Ironman H/O paladin diary

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Originally Posted by Pete Mack

That Balrog got you good. Ouch. Your lovely new bow should help with charge drainers.
What do you have in the way of dungeon books at this point?

And no ESP or full detection. Are you carrying light rods? I find those more useful than lightning rods.

Yeh, books came late. Exorcisms didn't show up until 40, iirc. Etherial was the first dungeon book and you will read about it in the next dump shortly.

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51: 5-7: Early mugging of an Ancient blue drops a +6 Dex ring. I don’t usually use such buffs, but this time, what the heck. It’s worth losing the 15 AC and ranged attack from the ring of lightning to give it a shot. Wander about, find ring of Therudel: +3 STR, Dex, Stealth, +1 light, bunch of resists including rPois. That frees up the glove spot (which had rPois) for the artifact gloves smeagol dropped: thing is, now the +4 wis buff from the mithril gauntlets of Naewe becomes a deal-breaker. Decision time: do I keep the blasted gloves of +3 dex? I think maybe not.

52: 5-3: Harowen the Black hand is the welcoming committee. He sucks back some scimitar damage then bails, leaving me with Ren the Unclean, who proves a remarkably easy kill. I’m having issues with evaluating my strength at this point, but I did not realize it until reflecting after. Ren drops a Potion of Augmentation, which just tastes like more, please. Beat up on a few minor monsters, then begin chase with Harowen, during which another Aug shows up. The eventual demise of Harowen is a bit anticlimactic: his drop of goodies includes three randart weapons, but nothing I want or need.

53: 9-5. No welcoming committee, so I go introduce my sword to a law drake and some demon brought to the world by a qullpleasenameitbetter.. Big vault. Crack open, mow down row of mumak. Eol only obvious baddie there, and falls quickly, although HP whittled. Heal and forge ahead Augh! Wolfhound. Thankfully, immunities help, but bail, heal and return. This time, Wolfhound is TO-ed out of there.

54: 7-6. Things moving along now. Etherial Openings … the first dungeon book. Gorlim – easy pickings. Drops nice cutlass, save as swap, and potion of Aug. Find Scatha, easy pickings also. It drops four (!) artifacts, three weapons, but none more useful than what I have. Demilich donates con potion. Leave Cl39, 725 hp. What an improvement in such a short time.

55: 4-3: This level does not require much time. Other than a lesser balrog – blink spells make it an easy battle – not much happened. Drolem went down in easy melee. Notable find: mushroom of vigor. Yawn.

56; 5-5: Unremarkable level. Bumped to cl40 killing demons summoned by dark elfin sorcerer.

57: 6-5: The foes seem … less challenging. Al-Pharazon summons a few things, but earthquake, a portal (wail and bail) ends his tenure; a lesser Titan also falls. One of them coughed up an Aug – can’t remember which.

58: 5-5: explored, found little of interest other than some nether hounds (bah). Left quickly.

59: 5-6: Anorahkil the blind is the welcoming committee, after a drolem Both go. Law drake drops Aug potion, which can only help int, wis, con as others are maxed already. Ifire makes a lava-filled special room an easy process. Find band of Eledas - +1STR, +3CON/Dex, +4 Wis, with some tunneling and light, +4 infra and iFire. I now have two sources of iFire.

[Pete Mack]

Late in the game, you'll find DEX more useful than WIS, I suspect. Useful WIS maxes at 18/150 for a Paladin, but DEX is useful all the way up, with heavy weapons like MoD (HA), which is pretty ideal for the class.

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60: 3-6: maze level, unremarkable. Even Bill, Bert and Tom are now “oh, did I kill a unique?” which means I’m above where I wanted to be. Not going to complain. I do make a decision here, to drop the set of gauntlets that give +4 wis and switch in Smeagol’s gloves that give +3 dex and moreover, +3 speed. Base of 10, but down one due to overweight (28 PD scrolls, can probably pare down) and the spare backup weapon. I have held onto those gauntlets with the +4 wis boost for a long time, and I debate dropping them. I just have a bad feeling that I will regret the decision, but do so anyway.

61: 4-3: Might have been the shortest visit of any level so far. Zipped around, found few critters, ate a mushroom of second sight which I couldn’t carry, and hit the stair down.

