Mage at 40 - What do I need to go deeper?

[nullfame]

Originally Posted by Nameless

I'm packing resists to literally everything I've seen so far that has a resist (exception: shards, nether, chaos) so I've reduced the big-breather worries a bit.

A bit. Max damage for confusion breath with resistance exceeds your current hit points.

Originally Posted by Nameless

the Angband Newbie Guide refers to 1900' as someplace you hold up while you get maxxed stats, along with rConf and rBlind. I have the latter two, so I've been holding at 2000' because I'm not yet at maxxed stats. I also don't have Hold Life which TANG recommends at 2500', so there's a limit to how far I'd dive in any case.

Meh. If that's your pleasure. TANG was written in the 90s and I think the break points are no longer hard stops but just guides. Be careful if you don't have X after Y. I am on 98 w/o rBlind (okay w/ ESP and !CCW). I never consider hold life instead packing !rLifeLevels. You'll max stats naturally on your way down, don't wait for it. Optimize for CON along the way.

We are lucky enough to have TANG's author on the forum. I don't wish to speak for him but suspect he would agree it was written for a by-gone era.

Originally Posted by Nameless

I stopped carrying the staff as soon as I had rConf and rBlind locked up, because staves have a failure rate, and scrolls do not.

Yes. Of course.

Originally Posted by Hariolor

I've long noticed that multiple teleports in sequence seem to just bounce me between the same 2-3 spots in the dungeon.

Same experience here.

Oh, and, not to add insult to injury, but you know who else gets killed by teleport? This guy (dl98 mage).

[Derakon]

Yeah, TANG is out of date. Especially in modern Vanilla, for two main reasons:

1) Massive reduction in consumables means that hanging around above 2000' to complete stat gain is hideously boring. Bored players are far more likely to make stupid mistakes than players who are kept on their toes.

2) Existence of easy unlimited object detection for all classes makes stealthing the deep levels in search of good gear much more feasible.

I've had a priest running around below 4000' since character level 35 or so (currently clvl 45). I still don't have resistance to poison (so I carry potions of resist poison), and I only recently got confusion on a non-swap piece of gear. As long as you're careful -- which means only getting into fights you're sure you can win quickly and without attracting outside attention -- you don't need to have all your resists covered to dive.

Most of my gameplay up until I finally started getting decent gear consisted of entering a level, looking for the troll pit (present on >50% of levels in the 3000'-4000' range, I'd guess), clearing it, and then moving on to the next level.

[Nameless]

Wanted to pop back in and acknowledge some of what's been said as I (slowly) continue descent.

Originally Posted by nullfame

A bit. Max damage for confusion breath with resistance exceeds your current hit points.

My first experience with an Ethereal Dragon at 2250' was certainly an eye-opener. Without rConf, a large stack of !CCW and TO, I wouldn't have fared as well. I'll probably try to skip those in the future until I've gotten some more levels under my belt. (~1/10th of a level was pretty sweet, though.)

Meh. If that's your pleasure. TANG was written in the 90s and I think the break points are no longer hard stops but just guides.

Well, everything's just a guide, but there's bound to be a few "gotchas" that TANG actually helps you prepare for. Certainly paralysis and rConf and rBlind (or carrying the means to deal with them) are listed. I suppose if I were going to rewrite it for the modern era, I'd add some suggestions about rough estimates of HP to have at various depths to avoid "It breathes. You die." assuming you at least have the brains to bring the appropriate precautions (potion, resist items, etc). Doesn't have to be perfect, but a ballpark wouldn't be harmful for new players.

Oh, and, not to add insult to injury, but you know who else gets killed by teleport? This guy (dl98 mage).

I believe the technical term is "ouch", but level 39 at dl98? That's only five character levels over me - is the last part of the descent (2500+) supposed to be a plummet straight to scum dl98, and I'm just not "getting it"?

Originally Posted by Derakon

1) Massive reduction in consumables means that hanging around above 2000' to complete stat gain is hideously boring. Bored players are far more likely to make stupid mistakes than players who are kept on their toes.

Fair enough, but I'm finding that without a few more levels under my belt, even in-depth monsters are nasty. Conf breathers (like the aforementioned ED) are already hitting me for a third of my HP per breath (mitigated by damage I deal?).

2) Existence of easy unlimited object detection for all classes makes stealthing the deep levels in search of good gear much more feasible.

I look pointedly at this. Feasible, or necessary? One is a choice, and the other implies descending to depths where fighting is not a good option just to try and pluck a few gems from the altar, so to speak.

I've had a priest running around below 4000' since character level 35 or so (currently clvl 45).

I'm having a hard time imagining that for my mage - anything that can get into melee (not much, admittedly, given speed/phase) or that deals substantial ranged damage (breathers) is a hugely potent threat, and I'm at 34 now and just over half your depth. I suppose I could simply TO anything that I can't kill in a round or two, but I'm reasonably sure there's a failure rate built into TO, and anything I fail on at those depths is likely to make mage-kabob pretty quickly. What am I not "getting" here?

