It breathes -more- You have died. Let's play Angband!

Hi guys!

Back when Netbrian ran his excellent Nethack LP, I decided that it was high time that Angband got a little love. Even the excellent @Play column at GameSetWatch give it short shrift in the roguelike world, which is kind of a shame, because Angband is recognized as a direct influence on pretty much every tactical (and semi-tactical) hack-and-slash game that's come out since the early 90s.

Wait, what's Angband? For those of you who don't know, Angband is sort of the bastard stepchild of roguelikes, although it's the closest in lineage to the original Rogue - and in fact isn't even based off Rogue itself. It's based on Moria, which is a roguelike created by a student in the early 1980s when Rogue was removed from the campus mainframe and he wanted to keep playing games. Some of its interesting features that diverge from vanilla Rogue will come up from time to time, but I'm going to try and keep the LP from getting too front-loaded - the mechanics of Angband are easy to learn, hard to master, and violating any one of its basic principles will get you killed no matter how good a player you are. Unlike Nethack, where success is almost absolutely assured after a certain point, even veteran Angband players can - and will - die from not having the right item on hand, knowing the right spell, or stepping somewhere without thinking about it.

For those of you who really like reading fantasy novels about elves and dragons, you probably recognize Angband as the dungeon built to imprison Morgoth from the Silmarillion, of all things - and that's the objective of our game, to get to the 100th floor of the dungeon (or 5000' feet below the surface) and slay Morgoth. Needless to say this isn't exactly an easy thing to do. There's an additional objective as well, but I really doubt we're going to get far enough to even attempt it.

I'm going to admit upfront that I am not a very good Angband player - average at best. I haven't mastered some of the weirder, more aggressive, and apparently more useful strategies, but damned if I'm not going to try them this game. My best record for a run was an elf mage to floor 30 of the dungeon - with a hilarious and inappropriate death which I'll explain the dangers of as soon as we get started. As a result unlike most LPs this one won't be about "winning" the game: My goal is to play as far as I can to teach everyone the basic mechanics, spoilers, and strategies that you need to get started and then turn you loose.

We're not starting quite yet: First everyone needs a chance to catch up on the (excellent) Nethack LP - it's not required reading, but I'm not going to be able to avoid comparing the two games in several regards and it'll be more fun for you, the viewer, if you're at least a little familiar with the world of roguelikes. And now you get to pick what kind of character I'll be running for at least the first few games, and after that, I'll try and showcase as much variety as I can.

First: Our character is going to need a gender and a name! I'll trust you guys to pick one, and let you know that gender has no affect on gameplay. Women and men are equally beefy and able to carry tens of pounds of equipment in Angband.

Picking a class is the easy part, and will affect what kind of races we can play anyway.

Character classes
----
Warrior: Your standard @-sign which exists mostly to run into letters (and other special symbols, so it can pick them up). Warriors have high strength, dexterity and constitution, but suck at anything to do with magic. It will also be extremely boring to watch a game where I play a warrior.

Mage: An @-sign which can learn (almost) every magic spell in the game. They're not strong at the beginning, but this is only a disadvantage for a few floors: The right mage will gain spells quickly and become absolutely unstoppable in ranged combat. Naturally they suck at hitting things and shooting bows.

Priest: An @-sign that prefers to blame itself rather than god. They can learn every prayer, which is essentially magic God gives you (even though you still need a book) and have a lot of wisdom, but aren't very smart. They make average fighters, but cannot use edged weapons without serious penalties: St. Peter frowns on dealing with anyone who has their arms chopped off. I don't like playing priests because of the large number of limitations they have, but at high levels they're even more unstoppable than mages.

Rogue: An @-sign that doesn't steal things, but is very sneaky. Rogues are quiet and can sneak around monsters, and are sort of a jack of all trades: They learn some support spells, are good at using magic items, and are good fighters. Rogues aren't the most fun to play, but they're the most likely to win.

Ranger: A ranger is a warrior/mage hybrid @-sign. They can learn almost all the spells a mage can at a severely diminished pace, and are awesome with bows. You might think this is a good class to play, but it takes a long time to learn spells and since they're great fighters they don't need most of the spells a rogue doesn't get anyway.

Paladin: An @-sign ranger who gave up on magic and instead decided to go to church every Sunday. It's a priest/warrior hybrid class, and I have never ever played one so I can't say much about them.

