
   [angband3.gif] Combat Guide
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       Monster Rooms/Pits | Vaults | Uniques | Rough Monsters 
       Invisibles | Gain Stat Levels | Useful Tricks
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  Monster Rooms / Monster Pits
       Most monster rooms can be approached from the side or behind
       (behind meaning 'near the wall opposite the wall with the door').
       But if you are forced to approach the room via the entrance side,
       then here is one method:
       Monsters have a limited detection range - roughly 15 spaces.
       Assume it is. The basic strategy is this. Come within 15 spaces of
       the door. take one step forward, and 5 steps back. Then, only the
       closest few monsters noticed your presence, and they will come out
       of the room, and attack you. You can dispose of them, and then
       come back to wake up the next closest ones.

        Jelly pits 
                Probably safest to leave them alone. They can eat through
                armor, and are worth little experience. Very easy to take
                out if you have resist acid armor, though. (hide your
                weapons first)
                

        Orc/Troll pits
                (1) Rod of Light / Spear of Light is a good way to do
                lots of damage to many orcs at once.
                (2) Sleep III can be used to put almost all the orcs to
                sleep at once. (multiple casts might be necessary). You
                can then take out row by row via light damage in (1).
                Most trolls are immune to sleep, but a few are not (e.g.
                I think Forest Trolls aren't), so while you can't do this
                for a whole pit, the sleep trick (see below) will work if
                you do it right.
                

        Priest trick
                Orc, troll, and giant pits (and, at higher levels, demon
                and dragon pits) are among the best of priest's friends,
                once they get: i) Dispel Evil (from either Exorcisms and
                Dispelling or Wrath of God) ii) Some form of speed (temp.
                or permanent), iii) Protection from Evil.
                a) Find a pit, by casting Detect Evil. Get as close to it
                as you can. Cast Protection from Evil a couple of times.
                If you can get to the door, great, go to step c) below
                and open it. Otherwise, try to work your way to part of
                the pit's wall.
                b) Make a hole in the wall (dig or Stone to Mud). A
                monster will probably block the hole, unless you hasted
                yourself first and were able to time it right.
                c) Using your speed (temporary or permanent), kill the
                monster in the hole/doorway, or perhaps just teleport it
                away. Step into the hole with your haste to see all the
                monsters in the room.
                d) Cast Dispel Evil repeatedly. The Protection from Evil
                will reduce or stop melee attacks. This should allow you
                to easily kill almost all of the monsters. (you might
                have to go in and clean up).
                
        If you have only speed 1, or can't get close enough to dig a
                hole, but do have Ethereal Openings, do this:
                
                Kill or (better) teleport away about 1/3 to 1/2 of the
                monsters first. Teleport away is best since it removes
                more monsters at a time. Then you can use Blink to try to
                get into the pit. Once inside, you can dispell at will.
                Note that you will want to cast Protection from Evil
                before Blinking around, and that the killing/teleport
                steps are required to free up some space in the pit. This
                will probably take several tries, but it is worth it.
                
