Roguelike Comp #1-And Chaos Ensued

[Thomkal]

And so it begins! The Comp character is attached, let me know if there's a problem with the file. It goes in your lib/save folder. Z+Angband can be found at mangojuice75 - Z+Angband if you haven't downloaded it yet. This comp will last until 11:59 EST Monday April 20. Once you started the game, you are allowed to make a new save file after you've run your new char through the stores, so you do not have to repeat that tedious chore after restarting the character due to the death of the previous one. Put the file in a seperate folder as I believe you will need to delete the comp file and perhaps the files in the user folder under the character's name before you can restart the character.

The goal of the comp is to either win the game by defeating the main bad guy at the bottom of the dungeon, the Serpent of Chaos, or get to the highest player level possible before the end of the comp. From reading the help files, you have to obtain a quest from one of the towns or cities to get to the level the Serpent is on. So it looks like you MUST do the various quests you can get from the town hall in the towns/cities. (use the capital letter Q in the town hall/warrior hall to get quests by the way, smallcase q won't work)

Feel free to alter the graphics, fonts, and certain options (like the keyset-I have it on roguelike), but do NOT change options that would make the game easier/harder for you as not everyone will be changing that option. In looking over the options, I think about the only one that should not be changed is the Monsters behaving stupidly one (not set), but I may have missed something. Ask if you aren't sure before changing an option.

Feel free to ask questions about the game itself since its a new experience for us, strategy questions, helpful tips, etc are up to you-this is a competition remember. But might be nice to post here since this is the first of a hopefully numerous many comps. One tip I will give is to remember the spell system differences in this game. Check your spell limits with the ~ command, though I believe there will be an in-game warning when you come close to filling up a spell-tier. Remember too you can "spell focus" to enhance a spell you have already learned-read through the magic system rules through the help (?) command.

To get an official entry into the comp, you must post the character dump here (do a Shift-C to get to your character sheet, then f to file-file should be in the lib/user folder). These dumps are a lot more extensive than the Angband dumps-they are pretty cool actually. You may want to limit posting them during the comp since they are so big, and may confuse me when I'm looking for final character dumps at the end. So mark your entries in big bold letters or something so I can find it easier.

Please though do post your stories of adventure, misadventure, wondrous finds, and ^%^$% your demon patron throws at you, etc. I chose a demon patron, Balo the Jester because he has a wide variety of "gifts" and not too many of the really horrible ones. Remember too that you can get mutations as a beastman when you gain a level. Check them through your ~ command. You should be able to activate your useable ones through the Use Bonus Power command (U for original keyset, O for roguelike).

The starting equipment in the stores is not that great, but that seems to be planned in Z+. I've played a few test characters, and often times have had to go into dungeons without something I normally would have on a character starting out-in this case it looks like no missile weapons, shovels, or lanterns. It would have been mind-numbing to get a comp char with a good demon patron and then find a good starting set-up so deal with it. I like the challenge actually of not having everything I want on a starting character.

If you haven't played the game yet, once you get the quests, you can view them through the ~ command, and then you can find them on the world map (Shift-M command). You will see a staircase somewhere in the wilderness. And remember there can be other dungeons out there too, as well as farms which may offer quests. One of the quests you get starting off is very interesting, for what you need to kill and where it is (let me know when you find it )

Okay enough of my ramblings, go play and come back with any questions, game stopping problems, etc. Please let me know if you are participating though even if you aren't going to post much about how you are doing in the comp.

Good luck!

[Malificent]

Graphically, I'm playing with David Gervais 32x32 tiles - if you decide to use those, you'll have to increase the width and height of your tiles (options under Windows menu) quite a bit. It definitely creates a different play experience. You see less tiles per screen, but it definitely improves my play experience.

[Thomkal]

where can you get those tiles Mali? I've not played with them before but have been curious.

[Malificent]

Originally Posted by Thomkal

where can you get those tiles Mali? I've not played with them before but have been curious.

Latest revisions are located here:

Free File Hosting Made Simple - MediaFire

There is a Z+ folder with the files. From their readme:

**REQUIRED** 32x32.bmp and mask32.bmp go in your angband/lib/xtra/graf folder
**REQUIRED** graf-dvg.prf goes in your angband/lib/pref folder
Replace the existing files with these.

