Subject: Angband Strategy Guide repost Updated: 29th November 1993 Angband Strategy Guide: version 3.181 -------------------------------------- Note: This all relates only to Angband. Due to the new version, some of this might be out of date, inaccurate, or unwise. I haven't done any editing, but figured this would be a good time for a repost. I do not include any hints for Bangband, Fangband, or any thing else besides PC Angband. Please mail all corrections, advice, comments, criticisms, compliments, rutabagas or cash to: fwang@sbcs.sunysb.edu Table of contents ----------------- 0. Introduction and Disclaimer 1. Character Generation a. Warriors b. Mages c. Priests d. Rogues e. Rangers f. Paladins 2. General hints for each character class a. Warriors b. Mages c. Priests d. Rogues e. Rangers f. Paladins 3. Shopping a. First time b. Should almost always buy c. Descents below 150 feet d. Descents below 300 feet e. Descents below 1000 feet f. Other shopping tips 4. Techniques for 'regions' a. How fast is too fast? b. Basic Pointers c. Skills for all levels d. Techniques for 0-1000 feet. e. Techniques for 1000-1700 feet. f. Analysis of levels > 1700 feet. g. Strategies of various winners h. Things to do if you're about to die. (i.e. last ditch efforts) 5. Fighting....dealing with groups/ pits/ uniques a. Monster Rooms b. Spiffy Rooms c. Uniques d. Rough Monsters e. Invisibles 6. Classic, simple, and useful tips. 7. Noteworthy things. 8. Contributor list. 0. Introduction ------------ Greetings, fellow Angbanders. It occurred to me that it would be a very interesting idea to gather all the neat tricks, tips, and hints that experienced players use in one giant strategy list. So began the Angband Strategy Guide. It began as a thought, but with support has grown into a pretty useful document. I can't say "a definitive guide to winning angband", since most of the hints are for early levels, but hopefully this will change. I'm trying to get this organized, and could probably use all the help I can get. All comments are welcome, -especially- criticisms. (Well, constructive ones). What don't you like, what do you like, what you'd like to see more of. If you have any tips that you don't see, please e-mail them to me. I will add the tip and your name to the Contributors list (unless you don't want me to). Also, keep in mind a few things. Some tricks don't work on some versions of Angband. (For example, some Angbands don't have autorolling or targetting code). So, keep that in mind when you read. Also, no strategy is any good unless the player is careful. -The- fastest way to die is by not watching your hit points, and no strategy will help you at all if you don't watch out for yourself. Disclaimer ---------- This guide is not a step by step method of how to win. It is not a inventory list of what your characters should carry at what parts of the game, in order to win. Rather, it is a list of all things that are considered useful, and what tricks are used by players. I doubt there is a single player that carries -all- objects mentioned, and follows -all- strategies mentioned. It is simply not realistic. Some ideas may be good at some times and not others. What you, the player, need to do, is to find a tempo of playing that makes you comfortable. If you like to play safer, ditch the offensive options and buy more armor. If you like to play rougher, then go down levels faster, and choose better weapons over better armor. It's your game. I add this disclaimer because I seem to be receiving mail with things like 'I don't think you need xxxxx'. If you don't want it, don't use it. It is listed for those who haven't considered that possiblity. In the rare event that there is a statement that says, "I think....." or is in first person, that was likely an accidental inclusion from someone's e-mail. It should be changed - notify me. The 'I' could be from any one of the contributors and does not necessarily express my opinions. Down with Morgoth! - Frank Wang fwang@sbcs.sunysb.edu 1. Character generation -------------------- Basically, Warriors are easier at the beginning and hardest to win with. Mages are hardest to start with, and easiest to win with. Priests have less offensive spells than mages, but do get really cool heal spells later. While a mage can begin with an offensive spell, a priest will not get an offensive spell until level 9 - Orb of Draining (a very good spell). Rangers are easy to start and play when first learning the game. You get the toughness and durability of Warriors, with a few mage spells to help out along the way. You might like to try a Half-Elf or Elf Ranger to start. High elves and Dunedain (yes, it's plural - Dunadan is singular) make good characters of any class, but they have the slowest rate of going up levels. They are good when you are first learning the game, but are very slow to win with. Gnomes : Their free action intrinsic more than compensates for the lousy hitdice, at least for spell casters. They get good racial adjustments to most stats except hand-to-hand melee. Dwarves are reasonable characters as well, especially as Priests or Warriors. If you use the autoroller, then remember that 18/01 is entered as 19, 18/50 as 68 (i.e. 18+50) and so on. Generally, you can put two stats close to their maximum on the autoroller with little trouble. Three is much more difficult (essentially the other three stats have to be close to their minimum), so you can wait days. If you want to set minimums on three stats, you should make at least two of them several points below their maximum (above 18 you should drop by about 20 - or perhaps just a bit less - to count as a point). If it takes more than a couple of minutes, hit ^C and try again with lower values. Also, when considering Autorolling, recognize the fact that there are only certain 'ranges' that make a difference. A starting Intelligence of 18/89 is the same as a starting Intelligence of 18/70 in terms of mana. Of course, since 18/90 is the next 'step up', you could go for 18/80 and then try to buy a ring of intelligence (+1). But a starting constitution of 9 isn't much different from of 14. So don't waste your autoroller's time trying to reach a maximum for a stat that won't make a difference. This of course depends on your version of Angband. Check the spoiler sheets for your version. The lower stat will make it take longer to max out your stats, but it really shouldn't make any difference in the long run. 1.a. Warriors Warriors get through the early levels easily, and make a good choice if you want to learn the game. This will be frustrating until you get a good intuition of where hidden doors are, so your first character should be a Ranger. If you are trying to go as a Warrior, then Half-trolls, Dunedain or High- elves are good choices...You can almost guarantee a STR > 18/50 with one of these, and the last two can give you a DEX > 18/50 with luck, thus giving you TWO swings with that broadsword at the start of the game. This extra advantage makes up for the slow advancment of the last two races. A High Elf warrior with 18/57 Str and 18/50 Dex can get _four_ hits with a 5lb weapon. A Human warrior goes up levels _fast_. Take a high dex and strength for multiple hits with light weapons. Enchant your weapon as quickly as you can and look for rings of damage or slaying, etc. Also, look for high CON (no less than 14), and not too low WIS or INT (you will need to use wands and staffs)...Furthermore, these last two will help your pseudo-ID work faster. 1.b. Mages High-elves make good Mages. They generally have better abilities, and a high stealth. Starting attributes: 18/80 intelligence, and 10 strength. Less than 10 strength really puts a limit on what you can carry. With a 18/80 intelligence, a single ring of intelligence (+1) can put you into the big bonus mana region. Gnome mages are really good too, since they can still get the highest starting mana ratio with 18/70 intelligence, and best of all, have innate free action. 1.c. Priests Priests are somewhat easier because of their heal spells (especially the 200hp and the full heal). By healing 200 hp whenever you lose this many you are less likely to die from any big breath attack (cf. mage with potions thinking how much can so and so breath for if I have this, this and that?). A priest can get a lot of heals out of one lot of mana! Suggestion 1: Play a dwarf priest with 18/50 wisdom, other stats don't really matter - go for a decent strength and/or con. You could also try a Dunadan with similar stats. Suggestion 2: Play a Half-Troll priest. Seriously. Those extra hit points come in -handy-. Try either: a) 18/12 Str, 14 Wis, 10 Dex, 18 Con and wield a whip (2 hits - double the plus!); b) 18 Wis and 18 Con and wield the heaviest damage weapon you can use; or c) 18/?? Str and 18 Wis. In either case play the early levels like a (weak!) warrior. 1.d. Rogues Rogues are among the best fighters and are experts at the Art of Not Being Seen. If the monster doesn't see you (/wake up), it won't hit you. Suggestion 1: Hobbit Rogue. Infravision is very nice and you can sneak around well. Monsters often won't even notice you until you tap them with your sword (very hard of course). Also, being able to disarm traps and locked doors is handy. Suggestion 2: Half-Orc Rogue. This is really a totally different character than the Hobbit Burglar: a Half-Orc Rogue has lower Stealth, but good fighting, and some limited spellcasting. In a way, the character is a bit more like a Warrior with some spellcasting ability. 