How to beat Vanilla

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There should probably be a FAQ on this subject but I was wondering if I
could get any advice from anyone.

Normally, I don't make it much further than levels 15-16 in the
dungeon. I think I've only had a character higher than 20th level once.
I prefer human warriors and mages, with the occasional priest or
paladin. I tend to do better with mages because they have a few good
recon spells.

Generally, I tend to clear out a level or two, use ?WoR and sell off
magical items in the shops and buy other stuff I can use. Then I use
another ?WoR and I'm back into the fray. This seems to work fine, for a
while.

Anything else I should be doing?
 
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rpgnethack@hotmail.com wrote:
> There should probably be a FAQ on this subject but I was wondering if I
> could get any advice from anyone.

There are 2 such faqs, both are threads on the newsgroup.

The first is called "Arch-Mage's Tale" by David Grabiner.
It is the one I found first, but the strategy is too conservative. It
will lead you astray in the long run.

The second is called "Tales of the Bold" by Eddie Grove.
Eddie is an *extremely* aggressive diver, but playing an aggressive
stance is what finally gave me a chance to win. (Not nearly as
aggressive as eddie; first win was 3.5M moves. Unfortunately, I only
found out about "Tales" a few days ago--thanks Cliff!)

Obviously, you don't need to go all-out "Tales of the Bold", with
extreme strategies for reducing turn-count and optimized
store-scumming. (There's no need to run around with reduced hit
points, for example.)

But the heart of the story is good advice for anybody:
* Don't waste time and effort on low-value kills and floor-junk.
Similarly, stay away from extremely dangerous monsters, unless you
think it will give you game-winning loot.
* Do fight monsters that have high rewards. Focus on getting your
combat skills high, with maximum blow-count and high damage bonus on
your bow or melee weapon, depending on class.
* ***Be ready to run away a lot, and have a way to do it.***
* Always have a game plan, and think about ways to make that plan
efficient.
* Pay attention to monster behavior.
* Plan for the worst. Early on, think how to avoid or kill either
Bullroarer or a group of novice priests.

> Normally, I don't make it much further than levels 15-16 in the
> dungeon. I think I've only had a character higher than 20th level once.
> I prefer human warriors and mages, with the occasional priest or
> paladin. I tend to do better with mages because they have a few good
> recon spells

Mage is very fragile and human is perhaps the weakest of all races.

The strongest choices to start with are probably Dunadan Paladin,
High-elf Ranger, or High-elf Warrior.

> Generally, I tend to clear out a level or two, use ?WoR and sell off
> magical items in the shops and buy other stuff I can use. Then I use
> another ?WoR and I'm back into the fray. This seems to work fine, for a
> while.

This is a low-reward strategy, violating point one above. The scroll
is good.
But loot value in the hundreds-of-gp is easy to get at dl 5. It's
possible, and a lot more fun, to get to 450'+ on that first scroll.


Stuff to consider carrying at the start:

* ?Phase (several)
* !Hero and/or ?Blessing
* CSW/CLW
* If you are ranger, get longbow enchanted to +1 or even +2 if you can
afford it.

Cost-based stats may help you get started. Starting with $200-$400 can
get rid of that annoying trip to dl 1-2.

The faster you can get to 600', the more practice you will get at the
levels that are killing you. And it will give you good habits.
"Clearing levels" is a frustrating way to play. Instead, focus on
finding the stairs.


You will want to buy _Teleport as soon as you can afford it. If the
Black market has ?Teleport or ?TeleLevel or _TeleOther, buy them all!
 
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rpgnethack@hotmail.com wrote:

Hey, you should change your account to rpgangband@hotmail.com ;)

> Normally, I don't make it much further than levels 15-16 in the
> dungeon. I think I've only had a character higher than 20th level once.
> I prefer human warriors and mages, with the occasional priest or
> paladin. I tend to do better with mages because they have a few good
> recon spells.

I personally have found High-Elf or Dunadan Rangers to be the easiest
class to play...they get these detect spells but still have good melee
and great bows (particularly once they get to clvl 20).

Some random advice...

In general, you need to learn the monsters. When you see a new monster
type, stop and read the spoiler. Particularly if you haven't seen that
color and letter combo before. I lost a character or two to Vibration
and Impact hounds because I thought "well, the other hounds are easy
enough..."