**OPTIONAL** z+angband.ini goes in your angband folder (main folder)
This file contains the optimal starting settings DVG 32x32 tileset.

[Thomkal]

Thanks Mali, trying them out now. Look nicer than the others that's for sure though its a bit darker than old tiles. Didn't download the optional file, not sure if that matters.

[Thomkal]

A helpful tip-some dungeon rooms contain large "pools" of other vegatation/liquid-some of which can be hazardous to your health!

[Malificent]

If you don't know this tip already - make sure you always know your escape route. You will inevitably fall into a bad situation and you'll be hating yourself the first time it happens when you don't have a scroll of Teleport or a potion of Healing on you.

[Malificent]

Day 1 - Lunchtime report:

Duinith, novice Chaos warrior, buckled up his gear during lunch and descended into the dark dungeon depths. I was a little nervous, not having any scrolls of Phase Door available to me early on, but I had armored up and bought a potion of healing.

It started off a little rocky - upon gaining my first level, I had Balo the Jester tell me that I didn't deserve the level and take away some of my experience, dropping me back to level 1. But after that, the early levels went quickly - once I started learning magic spells, the experience from casting the spells for the first time ended up propelling me through the levels pretty quickly.

And Balo, fickle patron that he is, shined on me. At level 3, I gained a plus to all stats. At level 4, a Pike of Slay Orc (+1, 10%). Although I didn't identify it until later. At level 5, he told me I needed worthier opponents and summoned...wait for it...wait for it...a soldier ant. I disemboweled it in 1 turn and laughed at my patron.

Perhaps not the wisest idea, as at level 6, he told me again I needed worthier opponents and summoned 2 gray snakes, a jackal, and Fang, Farmer Maggot's dog. And to make it worse, I was at a T intersection and surrounded. While none of them were particularly worrisome by themselves, they were beating me down faster than I was going to be able to kill them. So I activated my escape plan and cast Blink. That moved me out of harm's way and I managed to kill one at a time, leaving Fang for last.

I continued to descend down the levels, occasionally Word of Recalling back up when I overloaded on random junk. At level 7, Balo chose to mold me, increasing my Dex. At level 8, he told my deed had earned me a worthy blade, which I put in my backpack until I had a chance to recall up.

My biggest mistake so far was made at 200' where I foolishly fought a red jelly hand to hand instead of slowly ray of frosting it to death - the hand-to-hand combat cost me 3 STR. And then finally, at the depths of 250' down, I was once again rewarded for my loyalty at level 9 with an amulet, ring mail, and guissarme. Time to ascend.

When I get back up to town, I search for some potions of restore STR but I'm outta luck there - going to have to run around with lower STR for a while. However, my phat Balo loot turns out pretty decent. The Ring Mail is 12, +3 of Resist Lightning, the amulet is an Amulet of Sustenance and the Guissarme is Slay Troll (+1, 10%). But the real prize is the short sword from level 7, which is a Short Sword - Chaotic (+6, 30%). Needless to say, I'll be equipping that for the next descent down.

So far, a relatively easy set of early levels, with nothing really exciting in terms of unique monsters or levels. But that's good building block for the stuff forthcoming.

[Thomkal]

Great start there Mali, pretty much describes in detail the life of a chaos warrior-especially what happened at level 1 lol. Have you received any mutations yet? Done any of the quests?

I've barely started my guy, just enough to get him to level 2 and get rewarded with a Ball of Chain that's making short work of whatever I'm fighting so far. Can't wait till I get back to the surface and find out what it is

[Malificent]

No, haven't quite reached high enough level for any of the quests - I think they are 11 and 12, so soon. Strangely enough, no mutations either - I was expecting at least one by now.

[Thomkal]

Originally Posted by Malificent

No, haven't quite reached high enough level for any of the quests - I think they are 11 and 12, so soon. Strangely enough, no mutations either - I was expecting at least one by now.

I'm thinking there's a bug here-was just checking the help files and we should have received a mutation when the character was created. The test character I tried started with one. But Balo just gave my guy a mutation, so I think we will just go on with the character as is. Weird that it would work with one character and not another.