1.e. Rangers Rangers have good bow skill, and have reasonable magic device, disarm, etc, and fight better than mages and priests. They get all but the most powerful magic spells. Because they are reasonably effective fighters, they gain levels more quickly than mages early on (mages need to run away more often). They make an excellent compromise between the early might of the warrior, and later power of a mage. Rangers should take advantage of their missile weapon skill. Suggestion 1: High Elf Ranger. This is one of the slowest characters to advance, but See Invisible, combined with high Str, Int, Dex make their survival during early levels very good. Try: a) Str 18/02 Int 18/50 Dex 18/01, which makes a more 'mage-like' Ranger, for 2 x mana and 2 hits with a Sabre (18/10 for 2 hits with a Trident); b) Str 18/32 Int 18 Dex 18/01, for a ranger that fights better - 1.5 x mana and 3 hits with a Sabre. If you are a little more patient you may be able to get both the higher Str and Int. Suggestion 2: Human Ranger. This is a much faster character, and you'll have spells by the time you finish your first trip down. Try: Str 18/12, Int 18, Dex 10. Two hits with a Sabre, and 1.5 x mana make quite a powerful character. 1.f. Paladins Paladins fight almost as well as Warriors. They get spells right from the first level as well. Suggestion: Dunedain Paladin. Try: Str 18/12, Wis 18, Dex 10, for the same benefits as the Human Ranger above. Find a light weapon to wield for for multiple attacks / round. Half-Elves make excellent Paladins, since they have slightly improved Stealth and Searching---the weaknesses Paladins have. Humans make playable paladins as well. If you have not played a human before, a Paladin might be a good one to try. 2.0. General Character hints for each class --------------------------------------- For all characters: Watch your hit points. Don't let them get too low. Rest as soon as possible after every fight, to get your hit points and mana (if any) to maximum. You have nothing to gain by running around with your guns half loaded. If you need more convincing, try counting the number of times you've survived with zero hit points, or cast your last spell with just enough mana. It shouldn't happen, but it does. Also, missile weapons (aka bows/crossbows) are a pain, take a lot of inventory space, and are heavy (including ammo), but they are also very devastating weapons that can dish out a -lot- of damage. They are very handy. Also, you can use flasks of oil as relatively cheap and effective missile weapons. For Spellcasters: Don't take every spell the moment you are allowed to. If you 'G' to learn a spell and there is nothing you really need right now, press . You can learn an extra one later. If you get in a spot, and need a spell you might have learned but didn't, it only costs a turn to learn - you have a lot more flexibility if you have an unlearned spell or two up your sleeve. Sometimes you have more than one spell you would like to learn at once - if you 'save up' a couple, you can get them all right away. It is also handy to have a couple spare for when you find the special books - e.g. Resistance of Scarabtarices as they have some handy lower level spells. If you are a mage with 18/50 or higher Intelligence, you may be better off learning the spells and getting the experience for casting them while still at low levels. Even for a character like this, however, getting all three 7th level mage spells at 7th level might be worthwhile for survivability. For pseudo spellcasters - (rangers/rogues/paladins) Until you are VERY high level, do NOT rely on your magic to get you out of tight spots, since their failure rate will be too high for emergency usage, and you won't have enough mana to really cast them more than once. 2.a. Warriors Really easy - Go in and kill. Rest after every battle (if necessary). You *should* be able to get down to 200' on the first trip without problems (assuming no out of place monsters), but returning to town may be tough. A possibility is to start with two complete trips to 100', collecting everything, digging out all treasure. By this time, The character is around 5-6th level...all depends on what you find. Most Warriors should have multiple hits (often a lighter weapon can do more damage *per turn* than a heavy one, if it gets more hits). Watch for anything to increase your damage. A Strength of 18 gives you +3 immediately. Enchant- to-Dam scrolls can take your damage up further and are readily available. Watch carefully for rings of damage, rings of slaying, gloves of slaying, etc (I once got all 3, and a total of +33 to damage for each of three hits before going down as far as Wormtongue!). Even a total of +10 to damage (when counted three or four times) makes most uniques on the low levels easy. Jellies usually don't get a hit in. Use the Warriors' pseudo-ID all the time. After the first few levels, drop any weapon or armor that you don't need that gives you a Average or Cursed id. NOTE that if the p-ID message says "You feel that [ ] is terrible." then this is a SPECIAL cursed item, possibly a cursed artifact. KEEP THIS until you have complete ID. Collect all wands that are beneficial to you. After 500', start carrying a ranged weapon with you. Remember that you are the worst class at high levels...always have a WoR and some ability to ID items (Staff of Perceptions) at these deep levels. DO keep magic items onhand--but you should prefer the more obvious Scrolls and Potions---since these can't fail due to low Int (I think). Useful Rods are Recall, Illumination, and Restoration. These may (and probably will) fail a lot, but use them when in a "bare" area cleared out by yourself (of monsters). DO get a bow/arrow quickly---this is your ONLY reliable distance attack, and you'll NEED it against acid-breathers/spitters (e.g. Green Naga/Worm). Actually, a crossbow (especially a heavy crossbow) is probably more reliable. 2.b. Mages In general, keep your mana up. Don't run out of mana. Cast Detect Monster and Find Hidden Traps/Doors everytime you sneeze. (turning on the 'stop between screens' option guarantees that you don't walk into any offscreen traps, if you cast detect traps as soon as the screen changes. It is pretty safe to disable that option to speed gameplay, but it is recommended to avoid Murphy's Law and re-enable it if you are on a special level, lest you be running down some corridor and fall into an offscreen trap door) Avoid or prepare for large groups of monsters. Learn escape spells as soon as possible. (i.e. Phase Door and Teleport) learn to use them efficiently. Stinking cloud is a very handy spell. Fantastic for taking out flies or fleas. It is a pretty powerful early spell, and it's a ball spell, so you can do very handy things with it. You may do more raw damage with Lightning bolt (which has the -highest- damage/mana ratio of almost all the spells) but can only affect one at a time, and you can't shoot -over- anything with a bolt spell. Also, learn to use Sleep and Spear of Light, as mentioned in various parts of this document. They are very useful relatively low level spells. 2.c. Priests If you've played Moria before, the first 9 or so levels of the priestly life in Angband play very similarly. Many of the same rules for mages apply. Watch your mana. Cast Detect prayers, especially Evil and Traps, whenever the screen changes. These prayers cost a fair amount of mana, compared to the mage spells, (Detect Doors and Detect Traps are two different prayers, for one thing), and so you will want to take it fairly slowly. At low levels, melee bites, even though your mace is much better than a mage's dagger. Be prepared to phase door around a lot. Don't count on Cure Light Wounds to work, especially below level 10. Carry a few potions of same at all times. You can't cast Cure Light Wounds while you are blind - but you can quaff the potion. Of course, if you can retreat to a safe spot, Cure Light Wounds is a good prayer. Once you get above level 10 or so, you can reasonably cast it "on the fly", so to speak, but still be careful. Aside from the Detect and Cure prayers, most of the low level prayers are pretty useless. Create Food and Portal are notable exceptions. Basically, below level 9 you will be playing like a warrior, but a damn wimpy one. Don't overexert yourself. At level 9 you can get ... Orb of Draining! Then life becomes much easier. When you get to level 7, *stop* taking prayers when you gain levels. [If you have 18/50 Wisdom you can stop at level 8.] You want to do this because you can "force" your gods to give you Orb of Draining. You want this prayer. Badly. It does 3d6 plus your level damage, double to evil (which is good), is a ball spell (very good), and (best of all) there are no monsters that resist it, unlike with the mage spells. Here's how: 1) Get a copy of Chants and Blessings, the prayer book with OoD in it. 2) When you get to level 9, do the following: a) Go up to town and drop all your copies of the first two books (Beginners' and Words of Wisdom) in your home. You could do this in the dungeon, but this way they won't get stolen or inadvertently lost. b) Take your copy of Chants and Blessings. c) Hit 'G'. Voila! You should now have all three 9th-level spells: Neutralize Poison, Orb of Draining and Cure Serious Wounds. Use Detect Evil to find hidden Ghosts (its only advantage is that it DOES detect invisible critters), and if you're not high enough level, RUN AWAY (some low-level ghosts drain Wisdom). To save ID scrolls, use the priest's ID, Remove Curse. Try on any armor, rings, or amulets you find lying around. If they're cursed, you can de-curse them and drop them, thus keeping you from burning ID scrolls on useless stuff. Note that priests eventually get Identify as a prayer, but it's in Godly Insights, which is pretty rare above 2000'. Caveats. 