Early game bonanza

[blunk]

I felt I had to share this since early game often is a struggle and from time to time I stand in dwarf town with scrap for gear and wonder I'll survive animated forest.

This human assassin with crappy wand starsign and somewhat average stats....

Shopkeeper in thief town killed an aggro assassin for me, free wand of fire 3-4 charges, thank you!
Had to go 4-5 times back and forth between ud and hmw to carry all stuff to the shop.

Bought an expensive (6k) wand of acid 4 charges in thief town.

In coc before dwarf town I found a scroll shop.
Find a dwarf ring shop, with rods (11k) , mental stability, telecontrol and see invis also before dwarf town.

Misc shop after dwarf town sell me a sword of sharpness (4k).
Something also drops an eternium broadsword.

A lot of flimsy but really good stuff:

Head          : uncursed orcish helmet [+1, +2] {Pe-2}               [100s]
Neck          : blessed necklace of the eye                            [3s]
Body          : uncursed mithril chain mail (-1, -3) [-2, +7]        [320s]
Girdle        : blessed girdle of carrying [+0, +0]                   [15s]
Cloak         : uncursed cloak of protection [+0, +3]                 [20s]
Right Hand    : uncursed dagger of devastation (+0, 5d4+6)            [10s]
Left Hand     : uncursed large adamantium shield (-1) [+9, +4]        [86s]
Right Ring    : uncursed ring of damage                                [1s]
Left Ring     : blessed ring of mental stability [+0, +3] {Le+1}       [1s]
Bracers       : uncursed bracers of toughness [+0, +0] {To+5}         [10s]
Gauntlets     : uncursed red dragon-hide gauntlets (-2, +0) [+0, +4]  [10s]
Boots         : uncursed leather boots [+0, +3]                       [25s]
Missile Weapon: uncursed long bow (+2, +2)                            [30s]
Missiles      : bundle of 21 uncursed arrows (+0, 1d6)                [42s]

Cloaks ('[')
   uncursed cloak of invisibility (-1, +0) [+1, +0]                   [30s]
One-handed weapons ('(')
   uncursed whip of devastation (-4, 5d3+6)                           [15s]
   uncursed sword of sharpness (+0, 4d8+6)                            [35s]
   uncursed eternium broadsword (+3, 2d7+9)                           [38s]
Rings ('=')
   uncursed ring of cold resistance                                    [1s]
   cursed ring of the fish                                             [1s]
   uncursed ring of teleport control                                   [1s]
   uncursed ring of see invisible                                      [1s]
   uncursed ring of fire                                               [1s]
   uncursed ring of djinni summoning                                   [1s]
Wands ('\')
   uncursed wand of acid (4 charges)                                   [4s]
   uncursed wand of magic missiles (1 charge)                          [3s]
   uncursed wand of fire (4 charges)                                   [4s]
Potions ('!')
   heap of 16 potions of holy water                                   [64s]
   heap of 3 uncursed potions of booze                                [12s]
   heap of 3 uncursed potions of water                                [12s]
Scrolls ('?')
   heap of 2 uncursed scrolls of charging                              [4s]

Exp have been going really fast and I'm closing in on lvl 16 (currently 55k from lvl 17), so I'll probably go stomp pyramid before animated forest.

[blunk]

A trap nuked my nice gauntlets but game was kind and gave me a perions platemail as surge of power in second lvl of pyramid

[grobblewobble]

Personally I far prefer the DH to the animated forest. The tedium of the AF and the occasional OP tree has killed me more often than the DH.

However, I always use a wand of monster detection upon entering a DH level. If you do that, and have teleport control and a wand of teleportation with some charges ready, it really isn't all that dangerous.
(Don't be afraid to burn a scroll of mapping or such either, if you have them.)

With some luck you might get a very short route and save yourself a *lot* of time and frustration.

[blunk]

Personally I far prefer the DH to the animated forest. The tedium of the AF and the occasional OP tree has killed me more often than the DH.

However, I always use a wand of monster detection upon entering a DH level. If you do that, and have teleport control and a wand of teleportation with some charges ready, it really isn't all that dangerous.
(Don't be afraid to burn a scroll of mapping or such either, if you have them.)

With some luck you might get a very short route and save yourself a *lot* of time and frustration.

I normally poke into dh to check if it looks safe (depending on character) but with this character I was a bit afraid of overleveling so I'd miss pyramid.
When I did go af it was a pure stomp or perhaps deforestation in this case.

The posts wasnt really a question or so but when you've played a bunch of struggle games and then gets a game like this I couldn't resist posting about it.

I got my first setback with a GUV in FGJC (that I skipped for now) and I struggled a bit with Ancient Chaos Wyrm because a lack of demon/dragon slayers.