Comp 231

[LordRotharoth]

That's not a bad idea

[Grotug]

Originally Posted by Voovus

How about vanilla, with a character who starts off wearing a permanently cursed item (and unbreakable with remove curse) that has "no teleport" on it?

In other words, no instant escapes. Give it +10 Con if you're feeling generous.

I like the idea of no escapes and you start with one of these launchers.

@Estie: well, not every way. The crossbow provides free action which is very key if you want to blast downward to DL40s with reckless abandon (as I would be doing). Personally, I would start with the crossbow and switch to the longbow as soon as I got Free Action. Actually, I'd probably just take the bow everytime.

I figure giving both is nice in the event you find some really good bolts. It's nice to have options.

[ShadowTechnology]

Originally Posted by Grotug

I like the idea of no escapes and you start with one of these launchers.

@Estie: well, not every way. The crossbow provides free action which is very key if you want to blast downward to DL40s with reckless abandon (as I would be doing). Personally, I would start with the crossbow and switch to the longbow as soon as I got Free Action. Actually, I'd probably just take the bow everytime.

I figure giving both is nice in the event you find some really good bolts. It's nice to have options.

I don't want to speak for Gwarl, but he said in another thread in this forum, just 5 weeks ago:
"If we use starting savefiles then people can't participate on angband live."
So the days of using characters that start with special gifts are over, at least for now.

So, in the recent past, these contest have had us generating our own non-identical characters within certain parameters (race, class, options, etc). So let's work with that. The parameters can by very restrictive (so that everyone starts with "almost" the same character) or they can be wide open.

Personally I like Gwarl's Instant Coffee idea. I've been playing it for a few weeks and find it quite addictive. You can play out several characters in one evening session. Once you do your initial shopping you typically get to CL5 in 5 minutes and CL15 in 15 minutes. After that the game continues at a super rapid rate, but the quest levels get progressively harder. One guy made to to CL50, but was still several quests levels away from Oberon when he got his ass kicked.

Nothing wrong with a challenging contest, and nothing wrong with having a contest winner without having a game winner. Especially when there's time to take dozens of shots on goal. But it is possible to win the game in Instant Coffee mode. There are examples on the ladder.

The best thing about these contests in my opinion is not the contest itself, but the opportunity to explore, as a groups, new variants and features like Instant Coffee. Besides, it's fun to watch yourself level up several times in the course of a single melee bout.

[Thraalbee]

A human ninja is a good choice for instant coffe. Anything with wraithform also nice. Pure brawler is too dependent on luck imo.

[Gwarl]

Let's go even further. Spectre ninja. Lucky spectre ninja.