need advice

[Soteria]

Hello, first time posting here. I've played Angband off and on for a while, but never very successfully--before my current character, my best was a 36 ranger that got killed by a 7-headed hydra while running from an Archangel (both were out of depth, but I really should have had poison resist). Because I'm now getting into depths I've never been to before (~40) I'm getting a little nervous and would like some advice on my character:

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=11903

As I see it I really need poison and confusion resist. Am I missing anything else at my depth? Also, should I be carrying any other consumables or items? I want teleport other, but my wand got fried and I haven't found another. I'd appreciate any tips.

[UglySquirrell]

Hang out around at late 30's and build up you're stats. Try and get at least you're primary ones str,dex, Wis, and constitution into the 18/+ once there here they become a lot more effective. You're shield is great and covers sustains and basic resists, by the time you get you're stats up to a decent level you should have found some better gear, poison and nexus are the big ones I watch for, confusion and blindness are nice but you can usually escape these with potions or staffs. In ironman games once I get below 30 I always have a resist nexus swap when I'm exploring, if I don't have a rod of detection yet or the mage detection spells, ill wear boots of stability, instead of boots of speed and use those as a swap against tough enemies. The other resists aren't quite that important they aren't used by many dangerous enemies till deeper, watch out for Klavax he breathes pretty much everything and Amhd they hit waaay harder than the other ancients and breathe all elements and poison.

[Scraper]

I would be carrying more of the spell books. You should have the ID spell so you don't need the scrolls. I would also a stack of ?blink. They are great for getting you out of combat for a couple of turns of healing.

The biggest thing I would be trying to get is =con. I think they far out trump your =strength. I would prob use =dam over the slaying too. Once you find the last book, which is a while away, you have basically won the game. The spell word of destruction is a game winner.

Until then just avoid stuff that can kill you. Temptation and the desire to kill everything you see (I have it, not sure about you) is your greatest risk.

[Soteria]

Thanks for the advice. I'm getting better, but usually what gets me killed is throwing good money after bad--I get invested in killing a unique or clearing a pit and instead of cutting my losses and running I just go down fighting.

Unfortunately, I just got killed by a vampire lord. I had been one-shotting master vampires, and I thought, "how much harder can this guy be?" I had him down to 30% or so in two rounds of melee when he took me from ~200 to dead. Turns out that the difference between moving at normal speed and moving quickly is pretty significant after all. :/

[Scraper]

Originally Posted by Soteria

but usually what gets me killed is throwing good money after bad--I get invested in killing a unique or clearing a pit and instead of cutting my losses and running I just go down fighting.

This is basically the graduation test of this game.

[Soteria]

Updated the character (I just overwrote the previous one)

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=11903

Unfortunately, I didn't find a potion of experience on dlvl 2 this time around, but I'm actually farther along now. I'm right around ~dlvl 50--am I playing with fire not having resist nether/nexus/poison/stat sustains? I have two rods of tel other, so I can generally get rid of stuff I don't want to fight, but I feel like there's a lot of stuff around that can just cripple me (beholders, night mares, dreads in large packs). I didn't have much trouble with Kavlax (he only breathed chaos once, thank god), but the warning was well-taken.

Also, I'm wondering whether my =slaying +8,+7 is better than my =con +3. I'm pretty confident =speed +6 trumps both.

[Nomad]

Originally Posted by Soteria

Unfortunately, I didn't find a potion of experience on dlvl 2 this time around, but I'm actually farther along now. I'm right around ~dlvl 50--am I playing with fire not having resist nether/nexus/poison/stat sustains? I have two rods of tel other, so I can generally get rid of stuff I don't want to fight, but I feel like there's a lot of stuff around that can just cripple me (beholders, night mares, dreads in large packs). I didn't have much trouble with Kavlax (he only breathed chaos once, thank god), but the warning was well-taken.

Poison resistance is the most important thing to try and find - there are monsters that can breathe poison for very high damage and kill you pretty much instantly. (Drolems in particular are dangerous because you can't spot them with Detect Evil or ESP.) Nexus resistance is also a high priority, because nexus attacks sometimes have the very nasty side effect of permanently swapping your stats around, plus they can teleport you into danger and sometimes right off the level.

Other resistances and stat sustains are nice to have, but you can survive without them - just avoid getting stuck in melee with monsters that you know can drain important stats and ones that hit to disenchant equipment.

[Soteria]

Yeah, I recently learned to avoid death molds, at least. I have boots of stability on swap now, as suggested, but I'm having a bugger of a time finding poison resistance. I did find a number of artifacts with hold life and nether resist in a greater vault, though, so that's something--and I have the trident of ulmo. I wish it were fire immunity, but I'll take acid.