[Derakon]

Originally Posted by Nameless

I believe the technical term is "ouch", but level 39 at dl98? That's only five character levels over me - is the last part of the descent (2500+) supposed to be a plummet straight to scum dl98, and I'm just not "getting it"?

Pretty much. Between 2500' and 4900', there aren't many new standard monsters that show up; it's mostly just new uniques. However, the quality of the loot that gets dropped increases significantly (in particular, Rings of Speed become in-depth at 4000' and are usually vital gear). Thus, diving doesn't significantly increase the amount of danger you have to deal with, but it does significantly improve the equipment you get to deal with that danger.

Fair enough, but I'm finding that without a few more levels under my belt, even in-depth monsters are nasty. Conf breathers (like the aforementioned ED) are already hitting me for a third of my HP per breath (mitigated by damage I deal?).

Breath damage is a third of the monster's current hitpoints, or the maximum damage allowed for that element, whichever is lower. So yes, after a bit of beating on an Ethereal Dragon its damage from breath weapons will decrease (confusion damage cap is 400, and EDs have 1848 hitpoints).

However, the real trick here is to simply not fight EDs. You should be looking for low-risk, high-profit monsters like orcs, trolls, and the lesser dragon types whose breath weapons are easily resisted (and even double-resisted).

I look pointedly at this. Feasible, or necessary? One is a choice, and the other implies descending to depths where fighting is not a good option just to try and pluck a few gems from the altar, so to speak.

Not necessary, but it does in fact make the game much quicker, which in turn means that you have fewer opportunities to make a stupid mistake. There's slightly higher odds of getting in over your head, but not that much higher so long as you stay aware of what's in the area and you don't try to pick fights.

I suppose I could simply TO anything that I can't kill in a round or two, but I'm reasonably sure there's a failure rate built into TO, and anything I fail on at those depths is likely to make mage-kabob pretty quickly. What am I not "getting" here?

Beyond the failure rate on casting the spell itself, TO is 100% effective. This is not true in all variants, but it is in vanilla. My priest casts TO a lot, even when he can deal with the monsters in question; I may just not want to fight them (example: summoners, disenchanters, drainers, or monsters with ridiculously high hitpoints), or I may want to turn a slogfest of a fight (e.g. 14 lesser balrogs) into one that's shorter and sharper.

[Nameless]

Originally Posted by Derakon

Pretty much. Between 2500' and 4900', there aren't many new standard monsters that show up; it's mostly just new uniques. However, the quality of the loot that gets dropped increases significantly (in particular, Rings of Speed become in-depth at 4000' and are usually vital gear). Thus, diving doesn't significantly increase the amount of danger you have to deal with, but it does significantly improve the equipment you get to deal with that danger.

Aha! Do the RoS I snagged in the BM (for my entire supply of stat-gain funds at the time) was not only the good deal it appeared, it was a GREAT deal. Got it. That also means that I'm good to dive a little deeper. I'm already carrying the potions of restore life, and the next checkpoint listed in TANG is significantly deeper...

Breath damage is a third of the monster's current hitpoints, or the maximum damage allowed for that element, whichever is lower. So yes, after a bit of beating on an Ethereal Dragon its damage from breath weapons will decrease (confusion damage cap is 400, and EDs have 1848 hitpoints).

Is there a place where the damage caps by damage type are listed (aside from digging through the source)?

However, the real trick here is to simply not fight EDs. You should be looking for low-risk, high-profit monsters like orcs, trolls, and the lesser dragon types whose breath weapons are easily resisted (and even double-resisted).

Fair enough - I mostly fought because I'd just arrived on the level - bad luck with placement stuck me in the same room, which I had to keep teleporting him out of while I cleared it. Once the lesser foes were dealt with, I had to decide: Leave this level (without having poked around a bit to find stairs or a safe way to them) or give him what for. Once I found that TO worked, and he didn't recover as fast as I did, it was just a matter of suriving long enough to kill him. (Close moment when he breathed twice in a row, but I had enough HP to survive. Lesson learned: If it breathes, do not let it breathe twice!)

Not necessary, but it does in fact make the game much quicker, which in turn means that you have fewer opportunities to make a stupid mistake. There's slightly higher odds of getting in over your head, but not that much higher so long as you stay aware of what's in the area and you don't try to pick fights.

Yeah, the tidbit you added about not introducing a lot more standard monsters makes sense - and I'm not looking to fight uniques at this depth as it is (though I've picked off a couple reverse-OOD uniques I passed earlier).

Beyond the failure rate on casting the spell itself, TO is 100% effective. This is not true in all variants, but it is in vanilla. My priest casts TO a lot, even when he can deal with the monsters in question; I may just not want to fight them (example: summoners, disenchanters, drainers, or monsters with ridiculously high hitpoints), or I may want to turn a slogfest of a fight (e.g. 14 lesser balrogs) into one that's shorter and sharper.

