[various] Monk Strategies

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.angband (More info?)

Monks, or monklike chars are available in several variants. I have a
fascination with trying them, but about the time I get to the depth where
the breathers start, dragons and hounds and such, mine start dieing like
flies.

I have never been able to find the happy balance point between the AC
gained from not wearing armor and the lack of resists.
I do realize that this balance is the whole point of a monks difficulty.
Head, Hand, Feet and Cloaks seem to have the least penalty, and in some
varaints Shields as well. This gives a decent selection once the slots are
filled with artifacts, it is just I seldom ever survive to see anything
besides cloaks drop for these slots. However in variants like Heng
everything is penalized and wearing a shield nullifies Martial Arts skills
so it is even tougher unless you take the Craft magic school.

Any ideas, strats, would be appreciated.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.angband (More info?)

> Monks, or monklike chars are available in several variants. I have a
> fascination with trying them, but about the time I get to the depth where
> the breathers start, dragons and hounds and such, mine start dieing like
> flies.
> I have never been able to find the happy balance point between the AC
> gained from not wearing armor and the lack of resists.
> I do realize that this balance is the whole point of a monks difficulty.
> Head, Hand, Feet and Cloaks seem to have the least penalty, and in some
> varaints Shields as well. This gives a decent selection once the slots are
> filled with artifacts, it is just I seldom ever survive to see anything
> besides cloaks drop for these slots. However in variants like Heng
> everything is penalized and wearing a shield nullifies Martial Arts skills
> so it is even tougher unless you take the Craft magic school.
> Any ideas, strats, would be appreciated.

What variants have you tried?

HENGBAND:
In HENG, imho, CRAFT is THE magic school for a Monk to use, and
Monk is between the most kickass classes in versatility and in damage
dealing capabilities w/ stunning, great defence and Elemental Branding
works very well unarmed. You can wear a shield
if it isnt too heavy, in fact, you SHOULD wear a shield.... You´re
penalized if the TOTAL weight of your armor including shield
is too heavy. Later, a Craft monk will probably polish a good
Dragon Shield and wear it.
Note: your BASE AC will ALWAYS be penalized by armor you
wear, but what matters is if you "lose your balance".
Breathers are plenty in Heng, so you should abuse wands/rods
of stone to mud and hole yourself up, make them come for you.
Fights in open in Heng (in fact, in any variant) is kind of suicidal.
AS Corridors always! A long one, cuz Heng breathers will breath
over the corner.... so youll have to back off and advance to
get them, always with ALL the craft buffs!
Just be sure to pick a personality / race combo with good
WIS and DEX; My fave is Dunadan.

OANGBAND:
I´ve made a very cool character whose theme was to wear the
less possible items and still kickass. In O, you have to plan
ahead carefully your speciality picks if you want it to be
perfect.
Take a look at Atrielm in the ladder....
The old evasion gave an AC improvement accourding to how
light your armor was...
The new evasion gives a % chance to completely avoid an
attack, but now it works with 2 BREAKPOINTS. to reach the
final breakpoint and cover critical resists and max CON/DEX is
almost impossible, but i will try soon a warrior monk w/
evasion...
If you want to have an easier time and play with a kickass
monk character (by O standards, note that O is a very hard var)
then play an armor Shiryu (saint seya) style warrior.
I´d pick
Martial Arts, Shield Mastery, Regeneration, (one of Fast Attacking,
Fury or Armor Mastery).
Armsman doesnt work w/ Martial Arts AFAIK.

--
I will hold the candle till it burns up my arm.
I'll keep taking punches until their will grows tired.
I will stare the sun down until my eyes go blind.
I won't change direction and I won't change my mind...
How much difference does it make?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.angband (More info?)

"Atriel" <atriel666@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:d6jg7s$2p8v$1@news.vol.cz...
> What variants have you tried?
Currently, Heng, O and Sang. Sang is odd in that there are no classes per
se.


