How to Kill Morgoth: Playing Angband

[Huinesoron]

Shuri II - Half-Troll Druid

Shuri's been taking things fairly gently: she's down on DL 22 so far, nowhere near the L30 cutoff. But her 'better armour, better weapons' plan is paying off:

• She found - but is no longer using - Glamdring, an excellent flaming sword. The reason she's dropped it is that she now has two spears: Aiglos, the frozen spear of Gil-Galad, and the (nameless) Spear of Orome. They each give her different boosts, so she's switching between them at need. (Standard is Orome, because it has +4 Speed on it!)
• She also paid quite a bit of money for a Longbow of Lothlorien. Not because she intends to shoot anything (pfffft), but because it has bonus powers: +dexterity, and protection from fear and paralysis. For an otherwise useless slot, that's brilliant.
• She has finally pulled together the basic resistances + poison. The five are spread across four different items, but hopefully eventually she'll be able to combine some.
• She also has a very nice Dwarven plate armour boosting her strength and constitution. It's heavy enough that it reduces her mana slightly, but... eh.
• And she has the Metal Cap of Thengel, which is perfect: she gets +3 Wisdom (her spellcasting stat), and protection from confusion (which is a rare protection for a very common problem).

Things aren't perfect. She just had a long, long battle with a huorn, because she had no effective way of killing it and no way to send it away. But she won eventually, and has taken out her share of Unique monsters (18 so far! Wormtongue is dead.) She's very much a punching character who casts spells when she needs to attack at range.

One thing I sadly have no use for is her Fox Form. I think it has boosted stealth? But it can't carry as much, so she slows down if she shifts - and a slow, fragile creature isn't much good.

hS

[Huinesoron]

Shuri II - Half-Troll Druid

Still not dead, but not doing great. Shuri has tried three times to explore DL40, and on each attempt has been stymied by horrible monsters. Her worst moments so far have been a pack of Gravity Hounds which threw her around the room and brought her down to 2 health (out of 350!), and a Master Mystic who summoned Manwe-knows-what and knocked her down to 20 before she could teleport away.

She has some nice equipment - she's found a reusable Rod of Speed, which combined with her equiment means she can be at +17 speed whenever she wants, on top of her spell to Slow a monster - but is lacking two crucial things:

- Teleport Other. She desperately needs a way to send big scary monsters away. Most of her 'flee the level' moments have been because something decided it was going to summon more monsters, and just overwhelmed her. A wand of Teleport Other would make DL40 a breeze.

- Her dungeon spellbooks. Where are they?! She has space for 6 more spells, but no books to learn them from. I'm really feeling the lack.

She's back in town at the moment, buying some more healing potions - she goes through those things like crazy - and after that is going to try running DL38 and 39 a few times in the hopes of getting some good equipment before facing 40 again.

She did kill a huorn just now, though. That was satisfying.

hS

[Huinesoron]

Shuri II - Half-Troll Druid

Still still not dead, and what a difference a day (or two) makes! Yesterday Shuri fought and killed Mim (Betrayer Of Turin), and he dropped one of her dungeon spellbooks. "Goodness," she thought, "that was lucky!"

Well, it was - as was stumbling across both of the other two in the following 24 hours.

So Shuri is now thoroughly equipped with spells. Her absolute best two are Haste Self, which fully replaces her rod and potions of sleep, and Become Pukel-man, which transforms her into a living statue.

Her Pukel-form is insane. It loses 5 speed (but she's currently at +9 from her equipment, or +19 if Hasted by her new spell), isn't stealthy (but who needs stealth?), and as a transformation can't use any items (but transforming back is instantaneous, so she can always transform-teleport if she's in danger). In exchange, she gets:

+4 Strength, +4 Constitution, +20 to her saving throw (taking it to 85%), +20 to Armour, +0.7 blows/turn, protection from stunning, resistance to Shards, immunity to poison, Damage Reduction, and something which reduces her chance of having her experience points leeched away to nil, without actually being Hold Life itself.

This is incredible. She punched Tom and Bill the Stone-Trolls to death without taking any damage. She smashed her way through a massive pit of Wights, each of which tried (and failed) to steal her XP. She cracked open a vault and just beat up everything inside it. She beat up Lorgan the Easterling - who had twice forced her to flee a level - and then punched all the monsters he summoned to death as well.

