Ethereal and Time Hounds

[dhegler]

I am in dlvl 62 or so right now and these are about the only pests (other than uniques that summon...) I hate avoiding anything, only because I feel that is not challenging. I enjoy taking out the "zoos", jelly, orc, and giant pits so far. So what if it costs me some turns...

Anyway, I haste self to +22 speed and use Rift and shoot slay animal bolts as they turn the corners.

Also, if I have multiple nether-resists, does that resist any higher than having only one? Do they compound?

I have found that meleeing with my mage on tough monsters with resists sometimes is the easiest route if I do not have branded bolts.

[fizzix]

Originally Posted by dhegler

I am in dlvl 62 or so right now and these are about the only pests (other than uniques that summon...) I hate avoiding anything, only because I feel that is not challenging. I enjoy taking out the "zoos", jelly, orc, and giant pits so far. So what if it costs me some turns...

Anyway, I haste self to +22 speed and use Rift and shoot slay animal bolts as they turn the corners.

Also, if I have multiple nether-resists, does that resist any higher than having only one? Do they compound?

I have found that meleeing with my mage on tough monsters with resists sometimes is the easiest route if I do not have branded bolts.

Well not avoiding anything means that you need to be overpowered enough to take on anything you might find on a given level. This may make the game less 'challenging'. It's all a matter of perspective. There are plenty of ways to challenge yourself in this game, or to make it more challenging.

Furthermore, I've found from personal experience that if you approach the game with a kill everything approach, you wind up getting lazy and doing stuff routinely. This leads to avoidable deaths, when you are mindlessly slaughtering orcs, and all of the sudden a Great Wyrm shoes up and breathes on you twice and gone.... There's something to be said for keeping yourself on your toes and entering dungeon levels with monsters that you cannot yet handle.

Nether resist only has a single resist. You can't double it up. Nether attacks aren't terribly strong though if they are resisted. There are only a couple of powerful nether breathers, Azriel comes to mind.

[dhegler]

I have multiple resists of many kinds (base resists), and wonder if any of those double up... And, does it help at all if I cast resistance and I already have all my base resists?

Also, if I have a ring of acid and my weapon is branded with frost, do I get a double bonus when fighting something that has no frost resist AND no acid resist?

[Marble Dice]

Multiple resists from equipment do not increase your effectiveness in any way. The effects of permanent resistance from equipment are cumulative with temporary resistance from potions, spells, and abilities however (also known as "elmental opposition"). By combining a resistance (from gear) with opposition (from a potion, spell, or ability), you can reduce damage from fire, frost, electricity, acid, and poison down to 1/9th instead of the 1/3rd if you only possess one source.

Brands, slays, and executes do not stack, regardless of souce. Only the highest applicable multiplier will be used. That's x2 for evil/animal, x5 for execute demon/dragon/undead, and x3 for everything else (brands and the rest of the slays).

[Pete Mack]

If you want additional challenging monsters...go deeper. Animal pits (zoos) have nothing on undead pits (graveyards)...

[Nightmarjoo]

Originally Posted by Marble Dice

Multiple resists from equipment do not increase your effectiveness in any way. The effects of permanent resistance from equipment are cumulative with temporary resistance from potions, spells, and abilities however (also known as "elmental opposition"). By combining a resistance (from gear) with opposition (from a potion, spell, or ability), you can reduce damage from fire, frost, electricity, acid, and poison down to 1/9th instead of the 1/3rd if you only possess one source.

Brands, slays, and executes do not stack, regardless of souce. Only the highest applicable multiplier will be used. That's x2 for evil/animal, x5 for execute demon/dragon/undead, and x3 for everything else (brands and the rest of the slays).

I always wondered about that last part. Seems like a real waste to have a weapon with multiple brands if only one of those brands is functional in a single blow even if the monster doesn't resist either. The slays I can kind of understand, since *slay demon* and slay undead would be doing 10x damage to any demon (they're all evil right?), but then at the same time with slay evil only doing 2x instead of the normal 3x maybe they should stack anyway I guess it'd be a little overpowered since so many things are evil, but since they don't stack I don't see why evil can't be 3x again. Or brands could stack, or a brand + a slay could stack. I could settle with slightly weaker slays and brands if they could stack (maybe all slays/brands 2x, *slays* 3x or 4x).

But yeah equipment/spell resists together are ridiculously strong, they and the shield spell are solely responsible for my Hobbit Mage who won. I was at 4900' with 150 hp and could take any elemental attack from full hp cuz I'd always cast resistance (and could detect anything).

[Pete Mack]

A pedantic note:
At 150HP, double resist isn't generally reliable: you need 178HP to take 1600/9 damage from the big 3 elements (fire,cold,electricity.). (For poison and acid, 89 HP is nominally sufficient.)

[will_asher]

I thought if you had nothing wielded that could be damaged by acid then it did full damage? (just as much as fire/cold/elec)

[Pete Mack]

Originally Posted by will_asher

I thought if you had nothing wielded that could be damaged by acid then it did full damage? (just as much as fire/cold/elec)

The rule is any armor slot with AC 0 (or less) gives a 1 in 5 chance of taking full acid damage. In this case, I M assuomingt thatyou are better off taking the mana hit from bad gloves than going without gloves entirely.

[Ghen]

Originally Posted by Pete Mack

If you want additional challenging monsters...go deeper. Animal pits (zoos) have nothing on undead pits (graveyards)...

Its always fun and scary when you're wearing ESP and happen by your first undead pit.. Monsters start flying everywhere!