Races
The race you choose is going to affect the classes that I can play, so pick carefully!
----
Human: You're a human, you know what they are. Humans can be anything and do anything - they're the base class.

Half-elf: A human and an elf had a baby @-sign. From their dad they take the ability to be anything, but they take after their mom in a strength penalty and a limited ability to see in the dark.

Elf: An @-sign which makes a good magician, but not too much else. They think they're too smart for religion and can't be priests or paladins. Not the strongest in the bunch, either.

Hobbit: An @-sign which loves smoking and thieving. They're good at playing rogues, but are weak and better suited to that sneaking thing and ranged fighting. They can only be warriors, rogues, or rangers.

Gnome: I honestly can't tell you much about the gnome @-signs other than that they make awesome mages, in part because they're immune to paralysis and I believe some stunning effects. But they an also be warriors, rogues, or even priests.

Dwarf: Dwarves are the @-signs that love to run into lowercase letters to hit them. As as result they make good warriors, priests, or paladins. But they can't be quiet, so they have to hit everything.

Half-Orc: Half-orcs are those @-signs which should look more like lowercase 'o's. They kill shit and can be warriors or priests.

Half-Troll: Half-trolls are those @-signs which should look more like uppercase 'T's. They also kill shit and can be warriors or priests, but have one big advantage: They regenerate really fast, so they make the best warriors.

Dunadan: Some @-signs from a fantasy novel which are the only race that has no penalties to any of their stats. They can't be rogues, though, and raising them a level costs more than twice as much experience as to raise a human a level. A game with a dunadan will take forever to finish just because of some of the required grinding.

High elf: @-signs that make the best mages and can see invisible things. They take even more experience to level. We will not be playing a high elf unless you are unbearably cruel, but I'll be cruel back by posting screenshots of every time they gain 1/20th of the exp needed to level. They can't be rogues, priests, or paladins.

Kobold: Hooray! This @-sign is a hideous dog-creature which sees very well in the dark and is immune to poisons of all kinds - which will make the early game significantly less dangerous - but they can't be mages or paladins. They're usually pretty weak, but adorable.

You guys have until Friday evening to pick!


Finally, there's the matter of picking a tileset to get your posts in. I'm not even going to offer up the ASCII option because it was opposed last time, but here are your options with a sample of what a bunch of stuff will look like:

8x8 tiles


16x16 tiles


32x32 tiles


NEXT SUNDAY: We learn some useful Angband lessons in fun ways to die early from Goofus the half-orc. Next week is when I'm queued to begin the LP proper, and our character will need some time to get updates going anyway.

My god, those are ugly tiles. Shouldn't they be square?

Yeah, those... those tiles are pretty ugly. I wouldn't mind a shift to ASCII if that's what the game has to offer.

Also: You should start with a Kobold Warrior named Gon. Hooray!

Alternatively: a High Elf Mage named Dez and/or Lyll.

The class/race discussion was over before it began! Hooray!

Gnome/Mage was my typical choice back when I played vanilla. Shame many variants ditch Gnomes... I hate scumming for FA or spending one of my ring slots that should have a Ring of Damage/Combat or high resist.

Dorf priest or pally might be an interesting run, though. Who gives a frak about stealth? (Except that time where I relied on legendary stealth to pick off packs of greater demons one by one...)

So our tile options are blurry, fuzzy, or tiny? Yeesh. I'll vote for the 8x8. Or ASCII. I mean, damn.

I'm going to go against the grain and vote for a kobold rogue, because I'm a rebel.

I too am down with the 8x8, then I think I could actually amke out what is going on.

Also: Kobold Rogue: Hooray!

Pick me! Hooray!

ASCII please. Those tiles are fugly and useless. There's too many cases were confusing one is instant death, whereas in Nethack once you level some you can survive those mistakes.

...but 8x8 if we absolutely must. But seriously, ASCII. All you ASCII haters can go play Shirien.

<Tolkien nerd>

Angband was actually Morgoth's fortress, not his prison. He did imprison a lot of other people there, however. Angband was eventually sacked by the Valar (the gods, basically), and he was imprisoned somewhere outside of creation.

Why, yes, I am one of those horrible people who enjoyed the Silmarillion enough to read it more than once.

