Key dungeon depths in 3.3?

[wuphonsreach]

From the old Angband FAQ, which hasn't been updated since 2.8.3, the key depths are:

1000' - Free Action, See Invisible
1500' - Basic 4 resists (Fire, Cold, Electricity, Acid)
2000' - Poison/Nether Resist, Hold Life

The thing is, I know I saw a more complete list in the last few months, but I just can't manage to pull it up with Google or a forum search.

Can anyone expand on the above list? Things like when do you need Nexus or some of the other special resists / immunities?

[Derakon]

That list is just a regurgitation of the conventional wisdom of the times, which advocated a very defensive playstyle in which every action that could possibly prolong the character's life must be taken, no matter how paranoid. It's functionally useless. The important things to remember about Angband aren't depth numbers, but rather which enemies can kill you. For example, homunculi and carrion crawlers can paralyze you in melee, so avoid them until you get Free Action. Drolems have a max-damage poison breath (and ancient multihued dragons are no slouch either), so stay away from them until you have poison resistance. And so on.

Also, many of the resistances that TANG (The Angband Newbie Guide, which is probably where you got that list of depths) lists as being "required" are anything but. Here are the resistances that I would consider you to absolutely want to have by the endgame, in rough order of priority.

Free Action
Fire
Cold
Electricity
Acid
Poison

That's it. Everything else can be worked around or done without -- and you could probably go without poison too if you were really careful. Of the remainder, the most desirable to have would probably be ordered something like this:

Confusion (debilitating)
--
Blindness (if you have this and confusion then you don't need staff-based escapes)
--
Nether (reduces damage of many lategame attacks)
Disenchantment (for the sheer annoyance factor) (unless playing a ranged character)
Chaos (rare, but will mess you up especially if you lack confusion protection)
Darkness (mitigates Darkness Storm and darkness breath, which are occasionally nasty)
--
Everything else

[Timo Pietilä]

Originally Posted by Derakon

I would consider you to absolutely want to have by the endgame, in rough order of priority.

At the actual endgame you can go naked and without any special abilities if you are just careful with summons (M doesn't have any attacks that require resistances). Usually though you get all the basic stuff several times over from your optimal gear by that time.

Couple of notable things: perfect saving throw removes need of FA, light and dark resistances together reduce need of blindness protection a lot and priests can go without see_inv a long time (spell sense invisible in book three gives temporary see_inv, it isn't just one turn detection, and detect evil detects all invisible evil things unlike detect monsters). Very long range infravision also helps a lot if you don't have see_inv and even with it it can save your butt (dark room hound ambush at beginning of the level). ESP trumps infra though.

[wuphonsreach]

What are the key depths for things like:

Resistance potions? Speed potions? Stat gain (not stat swap) potions?

[Derakon]

You can look all those up in the edit files. There should be a "lib" directory with your copy of Angband, in which is an "edit" directory, which should have an "object.txt" file that contains the definitions for all objects in the game. Each object should have a line that looks something like "A:40:1 to 100". That means that the item has allocation frequency of 40 and is native to depths 1 through 100 (that's the allocation for potions of Speed). The larger the allocation frequency, the more likely the item is to show up; there's also an additional out-of-depth check if the level is wrong for the item (e.g. trying to get a potion of Experience on dlvl 1). Of course, vaults, out-of-depth monsters, and the like affect the item level and thus make it easier to generate out-of-depth items.

[wuphonsreach]

So stat gain potions in V 3.3 are depths 30-100, which means they'll start showing up around 1500'. And the stat swappers are levels 10-30 (500' to 1500').

##### Potions #####

### Statgain ###

N:310:Strength
G:!:d
I:75:1
W:30:0:4:8000
A:50:30 to 100
F:EASY_KNOW
E:GAIN_STR