1) Don't try this with weapons. Morgul weapons cannot be uncursed with the standard grade Remove Curse. In most current versions of Angband, reading a scroll of enchant to-hit or to-dam will zap any curse on a weapon, allowing you to take it off. This at least allows you to get rid of it. However, this seems to be a bug, and it may be removed from later ports or versions. 2) Wait a few levels after getting Remove Curse before using this. That way, if you have a high WIS, allowing you to gain more than one prayer/level, and you put on an Iron Helm of Wisdom (-5) or something, you won't lose the Remove Curse prayer when your WIS plummets... In theory, one could get the One Ring of Power, which cannot be de-cursed by any means, this way. However, this is so unlikely at pre-Godly-Insights levels that I've neglected that possibility. [Some people think that the One Ring could be very useful back then....] The very high level prayer Elemental Brand can be used to make very deadly bolts/arrows by wielding the bolts and branding them. 2.d. Rogues There are two kinds of rogues, the tough rogues (like a Half-Orc) and the sneaky rogues (like a Hobbit). The 'standard' rogue is the 'sneak'. They are often able to walk right through a room without waking things up. Rogues get some good detection spells (but essentially no offensive spells), and combined with the ability not to be noticed, they can often avoid damage. If you see something nasty when you peek in a room, you can often quietly close the door without waking it up. If you do fight, try to do it from a distance when you can. Rogues can also fight well in the conventional sense. You will want to use the spell Detect Traps heavily, and probably won't need to use many other spells all that much (until you get Identify and Recharge spells). The 'tough' Rogues are essentially played like Warriors in the early levels, but later they get some helpful spells as well. Play these guys a bit more cautiously than a Warrior. Be sure to have a starting Dex of 18/50 (AT LEAST) and a starting Int of 18 (so you can cast more of your key spells). Also, beware of FUN group monsters---use the Mage strategy at high levels---you need to rely HIGHLY on your Stealth and a few scrolls of Teleport to get you out of messy situations, since your spells aren't that reliable for quite awhile. Halflings tend to make superb Rogues---the Rogue abilities compliment the Halfling's ones beautifully (also Halflings get Dex sustained---a Rogue's prime stat). Also, gain the spells soon---and cast Detect Treasure/Objects on every screen. These two lovely spells will let you find the treasures buried on levels (MASSIVE amounts of cash you can dig up when you get a nice Pick). Use these detection spells A LOT, since they give you the subtle edge in combat. Also, you should get a Bow as soon as possible---as with Rangers, you're excellent with Bows, and you should be using Bows as your distance attack. 2.e. Rangers Play a Ranger like a warrior at the start, but don't forget you are weaker - stand back and use your good bow skill more. Keep plenty of Phase Door scrolls and Cure Light Wounds potions handy, and Flasks of Oil are especially useful until level 3 or 4. You won't need oil as a weapon after that. DO get some enchant-weapon scrolls and make your Bow more deadly--- that should be first thing to buy after the first major trip down ( around level 5 or so), since Rangers are excellent with Bows/Arrows they should rely on THESE for the primary effects---their magic isn't as powerful as a Mage, and hardly ANYTHING can resist a missile attack outright. Keep your mana up. Use spells to complement your fighting ability - for example, cast a Magic Missile or two before closing for the final blows. If you time it right, the opponent will be killed by your first turn (so you often won't get hit by weaker creatures). This way you don't have to swap weapons like you do with a missile weapon. At later levels you start getting some really good spells. However, you don't get identify and recharge until _much_ later than a mage, so you need to carry scrolls and staves for longer, and you only get the weaker pseudo-ID, and it is very slow, so more cleverness is needed. Don't ID everything the second you get it. Pseudo ID might still kick in. Wait until you have to drop something. Don't ID something underground just to find out its charges if you aren't about to drop it - that can wait for the town. If you are careful, a single Staff of Perceptions and just a few scrolls of Identification (not too many, as reading the last one frees a slot) should be enough, since you'll pick up some ID scrolls while you are down there. Read the scrolls _first_. 2.f. Paladins Basically, you are ALMOST as good a fighter as a Warrior (without ANY special bonuses--REMEMBER THAT). You should be relying on your good hand-to-hand fighting, rather than bows/arrows, since you're not that good at them. Use a hit-and-run technique, since you don't have the special bonuses Warriors get which enable them to stay in a fight with even dangerous critters for a decent amount of time. Play like a Warrior to begin with. You get Orb of Draining _much_ later than a Priest (not until level 17), but you should be tough enough to make it until then. As with a Priest, you can force OoD by not learning spells for a level or two before, and dropping the earlier books (*DON'T FORGET TO PICK THEM UP AGAIN*). Use detection spells a lot - they help you make the most of your fighting ability. A Paladin with OoD is a formidable sight. Also Protection from Evil is extremely useful. 3.0 Shopping -------- 3.a. First time in the stores ------------------------ Oil / lantern(?). Not essential, but refilling your lantern get much less annoying than re-wielding torches. Also, oil makes a good, cheap missile weapon. The torches you start with can usually last long enough until you find a lantern in the dungeon. However, if you are the type of player that likes to go down levels fast, you won't necessarily find one. Buy one if you need to. Shovel/Pick. A necessity of life. Without a shovel, you will have to work -much- harder than necessary for cash, because a large porportion of the money is embedded in walls, and requires a 'digging implement' to get (the only exception is a very strong character can tunnel fairly quickly for embedded metals - but for granite you really need an implement). This should be your first purchase. Since you have the repeat command, buy a shovel since it is cheaper and lighter. Just go in the dungeon, rest a while come back up and check the stores again. Note that non-mages will still want a digging tool once they get down to greater-vault depth, since they will have to tunnel around to get at the one portion of wall that isn't permanent rock. This is VERY different from Moria, where once you got deep enough to find mithril lying around on the floor, you could ditch your pick. Phase Door Scrolls - get a good number of these for your first trip or two. (At 50' I've run into baby MHD's, Tengu, pseudo-dragons, and many other things far too deadly to take on right at the start - an escape route is essential - and one Phase Door is not enough. They work best from a corridor. Cure Light Wounds potions - restores hit points and cures blindness. If you can afford it get a Cure Serious Wounds or two. (After the first few levels, you will want to go for at least Cure Serious.) Armor - This depends on your class, and playing style. Long range fighters don't need them for a while (especially mages who can phase door away from melee). Spend your spare money on cheap items, for now. Helms, boots and cloaks are very cheap per point of armour. Weapons - Even the weakest player should consider changing to a damaging light weapon like a Trident or Sabre. These are two of the most important weapons for characters with high Strength and/or Dexterity as well, since they can get multiple attacks with light weapons. Multiple attacks make every plus on an enchanted weapon that much more powerful, and mutiple attacks with one weapon can do more damage/round than single attacks with heavy weapons. If you can only get one hit with the Sabre, you will probably be best off with the biggest damage weapon you can wield, unless you are so weak that carrying capacity is a major issue (say STR<10). If you only get single hits but have reasonable strength (>10 say), a Battle Axe is a good choice, or a Two-Handed Sword if you can get/wield it. Any time you have more than one hit, watch out for rings of damage, etc - anything that will increase your damage. 