God, I'm hopeless, aren't I?

</Tolkien nerd>

Yay! I've been looking forward to this LP, since I've been on a roguelike bender lately and am happy to get a sense of one of the other major branches in the genre.

I'll be different and vote for a kobold priest, since I want to see some divine smiting.

As for the tiles . . . yeesh, those are all pretty ugly. If ASCII isn't an option, I'll vote for the 8x8 -- is there an option somewhere to make the tiles wider so they at least look square?

Kobold priest might be good. I remember playing this a little way back when. I had a dwarven priest which didn't get very far.

I know that if I had typed this, I'd want someone to comment on it. So here it is.



Anyway, let's get this Kobold priest goin'!

I agree with all of you that these tiles are extremely fugly. For reference, here's what the ascii will look like, even though I couldn't get as much stuff on the screen:



I wanted to make this as non-roguelike-fan friendly as possible, but honestly, compared to Nethack's (frankly quite good) tilesets, ASCII is the way to go here. This is what the graphical Windows version looks like, but I'll (probably) be playing on Mac when my computer comes out of the shop. The only difference is that the tiles will look a little more square, and all those gray blocks will be replaced with #s and the occasional % symbol.

For those of you who might be worried about remembering which letters and symbols are what, I'll be keeping everyone abreast of these things as often as possible. Most of them make a lot of sense (except some of the item symbols, but there are so few of those it's not much of a problem), and the whole thing isn't nearly as overwhelming as Nethack. It's not like I wouldn't have to remind you of what those hideous tiles are every time they show up anyway.

I'm totally not surprised that you guys want me to play a kobold, but right now it's a serious horserace between priest and warrior (and there's still plenty of time left for the rest of you to come in), 3 to 4.

For the curious: I didn't explain the thread title up above, so I might as well do it here. The most famous (and deadly, at least before you get resistances) of common monsters in Angband are hounds, elemental-based monsters which can perform breath attacks. These are essentially spells that hit a 3-tile radius, and these monsters come in groups: HUGE groups. If they all breathe on you in the same turn, you can get the dreaded status message(s):

It's been a while since I made it deep enough into the dungeon to die this way, but believe me, in the past there have been many deaths at the hands (paws?) of hound-type monsters. Maybe if we're lucky (?) I'll even get to post one.

Does Angband have any hounds that breathe elements you literally can't get resistances for?

Hah! I thought the -more- was some kind of clever emphatic "oh god, please stop" message in the game.. but it's just the line buffer. =(

I'm clearly pre-emptively outvoted, but I'd actually go for the 32x32 tiles on the grounds that a few more details give me a slim chance of actually figuring out what the hell the fugly icons are supposed to be. Really, what's needed is a *better* tileset. It's weird that nobody has made one, but I guess Angband's a little more niche than some of the other RLs?

Anyway, looking forward to this!

Priest please.

-Hooray!

It's not that nobody has ever made one. There have been dozens of variants and spinoffs of Angband over the years, many with graphics. However, many of the projects are moribund now, so when playing the current vanilla version you don't have that many options. For example, here's a screen from ZangbandTK:

Those tilesets are awful. I'd go for ascii, but then I'm used to playing Nethack in ascii (although lately I've fallen in love with the tileset that was was posted for Nethack in the LP).

I want to see a gnome mage.

Originally I had no opinion about what race/class combo to pick, but I just read it again and saw that you've never played a paladin before. It's time to correct that. I cast my vote for a dwarf paladin.

I also thought this at first, and even though I'm slightly disappointed it wasn't, it's still pretty funny as a title.

Also I support Dwarf Paladin, though I'm sure anything will be cool.

Kobold Priest plz.

I still think "It Breathes - You Die" is a good name for... something.

The final votes are in!

I rolled the Kobold Warrior/Kobold Rogue votes together because not only is that cheating and gives me leeway to play my favorite race/class combination in the game (seriously) but because like I said, a warrior will be boring to watch because he won't use anything but swords and bows. Warriors can't even use wands right some of the time.

So here's what we've got! I might be a little off, but here were the requests:

Kobold Rogue: 5
Kobold Priest: 4
Dwarf Paladin: 2
Dwarf Priest: 1
Gnome Mage: 1

Since I'm going to be dying - a lot! - these are the characters I'll play first, starting with the most-requested and working my way down to least (unless our kobold rogue meets an unbearable fate, like falling into a pit trap on the first floor, which is instantly fatal for anything with less than 12hp).

