Trying to keep this wizard alive

[gtrudeau88]

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=22065

Have I dived to fast? Thoughts? I've never been successful at keeping mages alive too long and I'm sick of losing. I know in choosing hobbit I've made the task tough due to HP but I lack the patience to try high-elf or dunedain due to XP penalty.

[fph]

No, you're not diving too fast. That looks on point; that's more or less where you should be at that power level, in my view.
Ideally now you should look around for stat potions and upgrades (trying to push CON especially --- a ring of CON with a high bonus would be very welcome), and detect a lot to make sure you don't stumble in a big breather. You have the temporary speed spell in your books, right? I haven't played a mage with the new classes so I don't know for sure (or are you using old classes). But if you have it, you can venture even further down.

[Pete Mack]

You are keeping way too many weapons at home. You will never use a *Thanc, or Aiglos, or Sting. Mage always uses a stat stick until very late in the game*, and +1 CON just isn't enough. (I don't understand why Sting was nerfed.) And you might as well go to DL 4O, where !CON is more common, as are dungeon books. It is not noticeably more dangerous than DL 35. Just use TO on any dragons you can't kill.

* you may want to use something like a MoD of Gondolin late in the game to rack up EXP.

[Tibarius]

staying alive

The character looks pretty great overall in my eyes.

The wizard's race is rather unimportant, because allmost all races with +int have low hps. The key here is to boost CON to around 18/200. The last points of con boost give more HPs than the earlier. A good value is >600 HPs for the endgame, then a single attack can't instantly kill you with all resistances.

+ Know what can kill you in one hit.
+ Avoid melee damage at all, too many misses even with high end gear.
+ max out levels, in contrast to warriors grinding XPs unfortunately makes mages stronger, 4%(3%?) per spell per level success rate, thus the average damage of spells increases.
+ You could be ready to dive to DLV 90, drawback you encounter much more monsters you must avoid, so more time you just enter a level, check the monsters with detection and leave right into the next level (stair scumming)
+ Depper down there are XP potions which reduce grinding time, and once you know which monster give the best XP / kill ratio you can level much faster.
+ Potions which raise all stats, not only one are more common at deeper levels.

Hope this hints help you.

[Pete Mack]

Extreme diving with very low HP as a mage is a bit tedious if you don't have ESP. You need to illuminate every long hallway in case some PASS_WALL monster gets the jump on you. And you need to detect every 20 turns or so in case something wakes up. I have done it, but not very often.

[Grotug]

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=22065

Have I dived to fast? Thoughts? I've never been successful at keeping mages alive too long and I'm sick of losing. I know in choosing hobbit I've made the task tough due to HP but I lack the patience to try high-elf or dunedain due to XP penalty.

Why not play Half-elf Warrior? Very low XP penalty, up to 3.5 blows per round at the start. Very good at shooting and hitting. Very good hit points.

[Pete Mack]

...because he wants to play a mage for a change, presumably. But my recommendation would be kobold or gnome rogue.

[fph]

And you might as well go to DL 4O, where !CON is more common, as are dungeon books. It is not noticeably more dangerous than DL 35. Just use TO on any dragons you can't kill.

Good point -- my instinct from the older versions is that DL40 is a dangerous place because "here be dragons" (ancient Ds, green especially, and drolems) but now that breath damage from distance has been nerfed I guess they are much less of a threat.

[Derakon]

Good point -- my instinct from the older versions is that DL40 is a dangerous place because "here be dragons" (ancient Ds, green especially, and drolems) but now that breath damage from distance has been nerfed I guess they are much less of a threat.

Even in the old days, the "don't go below this depth or you risk instant death" was vastly more a think in the players' minds than it was in how the game worked. Monsters are a bit more common once you reach their native depth, and the overall density of monsters goes up as you dive, that's all.

[Pete Mack]

@Derakon--
Indeed.

Once you hit DL 35, drolems and AMHDs will be able to spawn in special rooms, and ordinary ancient dragons will be fairly frequent there. Drolems and AMHDs won't be a whole lot more frequent at DL 40, but there are certain loot items that will be much more common. Yes, ancient dragons are dangerous. But they don't wake up easily, and they arent so dangerous that a DL 31 (permanently hasted) mage can't teleport them with reasonable safety.

The biggest risks at these depths, as always for an ESP-less mage, are exhaustion and invisible PASS_WALL monsters, notably Ethereal drake and Death Drake. Really, you should not be getting ambushed by monsters limited to floor spaces. Flashlights (rod of light) can help a lot.

[gtrudeau88]

Thanks for the comments. Regarding the weapons I have, I kept my ax because of see invisible and blindness protection. If I can find some other way to protect against blindness I was going to wear the ring of see invisible and wield either Sting for the speed boost and carry Azaghâl or wield Azaghâl outright for the fire immunity.

I kept Aglos because of the cold ball. Not sure why I kep the others. I had used the quarterstaff artifact because of the int boost