> HENGBAND:
> In HENG, imho, CRAFT is THE magic school for a Monk to use, and
I can well see that, just about everything a melee class can dream about
needing is in there.

> You can wear a shield
> if it isnt too heavy, in fact, you SHOULD wear a shield....
Oh really?!? Hmm I had thought you lost abilities with a shield equipped.
Sweet!

> Breathers are plenty in Heng, so you should abuse wands/rods
> of stone to mud and hole yourself up, make them come for you.
Oh yeah, I have to so agree there! Come to thik of it Craft gives you a Wall
Walk spell... hmmm

> Just be sure to pick a personality / race combo with good
> WIS and DEX; My fave is Dunadan.
Current Monk there is Half-Ogre, perverse, but somehow satisfying.

>
> OANGBAND:
> If you want to have an easier time and play with a kickass
> monk character (by O standards, note that O is a very hard var)
> then play an armor Shiryu (saint seya) style warrior.
> I´d pick
> Martial Arts, Shield Mastery, Regeneration, (one of Fast Attacking,
> Fury or Armor Mastery).
Cool! I like O, but it kills most of my Chars before i get much of a good
start, tough *band for sure!

I may try one in NewAngband, but I am not really familiar with all the
options in the skills/spell systems there. No classes/magic schools there at
all, just what you buy as you advance.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.angband (More info?)

"William Klett" <cyclops@mn.rr.com> wrote in message
news:Lidje.21212$bn.19990@tornado.rdc-kc.rr.com...
>
> "Atriel" <atriel666@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:d6jg7s$2p8v$1@news.vol.cz...
>> What variants have you tried?
> Currently, Heng, O and Sang. Sang is odd in that there are no classes per
> se.
Err, meant Z not O there. Didn't even realize you could do unarmed in O
until your post.

Starting a O 'monk' to try it out now...

 

[mars]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.angband (More info?)

On 2005-05-20 03:58:20, Atriel <atriel666@hotmail.com> wrote:
> HENGBAND:
> In HENG, imho, CRAFT is THE magic school for a Monk to use, and
> Monk is between the most kickass classes in versatility and in damage
My monk winner used the Life realm which is useful as well with the Healing
spell (available at clev30), and also in the last book 'Ultimate Resistance'.
It can be hard to cover all resists and you should be cautious until you have
them, or leave some gaps (with some consideration ofcourse) and avoid monsters
that attack with that. But it's far from impossible, my char had all but one
resists covered at clev 33 (without autoscum). Stack potions of resistance for
double rBase. Play style is no doubt different from a Craft monk but being able
to use much Healing is VERY useful imo. Oh, and don't forget the 'Assume a
Posture' skill available to monks. The first posture (at clev 25) gives
reflection at the cost of killing power. It can keep you alive around mana
bolters (DE Warlocks anyone?). The second posture increases your killing power
at the cost of defense. The other two weren't too useful i think, at least I
don't remember using them too much or what they do exactly.

> dealing capabilities w/ stunning, great defence and Elemental Branding
> works very well unarmed. You can wear a shield
That is the great strength of a monk: their stunning and slowing attacks eat
energy from the enemy leaving them mostly vulnerable to a quick death.
Spellcasters, summoners and even uniques all suffer from this, making them
helpless against your fists. I have never had such an easy time with uniques as
with my monk .

> if it isnt too heavy, in fact, you SHOULD wear a shield.... You´re
> penalized if the TOTAL weight of your armor including shield
> is too heavy. Later, a Craft monk will probably polish a good
> Dragon Shield and wear it.
> Note: your BASE AC will ALWAYS be penalized by armor you
> wear, but what matters is if you "lose your balance".
Being able to wear a shield is a BIG help in covering the resistances.

