The fresh mage of Belfalas

[Kodiologist]

After spending a lot of my life playing NetHack and Cataclysm DDA, I'm seriously getting into Angband for the first time. I'm playing 4.1.3 and having a lot of fun. I've been playing human mages and I'm currently on my seventh character, who is at XL 20, DL 20. Here are some questions for you fine folks.

1. What's the easiest race to play as a mage? I see that some non-humans have big Intelligence bonuses, but they all have experience penalties, and leveling up seems very significant for spell points and spell failure rate. Speaking of character creation, my current philosophy for point-buy is to max out Intelligence and put everything else in Strength, since no other stat makes a clear difference. Does that make sense?

2. If I wear one piece of equipment that makes me resist cold and another that makes me weak against cold, what's the net effect?

3. How does one typically get poison resistance? How about free action?

4. When do players typically hit the level cap, if at all? Is it standard to grind up to XL 50 before fighting Sauron or Morgoth?

[Pete Mack]

2. Weak against cold + resist cold has no net effect. You need immunity to override the cold curse. Permanent resist + temporary resist + cold curse has the effect of single resistance (independent of the number of curses and permanent resists.)

3. Poison resist shows up on a ring at dl 40, and on armor or shields at any time. There is also aj amulet, but it ia found very deep. In the mean time, temporary resist is available from the occasional potion and eventually from a dungeon book. Free action shows up on armor, ring, boots, gloves. Gloves are best for a mage, by far.

1. Personal preference. High elf, gnome, Dunadan are all standards. High elf and Dunadan need a ton of EXP, so you need to either dive very fast, or have ridiculous patience.

4. I rarely hit the cap before winning anymore. But around dl 60-90 you will get endgame strong, depending on diving speed. CL has little to do with power at the end. Stats, speed and damage are everything. Plus you need enough consumables to survive a long fight.

[Kodiologist]

Gloves are best for a mage, by far.

Interesting; I got a message about interfering with spellcasting when I tried wearing gloves, but are gloves of free action an exception?

[Pete Mack]

There are three kinds of gloves that don't affect spellcasting:
* gloves with free action
* gloves with +dex
* gloves with zero weight (alchemist's gloves)

A good set of ego alchemist's gloves (of power or combat) can be very helpful, but are exceedingly rare.

[Sphara]

After spending a lot of my life playing NetHack and Cataclysm DDA, I'm seriously getting into Angband for the first time. I'm playing 4.1.3 and having a lot of fun. I've been playing human mages and I'm currently on my seventh character, who is at XL 20, DL 20. Here are some questions for you fine folks.

1. What's the easiest race to play as a mage? I see that some non-humans have big Intelligence bonuses, but they all have experience penalties, and leveling up seems very significant for spell points and spell failure rate. Speaking of character creation, my current philosophy for point-buy is to max out Intelligence and put everything else in Strength, since no other stat makes a clear difference. Does that make sense?

4. When do players typically hit the level cap, if at all? Is it standard to grind up to XL 50 before fighting Sauron or Morgoth?

1. Towards the end (starting at maybe DL > 60), Constitution is much more important than Strength. In early parts of the game, its vice versa.

4. High level mage needs feasible amount of full healing and preferably +30 speed for both Sauron and Morgoth. At least I won't risk fighting Morgy with anything less than +30. They are the only manastorm-using monsters you ever need to fight. Heck, they are the only monsters in the whole game you absolutely have to fight . Nevertheless, mage has all the other tools for endgame fights in his spellbooks.

[Mondkalb]

... Free action shows up on armor, ring, boots, gloves. Gloves are best for a mage, by far.
...

There are also some weapons that may grant FA.

[Kodiologist]

Towards the end (starting at maybe DL > 60), Constitution is much more important than Strength. In early parts of the game, its vice versa.

Because only large Con values give HP bonuses, right? What's the relevant range of Con, 18/01 and up?

[wobbly]

It's actually the whole range it's just a 1/4 of a hp/level is hard to see. Most of the range is increase 1/4 hp/level, it's generally 1/2 hp/level after 18/60

[Sphara]

Wobbly is right there. I cannot do the math how Constitution increases work but basically it works like this:

EARLY GAME
You get Constitution increase from 16 to 17 early game, it gives you about 2 maximum hitpoints more.
You get Strength increase from 16 to 17, it noticeably increases your carrying capability.

LATE GAME
You get Constitution increase from 18/50 to 18/70, your maximum hitpoints raise between 20 to 40 points depending if you're wearing CON-boosting items.
Strength increase from 18/50 to 18/70 barely has noticeable effect unless you're lugging lots of stuff with you (backup weapons, armor, truckloads of ammo).

For a warrior, there may be a different case if STR affects the amount of attacks you get in one turn. But as long as we're talking about mages with low HP and powerful spells, its CON all the way.

[Derakon]

CON bonuses are multiplied by your level, so in absolute terms the same CON adjustment makes 50 times more difference at level 50 than at level 1. That's part of what makes CON less relevant in the early game. But just as important is the fact that the amount of bonus you get from gaining +1 CON when you have >18/150 is substantially higher than the amount of bonus from gaining +1 CON at 18/50 or 15. The table is here. Some samples from that:

If you have a CON of 10 and you gain +1 CON, then you get an extra .05 HP/level
CON of 15 and gain +1 CON gives .25 HP/level
CON of 18/50 and gain +1 CON gives .25 HP/level
CON of 18/100 and gain +1 CON gives .5 HP/level
CON of 18/160 and gain +1 CON gives 1 HP/level
CON of 18/190 and gain +1 CON gives 1.5 HP/level

CON of over 18/200 no longer gives extra HP, but that last point is worth more than the 8 points that take you from CON 10 to CON 18.

The main effect that investing in CON in the early game has is that you spend less time in the late game looking for Potions of Constitution. That's really about it.

[Pete Mack]

The main effect that investing in CON in the early game has is that you spend less time in the late game looking for Potions of Constitution. That's really about it.

This is packing a lot in to one sentence. *If* you are diving, reducing the number of turns you are at low CON reduces your exposure to instadeath from breath attacks. This is the real benefit of investing in a little CON.

[Kodiologist]

I see. adj_con_mhp makes for kind of the opposite of a diminishing-returns effect, then. Weird.

A question about monster recall: how do I interpret the number after a breath weapon or spell? Is it a fixed amount of damage, or the mean damage, or the maximum damage, or something else? Does it account for player characteristics, like resistance?

[Pete Mack]

It is a fraction of the monster's average maximum HP, with a hard cap. For the base 4 elements, the fraction is 1/3 and the cap is 1600. For poison, it is 1/3 and 800. For everything else that shows on the character chart it is 1/6 and 400-550. (400 for light and dark; 550 for nether; 500 for everything else.) For unresistable elements, max damage is 200.

The actual damage is the same fraction of the monster's current HP, so when the monster's health is down to 5 stars, it is doing 1/2 nominal damage.

[Kodiologist]

I'm looking at Ibun, Son of Mîm, and he has 820 HP but can only "produce fire bolts (80)". Do spells get a lower fraction than breath weapons, or do they just work differently?

[Pete Mack]

Spells work differently. Damage is based on spell type and monster level, not HP. Ibun will give you a tough time unless you have a low fail rate on acid bolt. Mim resists everything, so you are stuck with archery or very high level spells. He will heal magic missile.