I think I've read that this spell is vital for survival in later stages of the game. Seeing as I've only been once below lvl 40, I got no clue.
Scrolls of *Destruction* are a guaranteed (if you are not blind or confused) instant escape. Staff is not quite so useful, although it can still be very handy if there is a level you like but something on it you don't want to meet (in NPP, this will probably be a player ghost ).
In Vanilla, you can destruct from outside a vault to thin out the inmates (although it also destroys non-artifacts); this doesn't work quite so well in NPP because vault monsters carry the items. I would probably carry the staff if I had a free slot; try it out and see what you think.
Exactly; you might teleport into danger. *Destruction* clears out like a 20 square radius of monsters. I think it also blinds you, but there are plenty of tales of teleporting to instadeath that *D* can be more reliable. Think of it more like teleport other, except instead of teleporting other, you remove the monsters from the level.
It's certainly not essential for winning - I've won Vanilla four times and I've hardly ever used *Destruction*.
I like rods of Teleport Other (as many as I can get), backed up with both scrolls and staffs of Teleport and sometimes scrolls of Teleport Level. The main thing is to avoid getting surrounded, which requires good detection and speed. Also, depending on your class and resists, the staffs can become redundant late in the game.
If you're the kind of player who likes to take out all the uniques, _TO is invaluable when fighting high-end summoners. *Destruct* means you have to hunt them all over again.
At a minimum, quest monsters which include Sauron and Morgoth in addition to any particular quest, were immune to destruction in NPP a couple of years ago and I doubt that has changed.
No, it hasn't changes-quest monsters are immune to destruction in NPP. It makes summoners easier to handle, but vaults are harder. Anyway, the reason to use staves of destruction is to avoid nasty situations before they develop-things like destroying Feagwath's entourage, or an inconviently placed pit. With small levels, it's useful pretty often.
Typically I beat lonely mountain and then die to hubris. Should I go to the arena dungeon next and pick my battles? Are there other easy or must do dungeons or quests? Ironically enough my last character died to a entrance/guard monster on top of the arena.
I'm playing a burglary rogue at the moment. I'm curious to hear what peoples general goals and progression for getting into late game.
Pack enough mushrooms of cure poison and you can't die to the drolem at the Arena entrance. Mushrooms of cure poison are a really underrated item.
That character of yours who died to the drolem was easily strong enough to do Dragon Quest in Angwil (as long as he took enough mushrooms of cure poison with him to deal with the poison dragons). Dragon Quest is a really good quest to do in the midgame because it gives you both bags of experience and bags of loot. The lack of native double resistance could have been a minor problem, but potions and rogue stealth would have made up for that, or you could have made item swaps to get the resists covered.
Also, I'd say do Old Watchtower in Thalos for the wand of vampirism reward, that's a really useful midgame item.
The Arena dungeon is a relatively safe place to level up, but right after Lonely Mountain is perhaps a bit early to go there, at least for characters not as overpowered for the depth as your dead @ was. On the dead character, going there was reasonable (somewhat low HP like Mocht said, but silly speed and damage to make up for it). It was the dying where you went wrong, you should have avoided that.
Gertrude is a wimp in Compos (not so much in Frog), watch out for everybody else if you go after her though, because the open terrain of Witch Wood means you have to be constantly alert.
I wouldn't say wimp so much as 'appropriate for a character who hangs out on DL40', which in frog she is not. She could probably do with a higher damage output though.
Thanks for the sound advice, everyone. One major issue I had as player was that I totally let my guard down in that encounter partly due to me forgetting surface guardians where a thing. And in that moment I panicked to say the least.
I've gotten to very dangerous situations with the lack of curing by accident so mushrooms of cure confusion are lifesavers as well.
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