Welcome back! I love playing with sound, too. I play a lot of Rangers; not for the spells, but because unbreakable ammo is fun, and extra shots with character level ups for all launchers (not just bows) is also fun. Iron shots and pebbles don't break anymore and I think they are immune to acid as well. I still think they should have a breakability of 1 or 2 percent, while bolts should be further reduced to 10% and arrows to 15% (and/or mithril ammo should be twice as durable as non mithril ammo).

I am terrible at new Angband, though. So many early deaths; enemies are much more dangerous than they used to be. Congrats on your win; do you understand how movement speed works? I find Warriors harder to play in latest version of Angband as compared to 4.1.3 and earlier.

Thanks for the tips! I look forward to trying some of the new classes once my current character (almost inevitably) YASDs.

To be clear, I have yet to win with 4.2.3. My last win was 4.1.2 and I had a couple of older wins where I have lost the records.

Currently I have a dwarven warrior at level 50 puttering around the 60s looking for uniques to kill and vaults to plunder. Telepathy and the monster list in a term window is really useful for tracking down most of the uniques. Aglarang is a nice powerful weapon with which I have won the game before, so I am happy there. My AC is terrible mostly because I need to stick with Himring for rPoison. I lack rSound (like my previous char) so I am avoiding great wyrms of thunder and the like. I would like to reorganize, but my hands are a little tied.

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=24818

I'll have to try again. I fought all the time, and between every fight my mana always dropped to zero. Maybe I didn't try long enough or deep enough...

I agree that starting blackguard is a serious slog.

I'd have to say Blackguard is arguably my favorite class now. With mana you need to get out of the "horde it for when I need it" mindset and instead use it as soon as it's available. I conduct myself in what feels like a perpetual headlong rush from one victim to the next before my mana all converts to HP.

Summoning curses can actually be nice for them as an occasional skeleton (or whatever) popping up is a nice mana boost if you're down to nothing. Rings of open wounds or anything with aggravation also complement the class nicely.

Hounded-
That swap of horde/hoard *really* through me for a loop! I was expecting tactics for fighting trolls.

LOL Blasted android assistant. Made all the more entertaining for my own obsessive tendencies around the use of the language. Irony is beautiful.

D'oh! And in the same message, i misspelled threw!

I finally got a (Dwarf, pretty good race for a BG) blackguard off the ground. It would help if there were some sort of "mechanics FAQ" for all the classes. E.g., I wasn't aware previously that a BG casting heals some HP.

Blackguard is definitely fun and a big change from my usual style of super-stealthy pick-n-choose-fights low-HP mages.

p.s. Hold Monster has a whole new meaning with BG: "Where you going, buddy?! Hahaha!"

Make sure you stun a lot
It is your friend.
I was having trouble with Morgoth as a BG - until I realized that stun worked on him too!