Dantares the Paladin

[Mondkalb]

The mixed classes (paladin, ranger, rogue) can never rely on casting/praying spells in emergency situations, because they have a failure rate of at least 5%. Three fails in a row isn't that uncommon.
You must have other ermergency escapes -
- potions of CCW/healing are failsafe if they cure enough HPs
- scrolls are failsafe if you have immunity to blindness and confusion, but teleport or teleport level could you take in another dangerous situation
- staves, wands and rods have also a failure rate

With a tough paladin you can dive much faster and will get more useful stuff. Even if you die in the effort - it would be less wasted time. ^^

[Delver]

Originally Posted by Donald Jonker

From Shining Force III? Never played it. That's what you get from asking a trivia question over a wikipedia-powered internet.

Now where are the damned cookies?

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I figured a Shining Force reference was appropriate since those games started with a dungeon crawler. Though, for future reference, what's the Tolkien equivalent of centaur?

...

Just compiling everyone's suggestions since my last post:

• Phase Door is not a reliable form of escape
• Go for something with Teleport (i.e. staffs)
• Don't trust spells with a 5% or higher failure rate
• Should probably maximize your damage/number of blows (I think I got addicted to the Free Action and See Invisible of my cutlass)

[Zikke]

Originally Posted by Delver

Your cookies are now in your browser.
I figured a Shining Force reference was appropriate since those games started with a dungeon crawler. Though, for future reference, what's the Tolkien equivalent of centaur?

...

Just compiling everyone's suggestions since my last post:

• Phase Door is not a reliable form of escape
• Go for something with Teleport (i.e. staffs)
• Don't trust spells with a 5% or higher failure rate
• Should probably maximize your damage/number of blows (I think I got addicted to the Free Action and See Invisible of my cutlass)

There pretty much is never a "guaranteed" safe escape, even though people often say that phrase (besides possibly *Destruction*). Any Teleport or TeleportLevel has a chance of landing you in a bad place. Also, any % fail higher than zero can screw you, not just 5% or more.

The key thing is to not let yourself get in the situation where your fate comes down to the success or failure of one turn. Escape early and crawl back to that part of the map if you have to, but don't let yourself get punched down to 10 hp before you try to GTFO.


edit: also, ?PhaseDoor is the only real form of escape at very early levels and should be a required possession until you get better forms of escape.

[buzzkill]

Originally Posted by Delver

• Phase Door is not a reliable form of escape
• Go for something with Teleport (i.e. staffs)
• Don't trust spells with a 5% or higher failure rate
• Should probably maximize your damage/number of blows (I think I got addicted to the Free Action and See Invisible of my cutlass)

I'm not the best player but...
As has been said, Phase is good for starters, but pick up at least one item of teleportation the first chance you get. If you end up using it, recall and get more.
Scrolls are better than staffs (as long as you can see, CCW or resist blindness).
Don't trust your life to spells that can fail, because eventually they will.
You may be able to get by without SI for awhile (by the time invisible creatures become common, you'll have it covered) but I wouldn't give up FA for an extra blow.

Don't despair. This game isn't that hard... it's that impossible.

[Pete Mack]

The goal with escapes is to avoid them as much as you can. The goal for overly dangerous monsters (anything that can kill you in two turns or less) is to evade, and never even give them a chance to put you in danger. This is why Rogue is considered the class with the best "survival skills"--good detection, excellent evasion, and good HP, with pretty good fighting ability.

As for damage -- for fighting classes (Paladin, Warrior) you better have some way to do it, because there's no way to evade. If you find a good defensive weapon, carry a swap -- don't give up the FA+SI (or ESP!), just make sure there's some way to actually kill stuff when you need to.

[Mondkalb]

You could try a high-elf paladin - starts with lousy wisdom, but you get see invisible and rLight for free.
Also he has good fighting abilities and reasonble stealth.

[saarn]

The stairs. When you detected wormtongue earlier and decided he was too close for comfort, your first thought should have been to take the stairs out of the level. If you end up in the middle of a pack of orcs when you head up, you can head right back down and repeat until things look clear enough to rest.

btw, there's nothing magical about dlvl 10, more about just diving as fast as you can especially through the first several levels where there's nothing but junk anyway. Seems like egos start being common around dlvl 20 and I think stat potions become common around dlvl 30.

Tigers move fast and hit hard, so unless you can deal a lot of damage they are very dangerous. Watch out for quick monsters.