Very first tip is a basic tenet repeated throughout the guide; however, it is far too easy to become engrossed in your achievements (eg an awesome artifact, maximizing stats, a slightly better item, gaining a second blow, getting a speed bonus, etc) and lose it all due to something very avoidable had you been paying diligent attention.
While playing, always make sure to check for the basics — particularly monsters, stairs, and traps. Don’t loose a character, asserting that you can kill a “C” easily only to discover that a “Jackal” is a far cry from a “Hellhound”.
Similarly, if you just got some nice artifacts / other equipment or achieved a significant accomplishment — take a break. You don’t have to continue to play to enjoy your past success, and when you return you will likely be more able to play diligently.
See a few uniques or other monsters that might possibly give you some trouble — maybe? Perhaps with only slight difficulty? See a vault with some cool treasure, but a few troublesome monsters / uniques? If you’re not highly confident (perhaps even 100%) that you can easily survive the level, you can leave on the spot. Just enter the level, immediately do your detection routine (monsters, stairs / traps, etc) assess the immediate threat, and try to find the stairs immediately to be able to run or read Word of Recall scroll. Further, artifacts can be regenerated (unless you disabled that option) and as you dive, even better items will be available. So, if you skip out on levels just because you want to play it very conservatively, you will still find great items and better yet, you have a higher chance of survival.
Finally.. Don’t try to play a ranger like a warrior — rely on the bow! Similarly for mages, don’t do a Gandalf. He may be able to draw a sword and rush headlong into a pack of orcs, but mages in Tangaria are considerably more fragile. Priests are better equipped to engage in melee combat – with their healing abilities compensating for their somewhat fragile nature.
Information Awareness
Tangaria offers a LOT of information on a LOT of different screens. If you haven’t already, try enabling multiple consoles — ALL of them — and then try out different options / combinations. Being able to view a lot of information simultaneously at a glance is a considerable benefit over having to be diligent enough to manually check each relevant screen each time.
Also, change the text size. Sure you may be accustomed to your terminal font and size for reading; however, you can read and make sense from context a lot easier than you can reliably identify the glyph, colour, and relative position of every character on the screen. You don’t have to play with a tiny (or even normal size font). Using a slightly larger font makes identifying things a LOT easier. The SDL interface is perhaps the easiest for using multiple terminals and changing fonts. This alone may greatly contribute to your survivability!
💡 Players will readily note that corridors are unlit; however, what may not be blatantly obvious is that the dungeon gets darker with depth, until it’s pitch black. ALWAYS carry a light source. DON’T drop a light source for more loot!
Granted, as your character develops, you become more powerful at melee; however, this does not preclude you from using ranged attacks! It is far to easy to start playing a Ranger like a warrior-mage if you get a good melee weapon, but don’t forget your ranged skill! You may be “Superb” at Fighting, but ranger’s are even better at Shooting — perhaps even “Legendary” or better.
This can be a hard one to do diligently, especially if your melee weapon is powerful, but try to play diligently and use ranged attacks. Try earlier levels where survivability is much higher and try to play without melee attacks for awhile to get used to using the bow again. Even as your character matures, try to keep in mind your race / class core strengths.
Take a Break
Again, this is another basic tip repeated thorough out the guide; however, learn to stop playing. You can always exit and resume later when you would be in your prime and optimally ready to play as opposed to trying to continue to play as drowsiness sets in.
This may be difficult at first, but it can help you avoid running decent characters into the ground for avoidable mistakes…
More advice
- always be sure you have control over the situation;
- never get yourself hemmed in;
- don’t forget to cast defensive spells or use buff potions in dangerous situations;
- rest in safe spots near walls;
- character power is more closely associated with damage output rather than HP or character level;
- if you preserve your supplies, you can fight well above your weight. Early in the game, this means using flasks of oil against worthwhile targets; later in the game this means using branded or slaying “ego” ammunition. Good ammunition is too valuable to waste on less valuable targets (like red jellies, or groups of orcs);
- buffing, generally with !Heroism, can be very helpful to get starting characters out of sticky situations.
- make sure you have the right equipment for your level. Don’t hesitate to buy items in town.
In the list of characteristics of monsters there is a line:
Spell chance: 1 spell every 5 turns
Spells: BA_WATE BO_WATE BR_POIS TELE_TO
This means that EVERY turn there is a chance (in this case 20%) that the monster will cast one of the spells below. This means that the monster, in principle, can foolishly cast its strongest spell several turns in a row, thereby giving you some pepper 😀
If you play a character with a small amount of hp (magician or druid) – do not rush to risk fighting high-level monsters until you get a mana shield or a good shape.
S_UNIQUE does not work on final bosses of dungeons (for example, The Wight-King of Barrow Downs).
Monsters summon different monsters 3 times at least (then clones are already possible). The level of the monster depends on the level of the summoner and the level of the dungeon.
Most often, an item has a hidden powers property if it is “of….”.
When playing Tangaria it’s better to disable NumLock mechanically (match or paper) or with my addon. Active NumLock locks the keyboard, which may be inappropriate. It’s the same with Caps Lock.
Premonitions (feeling) of higher levels (severity level) may include premonitions of lower levels. For example, “somewhat dangerous” can include “sensation of challenge”.
/afk mode will not save you from hunger if your character is already starving (i.e. it says hungry or weak); however, remember that no food or satiation is wasted while in the town.
Please note that cloud-like spells do not stack (for example, the spell toxic moisture).
Use the Remove curse scrolls to remove curse from a cursed item. For especially strong curses, the rare *Remove curse* scrolls could be used. Note that some curses cannot be removed (with a power of 100).
When in a party with other players:
– you get a bonus to experience
– monsters don’t get stronger
– you get experience only if the difference between the levels in your party is no more than 7. Examples: 1 and 8 level – both players will get experience. 1 and 9 levels – a player of the first level will not receive experience.
Infravision allows you to see warm-blooded monsters in line of sight in the dark. For example, you can see orcs at the end of a dark corridor. But it won’t give you possibility to see through walls.
Remember that telepathy is not a panacea, because there are monsters with an “empty mind” flag that are not visible to her. Also telepathy in Tangaria got limited radius.
I heard a rumour that open world monsters will have big trouble to hunt you down if you will have high stealth… They will be asleep in most cases, if you won’t wake them up..