AmigActive 13/AACD13.ISO/AACD/Games/Zangband/help/tang.txt

Text File | 2000-08-26 | 30KB | 622 lines

=== The Zangband Newbie Guide ===


Note: This guide has been adapted from The Angband Newbie Guide by
Chris Weisiger and has undergone certain revisions to conform more
closely to Zangband.


=== Basic Training ===

When you load the game, select "Start a new character." Go through the
step-by-step instructions for picking a gender, race, and class. For
your first time, we recommend choosing a Golem Warrior. Avoid the
spellcaster types; they're much more difficult to play. If you want
basic information about races and classes, go to the on-line help
(type "?") and read "Character Attributes". You should probably read
most of the help files here; the commands list is especially important
to someone new to Zangband.

After naming your character, you'll start in the town. The various
numbers represent stores, where you can buy new equipment and sell
stuff you've found in the dungeon. The little ">" is a staircase, the
entrance to the dungeon. If you want to know what a specific symbol
stands for, type "/", and then the symbol. For instance, if you're
wondering what all the t's are, type "/t", and the game will tell you
that these are townspeople. You can also "l"ook at an item, feature, or
monster. While looking, pressing space or enter will cycle through the
different "interesting" things in view. There is also a full map
function: type "M". It will bring up a map of the entire area (just a
single screen in the case of the town, but useful later on in the
dungeon). Finally, if you type "L", you can scroll the (full-zoom) map
around the dungeon. In general, you can use "M" to find areas that look
interesting and "L" to look at them in detail.

Take a look around the town, but avoid the Mean-Looking Mercenaries and
Battle-Scarred Veterans; they can kill you fairly easily. A note on
shop #7; it's the black market, where very powerful items are sold for
an absolutely ridiculous price. Any good item can show up in this store
(barring standard artifacts), so look here for those items that don't
show up in other stores.


Be sure to visit shops #1 and #2, the General Store and Armory,
respectively. At the General Store, buy a cloak and a Brass Lantern,
and a flask of oil or two. Sell your torches. At the Armory, buy some
of the light armor. Suggested: Hard Leather Boots, a Leather Cap,
Leather Gloves. If a Small Leather Shield is on sale and you can afford
it, buy it.

This should have cleaned out your money. However, if it hasn't, it is
strongly recommended that you go to the Alchemist's shop (#5) and
purchase a scroll of Phase Door. If you get surrounded by monsters,
read it, and you'll be teleported a short distance away.

Of course, it's possible that these items will not be available in the
stores. The stores will "refresh" themselves every 1000 turns, getting
rid of old items and buying new ones. If you ever find that there's
something you need which the stores don't currently have, you can wait
a while for the stores to refresh.

Zangband's not actually all that difficult to learn to play. You should
get the hang of it fairly quickly.

From here on we'll be giving detailed dungeon survival information.
Some of it is intuitive, and some of it you aren't likely to find out
without a lot of deaths first. If you want to experience the painful
learning process in all it's glory, don't read further. If, however,
you're sick and tired of dying, read ahead.

=== On weapons and multiple blows ===

Most characters will start the game being able to get two blows per
round with their weapon when attacking.  Whether or not you get more
blows than this later in the game will be determined by your class,
your weapon weight, your Strength, and your Dexterity. Check your
Character display (type "C"). Somewhere on this page, there is a number
that is your number of blows/round.

Multiple blows become very important later in the dungeon since the
more times you hit, the more damage your weapon does (obviously).


=== On important magical items ===

You might think that you can get by without magical items. If so,
you're bound for an interesting, but short, stay in the dungeon. It'll
probably be one-way, too.

--- Teleportation Items ---

The most important items have be those of teleportation. There are many
basic types:

Phase Door
     teleports you up to 10 squares away. Useful for the Shoot 'n Scoot
     maneuver; more on this later.

Teleport
     teleports you across the dungeon, sometimes landing you in more
     trouble than you started in. Better than certain death, though.

Teleport Away
     teleports a monster (or several monsters) away from you. Safer
     than Teleport, but you might not be able to get them all in one
     strike.

Teleport Level
     moves you up or down one level. If the level you're on is full of
     dangerous monsters and you need to teleport, this could be your
     ticket to safety.