Use proper tactics all the time. Killing fire hounds is easy if
they're coming around a corner. Killing 20 of them surrounding you is
hard at clvl 15-20. The angband guide covers this in depth. It's very
easy to get sloppy. To use proper tactics, you need to detect
ROUTINELY...every time the screen changes, you should be "mab" and
"mah". Macros rule ;)

If you want to survive, then you need to play smart. Every character
that I've had who has ever died has been due to one of these reasons:

- going down too fast (e.g., poison-breath'd without RPois)

- not detecting and being surprised

- being greedy ("he's almost dead" or "let's open this vault and I can
always teleport other Baphomet...")

- not understanding monsters (plasma hounds are considerably more
formidable than other hounds)

Besides food (drop and grab something sellable just before you ?WoR), a
light source, and redundant magic books, there are some things you
should always carry. Two forms of escape - scrolls of teleportation
and staves of teleportation. Staves can be used when blind, but can
also be burned up. Scrolls can't be burned up as fast. With the new
staff-stacking code, carrying a stack of Staves of Teleportation is a
tempting option, but later in the game you'll find monsters that drain
charges from your pack.

Carry a stack (20 or so) of Cure Criticals, Heroism, and Restore Life
Levels. Always have a way of hasting yourself - potions or staves of
speed (until you get a reliable Haste Self, and even then carry some).
Speed is a big help. When you find Mushrooms of Restoring, carry those
too, unless you have sustains for the critical attributes. Later in
the game, Healing and *Healing* and Life and so forth are critical.

Always play with a goal. Early on, it's satisfying the basic needs
(equipment, light, find Galadriel, etc.). Next, you build up your
killing machine - find weapons, rings, etc. that allow you to kill
monsters in a blow or shot or two. Find/make a great bow. Then start
to work on resistances as you get towards 1000'. See the 2nd edition
guide. As you approach stat gain, you start finding stuff in the
dungeon that is quite profitable and selling it for stat gain potions.
You start hunting the more serious uniques. Once your attributes are
topped off, then it's a steady equipment hunt (balancing resistances
with speed and damage, finding needed potions) and unique hunt all the
way to the bottom.

Or so I'm told...I haven't made it past 3100' yet ;)

-Drew
 
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rpgnethack@hotmail.com wrote:
> There should probably be a FAQ on this subject but I was wondering if I
> could get any advice from anyone.
>
> Normally, I don't make it much further than levels 15-16 in the
> dungeon. I think I've only had a character higher than 20th level once.
> I prefer human warriors and mages, with the occasional priest or
> paladin. I tend to do better with mages because they have a few good
> recon spells.
>

Humans are a weak race. You could try a stronger combination for practice:
Half-Troll Warrior, Dwarven Priest, High-Elf Mage or something like that.
(I have beaten the game only once, with a Dwarven Priest.)


> Generally, I tend to clear out a level or two, use ?WoR and sell off
> magical items in the shops and buy other stuff I can use. Then I use
> another ?WoR and I'm back into the fray. This seems to work fine, for a
> while.

This sounds like normal early game. Spending more time in the dungeon
means you find better stufff.

>
> Anything else I should be doing?
>

Provide two more pieces of information -
what do your characters carry and what kills them?

What you should carry at that depth:

1) Food, and oil for you lantern.
2) Ammo: Buy a longbow and use scrolls, enchant it to (+9,+9).
Some things should not be touched, and some hit too hard.
If you find a good shooter, e.g. Crossbow of Extra Might, use that.
3) Escape: Scrolls of Phase Door, Staff of Teleportation
4) Detection: Rod of Trap Detection and Staff or Detect Invisible at least.
unless you play a spellcaster. A permanent source of See Invisible is nice.
5) Healing: Potions of Cure Critical/Serious wounds (CCW/CSW). These remove
blindness and confusion. CCW also cures poison, cuts and stunning.
CCW is better but even CSW is useful.
6) Scrolls of Identify or Staves of Perception.

Other things you feel you need, like spellbooks for casters or
Scrolls of Blessing and Potions of Heroism for fighters.
 
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rpgnethack@hotmail.com wrote:
> There should probably be a FAQ on this subject but I was wondering if I
> could get any advice from anyone.
>
> Normally, I don't make it much further than levels 15-16 in the
> dungeon. I think I've only had a character higher than 20th level once.

That's odd. Usually person that can get that far gets to the stat-gain
and _then_ dies.

What is killing you?

