Forum:Choosing between Dlvl and XPlvl increases
Looking for some advice.
I'm in the early stages of an extinctionist game. Elf Wizard who started off with spellbook of monster creation and ring of slow digestion. I also quickly found a drain life spellbook, so I'm sticking to Dlvl 1 and draining myself back down to experience level 10 whenever I reach 11.
The plan is to extinct everything with difficulty up to 5, then allow myself to gain a couple levels so that difficulty-6 creatures start appearing, wipe them out, go up to 7, etc.
The question is, should I gain those levels in terms of experience, going deeper into the dungeon, or one of each?
Gaining xp levels would make some spellcasting (e.g. Magic Missile) more powerful, and also mean I'll have to drain myself less frequently as it will take longer to reach those thresholds (even with more experience per kill for higher-level monsters, I think the thresholds rise faster). It also provides a few more HP and Pw, but by that time I'll have so many blessed full healing potions that's a marginal difference.
On the other hand, descending to higher dungeon levels could accelerate finding useful items - though again, there will be so many death drops that this hardly makes a difference. I suppose it might be nice to find some special rooms like barracks before soldiers are extinct, although I'm not sure how useful those really are. I should also mention there's an altar on Dlvl 1 that I'm enjoying... so I guess I'm leaning toward just staying here until I reach XPlvl 30 and kill everything with a difficulty up to 15. Is there anything I'm missing that might make the other path a better option?