> Breathers are plenty in Heng, so you should abuse wands/rods
> of stone to mud and hole yourself up, make them come for you.
> Fights in open in Heng (in fact, in any variant) is kind of suicidal.
> AS Corridors always! A long one, cuz Heng breathers will breath
> over the corner.... so youll have to back off and advance to
> get them, always with ALL the craft buffs!
Actually, the AI in Heng is wicked. Especially the summoners who don't even need
LoS to summon monsters next to you! I've found myself surrounded by surprise
more than once by some summoner that I never expected to summon on me. But
remember (and this goes for every variant): Know when to get out, or when to
use some *destruction*. Greed and/or overestimation of your capacities kills!

> Just be sure to pick a personality / race combo with good
> WIS and DEX; My fave is Dunadan.
My Life monk chose a high HP race, Half Titan. But it has a *huge* XP penalty
(actually the highest of all races in Heng).

I also played a Monk in ToME once (but that was *waaay* back in 2.1.1) that used
Symbiosis from a FF quest to enhance his lethality, he 'wore' a Master Quylthulg
and abused its summoning powers. But I don't know if that's still possible in
ToME as I haven't played it since v2.1.2.

--
Mars

Of course there is no formula for success except perhaps an unconditional
acceptance of the RNG and what it brings.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.angband (More info?)

Mars wrote:
> I also played a Monk in ToME once (but that was *waaay* back in 2.1.1) that used
> Symbiosis from a FF quest to enhance his lethality, he 'wore' a Master Quylthulg
> and abused its summoning powers. But I don't know if that's still possible in
> ToME as I haven't played it since v2.1.2.

FF?

--
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Palladium? Trusted Computing? DRM? Microsoft? Sauron.
"One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them
One ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them."

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.angband (More info?)

On 2005-05-20 20:12:54, Twisted One <twisted0n3@gmail.invalid> wrote:

> Mars wrote:
> > I also played a Monk in ToME once (but that was *waaay* back in 2.1.1) that used
> > Symbiosis from a FF quest to enhance his lethality, he 'wore' a Master Quylthulg
> > and abused its summoning powers. But I don't know if that's still possible in
> > ToME as I haven't played it since v2.1.2.
>
> FF?
>

Fumble Fingers - swordsman lost a sword - go kill stuff - get prize...

--
Take Care,
Graham

Pos(0.3.0a2) Alpha "Natar" XX L:1 DL:50' !A R--- !Sp w:Short Sword +0,+0
Pos(V/T//NPP) W H- D+ c-- f PV+ s- TT? d P++ M+
C-- S+ I- So B ac GHB- SQ+ RQ+ V+ F:Better monster AI (Acting like decent
players without automatically knowing where the player is - randomly roaming
the dungeon etc...)

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.angband (More info?)

> Mars wrote:
> > I also played a Monk in ToME once (but that was *waaay* back in
2.1.1) that used
> > Symbiosis from a FF quest to enhance his lethality, he 'wore' a
Master Quylthulg
> > and abused its summoning powers. But I don't know if that's still
possible in
> > ToME as I haven't played it since v2.1.2.

I just got a yeek (possesing a GWOP) monk in tome. I think my mod to
keep monks from dieing from the first ball spell works ok. You still
need to be intelligent in the way you play but instead of insta kill
due to no resistance you get some protection, but only if you are using
barehands and have the dodging skill.

Also, in TOME, you can get some decent amount of armor if you don't use
dodging and still have good combat and barehanded combat which can
conver the resists.

You really need to choose which direction to go.

Ken.
[Relic]

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.angband (More info?)

Twisted One wrote:

> Mars wrote:
>
>> Symbiosis from a FF quest to enhance his lethality, he 'wore' a Master
>> Quylthulg and abused its summoning powers.
>
> FF?

From the ToME docs, found here:

<http://t-o-m-e.net/docs/tome_faq.php?tome_current=0#24>

"Q: What or who is Fumblefingers? How do I get his quests?

A: FF is short for Fumblefingers, the name that some players give
to the adventurer who keeps having his sword stolen by monsters
and asking you to find it for him. So named because he often
seems to lose it to molds and other creatures you wouldn't expect
to be able to pickpocket!"

sherm--

--
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