The Late Game

[Zero]

I've never had a winner, but I've also never been closer to having one than I am now. Here's a dump:

  [Angband 3.0.9b Character Dump]

 Name   Mage                                     Self  RB  CB  EB   Best
 Sex    Male              Age       108   STR! 18/100  +1  -5  +3  18/90
 Race   High-Elf          Height    100   INT:  18/99  +3  +3  +6 18/219
 Class  Mage              Weight    202   WIS:  18/93  -1  +0  +4 18/123
 Title  Warlock           Status     47   DEX:  18/54  +3  +1 +15 18/244
 HP     633/633           Maximize    Y   CON! 18/100  +1  -2  +9 18/180
 SP     310/310                           CHR:  18/74  +5  +1  +0 18/134

 Level           39       Armor   [31,+114]     Saving Throw      Heroic
 Cur Exp    2081905       Fight   (+28,+15)     Stealth           Heroic
 Max Exp    2081905       Melee   (+37,+24)     Fighting       Excellent
 Adv Exp    2300000       Shoot   (+53,+19)     Shooting       Excellent
 MaxDepth    Lev 98       Blows      4/turn     Disarming         Superb
 Turns      1306701       Shots      2/turn     Magic Device   Legendary
 Gold        246401       Infra       90 ft     Perception        Superb
 Burden   156.8 lbs       Speed          22     Searching         Superb

 You are the only child of a Vanyarin Ranger.  You have light grey
 eyes, straight black hair, and a fair complexion.



      abcdefghijkl@       abcdefghijkl@
 Acid:......+.+.+.. Blind:.....+...+...
 Elec:........+.... Confu:.........+...
 Fire:........+.... Sound:.............
 Cold:........+.... Shard:......+......
 Pois:....+........ Nexus:....+........
 Fear:...........+. Nethr:.............
 Lite:............+ Chaos:.....+.......
 Dark:........+.... Disen:.............

      abcdefghijkl@       abcdefghijkl@
S.Dig:............. Stea.:....+..++....
Feath:............. Sear.:....++...+...
PLite:............. Infra:....++.......
Regen:............. Tunn.:.............
Telep:.....+....... Speed:+.+.+.+....+.
Invis:.....+...+..+ Blows:.............
FrAct:..........+.. Shots:.+...........
HLife:.......+..... Might:.............


  [Character Equipment]

a) The Katana 'Aglarang' (8d4) (+9,+9) (+5)
   It increases your dexterity by 5.  It increases your speed by 5.  It
   sustains your dexterity.  It cannot be harmed by the elements.  
b) a Heavy Crossbow of Extra Shots (x4) (+25,+19) (+1)
   It increases your shooting speed by 1.  
c) a Ring of Speed (+8)
   It increases your speed by 8.  
d) a Ring of Constitution (+6)
   It increases your constitution by 6.  It sustains your constitution.
   
e) an Amulet of Trickery (+3)
   It increases your dexterity by 3.  It increases your stealth, 
   searching, infravision, and speed by 3.  It provides resistance to 
   poison and nexus.  It sustains your dexterity.  
f) The Palantir of Westernesse (+2)
   It increases your intelligence and wisdom by 2.  It increases your 
   searching and infravision by 2.  It provides resistance to blindness 
   and chaos.  It usually provides light of radius 3.  It grants you 
   the power of telepathy and the ability to see invisible things, but
   it also aggravates creatures around you and drains experience.  It
   activates for clairvoyance every 50+d50 turns.  It cannot be harmed
   by the elements.  
g) The Leather Scale Mail 'Thalkettoth' (-1) [11,+25] (+3)
   It increases your dexterity by 3.  It increases your speed by 3.  It
   provides resistance to acid and shards.  It cannot be harmed by the
   elements.  
h) a Cloak of the Magi [1,+7] (+2)
   It increases your intelligence by 2.  It increases your stealth by
   2.  It provides resistance to life draining.  It sustains your 
   intelligence.  It cannot be harmed by acid.  
i) a Small Metal Shield of Elvenkind [3,+17] (+3 to stealth)
   It increases your stealth by 3.  It provides resistance to acid, 
   lightning, fire, cold, and dark.  It cannot be harmed by the
   elements.  
j) The Iron Helm 'Holhenneth' [5,+10] (+2)
   It increases your intelligence and wisdom by 2.  It increases your 
   searching by 2.  It provides resistance to blindness and confusion.  
   It grants you the ability to see invisible things.  It activates for 
   detection every 55+d55 turns.  It cannot be harmed by the elements.  
   
k) The Set of Cesti of Fingolfin (+10,+10) [5,+20] (+4)
   It increases your dexterity by 4.  It provides resistance to acid.  
   It grants you immunity to paralysis.  It activates for a magical
   arrow (150) every 30+d30 turns.  It cannot be harmed by the
   elements.  
l) The Pair of Metal Shod Boots of Thror [6,+20] (+3)
   It increases your strength and constitution by 3.  It increases your 
   speed by 3.  It provides resistance to fear.  It cannot be harmed by
   the elements.  