       At high levels, Demon and Dragon pits can be handled the same way.
       You should prepare by having the appropriate resistance. MultiHued
       Dragons just do too much damage compared to the others, and you
       might want to take them on one by one. It is probably not worth
       the bother of trying to take out a multihued pit.
       This is NOT a good technique to use against graveyards (undead
       pits)! You can easily die if several drujs decide to cast nasty
       spells at you at once.
       Undead pits are hard, but kind of fun. Don't try them without some
       way to get to speed 3, some form of Hold Life or Nether
       Resistance, Free Action, and lots of heal items. A Helm of
       Telepathy or some other source of ESP is also very helpful. A good
       general procedure: a) kill all the monsters that phase through
       walls. They'll be the first to escape. Then kill b) the others
       (wraiths, wights, skeletons, vampires, etc.) One or two at a time
       -- lure them 'round a corner. Really nasty guys like Black
       Reavers, Nightcrawlers, etc. should probably be teleported away
       and fought elsewhere. Finally, when all of the mobile guys are
       dead, c) kill the drujs (they don't move). The
       ball-against-the-wall works, as does a direct target through a
       hole, but try to avoid being in their line of sight unless you
       have at least speed 3. Also try not to let more than one or two
       see you at any given time.
       Note that Black Reavers can "eat" walls, so when fighting an
       undead pit be *very* careful not to walk near any such holes and
       into the line of sight of the drujs before you're ready to go
       after the drujs.
       Undead pits can be so dangerous as to make it worth your while to
       avoid them. Think (and prepare) very carefully before even
       thinking of taking one on.
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  Vaults
       Lesser vaults. These are things like the round rooms, "inner
       rooms" with oddly-shaped inner rooms, and (probably the most
       common) the squarish rooms with two large diagonal walls. These
       contain good treasures and monsters, but usually they are not
       wildly out of depth -- i.e., the monsters are created as normal
       for the level, although the large concentration of monsters makes
       the odds of finding a fairly nasty one (or three :-) quite good.
       Greater vaults. These are the huge rooms that fill half the screen
       and contain lots of very good objects and lots of out-of-depth
       monsters. Many of these are deliberately created out of depth.
       Incredible vaults. This is a subset of b). It's the "graph paper"
       room of crypts with one monster+treasure per crypt. These make
       type b) vaults seem like a piece of cake. Unless you've killed
       most of the uniques -- unlikely except near the very end -- expect
       to find LOTS of uniques, at least 6 or 8, with essentially no
       restriction on level. The treasure is equally incredible. I guess
       that about half of them contain at least one artifact when they're
       created.
       One of the simplest ways to deal with these rooms is by using a
       wand of teleport monster to get rid of the really tough ones.
       However, a really tough monster would probably be faster than you
       are, which means they could also breathe on you the same turn you
       dig through the wall. You have been warned. These rooms are -very-
       dangerous.
       The simplest way by far to deal with these rooms is to avoid them.
       Much better to be alive and without _ANY_ artifact than dead.
       To give you an idea of how dangerous, the source code states that
       monster in these rooms can be up to -40- levels out of depth.
       That's 2000 feet!
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  Uniques
       By far the best way to deal with most of the uniques is the pillar
       trick. Indeed, this is so effective I think it's a bit
       unbalancing. Fighting Tiamat at speed 3 in an open space is
       difficult. Fighting Tiamat at speed 4 by chasing her around a
       pillar turns out to be pathetic. Perhaps this should be reworked.
       At higher levels, when you have multiple attacks, big plusses to
       damage and possibly some other advantanges, just beating on the
       monster can be effective. But not all uniques are killed by these
       two approaches:
       In the early going, I don't think there's a single unique other
       than Farmer Maggot who a player who's slightly aggressive will be
       able to beat by just whaling on. I subscribe to the pummel them
       and then retreat (phase door, teleport, whatever) rest and hit
       again - it takes longer since uniques regenerate quickly, but it's
       much more successful. At high levels, just straight forward
       pummeling works much better - that's what my 45th level priest
       does. And I've yet to use the pillar trick on _any_ unique. Again,
       if you drop levels at any sort of a decent rate, you're rarely
       going to have speed advantage on the uniques. Everything else,
       yes, but I can only get temporarily faster than uniques, and
       that's not enough for the pillar trick. I'm usually the same speed
       or, if anything, slower.
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  Rough Monsters
       An emperor lich has 1520 hit points, plus anything additional that
       it gains by draining mana (6 points per mana point drained) and
       charges (40 points per charge). Never let it attack you in melee,
       because it can destroy your wands, healing itself in the process,
       as well as draining your experience and dexterity.
       If you can get to speed 3, faster than the lich, it is easy to
       kill; just fight, move back, fight, move back, and so on. You will
       still need a lot of cure wounds potions, unless you let it chase
       you around a pillar, as in the AMHD technique.
       Note (for people familiar with Moria) that an emperor lich is
       (relatively) less nasty than in Moria.
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  Invisibles
       One tactic, which is dangerous but still worth thinking about is
       fighting an invisible creature and a group of monsters at the same
       time. Since only one monster can be in a position at a time,
       suspicious 'gaps' in the middle of groups of monsters can show you
       where these annoying pests are.
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  Gain Stat Levels
       1500 - 1600 feet - the other stats besides Charisma. Charisma
       potions aren't particularly necessary, and are cheap, so don't
       hang around 1000 feet merely for Charisma. 1500 are physical stat
       potions - STR, DEX, CON 1600 are mental stat potions - INT, WIS
       At 2000 or so there are Augmentation potions, but it's a pretty
       rough jungle down there.
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  Useful tricks
       Useful Trick #1 - Running in a circle
       Find an area with a relatively small path that goes in a circle.
       The path should be smaller than 1/3 of the screen (like one of
       those large room in a room rooms). If you are fighting, you can
       run in a circle, and they will happily chase after you, and your
       hit points and mana will slowly creep up. You can then beat on
       whoever, and start running again. This doesn't work if the monster
       is faster than you are, or can do damage from a distance.