3.b. Should probably buy whenever you get a chance --------------------------------------------- From the Black Market: Potions of Speed - Handy things to have to kill off those speed 2 uniques. Potions of Healing - Good stuff. Potions of Experience - easy experience levels (if you can afford them!) Some form of teleportation if you can't cast the spell. (a) Scrolls of teleport/Phase Door are cheap, and you can carry multiple scrolls without hassle (in case one burns). However, you can't use them if you are blind or confused. Potions of Cure Serious cures either situation. (b) Staffs of teleport - Carrying multiple staves will eat up a lot of inventory. You run the risk of it getting burnt and destroyed. However, you can -always- use it, even if confused or blind. Recharge scrolls will extend the life of your staff collection (but there is a small risk - only recharge when empty so you don't waste charges). It's probably a good idea to stock up on Cure Serious potions, Potions of Restore Life Levels, Potions of Restore Mana (if applicable) and any Mushrooms of Restoring you find or buy from the Black Market. They are good to have when you need them. 3.c. For trips more than 150 feet ---------------------------- A bunch of Cure Serious Wounds potions. They cure blindness, cure wounds, cure confusion, and are cheap - get a dozen. Cure light wounds are cheaper, but don't cure the bigger danger of confusion and are not that much cheaper. A quick way to die is to get blinded and then wander randomly, and get beat on by multiple monsters at the same time. Or, get confused, and then get whaled on by some bad thing. Starving to death while blind is no fun (you can't Create Food if you're blind - and sometimes you are blind for a long time). These scenarios are easily avoided and should not happen if you are careful. A Staff of Perceptions seems expensive compared to identify scrolls, but if you sell the empty staff before you buy the next one, an identify from a staff is about half (or even less!) of the cost of a scroll. They usually work out at about 25 gold per ID from the staff. 3.d. For trips more than 300 feet ---------------------------- A scroll of Word of Recall or two. To make your trips up and down into the dungeon much saner. You might buy these earlier dependent on how patient you are doing down and up. You could use the only for going up since down staircases are easier to find. Keep extras in case they get destroyed by something. Light Crossbow, and bolts. Enough enchant scrolls to get to (+8,+8). The chances of enchanting higher are pretty small, and get smaller the higher you enchant. +9 is possible but not likely. +10 almost impossible. A quick way of buying large numbers of enchant scrolls is to buy all you can, then go down to 50 feet. Rest for a thousand turns to allow the stores to reset their inventories. Go back up. etc. This is also a good way to stock up on bolts. Missile weapons are often overlooked due to the hassle. But they are great. Try them and decide for yourself. It's a very good idea to buy a Staff of Teleportation the first chance you get. It can be used anytime at all. Good for getting out of very bad situations. One of the handiest items is the Rod/Wand of Teleport Monster. It teleports all monsters in a straight line, much like a Spear of Light. Getting rid of a monster (or a bunch of them) is much safer than teleporting to a random location. See Invisible - You can get this from a variety of sources. You should get this before you start encountering invisible creatures that drain (drain stats or drain experience). 3.e. For trips below 1000 feet ------------------------- Potions of Restore life levels - You'll need these around 1000 feet and below - pesky Ghosts. Resistance things - You will need to get the four standard resistances. In order of usefulness: Fire, Lightning, Acid, Cold. Rings, amulets, artifacts all grant resistance. You can also sometimes buy armor 'of resistance' which is resistant to all four. It costs a lot, but saves ring space, which will be quickly filled. You will need to buy poison resistance later, too, or face a quick death via breath weapon/stinking cloud. Free Action - You will need free action to prevent instant death by paralyzation. If you keep searching the Black Market, you can usually buy Boots of Free Action. At higher levels you will be getting See Invisible from at least a few items. Free action is usually harder to use, since free action is harder to get. This results in having to shuffle other objects around whatever is giving free action. (Gnomes are very nice in that free action is innate). An Amulet of the Magi is very expensive, but gives free action AND see invisible, and also boosts your perception, searching, and armor class. 3.f. Other shopping tips ------------------- Selling unidentified scrolls and potions are a cheap and easy way to identify low level potions and scrolls. You should identify staffs and wands before selling, since you get more if you know how many charges an object has. In the early game, buying identify scrolls and identifying wands before selling is very profitable (even if the first few are unsellable). If you sell a wand with an unknown number of charges, you'll get offered the same money as if it had none. Note that in the UNIX version selling unidifentified scrolls and potions is a quick and easy way to get barter in the shops. (Any version where you leave haggling on.) This also works on the Macintosh. If you want to save on ID's, here's a neat trick for missile weapons: drop one of a group, put the rest in your house, pick the single one back up again, and sell it. If it was cursed, you can sell the others still. If it was enchanted, then it is usually worthwhile to buy it back, because as soon as you pick up the rest from your home, they all get ID'd as well. If you want to use the rest and don't want to buy the one back, you can inscribe the rest to tell you what they are. But it is usually worthwhile to buy the single one back, and a lot cheaper than an ID from scroll or staff of perceptions. [This is best for characters without a fast pseudo-ID.] If you have an amulet/ ring/ whatever that raises your charisma, it is useless to you downstairs. However, on the town level it pays to wear one. Keep anything that increases your charisma in your home, unless you are desperate for cash - the price difference a good charisma can make is huge. Sometimes an amulet of charisma can pay for itself after only a few purchases. However, this depends on how close your Charisma is to the 'key' points. Increasing a Charisma of 18/01 doesn't do anything until you go above 18/50. Then the next marker is 18/70. So, if you have an 18 charisma, don't bother. On the other hand, raising a charisma from 17 to 18/10 can make quite a difference. Every point below 18 is a key point. Likewise, buy potions of charisma from the black market whenever possible. A good idea is saving money for buying a great object from various shops. These items include Holy Avengers, defenders, weapons of westernesse and elven armor that ocasionally show up in the weapon and armor shops. Armor of resistance is great to buy from the armor shop, if you have money. Some of these weapons are better than almost any artifact the player is likely to find down to 1000 ft. However, most of these cost around 50,000 gold pieces so start saving up soon. This is a fairly consistent way to get Free action / See Invisible. A Crown of the Magi is worth almost any price... 4. General Survival tips --------------------- 4.a. "Going down the dungeon - how fast is too fast? ---------------------------------------------- Different people play differently, so there is no one answer, but here are some suggestions for different styles of play. If you are less familiar with the game, the risk is higher, if you are more familiar with the game, the risk is lower. In other words, people who have played longer can go down faster and still die less. So, find the speed that is right for you. The fastest reported player plays at 50 feet per level + 100 feet, which can be safely done for the first 1000 feet with mages - with proper care, of course. But other speeds have been recommended, ranging all the way down to 5 experience levels per 50'. If you aren't sure, then I suggest the following method: For each level, follow the border of the dungeon and explore each room on the outside of the dungeon. (i.e. not the middle). If you had no problem, then go down a level. If you did, stick around. This is still pretty slow, but is still reasonable for first timers. 4.b. Basic Pointers -------------- Okay, let's start with basics. (1) Don't even so much as sneeze unless you have full hit points and full mana. There's just no reason to explore without full health. (2) Don't invite trouble. That is, when in a room with two sleeping monsters attack one, kill it, then the other. Sounds stupid, but there is a very close scenario: When fighting groups of monsters, fight them -one- at a time. don't run in the room and invite group beatings. An elaboration on this: if you are being attacked by a group, get into a hallway and fight from there. That way, you -can- only be attacked by one at a time: #.....CCC..........# #....CCCC..........