> I prefer human warriors and mages, with the occasional priest or
> paladin. I tend to do better with mages because they have a few good
> recon spells.

Don't use humans if you are newbie to the game. High-Elf mages and Dwarf
priests/warriors are easy for new player.

> Generally, I tend to clear out a level or two, use ?WoR and sell off
> magical items in the shops and buy other stuff I can use. Then I use
> another ?WoR and I'm back into the fray. This seems to work fine, for a
> while.
>
> Anything else I should be doing?

Detect a lot. Always have escape-method handy. Phase door scrolls,
potions of CCW, teleport other wands. That sort of things.

Timo Pietilä
 
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pete mack wrote:

> Stuff to consider carrying at the start:

> * If you are ranger, get longbow enchanted to +1 or even +2 if you can
> afford it.

You don't need to be ranger for this to be useful. Any char benefits
from missile weapon enchanted few times.

Timo Pietilä
 
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The person who posted the advice about finding the stairs has a key
piece of advice in my opinion. I used to be a level clearer, my
thinking being was that if I could clear out a level, it would make my
character that much stronger. A falacy reinforcing that logic was
remembering artifact drops by a monster late in a level.

I'm curently on my 2nd best character ever, a L48 Dunadan Priest. My
other best was a L50 Dunadan Ranger. This game I've focused on getting
to Key levels faster. 1500' isn't much more dangerous than 1400', but
since you start seeing stat gain potions at this level, the loot is
much more rewarding.

In a similar manner, I probably hung around at 1900' far too long
hoping for an OOD ring of rPoision. I got some good advice on this
forum, headed on down to 2000' and got one after 3 or 4 dungeon levels.
Again, a minor increase in nastyness, for greatly improved rewards.

When heading down to one of those key levels, I'd only clear it with a
sufficiently good level feeling. Even then, if it turned out the level
feeling was from something nasty, I might bail and head for the stairs.
(Seriously OOD AMHD, Jelly Pit (low reward in terms of XP/drop, high
risk in terms of item loss & equipment dammage), and Graveyards (these
scare me, trying to clear one of these led to the dimise of the L50
ranger).

On normal levels, detecting often lets you mop up high XP monsters /
groups that are nearby then head for the stairs. Orcs vulnerable to
light in a long hallway can be a great way to get XP / drops early in
the game if you've got a stack of Rods of Light. Hounds, wolves, and
spiders are other good groups if you can fight them in a hallway
(preferably from around a corner in the case of hounds).

I've seen way more lesser and greater vaults doing this than I ever did
clearing levels.

One last thing I'll add is that a little speed goes a long way.
Angrist (sp?) is a great artifact dagger that has shown up near the
stat gain levels my last to characters. You don't need to be much
faster than a monster to make use of the hack-n-back technique if
you're using spells / missile weapons for combat. Just keep backing up
until you have a space gap, fire, and repeat. Speed is another thing
that has key levels just like a dungeon. going from +9 to +11 is
probably a bigger jump than going from +11 to +19.
 
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ulrichvonbeck@yahoo.com wrote:
> (Seriously OOD AMHD, Jelly Pit (low reward in terms of XP/drop, high
> risk in terms of item loss & equipment dammage), and Graveyards (these
> scare me, trying to clear one of these led to the dimise of the L50
> ranger).

Good point. I've never cleared a Jelly Pit in my entire Angband
career. There is just no point to it. There are a number of monsters
that are just best avoided...

- any jelly/gelatinous cube/etc.

- animals: most aren't tough but have no treasure

- hounds: fire/water hounds destroy equipment, later ones such as
Vibration, Mether, Impact, and Plasma hounds are deadly, and Time
hounds are just annoying. None of them have any treasure

- mind flayers: no treasure and it's REALLY ANNOYING to have to
re-identify all of your equipment

- magic mushrooms: just annoying. Also the little blue "i" things that
reproduce like mad. no danger, no treasure, and just annoying.

- undead: the early ones (Vampires, Wights, etc.) are not bad. The
later ones are fearsome. They are all annoying (Restore Life Levels,
replacing drained staves, etc.)

A lot of the game is learning the monsters. I got killed in the early
1000s a few times, then I figured out what was bad (and what to do
about it) and what was safe. Repeat the same experience in the late
1000s, mid 2000s, early 3000s, etc. After 3500, the education stops
because the highest monster level is 75, though you still get some
gross uniques.