       Useful Trick #2 - The pillar trick
       Find a monster slower than you are. Find or make a pillar. A
       pillar would be a single block of wall with one open space on all
       four sides. When the monster is right next to you, hit the
       monster. Then next turn, move to the other side of the wall. The
       monster will follow you. Hit the monster. Move to the other side
       of the wall. Continue till the monster is dead. This doesn't work
       with two monsters at once, btw.
       Example of pillar:
   ...
   .#.
   ...

       Useful Trick #3 - taking advantage of stupid monsters
       Monsters always attempt to take the straight path towards you. So,
       if there is a wall between you, the monsters won't move, cuz
       they're trying to move straight towards you (towards the wall).
       This makes it easy to take out a group of monsters.
       An example is best. Let's say you're fighting a bunch of Ogres.
   OOOOOOOOO
   ##############'###
       @
       The O's will stay right where they are, since they're all trying
       to stay as close to you as they can. Notice the door off to the
       right. If you walk towards the door, you will reach this point:
         OOOOOOOO
   ##############O###
            @
       Where one ogre has gone far enough right to go through the door.
       Now go left again:
      OOOOOOOO
   ##############'###
         @   O
       The one ogre that made it through the door will follow you, the
       rest will stay on their side (duh). You can take out that single
       ogre, and repeat as many times as you want. You can vary this a
       bit, and let two ogres 'out' if you can take on two at a time with
       no problem.
       The only annoying thing with this method is that the dead monsters
       tend to leave a lot of treasure you need to clean up, to give the
       other monsters a chance to drop treasure too, but it's a good safe
       method. Works really well with telepathy, too.
       Subnote: corridors like this make phase door a lot safer, since if
       you end up on the other side of the wall, you're (usually)
       completely safe, unless the other monster can go through walls or
       something.

       Useful Trick #4 - The sleep spell in the corridor trick
       A sleep monster wand or "Sleep I" spell is required for this
       tactic effective against group monsters. It has been used to
       deadly effect against orc pits and troll pits, but is handy before
       then at times:
    In a room:         In a corridor:

   ####+### # #      #################
   #  oooo### #        ppppppppxppp@ #
   # ooxooo @ #      ############### #
   #  oooo#####                    # #
   ########
       These represent some typical situations. In either case you sleep
       the first creature in the corridor. You then cast a ball spell (or
       use a wand of stinking cloud/frost ball/...) over their head and
       past by three or more spaces (at least to the 'x' marked in each
       case). This prevents the damage spell waking up the slept
       creature. If you run out of mana, duck around the corner to rest.
       Periodically the slept creature will awaken, so you may need to
       sleep it again.
       If you don't have ball spells, you can always just beat on the
       first guy, and then sleep the 2nd, rest, then beat... etc.
       You can often destroy large numbers of creatures with little risk
       this way.
       If you have lots of hit points, the sleep spell itself may be
       unnecessary. Just let the one creature hit you - but then you
       don't need to be careful not to wake the front guy up either. You
       can always sleep the first creature and rest.
       Note - for monsters that shoot some sort of missile/ball weapon
       (like rangers or dragons), you need to do it so only the first
       creature can see you -
   #p#
   #p#
   #p#
   #p#
   #p##########
   # @
   ############
       If you stood in the corner, the creatures behind the slept monster
       would shoot some weapon, which would wake up that monster, and
       screw it all up.
       variation : using a Rune of Protection to block the first monster.