*Destruction*
     this powerful spell removes everything except artifacts from the
     area around you, blasting the surroundings and causing rock to
     fall from the ceiling. If you're ever in deep trouble, this is the
     safest way to escape.

--- Healing Items ---

The second most important items are those of healing. Healing, in this
case, covers Cure Light/Serious/Critical Wounds, Healing, *Healing*,
and Life Potions, from weakest to strongest.

Cure Light/Serious/Critical Wounds
     these generally restore a small amount of hitpoints and may also
     remove temporary bad effects like confusion, blindness, poison and
     cuts. The amount of hitpoints healed and the number of other bad
     effects cured increases from Light to Serious to Critical.

Healing
     restores 200 hitpoints and removes all temporary bad effects with
     the exception of fear and cures all wounds.

*Healing*
     restores 1000 hitpoints and removes all temporary bad effects and
     cures all wounds

Potions of Life
     restores 5000 hitpoints (about 5 times more than you'll ever
     have), restores all drained stats and experience, and removes all
     bad effects except hunger. These are very rare; save them in your
     home for a dangerous fight.

--- Items for Identifying Objects ---

There are various methods of Identify which you *need*. Identify comes
in the form of scrolls, Staffs of Perception, Rods of Perception, the
spell Identify, and the prayer Perception. These will tell you any
magical properties of the item, like magical bonuses to hit and to
damage, and magical bonuses to stats. It also tells you if the item is
cursed. It tells you what a wand/rod/staff/potion/scroll/mushroom/etc.
does, and this is very important. There are nasty potions deep in the
dungeon that you *do not* want to drink! Sometimes, the descriptions of
the items are a little obscure; things like Staves of Holiness and
Power, Mushrooms of Unhealth, and others. You may have to experiment a
bit to determine their powers.

There is also an advanced form of Identify, called *Identify*. This is
available primarily as a Scroll of *Identify* but certain magic realms
contain a similar spell although it may be called something different.
In addition, some towns may provide a shop offering *identify* as a
service. Identifying an item by one of these means tells you every
single property of the item, like whether or not it lets you see
invisible monsters, sustains stats, gives you regeneration, and so on.
You should only use *identify* on artifacts and certain powerful
ego-items some of which may have random abilities which can only be
discovered by this method.

--- Items for Lighting the Dungeon ---

Notes on lighting: You can't do much without light. You won't be able
to see most monsters, cast spells or read scrolls, or, in general, see
the dungeon. You should carry a light source of which torches and brass
lanterns are the most common and this will light up the area which is
immediately around you. There are items which will light up the
dungeon, but only parts of it. Any item/spell of Light or Illumination
will light up the room you are standing it (or part of the corridor). A
potion of Enlightenment/the prayer Clairvoyance will light up the
entire level.

--- Word of Recall ---

Finally, the most useful magical item in general is a Scroll of
Word-of-Recall (often abbreviated WoR). When you are in the town and
read it, you are teleported to the lowest level you have been to in the
dungeon. When read in the dungeon, you are teleported to the town. The
activation takes place about 50 turns after reading the scroll, so it's
not a perfect escape method.

=== On Resistances ====

There are many different kinds of attacks in ZAngband, generally
falling under physical, magical, and breath attacks. They can all cause
specialized kinds of damage, which can kill a character if he/she does
not have resistance to that attack. The majority of attack types have a
corresponding resistance. These resistances include: acid, electricity,
fire, and cold (often collectively referred to as "low" or "elemental"
resists) and poison, light, dark, shards, confusion, sound, nether,
nexus, chaos, disenchantment, blindness and fear (often collectively
referred to as "high" resists). Two other abilities - free action, and
hold life, can be considered as resists in some sense since they
provide resistance to paralyzing/slowing attacks and to experience
draining attacks respectively.

Resistances can be provided by certain items and also may be part of
your racial characteristics. There are certain types of items that
provide all four elemental resistances. These include Defender weapons,
Robes of Permanence, armors/shields of Resistance, armor of Elvenkind,
and Helms/Crowns of the Magi. Many artifacts also provide some or all
of the basic resistances, and also perhaps one or two "high"
resistances.

