Dumb AM ranger question 1

[grinrain]

So, played a couple of hundred times its seems, always human AM, just cause it is close to my toons in other games. Best I have ever done is cleared 15 levels, lair,
Orcs, Swamp (only time I have gotten a rune) and died in snakes. Looking for ideas that might make me last longer.

Armor: Usually go with leather or something else that does not interfere with casting corona/slow/project missiles. Should I be grabbing ring or scale rather then leather and waiting till my skill levels go up.

(Yes, I know running away is my friend, but after a while)

Grin

[svendre]

Yes, get into heavier armour and don't worry that you can't cast spells for awhile. Even though AM starts with more int, I think it's still easier to start pumping STR and play it more like a fighter. The very first few levels, use the spells, but when you find scale, chain or plate then make the switch. Ring mail is an ok transition, but rather iffy for later on. I've died many times for wearing awesome looking artefact ring mail. The lower GDR armours just let you down eventually and survival is the name of the game. Dragon armour is even better and may allow you to still cast some lower level spells while having decent AC. Try to rely on on a venom dagger or electric dagger (unskilled) in the heavier armour. The fights go something like this: start with hand crossbow wielded, shoot down dangerous enemies until they close to melee and then swap to a branded melee weapon which best fits the encounter. Your skill training should vary depending on what you find. If you find a great weapon, train it, if you find great armour - train it, if you find jewelry heavily affecting your character, adapt your skill training to press your advantages. Spending too much xp on spells too early on is often a recipe to do ok then go splat when the light armour just isn't enough. Skills I would prioritize: 1) Fighting (early on), 2) Armour (after you find a decent amount of armour items), 3) Bring the hand crossbow up to 10 because it's cheap and very effective wounding/killing ogres and other hard hitting melee monsters, 4) A touch of evasion, 5) Invocations/Evocations up a bit but only if you find a lot of evocables and/or have a god that invocations really makes sense to train with. If you want to train weapons without waiting to see what good stuff you find early on, then train a bit of maces or axes (or both). My preference is to use broad axes, which by the way, shine particularly well in snake pit. Try using a shield instead of two-handers, but don't train it a whole lot for most of the time, because evasion is also lower on the priorities and you'll still get a lot of bang for your buck just wearing one if you aren't casting many spells.

[acoolguy]

I'd try to stay in ring mail mostly early on and try to get Slow at about 20% fail while prioritizing early fighting. Hopefully after the first few floors you can find a decent weapon to use and try to start using that while focusing on some early weapon skill. Afterwards I would probably train enough hexes to get cause fear somewhat usable as a panic button unless you find a very good heavy armour that makes casting spells not very viable in the short term. In general, I would just prioritize whatever gets you the best AC + EV while still leaving your spells castable. Based on the armour choice, train either dodging or armor. Just remember that as an arcane marksman, you are primarily a melee/ranged dude and so you shouldn't focus to much on your starting book.

[petercordia]

Training your spell skills allows you to keep your spells castable whilst upgrading to heavier armour. You should do this. The point of AM is that all your skills are level 3 or lower, which allows you to wear heavier armour whilst still casting those spells. Always pick Int or Stength, to increase spell success. Probably it's not worth going beyond a encumbrance rating of 11.

That said, AM is one of the most difficult backgrounds (in my experience). Maybe that's why svendre is recommending a transition to a hunter playstyle.

To give you the best chance of winning in any particular game, I'd recommend playing a (spell-less) Centaur Hunter (with a bow) of Ru, or something like that.

To learn to play crawl, which you need to do to win, maybe try a Naga of Chei? You can learn to win by playing only characters with ranged weapons, I think, but trying to learn to win whilst only playing HuAM seems silly

[grinrain]

Hmmmm, leather has a slow failure of 14% or so at start, so I guess I can start with something a bit heavier than that, will have to see. Read some where that heavy armor decreases the chance to hit with bow. That would be a problem. How does that work, what do you do to compensate?

Does enchantment just work on the AC or does it also increase the damage mitigation %?

[Sorcerous]

Hmmmm, leather has a slow failure of 14% or so at start, so I guess I can start with something a bit heavier than that, will have to see. Read some where that heavy armor decreases the chance to hit with bow. That would be a problem. How does that work, what do you do to compensate?

Does enchantment just work on the AC or does it also increase the damage mitigation %?

