[s] Stormy for my dop-wiz-cha?

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Currently doing fairly well in Slashem as a dop-wiz-cha.
St 14, Dx 12, Co 19, In 19, Wi 15, Ch 13, MaxHP 68, Pow 157, AC-8, EXP
10.

Currently wielding the blessed proof +5 Magicbane (Anhur gifted it to
me at that enchantment!), wearing +0 Speed boots, +3 HoBrill, +0
Deluder and some +0 leather gloves. Expert in dagger, skilled in attack
spells, with a * for when I next level up. Got magic missile and force
bolt at 0% failure, as well as a few other handy little Zaps.

I've Ided loads of stuff, got a heap of goodies including two untouched
magic markers, half a dozen B!oW, a C!oW, a scroll of charging, a
blessed BoH, a magic lamp, /oDeath (charges unknown), 2 wands of
teleport, =oSD, intrisic searching (ate a ring), stethoscope, magic
whistle (with large cat), and lots of scrolls, potions etc.

I've cleared the mines except for the very last level, I've cleared
soko and Kroo's level.

I've never ascended.

Anyway, here's my question. Anhur just gave me Stormbringer. Now,
Magicbane is great, but it doesn't exactly strip the HP off of big
monsters by the bucketload. Heavies like Vecna and the Dark One can
often heal up faster than I can hurt them using MB. Would Stormy be any
good for me? I know it will take away the "attack peaceful monster?"
prompt, but it must have an upside as well. Given my current position,
is it worth carrying it as my alternative weapon and trying to develop
some skills with it? Especially once I've got the Eye and don't have to
worry about losing magic protection when switching away from MB (The
amount of times I've YASDed by wearing Deluder, wielding a pickaxe then
bouncing a magic missile back at myself...)

 

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On Thu, 7 Jul 2005 dogscoff@eudoramail.com wrote:

> Anyway, here's my question. Anhur just gave me Stormbringer. Now,
> Magicbane is great, but it doesn't exactly strip the HP off of big
> monsters by the bucketload. Heavies like Vecna and the Dark One can
> often heal up faster than I can hurt them using MB. Would Stormy be any
> good for me? I know it will take away the "attack peaceful monster?"
> prompt, but it must have an upside as well. Given my current position,
> is it worth carrying it as my alternative weapon and trying to develop
> some skills with it? Especially once I've got the Eye and don't have to
> worry about losing magic protection when switching away from MB (The
> amount of times I've YASDed by wearing Deluder, wielding a pickaxe then
> bouncing a magic missile back at myself...)

Stormy can be nice, especially since it drain levels (try it on trolls).
But of course that will not work on Vecna (you'll need something more
convenient like magic missile with the Eye or +7 assault gun with +7
silver bullets).

You'll mainly appreciate MB when being repetidely cursed (in Hell or
chaotic quest by liches). Plus it can cancel ennemies (but not so often at
+5) which is also rather nice...

--
Hypocoristiquement,
Jym.

Adresse mail plus valide à partir de septembre 2005.
Utiliser l'adresse de redirection permanente :
Jean-Yves.Moyen `at` ens-lyon.org

 

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Jym wrote:
> On Thu, 7 Jul 2005 dogscoff@eudoramail.com wrote:

> Stormy can be nice, especially since it drain levels (try it on trolls).
> But of course that will not work on Vecna (you'll need something more
> convenient like magic missile with the Eye or +7 assault gun with +7
> silver bullets).

Thanks for the advice.

I couldn't resist. A started wielding it and soon got myself up to
basic level with it. How high can I go in that skill as a wizard, and
given that I was gifted the weapon by Anhur?
If I want to advance the skill even further thann that, are there any
other swords of the same type that Anhur might gift me, to push the max
skill level even higher?