On top of that, she's very nearly got full resistance coverage from her equipment. She's never seen Dark or Sound resistance, and has had to give up her amulet with Disenchantment resist to get Nexus resist back, but other than that she has a full set. Her only major hole is protection from blindness, and I guess Hold Life if she's not being a punching statue at the moment.

She's currently on DL 41, with a character level of 34. When she hits CL 35, she'll pick up three new spells: Eagle's Flight (become a Great Eagle; I'm assuming this at least grants massive speed boosts), Revitalise (restores all stats and XP to max, AKA "who needs Hold Life anyway?"), and Rift (shoots a beam of gravity that has a chance of teleporting the monsters it hits away, aka "stupid Night Mare, get out of my way").

... oh, and she bought a wand of Teleport Other from the shop, but with her Pukel form she hasn't had to use it yet!

hS

[Huinesoron]

Shuri II - Half-Troll Druid - RIP



This was a foolish death. I was fighting a Maia of Mandos in Pukel-form, and just held down the forward button and punched it. I wasn't aware that Maiar could shapeshift, and had about a second and a half to process that a) the Maia was now a Time Vortex, b) they can breathe Time not just to reduce your XP and stats, but to do serious damage, and c) Shuri II was in serious danger of

> You thump the time vortex.
> You strike the time vortex.
> The time vortex breathes time.
> You die.

It's always the breath weapons that get me. Hounds, Hydra, Drakes, and now Vortices. None of my high-level characters have just been stabbed to death.

Shuri slides neatly into... third? Third place on my chart, dying on DL 44: two levels above Lupa, and miles above Waterlily. Despite that, I think she might actually be my favourite so far: the Druid gets Haste, Slow, and a weak Teleport Other spell, plus the all-encompassing Pukel-Form. With the truly ridiculous speed bonuses she'd pulled in (she was natively at +9, which could have been +12 if I'd kept my old armour instead of swapping this one in for the resistances, and then she could cast Haste for another +10), she was well set to stomp her way down into the second half of the dungeon.

I'm probably taking a break from Angband for a while now - the constant deaths do take a toll - but for the future, remaining races are:

- Human (my first character, Haleth, was human, but no version hit DL30).
- Half-elf (human optimised for shooting)
- Elf (the quintessential Ranger)
- Gnome (innate device user who can't be paralysed; shares Elf stat bonuses, so plausibly a Noldo)

Classes yet to be played are:

- Priest (the magic half of Waterlily; gets bonuses from Blessed weapons, which show up a fair bit; the Spear of Orome is one, actually)
- Rogue (casts some Mage spells and knows Pickpocketing, which... steals... stuff? I don't know, but it sounds like it would go well with high Stealth, perhaps by way of the Bat or Fox forms)

No idea where I'm likely to go with that!

hS

[Huinesoron]

And we're back!

Looking at my last post, and having just (2 months ago, that is) played a casting class in the Druid, I decided I'd leave the Priest for now and go with a Rogue. I didn't want to use a baseline Human, which left me with Elf, Budget Elf, or Elf With Extras. I decided to take the extras, and so we are now a Gnomish Rogue.

Officially, the Gnome is about 3 feet tall, but in Tolkienverse that's silly: "Gnome" is just an old term for the Noldor. My first thought for a Noldorin lady who was willing to play a bit fast and loose with the rules was of course Aredhel, and we were very nearly her... but then I remembered her Aunt, one of the few Noldorin adult women known to have joined the Exile. Sure, all we know about her is her names and that she hung out with Fingolfin, but that means we don't know she didn't become a reckless thief and launch a quixotic solo assault on Angband. She might've. You can't prove otherwise.

I decided that calling her Lalwen was a bit grim, given the other holder of that name, so now we are...

Írimë I



Well that went well. -_-

Írimë I was knocked from full health to dead in one turn by a pack of monsters she'd unleashed from a trapped chest; shades of Pandora there! Gorlim got the final blow, but I know she also got hit with acid and a bunch of other stuff; they were actually out of sight at the time, so I can't confirm exactly what got her.

