Stat Bonus vs Level Gain, stagnation too!

[Hariolor]

Hi all, new to the forums, been playing V.Angband for a few months now.

Two questions really, though both are pretty broad:

1) HE seems to be popular, and I usually play HE warrior myself. However, I have had similar success with human warriors as well (usually die around CL 35/2000'-3000'). I wonder how useful anyone else feels the initial bonuses are for being a power-race like HE versus the easy leveling for being a human? Once I get to stat gain levels I usually don't feel like I am at any real disadvantage being a human, and actually tend to be at a higher level relative to my depth. Thoughts?

2) I have not yet played much with magic-using classes, as I play mostly to kill time and hack/slash is more satisfying to me than skulking around casting magic. That being said, I am consistently getting warriors to about CL 35 with a few good artifacts, getting bored/cocky on the mid levels of the dungeon (usually around 2000') and dying a stupid death to an out-of-depth creature or swarm of gravity hounds. Should I just dive faster when I start getting bored? (I usually carve through the orc and troll mobs until all their unique leaders are dead, then start diving more seriously) I'm on my 24th descendant and am disappointed that it seems like I have to spend a few million turns trolling the mid-levels for artifacts and stat potions until I can be strong enough to really hang. I particularly have a hard time finding HLife, RPoison, RNexus, and the other better ego effects that make the lower levels more survivable...

[Atarlost]

High Elves are all about not tearing your hair out when poltergeists come into depth. Gnomes are all about not worrying about free action.
Dwarves are all about being able to see light and dark hounds.
These races owe most of their popularity to their inherant trait eliminating some annoying game mechanic.

[Mondkalb]

Yeah, but if you go with a High Elf the RNG will lavish rings of see invisible over your char. If you go with a gnome you will find free action in abundance.
But if you dare to go with a human or dunadan, you will have a hard time to get either.

Boredom is on the top ten list of killers in angband. Go deeper!

I found levelling with a high elf ranger in the late game quite long drawn.

[PowerDiver]

Once I get to stat gain levels I usually don't feel like I am at any real disadvantage being a human, and actually tend to be at a higher level relative to my depth..

Angband is a game of stats and resistances, and to a lesser extent skills.

A couple of levels hardly make any difference, and at the end most people get to level 50 regardless.

However, the difference between life and death may be whether you manage to activate some device, such as a wand of teleport other. The high-elf will do that better.

There are times when you need a particular stat above a particular value. Your weak race might need to wear a crown of might to achieve that. The high-elf might not, and be able to use a hat of telepathy instead.

Even just rLight, allowing you to use ?*destruction without being blinded, can make a difference. See Invis is a big deal when you need to use a less damaging melee weapon to get it.

[Hariolor]

sounds like I'll stick with my HE fighters for now and then just dive deeper once I'm reasonably well kitted out.

Thanks for the feedback -

Even just rLight, allowing you to use ?*destruction without being blinded

This seems particularly sanguine...I hadn't gotten to use destruction more than a couple times with my human attempts because I never found enough wands/staves.

Boredom is on the top ten list of killers in angband. Go deeper!

This seems to be true - but how deep do I need to go to get the next *bump* in usefulness of artifacts without too great a risk of YASD because I am so badly out of depth.

It seems like just about the time I find a decent suit of armor and a nice weapon I also realize that the one resist I still don't have is the one that kills me off.....I suppose ESP would help with this, but I have yet to find any items that confer the ability

[Atarlost]

Your problem is that you're playing a warrior. That means you won't get nonconsumable detection until either ESP or rod of detect monster. I'd really recommend experimenting with a rogue. More stuff can kill you, but you can more easily avoid that stuff. That lets you dive faster.

[Hariolor]

Hm, sage advice...I have played a couple rogues, spent more time initially as rangers, actually, until becoming disenchanted by the lack of multiple shots and double wielding. If I couldn't have one, I expected the other ;/

That being said, I think trying a rouge again might be a good idea. I'll just have to restrain the urge to stab.

[Zero]

I'd play a warrior, but I cringe to think what the game would be like without Mass Banishment, so I stick with mages. How do other classes deal with Morgoth's summons?

[Pete Mack]

morgoth's earthquake attacks break up LOS so you can more or less safely phase away and TA the summons one at a time. And it turns out that you can ignore many of his summons--weak undead and monsters just fill up space and help keep you safe.

[PowerDiver]

I'd play a warrior, but I cringe to think what the game would be like without Mass Banishment, so I stick with mages. How do other classes deal with Morgoth's summons?

You can save up the scrolls all game. But in any case, summons are less annoying when M creates a destruction zone with his melee attack.

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.roguelike.angband/browse_frm/thread/7956f196116def6f/ca628b25a6c3faf7?lnk=gst&q=final+fight#ca628b25a6c3faf7

[Caesum]

diving

I think you need to realise that the nature of the game changes past stat gain. I've been there myself stuck at stat gain for what seems like an age and things get boring and play gets fast but once I decide to descend to level 35 I tend to play much slower and then head to level 40ish where exp comes much faster. You need to ensure that you have enough escapes and be wary of all new monsters and take more note of your hp and detection abilities. Just remember to slow down again.

[aeneas]

That being said, I am consistently getting warriors to about CL 35 with a few good artifacts, getting bored/cocky on the mid levels of the dungeon (usually around 2000') and dying a stupid death to an out-of-depth creature or swarm of gravity hounds. Should I just dive faster when I start getting bored?

It certainly couldn't hurt to try it. Different rates of play are better for different people, but I get really bored if I wait to get much beyond clvl 28 or so with HE characters before going past 2000'. That wasn't always the case though- I've played the lower levels a lot, so I get easily bored with them. YMMV.

To answer your main question- I think HE is the best race in the game. clvl is not, in the long run, the biggest concern, so the XP penalty is not a big deal when compared with the advantages of the HE. Other races have some nice attributes as well, but it is not worth it (from a mini-maxing-like standpoint) to give up racial features for a smaller XP penalty.