[Un] Beginners pointers needed

[pndrev]

After trying out several roguelikes (and collecting them, kind of like old coins ) I settled for UnAngband and ADOM. I already thanked Andrew for maintaining Un, and the same goes for the other coders that work on that variant. Great job!

Now, several questions, though.
With my best character to date I'm hitting a wall at around dl10 / cl15. I only said I'm collecting, I never said I was good at playing them. The problem is my ranger has somehow gotten penalties to Con, Agi, Siz... and so far I haven't found a way to get the stats back up to normal. Should I just continue exploring deeper levels until the right potions are generated in the stores? The penalty to speed in particular is nasty and has resulted in quite a few unnecessary near death experiences so far.

Is magic worth it as a ranger? Since I'm wearing gauntlets, spells seem to fail quite often, but on the other hand I'm only using magic to light up rooms and detect life - both not especially time critical, at least at this depth.

Looking at the ladder, the CL seems to be capped at 50. Do you still gain hitpoints, spells, etc for experience after hitting cl50? It looks that way, but why then not continue the normal level progression instead of staying at cl50?

What weapons should I look for? Currently I'm using a Katana for finishing nearly-dead enemies, a longbow and arrows of (0, 0) and (+1, +2). Is it more important to look for better bows or for better arrows?


I can post a dump later, but in the meantime I could use some general pointers.

[andrewdoull]

After trying out several roguelikes (and collecting them, kind of like old coins ) I settled for UnAngband and ADOM. I already thanked Andrew for maintaining Un, and the same goes for the other coders that work on that variant. Great job!

Now, several questions, though.
With my best character to date I'm hitting a wall at around dl10 / cl15. I only said I'm collecting, I never said I was good at playing them. The problem is my ranger has somehow gotten penalties to Con, Agi, Siz... and so far I haven't found a way to get the stats back up to normal. Should I just continue exploring deeper levels until the right potions are generated in the stores? The penalty to speed in particular is nasty and has resulted in quite a few unnecessary near death experiences so far.

Find a nice quiet room. Lock the doors - preferrably with spikes. R, then $ to sleep to recover stats.

Is magic worth it as a ranger? Since I'm wearing gauntlets, spells seem to fail quite often, but on the other hand I'm only using magic to light up rooms and detect life - both not especially time critical, at least at this depth.

Not at this stage, but useful later. Shoot and scoot using arrows and phase door is quite useful.

Looking at the ladder, the CL seems to be capped at 50. Do you still gain hitpoints, spells, etc for experience after hitting cl50? It looks that way, but why then not continue the normal level progression instead of staying at cl50?

You don't. 50 is the cap.

What weapons should I look for? Currently I'm using a Katana for finishing nearly-dead enemies, a longbow and arrows of (0, 0) and (+1, +2). Is it more important to look for better bows or for better arrows?

You should be coating your arrows with e.g. mushrooms, potions or flasks to improve the damage in the short term, then enchanting the bow and arrows up in the longer term.

I can post a dump later, but in the meantime I could use some general pointers.

I'm sure there are lots more pointers.

Andrew

[pndrev]

As long as they're not null-pointers...

So $leeping works? It appeared to only help for one or two points of stat loss, but maybe I simply didn't rest long enough. I get paranoid easily - quite a healthy state of mind for *band, I suppose.


I get that the level is capped, but viewing the ladder gives chars like http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=7939 which seem to have amounts of HP/SP that would indicate you can gain more health even after cl50 is reached.

[Big Al]

Yes - resting to recover stats only recovers a little bit. Just do it several times if you have enough food to do so safely. I like doing it in the towns.

If you find equipment or potions that boost your CON or SIZ then it will boost your HP as well. That dump has +17 to CON and +13 to SIZ, hence the crazy HP.

[Pete Mack]

you should use mushrooms and potions to coat your weapons/arrows, definitely. (Blindness and confusion are huge.) also, enchant that longbow to +7 damage ASAP. Prior to dl 20 or so, this is the #1 priority, after a few basic escapes.

[pndrev]

Alright, I posted a dump at http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=8049.

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The Angband Ladder: Illwyn, the Outlaw, Man of Rohan Ranger by pndrev

  [Unangband 0.6.2 Character Dump]