For those of you who care about the minutae of the game: This is mostly going to be of interest to other roguelike players, but here's the general setup for the game(s) that I'll be running. For the curious, coming back here later after I explain things like scumming, variants, and how artifacts are generated might make what I'm about to put out there more interesting.

First, I'm going to be playing vanilla Angband 3.0.9b. Kobolds were introduced in the 3.0.x line as a playable class, probably due to the fact that they show up in every variant, and it seems like there's been some balancing in general. 3.1.0b is out now and good lord do I have mixed feelings about it - for a new player, I can see it being very nice (more balancing, traps now have depths associated with them, removal of potions of stat loss (!!!)) but those balance changes just irk the hell out of me. Part of the fun of roguelikes is how unforgiving they are from the second you start playing.

The birth options I have set are: No autoscum, preserve mode, no ironman settings (this is a real game, not some ridiculous challenge), and monsters are "smart" - they'll chase sound, smell, and act intelligently in groups. For the curious, this just modifies the pathfinding algorithms slightly in the first two cases, and in the last case makes monsters more likely to flank me and fuck my shit straight up. Smart groups is a new option introduced in the 3.0.x line, and it makes things like cave orcs - which were previously a pushover with a wand of light - extremely dangerous, because if you spend too long in one place where they can, they WILL flank you instead of blindly running down a tunnel straight at you. This makes monster pits something other than exp farms, and I love it.

In an ordinary game, I'd never look at a single spoiler. Since I actually want to try and win this, though, I'll allow myself two spoiler sources: Source code (mostly for missile weapon damage calculation) and an artifact list. In most games I play I only end up with two or three artifacts by the time I bite it, but again, I'm in it to win it on this one and will be playing cautiously.

I promise to never cheat death or savescum. I will never turn on wizard mode, or use the debug commands. Every single cheat option will be off. Okay, this isn't exactly true - I used some of these tools to manipulate Goofus' game.

For everyone: Did your eyes just glaze over? That's okay, that was some really serious jargon-filled muck that only somebody who's played Angband a few times already (or maybe another roguelike) would understand. Don't let it scare you, I'm going to be way friendlier once the posts start coming in... approximately... SOON.

randarts or no randarts?

Randarts still doesn't work very well, and is (even after all this time) considered an alpha feature. Plus I'm seriously going to need artifact spoilers for this one and randarts ruins that. So no.

No more walls of text! Let's get started!


PART 0: What can we learn from Goofus?

Goofus is going to teach us some of the most basic things about Angband! These are things new players find out on their own, usually very very fast. I'm going to save you some time, and have a little fun warming up in the process. I'll skip over a few things that I'll cover at the start of my first real game, like what each of the buildings are.

Goofus is a half-orc who has been kind of blessed by the gods. He's an absolute idiot, but has managed to live a pretty decent life - born as the son of the handsomest orc and the most hideous human, he was raised in a loving environment where the sharp corners were filed off of everything after he almost lost both his eyes. In fact, just about the only thing Goofus has ever been good at is hitting things. So when he reached the orc-equivalent age of 18 - I'm not a big enough dork to read Tolkien, maybe somebody else can fill us in on exactly when that is - he decided to head to whatever town it is that's built on top of Angband, which is probably the worst place to put a town except in a floodplain which is only dry because it's surrounded on all sides by leaking dams. Because this town doesn't have a name as far as I know, we're going to call it Adventureville, home of Adventure!



Welcome to Adventureville, Goofus! For a half-orc that was raised far away from every kind of possible civilization, this is a real town of action, even though it only has eight buildings. "GOOFUS NEED TO FIND FRIEND" is the first thing Goofus says to himself upon entering the town, in typical orc fashion. He's heard of these "friend" things before and thinks that maybe talking to somebody will help him out. Right now Goofus is carrying a whole bunch of things in his backpack, but doesn't care about any of them - he just wants to find somebody who isn't completely repelled by his hideous face.

Don't worry about what all those numbers are just yet. Goofus isn't smart enough to visit any buildings, and they'd probably all lock the doors just from looking at him anyway.