62: 5-6: ESP shows Kevlax as waiting committee. Guzzle potion of speed and get to work. Kevlax drops a decent shield with some buffs, but more importantly, the Band of Morathie, with +11 speed, +4 STR and +1 wis. That goes on a finger, immediately.
I move on to a catacomb room with lava and find Dwar, one of two uniques (the other is RogRog who died quickly). Dwar proves more of a challenge than Kevlax, but doesn’t give much. Room does have Godly Insights. Away go the rods of treasure location.
Now a word of self-reflective wisdom. Which is also an admission of bonehead stupidity. Funny thing about this game, it penalizes the kind of “this is getting easy” sentiment I’ve been expressing, in often deadly ways. It also penalizes non-thoughtful play. This comes to me when I’m taking on an Ancient multi-hued, and all of a sudden, I’m losing hit points in a hurry and I am not yet engaged in melee. Don’t get it. I have immunities to four out of five of what this thing breathes, and the …. oh. Crap. …. I have made an error. I have no rPois. It was on a ring I dropped to put on the band of Morathie! Frantically go back, get it. I look over my gear and my resistances, and discover my current “I nearly died” is tied to a blunter made many levels ago when I dropped the gauntlets that had +4 dex and …. rPois. So that +11 speed ring is utterly useless until I find a non-ring source of rPois. I can go fast, or go with CON, but not both. CON it be.
Just when I digest it all, and move on, Angband throws me another challenge. Now, det evil picks up Osse. And Shelob…..both, just west of the catacomb room. Sleeping for now, but … I can’t take two shots of nether from Osse, or ickybad from Shelob. I pause to realize I was just twenty moves away from Shelob when the ancient multi-hued exposed my lack of rPois. Shelob could have instakilled. I take care of Shelob, and bail on the level before a TO-ed and PO-ed Osse finds me.

63: 5- 5 Welcoming committee is Uvatha, and The Phoenix. I chug a speed, down Uvatha with almost no trouble. The Phoenix breathes fire (immune, remember?) and dies, dropping Holy Infusions. Nearby is a crown – an artifact. With rPois, rDis and +3 wis. Agh, but the cap I’m wearing gives pBlind and pConf. Ditching those gauntlets is now going to really hamper my game. Essentially, I need rPois from something else. I leave the crown: it’s no use to me. (And drops AC a ton). I poke about, feeling daft, quaff a Wis potion (ironic) and bail after an eye druj beats the tar out of me. I take solace in the fact 800 hp and +9 speed is still decent.

64: 6-6 finally find my first ESP item. A whip of “doesn’t squat for damage.” Draconic quiltingbug summons two wryms. I have to blink-heal-re-engage. >Find rod of TO, drop rod of acid bolts to clear space. Potion of XP drives me into L43. I find an amulet of ESP, take off the one that gives +2STR/+6Dex, but drop four banishment scrolls to make room. Find second rod of TO, blow up Ariel Queen of Air, (who destroys an Aug potion nearby, but all I’ve got left now is Int/Wis, so not a huge worry.

65: 6-5: This place is crawling with undead level drainers: liches, dreadmasters, dracoliches. Upon discovery, a few portals, a TO (of a dracolich near a potion of healing) and, realizing I am not going to find stairs, use teleport level to get out.

66: 8-6: Despite the level feeling, this goes well. Another catacomb room, with Adunaphel the Quiet. I ask her out for a date, but she proves rather high-maintenance and quite possessive, which is to say, she triggers a surprisingly lengthy and wide-ranging game of chase-the-half-orc. A liberal use of spells to keep distance proves the difference. She drops an etherial cloak with rPois, allowing me to shuffle rings, keep rPois and gain a natural base +20 speed from (finally) putting on that artifact ring with +11 speed.

67: 8-5: The 8 comes from dozens of undead and demons. I try to pluck some XP from a few of the less-dangerous ones and find it quite easy to defeat Hoarmorath with blink, orb and arrow. Hoarmorath dumps Purifications, so I drop the three rods of curing to make space. A dustup with a Titan suggests taking the +11 speed artificat ring off, because the other ring gives pBlind and pConf. This lesson comes at the cost of three or four CCW potions. Various critters and just-on-the-floor finds produce four (!) WIS potions. I leave with Wis pegged at racial max. CL 43. The level of nasty here, including various druj characters, merits a quick departure.

