Is killing things you can barely kill worth it?

[Arcares]

I have a quick question that's been bugging me for a while. Let's say you come face to face with a monster you can definitely kill at the cost of a lot of resources. Is it worth it to try and kill them?

I use Artificers exclusively. They're a pretty item dependent background for me. (My current KoAr has been lucky enough to pick up a number of wands in the early level (disintegration, polymorph other, paralysis, frost) to buff up his starting equipment of wands of flame and random effects.) Anyway, whenever I see a unique or relatively OoD monster that I know I can kill by using everything I got, I usually decide on doing just that. This usually ends with me using a fair number of charges from my wands, and that's not even taking into account potions I will be quaffing. So I basically use up my resources pretty quickly to kill these things.

I got to ask though... am I doing the right thing by deciding just that?

[Laraso]

If they are blocking you from advancing any further into the game, then yes it is definitely worth it. In one of my games I found a statue on Lair:2 that was guarding all three stairways, I had to kill it to get to Lair:3.

Otherwise, you can get them to follow you up some stairs. When they go up the stairs, use a scroll of blink or something until they get away from the stairs. Then go back down the stairs.

Also, I find it beneficial to kill OoD monsters in the early game sometimes. I killed an Ogre with a level 4 caster with nothing but blink and magic dart and I went straight to level 6.

[eith]

its a waste of resources to kill stuff you dont need to, just leave them alone.

[TwilightPhoenix]

Usually I'll just avoid them if possible. But sometimes it seems no matter where you go that monster just won't leave you alone and keeps popping up around corners to say hello. In those cases I'll try to kill it without using everything up since I'm sick of it following me even after using tele scrolls, but I'll bail if things don't go my way.

[seth]

If I have a healthy amount of wands I won't hesitate to kill an OOD monster. Most wands become less useful in the mid-late game, and after certain point I usually have too many of them.

[danr]

Apart from wasting resources, there's also the risk that "barely able to kill" turns into "was almost able to survive". But if it just takes a wand charge or two, go for it.

[Arcares]

I guess the item-dependent characters exacerbate the whole lost resources situation. It doesn't help that the value of wands seems very hard to estimate. If you're not gonna use them against a particular enemy, then when do you use them? I also realize that this is also sort of true for ranged characters. My KoAr found a blowgun and some curare needles after killing a pack of kobolds. I abused those curare needles each time I see a threatening monsters. Keep in mind that I only had 5 needles to start with. I currently don't use it much now that I have my decks, but in the end, I was left with just 1 needle in stock. Good thing they have a smaller chance of breakage it seems.

[sigfried von murdock]

- It depends, if it is a major obstacle and leaving it behind you poses a threat because it cuts off your lower level retreat, you might wanna see about throwing some extra fire power it's way.

Also an orc is worth 2 xp an ogre is worth 129 xp - At low levels that could give you a level boost or two, so kiting it off with range and hit and run or zapping wands might give you an early game edge. Later game the rewards are rarely an instant level and usually it is a call between staying because everywhere else will be more lethal, or leaving because it's certain death.

Risks don't mean anything at level 1-2, they mean everything as soon as you have a decent character established that you wanna beat the game with.

[Laraso]

I have to agree with sigfried von murdock, I really don't care what happens to my character until I get to the temple. I still try not to die, but at that point I am usually willing to try things I normally wouldn't later on.

A character on D:1 has much more room to be reckless than a character on Zot:5, as a character that dies on D:1 will only find himself back on D:1 when he starts again.

[FlyingPants]

Unless you find a really nice item on D1/D2, and then you want to keep him alive.