# #######C############ #@# # # In fact, you should almost never be beat on by more than one monster at once. you can always run into a tunnel, or attack from around a corner if the monsters you are fighting have breath weapons. (3) If you see a monster you're not sure if you can beat,then -don't- attack it. Why take the chance? Also, put your ego aside, and run away if you start losing a fight. Try not to run away at the very last minute, in case your teleport spell happens to pick a bad time to fail. Also, be ready to run if you attack a fire type monster - and don't have any fire resistances. Same for many others. (4) Probably the quickest way to die can be summarized in one thought. "All right, I've been hitting this guy a few times, he should be almost dead... OH NO! I have no more (hit points/mana)! *dies about 5 turns later*. Don't run out of mana. Don't run out of hit points. If you start running pretty low, then leave. Don't say 'Well, I'll just save my last 6 mana points to teleport away' cuz if you roll badly, and are stuck in a fight with no mana, you die. (Mages, anyway). Note, though, that panic spell casting can save your hide. You have nothing to lose if you're gong to die anyway. See section 4.e. (5) It is wise to kill all the easy monsters you can before taking on the harder monsters, i.e. kill any monster you see. If you clear out lots of area, then if you have to run from a fight, you will have more clear areas to run to. (and teleport to. A troll may be no big deal when you are at full strength, but if some unique is beating on you, and you teleport to a room with a troll in it, odds are you'll have to run from the troll in this case). (6) Check stores often. Check all stores everytime you are on the town level. You never know when something will be on sale. It pays to keep valuables in your home rather than selling them right off - you never know when a 'bargain' could turn up. (has anyone seen a ring of speed +1 {to clear}? how much was it?) (7) When you're going to attack something, you can always get first blow if you are careful. If your opponent is also moving (and at the same speed), then if there is a single space between you, don't move into it. Wait on the spot for one turn (if you search rather than do nothing you may pick up an adjacent trap at the same time). Your opponent will move next to you, giving you the first blow. @.R <-- wait! @R <-- hit! =) If your opponent moves at double speed (like a cave spider), you would move away from it if there was only one square between you, and stay still if there were two squares. Using Fang as the example : @..C <-- wait! @C.. <-- Hit! @.C <---if you waited, Fang moves and bites. So, take a step back, @C.. <--- hit! Of course, if you are using a spell or missile weapon, you can shoot at any time. But you can always know whether or not your opponent will be able to hit you on the next turn and act appropriately. (8) When you find a chest, don't open it in a corridor. If it isn't in one already, take it to a big room. Make sure the floor isn't all cluttered with rubbish. Always search chests for traps. If you don't find any, search some more. Disarm the trap before opening the chest. (Note: if you just cast disarm trap, you don't need to even search for the trap in the first place.) If you are just about ready to go down another level when you are thinking of opening a chest, wait, and take it downstairs with you. You will improve your chances of getting good stuff, since the value of the stuff in the chest is related to the depth of the level that you open the chest on. Don't open a chest in the town. (9) Common locations of secret doors. When you see either of these two patterns, search for secret doors at the place marked ".": ########## ############ '.' '.# (in any orientation, of course) ########## ##########'# # # Also, almost all 'dead' ends have secret doors. In general, there are usually doors near doors when in corridors. Common dead ends which are a waste of time to search: # # # # # # #### # # ### ### # # # # # # ####### ### ########## ########### r #'######## # o ' ########### ########## ########### o #'######## # # m # # # # # # # # # # # # #### # ### ### Some quick short tips from rec.games.moria ------------------------------------------ (10) Summon Monster/ Polymorph Other will eventually pull up something you can't handle unless you can handle anything. (11) Your Glyph of Warding / Rune of Protection will break. (12) Just 'cause you teleported away does not mean you're out of danger. (13) It is better not to be breathed upon. (Most all the time.) (14) Your Detect Monsters/Evil spell does not pick up all your opponents. (15) It is better not to be touched. (16) Always have some form of healing. (17) Always leave yourself a way out. (18) Give yourself some form of long range attack. --- end of moria list --- (19) Look at creatures A LOT, since you get "strength" information that tells you how close the critter is to death. This is ESSENTIAL for Priests/Mages as well---since if you're running low on mana, you need to know if it's about to die, or you are. 4.c. Skills for all levels --------------------- Okay, you're fighting a bunch of monsters, and the room is getting filled with garbage! This is bad - a monster surrounded by junk can't drop new treasures. (don't kill Wormtongue if he's surrounded by arrows! Wait 'til he takes a few steps into free space). There are a few techniques for getting rid of treasure: (1) Quaff any useless potions, read any useless scrolls (if safe). (2) Keep retreating as you fight, so the monster you kill next is over 'blank' areas. (3) Take the treasure, and throw it in a corner of the room. In fact, stand either in the corner or a square away from it, and throw items towards that corner, like so: #jj where the j means some junk object. #@j #### An item thrown towards the corner will fall onto another object, and dissapear. So, you can get rid of as many objects as you want by just throwing them into this self-made garbage disposal. (4) If you have the Create Door spell, stand in the middle of a pile of treasures, cast Create Door (a door will destroy any object on the space that it was created on), and then cast remove door. Any object adjacent to you is now gone. Repeat for the rest of the pile. Don't forget that traps take up space just like treasures. If you run into a fire or acid breathing monster and there is a good scroll, staff, or whatever nearby that you can't pick up right away then move away from it!! If you have a WOR scroll and run short on room to carry things then ditch food if you have any (after eating). You won't starve as long as you can get back to town. However if you only have _one_ Word of Recall you are taking a big risk. What if it gets fried or stolen? Stinking Cloud is great for Filthy Urchins, but not absolutely necessary: If two can attack you at once, back around the corner of a building. They only come around one at a time (don't walk into them!!). If you suddenly get two together, don't risk it, just back away ('round the next corner). If you get in a real jam, Phase Door. Better than losing about 10% of your cash. If you are a spellcaster with a recharge and an identify spell (eg mage, ranger), or the priestly equivalents, and you have a couple of wands or staves of the same kind, and you can't carry both, then rather than just dropping the one with the fewest charges, recharge it. It does not matter if the recharge has a high chance of failure. If successful, identify it. Keep going until it has more charges than the other wand of the same type. Now recharge the other wand. Keep recharging and IDing the one with the lowest charges until one is destroyed. You can often get a great many charges on a wand this way. A character who does this will have really full wands, and so a better survival chance. Of course, you must be in a relatively safe place to do this. Useless items aren't always useless: The power of junk: If monsters that steal objects annoy you a lot, fill your inventory free space with junk. Once in a while, you'll just lose rubbish. This can be quite a pain, however. Learn to kill thieves from a distance. Don't throw that Wand of Clone Monster away! Instead, search for a monster you can destroy fairly easy and which drops some nice treasure. Choices are '$' for low-level characters, 'd' for mid-level and 'D' for high-level ones (no Dracoliches of course, but perhaps Ancient Blues or Whites...). Great Storm Wyrms, Ice Worms, or Hell Wyrms drop better treasure. This is especially nice when you have immunity to whatever they breathe (e.g. if you've got Narya, clone Hell Wyrms etc). Then, when you are alone in a room with that monster, hit it until it is nearly dead, clone it and kill the one you hit before. Hit the new monster until nearly dead and so on until the wand is exhausted. The Wand of Clone Monster is recharged very easily (low chance of losing it). You will get lots of money, some nice items and many experience points. There is ONE major time it's useful to let a critter breathe on you: If there are a slew of weaker critters that are picking at you, AND you are resistant to its type of attack, encourage it to breathe. This will wipe out all of these weaker critters, so you can thank the breathing critter by destroying it. (that's gratitude for ya) There are times when a Wand of Wonder can be used quite safely (two illustrations from recent encounters): # # ###########@############ # # # # # ####### d # # @ . # # ################ # n.o # ######################## If you don't actually target any of the creatures, but off to one side, then they can't be hasted, healed, or (worse!) polymorphed. Targetting is a major help, but the idea still works without targetting. In the above diagrams, you would aim at the dot. You miss out on line-of-sight effects like lightning bolts, but all the ball effects still work - and there don't seem to be any bad (for you, at least) ball effects. About the worst that will happen is nothing. There is a vanishingly small risk that you have an invisible creature lined up - though High Elves should be safe from this as well. [Also see Section 6, #10 for uses for Heal Monster and Haste Monster wands!] 