A question on diving

[sffp]

So I've always been a grinder aka - I have lots of fun, but hardly ever win. But now I'm trying a new diving tactic for me. But what's happened so far is I end up down at dlevel 40-45 without any greater resists and have Shelob or something else breath on me and I don't have the rDark or hps to withstand the hit.

I usually play paladins because my D&D style has always been a "WAR HAMMER" style where I see the enemy and charge. But from what I've read, the way to winning feels like sneaking around the dungeon avoiding things. Getting as low as possible to find elite stuff and gaining XP by throwing magic missiles at jellies and avoiding most combat. Honestly, from what I've read - it looks a lot like stair scumming - detect stairs/ detect monster - this level looks too hard - I'll go up and back down. Oh look - down stairs that are close. Wash/rinse/repeat.

So if I'm going to play the coward's way, I chose a new character - a fun little mage who is at 1550 without even the base resists. The only artifact I have is back in my house because FA is more important than rF to me right now.

Should I continue to dive (I'm probably going too slow for some already) or should I start slowing down looking for gainstat potions. I mean, the only thing this @ has going for it is the ESP amulet (which is truly great - don't get me wrong - but ESP doesn't work on nexus vortexes...)

Any help you could give would be appreciated. I'm new to the class so I'm probably carrying some of the wrong things

[Pete Mack]

Rogue is your best bet here, and play an older version (4.1 and earlier.)
Stealth, detection, and temporary resists make a huge, huge difference.

[Grotug]

The strategy that works very well for me is to play the game with Forced Descent on. This prevents me from languishing at any depth for too long. It also saves me $125 in gold every time I go back to town since I don't have to read a scroll of word of recall to get back to the depth I was at before.

When I'm on a level with a low risk / reward I head straight for the down stairs. Otherwise I at least explore part of the level before taking the stairs. My games usually end in death around the same depth as the example you made with Shelob (DL40-45), because I haven't found Teleport Other yet and try to get into a vault that is too dangerous for me.

It helps to know what monsters are good targets to take on for experience and dropped items and which ones are good to avoid. That comes with trial and error and lots of dead @s.

To answer your question: I would not level scum (personally I think it's lame and boring), but I would hit the down stairs on uninteresting/dangerous levels and remain on levels that are interesting until they become dangerous, then take the down stairs. I would really strongly recommend against taking up stairs unless it's the safest stair to take on a level that is becoming increasingly dangerous or you read an unwanted ?Deep Descent. At least until you reach like DL39, at which point if you want to avoid going deeper I can understand that. For me DL40 has always marked the point at which the game has become dangerous. The DL30s (from my experience) are still relatively safe if you have free action, which you wisely do.

And remember: the longer you stay on a level, the more dangerous it becomes.

So that's not really diving, but it's also not languishing at your current depth, either.

Honestly, though, the high DL30s are probably some of the best risk/reward levels to hang out at. They're not too dangerous (so long you are paying attention) but you can find good stuff like speed items and stat potions at that depth.

[sffp]

I'm down in the upper (lower?) 30's. I just killed Lokkak at L37 and he bequeathed me:

a Cloak [1, +3]


Sadly enough, it's better than what I'm wearing

I swear that using magic is destroying most of the good/great items
At this point, both my weapons were bought at the store which is ridiculous

[Monkey Face]

What version are you playing? In 4.2 mage gets temporary resistance spell at level 20 in book 3 (which is available in town). So you should definitely have base resists from that, as long as you detect frequently and cast resistance whenever necessary.

[sffp]

What version are you playing? In 4.2 mage gets temporary resistance spell at level 20 in book 3 (which is available in town). So you should definitely have base resists from that, as long as you detect frequently and cast resistance whenever necessary.

I see it. It's mcd - it's high mana (20) and high fail (14).

previously I only had like 60 mana so it wasn't really useful.
I've since found a ring of intel +5, a cap of intel +2 and a main gauche <intel +1) and now have +140 mana. Amusingly I found all 3 items at the store!

[mrfy]

Just FYI, I play in a completely different style to the diving & relying on stealth that works for others. I clear levels, don't shy away from fight (unless I can tell I'm totally outmatched), kill all the uniques before taking on Morgoth, and still manage to win fairly regularly. My favorite character combos are high-elf mage, dunadan blackguard, and used to be any ranger (until it was nerfed too much).

Sure the more you stay on a level, the more monsters will appear, but life is risky. The key for me is to have the knowledge of how to fight different monsters, and when it is time to retreat.

[DavidMedley]

Last I saw Sphara finished off Sauron with a Kobold Blackguard in the nightly version. I doubt he did much sneaking with that class. It's got -1 stealth to start and -1 stealth every 10 levels. When I watched him he was doing brilliant work with a staff of destruction to banish vault guardians.

[Sphara]

Last I saw Sphara finished off Sauron with a Kobold Blackguard in the nightly version. I doubt he did much sneaking with that class. It's got -1 stealth to start and -1 stealth every 10 levels. When I watched him he was doing brilliant work with a staff of destruction to banish vault guardians.

Yeah, the character was pretty lousy sneaking. Closer to the end, I found great Elvenkind boots that actually made him quite stealthy, but at that point, it did not matter anymore.

I was wielding Avavir with 1.6 blows per turn and all the first book spells at 20% failure. I just dove deeper, detected what I could and hoped for some weak unique to show up and give some badass loot. That exactly happened when I killed Bolg at DL73. He dropped both Cubragol and Gothmog's whip. Just a little later I found two +7 Speed rings and stealth became less and less important.