 Name   Illwyn, the Outlaw                       Self  SB  EB  TB   Best   Curr
 Sex    Female             Age       18  Str:   18/26  +0  +0  +0  18/26     15
 Race   Man of Rohan       Height  5' 1  INT:      13  +0  +0  +0     13
 Class  Ranger             Status    12  Wis:      14  +0  +0  +0     14     13
 Style  One-handed                       DEX:      18  +0  +0  +0     18
 Title  Scout                            CON:      18  +0  +0  +0     18
 Home   at the Prancing Pony in Bree     CHR:      12  +0  +0  +0     12
 Target Barrow-downs                     Agi:      18  +0  +0  +0     18     14
                                         Siz:      14  +0  +0  +0     14      9
 Level           12  HP        106/106  Fight     (+3,+0)  Fighting        Fair
 Curr Exp       979  Spell-Pts   12/18  WShld     (+3,+0)  Shooting   Excellent
 Max Exp       1090  Hit die        10  Bash       [3,-2]  Throwing   Excellent
 Adv Exp       1105  Armor     [18,+9]  Blows  1/turn(x1)  Stealth    Very Good
 Curr Danger Lev  8  Infravis     0 ft  Bow       (+3,+0)  Save Throw Very Good
 Max Dungeon Lev  8  Gold          347  Shots  1/turn(x3)  Disarming       Good
 Game Turn   459547  Burden    110 lbs  Throw     (+3,+0)  Devices    Very Good
 Plr Turn     24263  % Burden      64%  Hurls  1/turn(x1)  Searching       Fair
 Act Turn     24102  Speed          -1  Weight    105 lbs  Digging         Fair

 You are the first child of a Townsman.  You are the black sheep of the family.
 hair, and a very fair complexion.

 This is 5th Tuile of the 2890th year of the third age.
 You are on level 8 of Barrow-downs.

  [Character Equipment Stat Modifiers, Sustains and Flags]

(+/-)              
       |} = ~( )]]]               |} = ~( )]]]
       abcdefghijkl@              abcdefghijkl@
   Str:.............         sStr:.............
   Int:.............         sInt:.............
   Wis:.............         sWis:.............
   Dex:.............         sDex:.............
   Con:.............         sCon:.............
   Chr:.............         sChr:.............
   Agi:.............         sAgi:.............
   Siz:.............         sSiz:.............
  Acid:.............        Disea:............. 
  Elec:.............        Blind:............. 
  Fire:.............        Confu:............. 
  Cold:.............        Sound:............. 
  Pois:.............        Shard:............. 
  Fear:.............        Nexus:............. 
  Lite:.............        Nethr:............. 
  Dark:.............        Chaos:............. 
 Water:.............        Disen:............. 
       abcdefghijkl@              abcdefghijkl@ 
  Food:.............         Save:.............
 Feath:...+.........        Devic:.............
  Glow:.............        Steal:.............
 Regen:.............         Sear:.............
 Telep:.............        Infra:.............
 Invis:.............         Tunn:.............
 FrAct:.............        Speed:.............
 HLife:.............        Blows:.............
 Activ:.............        Shots:.............
 Throw:.............        Might:.............
 Undea:.............        Healt:............. 
 Demon:.............         Mana:............. 
   Orc:.............        Exper:............. 
 Troll:.............        Telep:............. 
 Giant:.............        Spell:............. 
 Dragn:.............         Evil:............. 
   Man:............+              abcdefghijkl@ 
 Dwarf:.............              |} = ~( )]]]  
   Elf:.............                            
 Natur:.............                            
       abcdefghijkl@                            
       |} = ~( )]]]                             

  [Character Equipment]

a) a Katana (3d4) (+0,+0)
b) a Long Bow (x3) (+0,+0)
c) (nothing)
d) a Steel-Plated Ring of Feather Falling
e) (nothing)
f) a Brass Lantern (with 7965 turns of light left) {nonmagical}
g) Soft Studded Leather [5,+11]
h) (nothing)
i) a Small Metal Shield [3,-2]
j) an Iron Helm [5,+0]
k) a Set of Gauntlets [2,+0]
l) a Pair of Hard Leather Boots [3,-2]

  [Character Equipment -- Quiver]

n) 24 Arrows (1d6) (+2,+1)
o) 57 Arrows (1d6) (+0,+0)

  [Character inventory]

a) a Magic Book of Hedges
b) 5 Rations of Food
c) 3 Pieces of Elvish Waybread
d) 14 Flasks of Oil
e) a Flask of Acid
f) a Golden Brown Potion of Boldness
g) a Blue Potion of Berserk Strength
h) 2 Rosy Potions of Constitution and Charisma
i) 7 Scrolls titled "bar vlyere" of Phase Door
j) a Scroll titled "seenin tabhyd" of Word of Recall
k) a Scroll titled "arze ite mic" of Analyze Magic
l) 4 Scrolls titled "dansno ala sef" of Object Detection
m) 2 Scrolls titled "arg densno sun" of Detect Magic
n) 6 Scrolls titled "nagfor rol" of Detect Curse
o) an Aluminum-Plated Rod of Detect Life
p) a Steel-Plated Rod of Trap Location
q) a Mulberry Wand of Confuse Monster
r) an Aluminium Wand of Spark (10 charges)
s) a Garnet Ring {nonmagical}

  [Dungeons Explored]

You emerged victorious from the dump outside Bree (0-4).
You have visited the town of Hobbiton.
You reached level 8 in Barrow-downs (4-23).
You have visited a hill in Trollshaws Forest (4-6).
You have visited the East Road.

  [Self-Knowledge]

You suffer from no afflictions.  You can learn some spells/prayers.  

  [Spells Learnt]

Detect Life              Light Area               Guided Throw
Purify Self

What I see mostly is that I need resistances badly, especially poison. And I need to regain my stats.

