ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Hi, folks; first post. Found this game a couple of weeks ago when I was looking for a download link for an old nostalgia-drenched favorite of mine: Zangband. (Turns out, TOME is a lot more fun than Zangband!) Anyway, after a bunch of experimentation and stupid deaths, I've decided I really dig the Geomancer class.

I just keep blundering into my own lava on the floor-- that's really my main problem right now. I've just hit level 20, and have been trying to leave the spellbooks stowed away in my home as much as possible, to try to get a feel for the geomancy powers. I bought a cheap Ring of Levitation to prevent drowning in my own water tiles, which seems to be working fine. I also bought a cheap Ring of Fire Resistance, but I'm still taking damage from lava, and more frustratingly, losing important scrolls and spellbooks when they burn up. I think the Fire Resistance reduces the chance that something gets burned up, but I'd like to eliminate it entirely. I've been using the "look" command a lot, but that slows me down to a crawl, and I often blunder into lava when some colorful cloud effect is making it hard to see.

So, I guess I have three real questions:

1.) Other than Fire Immunity, is there a good way to save my valuables from getting ruined by my own lava tiles? Is there a decent way to reliably find Fire Immunity, or am I going to have to hope for a lucky artifact? The HP loss seems pretty minor; it's losing scrolls and spellbooks that's really frustrating.

2.) Why doesn't blindness-resistance protect me from my own Channel Elements (Sand)'s self-blind effect? Even my now-deceased dwarf geomancer (with his innate blindness resistance) got blinded by the sand. Is there some other way around this? Is it a bug, or intentional?

3.) Are there any other pitfalls with Geomancy that I need to watch out for, in terms of hazardous terrain? There seems to be more different types of terrain as my skill goes up; should I start preparing for some other menace?

Thanks in advance, folks.

welcome to the madness

1) there are sometimes fireproof spell books, but they are rarer until later on. However there is also a quest in lothlorien that can fireproof your spellbooks and scrolls and staffs. The other option is to drop your flamables and channel the elements to drain the square and then pick them up afterwards (I assume that you don't generally have the problem until after combat. as this really isn't an option during combat.)

2) I am not sure, I haven't played geomancers that much

3) Like the above, but I *think* that at that level of geomancy you should have access to most every terrain type so no not really much more dangerous terrain that you can create.

Lava squares are the big problem with geomancers, at least at the start. Once you get immunity they are much easier. Melkor grants fire immunity at piety level 15,000, I think. There is a guaranteed fire immunity artifact, but it is deep in Angband. Randarts with fire immunity are reasonably common.

The other issue that I had with geomancers is dealing sufficient damage to take out high level monsters. If something is resistant to the elements it can be a problem. Grand Master Mystics come to mind.

Hmm. Deepest I've ever gotten before is level 36 or 38 (or thereabouts) of Mordor. With this character, I'm still slogging through the Orc Caves. So it'll be a while until I have to start fretting about Grand Master Mystics and Angband artifacts. While I'm still looking for Fire Immunity randarts, I'll work on some other protective measures.

Here's what I've brainstormed so far:

- put required spells (Word of Recall, etc.) on rods or wands when possible, not scrolls
- when possible, keep essential but non-combat spells (Identify, etc.) in spell-storage rings (or whatever); use rings in inventory as lightweight, fire-resistant spellbooks that have to be swapped into equip list before casting
- save the book fireproofing quest reward for use on big, fancy, multi-spell tomes
- keep a backup copy of cheap spellbooks (so I'm not stuck and in trouble if Beginner's Cantrips goes up in smoke or whatever)

Does anything else besides spellbooks and scrolls risk fire damage? (Staves, maybe?) Do resistances or double-resistances reduce the chance of item loss?

Currently, I mainly have problems in the heat of combat, if I'm throwing around Call Elements without time to prepare and I end up conjuring up a lava square right under myself without noticing. If I'm not already standing on the lava square, I just get rid of it with Elemental Wave (which doesn't require you to stand on the square you want to remove, just next to it). So, I suppose I could solve most of my problems just by being a little bit less careless, really.

There is a second guaranteed artifact with ImmFire. I'll avoid outright spoilers, so I'll just say that it's hidden somewhere in a very "mountainous region" (... which is not really part of the main plot in any way).

Still a bit ahead of he is though, if I understand you correctly.

After this most recent death (stupid deepwater ambushes! Eru, why'd you have to put your temple in the very southeast corner of the map, anyway?), that's quite a bit ahead of me.