Welcome back to Let's Play Angband! This update is brought to you by the squash soup I made, along with some baked beets. If you've never had a fresh baked beet you have never had a beet. I'm not joking: Try it sometime. You'll thank me later. It's also brought to you by the fact that I don't have to take a final exam on Monday, which means more time for Angband, which means more Let's Play Angband for you! Hooray!
This episode starts off with a great big bang.
I just got one of these things! Why do you have to keep giving them to me!
So. It offers up confusion and fire resist and slays evil and is branded with flames and.. and.. I.. I just don't know anymore. Anduril is a great weapon, sure, and a big part of that is the massive strength bonus that it gives, but this is a rough choice. This might end up being a secondary weapon that gets filed away somewhere. Like at home. I mean, I'd just bring it as a second weapon slot but honestly, I feel weird doing that. I know it's a strategy that's necessary to survive, though.
I find it mildly hilarious that this katana comes from the west.
I also find it mildly hilarious that after I pick up a boatload of artifacts that give me a set of resistances I really need, I finally get a Defender ego item. This thing is going to get sold so hard. It will be sold until the end of time.
These, by the way, are the properties that a Defender ego-item has. They're really great and I sure would love to get one sometime before an artifact weapon someday! I seem to remember Viki finding one that was an edged weapon, so she couldn't use it.
Let's talk for a brief moment about hound strategies again, because I'm bored of just posting pictures of (awesome) loot and wish that there could maybe be a couple more dangerous situations for Hieronymus Gaylord to get himself into.
This one is pretty simple: Hounds are in a hallway, you're in a big room. Sometimes they can breathe around the corner, but that's a little unfair, so sometimes you want to scoot an extra space back from what's pictured (at the possible penalty of not being able to dispatch hounds fast enough). But for Hieronymus Gaylord, since he has a death-dealing weapon which gets multiple attacks, he's going to be taking these puppies out in just a hit or two.
Here's how this works: You sit and wait. Then a hound appears at the end of the hallway, and you kill it. Repeat. If it's done right and the hallway is a straightaway with no bends in it that might change the hounds' line of sight so they can hit you, this is a fairly safe way to deal with them. Viki used cornering strategies like this as well, I'm sure of it. Did I even mention them? I bet I did. Consider this a reminder then, because effective ways of handling hounds are worth explaining more than once.
Oh yeah! Let's check out some stats on Hieronymus Gaylord, because I just mentioned that he's getting two attacks a turn, but forgot to say so when we were checking out the properties of Anduril. Worth noting: His fight+melee bonus is incredible, and that's why he's rocking so much damage all over the faces of various monsters. Monsters, consider your faces rocked.
Hieronymus Gaylord pops down to 1150', surrounded by orcs, which he conveniently destroys with a few well-placed blasts of draining.
One of them drops this, which is yet another hilarious cursed item. I love that this stuff starts showing up at a depth where players should know that it's never safe to wear-ID, too.
Oh yeah, it turns out that you can get the average damage on arrows by inspecting them, as well. In this case, with Hieronymus Gaylord's current bow, he can deal some pretty serious death with these things; 50 average damage is pretty great. I honestly haven't been using ranged combat nearly enough, and now I think that I will. Ranged combat is the best!
Unfortunately, a bronze dragon shows up and Hieronymus Gaylord wishes he'd brought along Totila. Resist confusion: Super important.
However, being confused is no match for his radical armor class and my persistence in pressing keyboard buttons in the general direction of the 'd'. Baby dragons are pushovers!
Somewhere along the way, it appears that Hieronymus Gaylord gets down to 1250', taking him a quarter of the way through Angband.
He has also learned an inordinate amount about Earth Hounds, simply by killing the hell out of them. Of particular note is their average life rating; H.G. is dispatching them in one or two hits for certain. That's also a very short distance to detect the player; 300 feet is only 30 tiles. The only thing that's missing from this report is shard damage, and I don't think that ever shows up.
Suddenly, a novice rogue that's been hanging out with his drinking buddies drops something important after being burned to death. Daggers are never 2d4, are they?
Surprise! I've never thought I'd say this, but this artifact is totally worthless to me. That's right: An artifact is worthless.
Here's why. That's some pretty pitiful per-hit damage and also a really lame special power. For lower-level characters Dethanc and its family members whose names I forget but I know have mentioned before are absolute godsends, especially for rogues, who suck at putting on heavy equipment but have high DEX and so will get 2 (or maybe 3) blows a round with this weapon.
I can only imagine what would happen if I actually attempted to use a missile weapon with the Backbiting property. Does it hurt you? Is it just really stupid? I mean, check out those bonuses(?).
Another floor, another orc pit. Sigh. This one is cleaned out as per usual.
Well, this one at least leaves an artifact behind. And how! Like I said, artifact armor just isn't even going to stack up against the gold dragon scale mail for a while.
Wait a minute! Let's keep going, this update has been kind of lame. I mean, three artifacts, and only one of them is any good? Where's the danger? The excitement?
In a bitter twist, Dethnac sells for about half of what the dagger of Westernesse did.
Oh hey, check this out! Hieronymus Gaylord could use a copy of Ethereal Openings. It's not the best thing out there, but what the heck, the price is right. He picks up that Potion of Strength while he's at it, because more muscles means more hitting!
So Hieronymus Gaylord now has a proper blink spell, teleport, and teleport other. He, unfortunately, cannot learn the awesome spell that completely regenerates the current dungeon floor. God must not love him enough, I think it has to do with all the murder.
Back to the dungeon, complete with a good feeling!
Hmm. This fellow looks like he might be a little bit of trouble, especially after this long line of Uruks (o). Better take a cautious approach.
Well, I guess that Hieronymus Gaylord didn't get messed up too bad, but that's not going to stop him from telling God to cover his ass whenever evil monsters attack him. I'm sure I mentioned Protection from Evil while running Viki through the dungeon, but just in case: Protection from Evil protects you from, well, evil monsters. It causes their attacks which would connect to deflect, which means that H.G. is gonna be quite safe!
The result is predictable, once again.
He drops this crappy little thing. How is Hieronymus Gaylord supposed to ever earn back the gold he spent on that prayer book with treasure like this?
Well, it helps that the regular orcs drop things like this.
I'm going to have to cut this update just a little bit short because it turns out this is a good stopping point. Sorry that it was kind of boring! I promise that next time things will be a little more exciting. In fact:
NEXT TIME: Things are a little more exciting. Unique monsters, more artifacts, and thrilling tales. Two drink minimum.