Single combat!

[Pete Mack]

So a paladin remains a tank in 4.2, but one with a very low store of ammunition. Slay Evil spell, some minor buffs and healing from the last fight, Single combat, and whatever mana you hadn't recouped from previous activity, and it's common to go into a fight with less than 200 MP. That's only 3 heals without !restore. It definitely helps to start fully rested. In any case, it's easy to burn through the restores: there are so many useful, expensive spells.

Here are some stories.

[Pete Mack]

I went into this fight at full mana, and didn't need temp Slay Evil. (Doubly so; my weapon was a MoD (HA).) But I already had an ASC--i had to bore a tunnel to the vault. I also only had ESP as a weapon swap.

The fight went on for a while, and Cantoras summoned something nasty. Ungoliant woke up. He eventually summoned an Archlich, which messed up everything. (A Reaver would havd been better: just TO, then retreat.
At this point it was time for single combat; i finished Cantoras off in a few more turns. Then I retreated from the ASC to TO the Archlich--i really didn't want to fight it and drain my wands.
At that point I was out of the ASC, and a Nightcrawler and ungoliant emerged. I managed to TO the crawler and then...

[Pete Mack]

... I took Ungoliant in Single Combat. Unfortunately. She filled the whole vault with webs, so I couldn't retreat easily. And her strong aura of darkness overwhelmed my wooden torch artifact, leaving me at -1 light, and only able to see her with infravision. Yikes! To read the healing spell, I either had to retreat through her webbing, to gain a little separation, or swap a dagger of gondolin in and out. With +1 movement speed, I chose the former. I ended up burning 2 !restore mana and 1 !heal, and gained absolutely nothing in return.