Let's play ADOM

[Zomg]

That's a special feature. When you entered the level there was a message saying something like, "You shudder." that announced it, Angband-style. It's complete hell for a low level character if you absolutely have to traverse it or if it's filled with snake pits. All the doors to the room will be locked and trapped, too.

 

[almondblight]

Cursed items aren't really that bad, unless you're talking about potions and scrolls. Cursed equipment isn't a problem at all, except cursed weapons suck against undead and demons, or you find something better you want instead. Of course, you're unlikely to find anything early in the game as good as scale mail, so it's worth putting on even if you know it's cursed.

It's just annoying as in it doesn't really allow me to try out many weapons (unless I get a lot of scrolls of uncurse [which only temporarily removes the curse?]). Maybe I've been unlucky, but the last 2-3 characters I tried had the first weapons they tried be cursed. It keeps me from experimenting with much gear. It's not that bad, just annoying and seems somewhat pointless.

Herbs aren't tricky at all. Just make an R-pentomino and watch the fireworks. As for doing things in order, you only have to worry about crowning late if you're doing an ultra ending. Besides that, it shouldn't be a problem.

Doing things in order as in where do I go after the Turino part? There are many different places, some that destroy a lot of my equipment as soon as I enter, and some where the monsters kill me as soon as we start fighting (trial and error suck in roguelikes). It's not that it's so aweful, or that the herbs are hard to figure out (because I'll just read about them online - I tried experimenting with the herbs and died), it's just that it seems like there is a set path that is obscured.

Also, all the NPC's in Turino are annoying. They exist solely to get in my way.

 

[Korgan]

Hmm. My gnome wizard got to lvl 15. Strength of Atlas makes carrying tons of stuff around a non-issue. That is, unless you fall into a pit carrying all this stuff!

 

[Damned Registrations]

Errr what? Do you take extra damage when falling in a pit based on your inventory regardless of capacity or something?

 

[Higher Game]

It's just annoying as in it doesn't really allow me to try out many weapons (unless I get a lot of scrolls of uncurse [which only temporarily removes the curse?]). Maybe I've been unlucky, but the last 2-3 characters I tried had the first weapons they tried be cursed. It keeps me from experimenting with much gear.

You gain experience with weapons. Stick to a single type and don't switch around. You'll be much stronger in the long run. Uncurse removes a curse from all equipment permanently. However, some equipment that is inherently cursed will recurse you if you remove it (after uncurse) and then re-equip it, like ring of the fish.

The fighter classes usually start with adequate equipment anyway. What do you usually play as?

Doing things in order as in where do I go after the Turino part?

The "truly foreboding" cave to the west is your ultimate goal. The small cave and unremarkable dungeon are rather dangerous to most starting characters (and all newbies ), so I wouldn't recommend them. Same with the puppy cave. The infinite dungeon to the southeast is just for scumming. The village dungeon/dark druid dungeon is so you can get healing/herbalism; play a ranger, priest, or beastfighter and you don't have to worry about these (but you can fight the dark druid anyway to get a decent alternative reward).

The safest opening for any character is the infinite dungeon. Stair scum (go up and down the level 1-2 stairs repeatedly until you see something good) to get some basic gear and experience. Once you have level 6 and a PV of 5 or so, you're ready for other stuff.

Hmm. My gnome wizard got to lvl 15. Strength of Atlas makes carrying tons of stuff around a non-issue.

I've lost maybe a dozen really great characters from forgetting to cast that stupid spell while hauling 40,000 stone.

 

[Korgan]

Errr what? Do you take extra damage when falling in a pit based on your inventory regardless of capacity or something?