68: 4-5: catacomb level. I ponder blowing an Enlightenment to expedite decisions, but figure old-school works. Fundin Bluecloak is here, but he’s easily defeated with a pre-emptive “earthquake” to limit his summoning. A few heal spells mid-battle, and he dies. Disappointing (as in squat) drop.

69: 4-6: Smaug and Polyphemus are the uniques here. >Former goes down easy, latter not so much. Not much in the way of stuff here, so I move on.

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70: 4-5: Great storm wrym drops mithril-shod boots of +10 speed. That’s a welcome boost. Osse is here, and that’s not good news, as I still have no nether resistance, and he’s quite fond of such things. It’s becoming clear that I may have to sacrifice an immunity to get rNether and some boosts to CON and STR. I TO Osse, clean up some gold dragons, and have a delightful tussle with the Balrog of Moira. Orbs at range and melee take care of it – have more problems with a summoned Gelugon. (I find those and Pit Fiends nasty things.)

71: 5-6â€? Time for some assessments here. Last night’s sloppy play has made things a bit difficult, but not insurmountable. The four immunities are nice, but I have to think of abandoning one (iElec, likely) to get something else. Holes: rNether. Need con, str buffs, better weapon. CL is decent, I have 28 levels to make up seven char levels. Let’s go find some vaults, shall we? I have enough enlightenmment potions to drink one almost every level, so that becomes the standard procedure, now. I enlighten, grab some Healing and *healing potions, quaff an Augmentation (which is really only +INT now) and move on quickly.

72: 7-6 Ah, juicy. Special room (one of those diagonal jobs) with Saruman and Uldor. Plan of attack seems simple: TO Sarumon and then get down to killing and pillaging. This works well (a Horned Reaper also joins the TO team.) Swap dragon mail for Dwarven mithril armor, pick up a helm that has no real properties, but has a staggering +44 AC. Nearby, Lernaen hydra, who desperately tries to turn half-orc into lava, but iFire makes battle easy. Still juggling resistances. If I could just find pBlind pConf somewhere, that big ring could get into action and base speed would be 30. Baphomet dies, with just one PD scroll and a mid-battle healing spell. A Maia/Ishtar locker proves the answer. One of them drops the ring of Tunaleng, which has +3 CON, pBlind,Pfear, pConf, +3 speed, iCold. Shuffling things around brings me to a base speed of 33, and 929 hp. All I need now is to boost damage output, reallly. Wandering about leads to a chance to tussle with Saruman. I do, and oddly, he doesn’t teleport away. He dies, with nothing interesting as drops, but his summonings include some pretty nasty uniques. Later, perhaps, fellahs. Teleport Level it is.

73: 5-6 No welcoming committee, but someone left a potion of Experience. Maybe they went to the latrine, whoever they were. I will go find them. Crack open a minvault, TO Khamul, pillage. Disappointing. Khamul finds me, dies quickly, drops a niiiiice set of caestus. +4 dex, (5,+11), which boosts damage output nicely.
74: 4-5: Catacomb level. It has one thing I want, one I do not. The first is a potion of experience and the second is Osse. I had to don iAcid cap to whack a bile demon barring access to the potion, and had to TO Osse. I come out at Level 46. Well, after losing a level to a time vortex, and using restore potion to get back. I hate time vortexes.

75: 5-3: Mission here is simple: enlighten, find desired loot, pillage and vanish. Snag *healing, two scrolls of banish, four PD scrolls, a few CCWs, and go down.

76: 4-5: In, out, nothing, move on.

