Question From A Rookie

[Metalhunter]

Hey all, sorry if this has been asked before. I did a search for "gold" in thread titles and didn't see anything pertaining to my question and the keyword gold is going to get more hits than would be useful.

I am wondering if there is a safe way to leave gold/gear anywhere. I know I have seen monsters pick up gold and gear in the dungeons before, but am not sure if friendly NPCs do this or not. I am getting over-burdened a lot and am having problems keeping my carrying weight down. Can I drop my gold and potions in Dwarf Town in that random hallway in the NW and expect it to stay safe there?

Thanks!

[GordonOverkill]

First, the monstes on a screen don't move as long as you are not on this particular screed, so if you drop something on a staircase and descend right afterwards, it should be quite save. Apart from that, you might consider storing your stuff in Terinyo. The very top row of the map cannot be entered by most NPCs (except the sheriff I think), so if the latter is far away, you can drop a pile up there without danger. Or you could use an empty room in the outlaw settlement and close the door. From my experience all of that works quite well.

[Metalhunter]

Thanks for the suggestions Gordon. I will do as you say. I'm still trying to figure all of this out heh, this is the first time I have ever really needed to worry about having so much gold that it was heavy. Just hit lvl 16 for the first time and am making progress through the Caverns of Chaos.

[GordonOverkill]

Oh, so you are already down in the CoC! Then I'd suggest to use the Ogre cave as a storage area! Once cleared it doesn't spawn any new monsters.

[Metalhunter]

Oh right on, good tip :) I just picked up that quest so I will stash all my stuff in there. Thanks!

[Drifted]

Ogre cave for stuff you need when diving deeper into CoC and Old Barbarian's shack for stuff you need in wilderness (especially climbing set(s)). Just be sure Old Barbarian is not few tiles away from the spot you enter and it's safe place. Of course if accident happens he is easy to kill if you can take the aligment hit.

[Metalhunter]

Thanks for the advice Drifted. I think the Barb will suit me nicely for now, the CoC is getting a lot harder, very quickly so I won't be going further down just yet.

[Silfir]

Am I the only one who takes a pickaxe and a wand of door creation and digs out storage closets in random CoC levels?

[theseus12]

Well, the dug holes wouldn't prevent monsters from spawning in said holes, but that is still a decent idea

[Blasphemous]

Am I the only one who takes a pickaxe and a wand of door creation and digs out storage closets in random CoC levels?

I'd probably find it hard to keep a track of all the stashes, especially when I always try to pass CoC 10-30 only once during the course of the game.
Backtracking is a pain, especially with nasty stuff in DH.

For storage I usually use the pyramid after Rehetep is destroyed. The place is in central location, quickly accessible from many points of the map and it's perfectly safe as monsters can't run away even if they somehow picked your items up.
There are no door smashing monsters spawning in the pyramid so once you close off the initial room with wands of door creation and keys, you and your items are perfectly safe.

[Metalhunter]

Thanks for all the tips everyone. I'm still not at the pyramid, or even aware of how to get in, so I will keep that in mind for when I get there. Also still pretty new to the whole door creation thing, and don't quite understand the use of the wand yet, as monsters seem to be able to open them anyhow and I don't know how the keys work. I'll try to get that all figured out though before long.

Got another question for the pros though, no sense making another topic since the title still applies. I am playing my Gnome Elementalist, just had my armor melted by an Iron Golem. I need to find a replacement and the only thing I can see right now is a set of rotted Platemail in Dwarftown. It comes with a DV penalty but a nice PV bonus on it still. This brings me to the question, what should I value more highly at this point, DV or PV? At present, with no body armor, I am sitting at 25/11, if I go for the Plate I will be at 22/20 (these are in normal Tactics). I don't know how the math works on the game so I have no idea how to make the decision on my own heh. Thanks again, hope I am not being a bother.

[GordonOverkill]

In the early parts of the game PV equals survival ;-) Later on DV will get more and more important.

[Metalhunter]

I take it DV is better late game because stuff just hits so hard it is better to fully avoid it if possible? I will start stacking more PV at the beginning. I am back to square one for now, died on lvl 10 of the CoC on my way back up. I mistakenly thought I was fighting a Hill Giant, but it turns out it was an Ogre Lord. Fatal mistake heh. Thanks for the advice, this time I will be better prepared.

[GordonOverkill]

The problem in the late game is not so much the ordinary hits, but rather the critical hits that those high tier enemies score. With a lucky hit some foes can still get hundreds of points of damage through a very good armor, so you'd rather not to get hit at all.

[Ravenshire]

yep one reason im liking my mist elf late game is that they half all incoming melee damage and on my pally it has so far allowed me to go toe to toe with even greater titans and not bat an eye which is something most races have to turn tail and run from. one thing is that in the early game they are VERY weak and can die to even a kobald if he gets a lucky shot in. have even had to turn tail and run from a lucky goblin rock thrower that got a couple lucky hits

[anon123]

I need to find a replacement and the only thing I can see right now is a set of rotted Platemail in Dwarftown.

I'm too late now, but: the "rotting" prefix severely decreases your healing rate, so I wouldn't have used that plate mail.

[Metalhunter]

Never too late for good advice heh :) My Elementalist did die, but that is definitely useful info for the future. Thanks!

[LexyBoy]

Try playing around with different tactics to see what effect DV has on you. It’s one of those things where you’ll get a feeling for what’s best at a given point. Even fairly early on I find that switching to defensive tactics lets you dodge a lot of attacks which is useful against things like claw bugs which get a lot of rounds in, but don’t have much PV themselves. I’d agree that PV is definitely what you need early on – except shields, where I’d take a [+5,+1] over a [+3,+3] as you’ll train shields up faster and higher.

As for the Ogre Lord - I guess you play with tiles? I was a bit confused at first how you could confuse H with an O. Keep an eye on the mini-map!

[Blasphemous]

A gray elven monk of mine with 70/70 DV/PV on berserk and wielding twin daggers could easily stand in front of a greater titan and exchange blows.
All greater wyrms, berserker emperors, balors, diamond golems etc. were dealt with in melee without batting an eyelash.
The only creatures I had to be careful about were greater molochs as they can often hit through 80+ DV consistently and always ignore armor.
That's just my two cents about mist elves and their inability to wear several useful items made of iron.
Playing other races, you can always offset the advantage they have by wielding powerful iron artifacts to boost your pv/dv.

When clearing greater vaults like either of the two guaranteed ones, 50+ PV is needed to do it safely.
With less, you're better off with some source of regeneration that should offset lack of PV.
Criticals are always there and there's no way to eliminate them completely but that's what emergency healing is for.

[Metalhunter]

Thanks for the tips guys, I have been fiddling with my stats through tactics settigns, hopefully I can figure out the proper setting in a given situation.


As for the Ogre Lord - I guess you play with tiles? I was a bit confused at first how you could confuse H with an O. Keep an eye on the mini-map!

Yeah I do indeed use the new tiles. I was introduced to the game back when it was strictly ASCII, but had neither the willpower or the patience to get through it back then, so wasn't fully dedicated to playing it "oldschool". The new tiles are really helping me, but you are right, I should keep an eye on the minimap to get a clearer picture sometimes. Tiles are super nice for the health bars, but if it means living longer, I will use ASCII mode as well heh.

[GordonOverkill]

You can just press F10 to switch between tiles mode and ascii mode with health bars.

[Metalhunter]

Thanks for the keybind info. I have been using it lately, helps keep the monsters straight without using the 'l'ook command.