4.d. Survival at low level (0-1000 feet) ----------------------------------- If you are willing to save up for a Wand of Drain Life (via the black market), it can make many monsters much easier, but you might not get enough charges to make this worthwhile. This wand doesn't work on undead, though. Once you get the hang of it, the first 1000 feet is a fairly safe area. It can be played as fast as one experience level per 50'. This is pretty fast, however. You stand a chance of dying a few times if you play this way: level 2 - Fang and Grip can be a pain if you're only level 2. If you stay at full health you shouldn't be at much risk. Use Magic Missiles, potions of oil, and/or missile weapons. level 8 - Wormtongue is easy to handle if you buy yourself a light crossbow, reasonably enchanted, and quaff a potion of speed before you attack him. Kill him with room around him so he has room to drop his stuff. Flasks of oil can also be used effectively against Wormy. (Again, don't be dumb. If the first thing Wormtongue does is frost bolt you, LEAVE. You haven't done any damage yet, and you're not at full strength anymore - why bother?) Wormtongue can dish out a -lot- of damage quickly if you get unlucky. Just leave before he kills you, and try again. If you are fighting things like baby dragons, where you can take one breath weapon, but not 3-4, then you are often better off fighting toe-to-toe than from a distance. At least getting clawed and bitten won't fry your potion of speed. They breathe much less often when they also have the choice of biting and clawing you. Besides that, the first 1000 feet isn't too bad. Most uniques can easily be taken out with a few phase doors, the (+8,+8) light crossbow, and bolts. 4.e. Survival at mid level (1000-1700 feet) -------------------------------------- Things get progressively harder and harder from here on. Expect more and more groups of monsters. Especially hounds. Take out all that you can, then teleport away, heal, then come back and kill as many more as possible. It's nice to keep beating on the same group of monsters, rather than waking up a number of groups of monsters (it becomes very hard without a unique weapon to kill a group in one attempt, but a good missile weapon can do the trick). Keep Potions of Speed at all times - there are a lot of speed 2 monsters, who can -really- dish out the damage. Stay the same, keep scanning with Detect type spells before you go forth into uncharted areas. Learn as much as you can about where you're going before you actually go there. Retreat if you drop to 1/3 hp or Mana and still haven't taken out the same creature you started fighting. If a creature drops you more than half your HP in one `turn', retreat and re-think strategy or better prepare. Teleport Away items are no longer optional, they're essential. Save an inventory slot for a Rod of Teleport Away. Two or three if you're a warrior. Keep an eye out for Wands of same. If you're a priest, keep your eyes open for the prayer book Ethereal Openings -- it's the first of the "special" prayerbooks, is reasonably common below around 1200', and has a Teleport Away prayer in it. The failure rate is a bit high when you first get it to rely on this spell. 4.f. Analysis of levels > 1700 feet ------------------------------ There seems to be a substantial jump in nastiness at around 1750-2000'. Sort of like in Moria. By here you'll want at least the elemental resistances (fire/frost/acid/lightning, and poison if possible) 2000 - 2500 ft. Like 1000 - 1500 it seems; progressively nastier but no real sudden onset of nastiness. Watch for speed items and good armor, e.g., DSMs. They're uncommon, but, with the general increase in treasure here, quite possible. Spiffy rooms, of varying degrees of spiffiness, become common here. That's where you'll see most of the really nasty monsters. 2500 - 3500. Over this 1000 feet or so, there is a big jump in general nastiness. Hell Wyrms (and worse), Chaos/Nether/Ether Hounds, high level undead (Nightcrawlers, Black Reavers, etc). These monsters will frequently appear outside of spiffy rooms (aka vaults). Undead pits, VERY difficult and dangerous even for high level players, become common about here. Undead pits are probably best avoided, especially when you first enounter them. They are usually not worth the hassle. However, there are some hints for tackling them elsewhere in this guide. The unique angels also appear around this depth and are probably worth avoiding. 3500 - 4950. Except for high level uniques, pretty much anything that can happen in the 4000's can happen in the high 3000's. This is because the highest level non-unique monsters are about level 75. So it doesn't get wildly nastier, although nasty monsters get progressively more numerous as you descend. 4.g. Strategies of various winners ----------------------------- ~From: Guy Evans : Having hung around at 1000ft for free action I am usually around level 25 odd. I then tend to dive fairly rapidly to around 1500-1600ft for the gain stat potions. This is when the game gets hard and interesting :-) I stay at around this depth till all my stats are maxed - I find this a very boring part of the game. Once my stats are maxed I dive again, this time to around 2500ft making money by selling extra gain stat potions and any dragon scale mails etc. Once I have around 1.3 million buy a ring of speed. Don't go below 2500 without a speed item. Usually by now the character is fairly gross and can drop at a reasonable rate to 4950ft. Note my last 2 completions didn't find boots of speed till they had hung around at 4950ft for a _long_ time (you need to have 2 to kill Morgorth as a gnome mage). That is it's easily possible to survive with only 1 speed item for the majority of the game (slowing down to fast when killing Tiamat is always interesting though!). 4.h. Things to do if you're going to die the next turn ------------------------------------------------- These are things you shouldn't do on a regular basis. But, if you're about to die, the rules change. (1) Cast a teleport/phase door spell, even if you don't have the mana. You might pass out and die, but more likely, you'll teleport out, and maybe lose a constitution point. Much better than dying. (2) Do a last minute Bash. You might even stun the monster. (3) Shoot the monster with a Wand of Polymorph. (4) Shoot the monster with a Wand of Wonder (risk of Clone or Heal). (5) Read some unidentified scroll/potion in hopes that it is a teleport scroll or healing potion. (6) Put on a teleport ring. Teleport rings don't work instantly, but you could put it on and hope it teleports you away -soon-. You can even carry an uncursed teleport ring around for such circumstances. 5. Fighting....dealing with groups/ pits/ uniques ---------------------------------------------- 5.a. Monster Rooms / Monster Pits ---------------------------- Generic Tactic -------------- Most monster rooms can be approached from the side or behind (behind meaning 'near the wall opposite the wall with the door'). But if you are forced to approach the room via the entrance side, then here is one method: Monsters have a limited detection range - roughly 15 spaces. Assume it is. The basic strategy is this. Come within 15 spaces of the door. take one step forward, and 5 steps back. Then, only the closest few monsters noticed your presence, and they will come out of the room, and attack you. You can dispose of them, and then come back to wake up the next closest ones. Specific rooms -------------- Jelly pits - Probably safest to leave them alone. They can eat through armor, and are worth little experience. Very easy to take out if you have resist acid armor, though. (hide your weapons first) Orc/Troll pits - (1) Rod of Light / Spear of Light is a good way to do lots of damage to many orcs at once. (2) Sleep III can be used to put almost all the orcs to sleep at once. (multiple casts might be necessary). You can then take out row by row via light damage in (1). Most trolls are immune to sleep, but a few are not (e.g. I think Forest Trolls aren't), so while you can't do this for a whole pit, the sleep trick (see below) will work if you do it right. Priest trick - Orc, troll, and giant pits (and, at higher levels, demon and dragon pits) are among the best of priest's friends, once they get: i) Dispel Evil (from either Exorcisms and Dispelling or Wrath of God) ii) Some form of speed (temp. or permanent), iii) Protection from Evil. a) Find a pit, by casting Detect Evil. Get as close to it as you can. Cast Protection from Evil a couple of times. If you can get to the door, great, go to step c) below and open it. Otherwise, try to work your way to part of the pit's wall. b) Make a hole in the wall (dig or Stone to Mud). A monster will probably block the hole, unless you hasted yourself first and were able to time it right. c) Using your speed (temporary or permanent), kill the monster in the hole/doorway, or perhaps just teleport it away. Step into the hole with your haste to see all the monsters in the room. d) Cast Dispel Evil repeatedly. The Protection from Evil will reduce or stop melee attacks. This should allow you to easily kill almost all of the monsters. (you might have to go in and clean up). If you have only speed 1, or can't get close enough to dig a hole, but do have Ethereal Openings, do this: Kill or (better) teleport away about 1/3 to 1/2 of the monsters first. Teleport away is best since it removes more monsters at a time. Then you can use Blink to try to get into the pit. Once inside, you can dispell at will. Note that you will want to cast Protection from Evil before Blinking around, and that the killing/teleport steps are required to free up some space in the pit. This will probably take several