Fight AMHD with Green DSM or Chain Mail of Resistance?

[roustk]

At 1550' my character has encountered a Mazer vault (V 3.0.9). I've cleared most of it, teleporting away the worst nasties, and am now left with two sealed cells to consider:
* Ancient multi-hued dragon
* Gorlim, Betrayer of Barahir

Teleported away nasties include Uldor, Medusa, Vargo, and a Great Hell Wyrm, and (as you can see below) I have quite a few good finds from the vault.

I'm not going to open either of these last two cells, but I'd like to hear from you all about what would lead you to risk it (and how you would go about it)?

What would it take for you to open the AMHD cell with this character (stat potion, generic weapon/armor, enhanced weapon like my Mace 4d4)? How would you equip for doing it? I think that I'd have to go with the Resistance armor (leaving a hole on Poison) rather than the Green DSM (leaving holes on Base), but nothing looks good.

Similarly, would you open the Gorlim cell even for a enhanced weapon (probable artifact)?


Background: this trip has proceeded from 900', and I was planning on heading home in the next few levels, as consumables (particularly arrows) were getting low. Until this point, I was having terrible luck with weapons and jewelry -- I cleared half the vault with a Rapier (+2,+7) and a see invisible ring in place of the =Dam. I hadn't seen *any* rings or any amulets worth wearing since 900'. I've had decent armor luck, but I have been woefully short on resistances (had Poison before *any* base except for =RFire and =RCold found and sold before 500'). Balancing that, I've had unbelievable luck with my shooters. (The XBow I have with me now was used with a pile of Slay Dragon bolts to deal with the horde of Mature dragons in the vault.)

  [Angband 3.0.9 Character Dump]

 Name   Brin                                     Self  RB  CB  EB   Best
 Sex    Female            Age        22   STR:     15  +4  +5  +2  18/80
 Race   Half-Troll        Height     84   INT:     15  -4  -2  +4     13
 Class  Warrior           Weight    176   WIS:     16  -2  -2  +6     18
 Title  Myrmidon          Status      1   DEX:     16  -4  +2  +0     14
 HP     403/403           Maximize    Y   CON:     16  +3  +2  +1  18/40
 SP     0/0                               CHR:  18/18  -6  -1  +0     13

 Level           30       Armor    [41,+50]     Saving Throw   Excellent
 Cur Exp     110296       Fight    (+5,+17)     Stealth              Bad
 Max Exp     110296       Melee   (+13,+30)     Fighting       Legendary
 Adv Exp     120000       Shoot    (+10,+7)     Shooting          Heroic
 MaxDepth   1550 ft       Blows      2/turn     Disarming      Very Good
 Turns       840502       Shots      2/turn     Magic Device        Good
 Gold         22577       Infra       60 ft     Perception          Poor
 Burden   215.3 lbs       Speed          -2     Searching           Fair

 Your father was a Stone-Troll Warrior.  You have puke-yellow eyes,
 oily dark purple hair, and blue ulcerous skin.



      abcdefghijkl@       abcdefghijkl@
 Acid:+............ Blind:+............
 Elec:............. Confu:.............
 Fire:............. Sound:.............
 Cold:............. Shard:.............
 Pois:......+...... Nexus:.............
 Fear:............+ Nethr:.............
 Lite:+............ Chaos:.............
 Dark:+............ Disen:.............

      abcdefghijkl@       abcdefghijkl@
S.Dig:............. Stea.:.............
Feath:............. Sear.:+............
PLite:............. Infra:....+........
Regen:............+ Tunn.:.............
Telep:.........+... Speed:.............
Invis:+............ Blows:.............
FrAct:..+........+. Shots:.+...........
HLife:............. Might:.............