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77: 8-7: Main feature here is a huge vault, has Ungoliant, Glaurung, Ormithrax, Witch-King and Radagast in it. Glaurung is the first to come out, and a toe-to-toe goes surprisingly quickly in my favour. I’ll spare the details of the mass melee that follows, but he drops an MOD of extra attacks that looks tempting, but I leave it as a “later” decision and focus on opening the section with Ungoliant. I do so,, then back off to the entrance, letting critters come one by each, to be taken care of likewise. When Ungoliant comes, I TO her, and go about plunder and slaughter. This goes well until I open the section with Ormithrax, and something sends me away – next to Ungoliant, in a monster big room. Earthquake it is, to minimize summoning, and thus begins a lengthy, unremarkable battle where I use one restore mana and a healing potion – that’s it for consumables– to whittle her 13,000 hp. Nothing dropped, but can’t win ‘em all. I go back to the vault, and Ormithrax meets me halfway. This is a nasty tussle, but the standard wail-and-bail battle plan – phase/blink out, heal, get back into action – is successful. Clear out fifth compartment of vault. Now to think about last section. Witch-king and Radagast, side-by-each with a few maias, blue wizards, etc. Witch-king drains xp on touches, Radagast summons and disenchants. Not going to tackle both. Plan, then, is to bore into the wall near Witch-King and then TO him, then tackle Radagast in confined quarters where he can’t summon, and maybe use summed nasties as a buffer to allow me to blow up Radagast with Orbs (backed by potions of restore mana).

Ever hear the military phrase, that no plan survives first contact with the enemy? So here’s what actually happened. Yes, I TO’ed WitchKing. Then all hell broke loose, because something told me to come hither, which, in fact, dropped me outside the vault. That meant Radagast and his minons flowed out of the vault into a hallway. He summoned a chaos hound, among other things. Grand. Fighting hallucinated ain’t fun… Something in the mix sucks back XP, and hp, so I phase. I heal, and then an ishtar sends me to a parallel hallway, where a waiting Greater Balrog tries to fry my butt. I heal, kill the balrog, and go back to the melee. Something – a quydamnthing teleports me into a corner. A corner with the witch king, who promptly zaps me a level of XP. I figure I’ve already lost a level, have to drink a restore, so screw it, beat the stuffing out of Witch King. Yeah, I get drained a ton, but one potion brings it all back, and Witch King isn’t coming back. Heal, teleport, track down Radagast, who has obligingly run ahead of his support crew. He dies, A quick go-over his drops shows nothing of any great interest, save a blade of chaos of Gondolin, which does put out better damage than my main weapon. I ponder it, but the support crew comes: Ishtars and Maias. I do not know which of the support crew had it, but one of the Ishtars drops maybe the best armour I have seen in a long time: the red dragon scale armor of Nielegion. (+6,+2) [24,+25] +4 dex, +4 Con, +3 speed resist acid, cold, elec, fire, poison, light, sound, nexus, nether (woo!) and disenchantment, along with pfear and sustain. Oh, and if activated, sends 150-dam lightning balls (balls!) in every direction. Can you spell “endgame ready?”

Oh, and I haven’t cleared out the Radagast/Witch-king corner of the vault. Let’s heal and go do that, shall we? Bah! Chaos hound breathes. That forces a decision. I teleport out, wait, then go and nab the blade of chaos for the next invasion, which is blandly not noteworthy, as are the drops in the vault. I have decisions to make, about rings, weapons and the like. Depending on how I shuffle, I can be anywhere from 24 to 33 base speed, 259 to 377 sp, and ac 234 or 250. I keep the scimitar (opting for reduced damage) but retain 32 base speed, and resists in all but chaos and stun.

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78: 5-2: Two healing potions. No major baddies. In, out, done. Two minutes play time, if that.

79: 6-7 : Land east side of dungeon, Enlighten suggests southwest might have something. Random teleport and … wouldn’t you know: land right there. Ancalagon is there, breathes fire (hah). Should I take him/her/it? I mean, I have immunities to four of five of what he breathes. Of course I will. Ancalagon goes down easy. His summoned buddies, various wryms of law and chaos, … well the chaos wrym and great wrym of balance … both breathe chaos, back to back, taking me to 12 (gulp) hit points. I do not have rchaos. For the second time in this game, failing to heed a gap in resistances almost gets me killed. It should have, in truth. Gulp a *healing, bail, and play a bit smarter in terms of chiselling away at each, individually. That puts me to level 48, with 1022 hit points. I eventually get to Ancalagon’s drops. They are hefty artifact weapons, but again, nothing that makes me want to give up on the scimitar I am using now. Its +6 speed really buys it a lot of leeway…. Even over a big hammer with +2 attack speed. Down we go. My wish list is short: Wrath of God, mbans, *healing potions. Anything else, save potential end-game weapon in a vault, maybe, is just a distraction.

