348 replies to this topic

[BeefontheBone]

Cave Spiders kill so many characters - at depth they're generally the most dangerous things around because they have a couple of attacks at d6 damage a time. Always fight them in a corridor and try to blast a bunch of them from a distance at that point. Giant Spiders are dangerous in the sewer quest because they're out of depth, but otherwise fine - that quest should be left until you either need the light and dark resistance (i.e. are a vampire ) or want the experience and have something to deal with the gremlin and see invisible or infravision.

I almost always play a chaos warrior or a beastman (or both) - the randomness is indeed lots of fun (especially at the beginning - it's pretty dull until you get to the wargs at 5 otherwise.

[A. J. Raffles]

I've got a few more daft beginner's questions to ask, I'm afraid...

1. Which shield should I choose - a Small Leather Shield of Reflection (3 +7) or the Large Leather Shield of Celegorm (4 + 20)? I know the latter is an artifact, which is why I'm using it at the moment, but isn't the missile/spell reflection actually more useful than the resistances?

2. Which makes more sense as my main fighting weapon - a Lance of Burning (2d8) (+8 +5) or a Flamberge (3d7) (+7 +7)? At the moment I'm fighting with the Flamberge because it should do more damage, but I'm not entirely sure whether it really does...

and finally the n00b-question.
3. Are there any quests I could reasonably hope to do with a level 18 character without getting myself killed straight away?

[Juni Ori]

Flamberge is either a single handed sword or in more commonly a two handed with a waving (flaming, thus the name) blade. Try googling for more.

Lances in reality were single handed weapons, dunno about ZangbandTK, but thinking that usually Flamberge is two handed, lance would be better choise both because it would allow you to wield a shield and its name suggests it causes fire damage - either by only damaging "cold" monsters more (and "hot" monsters less) or it has some extra damage value because of it. Dunno. Just trying to be helpful.

[BeefontheBone]

I'd say definitely the artifact, unless you've got the basic resistances elsewhere (it provides all the basic, light and dark and probably nether) - you don't get hit by that many missiles, and they're generally not very powerful until quite late on; you'll be perfectly comfortable taking on knight archers, quiver slots, novice rangers and black orcs without reflection. View reflection as a nice bonus, but don't drop resistances or other abilities ('cept maybe feather falling) for it. The artifact will also resist disenchantment better than the other one, and not be damaged by elemental damage. You could always keep the reflecting one in a home in case you need to fight a bunch of tough missile firing monsters later.

The flamberge will do more base damage on average, but the lance has a slightly better chance to hit, is possibly lighter (so you'll be less burdened), and has the fire brand - it does double damage against monsters which don't resist fire, making it better overall. It'll provide fire resistance too. Worth trying to get that +dam on it up with a few scrolls of enchant weapon deadliness; you'll probably start finding them before too long, but they're pretty affordable in the town. If you're a chaos warrior, don't bother - odds are your patron will give you an ego weapon or chaos blade before too long anyhow (unless it's Balo).

Regarding quests, if you've not done any at all yet, then start with the first one given by the mayor in the outpost - it's entirely possible (though not adviseable heh) to do that one right off the bat before you go into the dungeon for some characters. You get an enchanted longsword. The sewer quest given in the expensive town whose name I forget (east and north of the outpost) is dead easy, just be prepared to kill the gremlin before it can breed and have a source of see invisible or detect creatures. There's a ring of light and darkness resistance as a reward. Then go back to the mayor at the outpost and do the warg quest on level 5 of the dungeon for plenty of experience and a shield to sell. After that, the next one you'll be able to do is the orc camp quest, but that's going to be tough for a while yet, especially if you've not done it before and don't know what you'll be facing For that one, get your stealth up if you can, it's much easier if you can avoid waking all the orcs up.
There's nothing stopping you accepting all the quests you're offered, btw - there's no time limit, and the descriptions include an estimate of their difficulty (expressed as an equivalent dungeon level) - unless you've done them before, add about 5 to that number before thinking about them - some are quite heavily underestimated (others overestimated, like the bandit camp).

[A. J. Raffles]

Hmm, thanks, Juni, but they're both one-handed weapons, and as far as I can tell it's the lance that does the extra fire damage, not the flamberge...

BeefontheBone, on Sep 26 2007, 09:27 AM, said:

The flamberge will do more base damage on average, but the lance has a slightly better chance to hit, is possibly lighter (so you'll be less burdened), and has the fire brand - it does double damage against monsters which don't resist fire, making it better overall. It'll provide fire resistance too. Worth trying to get that +dam on it up with a few scrolls of enchant weapon deadliness; you'll probably start finding them before too long, but they're pretty affordable in the town. If you're a chaos warrior, don't bother - odds are your patron will give you an ego weapon or chaos blade before too long anyhow (unless it's Balo).