       Useful Trick # 5 - The easy way to kill any non-moving creature
       To start, a little background info. Playing around with the
       targeting option in Angband (e.g. PC version 1.31 and later) I
       noticed that I could aim for a particular spot on the floor. Ball
       type spells affect an area, not just that spot on the floor. Now,
       if you cant see the monster, but you can target a spot next to the
       monster, the ball spell's area of effect will encompass the little
       sucker, and damage it. I'll show you a pretty usual setup.
   ##########################
   #........................#
   #.######################.#
   #.#                    #.#
   #.#                    #.#
   #.#   s. <-target that #.#
   #.,        dot!!       #.#
   #.#                    #.#
   #.##### ################.#
   #........................#
   ####### ##################
         # #
         # #
         # #
         #@# <- You are here. # #
       Now, through experience, Korash the Dwarven Priest (who is my
       alter personality!) knows where the Druj is (detect monster) and
       he knows that the monster can't see him! But, he also knows that
       by targeting the spot marked, Orb of Draining or whatever you
       choose to use will hit the Druj!. This way, you can kill them off,
       your mana will recover quicker than its hitpoints. And for a high
       level character the Druj dies while you still have some mana left.
       I know that for Korash, about 10-15 Orb of Draining shots and a
       Hand or Eye Druj is dead. That works out to be about 70-100 mana.
       A bit .. but not too much.
       This of course, require detection, ball spells, and likely a
       digging tool to make the tunnel to shoot through, so might not be
       easy for the warrior types to use.

       Useful Trick #6 - The Close the door trick
       When low on hit points and being pursued, you can't always set up
       the 'go round in a circle' trick, but wandering around can be
       dangerous.
       Here is the alternative to the 'run in a circle' trick:
   ##########
        ooo
   ####'#####
      #@#
       If you can get 1 space ahead of your pursuer(s), and on the other
       side of a door, then close it. Yes, the pursuer is just going to
       open it again, so you don't seem to have gained much - but you
       have - you have gained one free turn of rest. Close it again...and
       again. Soon you'll see your hp (and mana if you have it) going up.
       If they don't open it for a turn, you have to decide whether to
       steal the extra breathing space by running, or wait. In the
       arrangement above, if the front orc moves left at some stage, they
       will have a chance of getting through after you. Some other
       arrangements are safer, like this one:
      ###
   ####
     o'@
   ####
      ###
       Note: This won't work at all against monsters that are faster than
       you are.

       Useful Trick #7 - Keeping a tight lid on possible explosions
       If you ever encounter a swarm of exploding somethings that you
       can't kill, one simple way to take care of it is to simply close a
       few doors, and lock them in a room. Since they can't multiply
       outside of this room, you can leave. This works well for Giant
       Fleas that run rampant, too.
           ##################
           #w ww ww w w w w
   #########w ww ww wwww
   .......@+www ww ww w www
   ######### wwww ww www w
           #w w w w
           ##################
       In addition, this is an easy way to get easy experience at early
       levels. Since worms are easy to kill, they are easy experience.
       You can let worms multiply, and then open the door, kill a few,
       and then close the door at little to no risk.
       Be sure not to lock yourself in a dead end - trying to run through
       a room of white worms can kill a character quite easily.