Stormy doesn't seem to do an awful lot of damage at the moment
(somthing like 5-12 per hit, I think) but I'm guessing it's still at
+0. I'm mostly using MB, but switching occasionally to Stormy when the
mood takes me.
Currently in Grund's, where it has already made one wand of draining a
whole lot easier to deal with, and I'm planning to use it in the throne
room as well, where I often find at least one critter trying to drain
me.
That will leave me without magic resistance though, so I'm not 100%
sure of the best way to go about it.


> You'll mainly appreciate MB when being repetidely cursed (in Hell or
> chaotic quest by liches). Plus it can cancel ennemies (but not so often at
> +5) which is also rather nice...

Actually, I'm rather enjoying MB at +5. Normally I'll wield it at +2 or
+3, which is great, but at +5 it seems to kill things soooooo much
quicker. I'm not really noticing a huge reduction in the number of
stuns/ probes/ whatnots it gives out either. Maybe that's because
everything is dead before I get the chance to stun them...

 

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Boudewijn Waijers wrote:
> dogscoff@eudoramail.com wrote:
> > I couldn't resist. A started wielding it and soon got myself up to
> > basic level with it. How high can I go in that skill as a wizard, and
> > given that I was gifted the weapon by Anhur?

Ah, Ok. Thanks. Maybe later I'll enchant it up and see what kind of
damage I'm doing with it then.

> > I'm mostly using MB, but switching occasionally to Stormy when the
> > mood takes me.
>
> For a wizard, Magicbane is better, since you may advance to expert with
> it. Perhaps you should change to Stormbringer for trolls.

See below.

> > Actually, I'm rather enjoying MB at +5. Normally I'll wield it at +2
> > or +3, which is great, but at +5 it seems to kill things soooooo much
> > quicker. I'm not really noticing a huge reduction in the number of
> > stuns/ probes/ whatnots it gives out either. Maybe that's because
> > everything is dead before I get the chance to stun them...
>
> For low-HD monsters, this might work, but whenever you're facing
> monsters that get a chance to hit back after you first hit, you'll start
> to appreciate (in particular) the confusing ability.

Well, maybe. I've been playing wizards for a long time now, and I'm
very familiar with magicbane. The conf/stun/scare effects are a nice
little bonus, but you can't rely on them, and as you say they only
really useful make a difference against heavier monsters.

The problem is that even with these abilities, imho, magicbane is no
good against heavy monsters- Partilularly monsters that go away and
heal themselves whenever you knock them down a little, or summon a
horde and then go away and heal while you deal with their minions.
Maybe it's more of a slashem thing, but after pitting some several very
powerful wizards against a variety very tough monsters, that is my
experience.

For example, when facing up against Vecna or the Dark One, I'll often
find myself throwing daggers at point blank rather than poke with MB-
if I throw two or three at a time I'll do more damage that way, but you
can't guarantee a double or triple-throw. Many of the game's real
heavies are undead/ demons, so silver daggers can be good if you can
find them, and I've often flung some of the other artifact daggers/
athames, which can be fun, but by and large, even dagger throwing
doesn't knock them down quickly enough.

Therefore I feel that a wiz in slashem needs a secondary melee weapon
to switch to when taking on the big boys. I know, I know, you'll just
tell me that this is the way it is for wizards. I should be happy with
magic missile and accept that only combat wombats can sensibly expect
to be chopping off hit points thirty at a time in melee, but there are
times when even a wiz needs to fight melee and I want to get the best I
can out of my chosen role.

So what I need is big, pointy, mean, hit-em-hard & slice-em-up melee
weapon. What should I be looking at? Vorpy? Grayswandir? Could Stormy
fulfil this role for me? I just picked up Skullcrusher, but I'm
guessing that wouldn't be particularly suitable.

The other alternative, of course, is to eat lots of =oIncrease Damage,
but they are very hard to come by, and not always edible.

 

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On Mon, 11 Jul 2005 14:21:28 +0200
"Boudewijn Waijers" <kroisos@REMOVETHISWORD.home.nl> wrote:

>All this having played just *one* Slash'em character, which only got to
>experience level 10.

That's funny... my Slash'em characters never get over that lvl either.
It must be like minetown, just a hump you have to prepare for, and when that's done, there is another.

