Is it optimal to only enter L:8 after orc shops?

[le_nerd]

Due to the acquirement nature of some of the endvaults in Lair:8, I have started to hold back on entering L:8 until after I have seen more items. Of course only on strong characters who can afford it. If I understand the way acq effects work, that does statistically boost the loot I get from lair:8, correct?

[KoboldLord]

No, floor loot does not work the same way as a scroll. The floor will happily provide you eight copies of the same item you already have, if the dice roll that way. Sometimes that 'acquirement-level item' will turn out to be a pile of stones, and the floor does not care if you've already seen piles of stones before. Actually, even with the scroll your known item identifications is almost always an irrelevant thing that you should ignore, but more so with the floor. The only reason to put off Lair 8 is if you don't think you can handle Lair 8, and that's mostly a thing that only happens when you peek downstairs and you see Rupert or somebody guarding all the stairs.

[le_nerd]

I am going to disagree with you on "not-seen items are irrelevant"- weapon acquirement for rare weapon types works astonishingly well.

[daggaz]

He is talking about floor drops not the scroll, dude.

No, floor loot does not work the same way as a scroll.

[Hurkyl]

He is talking about floor drops not the scroll, dude.

Yes, but if he can say known items are mostly irrelevant for the scroll, then that casts similar doubts on his judgement that they're mostly irrelevant for the floor.

[duvessa]

No, floor loot does not work the same way as a scroll. The floor will happily provide you eight copies of the same item you already have, if the dice roll that way. Sometimes that 'acquirement-level item' will turn out to be a pile of stones, and the floor does not care if you've already seen piles of stones before. Actually, even with the scroll your known item identifications is almost always an irrelevant thing that you should ignore, but more so with the floor. The only reason to put off Lair 8 is if you don't think you can handle Lair 8, and that's mostly a thing that only happens when you peek downstairs and you see Rupert or somebody guarding all the stairs.

le_nerd is talking about the vaults on Lair:8 that specifically place 'acquire' items, which work just like a scroll and do take seen items into account. Skipping lair:8 is suboptimal anyway since it's going to be the easiest level, though.

[greedo]

Orc has orc sorcerors which have paralysis, don't think it's really worth entering early to do a shop run unless you've got stasis or a ton of MR

[KoboldLord]

Yes, but if he can say known items are mostly irrelevant for the scroll, then that casts similar doubts on his judgement that they're mostly irrelevant for the floor.

The correct time to read a scroll of acquirement is almost invariably the exact instant it is safe to pick it up, read it, and then pick up whatever drops. The impact of known items does have a mechanical effect, but if you're wanting to be 'optimal' you should ignore this mechanical effect in all normal cases and most constructed hypotheticals, because a favorable roll for good loot now is always better than an ever-so-slightly-more-favorable roll for good loot later. Looking for shops before reading a scroll is mostly just a good way to die with scrolls still in your inventory.

In the case of the OP, the OP is considering giving up the HUGE windfall of Lair 8 xp, which the OP has complete control over allocating, in favor of an eventual improvement of the loot there that is negligible at best. If you put off Lair 8 to identify more items, you get the loot later, which is very bad. You might not get the specific kind of vault on that floor, and high-quality items can appear on other floors anyway. Your floor loot might roll into a category that isn't relevant to your character or doesn't care about your seen items. You might get three food shops and a mimic in Orc 4.

It might be possible to quantify the exact improvement to the Lair loot roll if we do a bunch of complicated calculations, but it would involve a decimal point and multiple zeroes before we reach the first relevant digit in the number. The result will invariably be much worse than just getting the Lair 8 xp, so the exact quantification of how terrible the idea is ends up being an idle though experiment that only manages to fog up a question that already has a really obvious answer.

[Hurkyl]

And that's what I expected; you're just zealously repeating the usual diatribe against actually thinking about doing something other than blindly following a pattern, rather than something resembling knowledge of the relevant mechanics and reasoned advice.

I say it's not reasoned advice, since the presentation is built around a central idea that is basically "you shouldn't seek to improve your odds of getting good results, because randomness", which is not particularly well thought out.

Your conclusion may very well be right, but it's not for the reasons you give.

[Sar]

yes it certainly is worth overthinking some extremely minor parts of the game that is mostly easy as fuck once you reach the part of the game those parts belong to

[Hurkyl]

... and besides, it's not like visiting Orc doesn't have any merit on its own either. Sure, orcs aren't worth much experience, but a few levels of the branch usually results in a stock of tomahawks, a weapon upgrade, and a couple extra enchantments and a resist for your body armor (if not a better armor type entirely!), and that's ignoring what you can buy with the gold and the fact shops often appear on the upper floors too. For some characters, Orc is often easier than the upper Lair levels anyways, let alone Lair:8.

