On 4/17/07 Tuesday, I won zangband for the second time---with a SPECTRE!! (!!) Spectres are *TITANICALLY* cool---but almost impossible to keep alive. :P :( (I had a twelfth level one--die because it stepped in a puddle. (I'm serious.)) This makes playing as much as anything a tedious play-by-play chess match---with NO allowable mistakes. -The only time I slipped up was with a breath offscreen from Lungorthin, the Balrog of White Fire. . . . He got in a breath (from off screen)--without any sort of "invulnerability" spells up. FORTUNATELY, she was at a life level rating of 107/100---with a constitution of 40+. -The attack did something like 500 (!!) points of damage (with fire resist (!!))---but luckily she had over 700. :) :) Still to be so careless. . . .
AGAIN, Oberon, King of Amber, and The Serpent of Chaos, were . . . pretty much anticlimactic. (The only tense moment was a necessary cast of the sorcery "invulnerablity spell"---at 3% spell failure. . . . . -Wouldn't want to count on that, but. . . . :) ;) ) The REAL . . . BEGGAR was "Nodens, Lord of the Great Abyss." (!!) He was guarding level 80 (quest level)--and, were it not for the fact that I could get around him by choosing ANOTHER DUNGEON (wink wink)--I don't know if I EVER could've won.
Then, after besting "The Serpent of Chaos" (who I had "hellfire"'d into a pile of gelatinous goo before I even got the "level feeling" (something like "This level looks pretty dangerous." :P :P )), I decided I was going to go back and take this . . . beggar. The trouble was, I couldn't take him!! -He wouldn't DIE!! Part of this was the fact that "hellfire"--at 14% spell failure--kept failing something like 6 times out of 8!! One time, it failed 8 TIMES IN A ROW!!!! (I counted.)
This was . . . beyond infuriating.
I persevered. I kicked its *ss!! :) :) (I had to take off a ring of constitution +6 to put on a (second) ring of speed (+11)--and lost a staff of the magi to a (summoned) "plasma hound"--(both not-so-good things for a spectre-dude(tte :) ) but I KICKED IT'S A**!! :) :) ) Oh! -If you're wondering why I chose my character to be female, well . . . I've found out by experience that--although the programmers "swear up and down" that "gender" has "no significant effect on gameplay"--if one had a female character, the game is easier---sort of like a "virtual 'affirmative action'". . . . :P :P
Here are two "character dumps." One was just before retirement--the second was just after. They are surprisingly different. (. . .)