This, I did not know. I figured that either there were monsters against whom TO was useless (possibly some uniques) or that there was an internal (hidden) failure rate built into it that I hadn't yet seen in action. Is there ANYTHING against which TO will fail?

[nullfame]

Originally Posted by Nameless

I believe the technical term is "ouch", but level 39 at dl98? That's only five character levels over me - is the last part of the descent (2500+) supposed to be a plummet straight to scum dl98, and I'm just not "getting it"?

It is supposed to be whatever you find fun. There are some who essentially say dl1 = dl98 so you may as well go to 98 right away. If you pick enough fights with good risk/reward along your kit and character levels should take care of itself. I don't even stop at 20 for free action any more. I can get there in about an hour so I'd rather die and reroll than wait for it. In other news I die a lot.

Originally Posted by Nameless

Aha! Do the RoS I snagged in the BM (for my entire supply of stat-gain funds at the time) was not only the good deal it appeared, it was a GREAT deal.

Yes. At your speed with haste you can stay out of most dangerous situations.

Originally Posted by Nameless

Is there a place where the damage caps by damage type are listed (aside from digging through the source)?

I snagged this from one of Derakon's old threads. I keep a text file with good advice.

Basic four elements: 1600
Poison: 800
Nether: 550
Light: 400
Dark: 400
Confusion: 400
Sound: 500
Chaos: 500
Disenchantment: 500
Nexus: 400
Time: 150
Inertia: 200
Gravity: 200
Shards: 500
Plasma: 150
Force: 200
Mana: 1600

Nothing breathes mana. Basic4 and Poison permanent resistance cuts damage to 1/3. Temporary resistance cuts by another 1/3. Permanent resistance to other attacks isn't as reliable:

Nether, Chaos, Disenchantment resist is 6/(6+1d6) (damage between 0.5 and 0.86 base damage)
Light, Dark are 4/(6+1d6)
Sound, Conf are 5/(6+1d6)

(credit to Pete Mack)

So even if you are resisting nether you could be looking at 470 damage.

[Pete Mack]

You can find this out by looking at the source. There's one other point, and it's important: if you have useful armor in all slots, acid damage is reduced by (an additional) 1/2. This makes it less dangerous (but more annoying) than poison.

If you are really diving hard, it's reasonable to go without acid resistance for quite a long while so long as you have the "basic 3" resistances. Also, since there aren't any big acid breathers that can't be detected by ESP, it's reasonable to value rPois over rAcid.

[Timo Pietilä]

Originally Posted by Pete Mack

You can find this out by looking at the source. There's one other point, and it's important: if you have useful armor in all slots, acid damage is reduced by (an additional) 1/2. This makes it less dangerous (but more annoying) than poison.

If you are really diving hard, it's reasonable to go without acid resistance for quite a long while so long as you have the "basic 3" resistances. Also, since there aren't any big acid breathers that can't be detected by ESP, it's reasonable to value rPois over rAcid.

That obviously means that you don't need to have acid resistance to dive. Not that you should avoid having it. Acid resistance is probably most abundant in the dungeon and best possible branding ring also is acid and gives acid resistance. *avoiding* having resist acid and still have otherwise optimal gear is probably harder than opposite.

With my non-ego, non-artifact game I noticed that I missed resist poison a lot more than basic four. It is surprisingly common attack, and very as such very hard to avoid. For fire and cold priesty chars have spells, mage-based spellcasters need dungeon books, warriors and mage-based can use potions until then, and rings to cover basic 4 are pretty common, so with swaps that "basic 3" is easy to get. Poison is more problematic.

In fact you find instantly deadly poison breathers before you find instantly deadly basic four breathers (actually you probably find both in same time: AMHD breathes all basic4 and poison equally hard).

[Nameless]

Currently the best boots I've found are actually cursed. I haven't worn them yet, but they're actually better than what I'm wearing, because of their secondary effect (AC is less useful to me as a mage). The Leather Boots of Wormtongue, offer stealth and speed and dexterity, as well as INT, but I have INT capped. They are also denoted as cursed.

I gather this means I won't be able to take them off unless I can get a *Remove Curse* scroll - I've passed a couple along the way. That's fine, I dig that. My question is: If I do have one and then wear the boots and use it, can the boots be put on and taken off like a normal object? (In other words, does removing the curse count permanently, and allow me to take advantage of the item's good qualities without having to get a new scroll each time I want to swap it out?)

If that's the case, I might hang on to them for a while, to see if a good set of boots comes along before a remove curse scroll does...

(Still descending, for the curious. I'm at 2650' and falling...)

[Derakon]

Normal Remove Curse scrolls are all that's needed to get rid of an object that is described as "It is cursed." You need *Remove Curse* scrolls for an object that is described as "It is heavily cursed." (emphasis added) You can also try to enchant it with Enchant Armor scrolls of either type; the nice thing there is that you don't need to be wearing the armor to break the curse (and you can also break the curse even if the enchantment fails).