Welcome back to Let's Play Angband! This update is brought to you by November: Official Month of the Break-Up. Break up with somebody who you love(?) today! Me, I'm not sure who did the breaking up, but it happened. Surprisingly this means that I'm more sober than usual, but only because my Bridgeport Haymakers have become skunked due to lack of alcoholism in my household. Also, I'm out of vodka.
Wait, or am I? No, I am not out of vodka. Let's start this over again, except not.
God damn Grey Goose is a thick liquor!
By the way, the next update of Let's Play Angband will be brought to you by something extra super special. It'll almost be like getting two updates in one! Wow! I bet you totally can't wait to read what I'm going to write like a week and a half from now. Okay, now we can really start over again. Or not. Why don't we just pick up from where the last update left off instead?
Smeagol left this delightful little gift behind. However, Slay Animal is not particularly useful (except against hounds) and Hieronymus Gaylord is already dealing wicked damage with that fancy-pants dagger he's wielding. Homeboy is set for now. However, he's also filled up to overflowing with good stuff, which means it's time to go back to the ranch and sell it all - in the name of adventure!
First up, the sale of a Ring of Teleportation is briefly considered because damn that's worth a lot of fat coin, but honestly, +2 speed and a random teleport chance is just going to be too good for those situations in which it's really needed. Secondly, Chain Mail of Resist Fire! Daaaaaaaamn! That stuff is pretty hot, so Gaylord buys it and puts it on his stout, dwarvish frame. This makes me wonder: Do they sell one-size-fits-all armor in Adventureville or something? It must be kind of a bitch if you're some midget and there's a leather armor of Resistance on sale that you can't buy because you'd trip over the bottom of it trying to walk.
Not even mighty warrior of god, Hieronymus Gaylord, is immune to my bad luck involving dart traps. His average DEX stat doesn't help matters, but revenge is ultimately obtained through the power of disarmament. Take that, dart trap!
Shortly afterward our stout hero earns another level, but nothing interesting comes of it.
Deciding to use-ID again, it turns out that Hieronymus Gaylord accidentally reads a scroll that is both useful and something I'd never actually use: Deep Descent. In this case, it shunts him down about 100' to 500' (L10), which is honestly about where he should be scumming around now anyway. Good place to get some levels!
I'm actually quite surprised at how the new version of Angband handles use-ID. It's a valuable tool at lower levels, and I would never ever dream of attempting it past a certain point, but that puts a new player in an awkward situation: They might figure it's okay to occasionally use-ID, and then pull a Goofus and drink a Potion of Death. The lack of consistency is a little unusual.
Speaking of drinking potions and lack of consistency.
Now, this is particularly bad, because Gaylord has thrown away all his food because he now has the prayer of Satisfy Hunger. Unfortunately, it has a fairly low success rate. Also unfortunately, if he fucks up really bad, this is going to be the most embarrassing death yet.
Fortunately, in the 11th hour, after failing to cast the spell twice with his actual mana reserves, Gaylord succeeds and promptly passes out. Thank god there weren't any monsters nearby. I swear to god that I'm not use-IDing anything again. I'll never hurt you again, baby. I promise. [color=white]Until the next time.[/color]
Here's an interesting bug (?) that I think is new. We're going to call this one stack-ID.
So Hieronymus Gaylord is trotting around the dungeon like pretty much any dwarf would, and in retrospect, I probably should have made him a lady dwarf just to fuck with all you people out there who sleep with the Silmarillion under your pillow because I'm pretty sure that if I remember right from my high school days (when I wasn't too cool to sleep with the Silmarillion under my pillow) there aren't any women dwarves. That's beside the point because he's carrying around an already-ID'd pair of +4 leather gloves. Picking up what appears to be an innocuous, not entirely dissimilar pair of gloves, he discovers that they stack!
This means that, if by fortune or chance, you pick up anything - anything at all - off the dungeon floor which exactly matches an ID'd item in your stack, it is also automatically ID'd. Neat! Maybe this has always existed and I just never got lucky enough to notice it before.
Hey look! It's our old friend Orfax, the Son of Boldor, which I guess makes him Prince of the Yeeks. If memory serves right he's kind of a dick, so we should go and kill his ass dead. WARNING: Link may be funky fresh and make you prone to shake booty.
Yes, I know she has a mustache. She can't help it. [color=white]Yes, this is actually a true fact about my mom. You are welcome.[/color]
You really should leave these dungeons and go get a tan, you know, dude. It's okay now. I think they even have these things called "manning" spas now where you can go and feel safe in an environment that guarantees it won't move.
Punk goes down like a chump, and leaves.. nothing? What is this crazy world we live in? Unique monsters always drop something, even if it's totally shitty! Oh well, the yeeks dropped a bunch of stuff so it's back to the surface, into the shops, gold into the pockets, back into the dungeon.
Now this is more like it. Level 16 is swiftly obtained, in a sign of good fortune. By the way, Gaylord gets to learn perrenial favorite Orb of Draining at level 17! Not that he'll ever, you know, really need it. Because he's such a machine of DEATH. PS: If I found something good on this level, I didn't get a screenshot of it. Sorry.
In all of my years playing Angband, this is the very first - and I mean the very first - where the 'B'ash command has actually opened a jammed door. You go, Hieronymus Gaylord!
Gaylord also finds this awesome little doodad laying around on the floor of the dungeon! Right on, this is going into the pouch for later.
Luck continues, unabated!
And here's the process by which luck works! First, pseudo-ID tells Hieronymus Gaylord that the whip is an ego-item, which means that it's safe to equip it and try it out (it's as light as the dagger, so three attacks per turn is a definite). Attacking a few times reveals some of the properties of the item, namely its enchantments, and this is where I figure out that any item tagged with {magical} can be ID'd just by wielding it in combat for a couple turns. Nice. Finally, an actual ID item is used and it's Slay Undead! Well, here's the story behind that.
It will do slightly less damage on average, right now, than the dagger. But with some enchantments it'll be doing par, or better (because of a higher to-hit score) and will deal extra bonus damage against undead, which are not plentiful, but it's better than no bonus. Guess we've found a new weapon!
In a shocking coincidence, image 17 of this update is level 17 of this update is when Hieronymus Gaylord learns Orb of Draining! You go, girl.
Apparently now, in some instances, pseudo-ID is also a little more powerful when it comes to detecting super-bonus enchantment ego items (Accuracy and Power items). Anyway, this bow is bitchin' rad and is going to be firing arrows at all kinds of things in short time!
Here we go. This was one of the things that I was really adamant about not liking in the new release line, and I'm still kind of ambivalent about it. Potions which previously did stat drain now do stat shuffle; they take one point away from one attribute permanently and reassign it to another. This can either be extremely useful or extremely deadly, and it's all the roll of a die. On one hand, I could gain some much-needed DEX. On the other, I could lose an attack by doing so. Decisions! In this case I decide to sell it, or drop it, or not drink it, or something.
In a moment of serious anticlimax, Hieronymus Gaylord dispatches a foul villain and once again leaves you, the readers, with the burning question: What did he drop?
NEXT TIME: What did he drop? And: A special message from our sponsor, by which I mean my sponsor, by which I mean I got paid to do something that wasn't pretend to work in the office.