The reason she went down so fast was because she'd earlier tried to take on a unique Easterling named Lokkar or something who summoned a whole bunch of stuff, some of which drained her stats pretty much to bedrock. She had basically no staying power, and Gorlim's mob took advantage of it.

Now, technically, Írimë I should get a portrait - both her character and dungeon level are past 30. But after seven runs, I feel like the early dungeon is a bit easier now, so I'm increasing the requirements: for a character to get a portrait (and her name/class retired), she needs to either reach DL 40 (2000'), or CL 35 - or both. The only ones so far who didn't get at least that far are the earliest pair, Kaitlyn and Cheri, so after the Rogue and Priest we'll be revisiting the Blackguard and Warrior.

For now, though...

Írimë II

Let's see how this goes.

Írimë is a fun character to play. Once she gets everything online, she has fantastic stealth (Írimë I's ranged between Superb and Heroic), and a 100% chance to disarm any trap she can see. As a Gnome, she also automatically identifies wands and staffs, which saves a lot of mucking about.

As an Elf spinoff, she's got the Dexterity of a Ranger - Írimë I got half her kills with a slingshot she picked up around level 5. Her starting spellbook gives her Phase Door and a collection of mapping spells, including the amazing Detect Objects which maps and identifies every bit of treasure nearby. A dungeon level becomes a matter of spotting the cool stuff and making a beeline for it. Her dungeon spellbook gives her Teleport Self and Teleport Other, as well as a spell to let her automatically teleport after using Pickpocket.

Pickpocket lets her steal a monster's drop without bothering to kill it. What this means is that if a monster is asleep, stealthy Írimë can stroll up to it, rifle its pockets, and stroll or teleport away without it ever waking up. I didn't make much use of this, but once Írimë II makes it to the point where she has all her spells and just needs better equipment, I think I just might.

... but all that's for the future. Right now she's at level 5, 100 feet underground (DL 2), and every Soldier leaves her nearly dead. Let's see how this goes...

hS

[Huinesoron]

Írimë II

... is doing okay. She hasn't had the fantastic run of artefacts her predecessor did: she's CL 18 on DL 15 with only the unique ice dagger to her name, when at this point Írimë I was already almost fully dressed in named items. But she's fine.

Her funniest moment so far was when I couldn't kill Wormtongue. Instead, she used a staff of Sleep on him and picked his pocket - pulled some gold, a shield, and a Robe of Resistance. Then she retreated back to town and put the robe on.

When she next entered the dungeon, Grima was right by her entry point. He was clearly waiting for her; and the obvious reason is that last time they fought, he fell asleep, and when he woke up his clothes were gone...

Anyway, he's dead now and she's still wearing his robe.

hS

[Huinesoron]

Írimë II

We've reached DL 35 - one level above where Írimë I had her fatal encounter with Gorlim - and the two characters are very different. Írimë I had four or five artefacts; Írimë II has only one, a Trident of Wrath she picked up on Level 20. It can do up to 530 damage per turn in the right circumstances, so it's entirely worth keeping around.

The rest of her kit is ordinary items with lots of boosts. She has a Jewel Encrusted Crown of Might which increases her strength, dexterity, and constitution; an Amulet of the Magi that does the same for her intelligence and searching while also protecting her from blindness and letting her see invisible things, a beautiful pair of leather boots which grant +6 speed(!)... she's doing okay. She has all the basic resistances, plus light and dark, shards and disenchantment; and her stealth is Heroic.

The two big things she lacks are: resistance to poison, at a point where she's starting to hit high-level hydras and the like; and a decent light source. She's stuck using a basic 2-light-radius lantern - not even a Lantern of Brightness! All those times I've complained that my only artefact is the Phial of Galadriel have come back to bite me...

She's also killed 37 unique enemies; in fact, Lorgan and Gorlim (the killers of Írimë I) are pretty much the lowest-level uniques still alive. She's getting towards the ones I've only seen a couple of times, including some I don't think I've ever killed.

... oh, and she's picked up the three elemental daggers, which she carries around in case I feel like throwing them at things in memory of Lupa's party trick. ^_^

hS