[Thomkal]

Back in town after running the first level of the dungeon. Currently 4th level. Balo's "rewards"

Level 2-magical ball and chain that I still cannot id-no ID's in town still
Level 3-Polymorphed my wounds into a grazing wound. Gee thanks.
Level 4-First mutation, and Balo must have heard my mutterings about not having enough spell slots cause he rewarded me with a Blink mutation ability that does the same thing as the spell, albiet with a 78% chance of failure

[Thomkal]

Was checking out the warrior hall and out of curiousity tried the ezamine weapon service there and much to my surpirse it ID'ed my weapon for me. It's a Ball and Chain of Slay Evil. Sweet. Get two attacks with it which is an added bonus. Also has a Protection From Evil defense on it. Not a bad starter weapon.

[Tasan]

So how exactly do we do this challenge? I've downloaded z+angband and played around with it, but what do we do for the challenge part? Just make our own barbarian chaos-warrior, or use the Duinith zip save? Or somehow base a new character off that? I haven't done one of these challenges, or played Z+ in a while, but I'm really enjoying it and would like to participate.

[Thomkal]

Originally Posted by Tasan

So how exactly do we do this challenge? I've downloaded z+angband and played around with it, but what do we do for the challenge part? Just make our own barbarian chaos-warrior, or use the Duinith zip save? Or somehow base a new character off that? I haven't done one of these challenges, or played Z+ in a while, but I'm really enjoying it and would like to participate.

Hey Tasan,

Be glad to have you-just download Duinith zip save, and put the file in it in the lib/save folder of your Z+Angband folder. Then instead of creating a new character when you start up the game, use the Open option under the File Menu. Pick Duinith and your off. You'll start in town as a beastman Chaos-Warrior-we all start off in the same spot. If you die, you'll need to delete the file in your lib/save folder (and possibly any file in the user folder with his name) and then put the file here back in again to start over. Your goal is to get to the highest level you can before dying or defeat the Serpent of Chaos at the bottom of the dungeon before the two weeks is up.

I created the character for us all to use because chaos warriors can get different patrons each of who can give different "gifts". So this starts us all out with the same patron for fairness.

Does that help?

[Thomkal]

Just got a mutation (-3 dex grrrr) along with a regular demon patron reward (poly wounds grrr) so seems like the beastman mutation possibility is working.

[Malificent]

I'll never know, as my patron saw fit to change me into an Amberite at level 13 or 14. Some quick notes:

• The other towns have a much wider selection. Definitely going to hang out there more often.
• Robin Hood totally sucks. Level 7 quest and he's still brutalizing me.
• There are a lot more quests than I remember from ZangbandTk - definitely makes it interesting.
• I like my chaotic short sword, but at 1d6 damage, I wish I was doing a little more hurting.
• Balo, in addition to changing me into an Amberite, gave me some CON and the ability to eat solid stone. No more shovels for me, baby.

I'm going to try and finish up some of these above ground quests and try and get back to delving.

[Thomkal]

ugh on the polymorph there Mali. Picked a patron who didn't empahsize that "gift". Not a bad thing to be turned into an Amberite though. So what direction is the town that the one quest is supposed to be near but you can't see on the world map?

[Thomkal]

Boy this version sure had some huge rooms in it. Just found one that had a large mass of rubble in the middle of it, could walk all around it. Found a shovel while digging in it which I thought was appropriate.

[Malificent]

South. Of course, I first wandered north and the town up that way is much farther north than the one to the south is. I also ended up getting 2 courier quests to two different towns that I have no idea where they are.

[Thomkal]

In fact I found 4 shovels, 2 wands of magic missile and slow monster, 2 torches of everburning, lots of oil for my lantern, a few cure light wounds potions, and some armor and weapons which will likely be normal which I need to identify. Pretty nice haul actually.

[Thomkal]

Z+Ang has something a bit different than other variants-random uniques. I've just encountered my first one-Buzduz, the Large Grey Snake. Took me down to half hit points, was getting 2 attacks on me. My shield stunned him a couple times though which was a big help (get a shield people!). Unfortunately the bastard didn't drop anything. Roast Snake anyone?

[JAG]

Didn't have a chance to play it yesterrday, but everything's downloaded and ready to go.

[Thomkal]

Oooh on my return visit to the dungeon after killing Buzduz, I get a "you nearly faint as horrible visions fill your mind" level feeling....ooooh. The reason for it looks to be a baby blue dragon pit as I'm having to fight several. Balo rewarded me in mid battle by raising all my stats which certainly helped.

