[Poschengband] Early game, good sources of gear?

[Bimodal]

Hello folks,

So with some advice from earlier threads and a lot of watching YT and reading has got me to where I can start to get a character going in Poschengband. Usually it's some bad luck and poor play that kills me, not anything that's a mystery to me.

But I am curious where people recommend I go to start getting non-terrible equipment (and what constitutes non-terrible equipment). I headed over to Angband after clearing the stronghold but it seems like those quests are gone? And for mages, orcs are brutal (they just take so many hits and tap out my mana so fast, before I have eat magic to supplement drinking expensive potions).

Does anyone have any advice how start thinking about gearing up in more recent versions of poschengband?

[Ironshod Al]

I haven't played mages in PosChengband, so I can't advice on gear or survival.

The quests in Angband are still available, but they are now found at random levels. It's mentioned in the short changelog posted by chris here: [Announce] PosChengband 6.1.0 Released

Changes this release include:
[1] Quest sequence in Angband is now random. You won't know what levels contain quest monsters. But, you can safely leave a quest level if you like and the quest monster will patiently await your return. You decide how to play this, but the game is more fun if you try to complete quests on the first attempt, only backing out if the foe is ridiculously OP (e.g. Malekith on DL35 before you have nether resistance).

[Red Sky Grishka]

i like playing poschengband 6.1.0 as a high-mage hex-mage. At start, just get a sling, rounded pebbles, basic armour. After level 5, roam the outer world with stinking mist, and powerfarm. After not so much time, you'll be able to affort a lot from the black market. Try boosting your strength to be able to use a wizardstaff, and then you get free $ grind

[nikheizen]

>Hex Mage
Yeowch. AFAIK, Hex Mage has only been won once and only by the best poschengband player around, clouded. I would recommend you try an easier class.

As for gear, angband quests are at random levels now and the first one should appear around dlvl 12 or so. Other than that, just slaying uniques and pack monsters are the best option. Packs can be rough for mages for the reasons you stated, but most mages get a good option to deal with them fairly early on. It's just tedious. Use wands in addition to spells and ranged weapons if you can.

[wobbly]

for orcs just a bunch of phase scrolls & stinking cloud wands will do, but mostly recognise that if they're dangerous you don't have to fight them. Carry enough scrolls of teleport that you can decide whether it's worth it to you or not.

[Red Sky Grishka]

for orcs just a bunch of phase scrolls & stinking cloud wands will do, but mostly recognise that if they're dangerous you don't have to fight them. Carry enough scrolls of teleport that you can decide whether it's worth it to you or not.

But so much easier with hex mage level 5... I was in the wild level 5 and got to level 11 just by pressing m-a-d and walking around And it came with lots of amulets and good gear/stuff to sell for money

[GenericPseudonym]

Hex mages feel really fun and powerful around level 5 when you can first cast stinking mist and go around dissolving huge packs of orcs.

Unfortunately that's just about the ONLY time they feel powerful. They're really helpless before level 5 and they don't get any good offensive spells later on either, so other than the brief period where stinking mist makes them the best class ever, they have to rely entirely on devices. The Anti Magic Barrier chant is apparently really overpowered if you can somehow survive til 42, though.

[Red Sky Grishka]

Im currently Clevel 32 with Hex Mage, and after level 5, i've just been rocking the outer world without using ANY devices except maybe the occasional scroll of teleport. I find that another one of their powerspikes is level 20 with Vampiric Mist, and all i've been doing basically is hunting for $ to get the tier 3 spellbooks from the Black Market instead of killing Smaug

EDIT: I built my hex-mage more of a hybrid caster - warrior because i use the Mist spells and Patience for support for my melee attacks.

[HugoVirtuoso]

Im currently Clevel 32 with Hex Mage, and after level 5, i've just been rocking the outer world without using ANY devices except maybe the occasional scroll of teleport. I find that another one of their powerspikes is level 20 with Vampiric Mist, and all i've been doing basically is hunting for $ to get the tier 3 spellbooks from the Black Market instead of killing Smaug

EDIT: I built my hex-mage more of a hybrid caster - warrior because i use the Mist spells and Patience for support for my melee attacks.

You should have picked a Tonberry for that...Tonberries are known for *big* melee bonuses as they level up