       Useful Trick #8 - Death by Rune of Protection
       Runes of Protection are portable walls (almost). If you have Rune
       of Protection scrolls (or the Glyph of Warding prayer), you can
       set up a configuration like this:
           # #
           # #
   #########N#
   ....@...^^#
   ###########
       where N is a generic Nasty and the ^'s are Runes.
       First, you place Runes in a corner as shown. Then, you find some
       way to lure N into the corner. Perhaps tossing a spell at it, then
       running away. Even better, ironically, is an item of Aggravate
       Monster, because then you can cause a distant monster to wake up,
       start pursuing you, and walk right into the corner. Remember to
       take the damn thing OFF after a couple of turns (unless it's
       Deathwreaker/Zarcuthra/The One Ring...).
       Here, in this setup, N: a) cannot cast spells/breaths. It can't
       see you. b) is pinned between a rock (its move algorithm that
       tries to move it towards you) and a hard place (the Runes).
       In other words, it's stuck. So just use the splash-the-ball-spell-
       off-the-wall trick, previously described, to kill it. This is a
       natural for priests, as they have the Glyph/Orb combo.; other
       classes will have to scrape around for the Rune of Protection
       scrolls.
       **BIG CAVEAT** Remember that Runes can break! There is a LEVEL/550
       chance (LEVEL is the monster's level; the 550 is specified in
       CONSTANTS.H in the source) that a monster can break a Rune on any
       given move. If either rune, especially the one nearest you,
       breaks, then you may want to leave. Thus, you shouldn't use this
       technique unless you (a) have a good escape spell/item and (b) can
       handle one attack of whatever the monster can throw at you. Note
       that this is not a good thing to use against high-level,
       high-speed monsters. . .

       Useful Trick #9 - Dealing with monsters that summon
       This is restricted to relatively high-level characters.
       Monsters that summon - quylthulgs, many higher-level uniques, etc
       - summon monsters in spaces adjacent to you. As a result, if these
       spaces are already filled, the summoner can't summon any more. If
       summoning is the monster's main attack, as with Quylthulgs, then
       you can wait for the summoner to summon ONCE, then target the
       summoner and toss ball spells at it. You need ball spells or
       wands/rods to do this, since the summoned monsters will block
       bolts, and prevent melee attacks against the summoner. A gnome
       priest winner killed Qlzqqlzuup this way - its only spells are
       summons, and so he simply Orbed it to death.
       Of course, this only works if the first summon gives relatively
       harmless monsters. Ant, reptile, spider, and hound summons often
       give relatively easy to deal with monsters, especially if you have
       lots of resistances and a reasonable way to heal yourself. In any
       event, eyeball the summoned critters before plunging in. If you
       find yourself surrounded by Chaos Hounds or Greater Undead, it's a
       good time to teleport out and try again later.
       Alternatively just teleport them away as soon as you seem them!
       (targetting is useful here). I killed one of the unique Q's when
       it was in a large pit:
   ###########
   # @
   ###########
   #Q
   ###########
       Dug diagonally then orb of drained it to death. These pits are
       nice for killing monsters that summon since you can also just
       telport them away with one spell..only problem is they have
       limited space to drop items.

       Useful trick #10 - Using an immobile/weak monster as armor
       Heal monster allows you to hit a fairly weak creature with an area
       effect rod or spell without killing that creature. This is handy
       when there is a much more dangerous monster behind the weaker one.
   ##########
      @ mp
   ##########
       For example: You are in a hallway with a brown mold and a ninja.
       The mold is two spaces to your right. The ninja is behind the
       mold, three spaces to your right. You can cast heal monster on the
       mold a few times, then hit the mold with fireballs from your rod
       until the adjacent ninja dies. This tactic is, of course, not
       always useful. Spellcasting and breathing monsters will ignore
       your barricade. Harmless monsters do not always appear when needed
       (though they can be encouraged with speed monster). Your blocking
       monster may die on you, if you aren't careful. Also, you need a
       reusable area-effect attack.
       Haste monster can be used on a relatively weak monster so as to
       block a much nastier creature. Here's an example: You are in a
       room with a kobold and a night mare. By casting Haste Monster on
       the kobold two or three times, you may (depending on their
       locations) be able to get the kobold, rather than the night mare,
       next to you when you run from the room.
   ###########
   #  q      #
   #       k #
   #         #
   #####@#####
       # #
       # #
       This buys you time to run up some stairs or get some mana back. If
       you have a rod of light, you can blast the night mare repeatedly,
       without needing to face its attack. Slow Monster can be used if
       the kobold is doing significant damage. There are many limitations
       on this tactic. Breathing and spell-casting monsters are best
       dealt with in other ways. You need a conveniently placed wimpy
       monster. And you do, of course, end up with a kobold on your
       trail.
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