[Announce] FrogComposband 7.1.liquorice released

[Sideways]

Chaos is a fairly offense-oriented realm option, but you can still try to play it as support for melee, which will also help with the loot destruction You can also try to lure monsters away from other monsters' loot before you throw something item-destroying at them.

Holy Orb will be hard to rely on it to the same extent as Orb of Draining in V because it's more expensive than for V priests, and moreover otherwise identical to its V cousin while monsters are often stronger or have more HP.

Not entirely sure what the most OP priest combo would be, but death/sorcery would have to be up there, both of those are very strong realms and sorcery plays well as realm 2 because it has so much good stuff in the early books. Would go with Hera over Hermes if the choice is between those two, the speed bonus on Hermes demigods only develops at a rate of +1 per 10 levels which is too slow to help much in the early game.

[GrimaTheBold]

I have questions about character builds for Priests. Is it okay to keep adding questions to this thread instead of starting a new thread?

Looking at Ladder, the most common spell schools I see for the second school is either Chaos or Nature. Am I correct in assuming that if Chaos is chosen, the character will heavily use spells for offense (fire bolt, etc)? And that if Nature is chosen, the character will rely more heavily on melee?

I find Chaos frustrating because most of their offensive spells destroy objects on the ground, meaning that after a large battle a lot of the loot is gone. I assume I'm not missing any obvious secret to prevent that and it comes with the territory. I just worry that my end-game (if I ever get there) my stockpile of consumables will be low because of all the !Healing/?Genocide destroyed on the ground.

How strong is Life/Crusade, played similarly to a Vanilla priest, using Holy Orb as their Orb of Draining?

What would the most OP build be for a priest (other than Munchkin)? And which demigod is stronger choice, Hermes or Hera?

[Thraalbee]

Instant coffee, so not this time.
And my final reforge would have been such a nice combo with the other ring

The Ring of Lohengrin (+9,+7) (+5) {SrIf;CoDk;FaSiXs}
   Reforged at Fighter's Hall
   ...
   +5 to Searching, Infravision, Shooting Speed
   Resist Cold, Dark
   Free Action; See Invisible
   It reminds you of the artifact of Lohengrin.
   It cannot be harmed by the elements.
   Score: 53.9k (L15)

[Bostock]

Too bad I'm playing a great hell wyrm!

a Ring of Archery (+14,+34) (+3) {Dx;Xm A:Dimension Door}
   Dropped by Glaaki on level 77 of Angband
   ...
    +3 to DEX
    It increases the multiplier of your bow

    Activation: Dimension Door
    Info:       range 35
    Fail:       5.6%
    Timeout:    100
 
    Score:   54.8k (L72)

Take it with you into the Renegade Sorceror quest, it can save your life there!

[Thraalbee]

Best =Archery ever?

Too bad I'm playing a great hell wyrm!

a Ring of Archery (+14,+34) (+3) {Dx;Xm A:Dimension Door}
   Dropped by Glaaki on level 77 of Angband
   ...
    +3 to DEX
    It increases the multiplier of your bow

    Activation: Dimension Door
    Info:       range 35
    Fail:       5.6%
    Timeout:    100
 
    Score:   54.8k (L72)

[ster]

Riding is a great option for a character that wants to progress through strategy.

[MITZE]

Pity spellcasters are terrible riders, always thought it'd be handy as a Necromancer. But I guess otherwise would be too unbalanced/powerful as would effectively have good melee as well as the spells.

On angband.live I was for a while trying to make what I took to calling "Chaos Riders," which were Skillmasters that took both the Chaos realm and the Riding ability. The goal was to eventually ride the Serpent (and along the way, catch every ridable unique), but as it turns out, the mechanics aren't balanced for conveniently doing that (J can only be charmed by Politicians currently to my knowledge, and Skillmasters aren't balanced with pet usage in mind; The Questing Beast, which is the shallowest ridable unique, puts pet upkeep into SP drain territory by itself. Even aside from that, there's no convenient way to charm uniques outside of Politics I think—Charm Monster has too low a power for it to be effective).

Aside from that though, skillmaster caster/riders are viable.

[budswell]

For mid game (CL20-30, so actually very late game for me) I like riding Hippogriffs or TRexes. Pretty tanky and little speed bost. Very cool if you are an archery based character as it deals with things that get up to you.

Pity spellcasters are terrible riders, always thought it'd be handy as a Necromancer. But I guess otherwise would be too unbalanced/powerful as would effectively have good melee as well as the spells.

[Sideways]

Anyway, is it, either tactically or strategically, worth riding? I've seen that my character (an human rogue) is not able to reach mastery proficiency on riding, and, except by mistake, I play very conservatively, so, at this point I'm not focusing on it.

There are a few classes that are really good at riding, like Beastmaster, Cavalry and Dragon Warlock.