Looks like that, yeah. I was carrying a shitload of stuff and every pit trap damaged me for 40 or so HP.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I've been trying a slew of wizards lately. Seems like quite the crapshoot between the books you start with and the rings, wands and scrolls and potions. Last one died when I discovered cavemen are, for all intents and purposes, immune to frost. Current wizard has a nice collection of book going, including atlas strength, cure critical wounds, acidbolt and firebolt, as well as calm and scare monster to deal with cats. Desperately trying to reach dwarftown to see which of his two water potions are blessed and hopefully to sell a load of crap and buy up some more books and gear. Instincts say he'll die to a door trap once his knock wand wears out.

Edit: I've run across altars on very low levels of either the small cave or UD several times now. Is it worth hanging around to try and get a lot of favour or should I just not worry about it until I'm high enough level to be crowned/precrowned? Also, does the SI count as just one artifact for that purpose or are you basically fucked out of pre/post crowning once you pick it up?

 

[Elwro]

Congratulations. :D Next time finish the unicorn quest before leaving, so you leave the chain with no corruption.

Unfortunately, I had to use it before then. Next time I'll try to be more speedy, the background corruption on D:45 and lower is just brutal.

But the risk is that if you're more speedy, you might not attain the 30th XP level before having to go to D:49. That's what happened to my barbarian which I've put into the ADOM HOF just for kicks.

And congratulations :D

edit: SI counts as one artifact. And altars early in the game may be great (e.g. just as a source of knowledge concerning the curseness of your items) if you lure some creatures onto them and pray.

 

[Damned Registrations]

The thing is that I can't exactly go back to an altar buried in the small cave to test stuff. I'd be eaten alive. I'm just wondering if I should hang around while I am still level 2-3, or if it takes so long saccing low level critters I might as well just forget about it aside from the on the spot curse detection and get my piety later on.

 

[Elwro]

Yeah, if there are no big lairs (think puppy level in the puppy cave) or summoners around (which would mean a very big number of critters to sacrifice), move along; but it may be reasonable to try to sacrifice enough critters to have the altar holify the water you drop on it.

 

[Higher Game]

You can't sacrifice summoned or breeding creatures. :wink:

 

[Elwro]

Hm, I'm pretty sure if it's not you who has summoned them, you can sacrifice them.

 

[Zomg]

Higher Game is correct, probably something Biskup added after you'd stopped playing.

 

[Elwro]

Alright then :/ Must start playing anew...

 

[Damned Registrations]

Wizard is doing somewhat well. Made it to dwarf town. Attempted to identify my collection of junk only to discover that greater identify scrolls are really misnomers. There goes some holy water and 2600 gold. Dwarf guy wants me to kill a goblin, apparently it has to be a very plain goblin, since my trip back into the big room didn't count, and I know I killed at least a slavemaster in there. The place makes me nervous. Firebolt can clear out the crowds well enough, but blink dogs can just respawn endlessly it seems, and if my firebolt runs out of memory I'll be fucked. Collected some herbs to boost my toughness a bit, but it's still not even 12., and I apparently need 8 herbs per point now. Will is over 16 at least, not that I have fireball or anything. I guess I'll just keep hauling my junk around until I can find a normal ident scroll and some more water, and hope I don't find too many fire breathers till then. Still don't have the knock spell, though I did pick up invis. Would it be worth my while to backtrack to the small cave and invis run through to the UD?

 

[Elwro]

I wouldn't do it now, though as you could see my knowledge of ADOM is rather rusty. Though if you have invis, you can attempt it. I'd do it when I have Magic Map, Invisibility and Teleportation, just to be sure :D

But a few pointers:
- it's better to make the head dwarf give you as few random quests ("kill x") as possible, so it's best to take the first quest from him before becoming the champion of the Arena. (The first(?) quest will be "Become the champion" iirc; or at least you'll get it instead of one of the random (and thus risky) quests.)
- use the fact that blink dogs respawn. Kill them until one leaves a corpse. Eat the corpse. You'll thank yourself later on :D

 

[Damned Registrations]

I had a corpse. By the time I got to the stairs it had become rotten. I had none of the proper herbs and shaky faith so I didn't tempt fate. Too bad I don't have food preservation.