He was not so nice when I gained another level in mid-battle. He gave me a mutation that put a black aura around me. That usually means I'm cursed, but not sure in this instance. I also got a spit acid mutation at the same time which is pretty nice.

---this is turning out to be quite the xp gainer. Picked up another level and Balo raised all my stats again! And got another mutation where I can smell (sense) monsters. Picked up another level and that turned out to be my doom. Balo destroyed everything around me which included the pillars I was using to let only one dragon to attack me at a time. Was already getitng low on hp's so damage from the destruction and dragon's breath before I could port out killed me.

Knew I was risking death there, but man that was so cool killing all those dragons and getitng levels wondering what the hell Balo was going to do to me next. I'll post the dump here so you can see what I looked like

[Thomkal]

[Z+Angband 0.3.2 Character Dump]
Name : Duinith Age 18 STR: 22.9
Sex : Male Height 60 INT: 15.8
Race : Beastman Weight 137 WIS: 13.3
Class : Chaos-Warrior Social Class 78 DEX: 14.1
Magic : Chaos CON: 18.3
Patron : Balo CHR: 10.4
+ Skill 22 Level 13 Max Hit Points 170
% Deadliness 190 Experience 1497 Cur Hit Points -21
+ To AC -10 Max Exp 1497 Max SP (Mana) 13
Base AC 24 Exp to Adv. 428 Cur SP (Mana) 10
Gold 951
(Miscellaneous Abilities)
Fighting : Excellent Perception : Excellent Blows/Round : 2
Bows/Throw : Fair Sensing : Very Good Shots/Round : 2.0
Saving Throw: Very Good Disarming : Fair Avg.Dam./Rnd: 17
Stealth : Bad Magic Device: Very Good Infra-Vision: 0'



[Miscellaneous information]
Preserve Mode: ON
Small Levels: ON
Maximum Level Reached: 5 (250')

Stat Intrnl Rce Cls Mod Actual Currnt abcdefghijkl@
Str: 14.9 2 2 4 22.9 ............4
Int: 17.8 -2 1 -1 15.8 ............1
Wis: 15.3 -1 0 -1 13.3 ............1
Dex: 17.1 -1 1 -3 14.1 ............3
Con: 14.3 2 2 0 18.3 .............
Chr: 16.4 -4 -2 0 10.4 .............
Skill abcdefghijkl@
BonusSP: .............
Stealth: .............
Search : ....5........
Infra : .............
Tunnel : .............
Speed : .............
Blows : .............
abcdefghijkl@
Acid : .............
Elec : .............
Fire : .............
Cold : .............
Poison: .............
Fear : .............
Light : .............
Dark : .............
Shard : .............
Blind : .............
Conf : ............+
Sound : ............+
Nether: .............
Nexus : .............
Chaos : .............
Disnch: .............
abcdefghijkl@
Reflect : .............
Aura Acid: .............
Aura Fire: .............
Aura Elec: .............
Aura Cold: .............
No Magic : .............
Free Actn: .............
SeeInvis.: .............
Hold Life: .............
Telepathy: .............
SlwDigstn: .............
Regen. : .............
Levitate : .............
PermLite : .............
Mutate : ............+
Patron : ............+
Good Luck: .............
WeirdLuck: .............
Pass Wall: .............
GhulTouch: .............
abcdefghijkl@
Pr Animal: .............
Pr Evil : +............
Pr Undead: .............
Pr Demon : .............
Pr Orc : .............
Pr Troll : .............
Pr Giant : .............
Pr Dragon: .............
Cursed : .............
AutoCurse: .............
Teleport : .............
NoTeleprt: .............
Aggravate: .............
DrainStat: .............
Drain Exp: .............
Slow Heal: .............
Can't Eat: .............
EvilCurse: .............

You have defeated 319 enemies.

[Top 10 deepest kills]
25 Baby blue dragon Level 13 (650')
1 Giant brown bat Level 10 (500')
1 Zombified kobold Level 10 (500')
1 Large kobold Level 8 (400')
1 Green naga Level 7 (350')
1 Salamander Level 7 (350')
1 Fang, Farmer Maggot's dog Level 6 (300')
3 Cave spider Level 6 (300')
1 Radiation eye Level 6 (300')
1 Buzduz, the Large Grey Snake Level 5 (250')

[Mutations]
You can spit acid.
You can smell nearby monsters.
You can teleport yourself short distances.
You are superhumanly strong (+4 STR, -1 INT, -1 WIS).
Your joints ache constantly (-3 DEX).
There is a black aura surrounding you.

