wallen (09/24/82)
One tactic that I have used to great success with trolls and other nasties is to save the game and take a short break. Time and time again I have observed myself and others fall prey to some slavering beast while all the time they had the means to save themselves. Usually people panic and rush into combat. By the time they begin to seek some alternate methods, their hit points are too low and "boom boom; out go the lights". By saving the game when you first encounter trouble, you give yourself a fresh look at the situation with all of your options still open. One word of caution: some early versions (like 3.6) had a bug which would let you save the game only 17 times; this is clearly a drag if you want to do a lot of saving. Specifically for trolls: the staff of drain life works well if you have sufficient hit points. The real winner is the ring of stealth. It keeps trolls from waking up and lots of them aren't born wandering--they're effectively neutralized. (I'm not sure about "party rooms", though. I call them "party rooms" 'cause all the monsters like to come over and dance). Not yet a total winner, Mark Wallen ucbvax!sdcsvax!wallen