FAangband noob questions...

[Fendell Orcbane]

SO I thought that it was time to try a variant out since I've had a few wins at Vanilla and I wanted to try something new. FA seems like it is pretty damn cool, but the problem is that I kinda don't know what to do other than roam around. I started off a Hobbit rogue and am roaming the plains of Eriador right now. I was wondering if powerdiving would work for this game like it does for V, also is there a way to talk to neutral characters? If there is any advice that anyone could think to give me I'd be thankful.

Thanks in advance.

P.S. Here is my dump:

  [FAangband 1.0.3 Character Dump]

 Name    : Andor II        Age                    30 STR         15
 Sex     : Male            Height                 37 INT         13
 Race    : Hobbit          Weight                 67 WIS         14
 Class   : Rogue           Social Class           67 DEX      18/50
                                                     CON      18/20
                                                     CHR          9

 Max Hit Points       91   Level                10   Max SP (Mana)         4
 Cur Hit Points       91   Experience          415   Cur SP (Mana)         4
                           Max Exp             415
        (Fighting)         Exp to Adv.         530          (Shooting)
 Blows/Round           2   Gold                231   Shots/Round         1.3
 + to Skill            5                             + to Skill            5
 Deadliness (%)        0   Base AC/+ To AC  12/  3   Deadliness (%)        0
                           Game Turn        199026

 Fighting   :Fair(42)      Stealth    :Excellent(10) Disarming  :Excellent(84)
 Bows/Throw :Good(57)      Perception :Excellent(51) MagicDevice:Very Good(51)
 SavingThrow:Very Good(49) Searching  :Excellent(54) Infravision:40 feet

                            (Character Background)
          You are one of several children of a Hobbit Burglar.  You
          are a well liked child.  You have brown eyes, straight
          brown hair, and an average complexion.
          

  [Recent locations]

 Current Location : Eriador Level 7
 Previous Location: Eriador Level 6

  [Resistances, Powers and Bonuses]

      abcdefghijkl@            abcdefghijkl@
 Acid:.............   0% Confu:.............   0%
 Elec:.............   0% Sound:.............   0%
 Fire:.............   0% Shard:.............   0%
 Cold:.............   0% Nexus:.............   0%
 Pois:.............   0% Nethr:.............   0%
 Lite:.............   0% Chaos:.............   0%
 Dark:.............   0% Disen:.............   0%

      abcdefghijkl@            abcdefghijkl@
S.Dig:.............      M-Mas:.............
Feath:.............      Stea.:.............
PLite:.............      Sear.:.............
Regen:.............      Infra:.............
Telep:.............      Tunn.:.............
Invis:.............      Speed:.............
FrAct:.............      Shots:.............
HLife:.............      Might:.............
Blind:.............
NFear:.............


  [Specialty Abilities]

Athletics 


  [Stat Breakdown]

Stat Intrnl Rce Cls Oth Actual Currnt     abcdefghijkl
Str:     15  -2   2   0     15            ............
Int:     13  -1   1   0     13            ............
Wis:     14   2  -2   0     14            ............
Dex:     15   3   3   2  18/50            ............
Con:     15   2   1   2  18/20            ............
Chr:     13   1  -5   0      9            ............

  [Character Equipment]

a) a Sabre (1d7) {average}
b) a Sling (x2) (+0,+0)
f) a Brass Lantern (with 1340 turns of light) {25% off}
g) Hard Leather Armour [6] {average}
h) a Cloak [1] {average}
i) a Small Leather Shield [3] {good}
j) a Hard Leather Cap [2] {average}