[Wahaha]

I sometimes wait with reading acquirement when I want to increase chances of a good wand. I don't really need a wand of hasting or hw immediately if I still have potions of haste or hw that make a wand of the same thing not very useful (useful only if you need more hw than what you have in 1 fight).

[sanka]

For some characters, Orc is often easier than the upper Lair levels anyways, let alone Lair:8.

What kind of characters did you have where Orc is less dangerous than Lair:8? I never remember to have such a character. (Except when Lair:8 spawns Rupert.)

[byrel]

For some characters, Orc is often easier than the upper Lair levels anyways, let alone Lair:8.

What kind of characters did you have where Orc is less dangerous than Lair:8? I never remember to have such a character. (Except when Lair:8 spawns Rupert.)

Any poison-dependent character for sure. VMs should always go orc before Lair.

The only case where I'd put off reading acquirement is Gozag; if I've purchased a couple armour/jewellery shops on the next floors, I might wait to see what they turn up if it would inform my choice about which category of item to get, and if I was quite strong for the current level of difficulty (say immediately post lair+Orc on most characters.)

[lifecoder]

The impact of known items does have a mechanical effect, but if you're wanting to be 'optimal' you should ignore this mechanical effect in all normal cases and most constructed hypotheticals, because a favorable roll for good loot now is always better than an ever-so-slightly-more-favorable roll for good loot later.

When I'm playing enchanters, especially with aux attacks, I prefer to jump from dagger (especially speed or elec) to QBlades. And it feels pretty disappointing to receive 4 rapiers from ?acq.

What kind of characters did you have where Orc is less dangerous than Lair:8? I never remember to have such a character. (Except when Lair:8 spawns Rupert.)

I believe any characters with access to 0.17 Tukima's would have an easy time in Orc.

[Hurkyl]

IMO, excepting some vaults, Orc mainly kills you because it gradually overwhelmed you with normal speed things, and you failed to disengage before the situation got too dangerous.

If you insist on completing Orc before going anywhere else, then yeah, it's a bad idea. But most characters can clear a fair amount of Orc without fear so long as they're willing to pack up and leave when things threaten to become too much.

From the other direction, if you cannot handle a Black Mamba safely, you shouldn't enter Lair; if "safely" means you expect to burn through consumables, you should still probably put off lair. Similarly, a Spiny Frog ought to be a relatively easy fight before you tackle lair, because of how often you'll encounter them while in the middle of a fight or recovering from one. If that's not the case, I'll often do more dungeon or go to Orc instead. (this is mitigated, of course, if you are willing to go through the tedium of pulling every fight back to the stairs, or at least deep into cleared territory)

[Sar]

if you cannot handle a Black Mamba safely, you shouldn't enter Lair; if "safely" means you expect to burn through consumables, you should still probably put off lair.

Uh, why though? Black mambas are top tier Lair threat, one can argue they are the most dangerous threat in Lair apart from Rupert. They are also rare. Why should one expect being able to handle them without using any consumables?

[Hurkyl]

If the choice is between exploring a level that won't kill you and a level that won't kill you if you use consumables, you should choose the former.

Maybe it's a quirk of the sort of characters I like to play, but many/most of them can kill a Black Mamba 1v1 a majority of the time (usually a vast majority) without consumables if they start the fight fully rested, so that influences where I set my expectations, and I only go in below those expectations under duress (e.g. Orc is blocked and more Dungeon is challenging too)

[Sar]

You might need to use consumables in Orc if you meet an orc sorc or an orc warlord. You might need to use consumables if you go in lower D because lower D has some pretty nasty spawns like, uh, elf wizards (or whatever they're called) who can cast fireball, regular wizards sometimes, ogre magi...

[byrel]

For me, the difference is I never need to use consumables to escape all those D and orc threats, barring terrible autoexplore. I just walk away. Mambas force me to burn consumables now, and often fight them in suboptimal circumstances (say, a herd of yaks closing in fast that I would ordinarily break up and handle one at a time.)

Mambas I can barely handle are more terrifying than orc sorcerors I can barely handle.

[Sar]

Well, if that's true pretty much nobody except for the tankiest chars should enter Lair then until like level 13-14? Doesn't sound right.

[byrel]

I'm not saying I shouldn't enter Lair till I can handle mambas without consumables. But I'm unlikely to go in without teleport at least so I can disengage...

Mambas are scarier than equal threat non-fast monsters. Also rare. I don't hold off on lair till I can kill hydras either... you can pretty much always avoid them. They're probably more consumable burning for most of my characters to handle than mambas, but because they're slow they aren't as big a threat.

[ZipZipskins]

I'm not saying I shouldn't enter Lair till I can handle mambas without consumables.

maybe YOU aren't

Personally I go in lair whenever I find it because I find it a nice zen-style break from the rest of the dungeon, where the packs are yaks and the exp is mostly free, and if I have to drink a potion or something, good, that's what they're for

[Sprucery]

Nowadays I try to clear D:12 and then go to Lair. Generally it seems that the first spiny frog I meet settles the case if I can stay. Almost always I can, except maybe with VM who then go to Orc. Hex wands are great at this point.