[Character Equipment]
a) a Ball-and-Chain of Slay Evil (2d4) (+0,+30%)
It is especially deadly against evil monsters. It provides protection
from evil monsters. It was granted to you by your Chaos Patron.
b) a Sling (x2) (+0,+0%)
c) (nothing)
d) (nothing)
e) a Stained Glass Amulet of Sensing (+5)
It increases your perception by +5. You bought it in a Bazaar in Tarquet
Watch.
f) a Brass Lantern (with 1699 turns of light)
It cannot be harmed by fire. You bought it in a Supplies Store in Tarquet
Watch.
g) a Metal Scale Mail (-2) [13,+0]
h) a Cloak [1,+0]
i) a Small Shield [5,+0] {25% off}
j) a Hard Leather Cap [2,+0]
k) (nothing)
l) a Pair of Hard Leather Boots [3,+0]

[Character Inventory]
a) a Chaos Spellbook [Sign of Chaos]
b) 8 Rations of Food
c) 6 Flasks of oil
d) 2 Fizzy Blue Potions of Boldness
e) a Black Potion of Cure Light Wounds
f) a Scroll titled "ivwun tabpet" of Word of Recall
g) 2 Scrolls titled "foonin odeep" of Identify
h) a Zirconium-Plated Rod of Trap Location
i) an Adamantite Rod of Illumination
j) a Cottonwood Staff of Trap Location (12 charges)
k) a Hard Leather Cap [2] {worthless}
It decreases your strength, dexterity and constitution by -1. It is
cursed. You found it on the floor at 250'.
l) a Whip (1d3)
m) a Shovel (1d2) (+0,+0%) (+1)
n) 28 Iron Shots (4d2) (+0,+0%) (16/33)

[Home Inventory - Tarquet Watch]
a) 5 Flasks of oil
b) a Shovel (1d2) (+0,+0%) (+1)
c) a Sling (x2) (+0,+0%)

[Spells]
You have learned 5 spells and/or improvements.
You have 2 tier-1 slots (levels 2-11) remaining.
You have 6 tier-2 slots (levels 2-21) remaining.
You have 6 tier-3 slots (levels 2-31) remaining.
You have 6 tier-4 slots (levels 2-41) remaining.
You have 5 tier-5 slots (levels 2-50) remaining.

Chaos Magic:
Book 1: Cost Fail% Power%
--------------------------------------------------------
Magic Missile 1 9% 0%
Trap / Door Destruction 2 9% 0%
Flash of Light 3 9% 0%
Static Field 4 9% 0%
Immolation 7 25% 0%

[Quests]
====Active quests====
From a Warriors' Guild in Tarquet Watch (Danger level 11):
We have heard that a number of swarming insects have been running amok in the area near Tarquet
Watch. Discover their hideout and slay them all.
From a Town Hall in Tarquet Watch (Danger level 12):
Brodda, the Easterling and his minions have been spotted in the area near Galran. Find his lair
and kill him.


[Message Log (last 50 messages)]
You feel something roll beneath your feet. <3x>
You are no longer full.
You hit the Baby blue dragon.
You strike the Baby blue dragon.
The Baby blue dragon claws you.
The Baby blue dragon misses you.
The Baby blue dragon bites you.
You hit the Baby blue dragon.
You miss the Baby blue dragon.
The Baby blue dragon flees in terror!
The Baby blue dragon turns to fight!
You get in a shield bash!
The Baby blue dragon is stunned.
The Baby blue dragon flees in terror!
You miss the Baby blue dragon.
You hit the Baby blue dragon.
You have slain the Baby blue dragon.
You feel something roll beneath your feet. <2x>
Welcome to level 13.
You can learn 8 more spells.
The voice of Balo booms out:
'Suffer, pathetic fool!'
The copper evaporates!
The silver evaporates! <2x>
The copper evaporates!
The silver evaporates!
The copper evaporates!
The silver evaporates! <4x>
The copper evaporates!
The silver evaporates!
The copper evaporates! <4x>
The silver evaporates! <2x>
The copper evaporates!
The silver evaporates! <3x>
The copper evaporates!
The silver evaporates! <4x>
The copper evaporates! <4x>
The silver evaporates!
The copper evaporates! <2x>
The Baby blue dragon hisses in pain.
It flinches. <6x>
Low hitpoint warning!
*** LOW HITPOINT WARNING! ***
You feel different...
You mutate!
You turn into a superhuman he-man!
You can learn 7 more spells.
It breathes lightning.
The Baby blue dragon resists a lot.
I hate the RNG... You die.

