Hearken, O heroes of ToME

[Aristobulus]

I'm relatively new to the Roguelike. I've been playing ToME for maybe... a month or so total. I've probably killed 4 dozen characters. I've had a few good ones that made it past the first 10 minutes, but not many.

My current character is a RohanKnight Swordmaster (Matthias IV), Level 12. He's probably the best I've got so far.

Any suggestions on where I should go, what I should do, etc to keep him alive? I want to have a good game for once!

I've focused his skills mainly in Combat and Sword-mastery, a couple in prayer, a couple in Antimagic (noob mistake, lost Tulkas), and a handful in Archery.

As far as equipment goes, I've got a standard Broadsword (2d5), a Light Crossbow (x3), the starter Ring of Fear Resistance, an Amulet of Slow Digestion, a Partial Plate Armor of Resist Acid [22,+8] (compliments of a princess), a Fur Cloak [3,+0], a Set of Guantlets [2,+0], and a Pair of Hard Leather Boots [3,+0]. Sorry if that was a lot of unneeded info...

Other than that, I've done the Bandit quest in Bree, killed the stupid farmer's dogs, and managed to bring down a 3-headed hydra (after abusing a save because I missed 10 times in a row).

So ya, any pointers or guidance at all would be great.

[camlost]

Perhaps someone can suggest a beginner's guide to Angband in general, but the location of such a file is escaping me at the moment.

In general, in the early game, keep a few things on hand at all times.
1) a means of escape. Scrolls of teleportation are foolproof if you aren't confused or blinded. Scrolls of phase door are also exceptionally useful to give you time to heal or scoot and shoot (use ranged weapons and phase door).
2) A means of healing, especially confusion and blinding. Potions of cure critical wounds are generally the best choice once you have the cash.
3) A means of damage. In most variants, wielding a lighter weapon and enchanting it with +toDam will go a lot farther than wielding a heavier weapon.

I would suggest swapping the broadsword out for a dagger or whip and see how many attacks you get; you can start with up to 4 with the right characters. Also, carry some ammo and actually use it.

Also, not to sound rude, but TOME gets a lot more attention at the tome forums. TOME has forked from most of the rest of Angband and it tends to have a more disjoint population than between most pairs of variants.

http://forum.t-o-m-e.net/

If you're having trouble, you might try going into the character options and changing your tactics so that you get a big plus to speed and toHit/toDmg. As I recall, there is little reason not to.

Again, don't take this the wrong way, but not many people would take missing 10 times in a row to a cause to cheat. If you missed 10 times in a row and died, the problem is that you didn't run away before you missed the 10th time. Angband is a long game, and you *expect* to run into the sort of situation where you miss 10 times in a row. You have to prepare to run into unlucky spells, because you will.

Finally, don't worry about dying. Just make sure you learn why you died, and take adequate steps to prevent it next time. Dying is one of the best ways to learn what not to do.

[Aristobulus]

...

Good advice, sir- t'will be used.

[Atarlost]

ToME is unusual in that it's possible to power through the early game if you know the tricks.
The first trick is to adjust tactics as camlost mentioned.
The second trick is that the bandit allways carries an enchanted dagger. Not only will it have more attacks than a heavier weapon, but you'll hit more often quite possibly do more damage per hit.

Another thing is to not fight in the wilderness unless you intend to power level. If you plan to power level do a forum search at http://forum.t-o-m-e.net/. Beware that power leveling takes a lot of the fun out of the early game. Usually starting with the bandit quest will get you enough skill points to start the downs comfortably.

[buzzkill]

Any suggestions on where I should go, what I should do, etc to keep him alive? I want to have a good game for once!

Having read many posts similar to this is the past..... no question in particular....... just advice in general.

Unless you've 'hit a wall' and can't despite your best efforts proceed further, and the game has become monotonous and boring (no fun)....

Don't worry about it! Every game is a good game as long as your enjoying yourself. Try your best and learn from your mistakes. DO try to keep your characters alive, but at the same time don't fear thier death. Soon enough, nearly all your characters will meet or surpass your current 'good one'.

I too once worried about losing a particularly good character. It nearly drove me to cheat death. Now, those characters that I worried so much about somehow just don't seem so impressive anymore. I think it's a phase most Angband rookies, myself included, go through.

I've found that experience is the best teacher. You will become a better player. You will have better characters. Find a variant you like and stick with it. For faster results play the same race/class combo every time (I don't, but maybe that's why I never cracked CL35, but I'm still having fun.).

Maybe you'll need advice for the end game. Maybe. I don't know. I've never been there. Just play it and enjoy it, don't worry so much. Maybe I'm way off base. Not trying to sound preachy, but thats my 2 cents.

Ohh, and read, don't search, read the forum... really... it's packed with useful tid-bits.

[Aristobulus]

...

