KickStarter Ancient Domains of Mystery (ADOM) - now available on Steam and GOG

[Paula Tormeson IV]

Oh right, north-west, sorry.

 

[Palikka]

Nmef, the trollish wizard, was killed by a diamond golem.
He scored 608491 points and advanced to level 22.
He survived for 0 years, 79 days, 13 hours, 55 minutes and 14 seconds (97832
turns).
Nmef visited 89 places.
His strength score was modified by +6 during his career.
His learning score was modified by +13 during his career.
His willpower score was modified by +14 during his career.
His dexterity score was modified by +14 during his career.
His toughness score was modified by +7 during his career.
His charisma score was modified by +14 during his career.
His appearance score was modified by +12 during his career.
His mana score was modified by +14 during his career.
His perception score was modified by +8 during his career.
He was the champion of the arena.
He brought back joy into the life of a tiny girl.
He ended his adventuring life on level 38 of the caverns of chaos.
5510 monsters perished under his attacks.

Fuck me. Time to forget this game for another year.

 

[Castanova]

OK, I'm giving this game another shot and I've got a question.

I'm playing a Dwarven Priest. I followed all the main steps so far (killed a mugger first, found the waterproof blanket and stairs to the UD, killed Kranach the raider, explored some of the Druid Dungeon). I just got the puppy quest and I entered the Puppy Cave to find my progress impeded by a giant river of "deep water."

Is my blanket enough to ensure safe crossing? Or do I need to forget about this quest for the moment?

Also, a random dwarf is wandering around chopping down walls and I got a piece of mithril ore. Any use in keeping it?

 

[Elwro]

If you don't have the swimming skill (or other means of crossing the water), forget it. It's not that the items will be drenched etc, you'll most likely simply drown ;-) The bottom levels of the puppy cave may be fantastic for low-level chars (vaults etc), but the cave is not mandatory, better luck next time.

If you don't plan to smith, sell the ore. (Try playing a weaponsmith; it can be great fun.)

 

[Castanova]

Cool, thanks. I guess I'll test my mettle by going down through the UD.

I've been lucky and have found about 6 or 7 books so far. I've already got a mix of clerical type spells and a couple attack spells. Haven't tried my luck casting any of them yet, though.

 

[Castanova]

Hah nevermind. My guy died on the first level of the UD to a claw bug. That thing is vicious.

 

[Yeesh]

I'm a huge graphics whore in that I can't seem to bring myself to play pure ACSCII rogue-likes. This hasn't been a huge problem for me since there are many tilesets out there. Of course, playing a perfectly done conversion like stone soup (a rogue-like where your avatar actually reflects his equipment? Nuts!) only makes my terrible graphics whoring worse.

Is it true that there isn't even one tileset for ADOM? Or am I just searching badly?

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

ADOM has nice colours (only the Incursion has prettier colours). It's a roguelike for ASCII graphics whores.

 

[Elwro]

Hah nevermind. My guy died on the first level of the UD to a claw bug. That thing is vicious.

Claw bugs bypass PV, so one tactic is to use the Coward setting to maximize DV.

 

[Castanova]

Wow, I can really start to see the power of the Dwarven Priest as a nub-friendly character. I got to cLvl 10 with like 5 useful spells (acid ray, lesser divine touch, slow monster, bless, and cure light wounds). Ended up getting 2-shotted by a Werewolf Lord, I think it was, in the Lesser Vault at the bottom of the puppy cave. But up until then I felt pretty much invincible. I didn't even mind getting attacked by cats or karmic lizards cuz I could just slow them and run away.

 

[Paula Tormeson IV]

Killing cats is bad for you? How?

 

[Damned Registrations]

Not killing any cats is a prerequisite for getting one of the best artifacts in the game (And avoiding a potentially nightmarish fight.)

Of course, it's cruelly difficult- if, for example, a trapped door explodes as you open it and kills a cat, it's your fault. Nevermind that cats are generally faster than you and psychotically aggressive.

 

[Elwro]

It's not that important, though. Be more worried about karmic creatures.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Generally speaking one deals with cats the same way you'd deal with anything stronger than you though (Teleportation, slowing, confusion, invisibility); and running around without a way to deal with a werewolf lord or whatever is a bad idea anyways.

 

[Castanova]

How does one deal with a Werewolf Lord, then? I was cornered in a hallway with no means of teleportation. I shot him with Acid Ray but I only got one shot off before he mauled me a second time.