Heavy armours reduce accuracy on both ranged and close combat weapons, it has to do with the ER. The accuracy reduction is mitigated by strength and partially by Armour skill, so that is the basic way to compensate. You can always keep an eye out for Slay+ items, gloves of archery and the PProj effect also increases accuracy if I remember correctly.

The enchantment level on armour does not increase the base reduction percentage (every armour type has it as a constant), but heavy armours "get a better deal" because their reduction % is higher. So a +5 on shadow dragon scales provides a greater benefit than on a +5 chain mail or +5 leather.

[petercordia]

I wouldn't worry about the mitigation %. Just maximise your AC and you're fine.
accuracy usually isn't a problem, particularly with a bow because you can shoot through a line of enemies (and usually hit at least one of them)
In addition to the methods Sorcerous mentioned, training more bow skill would also improve accuracy.

[TheMeInTeam]

Light and medium armor can be fine long term, but they're harder to play and making that choice only makes sense if the magic/things you're getting are good enough to justify the lower base AC.

For example a caster in steam scales (5 base AC) and normal gear slots can get 35-38 AC with Ozocubu's armor, which considering the EV/SH available is pretty decent. However you will be easily killed in melee in lair/orc/S branches, which is also a time where players won't normally have the fastest killing magic or large mana pools to use them.

The AM starter book doesn't give the kind of benefits where cutting AC in favor of using the spells makes sense, so normally you'd be training armor/EV/fighting and a weapon skill, and only invest significantly more into magic early on if you get magic that confers more immediate benefit. You can branch into it later; ER ~11 and less lets you cast some pretty strong spells in a 3 rune game as long as you have at least 13 strength or so. That won't matter unless you live long enough to get them.

[acoolguy]

I'd say the most important spells in the AM starter book that can give that benefit are portal projectile and cause fear (at high spell power, it can be better than reading a scroll of fear). Do prioritize, your defensive and weapon skills (while relying on the slow spell for early encounters). These two spells can be picked up later.

[grinrain]

Ok, gradually increase armor keeping slow failure rate below 20% makes sense. Enchant other slots until you get a good Breastplate makes sense. Try to maximize EV and AC given my str makes sense. Anything else I should be doing?

[acoolguy]

On a strategic level that's the main thing along with training your weapon skill. You can move into heavier armour and have slow uncastable later if you feel like you aren't getting much value out of the spell. Cause fear, while good can be ignored if you feel like you have enough blink/fear scrolls.

Other than, it mostly boils down to playing well. Take a look at this guide for a few pointers: http://ultraviolent4.com/patashutactics.html.

[grinrain]

As an example, currently level 14, ac21, ev 13, armor at 10. Currently using +1 ring mail of fire resistance. Also found a +3 leather of magic resistance, and both chain and scale without any enhancement.

Suggestions? strategy?

[svendre]

As an example, currently level 14, ac21, ev 13, armor at 10. Currently using +1 ring mail of fire resistance. Also found a +3 leather of magic resistance, and both chain and scale without any enhancement.

Suggestions? strategy?

It's not really enough information to make a full evaluation. You could get far better suggestions with a full character dump. There are a lot of factors, like, do you already have fire resist? What other MR do you have? What are your stats? How much do you have in stealth? Do you use short blades, or what weapon, and so on.

Shooting from the hip, without that info, I'd say probably use the +1 ring of fire resistance, and maybe switch the +3 leather if facing anything that requires an MR check. I would probably not bother with unbranded scale or chain at this point. If you can get any branded heavier armour, or with bonuses on it, yeah fine.. then go for it, but level 10 skill is also on the low side for much heavier. What you really really want is to get into a dragon scale of one sort or another, and if you find that, then pump armour skill more. Personally, I find I use ice dragon armour quite a bit, but they're mostly all pretty good compared to non dragon armours. You choose which dragon armour to use based on your resists with jewelry and other misc. stuff, and based on how stealthy or magic using you are. Swamp dragon armour is pretty easy to find in the swamps, and I think it's quite nice even into the mid-late game for it's 7 base 7 encumb. Pearl dragon is probably the top of the line for casters, and Gold Dragon is what you usually want for brutes.

[Sprucery]

With body armour, generally you just pick the one that gives you the best AC+EV. MR is the most important resistance, because getting killed due to being paralyzed or banished sucks.

[acoolguy]

I'd assume the +3 leather armour of mr is better as I probably gives you better AC + EV. As Sprucery says, MR is the most important resistance.