  [Character Inventory]

a) 2 Books of Magic Spells [Magic for Beginners] {@m1@b1!d}
b) 2 Books of Magic Spells [Conjurings and Tricks] {@m2@b2!d}
c) 2 Books of Magic Spells [Incantations and Illusions] {@m3@b3!d}
d) 2 Books of Magic Spells [Sorcery and Evocations] {@m4@b4!d}
e) a Book of Magic Spells [Resistances of Scarabtarices] {@m5@b5!d}
   It cannot be harmed by the elements.  
f) a Book of Magic Spells [Raal's Tome of Destruction] {@m6@b6!d}
   It cannot be harmed by the elements.  
g) a Book of Magic Spells [Mordenkainen's Escapes] {@m7@b7!d}
   It cannot be harmed by the elements.  
h) a Book of Magic Spells [Kelek's Grimoire of Power] {@m9@b9!d}
   It cannot be harmed by the elements.  
i) 9 Potions of Healing
j) 3 Potions of *Healing*
k) a Potion of Life
l) 2 Potions of Restore Mana
m) 9 Scrolls of Recharging {!d}
n) 3 Rods of Detection (1 charging) {@z0}
   It cannot be harmed by electricity.  
o) 2 Rods of Restoration
   It cannot be harmed by electricity.  
p) a Rod of Teleport Other
q) a Rod of Drain Life {@z2}
r) 7 Rods of Fire Balls {@z1}
s) a Wand of Annihilation (0 charges)
   It cannot be harmed by the elements.  
t) a Staff of *Destruction* (2 charges) {!d}
u) 23 Mithril Bolts of Slay Dragon (3d5) (+19,+12) {=g}
   It slays dragons.  It cannot be harmed by acid or fire.  


  [Home Inventory]

a) a Book of Magic Spells [Tenser's Transformations] {@m8@b8!d}
   It cannot be harmed by the elements.  
b) 4 Scrolls of *Identify*
c) 2 Scrolls of Recharging {!d}
d) a Ring of Resist Poison
   It provides resistance to poison.  
e) a Ring of Intelligence (+6) {!d}
   It increases your intelligence by 6.  It sustains your intelligence.
   
f) The Ring of Tulkas (+4)
   It increases your strength, dexterity, and constitution by 4.  It
   cannot be harmed by the elements.  It might have hidden powers.
g) The Amulet of Carlammas (+2)
   It increases your constitution by 2.  It cannot be harmed by the
   elements.  It might have hidden powers.
h) The Amulet of Ingwe (+3)
   It increases your intelligence, wisdom, and charisma by 3.  It
   increases your infravision by 3.  It cannot be harmed by the
   elements.  It might have hidden powers.
i) The Necklace of the Dwarves (+3)
   It increases your strength and constitution by 3.  It increases your 
   infravision by 3.  It cannot be harmed by the elements.  It might
   have hidden powers.
j) The Elfstone 'Elessar' (+7,+7) [+10] (+2)
   It increases your strength, wisdom, and charisma by 2.  It increases
   your speed by 2.  It provides resistance to fire, poison, and fear.  
   It activates for heal (500) every 200 turns.  It cannot be harmed by
   the elements.  
k) The Jewel 'Evenstar'
   It provides resistance to cold, dark, and life draining.  It
   sustains your intelligence, wisdom, and constitution.  It activates
   for restore life levels every 150 turns.  It cannot be harmed by the
   elements.  
l) The Star of Elendil
   It usually provides light of radius 3.  It grants you the ability to
   see invisible things.  It activates for magic mapping every 50+d50
   turns.  It cannot be harmed by the elements.  
m) Law Dragon Scale Mail (-2) [30,+18]
   It provides resistance to sound and shards.  It activates for 
   breathe sound/shards (230) every 300+d300 turns.  It cannot be
   harmed by the elements.  
n) Bronze Dragon Scale Mail (-2) [30,+29]
   It provides resistance to confusion.  It activates for breathe
   confusion (120) every 450+d450 turns.  It cannot be harmed by the
   elements.  
o) Double Chain Mail of Elvenkind (-2) [16,+14] (+3 to stealth)
   It increases your stealth by 3.  It provides resistance to acid, 
   lightning, fire, cold, and disenchantment.  It cannot be harmed by
   the elements.  
p) The Metal Brigandine Armour of the Rohirrim [19,+15] (+2)
   It increases your strength and dexterity by 2.  It cannot be harmed
   by the elements.  It might have hidden powers.
q) The Mithril Plate Mail of Celeborn (-3) [35,+25] (+4)
   It increases your strength and charisma by 4.  It cannot be harmed
   by the elements.  It might have hidden powers.
r) The Metal Cap of Thengel [3,+12] (+3)
   It increases your wisdom and charisma by 3.  It provides resistance
   to confusion.  It cannot be harmed by the elements.  
s) The Trident of Ulmo (4d8) (+15,+19) (+4)
   It increases your dexterity by 4.  It cannot be harmed by the
   elements.  It might have hidden powers.
t) The Two-Handed Flail 'Thunderfist' (4d6) (+5,+18) (+4)
   It increases your strength and constitution by 4.  It cannot be
   harmed by the elements.  It might have hidden powers.