tries, but it is worth it. At high levels, Demon and Dragon pits can be handled the same way. You should prepare by having the appropriate resistance. MultiHued Dragons just do too much damage compared to the others, and you might want to take them on one by one. It is probably not worth the bother of trying to take out a multihued pit. This is NOT a good technique to use against graveyards (undead pits)! You can easily die if several drujs decide to cast nasty spells at you at once. Undead pits are hard, but kind of fun. Don't try them without some way to get to speed 3, some form of Hold Life or Nether Resistance, Free Action, and lots of heal items. A Helm of Telepathy or some other source of ESP is also very helpful. A good general procedure: a) kill all the monsters that phase through walls. They'll be the first to escape. Then kill b) the others (wraiths, wights, skeletons, vampires, etc.) One or two at a time -- lure them 'round a corner. Really nasty guys like Black Reavers, Nightcrawlers, etc. should probably be teleported away and fought elsewhere. Finally, when all of the mobile guys are dead, c) kill the drujs (they don't move). The ball-against-the-wall works, as does a direct target through a hole, but try to avoid being in their line of sight unless you have at least speed 3. Also try not to let more than one or two see you at any given time. Note that Black Reavers can "eat" walls, so when fighting an undead pit be *very* careful not to walk near any such holes and into the line of sight of the drujs before you're ready to go after the drujs. Undead pits can be so dangerous as to make it worth your while to avoid them. Think (and prepare) very carefully before even thinking of taking one on. 5.b. Spiffy rooms (aka vaults) ------------------------- a) Lesser vaults. These are things like the round rooms, "inner rooms" with oddly-shaped inner rooms, and (probably the most common) the squarish rooms with two large diagonal walls. These contain good treasures and monsters, but usually they are not wildly out of depth -- i.e., the monsters are created as normal for the level, although the large concentration of monsters makes the odds of finding a fairly nasty one (or three :-) quite good. b) Greater vaults. These are the huge rooms that fill half the screen and contain lots of very good objects and lots of out-of-depth monsters. Many of these are deliberately created out of depth. c) Incredible vaults. This is a subset of b). It's the "graph paper" room of crypts with one monster+treasure per crypt. These make type b) vaults seem like a piece of cake. Unless you've killed most of the uniques -- unlikely except near the very end -- expect to find LOTS of uniques, at least 6 or 8, with essentially no restriction on level. The treasure is equally incredible. I guess that about half of them contain at least one artifact when they're created. One of the simplest ways to deal with these rooms is by using a wand of teleport monster to get rid of the really tough ones. However, a really tough monster would probably be faster than you are, which means they could also breathe on you the same turn you dig through the wall. You have been warned. These rooms are -very- dangerous. The simplest way by far to deal with these rooms is to avoid them. Much better to be alive and without _ANY_ artifact than dead. To give you an idea of how dangerous, the source code states that monster in these rooms can be up to -40- levels out of depth. That's 2000 feet! 5.c. Uniques ------- By far the best way to deal with most of the uniques is the pillar trick. Indeed, this is so effective I think it's a bit unbalancing. Fighting Tiamat at speed 3 in an open space is difficult. Fighting Tiamat at speed 4 by chasing her around a pillar turns out to be pathetic. Perhaps this should be reworked. At higher levels, when you have multiple attacks, big plusses to damage and possibly some other advantanges, just beating on the monster can be effective. But not all uniques are killed by these two approaches: In the early going, I don't think there's a single unique other than Farmer Maggot who a player who's slightly aggressive will be able to beat by just whaling on. I subscribe to the pummel them and then retreat (phase door, teleport, whatever) rest and hit again - it takes longer since uniques regenerate quickly, but it's much more successful. At high levels, just straight forward pummeling works much better - that's what my 45th level priest does. And I've yet to use the pillar trick on _any_ unique. Again, if you drop levels at any sort of a decent rate, you're rarely going to have speed advantage on the uniques. Everything else, yes, but I can only get temporarily faster than uniques, and that's not enough for the pillar trick. I'm usually the same speed or, if anything, slower. 5.d. Rough Monsters -------------- An emperor lich has 1520 hit points, plus anything additional that it gains by draining mana (6 points per mana point drained) and charges (40 points per charge). Never let it attack you in melee, because it can destroy your wands, healing itself in the process, as well as draining your experience and dexterity. If you can get to speed 3, faster than the lich, it is easy to kill; just fight, move back, fight, move back, and so on. You will still need a lot of cure wounds potions, unless you let it chase you around a pillar, as in the AMHD technique. Note (for people familiar with Moria) that an emperor lich is (relatively) less nasty than in Moria. 5.e. Invisibles ---------- One tactic, which is dangerous but still worth thinking about is fighting an invisible creature, and a group of monsters at the same time. Since only one monster can be in a position at a time, suspicious 'gaps' in the middle of groups of monsters can show you where these annoying pests are. 6. Classic, simple, and very useful tricks --------------------------------------- ***** Useful Trick #1 : Running in a circle. ***** Find an area with a relatively small path that goes in a circle. The path should be smaller than 1/3 of the screen (like one of those large room in a room rooms). If you are fighting, you can run in a circle, and they will happily chase after you, and your hit points and mana will slowly creep up. You can then beat on whoever, and start running again. This doesn't work if the monster is faster than you are, or can do damage from a distance. ***** Useful Trick #2 : The pillar trick. ***** Find a monster slower than you are. Find or make a pillar. A pillar would be a single block of wall with one open space on all four sides. When the monster is right next to you, hit the monster. Then next turn, move to the other side of the wall. The monster will follow you. Hit the monster. Move to the other side of the wall. Continue till the monster is dead. This doesn't work with two monsters at once, btw. Example of pillar: . .#. . ***** Useful Trick #3 : taking advantage of stupid monsters. ***** Monsters always attempt to take the straight path towards you. So, if there is a wall between you, the monsters won't move, cuz they're trying to move straight towards you (towards the wall). This makes it easy to take out a group of monsters. An example is best. Let's say you're fighting a bunch of Ogres. OOOOOOOOO ##############'### @ The O's will stay right where they are, since they're all trying to stay as close to you as they can. Notice the door off to the right. If you walk towards the door, you will reach this point: OOOOOOOO ##############O### @ Where one ogre has gone far enough right to go through the door. Now go left again: OOOOOOOO ##############'### @ O The one ogre that made it through the door will follow you, the rest will stay on their side (duh). You can take out that single ogre, and repeat as many times as you want. You can vary this a bit, and let two ogres 'out' if you can take on two at a time with no problem. The only annoying thing with this method is that the dead monsters tend to leave a lot of treasure you need to clean up, to give the other monsters a chance to drop treasure too, but it's a good safe method. Works really well with telepathy, too. Subnote: corridors like this make phase door a lot safer, since if you end up on the other side of the wall, you're (usually) completely safe, unless the other monster can go through walls or something. ***** Useful Trick #4 : The sleep spell in the corridor trick ***** A sleep monster wand or "Sleep I" spell is required for this tactic effective against group monsters. It has been used to deadly effect against orc pits and troll pits, but is handy before then at times: In a room: In a corridor: ####+### # # ################# # oooo### # ppppppppxppp@ # # ooxooo @ # ############### # # oooo##### # # ######## These represent some typical situations. In either case you sleep the first creature in the corridor. You then cast a ball spell (or use a wand of stinking cloud/frost ball/...) over their head and past by three or more spaces (at least to the 'x' marked in each case). This prevents the damage spell waking up the slept creature. If you run out of mana, duck around the corner to rest. Periodically the slept creature will awaken, so you may need to sleep it again. If you don't have ball spells, you can always just beat on the first guy, and then sleep the 2nd, rest, then beat... etc. You can often destroy large numbers of creatures with little risk this way. If you have lots of hit points, the sleep spell itself may be unnecessary. Just let the one creature hit you - but then you don't need to be careful not to wake the front guy up either. You can always sleep the first creature and rest. Note - for monsters that shoot some sort of missile/ball weapon (like rangers or dragons), you need to do it so only the first creature can see you - #p# #p# #p# #p# #p########## # @ ############ If you stood in the corner, the creatures behind the slept monster would shoot some weapon, which would wake up that monster, and screw it all up. variation : using a Rune of Protection to block the first monster. ***** Useful Trick # 5: The easy way to kill any non-moving creature ***** To start, a little background info. Playing around with the targeting option in Angband (e.g. PC version 1.31 and later) I noticed that I could aim for a particular spot on the floor. Ball type spells affect an area, not just that spot on the floor. Now, if you cant see the monster, but you can target a spot next to the monster, the ball spell's area of effect will encompass the little sucker, and damage it. I'll show you a pretty usual setup. ########################## #........................