Monday, 4th April 2011, 04:43 by TheDark
To start off, that's quite an acceptable strategy for lower-level characters. To just flame-block them can do one of two things. They can rush through the flame at you anyway, perhaps taking damage, or they can just wait there stupidly while you ping them to death. Hitting "x" and then hovering over the monster, and then hitting "v" can get an explanation of the monster, which you can learn resistances from, and often gauge their behavior. However, this flame-blocking strategy fails the second enemies get ranged attacks, such as smiting / missiles / spells / all of the above.
On the second point, personally, I just wait until I have a big stack of scrolls, and then read them until I find one that requires me to target my equipment. Then, I target an unidentified piece of equipment (preferably a wand or armor), so that I can tell which one of the three scrolls that target items it is. The scroll types are, in descending order of seeming rarity: identify, recharging, enchant armor. Once I have scrolls of ID identified, I start working on IDing the potions. However, most often the largest pile of potions will be healing. So, often I will just chug one to see if it is healing.
Now for your third question. To access your skills menu, you hit the "m" key. Then, you can toggle training of a skill by hitting the letter associated with that skill. For example, my current Mummy Wizard has stealth in the "b" slot. So, to turn it off, I would just hit the "b" key while in the skills menu. Then, the skill will gray out, and the plus to the left of the skill name will turn into a minus sign.
On your fourth question, monsters tend to lose aggro when you are out of their LOS for a number of turns. (I can't remember the number right now, or even if there is a fixed number.) After they lose aggro on you, then they will often randomly wander around for a bit, as if they are trying to find you. So, you still need to stay on your toes.
Now, on another note, welcome to the Crawl boards, and enjoy your time here. Feel free to ask any questions, and you will most likely get a response quickly.