Resistances generally chop off a significant amount of damage, ranging
from 1/5 to 2/3. Also, it is possible to doubly resist the basic four
resistances and poison. When you doubly resist these, damage is chopped
to 1/9. Double resistance is NOT having two permanent sources of the
same resist! Double resistance is having both a permanent source and a
temporary source. Multiple permanent sources do nothing for you.
Resistances are vital to survival in the dungeon. For instance, the
most powerful of fire dragons, the Great Hell Wyrm, can breath fire
(big surprise). Unresisted, the damage caused is 1600 HPs worth; more
than enough to kill the mightiest of warriors (if he's lucky, a warrior
might top out at about 1200 HPs at level 50). However, if you have fire
resistance, this is chopped to 1/3-533 damage. If you doubly resist the
breath, the damage is a paltry 178 HP.

=== On Important Depths ===

There are certain depths in the dungeon beyond which it is important to
have a certain resist or attribute. The depths given here are
guidelines, and should not be taken literally. However, if you decide
to go past the depth without the attribute, be very careful and don't
complain if you get the dreaded "It breathes -more- You are dead"
message.

1000': Free Action, See Invisible
1250': Basic four Resistances
1900': Maxxed Stats, Confusion Resistance, Blindness Resistance
2000': Poison Resistance
2500': Hold Life
2700': Chaos Resistance, Nether Resistance
3000': Permanent and Temporary Speed of +20 or greater
4000': Permanent + Temporary Speed of +30 or greater
4950': As much as you can get. Sustains, Speed, every resistance,

Notes: If you have high infravision, you can probably hold off on See
Invisible for a few levels. Not very many, however; Ghosts start
showing up soon, and they're cold-blooded.

Without Free Action you are very dead. Some monsters have a melee
paralyzation attack, which can keep you immobile until death. Also,
monsters start getting the paralyze spell about here. Nothing is more
aggravating than watching a puny monster slowly kill your character as
you watch, helpless.

Confusion and Blindness resistance are vital. If you have these, you
can rely on scrolls of Teleportation to get you out of any situation.
Before this, you need Staves of Teleportation which can be activated
when blinded or confused, although with a decent failure rate. Scrolls
are fail-safe.

Poison Resistance is necessary because two monsters, Ancient Multi-Hued
Dragons, and Drolems, start showing up at about depth. Both of these
monsters breath poison for huge amounts of damage (700 and 800 points,
respectively).

Hold Life is very nice, but not important. If you can't get it, carry
lots of Potions of Restore Life Levels.

Chaos Resistance is *vital* since it not only does significant damage
but can also have nasty side effects like causing hallucinations or
mutating your character.

Nether Resistance is also very important since there are a fairly large
number of monsters with attacks of this type and because it can do
significant damage.

=== On Secret Doors ===

Throughout the dungeon, many doors are hidden from view. To find them,
use the (S)earch command, which toggles on and off the Searching mode.
However, it is often difficult enough just knowing where to search.
Usually, situations like this will have secret doors (walls containing
secret doors are marked by *s):

#*###  ###'###  ####*#    ###*###
*@...  ..'@'..  ..@'.*    ..'@...
#*###  ###*###  ####'#    #######

In general, if you see a door by itself in a corridor, there are
usually others nearby. If you find a corner in a corridor with two
doors, look for more. Intersections often have some secret doors.
Finally, secret doors will never be in a situation where you have to
move diagonally to open them. The dead-end situation (the first one)
usually does have a secret door, but not always. If you search for a
while and don't find anything, just give up and move on. Sometimes a
dead end will occur near the end of a map, where there is no room to
have a continuing corridor, and so no secret door is generated.

=== On the Maximize/Preserve modes ===

These are selected on or off at character creation, and cannot be
changed after that.

Maximize mode: with Maximize mode off, your statistics max out at
18/100, without outside magical effects, like a Ring of Strength. When
Maximize mode is on, where your stats max out at is determined by your
race and class. For instance, any Mage has -5 to Strength. A Human
Mage's strength (Humans have no racial stat differences), therefore,
could max out at 18/50, instead of 18/100. However, Mages also have +3
to Intelligence. A Human Mage's Intelligence would max out at 18/130.
When Maximize mode is off, it is possible to achieve higher starting
stats for characters; a Gnomish Mage might be able to start with 18/80
Intelligence. However, since your stats can't reach as high levels,
the end game is harder than with Maximize mode on.