[Thomkal]

Deleting the save files and copying the original save in seems to have worked by the way, not that I really wanted to be the one to find out.

[Thomkal]

Sadly I did not get a repeat of gaining my first level with Duinith I where I got that great ball and chain of slay evil. This time he just knocked my dex down.

[Thomkal]

heh found a named Floating Eye on Level 1. Again didn't drop anything.

[Sporkimata]

I'm in! Got my first level and was blinded by my patron. Nice.

[Thomkal]

Welcome and good luck Spork! And they don't call him Balo the Jester for nothing you know.

[Thomkal]

And good luck to JAG too!

[Sporkimata]

I died by second level. Shame upon me.

[Thomkal]

aww that's too bad Spork, what killed ya?

[Sporkimata]

I wasn't paying attention and a brown snake got me. I was running around on poison plant tiles and not keeping an eye on my hp's.

[Tasan]

I'm up to level 8. I'm not sure about all the stuff that's been happening to me. I know for one fact that I can levitate now, though. Awful nice considering those big planty areas that poison you. I haven't picked up anything real nice yet, or had my god give me anything cool either. Kinda sucks.

[Thomkal]

Sounds like you have feather falling Tasan, either through a mutation or an item. Will let you walk over pits too without falling in.

[Thomkal]

Originally Posted by Sporkimata

I wasn't paying attention and a brown snake got me. I was running around on poison plant tiles and not keeping an eye on my hp's.

Yeah its actually pretty easy to lose track of things. Either while you are walking/running around the dungeon or you've not been in any real danger of dying for a while so you aren't paying attention to your HP's and boom something does more damage than you were expecting. Things can catch up to you while you are holding down the direction key to get down a corridor you've already been down quickly, and you may not see it till you stop, and its already hit you.

[Malificent]

Day 2:

So I still have not gone back down into the big dungeon. I've been wandering around the wilderness. I've been to about 8 towns now and I've been doing all the quests in the towns, most of which seem to consist of: "Hey, there are some bad guys (and maybe a unique) in a nearby dungeon - go kill them!" I need to stop doing these as there are an endless number, I'm guessing. I can't help myself.

One of these quests almost got me killed today though. To set the stage - I'm equipped pretty well - I managed to find a Broad Sword (Holy Avenger) which has been extremely helpful. I have a single artifact gained from killing a unique and then some basic armor along with an accuracy ring and damage ring. So for the most part, I haven't been fearing much for my life. Then I get a quest to clear out 1 level of a local mine (danger level: 16). This basically entails clearing out a single dungeon level of all monsters. I ended up bailing the first time due to my inventory being overloaded, so I go back in the second time. I'm level 19 at this point, so as I move through it, I'm not having a lot of difficulty.

I've gotten it almost cleared when one of my new Amberite mutations kicks in and sends me to a different shadow...i.e, resets the entire level. Grrrr. So I start clearing again and halfway through, I run into a pit, which I quickly use my detection staff to determine is full with cats.

For those new to Angband, a pit is a room that has a single point of entry and is completely filled with monsters of one particular class. A popular pit type contain nothing but jellies (bleh) but this one contains cats. Hellcats, Wild Cats, Tigers, and Bakeneko (which seem to be some sort of lightning cat). So I position myself in front of the door and start killing them as they come out. This ends up being mostly one-on-one, although a few sneak by and I kill them. I'm doing enough damage that it only takes one attack to kill most of the cats, but still, I'm getting beat upon as I do it. I'm quaffing healing potions and using my healing staff and I'm not particularly fretting...

...until I hit level 20. Balo, that funloving patron that he is, drops the equivalent of a nuclear bomb on me. Half the pit is completely destroyed and left as rubble and I take an obscene amount of damage.

Suddenly, my single point of defense is gone and that turn I'm surrounded by cats who wail upon me, and I go from 145 hp to 13 hp when my next turn comes around. I immediately teleport out and heal up. I then manage to finish clean up, which takes much longer as I have to play peekaboo with cats through the rubble and some nearby tunnels so I don't have more than 2 or 3 attacking me at once.