 

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dogscoff@eudoramail.com wrote:
>
> The problem is that even with these abilities, imho, magicbane is no
> good against heavy monsters- Partilularly monsters that go away and
> heal themselves whenever you knock them down a little, or summon a
> horde and then go away and heal while you deal with their minions.
> Maybe it's more of a slashem thing, but after pitting some several very
> powerful wizards against a variety very tough monsters, that is my
> experience.
> ...
> So what I need is big, pointy, mean, hit-em-hard & slice-em-up melee
> weapon. What should I be looking at? Vorpy? Grayswandir? Could Stormy
> fulfil this role for me? I just picked up Skullcrusher, but I'm
> guessing that wouldn't be particularly suitable.

I play vanilla so I'm not familiar with the ones added to
Slash'em. For big mean monsters that go away to heal before
they return to fight again, the level drain feature of
Stormy rules. Level 20 monster arrives. One wack from
Stormy and a level 19 monster runs away to heal. Level 19
monster returns. Two wacks from Stormy and a level 17
monster runs away to heal. This cycle ends a lot sooner
with Stormy. With other weapons you need to chase after
the healing monster (usually to the up stairs and stand on
the upstairs to keep them from escaping); with Stormy you
just whack and eventually they fall to one hit.

 

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Doug Freyburger wrote:
> dogscoff@eudoramail.com wrote:
> > So what I need is big, pointy, mean, hit-em-hard & slice-em-up melee
> > weapon.
>...
> Slash'em. For big mean monsters that go away to heal before
> they return to fight again, the level drain feature of
> Stormy rules.
>...

Oh yeah, now that's the kind of news I like to hear. Thanks=-)

 

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dogscoff@eudoramail.com wrote:

> I couldn't resist. A started wielding it and soon got myself up to
> basic level with it. How high can I go in that skill as a wizard, and
> given that I was gifted the weapon by Anhur?

Assuming that Slash'em isn't any different in this regard than vanilla
NetHack, just basic, unless wizards would be able to advance higher than
that in the first place.

Acquiring a weapon from your god only gives you basic skill, just enough
to remove your penalties for unskilled or nothing.

> If I want to advance the skill even further thann that, are there any
> other swords of the same type that Anhur might gift me, to push the
> max skill level even higher?

Being given a gift does not raise your skill advancement by one, it
merely sets it to a minimum of basic.

> I'm mostly using MB, but switching occasionally to Stormy when the
> mood takes me.

For a wizard, Magicbane is better, since you may advance to expert with
it. Perhaps you should change to Stormbringer for trolls.

> Actually, I'm rather enjoying MB at +5. Normally I'll wield it at +2
> or +3, which is great, but at +5 it seems to kill things soooooo much
> quicker. I'm not really noticing a huge reduction in the number of
> stuns/ probes/ whatnots it gives out either. Maybe that's because
> everything is dead before I get the chance to stun them...

For low-HD monsters, this might work, but whenever you're facing
monsters that get a chance to hit back after you first hit, you'll start
to appreciate (in particular) the confusing ability.

All this having played just *one* Slash'em character, which only got to
experience level 10.

--
Boudewijn.

--
"I have hundreds of other quotes, just waiting to replace this one
as my signature..." - Me

 

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dogscoff@eudoramail.com wrote:
>
> Doug Freyburger wrote:
>>...
>>Slash'em. For big mean monsters that go away to heal before
>>they return to fight again, the level drain feature of
>>Stormy rules.
>>...
>
> Oh yeah, now that's the kind of news I like to hear. Thanks=-)
>
The problem is that many of the critters against which this
tactic would be really useful are immune to level-draining. That
includes all demons and liches. I'm not sure how many others Slash'em
may have added, but it's basically only Rodney and some of the Quest
Nemeses that you can do that to in vanilla.

Stormbringer is very handy against trolls, though.

--
John Campbell
jcampbel@lynn.ci-n.com