  [Options]

Adult: Maximize effect of race/class bonuses : yes (adult_maximize)
Adult: Randomize some of the artifacts (beta): no  (adult_randarts)
Adult: Auto-scum for good levels             : yes (adult_autoscum)
Adult: Restrict the use of stairs/recall     : no  (adult_ironman)
Adult: Restrict the use of stores/home       : no  (adult_no_stores)
Adult: Restrict creation of artifacts        : no  (adult_no_artifacts)
Adult: Don't stack objects on the floor      : no  (adult_no_stacking)
Adult: Preserve artifacts when leaving level : no  (adult_no_preserve)
Adult: Don't generate connected stairs       : yes (adult_no_stairs)
Adult: Monsters chase current location       : yes (adult_ai_sound)
Adult: Monsters chase recent locations       : yes (adult_ai_smell)
Adult: Monsters act smarter in groups        : yes (adult_ai_packs)
Adult: Monsters learn from their mistakes    : no  (adult_ai_learn)
Adult: Monsters exploit players weaknesses   : no  (adult_ai_cheat)
Adult: Monsters behave more intelligently (broken): no  (adult_ai_smart)
Score: Peek into object creation             : no  (score_peek)
Score: Peek into monster creation            : no  (score_hear)
Score: Peek into dungeon creation            : no  (score_room)
Score: Peek into something else              : no  (score_xtra)
Score: Know complete monster info            : no  (score_know)
Score: Allow player to avoid death           : no  (score_live)

I just killed Saruman, which I've never done before, and I killed Maeglin (normally found on DL 81) yesterday, which I've also never done before. I want to start killing the 90-something level uniques, but I'm worried about my current lack of nether, sound, and disenchantment resistance. Yesterday something breathed disenchantment on me, and almost killed me, doing at least 300 damage, but didn't damage my gear.

What's the highest amount of damage I can expect unresisted breath attacks to do?

I'm going to try to kill Carcharoth now. I know nothing about his attacks. Since I've never fought him before, my monster memory is blank. I'm going in with "m5d" Resistance and the resists shown in the dump, and I'm going to hope he can't breathe nether for 600+.

EDIT: Funny, both Carcharoth and Huan were on the level, and I ended up just BARELY killing Huan with everything I had left. I used all my restore mana potions, and all but one healing potion. He did breathe sound on me pretty hard, but it wasn't enough to kill in one hit.

EDIT: Gothmog is toast. He's my highest level known unique, at DL 95. Is there anything higher before Sauron? Took him out with some Seeker Bolts of Venom (+11,+11).

[awldune]

Watch out for the Tarrasque if it's still alive. You might want to keep that Elvenkind armor in your backpack as a swap for disenchant resist.

[Zero]

Watch out for the Tarrasque if it's still alive. You might want to keep that Elvenkind armor in your backpack as a swap for disenchant resist.