Finally! After wandering around the town for a while, Goofus stumbles upon a battle-scarred veteran (t). He looks pretty messed up, and Goofus thinks that he's found his friend, and goes to say hello! "HELLO UGLY MAN, GOOFUS SAYS HELLO" Well, he wasn't exactly raised with the best social graces. He fumbles with the mysterious 'T' and 't' keys for a while, trying to find an analogue for 'talk', and gives up, instead just running into the guy.



That doesn't turn out so well. Now Goofus is crying, punching and kicking at the mean old man who he thought might share some useful tips for dungeon survival, or maybe even give him a comforting hug. He's a little homesick, after all. In fact, it turns out that the battle-scarred veteran doesn't take kindly to strangers.

LESSON 1: Everything in Angband is out to kill you. There is no 'talk' action. There are no friendly characters. Everything wants to kill you - except for a few characters in town, who mostly exist to bother the hell out of you or steal all of your money before you can buy anything. Angband lacks Nethack's nuances of alignment and friendly characters and shops in dungeons and all of that: It's all monsters, all combat, all the time.



The battle rages onward! Finally, Goofus chases down the veteran, ready to deliver the killing blow, when he realizes that maybe if he was holding a sword or something he might have a better chance. While he's busy thinking, he gets hit in the head with a rock and dies.

The gods see this, and after a moment of conference, decide to give Goofus another chance.

LESSON 2: Check your equipment! Every RPG since the beginning of time has told you this, but in Angband, you might not even realize you start carrying a bunch of great stuff. Warriors like Goofus get a good sword and some armor, magic- and prayer-using classes get their first book, and so on. Forgetting to equip your character before a quick run into the first dungeon floor is a common cause of death for new players.



This time around, Goofus is smart enough to check what he's got in his knapsack. In addition to some sandwiches and dead rabbits that his mom put in there, he's carrying a few torches, armor, and a sword. "SWORD LOOK AWESOME" bellows Goofus, probably because he's been sheltered from them for his whole life because he'd probably cut off his own damn arm or something. Now he finally gets to have one! Fortunately, he's sensible enough to realize that putting on the armor might be a good idea too.

Remembering his past life, Goofus decides not to wander around town, and instead goes straight into the dungeon.



Goofus ends up in a nice, spacious, well-lit room. "DUNGEON NOT SEEM SO DANGEROUS TO GOOFUS", he says, and for right now that's true. Goofus decides to take a few steps into the dark hallway - this will totally show his dad that he's not afraid of the bogeyman, either!



After stumbling around for a while in the dark, touching walls to feel where they are and generally getting lost and disoriented, Goofus starts to cry. I mean, what else could he do? Maybe those of you looking at the inventory screen have actually figured out what Goofus needs to do next:

LESSON 3: Always have a light. Some characters can get "around" this problem because all non-human races have a limited ability to see warm-blooded monsters from a certain distance away in the dark, but this is no substitute for a torch. A common problem new players have, instead of running out of food, is running out of light - hunger in Angband is very slow, but your starting supply of torches will only last for about 5000-7000 turns. That sounds like a lot, but believe me: you go through turns fast in this game.



Goofus isn't as smart as we are, though, and keeps stumbling along the hallway until he finally comes into another room. On the floor there's a green potion with little flecks in it (!) - it looks just like the stew that mom used to make back home, so naturally Goofus runs over and immediately drinks it. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

(A brief aside: The [-=WIZARD=-] text there is because I was playing Goofus in Wizard Mode, which allows access to the debug commands that can do fun things like create items. Wizard mode is occasionally useful for the novice player, in that it teaches you a lot about what the game has to offer and a little bit about combat mechanics from looking at the status messages it, and the cheat options, can generate.)



Oops. Mom's stew probably isn't the healthiest thing to eat either, but at least it's not poison. For orcs, at least.

LESSON 4: Never, ever, ever use-ID. Use-ID is just what it sounds like: Identify what an item is by using it. This is especially dangerous on early floors - drinking a potion of poison or reading a scroll of summon monster will kill you, immediately, unless you're a very lucky fellow (or lady). Unlike Nethack, where there are multiple ways to use an item, Angband usually only has one. And that one use will result in death.