Greed is a killer. People see a vault and drool and forget that if you
go up or down a stair, whatever is fabulous in that vault might be on
the next level without all of the difficulty of getting to it.

> until you have a space gap, fire, and repeat. Speed is another thing
> that has key levels just like a dungeon. going from +9 to +11 is
> probably a bigger jump than going from +11 to +19.

Timo has posted some good discussions of speed...

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.roguelike.angband/browse_thread/thread/3b2480da47cad45e/84d6710344f842fb?lnk=st&q=timo+speed+%2B20&rnum=2&hl=en#84d6710344f842fb

Looking at tables.c explains a lot about how energy and speed work.

-Drew
 
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ulrichvonbeck@yahoo.com wrote:
> The person who posted the advice about finding the stairs has a key
> piece of advice in my opinion. I used to be a level clearer, my
> thinking being was that if I could clear out a level, it would make my
> character that much stronger. A falacy reinforcing that logic was
> remembering artifact drops by a monster late in a level.
>
> I'm curently on my 2nd best character ever, a L48 Dunadan Priest. My
> other best was a L50 Dunadan Ranger. This game I've focused on getting
> to Key levels faster. 1500' isn't much more dangerous than 1400', but
> since you start seeing stat gain potions at this level, the loot is
> much more rewarding.
>
> In a similar manner, I probably hung around at 1900' far too long
> hoping for an OOD ring of rPoision. I got some good advice on this
> forum, headed on down to 2000' and got one after 3 or 4 dungeon levels.
> Again, a minor increase in nastyness, for greatly improved rewards.
>
> When heading down to one of those key levels, I'd only clear it with a
> sufficiently good level feeling. Even then, if it turned out the level
> feeling was from something nasty, I might bail and head for the stairs.
> (Seriously OOD AMHD, Jelly Pit (low reward in terms of XP/drop, high
> risk in terms of item loss & equipment dammage), and Graveyards (these
> scare me, trying to clear one of these led to the dimise of the L50
> ranger).


Undead pits are good targets for certain classes with the right weapon.
I found a MoD Holy Avenger with my second winner--a Dwarf Paladin
wearing Celeborn and AoSustenance. That was a perfect combination for
killing undead. Banish the L's, ignore the Druj, and slaughter
everything else with OoD and the uber-weapon.

About jelly pits, I agree. I've cleared exactly one, just to have done
it.
 
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andrew.fabbro@gmail.com writes:

> ulrichvonbeck@yahoo.com wrote:
> > (Seriously OOD AMHD, Jelly Pit (low reward in terms of XP/drop, high
> > risk in terms of item loss & equipment dammage), and Graveyards (these
> > scare me, trying to clear one of these led to the dimise of the L50
> > ranger).
>
> Good point. I've never cleared a Jelly Pit in my entire Angband
> career.

I sometimes clear them out just for the experience; death molds have no
treasure, but they don't move, so a mage can just fire a hundred magic
missiles at one.

> There is just no point to it. There are a number of monsters
> that are just best avoided...

> - hounds: fire/water hounds destroy equipment, later ones such as
> Vibration, Mether, Impact, and Plasma hounds are deadly, and Time
> hounds are just annoying. None of them have any treasure

But the right hounds (with proper resistance) are worth a lot of
experience. Plasma hounds if you have sound resistance, or nether
hounds if you have hold life or nether resistance, will get you up
levels quickly because they come in large groups.

Any hound whose breath you don't like should be avoided. That means
water hounds until you have acid immunity, nexus hounds until you have
nexus resistance or have maxed your stats, and gravity and time hounds
always.

> - mind flayers: no treasure and it's REALLY ANNOYING to have to
> re-identify all of your equipment

They do have treasure. If you have the identify spell/prayer, they
aren't too bad as long as you don't let them touch you.

> - undead: the early ones (Vampires, Wights, etc.) are not bad. The
> later ones are fearsome. They are all annoying (Restore Life Levels,
> replacing drained staves, etc.)

Don't fight any high-level undead in melee, unless you know that you are
immune to the melee attack. Demiliches and nightwings are intended to
be tough, but a quiver of bolts of flame fired from a crossbow of extra
shots will give you treasure worth the battle.

--
David Grabiner, grabiner@alumni.princeton.edu, http://remarque.org/~grabiner
Baseball labor negotiations FAQ: http://remarque.org/~grabiner/laborfaq.html
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