Funny. I found the Shield of Deflection of Gil-galad, which grants rDisenchantment, RIGHT before I took on the Tarrasque, which immediately breathed disenchantment. I think I might have died if it weren't for that lucky find, though. That was a heavy breath attack. I've since replaced Gil-galad with Thorin, but the Tarrasque is dead and the extra CON from Thorin will help me survive pretty much anything now, I think. My max HP is now 764 at CL 41 with 18/220 CON. After killing Gothmog, and fighting Sauron into several draws, I'm starting to feel invincible.

EDIT: How many uniques are there? I'm starting to think the only way to kill Sauron will be with the bolts of slay evil I was saving for Morgoth. His HP regeneration rate is too high to kill him with meteor swarm.

[Dragonboneman]

... the extra CON from Thorin will help me survive pretty much anything now... I'm starting to feel invincible...

You are SO dead.

[Pete Mack]

Morgoth has 20,000 HP. The usual way to kill him as a mage is Mana Storm with occasional Rift and/or Phase Door to keep him at a comfortable distance. It's MUCH easier to kill him after cl 46 with Kelek's Grimoire of Power. (Raal spells are very weak in comparison.)

Otherwise You are in great shape with 700+ HP and permanent speed > 20. RNether would be nice, but you really don't need any other resists. (For Sauron, RDis is good but not mandatory, especialy for a Mage.)


You do need a quite a bit of of !Healing, !*Healing* and/or !Life. And you need at least 6 !rMana. (For real safety, something like 20 total healing potions, 6 of them *Heal*/Life.)

[Zero]

Pete, thanks for the advice. I'm going to take my time and kill all the non-quest uniques before trying Sauron again.

Why level 46? Am I right that even at CL 50, with 18/220+ INT, Mana Storm will still have a 14% fail rate? Or has the 18/220 (18/*** for those of us who remember that far back) limit been removed, and now having INT greater than 18/220 is useful?

[awldune]

For Sauron, any Acid-branded ammo you find would be useful. That is the hole in his elemental resistance.

[Zero]

This is just too cheap. We have to do something about this:

###
#@#
#;##
##;##
 ##;##
  ##;##
   ##;##
    ##;##
#######p#######
...............
###############

Make sure you're looking at that with a monospace font.

I can blast the target by spamming any spell macro I want, like m6f*t which fires Meteor Swarm, and the target can't see me, and therefore can't attack at all.

EDIT: I just used that to take out Vecna, who dropped both the Long Bow of Bard AND Cubragol.

[awldune]

That is the "hockey stick" line of sight exploit. It's a well-known issue for Angband developers.

[zaimoni]

This is just too cheap. We have to do something about this:....

Classic hockey-stick visibliity weirdness.

Fixed in Zaiband, although the results are merely internally consistent rather than symmetric.

[Narvius]

I'd leave it in. Really, if you don't like it, don't use it. It adds variety [if you use other ways, too].

[Zero]

It seems the problem is due to the fact that the arrow/bolt/beam/ball starts one tile away from the character. If it was changed so that the projectile starts in the @'s tile, that should make it only able to hit things that are in the @'s line of sight, right?

I mean, I understand this:

####
@  #
##p#
 #p#
 #p#

and being able to hit things as they're coming around a corner. That sort-of makes sense, since at least @ has line of sight to the target, even if the target doesn't have line of sight to @. But this "hockey stick" thing is really weird, because it allows @ to hit things @ can't even see, which means the projectile must be turning in mid-air.

"That must have been one magic missile!"

Couldn't resist.

[Narvius]

I prefer the way it is. It increases the survival rate of my mages in lower levels...

#####  C - Fang / Grip
.@..#
###C#

That explains it ^.^

[Edit]
Ah, okay. I just carefully read your post. But I'm still for leaving it in =P

[Garrie]

Look it's called an approximation of tactics.

In armoured warefare there is an important distinction between "turret down" where you can see over a hill (but your turret ie gun is behind cover) and "hull down" where your turret is exposed... but you can shoot (and "hull up" (AKA "c**t up" where you get your arse blown off).

Good use of this puts a vehicle commander in a position where he can kill the enemy without being killed.

That is the hockey stick: a tactical position in the dungeon from which I can attack the enemy without being exposed to his attacks. Unfortunately ASCII graphics and the existing dungeon modification methods (either tunnel a 10*10*10 cube or don't) do not really leave room for finese in displaying:

"I've just taken three hours to dig a tunnel from which I can be a sniper"

Instead we end up with a hockey stick, which the enemy can actuall penetrate if he is clever / bull-headed / not scared.