[duvessa]

orc:1 has stone giants and orc sorcerers

lair:1-8 don't have stone giants or orc sorcerers

the chance of a stair orc sorcerer is really much worse than anything lair can throw at you

same situation with D

[byrel]

orc:1 has stone giants and orc sorcerers

lair:1-8 don't have stone giants or orc sorcerers

the chance of a stair orc sorcerer is really much worse than anything lair can throw at you

same situation with D

Instead Lair 1 has ice dragons, hydras and anacondas. If we're discussing extreme OoD spawns which I've occasionally seen. I'm not persuaded that an orc sorceror at the stairs is more dangerous than an anaconda. And orc sorceror+knight is certainly not worse than anaconda+hydra...

Edit: And honestly, just train some stealth! Either you're in plate or you should have enough stealth that neither situation is usually unretreatable. And if you're in plate, there are more dangerous things than orc sorcerors. Unless you're a mummy in plate I guess. But don't do that.

[njvack]

if you're in plate, there are more dangerous things than orc sorcerors

Most notably, the orc sorcerer

[sanka]

Hydras are not dangerous. I do not remember ever seeing an anaconda in lair. I saw an ice dragon once, in a vault, which was a little bit spoilery.

On the other hand sorcerers are normal Orc spawns, I saw them in plenty of my games. Sometimes at the entrace, yes. Stone giants are somewhat more rare, but I meet with them now or then.

I feel that it is easy to underestimate orc just like elf, because the difficulty can be really different between runs, unlike lair, which feels pretty standard and predictable. You clear orc twice with tab and o, and then the third time you die because an orc sorcerer paralized you.

[byrel]

Hydra next to the stairs into lair can be. And that's the only situation in which either the sorceroer or the hydra can really be dangerous. Either you have a decent amount of stealth or enough AC to shrug off one paralysis.

I've never come down the stairs in orc with a stone giant in sight (let alone in line of sight). Still, it's certainly possible. Again though, you can soak 2 large rocks, or you can have enough stealth for him to not throw them

I agree orc can be dangerous. But it's practically never unavoidably dangerous; it's usually quite trivial to walk right back to, and up the stairs. Almost regardless of what you autoexplore into you can just back up and leave if you don't blindy tab till you're below half HP. Again, EVERYTHING is speed 10. It's that easy.

On the other hand, you can easily auto explore into 2-3 mambas in lair. I've done it. I've auto explored into a spiny frog and a hydra. I've auto-explored into an acid blob (Thank you for opening the door whichever unique).

Fast monsters make other monsters worse, because you need to stand and fight them. And there are monsters in Lair I often can't stand and fight (death yak packs and hydras notably.) But a black mamba tethers me there till I deal with him somehow.

Orc is harder if you can't deal with ranged foes. Otherwise it's easier. That's about what it boils down to.

[WingedEspeon]

I have played a fair number of no stealth low AC characters that relied on EV for survival around the levels that they did lair and orc. Maybe this is why I hate orc sorcerers so much.

[byrel]

Assuming you're not playing ogre or troll (which are their own challenges) you can have reasonably effective stealth by raising it to 5, which is pretty easy for most low-ac combos to squeeze in pre-lair. Think of it as an extra defensive skill; it really is. Just throw rocks at what you want to wake up, don't walk over to try to stab it. You don't have the kit for that.

For numbers, a human with 12 dex and 5 Stealth has 111 stealth. This is rolled against an awareness number for the monster:
Sleeping orc sorceror: 21
Wandering orc sorceror (say woken up by some orc shouting): 36
sleeping black mamba: 15
Wandering black mamba: 30
Sleeping hydra: 21
Wandering hydra: 36

Basically all common lair/orc threats have an 80% chance of just letting you turn around and walk away. This drops to ~66% chance if they're already awake, but that's still a huge amount of power for choosing your fights. And that 5 stealth will keep being useful; you'll have similar effectiveness vs boggarts, tormentors, etc. Though you should probably raise it to 8-10...

[Hurkyl]

The orcish mines is noisier than the lair (which is a lot noisier than the dungeon) which makes it easier to go unnoticed; did you account for that?

[Sar]

Troll challenge: play Troll, don't fall asleep

[byrel]

The orcish mines is noisier than the lair (which is a lot noisier than the dungeon) which makes it easier to go unnoticed; did you account for that?

This is true, but that only affects noise propagation, not chance of them spotting you per action in their sight.

