A Newbie says hello! (Questions inside)

[Oramin]

Hmm, are you sure that you can't get multiple attacks with weapons like daggers and whips?

[Alice]

Originally Posted by Oramin

Hmm, are you sure that you can't get multiple attacks with weapons like daggers and whips?

At the time I checked, main gauches gave me 1.3 hits per round. (There were no daggers in stock to examine, but I'm fairly certain that the difference in weight is not enough to bring me over 2.0.) I'll check again once I am back in town and my strength is not drained to 15.

The good news is I have the Phial of Galadriel! The bad news is that I miss its old 3-radius
brightness.

Edit: Daggers give 1.3 hits per round, I am back in town, and dump update. I'm a bit nervous now that I'm close to beating my previous record of clvl 23, lol.
At the moment I am hovering around 800-900' and looking for anything that grants me paralysis resistance. If nothing else I have an "inertia at my house, but I don't want to use it.

Edit2: I had a run-in with my first Quylthulg, and I decided to just teleport out. Are they a nuisance? Umber Hulks are another thing to worry about for as long as I don't have rConf, and I am making it a point to avoid them, as well as any non-light hound I come across. I need resistances, or they will be in my epitaph...

I ran across my first pit, also. I did have some acid resistance, but the silver ants had their way with my armor (but that was expendable and well worth the huge boost in experience I got from killing them). I'm in town at the moment and I bought a replacement set, so I'm not naked like I was at the beginning, lol. I also happened to find a better =Protect, so just with the rings I get +26 AC for a current total of 53 AC!

Really though, I would like to find cooler, more useful rings to use instead of these. Being that I am VERY hesitant to go any deeper for fear of hounds or other baddies, I am considering making myself at home at 850' and hoping I find something to make my crossing easier.
Is there a specific store that stocks weapon/armor enchant scrolls? I have yet to run across them in bulk. That would be really helpful--and any sort of criticism about anything else would be greatly appreciated. :3

[Timo Pietilä]

Originally Posted by Alice

Is there anything specific that I might have to look out for between 500'-1000' that might be dangerous to face without prior knowledge?

Large groups of paladins or priests (any type) can be instant death for low-HP, low saving chars (curses are LoS spells). You probably have already seen a large group of those without actually being in LoS of them all at once. I learned the hard way that that is suicide, as a group they are far more dangerous than as individuals.

After 1000' or so melee-paralyzers start to appear in groups and even before that homunculus (invisible fast minor demon) can hit to paralyze.

However, unlike old versions melee-paralyzation is no longer guaranteed death, it starts the counter, but doesn't increase it with additional hits, so sooner or later you get out of that. High AC helps to avoid death by making them miss more. As long as you have high AC and don't get surrounded you don't need to wait for FA (until you start to run to trappers, those are nasty, but that is much much later into game). Avoid paralyzers without FA, but don't be afraid to dive without it.

Q:s are usually relatively harmless, most of them just summon things (only one exception to that rule) and teleport/blink away from you. Greater ones summon multiple monsters and can teleport you to them (LoS spell) so those you might not want to deal until you learn how to deal with lots and lots of summons.

Umber Hulk you can melee even when confused. They are wimps, couple of good hits and they run, and even confused your movements are not completely random. Umber hulk is at its worst when you encounter it while fighting something that is dangerous.

Fractional blows also makes Hummerhorns manageable (but you need to have multiple blows). Avoid Titans without rConf.

I suggest when you finish this char take a few near-suicidal dives deeper just to learn what to expect. Avoiding unknowns is a key to survival, knowledge what to avoid is even better. Read (unknown) monster descriptions, they can give you hints to what it is and what it might be capable of doing.

There is also partial color coding for elemental monsters: blue for electricity, black for acid, white for cold, red for fire, green for poison. Doesn't apply to all monsters and there are too many exceptions to count, but if you suspect it has elemental breath attack color of the monster does mean something. There are more "color codings" than that but you will learn them soon enough yourself.

[Nick]

Originally Posted by Alice

Are there spoiler tags in these forums? Dumps take up a lot of room and I don't want to spam them, but it would be nice to record and share my progress for criticism.

Edit: I've overwritten the old dump in the first post with my current one. I'll probably just do that to keep this thread easy to read. (I've replaced the damaged armors with new ones after posting this.)

Alternatively, post the dump to the ladder (see the tab at the top of the page) and then link to it in your posts or just rely on people to find it.

[Alice]

Originally Posted by Nick

Alternatively, post the dump to the ladder (see the tab at the top of the page) and then link to it in your posts or just rely on people to find it.

I never thought about that. Do new dumps overwrite the old ones for the same character? If they do, then I could just post onto the ladder and update it there instead. ^^

@Timo: I did not know about that melee-paralyzing change. It makes me feel a little better about that, lol. I've changed my mind about Quylthulgs too after I found them to be easy to kill (seeing invisible helps), but Umber Hulks are annoying enough for me to stay away from them.

Overall, I am still a bit curious as to how I am supposed to accumulate enchant scrolls for my stuff. I've seen a few in the dungeon and one in the black market, but not enough to really make too much of a difference.

I am clvl 24 and my equipment is crap XD

Edit: I posted on the ladder here.

[Derakon]

I have to say that expecting a longbow (+5, +5) early on is probably a bit much. As you say, enchantment scrolls are hard to find. Time was that enchantment scrolls were sold in the alchemist's store (store 5), but that's no longer the case, and as a result the player cannot expect to have magical gear in any particular slot until they find that gear in the dungeon (or get lucky from the weapons or black market stores).

Keeping the player's equipment "crap" longer, via the removal of enchantment scrolls, has gone a long way to making 300'-1000' more difficult compared to Angband 3.2.

[fizzix]

Originally Posted by Alice

I never thought about that. Do new dumps overwrite the old ones for the same character? If they do, then I could just post onto the ladder and update it there instead. ^^

If you have a character with the same name (and more xp I think), it will overwrite it. A simple solution is to change your character name (you can do this in the menu) and put a II or a 2 after it. Then it will not overwrite.

Overall, I am still a bit curious as to how I am supposed to accumulate enchant scrolls for my stuff. I've seen a few in the dungeon and one in the black market, but not enough to really make too much of a difference.

I am clvl 24 and my equipment is crap XD

They start dropping more later, although usually by then, you've found stuff that can't really be enchanted any more. It's not ideal now, but it's better than when the normal shops sold them and you could get an overpowered longbow +9 +9 at dlevel 10 or so.

[Oramin]

Unless you folks made significant tweaks to the drops for 3.4.x, I don't think that having a Long Bow (+5, +5) by L10 (or an equivalent) is unlikely for a conservative play style. Every character that I have played in 3.3.2 had that or better (e.g. a Sling of Extra Attacks, Short Bow of Extra Attacks).

[Derakon]

Hm, I think then that you must be considerably more conservative than the devs are.

[Oramin]

Probably, I like to clear levels and I typically do each of the levels 1 to 10 at least twice.