  [Character Equipment]

a) The Mace of Feinya (4d4) (+8,+13) (+1) {MazerV 1550'}
   It increases your intelligence and constitution by 1.  It increases
   your searching by 1.  It slays animals.  It is branded with acid.  
   It provides resistance to acid, light, dark, and blindness.  It
   sustains your constitution and charisma.  It grants you the ability
   to see invisible things.  It cannot be harmed by the elements.  
b) a Long Bow of Extra Shots (x3) (+5,+7) (+1) {Mughash 550'}
   It increases your shooting speed by 1.  
c) a Ring of Free Action {Orcs 900'}
   It grants you immunity to paralysis.  
d) a Ring of Damage (+8) {YGoldD 1550'}
e) an Amulet of Infravision (+3)
   It increases your infravision by 3.  
f) The Phial of Regabel {Smeagol 550'}
   It usually provides light of radius 3.  It cannot be harmed by the
   elements.  It might have hidden powers.
g) Green Dragon Scale Mail (-2) [30,+13] {Floor 1400'}
   It provides resistance to poison.  It activates for breathe poison
   gas (150) every 450+d450 turns.  It cannot be harmed by the
   elements.  
h) a Cloak [1] {good}
i) The Large Leather Shield of Raurufin [4,+13] (+3) {MazerV 1550'}
   It increases your wisdom by 3.  It cannot be harmed by the elements.
   It might have hidden powers.
j) The Hard Leather Cap 'Narethand' [2,+16] (+3) {Gorbag 1050' ESP}
   It increases your intelligence and wisdom by 3.  It sustains your 
   intelligence.  It grants you the power of telepathy.  It cannot be
   harmed by the elements.  
k) a Set of Leather Gloves of Power (+4,+4) [1,+4] (+2) {Floor 750'}
   It increases your strength by 2.  
l) a Pair of Hard Leather Boots of Free Action [3,+4] {Floor 1450'}
   It grants you immunity to paralysis.  


  [Character Inventory]

a) a Book of Magic Spells [Tenser's Transformations] {MazerV 1550'}
   It cannot be harmed by the elements.  
b) 12 Rations of Food {@E0}
c) 9 Potions of Cure Critical Wounds
d) 2 Scrolls of Phase Door
e) 4 Scrolls of Teleportation {!*}
f) a Scroll of Word of Recall {!*}
g) a Rod of Detection {@z0 Floor 1300'}
   It cannot be harmed by electricity.  
h) 4 Rods of Light {@z1}
i) a Rod of Fire Bolts
j) 3 Wands of Teleport Other (15 charges)
k) 5 Staffs of Teleportation (34 charges) {!*}
l) a Staff of Perception (16 charges) {@u0}
m) 2 Staffs of Enlightenment (4 charges) {@u2!*}
n) Chain Mail of Resistance (-2) [14,+19] {MazerV 1550'}
   It provides resistance to acid, lightning, fire, and cold.  It
   cannot be harmed by the elements.  
o) an Iron Crown of Night and Day [0,+10] {MazerV 1550'}
   It provides resistance to light, dark, and blindness.  It usually
   provides light of radius 1.  It grants you the ability to see
   invisible things.  It cannot be harmed by acid.  
p) a Golden Crown of Seeing [0,+7] (+4 to searching) {MazerV 1550'}
   It increases your searching by 4.  It provides resistance to 
   blindness.  It grants you the ability to see invisible things.  It
   cannot be harmed by acid.  
q) The Tulwar of Lagduinwe (2d4) (+5,+2) {MazerV 1550'}
   It cannot be harmed by the elements.  It might have hidden powers.
r) The Pike 'Eriath' (2d5) (+4,+8) {MazerV 1550'}
   It cannot be harmed by the elements.  It might have hidden powers.
s) a Short Bow of Power (x2) (+8,+24) {MazerV 1550'}
t) a Heavy Crossbow (x4) {good}
u) 17 Bolts (1d5) {good}
v) 26 Arrows (1d4) (+0,+0) {@f0=g}
w) 7 Arrows (1d4) {@f1=g, good}


  [Home Inventory]

a) a Scroll of *Identify* {!*}
b) The Set of Leather Gloves of Lador [1,+16] (+3) {Ufthak 850'}
   It increases your wisdom and dexterity by 3.  It grants you immunity
   to paralysis.  It cannot be harmed by the elements.  
c) a Sling of Accuracy (x2) (+7,+11)
d) a Light Crossbow of Extra Shots (x3) (+8,+9) (+1) {Floor 800'}
   It increases your shooting speed by 1.  


