Help me kick my stair-scumming habit

[Wraitheist]

I've been playing on and off for a year or so and I can consistently get to stat gain. I've been to '4950 once or twice. I dive fairly quickly, usually to '800 or so on my first dive. The problem is, until I get a few reliable escape methods, I find myself stair scumming a lot. Not only is it lame, but it is boring, too.

So to force myself out of the habit, I turned off connected stairs. I usually play priests or mages and I find myself dying on the first 10 levels or so A LOT. I am usually lucky to have 1 or 2 ?PD and maybe enough mana to cast teleport once. I also can usually only afford a short bow before my first dive, so I struggle to kill anything remotely tough. Most of my deaths come from monsters that are faster than me. Because I have few escape options, they end up running me down before I can find a >.

Any advice? Do I need to wait to dive until I can afford a +1 long bow, maybe? Or is it normal to lose 10 characters before making it to stat gain? I can't help but feel I'm missing something obvious, lol.

One other question: I usually use point-based character creation. Can you get higher stats from rolling?

[awldune]

You might try starting with more money if you use point-based character generation so you can afford a long bow.

Personally, I don't think there's anything wrong with some minor stair-scumming. Enter a level next to a scary monster and go up and down to reset.

What really gets tedious is scumming for good levels or scumming with Detection to look for stat potions.

[Zero]

I always play without connected stairs, and make it to stat gain about 35% of the time. If I took less risks, I could get that number to around 75%, but I dive quickly and I find that it saves time on average, even if I die more often.

I can't give you any advice for priests, as I've only played mages, rangers, and warriors. With a mage, you need to cast Detect Monsters every time you go to a new level, and plan out what route you're going to take through the level. Nothing unexpected should ever happen, since you can see it coming. Get a staff of Enlightenment, staff of Object Location, and staff of Teleport ASAP. Once you've got those, dive to DL 30 and try to find a ring of Free Action if you haven't got FA yet. The trick is in knowing what to avoid: Light and Dark hounds (unless you have a race resist), Umber Hulks, Hummerhorns, Blue Icky Things, Ghouls, anything that can summon, and groups of monsters that don't use pack AI (pack AI is SOOO easy to exploit!). You don't have to worry about those monsters once you have the means to deal with them: staff of Teleport for Umber Hulks, and FA for Ghouls, for example.

Exploit pack AI for massive XP. I recommend Wolves, White Wolves, Earth Hounds, Air Hounds, Water Hounds, and Light/Dark Hounds.

Once you have the staves of Teleport, Enlightenment, and Object Location, you can drop to stat gain. Try to find rods of fire bolts, and decent wands like fire and acid bolts, recharging them with ?Recharging when they run out. With these, you'll have decent damage even with low INT.

Never bother with a bow in the early game, just magic missile the easy stuff and avoid the rest. You can pick up a bow or crossbow if you find a REALLY good one, like a Heavy Crossbow of Extra Shots (x4) (+12,+12), but otherwise I'd just focus on using the rods, spells, and wands for damage.

Easiest mage to play is a high-elf mage with starting stats:

STR 13
INT 17
WIS 10
DEX 10
CON 17
CHR 10

I used to play with the stats for STR and CON reversed, but found the above to be better. I didn't miss the STR, and having higher CON saved time searching for CON potions at stat gain.

[EDIT] The stats I listed above are for point-based character creation. Autorolling for stats won't give you anything significantly better, and it's kind of scummy anyway. I strongly recommend you don't follow awldune's suggestion of turning points into gold. If you really want a long bow, drop to DL 1 and collect ?, !, and $. Honestly though, I really think the money would be better spent on Conjurings and Tricks.

[PowerDiver]

The stats I listed above are for point-based character creation. Autorolling for stats won't give you anything significantly better,

Just another 4 points of strength. Who minds dying due to slow(-2) because you weren't willing to use the autoroller? The game is too easy. Even beginners should handicap themselves.

FWIW, in 3.1 point-based will be boosted to be equivalent to the auto-roller, allowing base 17 in 3 stats.

[Zero]

> Just another 4 points of strength. Who minds dying due to slow(-2) because you weren't willing to use the autoroller?

I thought 9 STR would be cripplingly low, but I found that I could carry all the stuff I need without a speed penalty, and frequently even an ego item to sell. When I find a valuable heavy item, I either go back to town to sell it (which I'd usually do anyway in the early game because having -Teleport is so critical) or drop it, clear whatever I want to clear on that level, and then go back to town. It's not nearly as bad as it seems.