Edit: Just for reference, since I'm throwing numbers around, a ring of stealth gives 50 stealth, which will increase the odds for sorcerers or hydras to:

  Code:

1:5.3 => 1:7.5 sleeping
1:3   => 1:4.5 wandering

[duvessa]

lair doesn't have anacondas or ice dragons except for vaults (which are easily avoidable) and anacondas that come from the snake pit stairs (which are also easily avoidable)

[njvack]

How are they avoidable? Do you mean "know the vaults that exist and avoid the vaults" or are there runed doors or something?

[Siegurt]

Well, you have to really go out of your way to get to the dragon vaults (the are behind deep water or lava and in the case of one on lair 8, a runed door)

I have also never seen an anaconda in the lair, although the snake stairs are pretty obvious and worth staying away from generally. In any case the op was talking about lair 8, where snake stairs can't occur in anyway.

Orc sorcerers on the other had occur normally in orc 4, and the possibility of running into one there is much higher, orc high priests are no slouches either, nor are warlords.

So I would personally say that on average lair 8 is easier than orc 4 for all characters, with some extremes being fairly close to even, with lair 8 being the averagely easier choice by a small margin.

Otoh, the range of difficulties certainly overlap, and there are definitively instances of orc 4 that are easier than lair 8 in a given game, but of course you won't know that until you've gotten there, and done them. I would put the odds on lair 8 being easier every time.

[WingedEspeon]

Orc 4 isn't too bad if you are playing something with early QDA/Mr+ armou AND and early ring of the mage. Or really any character with a boatload of MR.

[Sar]

Dragons can fly and will seek you if you are being noisy.

[Siegurt]

Dragons can fly and will seek you if you are being noisy.

Don't make a boatload of noise right outside a dragon's lair? (This seems like good general life advice

I may be a bad sample size since I lure just about everything into cleared areas to kill it (which I consider to be just common sense), but I have never actually ever had it happen that a dragon flew out of its vault to come get me.

[Sar]

Yeah, I'm just saying it's possible to do something like spamming lightning bolt or meph in Lair and suddenly get a dragon on the screen instead of a hydra or something. Then again, there are things that are harder to run away from than dragons.

[byrel]

I had it almost kill my NaWz for csdc (I think it was that game at least). Ice cave announcement, I see an ice themed vault, run toward the 'entrance', and suddenly find my self in range of an ice dragon and an ice statue, with the dragon a square inside my LOS. Being a naga, retreat was difficult...

Turned out the ice cave was elsewhere on the level entirely.

Then again, there are things that are harder to run away from than dragons.

Definitely true. But if you happen onto a black mamba and a dragon at the same time, things could get rough.

Admittedly, all the anacondas and dragons I've run into in lair have been in or near vaults. But it pretty much doesn't matter where it is if you have to make noise to kill things; you may draw it from it's vault to you. Good noise hygiene helps a lot though.

I agree Orc:4 is generally harder than Lair:8, with it easier for handful of characters. I was mostly arguing with duvessa (yeah, a little silly ):

orc:1 has stone giants and orc sorcerers

lair:1-8 don't have stone giants or orc sorcerers

the chance of a stair orc sorcerer is really much worse than anything lair can throw at you

same situation with D

I don't think orc 1 is more dangerous than lair 1 for most players. I've never seen a stone giant there... but I have come down into lair next to a hydra before. Which on a few characters poses a significant risk of immediate death while your TP kicks in, or due to whatever mess the tp dropped you next to.

And I don't agree that an orc sorcerer is significantly more dangerous than some lair threats to come down to. Say, an elephant which can immediately trample you off the stairs... etc.

[nago]

But then you're a square away from a speed 10 monster with normal stats (except maybe high ac and hp) and no ranged attack! Virtually you can just pillar dance to return upstairs!
On the other hand you're next a monster who can cast paralysis, summon demons, bolt of fire\drain.
Edit: I'm pretty positive I met at least once a ogre mage close to O:1 stairs. Probably it was a ood spawn, but it's not sooooo nice for a low lv. char to spend 2.5 turns in range of a foe with lcs\lightning bolt\bansihment and other shitty spells

[byrel]

Pillar dancing on an unexplored level? Pretty much a roll of the dice. Kind of like the roll that the sorcerer chooses to paralyze you and it bypasses your MR and it manages to kill you before you can get up the stairs and either kill the squishy thing or tele away to safety.

[njvack]

ok anyhow so there are dangerous monsters in various parts of the game but often the ones in lair are not as dangerous as the ones in other places but sometimes lair is all lindwurms and rupert and orc is all puppies but that is why you are playing a roguelike in the first place

[Sprucery]

Orc 4 isn't too bad if you are playing something with early QDA/Mr+ armou AND and early ring of the mage.

I don't think I have ever had those items by the time I'm going to Orc:4.

Or really any character with a boatload of MR.

Sure, but most characters don't have that.

[WingedEspeon]

I have found ring of the mage before orc twice.