Zangband tk, Barney the Dinosaur - Help!

[Camcolit]

I'm a pretty new player so any tips would be appreciated .

This bastard seems very overpowered for this depth and he's a quest monster for me so I have to kill him to progress. I'm at 1200 feet with health of 254, and he breathes toxic waste for 140 damage . I immediately need to teleport out after getting hit with that. I have poison resistance and in the guide I have it says this protects against toxic waste damage but if that's true if I didn't have it he would easily 1-shot me!

I've approached him, got toasted, and teleported a couple of times. He either breathes waste first, in which case I need to teleport, or he summons a bunch of Hydras, which I probably can't handle, and then hits me with toxic waste. Any ideas on how I can beat him and suggestions on my character/equipment would be great. Here's my guy and the last encounter with Barney. Thanks!

[ZAngbandTk 2.4.0 Character Dump]

 Name     Kremlath III    Age       112          Self  RB  CB  EB   Best
 Sex      Male            Height     58   STR:     17  +3  +2  +0  18/40
 Race     Vampire         Weight    140   INT:     17  +3  +2  +0  18/40
 Class    Warrior-Mage    Status      3   WIS:     12  -1  +0  +0     11
 Title    Champion        HP    254/254   DEX:     16  -1  +1  +0     16
 Realm 1  Arcane          SP      43/43   CON:     13  +1  +0  +0     14
 Realm 2  Death           Maximize    Y   CHR:     16  +2  +1  +5  18/60
 Patron   Khorne          Preserve    Y

 Level           28       Fighting               Saving Throw     Superb
 Cur Exp     109211       + to Skill      36     Stealth          Superb
 Max Exp     109211       Deadliness    196%     Fighting      Superb
 Adv Exp     125000       Blows/Round      2     Shooting      Very Good
                                                 Disarming     Excellent
 Gold         41609       Shooting               Magic Device     Superb
                          + to Skill      25     Perception         Fair
 Armor     [24,+48]       Deadliness    157%     Searching          Fair
 Burden   110.7 lbs       Shots/Round    1.0     Infravision      110 ft

     In life you were a powerful noble.  You have a hairless
     head, blank white eyes, and a deathly pale complexion.

[Miscellaneous information]

Autoscum: OFF
Small Levels: ON
Arena Levels: ENABLED
Hard Quests: OFF
Num. Random Quests: 20
Nightmare Mode: OFF
Recall Depth: Level 24 (1200')

You have defeated 16321 enemies.


[Character Equipment]

a) The Spear of Hagen (1d6) (+11,+13) (+3 to speed)
b) (nothing)
c) a Ring of Slaying (+9,+10) {uncursed}
d) a Ruby Ring of Skill (+14) {cursed}
e) an Amulet of Charisma (+4)
f) The Incandescent Light of Edison (+3 to infravision)
g) a Cord Armour of Elvenkind [6,+11] (+3 to stealth)
h) a Fur Cloak of Protection [3,+10]
i) a Large Metal Shield of Resist Fire [8,+9]
j) an Iron Helm of Beauty [5,+9] (+1) {uncursed}
k) (nothing)
l) a Pair of Soft Leather Boots of Free Action [2,+8]


[Character Inventory]

a) an Arcane Spellbook [Cantrips for Beginners]
b) 2 Arcane Spellbooks [Minor Arcana]
c) 3 Arcane Spellbooks [Major Arcana]
d) 3 Death Spellbooks [Black Prayers]
e) 2 Death Spellbooks [Black Mass]
f) a Clotted Red Potion of Speed
g) 7 Potions of Cure Critical Wounds
h) 3 Yellow Potions of Healing
i) a Metallic Green Potion of Restore Mana
j) 4 Scrolls of Teleportation
k) a Scroll titled "itder xuxu ion" of Teleport Level
l) 7 Scrolls titled "gop aks odorg" of Word of Recall
m) 9 Scrolls of Satisfy Hunger
n) a Hexagonal Rod of Detection
o) a Cedar Staff of Teleportation (4 charges)
p) a Staff of Perception (8 charges)
q) an Adamantite Ring of Light and Darkness Resistance
r) a Dwarven Shovel (1d3) (+0,+0) (+3)




