The Wanderer wrote:
> >> Precisely how is monster generation handled, with respect to depth?
> >> Each monster is listed as "usually appearing on" a particular
> >> level. What determines how far out of depth (in each direction) a
> >> monster can appear, and what are the odds of that happening?
> >> Specifically, how far past the listed level can I safely dive
> >> without trashing my chances of tracking down a given unique?
Out of depth means the monster's depth is deeper than the level depth.
Any other monster is considered in depth, so you will still see the
occasional fruit bat all the way down.
There is a 50% chance that a monster will be the deepest in 2 tries,
and a 10% chance of the deepest in 3 tries. This means that your odds
of seeing a monster of depth d are quite good up to about 2*d. (The
odds go down more to the fact that there are just more monster races to
choose from the deeper you go.)
In Greater vaults, you can see monsters up to 40 levels OOD. In lesser
vaults, the are more like 10 levels OOD.
> Part of my goal in this (but not all of it) is to get the experience and
> the drops as early in the game as possible, to toughen myself up against
> deeper challenges. I'd rather not go any deeper than I know I can
> survive until I'm no longer getting *anything* worth hanging around for
> at my current depth.
I understand; the point I was trying to make is that there is a rapidly
diminishing return. Level experience goes up exponentially until
around cl 40 or so. This means that going to cl 10 at dl 5 takes a
huge amount of work, while it takes no work at all at dl 19. (Just one
group of Clear Hounds and you can go up 3 or 4 levels. Like in my
post--I read ?Summon Monster at 300', got a pack of wolves, and went up
5 or 6 levels in no time at all.)
Wolves (500') are easier to kill than say, a pack of novice paladins,
and give several times more experience. The trick is to stay away from
the nasty monsters, and just find the deep monsters that are easy to
kill. (Another example: ancient dragons are easier to kill than
Wyverns and Basilisks, despite being from ~8 levels deeper in the
dungeon. So rather than killing a basilisk at 1400', you can get more
experience, a much better drop, for less effort, by an ancient White
dragon at 1700'. This is why the Rogue class is more powerful than it
appears, and the mage becomes powerful--they have the easiest time
avoiding fights compared to any others.
> To phrase my question more specifically: presumably, the greatest chance
> of a given unique (or other monster) appearing occurs at its listed
> depth. At what depth, relative to the listed one, does the chance of
> that creature being generated drop far enough that it's not worth
> looking there if you want to find that creature?
Like I said, once you reach their level, they stay common for a long
time. And if you go deeper, you can be waiting for several uniques at
once, rather than waiting for one at a time. It's better to think in
terms of probability of meeting a good monster per player turn, than to
think in terms of any one monster. You can end up waiting a long, long
time.
> There are reasonably extensive spoilers of this general nature about how
> items are generated, but I haven't seen any addressing monster
> generation.
You can read the function get_mon_num in monster2.c... But in any
case, there is only a gradual drop in probability, no fast cutoff.
(That's what I meant by "dribble.")
> >> (My ultra-completist tendencies are probably going to be the death
> >> of me.
Yes, they are.
> I don't hesitate to flee back to the town if I'm having too much trouble
> against a given unique (or even just a monster pit); I know it'll show
> up again later, and I'll presumably be better equipped to handle it
> then. I do, however, not want to risk inadvertently "skipping" a
> shallow-depth unique by diving past the point where it can be (or, at
> least, has a reasonable chance of being) generated - both because I want
> the kill list of my eventual winner to include every single unique the
> game has to offer, and because the experience and drops of a given
> unique will be proportionally less valuable the stronger I am when I
> make the kill.
You have a long way to go til you get a winner. Until you can break
the habit of clearing levels, you are unlikely to get there. All it
takes is one boneheaded mistake. (aka YASD aka Death by boredom.)
> The trade-off of waiting to kill tough critters until you're stronger is
> that you'll get less experience from doing so at a higher level (an
> effective incentive to take on tougher challenges earlier, and of course
> the entire reason why experience received scales with level) and that
> the equipment you pick up in the process of becoming stronger means that
> there will be less of a chance of something they drop being useful to
> you. The trade-off of *not* waiting is that you can die more easily -
> but sometimes it's worth the risk.
Strategic play makes up for a huge amount of bad fighting tactics.
> As far as "hard" - in my Angband career thus far I've yet to use any
> potions but healing types or any scrolls but Identify/WoR, and I don't
> generally use a wand/staff/rod unless I happen to have found it this
> trip and thought it might be worth carrying back to town. Part of the
> reason is simple parsimony - I prefer to preserve consumables for later
> use when I might need them more, which often means I never use them at
> all - and part of it is an effect of the paucity of item slots and
> weight capacity, such that I rarely bring anything but spellbooks/food/
> WoR/digger/emergency healing with me when leaving town. I'm well aware
> that this will probably make the game vastly harder.
Most players don't carry a lot of stuff:
But you are guaranteed to die if you don't carry:
* Some form escape. (Staff of Teleportation. Later, scrolls of
Teleportation and especially Teleport Level. Also good are wands and
rods of teleport other, and the same spells from spellbooks.)
* Some way to handle confusion, cuts, stunning and blindness.
* Some way to do a lot of damage. (Enchant your long bow and dagger
early!)
Other things that are worth carrying early:
* Scrolls of Phase Door.
* !Hero (You need this, for both fear attacks and to improve your odds
when fighting uniques. It makes a huge difference against, say,
Bullroarer or Brodda.)
* Any form of detection or illumination. (Except treasure.) Being
able to see down hallways and accross rooms makes a huge difference.
So does detecting that Basilisk before he clobbers you. And of course
stepping on traps really can hurt.
>> Stay informed about: [vanilla] Unique-hunting - what depths? 
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