Most players seldom if ever ride on the average non-specialist character, but it is something you can do and it's not necessarily bad. The bulk of my practical knowledge of how riding plays out on other classes comes from the experience of Gwarl. He would tame some strongish monster early, ride it, have a good time, basically steamroll every monster he met, say things about how strong riding is, get thrown from his mount at the wrong moment and die. I would guess from this is that if you have a decent but not master-level Riding proficiency cap, riding is an OK option in the early game but the lack of top-end proficiency starts hurting once you get sufficiently deep.

There are niche uses for riding in other situations, for example if you manage to tame a carrion early it can be worth riding to places with, just because that's a relatively simple way to keep that useful carrion around. I haven't done that lately but tried it a couple times a year or two ago, those @s didn't have much kill-power on their own and carrions are pretty good for mowing down other early monsters.

[anselmus]

Pet following is a bit touchy, basically if you go to the scaled overworld map then only your mount can follow, same if you tele-level; if you just take stairs or recall to the surface/into the dungeon then other pets can follow, but they need to be right next to you unless named, and within 3 squares and LOS if named. Also, pets with a "parent" monster (e.g. pets summoned by a still-living monster) never follow.

So if you want a pet other than your mount to follow you across levels, name it and tell it to stay close (through the 'p' pet command menu); and if you want to take an overworld trip (which you almost certainly do want if you wish to get anywhere in the wilderness), you can only preserve a pet other than the mount by placing it in a capture ball.

Most characters (even characters outright based on pets!) use pets pretty situationally and cold-bloodedly - they're charmed or summoned as needed, and then discarded just as quickly. Mounts for riding @s are the main exception, especially if you want them to evolve. Occasionally someone does get attached to a pet, and names it and tries to keep it as long as possible

Thanks you very much! You've explained perfectly.

Playing last hours, before reading you, I realized that spending resources on keeping your pet alive do not worth. At this point in the game (on the playing style I'm following, at least) I'm using pets with a pure tactical approach, not strategic: I'm capturing occasionally some monster who has a special attack (acid, poison, fire .. .) and throw them in potentially dangerous situations. Rarely survive's when the situation becomes really demanding (however, I'm trying to capture just the toughest monsters within safety margins for my character), but, yes, I've noticed that this seems the prudent use of them. Anyway, is it, either tactically or strategically, worth riding? I've seen that my character (an human rogue) is not able to reach mastery proficiency on riding, and, except by mistake, I play very conservatively, so, at this point I'm not focusing on it.

Huge game, by the way. I'm a Cataclysm DDA fan and I've been looking for a long time "fantasy/dungeons/dragons"-theme game exactly like Frogcomposband. Vanilla Nethack and Angband never punch me.

(Sorry if I make mistakes with English. I am not native.)

¡Memorable moment!:

[Sideways]

Pet following is a bit touchy, basically if you go to the scaled overworld map then only your mount can follow, same if you tele-level; if you just take stairs or recall to the surface/into the dungeon then other pets can follow, but they need to be right next to you unless named, and within 3 squares and LOS if named. Also, pets with a "parent" monster (e.g. pets summoned by a still-living monster) never follow.

So if you want a pet other than your mount to follow you across levels, name it and tell it to stay close (through the 'p' pet command menu); and if you want to take an overworld trip (which you almost certainly do want if you wish to get anywhere in the wilderness), you can only preserve a pet other than the mount by placing it in a capture ball.

Most characters (even characters outright based on pets!) use pets pretty situationally and cold-bloodedly - they're charmed or summoned as needed, and then discarded just as quickly. Mounts for riding @s are the main exception, especially if you want them to evolve. Occasionally someone does get attached to a pet, and names it and tries to keep it as long as possible

[anselmus]

I've tamed/captured a baby green dragon as a pet. My first pet! XD Everything works well until I went upstairs to the main worldmap: for some reason my baby dragon not followed me and seems to have vanished.

Anyone know if this is a bug? Maybe I misunderstood the mechanics and I've done something wrong?

Thank you very much in advance

[Sideways]

Hera demigods get Clear Mind, which is a massive boon to any SP caster, although I nerfed it in 7.1.liquorice so it's slightly less powerful now.

[GrimaTheBold]

And yet another question!

I'd like to get further with spell casters so I'd want one to be as OP as possible (without cheating like using Munchkin personality). My last game was a Nimble Demigod-Hera Mage of Chaos/Sorcery which I got to CL 32, so the best I've done so far with a spellcaster (I only play Coffee-Break).

On this character:

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=23201

You described it as "the most OP mage combo imaginable". Why Hera though? I assumed the +3 Wis would make Hera better for Priests/Paladins, and that Mages would choose Athena.

[Sideways]

It accounts for sharpness, but not for chaos brand. Because chaos is a random slay/brand, and interacts with other slays and brands in unique ways, it would require a lot of special unwieldy code to account for it; and while theoretically possible, it would result in a display that was itself extremely unwieldy, because each of the possible random slays/brands would have to be displayed separately.