Thank you sir. I think my problem will end up being that cheating death business- I get so excited because I'm actually accumulating wealth and power, and then I hit a stupid situation and abuse the save. I stopped that last night, however. Had a close call, too- hit a chaos bolt trap, lost 9 levels, was confused, walked into some lava and almost got breathed on a few times by a fire bat and got smacked around by a chimaera. Needless to say I lost a few scrolls and things- but I made it out alive.

On a side note, where from Indiana are you from? I live in Lafayette, about an hour or so north of Indianapolis.

[buzzkill]

Thank you sir. I think my problem will end up being that cheating death business- I get so excited because I'm actually accumulating wealth and power, and then I hit a stupid situation and abuse the save. I stopped that last night, however. Had a close call, too- hit a chaos bolt trap, lost 9 levels, was confused, walked into some lava and almost got breathed on a few times by a fire bat and got smacked around by a chimaera. Needless to say I lost a few scrolls and things- but I made it out alive.

On a side note, where from Indiana are you from? I live in Lafayette, about an hour or so north of Indianapolis.

That sounds nasty. Cure, then resist confusion is essential once you reach a certain point. I lost my strongest character ever to confusion, while having the crap beat out of me, thus causing more confusion.

Ahh, Laffayette. The shopping meca of north-west-west-central Indiana. Small world huh? Who would have guessed with all the partying going on at Purdue and Wabash that we'd be sitting around playing rogue-likes. I'm just to the south, in Crawfordsville, though I know Lafayette like the back of my hand, cause I work there 5 days a week.

[Aristobulus]

That sounds nasty. Cure, then resist confusion is essential once you reach a certain point. I lost my strongest character ever to confusion, while having the crap beat out of me, thus causing more confusion.

Ahh, Laffayette. The shopping meca of north-west-west-central Indiana. Small world huh? Who would have guessed with all the partying going on at Purdue and Wabash that we'd be sitting around playing rogue-likes. I'm just to the south, in Crawfordsville, though I know Lafayette like the back of my hand, cause I work there 5 days a week.

Where can I get resist confusion? That would be awesome to have...

[camlost]

Pretty much everything that deals damage you can resist. There are a few exceptions, like Time, and a few variant-specific ones as well.

In TOME, you can get resist confusion from lots of places. Sooner or later you'll start finding artifacts, which can have a whole host of resists. Higher end ego items (Elvenkind or Resistance) can also have extra resists.

If you want comments regarding the gear that you do find, I suggest posting a character dump on this site, which can be done by clicking the 'Ladder' tab and browsing to your character dump that you create in-game. To create the character dump in-game, press 'C' to get to the character display screen, and probably 'f' to file dump the character. Also note that there are additional screens of information to be had in the 'C'haracter screen, which you can get to by pressing various keys. You can also change your tactics on this screen.

[Aristobulus]

Pretty much everything that deals damage you can resist. There are a few exceptions, like Time, and a few variant-specific ones as well.

In TOME, you can get resist confusion from lots of places. Sooner or later you'll start finding artifacts, which can have a whole host of resists. Higher end ego items (Elvenkind or Resistance) can also have extra resists.

If you want comments regarding the gear that you do find, I suggest posting a character dump on this site, which can be done by clicking the 'Ladder' tab and browsing to your character dump that you create in-game. To create the character dump in-game, press 'C' to get to the character display screen, and probably 'f' to file dump the character. Also note that there are additional screens of information to be had in the 'C'haracter screen, which you can get to by pressing various keys. You can also change your tactics on this screen.

Hmm... I guess I need to brush up on my ToME terminology. An artifact is like... Partial Plate Armor of Resist Acid? And an ego item is something like The Sword "Bob McCain" of Kill Everything?

[camlost]

Ego-items are more like the 'of Resist Fire' or '(blessed)' or 'Indestructible' variety. They have a short list of mostly fixed abilities, and they can come on a wide variety of items. There are armor specific ones, weapon specific ones, and in TOME, amulet/ring specific ones. You will find burning main gauches and burning long swords, burning quarterstaves, and burning war hammers.

Artifacts only ever come in one package; the Main Gauche of Maedhros is always a Main Gauche, though sometimes there are some random attributes to them. They also tend to be better than Ego-items.

[Aristobulus]

Ah, ok. I had it backwards. I had a Partial Plate of Resist Acid before I was torn to kibble by a pack of ravenous orcs. That was an ego item.

[Djabanete]

Why don't you start with Vanilla? In terms of sheer mind-boggling, no variant beats ToME. Vanilla is linear and will allow you to learn the essentials of combat and survival without constantly being bewildered about where to go and what to do.

Then again, if ToME is your cup of tea, who am I to argue with that?

[Aristobulus]

Ya, when I first got into roguelikes, I read about ToME, and I was blown away. How in the world could a game have so much depth?!

That's not to say I couldn't enjoy Vanilla- I probably would just the same. But ToME is what I'm used to... though I might switch to try something different once in awhile.