Preserve mode: with Preserve mode off, if a level is created with an
artifact on it, and you don't get that artifact, it is gone forever.
When Preserve mode is on, you always can find the artifact again unless
you have already identified it and then leave it behind. However, in
preserve mode you lose the "special" level feeling (more below).

=== On Level Feelings ===

When you enter a level, you receive a feeling giving you a vague idea
how good the level is. In general, the more scary the feeling sounds,
the better the items on the level, and the more difficult the monsters.
Each unusual item or monster bumps up the rating of the level a bit. An
item or monster is considered unusual if it is out of depth [normally
occurs at a lower depth; for instance, a Longsword has a base level of
20, and would be considered unusual anywhere above that level (although
not below it)]. Items can be out of depth without necessarily being
anything special; a normal, non-magical katana could provoke a high
level feeling at low depths, because it is so unusual. Also, pits
(large rooms filled with a single type of monster) and vaults (dense,
dangerous rooms with many out of depth monsters and items) can cause
high level feelings. There is also a Special feeling, available only to
players with Preserve mode off, which tells the player that there is an
artifact on the level (most of the time. Sometimes, especially in the
earlier levels, a monster pit or a vault will often trigger a special
feeling). Also, if you have not spent enough time on the previous level
before entering the new one, you get the feeling "Looks like any other
level" which gives you no information whatsoever.

=== On weapons and armor ===

Your equipment will always carry around little numbers that tell you
how effective it is. Armors take this form:

A Foobar (+x, +y) [a, +b] (+c)

Weapons take this form:

A Foobaz XdY (+x, +y) [a, +b] (+c)

When unidentified, armors will show just this:

[a]

Weapons will show this:

XdY

(+x, +y). This is the item's magical bonuses to your skill and your
deadliness respectively. These are added to whatever other bonuses you
have when you attack. Some armors have similar bonuses to your skill
and deadliness, but they are mostly artifacts, the exceptions being
Gloves/Gauntlets/Cesti of Slaying and Power. Many body armors have a
small negative number before the base armor bonus (see below); this is
a penalty to your skill (the armor is so heavy that you have trouble
moving around in it). However, this penalty is small enough for all but
the youngest of characters to ignore.

Rings of Combat or Skill have a single (+y) or (+x). When worn, they
affect your deadliness and skill in melee battle respectively.

[a, +b]. This is the item's base armor class and magical bonus to
armor. The higher, the better. While theoretically, a weapon could
provide a base armor bonus, none of them do, and only a few weapons
have a magical bonus to armor.

Rings of Protection have a single [+b], which increases your AC. They
are also practically worthless; the valuable ring slot is almost
certainly better off being used for something else.

(+c). This is the item's magical bonus to other statistics: Strength,
Intelligence, Wisdom, Constitution, Dexterity, Charisma, Speed,
Stealth, Searching, Infravision, Attacks, and Tunneling. Not on every
item, it is generally a good reason to choose the item. [Note that it
does not affect every stat in this list! Most items that have a +c only
affect one or two of these stats. Some items affect more (A Weapon of
Westernesse affects Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution)].

As a side note for the above: Zangband follows the parenthesis for any
item. If you see a number in brackets, like this: [b], it is a bonus to
AC. If it is in parenthesis, like this: (+x), it is either a bonus to a
stat or to hit/damage (and which should normally be obvious by the name
of the item). For instance, a Holy Avenger (a powerful ego-item), looks
like this:

A Mace (Holy Avenger) (2d4) (+7, +5) [+4] (+1)

Thus, it rolls 2 four-sided dice when attacking, has +7 bonus to your
skill and +5 bonus to your deadliness, increases your AC by 4, and
increases a stat (In this case Wisdom) by 1.

XdY. This is the weapon's base damage. When you successfully hit a
monster, X number of Y-sided dice are rolled. This number represents
the amount of damage you do to the monster before magical bonuses,
slays, brands, criticals, etc are applied. A Longsword, for example,
rolls 2 five-sided dice (2d5) when you hit a monster.

