Current master post-4.1.3

[Sphara]

I've tried to get a good ironman necromancer going in the nightlies but it is just too tough. The early damage is not only ridiculously low, it's also very unreliable. Fail rate for Nether Bolt is very high at the start even if you sacrifice extra points to INT. It stays that way for quite some time. Monsters resisting Nether Bolt is also iffy. A thing like green naga takes forever to kill. In one game I kited Lugdush with escaping ring and Nether Bolt on an empty level. It took about 15 minutes.

So, at least some early offense boost would be appreciated. It feels like 4.1.3 ranger can deal more damage with just spells than a nightlies necromancer. Early detect/escape spells are nice but also start with a very high fail rate.

I've never made it to see the third book so this minor rant is exclusively about the early game. I've absolutely no idea what kind of character a late-game necromancer is

[fph]

I've tried playing a few necromancers recently, too. Tips and comments:

1. For the very early game, you really need to take care and fight in corridors only, because at first the fail rate penalty for casting in the light matters. As soon as you get more mana, it's another thing you can safely forget about.
2. Undeads are immune to Nether Bolt, but they can be damaged with Tap Unlife (2nd book).
3. As soon as you can afford the mana, it's a good idea to turn into a rogue with Bat Form and explore the level picking fights.
4. That said, the early game is slow and some help from objects is needed: a ring of the mouse, a good launcher, a rod of light to deal with the orcs can speed it up considerably. I wouldn't mind a slight de-nerf.
5. Overall, in the early game a necromancer feels like a mage with much worse spells: a magic missile that lots of monsters resist, no phase door, no equivalent of Light Area to extend your line of sight, underpowered detection with no way to locate stairs, no elemental attacks, an area damage spell which I never use because it poisons yourself (and with CLW/CSW not curing poison anymore that's annoying to deal with). Book 1 in particular looks underwhelming to me when compared to the mage's one.
6. I have never gotten below DL50, but it feels like the necromancer may become powerful in the late game once you get the dungeon books: it has the perfect vault-cracking kit with mass teleport other, destruction and enlightenment, paired with some unresistable damage spells and Command which looks at least interesting to try.
7. That said, I don't see an area where the necromancer's spell list outshines the mage's. What are the strengths of a necromancer supposed to be? Is shapechanging that strong?
8. The radius of sight formula seems on point: small radius in the early game, then it gets better, with the bat form getting a bonus.
9. If I understand correctly the formula, the vampire spells only heal an amount of hit points equal to the player level. That's not much, considering that they also have the drawback of teleporting you right next to a monster (which, as a caster, is something that you pretty much want to avoid).

[Sphara]

Thanks fph. That's a good set of tips.

I knew about the benefits of casting in the darkness and Nether Bolt still has too high fail rate at the beginning imo. Also the default for INT in character creation is staggeringly low.

I assume you were referring to the new version with the new monster set, right? Blacklock mages and ironfist priests present a life-threatening danger for an early necromancer. All the orcs are more dangerous and resist NBolt. Priest having Summon Kin can be devastating. One priest used to be a threat, now its full-alarm mode seeing one awake. Terrified yeeks waking up everything. And so on.. it's really heavy.

This all said, I should probably try it with recalling active before criticizing.

[fph]

Yes, my necro runs were with recall enabled. Ironman sounds a lot more brutal, with limited possibilities to heal and escape fights. I think the only way to survive might be using Bat Form a lot, and you'd still need some luck with loot to make it through to statgain depth.

[Estragon]

Originally Posted by Sphara

Thanks fph. That's a good set of tips.

I knew about the benefits of casting in the darkness and Nether Bolt still has too high fail rate at the beginning imo. Also the default for INT in character creation is staggeringly low.

I assume you were referring to the new version with the new monster set, right? Blacklock mages and ironfist priests present a life-threatening danger for an early necromancer. All the orcs are more dangerous and resist NBolt. Priest having Summon Kin can be devastating. One priest used to be a threat, now its full-alarm mode seeing one awake. Terrified yeeks waking up everything. And so on.. it's really heavy.

This all said, I should probably try it with recalling active before criticizing.

Definitely maximise INT, I believe the autoroller hasn't been adjusted for the new classes yet. Whilst the early levels are tough, it gets substantially easier when you learn Disenchant, and (in my experience) within a few levels you should have plenty of SP. Haven't tried ironman yet, maybe I'll give a shot on the new nightly.

[wobbly]

Beholder, Feanorian Raider & Nan the Giant all have wrong depths

[PowerWyrm]

If you find V necromancers difficult, I'm wondering how you would find PWMAngband necromancers... (they get Nether Bolt at level 25 and start with a Scare Monster spell instead).

[Sphara]

Sure, I'll give your variant a shot. Just need to finish off my current necromancer in angband.live Low-level scare monster cannot be worse than the pea-shooter of a spell that Nether Bolt is at the beginning of V.

[wobbly]

In my own variant I've settled on scaling nether resist from evil with monster depth. With something like 9 / (10 + depth/12) a kobold, orc or cutpurse takes 90% dam, an ancient dragon 60% and you end up at the original 50% at the bottom of the list.

[Nick]

New builds up on the nightlies page with the following changes:

• Race data file p_race.txt has been rewritten for simplicity, and the experience penalties have been adjusted as Derakon suggested (everyone is +20% except humans);
• Some monsters have been given their correct levels (thanks wobbly)
• Hunger has been rewritten so that its code is just like that for other timed effects, and it appears in the player_timed.txt datafile. There is also a new visible hunger state, Starving, which always existed but was never explicitly mentioned (it's the point where hunger starts costing you HP).

I am still planning bigger changes to hunger as in this thread, and possibly other player status tweaks; this update mainly includes the bits that break savefiles...

Originally Posted by Sphara

Just need to finish off my current necromancer in angband.live

I'll give a couple of days before updating angband.live