 

[Elwro]

You see a Werewolf Lord in the puppy cave, you run :wink:

 

[Zomg]

Yeah, don't screw around on the bottom levels of any of the caves around the first town, the danger level is high enough to spawn some killer stuff and your luck still sucks (the luck statistic I mean). Mixed vaults are extremely bad and there's nothing particularly rewarding about them.

 

[Castanova]

What do you guys recommend doing with pools? As a low level character, should I strip off all my clothes/items and drink? Should I be ignoring them?

Also, as I'm playing a Dwarf Priest, I'm a Lawful character but I keep finding gray altars. Is it just bad luck or what? Do you ever find Lawful altars? What is your recommendation in terms of using altars? As a Dwarf, should I be sacrificing most of my money? Sacrificing monsters?

 

[Zomg]

Don't fuck with pools at least until you've found an altar and pumped up you luck - it doesn't actually help you get better drink results but getting doomed from a pool drink can be fatal if you're not an established character in control of it, and if you have the fate smiles intrinsic you lose that before you can get doomed IIRC.

Once you're in command of your luck drinking until you get a nice intrinsic or two is probably a good idea. The possibility of a wish is also nice.

You can convert altars I think but I might be mixing this up with a different roguelike, it's been a while.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Altar colour is random. The one in dwarftown will be either white or grey. Just sacrifice something of the altars alignment to try convert it. (Animals for a grey altar, evil humanoids for a black one. Don't stand ON the altar in the presence of evil humanoids. (Hell, just don't stand on a black altar ever, it's just begging the RNG to be a dick and spawn a kobold next to you.) Lure them over it and live sacrifice.

Lawful characters have it best when it comes to converted altars. Sacrifice any monsters you can (Which will be almost anything for a lawful, neutrals get fucked over harshly here) You don't have to worry about getting offered while standing on it like evils do, iirc.

Generally if you want to get an artifact or three out of the deal the way to do it is to farm a few hundred stomafillia herbs and sac them. The other way is getting lucky with an early altar (While you're still level 3-5) on a level with a vault or very high monster generation (This pretty much means the puppy cave) and saccing tons of enemies stronger than you before you level up too much for your god to care.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

You can convert altars by sacrificing critters on them. You have to have a strong alignment, though as an altar can convert you.

 

[Castanova]

OK, I've got another Dwarven Priest trucking long. He's level 10 at this point. I found the stairs to the UD but didn't go there yet. I cleared the Puppy Cave and retrieved the dog's corpse but I didn't give it to the girl yet. I also cleared all the levels in the Druid Dungeon except for the last level.

What should I do now? As far as I can tell I could either try to get through the UD -> HMV -> CoC... or I could just run overland to the CoC.

Recommendations? Since I'm level 10, I'm kinda hesitant to hit the Small Cave again even though I know where the stairs are.

 

[Malakal]

At level 10? Hit chaos caverns to about 16, become the champion of the arena (quest from dwarftown) and then smack some mummy ass in the pyramid.

Its time to seriously enter the 'world saving' business.

And btw: small sacrifices on the altar change YOUR alingment, big ones change altars. And live sacrifices are generally unsafe, better use favored items (each god has some, for example dwarf gods love gold) or simply gold.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Live sacrifices are safe as long as you don't sacrifice critters with your deities alignment.

 

[Azrael the cat]

What do you guys recommend doing with pools? As a low level character, should I strip off all my clothes/items and drink? Should I be ignoring them?

Also, as I'm playing a Dwarf Priest, I'm a Lawful character but I keep finding gray altars. Is it just bad luck or what? Do you ever find Lawful altars? What is your recommendation in terms of using altars? As a Dwarf, should I be sacrificing most of my money? Sacrificing monsters?

Regarding altars: you can only be crowned champion of one alignment, but from memory (and I could be wrong here) you might not be penalised for suckign up to / sacrificing to other alignments.

Also, re: pools. 2 modes of thinking on this. One is to wait until you've got a fate smiles attribute and a developed character so you can survive the effects of a pool dooming you.

I don't favour that method - there's tons of things (both good and bad) a pool can do - stat drains/boosts among them - and some of them can render a developed character useless. So I favour the 2nd line of thought:
- which is 'use pools early or don't use them at all'. Basicaly use them like hell if you encounter them so early on that you could throw the character away anyway. That way you may get lucky and get a neat bonus, or you may need to reroll, but either way nothing major is lost.