Ammunition, as well as having the normal weapon information, also
shows how much damage they will do per shot and per round.  This
information will only be displayed if you have the proper shooting
weapon.  (Your melee weapon's average damage is displayed on the info-
screen.)  The format of this is:

An arrow (3d5) (+0, +0) (26/26)

The first number is the average damage per shot, and the second is
average damage per round.  The two numbers can differ because the
shooting weapons have differing energy requirements per shot (unlike
melee weapons.)

=== On Slays ===

Many weapons you find in the dungeon are considered to be particularly
deadly against a type of creature. These qualities are collectively
known as slays. They double, triple, or multiply by five *the damage
done by the damage dice*. They DO NOT affect bonuses to damage. Thus,
while slays may play an important part in the early game (especially if
you find a weapon of Slay Orc), in the later part of the game, where
magical bonuses to damage all but take over combat, slays play a very
minor role. The rundown on slays:

     Slay (or *Slay*) Evil: x1.7 damage dice against evil monsters
     Slay (or *Slay*) Animal, Undead, Demon, Giant, Dragon: x2 damage
       dice against the relevant monster type

The brands ("of Melting", "of Burning", "of Freezing", "of Shocking",
and "of Poisoning") all do x2 damage dice to those monsters not
resistant to the relevant element. There is also a "(Vampiric)" brand
which will suck life from your foes and heal you at the same time and
a "(Chaotic)" brand which can cause some unexpected results when using
it!


=== On the Monster Memory ===

In many other games, you are required to take notes on monster's
weaknesses, strengths, spells, et cetera. Zangband takes care of this
for you, with the handy Monster Memory. Every time you find out
something new about a monster, like that it can breathe fire, this is
added to your knowledge of the monster. To look over this knowledge,
type /, then the symbol of the monster. You may have to scroll through
other monster memories to get to the one you're looking for. [Note: you
can set a window to display the monster memory at the preferences
screen (see below). This window will then automatically update as you
fight monsters].

In the unpleasant event of your character's death, you can create a new
character using your old character's file (instead of simply creating a
new character, open the dead character's savefile, and the Creating a
Character section will come up). This new character will have all of
the old one's monster memories, and some special text for the monster
that killed him.


=== On the Colors of Monsters ===

You can often determine some information about a monster based solely
on it's color. This would be the color it is described as, like "a
White Dragon," not the color of it's image on the screen (you can't
rely on a white "p" to be a cold based monster! It will probably be a
paladin or some such). In general, White monsters are cold-based, Red
are fire-based, Blue are electrical, Black is acidic, and Yellow/Green
are poisonous. A Multi-Hued monster is all of these. Crimson monsters
can cause weakness.


=== On the Preferences ===

The preferences screen is reached by typing "=". It contains many
different preferences that make Zangband more enjoyable. There are a few
that I would recommend. Turn both stacking options ON. This maximizes
your treasure collection. Turn the Low Hitpoint Warning ON, and place
the warning percent at about 50%. You'll see the effects of this
whenever you start to die:). The Delay Factor determines how long it
takes for special effects to "move;" that is: balls exploding, bolts
moving, missile weapons flying, et cetera. This is machine dependant;
I usually set mine at about 3 or 4. The Window Flags screen allows you
to set various windows (assuming your platform supports them) to show
certain things. Using this, you can set some windows to always show
monster memory, your character's inventory and/or equipment, a dungeon
map, and others.

=== On the Autoscummer ===

Available in the Preferences screen, the autoscummer keeps generating
levels until it comes across one that is interesting, meaning that it
has a decent level feeling. At shallow depths, it doesn't do much,
because it's very hard to generate out of depth monsters and items.
Some people consider it cheating, but keep in mind that, along with
better items, the autoscummer brings nastier monsters, and the monsters
generally outweigh the items. The autoscummer becomes more effective
at lower depths.

=== On Death ===

Death in Zangband is permanent. Saving in Zangband is meant only to let
you pick up where you left off; if you die, your savefile is marked.
The next time you try to use the savefile, you will get the new
character dialogue. Ancestors of dead characters will retain their
monster memory and preferences. Many people here have characters like
"Yuppy XIV"; people die very often in Zangband.