         [Quiver]
n) 3 Daggers (1d4) (+6,+2)
o) 60 Lead Shots (2d4) {average}


  [Character Inventory]

a) a Book of Magic Spells [Magic for Beginners]
b) 11 Rations of Food
c) 17 Flasks of oil
d) 2 Maroon Potions of Infra-vision
e) a Tawny Potion of Slow Poison
f) 8 Gloopy Green Potions of Cure Serious Wounds
g) 4 Blue Speckled Potions of Cure Critical Wounds
h) a Muddy Potion
i) 12 Scrolls titled "alalech pludoe" of Phase Door
j) 3 Scrolls titled "alalech pludoe" of Phase Door {50% off}
k) 2 Scrolls titled "zundoe sefite" of Teleport Level
l) 2 Scrolls titled "ple ti batder" of Word of Recall
m) 2 Scrolls titled "zunsna lechbit" of Light
n) a Scroll titled "esh doranelg" of Detect Invisible
o) a Scroll titled "sol itetue"
p) 2 Scrolls titled "ankhgan odblaa"
q) a Zirconium Wand of Magic Missile (11 charges)
r) a Runed Wand
s) a Cypress Staff of Object Location
t) a Silver Staff {tried}
u) a Jet Ring {good}


Andor II the Hobbit Rogue
Began the quest to kill Morgoth on 10/17/2010 at 01:27 PM

============================================================
                                  CHAR.
|   TURN  |      LOCATION        |LEVEL| EVENT
============================================================
|    29832|  Gladden Fields Town |  3  | Gained the Athletics specialty.
|    74185|      Hithaeglir   3  |  5  | Reached level 5
|   115825|         Eriador   4  |  7  | Killed Pongo the Devious
|   192078|         Eriador   6  | 10  | Reached level 10
============================================================
|   199026|         Eriador   7  | 10  | Still alive
============================================================

  [Options]

Adult: Never return to less danger before winning: no  (adult_ironman)
Adult: Start as a thrall at the gate of Angband  : no  (adult_thrall)
Adult: View and spell distances halved           : no  (adult_small_device)
Score: Peek into object creation                 : no  (score_peek)
Score: Peek into monster creation                : no  (score_hear)
Score: Peek into dungeon creation                : no  (score_room)
Score: Peek into something else                  : no  (score_xtra)
Score: Know complete monster info                : no  (score_know)
Score: Allow player to avoid death               : no  (score_live)

[Nick]

Originally Posted by Fendell Orcbane

I started off a Hobbit rogue and am roaming the plains of Eriador right now. I was wondering if powerdiving would work for this game like it does for V, also is there a way to talk to neutral characters? If there is any advice that anyone could think to give me I'd be thankful.

• There is no way to talk to neutral characters - you can make them hostile by attacking or stealing from them, though.
• Powerdiving does kind of work, although it's a bit different to in V (lots of wilderness travel, for example).
• It's handy to look at your character's strengths ('O' gives a list of specialty abilities) and work out which types of wilderness you are most comfortable in.
• Beyond level 10, you will start to find 'wilderness vaults', which can be a good source of gear, but can also be dangerous.
• Sooner or later you will want to go into one of the dungeons - the map in the help (?, 5, 5) and worldmap.png in the top level directory can help you find those, and there's also a description of the dungeons (?, 5, 3).
• Recall works differently - you have up to four 'recall points' that you can set (be recalling from one of them).
• You can move house (usually to a bigger town).

Happy to answer any other specific questions.

[Fendell Orcbane]

Originally Posted by Nick

• There is no way to talk to neutral characters - you can make them hostile by attacking or stealing from them, though.
• Powerdiving does kind of work, although it's a bit different to in V (lots of wilderness travel, for example).
• It's handy to look at your character's strengths ('O' gives a list of specialty abilities) and work out which types of wilderness you are most comfortable in.
• Beyond level 10, you will start to find 'wilderness vaults', which can be a good source of gear, but can also be dangerous.
• Sooner or later you will want to go into one of the dungeons - the map in the help (?, 5, 5) and worldmap.png in the top level directory can help you find those, and there's also a description of the dungeons (?, 5, 3).
• Recall works differently - you have up to four 'recall points' that you can set (be recalling from one of them).
• You can move house (usually to a bigger town).

Happy to answer any other specific questions.

Thanks! I'll check the help files out. I'm playing the mac version btw ifthat makes any difference.