I am making a lot more progress now that I can walk around during the day. I have a lot of the map visible now, and have started finding non-dungeon areas that have numeric markers on them, indicating that they seem to be well-stocked with monsters. I ran into a graveyard that was good for a couple thousand XP before I ran away; that was a “3” block.
Because my ID and recharge are pretty happy these days, I come back with only “good” stuff. I depend on a Staff of Perception, which I recharge religiously. That seems more useful than using my ID spell.
I have had 4 good drops in the dungeon:
RA Chain Mail (I can barely wear it without being encumbered, but it saves my scrolls)
Metal Cap of Widsom
Westernesse Broad Sword
Amulet of Slow Digestion
And several awesome finds in stores:
Ring of Light/Dark Resist
Ring of Free Action (now in a house because Westy has it)
Cloak of Protection (surprisingly cheap for a +14AC item, about 1700g)
Not one, but *two* (Defender) weapons! (I had to sell one back to get the other; traded Nexus Resistance for Shards Resistance, and it has +6AC instead of +4)
I have gotten several useful drops in the dungeon that don’t make the main equipment:
Lantern of Everburning (although I make my own light, a bigger radius is nice)
Rings of Levitation, See Invisible, and Slow Digestion (all homed because DF does the first 2 and Amulet does the other)
The occasional Slay weapon that I sell. (I have found Chaotic, BB, and a couple of Slays)
I have been scouring the town shops for useful potions and scrolls:
Restore Stat (I have all but CHA for some reason)
Restore Life Levels (I have 1)
Restore Mana (I have 3 or so)
Remove Curse
*ID*
I try to stash a couple of spellbooks and Recall/Hunger/Curse scrolls in each house. They are not all perfectly stocked yet, but one even has a Westernesse weapon in it, if the need ever arises…
Finding a Defender in town was really nice. Free Action, See Invisible, Levitation, R, and it gives me +6 to AC. It just sits there in its sheath, being my best friend.
I am remembering that this is the scary and critical time in a character’s career. I’m tough enough that I can take on a whole village of orcs out in the open without taking a hit, ogres give me some trouble but I can get out without taking took much damage, but more than 1 giant and I run out of mana and get into Big Trouble. Also, at this point, when I get into Trouble, I need “Teleport”, not “Phase Door”.
I’m a little confused by my success in the too-deep dungeons I’ve been visiting. I never really came close to death at 1600′, although I was ultra careful not to venture too far, and picked my battles carefully. At 1150′, I had to retreat a lot when I ran out of mana, but the battles were never really in question, even when I got surrounded. BTW, Gnome Mages suck. “It summons 50 orcs to help!” grr. Luckily orcs are the toughest creature I know that can get aced by blue light. I found a “2” dungeon and wandered around a bit, but it felt pretty boring. I think maybe the “3” dungeons are me, for now. Better loot at 1600′ (“4”), but better survivability at 1150′.
I still can’t believe I dove into a dungeon to keep from being killed by sunlight. That was a scary moment.
Bait the Daywalker, an up-and-coming Mage-about-town.
I don’t think the dungeon depths correspond to iMoria depths directly. It seems iMoria got harder deeper faster.
(*giggle*)
That’s a flash of imagery that’s now lodged. ouch.
This is another of the differences between variants that I’m not in love with. Zangband both fractured the dungeon itself (by having lots of mini-dungeons and a wilderness thing going on), but also created dungeon “types”, so the dungeon below the starting town is *always* a “sewer”, full of jellies, molds, ickies, and rats, but with almost no humanoids, undead, dragons, centipedes, scorpions, etc.
I assume other dungeon “types” can be gleaned from the color of the number denoting them, but I haven’t deciphered that yet. I was kind of relieved when I started running into orcs in the “next” dungeon. You have no idea how sick of Disenchanter Molds I was.
The partitioning of the dungeons shows up in the “zoos” as well. There are “meat lockers” with all cold stuff, “ovens” with all fire stuff, “faerie rings” with all fungi, etc.
What I’m saying is that IMoria threw all these different monster types at you all at once, so you had to be prepared to meet evil vs undead vs fungus vs spellcaster vs humanoid vs … all at the same time, where you can kind of tune your inventory to the dungeon type in Zang. Kind of.
But to your point, I remain somewhat confused as to what dungeon depth I should be at. It always seemed like there was an obvious place in IMoria. I went downstairs and … “HOLY CRAP I’m outta here!” With Zang, like I said, it’s more a matter of whether I feel I can explore the whole level vs clearing some rooms but always feeling like I can get out when I want vs obsessive use of Detect Monsters.
The game is still very difficult. It’s just more subtle. Or maybe my play style has matured. 🙂