Some people make backup savefiles; if their character dies, they simply
load the older character, and pick up where they left off. They lose
what happened after making the backup, but they're alive. However, this
is considered cheating of the highest degree. The only really legal
reason to use savefile abuse ("savefile scumming") is if your computer
crashed or some other external problem killed your character.

There is an option in the Cheating menu in the preferences which
allows you to cheat death. However, like all the other cheating
options, it invalidates your high-score and makes it impossible to
truly win the game. It also sets your Social Status to zero, so
everyone knows what a scumbag you are.


=== On ZAngband Time ===

If there is one feature of Zangband that tends to confuse people
(especially veterans of other roguelikes), it's how the speed system in
Zangband works. Most other roguelikes have a simple incremental system,
where +1 to speed means you move twice as fast as normal-speed
monsters, +2 is three times as fast (or twice as fast as fast
monsters), and so on. Zangband has a decimalized version. +10 is the
old +1 to speed, and +20 is the old +2. This allows for characters to
be "half again as fast" as a monster, with the in-game effect that the
character occasionally gets a free turn.

However, problems start to arise when one's speed gets much higher than
about +28. After this, each point of extra speed contributes slightly
less than a full point of speed (i.e. the points are worth less). There
is little point in trying for speed higher than +35 or so.

It might help to understand this if an explanation of Zangband time were
given. In Zangband, every game turn, the player and monsters gain a
certain amount of "energy". At normal speed, you gain 10 points of
energy every game turn. Once you have 100 energy points, you get to
take an action. Most actions cost 100 energy units (the major exception
being shooting an arrow or bolt with a bow of Extra Shots. This divides
the energy cost by two or, if it's a bow of Extra Shots +2, by three,
thus allowing you to shoot several times before a monster gets an
action).

However, each extra speed point that you have gains you an extra energy
point each game turn. Thus, if you have +10 to speed, you gain 20
energy points per game turn, twice as fast as normal. Normal monsters
only get 10 energy points per game turn (same as the player), so you
move twice as fast as they do.

The slowing of gains from speed that occurs at about +28 or so to speed
is then translated to each point of speed not giving a complete point
of energy each game turn. It's the same effect, subjectively.


=== Advanced techniques for killing monsters ===

Pillardancing.
     Requires that you be at least twice as fast as the monster you are
     fighting. Find a single block of wall, freestanding, and lure your
     enemy to it. When both you and your enemy are standing next to the
     pillar, hit him, and then move so that you are opposite the pillar
     from him. He will use his turn to move so that he's standing next
     to you. Hit him again, and then move again. Repeat until he's
     dead. Note that some monsters move erratically, and cannot be
     relied upon to move in the method expected. Also, some monsters
     (mostly Ghosts) can move through walls, and a small number of
     monsters can chew through walls.

Shoot'n Scoot.
     Requires a large room, Phase Door, and some type of missile
     weapon. Stand at one end of the room, your enemy at the other.
     Fire your missile weapon at him until he gets close, and then
     Phase Door. Fire again, until he gets close, and repeat. By the
     time you run out of ammunition, he should be dead or weak enough
     for you to finish him HTH (Hand to Hand).

Hack'n Back.
     Requires that you be at least twice as fast as your opponent.
     Stand next to your enemy, hit him, and back up. He should use his
     turn to move towards you instead of using a missile weapon or a
     spell. Hit him again, back up again, repeat. This is a little more
     dangerous than Pillardancing, because the monster gets a chance to
     breathe or cast a spell, but it's easier to set up.

Wail'n Bail.
     Requires Teleport items. Fight the monster until you're almost
     dead, teleport out, find him, and resume fighting. This is
     dangerous, because you could teleport right next to some nasty
     that will kill you. Also, it is not generally useful for killing
     unique monsters, as they regenerate damage very quickly, and by
     the time you find them again, they will have healed what you did
     to them.

The Anti-Summoning Corridor.
     Required a little time to set up. This can be done just about
     anywhere. Dig a twisting corridor into the rock, and station
     yourself at one end of it. When your opponent arrives, he won't be
     able to summon any monsters next to you. This is a very important
     technique for fighting many higher-end monsters which very quickly
     bring in a horde of other monsters.


--
Original   : Chris Weisiger (TANG version 1.6.2)
Updated    : Zangband DevTeam
Last Update: January 13, 2000