80: 5-6: Only thing of interest here is Faegwath, stuck in a comfy little four-critter vault with a pair of demiliches and a snake. Do I? Yeah, I do. He drains my dex, but dies. I restore it using magic. An artifact flail with 10d6 base damage looks nummy, but … but it’s not that great, surprisingly, even with its +1 attack speed. I do receive a valuable reminder from some plasma hounds that iFire doesn’t help against plasma.
81: 5-5: Nab potion of restore life levels, beat up on a wrym of law guarding stairs down, take stairs down. Quite the contrast in style: first levels, was going to every corner, trying to pillage xp. Now? Gimme the escalator, baby.

82: 5-4 No, actually, I do not feel nervous about this place. I do ponder the merits of a rod of speed over potions thereof, however. I mean really, I don’t need speed now, if I wanted to be really minimalist, but I have to think Morgoth and also the possibility that I will find a better main melee weapon at the expense of the +6 speed the scimitar offers. I then clue into something: I do not need Beginners. There is nothing in that book I need any more. Out go books, in comes rod. Problem solved for space…. I portal about, land in a room of orcs with Azog. I will let him live: the idea of one fo the big two summoning uniques and landing Azog and Farmer Maggot amuses the heck out of me.

83: 4-4: Wrym of many colours, dies; Draughlin in an easy tussle follows. Potion of healing to the good. In, out, done.

84: 6-5 Enlighten shows a rod of healing and a mithril shield. I don’t think I need a rod of healing but the shield might be something useful. I encounter four storm wryms, who contribute some XP, and a master mystic, who summons a jabberwock, who in turn dies and drops a potion of experience. OK. Nothing else merits attention.

85: 4-6: Enlighten shows nothing that grabs my attention. Mouth of Sauron is welcoming committee. Zap him with a rod of slow, speed self, drop several orbs. TO a summoned vampire lord, and engage in melee. He goes down, with disappointing drops. It’s not them, it’s me … I’m just picky. No idea what the “6” was. Found a potion of intelligence, drank it. Maxed on all racial limits now.

86: 6-6 I see a corner with a bunch of interesting items. En route an undetected Vargo jumps out and tries to make life miserable,which fails spectacularly. He dies, and I am almost at full hit points: it’s that kind of lopsided. Great wrym of many colours tries the same. At least it/he/she whittles some 280 hp before dying and dropping a potion of experience. Beat up on its neighbours, bump to 50. 1063 hp, 252 ac, base speed 33, 376 sp. All I need is Wrath to down Morgoth *or* a stack of destruction scrolls. Oh, and survive long enough to get there. I have 12 levels to find what I need.

87: 6-6: I decide to go go after Cantoras, in hopes he has something worthwhile. He does – an ethereal cloak that is a bit better than the “artifact” one I have, with rChaos. AC increases to 258, with only pStun and pShard missing. Elsewhere in the level is a locker of nasty level-draining undead. I figure it is not worth it to dry to defeat them.

88: 5-7: Do not let the “5” fool you down this deep. It means folks like Pazuzu waiting for you. (Kaput, zero consumables). Mop up, and find a trident that does respectible (better) damage versus demons. Ponder use, but here comes Atlas. His donation to the cause is a blah mace of distruption and a chaos dragon scale mail artifact that is a bit bulky, and doesn’t offer the speed the current model has. Kronos – his time is up. Mess of summoned demons from a balrog produces a nice longbow, however. +5 STR and a boost to wisdom pushes spell points to 401, and pegs strength, upping melee damage. Arrow damage drops but let’s be honest, at this moment, arrows are not the primary means of doing damage. So … a step up. I will keep trident as a swap weapon. I think my dream weapon would be am MOD of Slay Demon with extra attacks. Please? Right, next level …
89: 6-6 Land right next to a locker of all kinds of blue dragons, and …. Osse. Hmm. Osse. (think, think, think) Let’s teleport elsewhere, and ponder longer. Land next to a draconic quiltingcushion. Mop up, move on, find Maeglin. I get all excited when he drops a blade of chaos, even more excited when it’s an artifact, and … that’s … that’s it … when it’s identified. No major slays, no major buffs: just a fire brand. I poke about, and not much. So… Osse. So here’s my thinking. I have 11 levels to find something functionally better as a weapon. I have healing potions galore, speed, teleports. Let’s get at Osse. Battle goes well, with no consumables. He brings in a few ishtar and maia, but leaves this world quite quickly … and leaves …. nothing? Nothing? I killed Osse, and I didn’t even get a freaking t-shirt? Dragons go away quickly enough. I have, now, enough xp that I don’t care about level draining, so jettison the restore life levels potions I’ve been carting around.