Goofus crawls his way down the corridor, crying and heaving, trying to get all the poison out of his system. Have you ever seen a half-orc vomit? It's pretty gross. Like, even grosser than regular vomiting. It doesn't matter much, because he dies anyway.

This time the gods actually argue a little about bringing Goofus back, but they put it to a vote and he gets to teach us a few more lessons.

When we last left Goofus, he had just been brought back to life by the benevolent gods. Actually, given how poorly Goofus is making out, maybe they're not that benevolent and just enjoy watching him suffer. But for whatever reason, this time he goes in prepared: Goofus won't drink any potions, puts on his armor and takes his sword, and even decides that it might be smart to light one of those torches so he doesn't have to touch a bunch of slimy bugs on the walls. Those just make him hungry.



So Goofus ventures down into the horrifying depths of Angband again! This time, he happens into a room where there are two monsters - a centipede ('a') and a snake ('J'). "NO PROBLEM FOR SUPER-STRONG ORC GOOFUS" he bellows, and then proceeds to immediately go and bash his sword into the snake. After all, snakes can bite you and poison you (although this one can't) and centipedes are just tasty snacks.

And finally - a battle where Goofus is victorious! Not only does he crush the snake under the heel of his massive orc foot, he also eats the centipede (but not really - you can't eat monsters in Angband). He's all bloody and angry, but managed to gain a mysterious skill increase known as a 'level' out of it. This doesn't really do much but make him able to take more damage. "GOOFUS TOTALLY RULES" he shouts, running down the hallway without giving a second thought to the fact that he's bleeding all over and should probably take a bit of a breather.



And then there's another snake in front of him! Goofus is still all battered from his last fight, but is still "totally pumped", and so has no problem deciding that he should stick the pointed end of his sword (the end that dad always told him not to play with) straight into the snake. Unfortunately, he has a very hard time of this, and...



Well, maybe if he'd done a little bit to take care of his earlier wounds, all those times his sword missed the snake wouldn't have mattered quite as much. Goofus dies again.

LESSON 5: Always rest! Whenever in a clear room or empty hallway and not at full HP or Mana, rest. There is no reason to run around below full strength, unless you're cornered by a large group of monsters. Another mistake that novices make is not abusing the 'r' (rest) command. It's there to make sure you survive. Mages who don't use the rest command die almost instantly.

This time, the gods are way angrier. How the hell could anyone be so stupid? they wonder, and finally, there's a vote. This time they're going to bring Goofus back - but play a cruel, cruel trick on him, and if he can live through it, then he's worthy enough to deserve this third chance. If not, well, tough titty - he should be dead anyway.



As with all his deaths, Goofus is now back in town, standing on top of the stairwell that leads to the dungeon below. He doesn't really think much of the fact that he's been getting murdered left and right and then manages to come back to the town as good as new.



Suddenly, out of nowhere, a potion appears! High in the clouds above, the gods are snickering and punching each other in the shoulder like a bunch of drunken college students who are finding out about "All Your Base" for the first time.

Goofus, naturally, is suspicious.



A cloudy potion? "SEEMS ALMOST LIKE MILK", says Goofus, who really just happens to love milk. Especially when it's spoiled, which is exactly what this potion smells like it is! Down the hatch!

Goofus, of course, never learned Lesson 4.



It's just like it says: A feeling of death flows through Goofus' body, and he knows exactly what that's like by now. Sort of like when you stick your feet into a bucket of ice and they almost fall off, like what happened to him when he was the orc-equivalent of 8. His entire life flashes before his eyes. Well, his lives.



I mean, that's the only possible explanation for this, right?



LESSON 6: Even veteran players forget the rules sometimes, and do stupid things. My most ignomious death was from a Potion of Death. They start showing up in the high-20s in the dungeon, and I was playing a mage - who had an identify spell - at the time. But! There was this awesome new potion, I'd already IDed the potions I thought were 'bad', and I was out of mana. Surely, this had to be one of the fabled stat gain potions which, coincidentally, start showing up around that floor as well!

You can guess what happened. I stopped playing for two years after that.



And so the story of Goofus, the half-orc, comes to an end.

NEXT TIME: Will Gon the kobold rogue fare any better? Stay tuned to find out the shocking answer sometime early next week!

Did the deadly murder potion cause Goofus to gain 3 levels?

Yep. It most certainly did.