  [Options]

Adult: Maximize effect of race/class bonuses : yes (adult_maximize)
Adult: Randomize some of the artifacts (beta): yes (adult_randarts)
Adult: Auto-scum for good levels             : yes (adult_autoscum)
Adult: Restrict the use of stairs/recall     : no  (adult_ironman)
Adult: Restrict the use of stores/home       : no  (adult_no_stores)
Adult: Restrict creation of artifacts        : no  (adult_no_artifacts)
Adult: Don't stack objects on the floor      : no  (adult_no_stacking)
Adult: Preserve artifacts when leaving level : yes (adult_no_preserve)
Adult: Don't generate connected stairs       : yes (adult_no_stairs)
Adult: Monsters chase current location       : yes (adult_ai_sound)
Adult: Monsters chase recent locations       : yes (adult_ai_smell)
Adult: Monsters act smarter in groups        : yes (adult_ai_packs)
Adult: Monsters learn from their mistakes    : yes (adult_ai_learn)
Adult: Monsters exploit players weaknesses   : yes (adult_ai_cheat)
Adult: Monsters behave more intelligently (broken): yes (adult_ai_smart)
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)

BTW -- the AMHD is on a potion of Constitution and Gorlim is on Metal Brigandine Armor [19]. Simply not worth the risk.

Kevin

[Pete Mack]

Originally Posted by roustk

At 1550' my character has encountered a Mazer vault (V 3.0.9). I've cleared most of it, teleporting away the worst nasties, and am now left with two sealed cells to consider:
* Ancient multi-hued dragon
* Gorlim, Betrayer of Barahir

Gorlim isn't too much of a problem to teleport away, although I woudn't try it at speed -2.
For the AMHD, leave it alone. If you really care about that !CON, use the Armor of Resistance. With the Green DSM you have 3 out of 5 breaths killing you in one turn. With Resistance, it's only 1 out of 5. Of course, one or more of those "hidden powers" is likely to be a resistance. But there's no way to know which one.

[roustk]

Originally Posted by Pete Mack

Gorlim isn't too much of a problem to teleport away, although I woudn't try it at speed -2.

Even at speed 0 (unburdened), Gorlim will get a double-move as soon as I open the wall. With 1_IN_2 magic and one of his three spells being a water bolt, there's about a 1/3 chance I'll be confused before my next action.

TeleOther is a level 20 wand, and I think that confused my level 30 Half-Troll Warrior with 13 INT will only have a device skill of 16 (18-8+30*.7+1=32). That means that I'll have a 1/12 chance of using the wand when confused (and 11/12 if not confused). Overall odds of successfully teleporting Gorlim away on my first move: 23/36, about 2/3.

The problem being that the 1/3 chance of failing to tele away probably leads to death in a couple of turns: confused means that I can't read ?PD or ?Tele and both -TeleOther and _Tele are level 20, the speed difference gives Gorlim the same 1/3 chance of confusing me again after !CCW, and each turn Gorlim is expected to cause about 150 damage (about 100 melee, 50 water bolt, 100 mana bolt, 75 cause critical).

Further complicating matters, I have all of the monster AI on, which I think means that the basic 2*1/2*1/3 chance of a water bolt is the lower bound -- it seems likely that Gorlim will cast spells more often than 1/2 and (depending on how smart the exploit weaknesses code is) may even favor water bolts over mana bolts and cause critical wounds.

Kevin

[zaimoni]

Originally Posted by roustk

Further complicating matters, I have all of the monster AI on, which I think means that the basic 2*1/2*1/3 chance of a water bolt is the lower bound -- it seems likely that Gorlim will cast spells more often than 1/2 and (depending on how smart the exploit weaknesses code is) may even favor water bolts over mana bolts and cause critical wounds.

The exploit weakness code in V leaves much to be desired.

The calculation looks correct to me.

[roustk]

For reference, I finally had time to finish this and return to town (leaving the AMHD and Gorlim alone). Dump is here.

I think that the Green DSM is a better choice than the resistance armor right now. I managed to find a ring of resist fire in the Black Market, which means that my resistance holes are Elec, Cold, Conf, and all higher resists.

With a *ID* from the Black Market, I've figured out all but one artifact that I found. The unknown one is a pike and activates for frost bolt (with a "frost" message, not a color message) -- which means that it should be a Paur* or *thanc equivalent. (Subtle point: Paur* and *thanc activate with messages about frost, fire, etc.; I believe that all higher artifacts glow in various colors.)

Kevin