It is Balo. Does that mean I should invest in some scrolls?

[Juni Ori]

Where did I go wrong?

Quote

lance would be better choise both because it would allow you to wield a shield and its name suggests it causes fire damage

Anyways, I'm only a distraction here, so I'll shut up, but I was close to truth!

[BeefontheBone]

Quote

It is Balo. Does that mean I should invest in some scrolls?

Yeah, may as well - he only rarely rewards followers with weapons. The scrolls' success rate depends on your level, so if you're close to levelling up do that first. If you visit one of the stores which enchant things for you, they can give you an idea of what sort of + you can expect to get to without scrolls failing, but it's still worth trying to get it one or two higher than that.

Zangband doesn't distinguish between one- and two-handed weapons, weirdly.

[A. J. Raffles]

BeefontheBone, on Sep 26 2007, 10:13 AM, said:

Zangband doesn't distinguish between one- and two-handed weapons, weirdly.

But aren't there weapons that are two-handed at least according to their name?

Anyway: I just gained a level, and Balo decided to give me two extra levels and turn my character into a skeleton, so now I need to get used to my character's new look. Talk about random...

[Juni Ori]

What modifications did it cause? I've never been changed into skeleton (in the game, irl I already am )...

[BeefontheBone]

Changes your race to a skeleton - he'llve hit you with the polymorph effect, which has a chance to do that. Basically, it'll replace all your previous racial characteristics with a skeleton's - stat modifiers, resistances and other flags (now immune cut, immune poison, resist cold at some level IIRC, see invisible I think), experience requirements, other abilities like the undead inability to eat food or drink potions (though they still get the magical effects of potions, which fall through their jaws and splash around them). you'll want to head back to town unless you've got some scrolls of satisfy hunger - otherwise you risk starving to "death". One of my more successful characters managed to polymorph himself into a Yeek of all things (using the polymorph self mutation) a few levels before he died.

EDIT: See, now everybody's doing it. Slortar just turned my Beastman into a Half-Orc.

[A. J. Raffles]

Yes, I noticed about the food... Oh well, at least scrolls should be lighter than rations.
I think my character's not quite as strong now, but the see invisible thing is actually quite useful. And skeletons don't seem to need quite as many experience points as half-titans to level up, so I suppose it more or less evens out. Boggles XIV is level 23 now, which is makes him more experienced than any of his ancestors.

[BeefontheBone]

Half-Titans are very strong as you'd expect, but do indeed take ages to level up. Skeletons are more fun but a bit tricky, and you'll no longer be resistant to chaos (though as a chaos warrior, you've a good chance of acquiring it from an item and eventually get it as a class ability). You get shard and life drain resistance too, both of which are useful sooner. Undead races are generally more tricky to play, but powerful. Spectres are bloomin' impossible at the start but can apparently be awesome spellcasters - I've never gotten past about the second level though

There's a ton of information at Zangband.org, including a fuller manual and spoilers for the artifact random abilities, mutations, Chaos patrons (very useful info if you play chaos warriors a lot like I do) etc.

[A. J. Raffles]

BeefontheBone, on Sep 26 2007, 02:43 PM, said:

Half-Titans are very strong as you'd expect, but do indeed take ages to level up. Skeletons are more fun but a bit tricky, and you'll no longer be resistant to chaos (though as a chaos warrior, you've a good chance of acquiring it from an item and eventually get it as a class ability). You get shard and life drain resistance too, both of which are useful sooner. Undead races are generally more tricky to play, but powerful. Spectres are bloomin' impossible at the start but can apparently be awesome spellcasters - I've never gotten past about the second level though

There's a ton of information at Zangband.org, including a fuller manual and spoilers for the artifact random abilities, mutations, Chaos patrons (very useful info if you play chaos warriors a lot like I do) etc.

Cheers.

Level 24... This is great fun, actually - almost like being an ADOM-newbie again.

[BeefontheBone]

Looking good so far.

Those stats are the result of having Slortar as patron; he's boosted them all no less than 4 times, as well as increasing wisdom (meh) and con individually. No artifacts so far though (unless that body armour is one), not even the Phial at this stage, which is mildly annoying. Plenty of ego weapons generated though.

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[A. J. Raffles]

Nice.