Tomorrow, back to the real dungeon crawl - try and get deeper and see if I can't find some cool uniques to kill that aren't handed to me via quest. Lesson learned from today is to pay attention to when I'm about to level and make sure I'm full on hp.

[JAG]

I just hit lvl 2 and got an outrageously good gift to start out. A ring mail of resistance, a ring of damage (55%), another un-ID'ed armor, and an un-ID'ed potion.

[Thomkal]

I hate you JAG lol. Kinda bummed I blew my good start with my first guy cause the second version isn't getting anything interesting so far.

[Thomkal]

Mali that's exactly what happened to me with the baby blue dragons! Balo blew up the place (and me). Glad you survived it unlike me. Never really had to pay much attention to when and more importanly where I was going to level up. Now it may be prudent to teleport away if a "nuclear bomb" may be imminent.

[JAG]

Originally Posted by Thomkal

I hate you JAG lol. Kinda bummed I blew my good start with my first guy cause the second version isn't getting anything interesting so far.

Gone downhill since then, got told I needed to be humbled (I guess I did) and lost some stats, also got a +2 dex -4 str mutation so I'm a lousy fighter now.

[Thomkal]

Originally Posted by Thomkal

I hate you JAG lol. Kinda bummed I blew my good start with my first guy cause the second version isn't getting anything interesting so far.

Well Balo heard my grumbling I guess and gave me something very interesting. A (+5, 45%) Chaotic Rapier. This bad boy gets 3 attacks/round along with the regular chaotic abilities. This reminds me of something different than Angband. Unlike that game, you will need to use a second level of identify, a *Identify* scroll, spell, or magic item to find out some powers of some items. The item description for my new weapon states that it might have hidden powers. Good luck in finding/being able to afford a scroll of *ID* this early on though.

Thanks Balo you most humorous of jesters.

[Thomkal]

So I see the file has been downloaded 9 times now, who else is giving it a try?

[Thomkal]

Have got the new guy up to Level 10 here's what Balo did:

Level 2: lower dex
Level 3: rotting disease mutation-lower con/chr
Level 4: mass genocide (where were you when I needed it on some dragons?)
Level 5: mass genocide (ahem)
Level 6: ignored (bastard)
Level 7: regeneration mutation-negates rotting disease mutation
Level 8: raise all stats (yeah!)
Level 9: Chaotic Rapier (yeah!)
Level 10: "Death and Destruction pleases me"-yeah Balo I did a number on that door that wouldn't open as I gained my level.

[JAG]

I'm level 9 currently, had to spend some time huffing it back after my first dive since I didn't have recall. My strength has taken a beating which makes inventory management a drag (from 20 to 14 thanks to mutations / patron gifts). On the other hand, Balo's given me a chaotic weapon, ring mail of resistance, a helm of wisdom, and some enchanted mithril shots I was able to sell to get some decent cash to round out my inventory a bit. Still haven't explored the wilderness at this point, only visited the starter dungeon. Other decent loot I've found include boots of stealth (+4) and a lantern of warmth (permanent 2 light radius, res cold which is superfluous with the armor I have, but the permanent 2 radius light is welcome anyway). Not a bad start.

If I survive, I have some nice mutations when the failure chance gets to a reasonable level (teleport at will, polymorph self at will). Other mutations include emitting blinding lights (-1 stealth), a trunk (-1 cha, +1d4 damage), and that irritating -4 str +2 dex one.

[Thomkal]

yeah I'm currently out of word of recall scrolls too. Not a big fan of going back to town and find no scrolls at the three places that can have it. That's just an annoyance rather than a "challenge"

[path12]

Originally Posted by Thomkal

So I see the file has been downloaded 9 times now, who else is giving it a try?

I downloaded and setup Z+ and the character last evening. Going to mess around with a new one to explore a little bit before opening the challenge character.

Might be a day or two before I can spend much time with it.

[Thomkal]

Good luck to you Path!

[Malificent]

Originally Posted by Thomkal

yeah I'm currently out of word of recall scrolls too. Not a big fan of going back to town and find no scrolls at the three places that can have it. That's just an annoyance rather than a "challenge"

That's why you run to the other towns - they have so many stores that you're almost certainly likely to find a word of recall scroll. The town to the south is a pretty short run.