You feel yourself yanked downwards!
You see a message inscribed in the wall
Beware, this level is protected by Barney the Dinosaur!
You were wearing an Adamantite Ring of Light and Darkness Resistance (q).
You are wearing a Ring of Slaying (+9,+10) {uncursed} (c).
This level looks reasonably safe.
You sense the presence of doors!
You sense the presence of stairs!
You sense the presence of buried treasure!
You sense the presence of objects!
You sense the presence of monsters!
You failed to get the spell off!
You sense the presence of monsters!
Barney the Dinosaur resists somewhat.
Barney the Dinosaur says, 'Won't you be my friend?'
Barney the Dinosaur breathes toxic waste.
You have 4 Scrolls of Teleportation.

[Derakon]

Detect him, dig a twisting corridor into the rock (preferably with a wand of stone to mud), and hide at one end. When he gets close, haste up, chug Heroism, read Holy Chant, etc. Then pound his face in. The twisting corridor will nullify his summons.

Basically you have to hope that you deal enough damage to bring his breath attacks down to something reasonable before he decides to use them -- breath attack damage is based on current HP.

I don't know what your spear does for you, but it has pretty low dice; a bigger weapon might get you more damage (remember, ZAngband uses O-style combat now, so dice are the primary determinant of damage).

Also, your character dump is pretty unreadable. Try enclosing it in [ code ] blocks (click the "#" button above the message text box when editing) so it'll used a fixed-width font.

[Camcolit]

Thanks, I'll give that a go. I'll try casting resist poison too to see if it double resists the toxic waste, didn't think of that before (duh). Sorry about the messy text, fixed now.

Yeah the spear has crap dice but I think it's the best I've found. It does extra damage from cold which is a multiplier against non-resistant monsters right? Not exactly clear on how the damage system works. Only other option is a 1d8 holy avenger trident. Both weapons seem about the same, the holy avenger gives fear resistance, the spear gives a little speed boost.

[Camcolit]

Oh man he can steal, reduce stats, and teleport away too.. The guy has so many hitpoints I can barely scratch him and he keeps summoning hydras. I've never had this kind of problem with other uniques. I might just start over.

[kingvictory2003]

The evil purple reptile is indeed quite powerful for its depth, and is responsible for a good number of instadeaths to those unaware of it (him? her? both?).

It'll be mighty hard with the damage output and armor class you have currently...Derakon's advice would we well-taken to find a heavier hitting weapon, preferably with an elemental brand (or if Barney is an animal, Slay Animal). You will need to boost your armor class to have a chance in melee as well, because he has thieving attacks, which will cause him to go poof with annoying frequency unless you can avoid them.

[Camcolit]

I used the library building to research him - he can breathe chaos too apparently, which I have no resistance to and if he does I will probably get insta-killed.

[camlost]

Can you trump-tower past him? Older versions of Z had a trump tower (town building) that would send you to level of choice, IIRC.

[Camcolit]

I found a shield of resistance on the black market with better AC and this also allowed me to swap out the elvenkind leather for heavier armor with +INT I was keeping in my house. So my AC has improved somewhat now and I have more mana. Might grind out a couple of levels at 1150 and then try him again.

[Camcolit]

@ Camlost

There is a trump tower in my game, never tried it. I'll give it a go - would be a bit silly if it works though since he is a guardian monster.

[Camcolit]

Ha the trump tower works. 10k and it brings me to any level regardless of guardian monsters. That's handy, I'll try to level up a while and grab some stat potions and then go kick his ass. Kind of cheap, I know. I should have set the 'random quests' to 49 instead of the default 20 since you get some good stuff and XP for killing the quest monsters. Thanks for the help everyone.