for a DPS way above what he deals in melee.
Also things like the Patriarch, generally you start meeting them when your save is 100% so you very rarely feel their spells.

Even an Acolyte can luck out and cast 30-odd damage and kill a CL6/7/8 wounded character leaving you with a face like WTH!?

Oh btw

You dont need to save scum. Just open task manager and look for the PROCESS angband.exe - NOT the application. Kill the process and reopen the game.

There really should just be the option for noobs who want to play Soft Angband.

[Philip]

I'm pretty sure there's an option called "cheat death" still around? Is that broken or was it removed or something?

[Pete Mack]

It's still around. It puts you back in town after dying. But it is not a good way to learn the game.

[Petoften]

There's a few mobs who can cause high damage *occasionally*

Ya, makes it tricky for those long fights of dozens and dozens, when you're deciding when to heal up to not waste resources.

[Sky]

It's still around. It puts you back in town after dying. But it is not a good way to learn the game.

In my experience it's the opposite.
Hack yourself a OP character and win with that, and then start taking away things. That worked for me in Angband, in FTL .. moost RPGs ... learning "the right way" isnt designed to convey informations, i would argue it actually tries to keep you in the dark.
Lets say you fight a unique one way .. you die .. thats it. Fight it, die several times until you find a way that works .. you learn.
Or that "it hits you. You die". Can instead become "hack some hp" + "wizard the level" and find it's a dread and its got passwall.

Basically, you make the excercise trivial, and then increase the difficulty.

[Petoften]

Continuing from the save before all the killing on the level, I redid the same level and killed the 'vault' but it had almost no treasure and the death wights this time didn't do the same kind of damage. I was clearing the level until I ran into Beorn, the shape-changer, and he was just too much. I used all my heals, and got him to about 30%-40% but finally had to leave the level.

[Pete Mack]

Continuing from the save before all the killing on the level, I redid the same level and killed the 'vault' but it had almost no treasure and the death wights this time didn't do the same kind of damage. I was clearing the level until I ran into Beorn, the shape-changer, and he was just too much. I used all my heals, and got him to about 30%-40% but finally had to leave the level.

Beorn is tough. There is a series of fast, hard hitting monsters with a lot of HP.
Bolg-> Azog-> Beorn-> queen ant ->Lokkak -> Rogrog.

Dot mess with them unless you can hit harder. (Or if you have a very good bow.)

[Petoften]

Beorn is tough. There is a series of fast, hard hitting monsters with a lot of HP.
Bolg-> Azog-> Beorn-> queen ant ->Lokkak -> Rogrog.

Dot mess with them unless you can hit harder. (Or if you have a very good bow.)

I ran into queen ant and she was very hard - I wasn't sure if she was a unique or not with that name.

I thought I got Azog before, but not sure with these names.

Bow wasn't help, Beorn could move multiple squares and it did little damage.

[Pete Mack]

Then your bow wasn't good enough. A good bow will do over 100 damage per turn, which is enough for Beorn with a bunch of ?phase doors.

[Petoften]

Then your bow wasn't good enough. A good bow will do over 100 damage per turn, which is enough for Beorn with a bunch of ?phase doors.

I think mine only does 29 - but I could only get one shot off on Beorn before he got several hits, and even over 100 damage barely reduced his health.

[Sky]

You can tell a unique simply by The Name. (It's capitalised)

I like to farm the summons of the queen ant, quite a lot of xp.

I dont think ive ever had a good drop off of Beorn. I tend to avoid him early on and generally kill him much later when most drops are exhausted.

You really MUST stash potions of Speed to use only 1. During Unique fights, 2. If escaping certain death, or 3. If in a situation of disadvantage (such as pit fights against stuff that Confuses)

Beorn moves at +10 so hes can hit you 2x his attacks unless you drink a Speed.

[Petoften]

You can tell a unique simply by The Name. (It's capitalised)

I like to farm the summons of the queen ant, quite a lot of xp.

I dont think ive ever had a good drop off of Beorn. I tend to avoid him early on and generally kill him much later when most drops are exhausted.

You really MUST stash potions of Speed to use only 1. During Unique fights, 2. If escaping certain death, or 3. If in a situation of disadvantage (such as pit fights against stuff that Confuses)

Beorn moves at +10 so hes can hit you 2x his attacks unless you drink a Speed.

Ya, one problem is no speed potions, but a weapon had a speed effect.

[Petoften]

Does speed increase your speed 100% or 20% or something else?

[Petoften]

When the monster info says it's hurt by an element, does that mean it take more damage by it than normal?