Scrolls should cover most of what I need at this stage, Spark and Confuse Monster also seem reasonably useful at the moment. Is that about right?

[Pete Mack]

what you need is more damage. You have 1 blow with your melée weapon, which also doesn't have a charging bonus. You haven't enchanted it or you longbow. Any you are unlikely in the extreme to get rpoison before DL 35 or so. Of course you are struggling if you have such a hard time killing stff.

[Bandobras]

Interesting young character.

I see in you character sheet that you have One-handed style, so you should fight accordingly. From the in-game manual:

One-handed
The One-handed specialist is a flashy fighter, capable of
targetting their attacks with precision. When not using
a shield, a one-handed specialist gets additional to hit
bonuses, improved natural armour class and can cause
additional critical damage at higher levels. One-handed
weapons have up to 15 lbs in weight.
The rate of progress of these abilities varies with each class.

I would also dump the gauntlets, until you find some ego hand-gear that doesn't restrict your casting ability. The extra AC is not worth the extra time for monsters to respawn, while you fumble with taking your gauntlets on and off. I would use the extra mana for Guided Throw or some shooting enhancing spells when you get them. BTW, get your DEX up one point and you'll have 2 throws per turn, IIRC, with Excellent skill.

You may also want to explore a little bit, once the close-by dungeons become too hard.

[pndrev]

Naturally (dying is fun) the character died not long after that dump. Got diseased, didn't have enough money to buy the cure and deteriorating DEX / AGI meant that I had less and less chances of surviving long enough to get the gold needed.

I had a few more tries with a couple of different approaches, though.

Basically, enhancing to-hit and swings per round (that should also result in higher general speed, right?) were my focus. I decided to use the points system for character generation, so I could have more starting gold for scrolls or the first enhance.

My best try so far was a High Elf warrior mage. At first I thought the XP penalty would kill me, but it worked out quite well. The detect helps a lot and when necessary, fighting or shooting is still a good option.

[Bandobras]

Got diseased, didn't have enough money to buy the cure and deteriorating DEX / AGI meant that I had less and less chances of surviving long enough to get the gold needed.

We have to implement a social care shop service for diseased players: a decent loan, based on disease badness. I imagine shrewd heroes chasing mangy looking lepers around Bree to get diseased for a few starting enchant weapon scrolls.

Basically, enhancing to-hit and swings per round (that should also result in higher general speed, right?)

Nope. Also, to-dam is more important, though limited by your weapon dice.

I decided to use the points system for character generation, so I could have more starting gold for scrolls or the first enhance.

I'd rather spend the points on stats and buy a good weapon according to your style and race/class. You can survive quite long with only one of melee/throws/shots/spells/wands and some race/class combination only make one of these practical at the start. Yes, the game is hard, so perhaps choose Maia as your race? But then, High Elf is munchkin enough, too. Good luck.

[pndrev]

Also, to-dam is more important, though limited by your weapon dice.

Really? I had the impression that my main problem was hitting the enemy. Then again, I never got deep enough into the dungeon that doing enough damage became an issue.

I'd rather spend the points on stats and buy a good weapon according to your style and race/class.

Well, I usually use almost all points, just enough so I can get a few things from the beginning instead of having not enough money to buy anything.

[Pete Mack]

Damage is always important, especially when your weapons don't do much. A 3d4 katana does 3*2.5 = 7.5 damage. At 3d4 (+0,+7) it does twice as much damage per blow. That is a HUGE difference. More to the point, you need to get multiple blows if you are a starting warrior, so you get more chances to hit. At 3 or 4 blows with a +7 dagger, you will be doing 10.5 * 3 or 10.5 * 4 damage/turn. That is up to 5x better than you are doing with the katana. You will definitely notice the difference.

And do enchant that longbow--the same thing applies. You do 7.5 damage at +0; at +7 it does 29.5 damage, 4x better.

[Bandobras]

As Pete says. That is, to-dam makes a huge difference, while to-hit only slight difference.

Really? I had the impression that my main problem was hitting the enemy.

In that case you used a wrong form of attack. In Un (and sometimes in O and S), some races and classes just can't hit enemies at all with melee (aside of the guaranteed 5% hit chance, IIRC). Others are hopeless in shooting, others in throws, spells or magic devices. You should inspect your 'C' screen and invest only in the one (or two) modes of attack your character is good at. Melee is often not one of them. Of course, high-level characters with buffs and gear have many more options. Throwing explosives works for almost anyone, because of the splash damage.

[Pete Mack]

Followup -- I took a look at the CD. Your fighting is "fair" and your shooting is "excellent." THat means you should be using the bow. But it needs to be enchanted. But you can get your fighting to a reasonable level just using !Heroism, which is much cheaper than a big stack of ?to_dam scrolls, at least initially. Still, you should be relying on archery for most combat. Use melee just to clean up easy stuff to avoid wasting ammo. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't use a fully enchanted dagger. It just means that you should enchant the longbow first. (Eventually you need to make sure that orcs count as easy.)