[Estie]

A tatoo, then ? I killed Osse, and I never even got a lousy t-shirt. Talk about no ragrets.

Good read as usual

[Pete Mack]

I suspected you'd regret dropping the ordinary banishment scrolls. Those are pretty useful against about 1/3 of Ma's summons (D and U, even the occasional W.) That character is way overpowered at this point, with 4 immunities and all major resists. rDark doesn't matter much for a Paladin. (Actually, not many resists do, with 5% heal backed up by over 1000HP.)

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90: 5-4: Nothing of interest. Dump some phase door scrolls, as 40 is heavy and not needed. Not even sure I need more than a handful, to be blunt.

91: 5- 4 Ah, I have been waiting for this unique. The Tarrasque. Big test…. It blows disenchantment several times, forcing heals, but ultimately falls with only one speed as a consumable. Grab a *healing and move on, ignoring the locker of various multi-hued dragons and wryms of many colour.

92: 6-7: Clear out an under-staffed,and under-stocked vault, but ignore the locker of liches and vampires and move on.

93: 5-5: Vecna and Arien are the welcoming committee in a massive catacomb level. I drop an earthquake to minimize open areas, but that doesn’t stop Vecna from a ton of summoning. Arien fades after a long toe-to-toe. Lose Vecna, though, and decide I don’t want to melee his summoned friends, so teleport out to heal. Used one healing when things got dicey. And things got way dicey after that, with summoned nasties left right and centre. Used an Mban scroll to level the playing field, knocked offArien quite easily. Vecna was a bit of a tussle – again, hand-to-hand the best wayy of taking care of the guy. But he summoned Theringq… the vampire messenger critter and Gothmag. Used a hefty number of earthquakes, and burned three or four phases to keep space, trying to keep them apart. TO came in handy (rod and spell) several times. No amazing drops, but now there are a lot fewer heavy-hitting uniques for the big guns to call on. This would have gone much easier with a weapon that put out more damage …. Used a teleport level to bail, as all the TO-ed nasties were clogging the works.

94: 6-4 Hit 94 Enlighten…. wrathofgod wrathofgod …. bah. Nope. Huan, yes, something useful no. Nab a *healing, and move on

95: 7- 5 Enlighten…. Wrathofgod… wrathofgod…. Huh. A rapier, three phase doors, a fur cloak, a sword, three boxes of bellybutton lint. Huh. Oh, several roving bands of Horned Reapers, who of course, summon this, that and everything else. Place is soon swarming the various balrogs, lesser balrogs, the whole works. Teleport Level out….

96: 5-6: booooring. No major nasties, and nothing for loot and pillage. Move along rapidly. Starting to think how I can tackle the big two without a big stack of Runes or the Destruction from Wrath of God.

97: 5-5. Again, Enlighten shows me squat. Deathknight drops a special book! Yea.. crap. Insights. One more level to load up before the big guys.

98: 7-7. That’s more like it! A vault! Surely, there must be something juicy here. No uniques, but a few nasties. Cracking it open, there are a lot of traps – so blend in “unbarring ways” during the mayhem. A greater balrog is native: maybe it/she/he is carrying something. Of course, there are summoned nasties, and they get out of hand as they are wont to do. Phase away, heal, return. With a little time, they all go down, and the looting can begin. Problem with playing at way too late in the night, however, is that the brain … becomes less sharp. Which is why, right a the tail end of the looting (nothing of use) a small detail (that unbarring ways has lapsed) leads to a trapdoor and well, damn, now I guess it’s Sauron for breakfast.