# #.######################.# #.# #.# #.# #.# #.# s. <-target that #.# #., dot!! #.# #.# #.# #.##### ################.# #........................# ####### ################## # # # # # # #@# <- You are here. # # Now, through experience, Korash the Dwarven Priest (who is my alter personality!) knows where the Druj is (detect monster) and he knows that the monster can't see him! But, he also knows that by targeting the spot marked, Orb of Draining or whatever you choose to use will hit the Druj!. This way, you can kill them off, your mana will recover quicker than its hitpoints. And for a high level character the Druj dies while you still have some mana left. I know that for Korash, about 10-15 Orb of Draining shots and a Hand or Eye Druj is dead. That works out to be about 70-100 mana. A bit .. but not too much. This of course, require detection, ball spells, and likely a digging tool to make the tunnel to shoot through, so might not be easy for the warrior types to use. ***** Useful Trick #6 : The Close the door trick: ***** When low on hit points and being pursued, you can't always set up the 'go round in a circle' trick, but wandering around can be dangerous. Here is the alternative to the 'run in a circle' trick: ########## ooo ####'##### #@# If you can get 1 space ahead of your pursuer(s), and on the other side of a door, then close it. Yes, the pursuer is just going to open it again, so you don't seem to have gained much - but you have - you have gained one free turn of rest. Close it again...and again. Soon you'll see your hp (and mana if you have it) going up. If they don't open it for a turn, you have to decide whether to steal the extra breathing space by running, or wait. In the arrangement above, if the front orc moves left at some stage, they will have a chance of getting through after you. Some other arrangements are safer, like this one: ### #### o'@ #### ### Note: This won't work at all against monsters that are faster than you are. ***** Useful Trick #7 : Keeping a tight lid on possible explosions. ***** If you ever encounter a swarm of exploding somethings that you can't kill, one simple way to take care of it is to simply close a few doors, and lock them in a room. Since they can't multiply outside of this room, you can leave. This works well for Giant Fleas that run rampant, too. ################## #w ww ww w w w w #########w ww ww wwww .......@+www ww ww w www ######### wwww ww www w #w w w w ################ In addition, this is an easy way to get easy experience at early levels. Since worms are easy to kill, they are easy experience. You can let worms multiply, and then open the door, kill a few, and then close the door at little to no risk. Be sure not to lock yourself in a dead end - trying to run through a room of white worms can kill a character quite easily. ***** Useful Trick #8: Death by Rune of Protection. ***** Runes of Protection are portable walls (almost). If you have Rune of Protection scrolls (or the Glyph of Warding prayer), you can set up a configuration like this: # # # # #########N# ....@...^^# ########### where N is a generic Nasty and the ^'s are Runes. First, you place Runes in a corner as shown. Then, you find some way to lure N into the corner. Perhaps tossing a spell at it, then running away. Even better, ironically, is an item of Aggravate Monster, because then you can cause a distant monster to wake up, start pursuing you, and walk right into the corner. Remember to take the damn thing OFF after a couple of turns (unless it's Deathwreaker/Zarcuthra/The One Ring...). Here, in this setup, N: a) cannot cast spells/breaths. It can't see you. b) is pinned between a rock (its move algorithm that tries to move it towards you) and a hard place (the Runes). In other words, it's stuck. So just use the splash-the-ball-spell- off-the-wall trick, previously described, to kill it. This is a natural for priests, as they have the Glyph/Orb combo.; other classes will have to scrape around for the Rune of Protection scrolls. **BIG CAVEAT** Remember that Runes can break! There is a LEVEL/550 chance (LEVEL is the monster's level; the 550 is specified in CONSTANTS.H in the source) that a monster can break a Rune on any given move. If either rune, especially the one nearest you, breaks, then you may want to leave. Thus, you shouldn't use this technique unless you (a) have a good escape spell/item and (b) can handle one attack of whatever the monster can throw at you. Note that this is not a good thing to use against high-level, high-speed monsters. . . ***** Userful Trick #9: Dealing with monsters that summon. ***** This is restricted to relatively high-level characters. Monsters that summon - quylthulgs, many higher-level uniques, etc - summon monsters in spaces adjacent to you. As a result, if these spaces are already filled, the summoner can't summon any more. If summoning is the monster's main attack, as with Quylthulgs, then you can wait for the summoner to summon ONCE, then target the summoner and toss ball spells at it. You need ball spells or wands/rods to do this, since the summoned monsters will block bolts, and prevent melee attacks against the summoner. A gnome priest winner killed Qlzqqlzuup this way - its only spells are summons, and so he simply Orbed it to death. Of course, this only works if the first summon gives relatively harmless monsters. Ant, reptile, spider, and hound summons often give relatively easy to deal with monsters, especially if you have lots of resistances and a reasonable way to heal yourself. In any event, eyeball the summoned critters before plunging in. If you find yourself surrounded by Chaos Hounds or Greater Undead, it's a good time to teleport out and try again later. Alternatively just telport them away as soon as you seem them! (targetting is useful here). I killed one of the uniqe Q's when it was in a large pit:- ########### # @ ########### #Q ########## Dug diagonally then orb of drained it to death. These pits are nice for killing monsters that summon since you can also just telport them away with one spell..only problem is they have limited space to drop items. ***** Useful trick #10: Using an immobile/weak monster as armor ***** Heal monster allows you to hit a fairly weak creature with an area effect rod or spell without killing that creature. This is handy when there is a much more dangerous monster behind the weaker one. ########## @ mp ########## For example: You are in a hallway with a brown mold and a ninja. The mold is two spaces to your right. The ninja is behind the mold, three spaces to your right. You can cast heal monster on the mold a few times, then hit the mold with fireballs from your rod until the adjacent ninja dies. This tactic is, of course, not always useful. Spellcasting and breathing monsters will ignore your barricade. Harmless monsters do not always appear when needed (though they can be encouraged with speed monster). Your blocking monster may die on you, if you aren't careful. Also, you need a reusable area-effect attack. Haste monster can be used on a relatively weak monster so as to block a much nastier creature. Here's an example: You are in a room with a kobold and a night mare. By casting Haste Monster on the kobold two or three times, you may (depending on their locations) be able to get the kobold, rather than the night mare, next to you when you run from the room. ########### # q # # k # # # #####@##### # # # # This buys you time to run up some stairs or get some mana back. If you have a rod of light, you can blast the night mare repeatedly, without needing to face its attack. Slow Monster can be used if the kobold is doing significant damage. There are many limitations on this tactic. Breathing and spell-casting monsters are best dealt with in other ways. You need a conveniently placed wimpy monster. And you do, of course, end up with a kobold on your trail. 7. Levels where object X becomes common and other noteworthy things. ----------------------------------------------------------------- There are spoiler sheets for this, but remember the standard levels for gain stat potions: 1500 - 1600 feet - the other stats besides Charisma. Charisma potions aren't particularly necessary, and are cheap, so don't hang around 1000 feet merely for Charisma. 1500 are physical stat potions - STR, DEX, CON 1600 are mental stat potions - INT, WIS At 2000 or so (I forget) there are Augmentation potions, but it's a pretty rough jungle down there.