I really need either a wand of digging or a pick so I can farm those herbs. It's tricky fighting in there too- if I blast the wrong way I'll nuke the plants. Having an endless supply of empty/fill herbs and raising my toughness to 25 would be a HUGE advantage. During that period of time I could probably amass a decent number of SIs as well, and use them to become filthy rich and train my other stats, or become crowned.

Ah! Just checked the guide, and apparently the reward for my quest is having my inventory identified. I think I'll make the trip back to however far up I need to go to find a goblin again. If I'm lucky I'll get something useful from the drops along the way.

 

[Elwro]

BTW, dipping something in holy water usually gives it blessed status. A rotting corpse is treated by the game as cursed. You can dip it in holy water to bless it and delay its disappearance. In case of a blink dog or an elder chaos wyrm it'd be worth it :D

(You can also cook corpses with a fireball.)

 

[Relien]

Wow, I just entered the dwarven halls with my wizard and found a chaotic altar and a room full of giants of all sorts. Needles to say, the altar is now neutral and Fate Smiles upon me

Also I found three books of burning hands so far and I love this spell. It only hits one enemy, but it's cheap and powerful and doesn't burn items on the ground. Rehetep died in one hit. Combining this with the Coward tactics or even invisibility got me out of some pretty nasty situations.

I made a save (yeah I know) at level 13 and tried to enter the tower of eternal flames just out of curiosity. I've never been there and I heard it's a really nasty place so I couldn't resist seeing how exactly will I die in there. Well, it was worse than I expected - apart from the fire damage every turn (I had some fire resistance but apparently not enough) which wasn't that bad my fireproof blanket was burnt to ashes. I didn't know that's even possible. The rest of my equipment would probably soon follow if that fire grue wouldn't put me out of my misery...

 

[Elwro]

Bless your blankets, btw.

 

[Damned Registrations]

My gray elven wizard just died a few levels below dwarftown to *drumroll* ghosts. Apparently they do a good chunk of hp damage along with the aging. They also move through walls and tend to surround wizards unlucky enough to not have any ball spells. I was so close to surviving too. I had managed to escape up the stairs with only 1 ghost following me, but it killed me that turn before I could heal.

I was probably fucked overall anyways. Firebolt was nearly out with no more books and I only had 1 book of acid bolt I'd already read multiple times.

Oh, and I'd found the uber scythe of doom. I'd kind of suspected thats what it was but hadn't identified it yet. Was wearing gauntlets of peace for the 3 PV anyways. And a cursed shield.

Wizards are really at the whim of the RNG more than other classes it seems. You can't go on without the right books, and looking for more books costs you spells. I mean, sure, eventually you'll be ahead of the curve, but it's by no means guaranteed even by level 15 or so. By level 15 with a warrior you're wielding an artifact weapon and wearing a blessed suit of armor.

 

[Elwro]

Be carefull with the scythe, it's corrupting.

 

[Damned Registrations]

It's also probably the second most powerful weapon in the game. Considering the slight rate of corruption, it seems it'd be worth wielding for pretty much every unique boss fight that might pose a threat. Unless, of course, you're a wizard and it's completely useless.

 

[garren]

So I decided to check the dwarven halls with my Human Ranger for anything interesting, and made a promise that if I see anything dangerous, I leg it, fast (I have blessed seven league boots).

Surely nothing dangerous will happen to our heroine? HAH! ONWARDS!! (..to the first level)

Holy... I think I just hit the jackpot!

But, I think I should mention that this is the first time I have ever encountered this kind of encounter.

Spiral, the Human Ranger, was paralyzed and eaten by greater and master mimics faster than you can say "Oh snap."

 

[Relien]

Wizards are really at the whim of the RNG more than other classes it seems. You can't go on without the right books, and looking for more books costs you spells. I mean, sure, eventually you'll be ahead of the curve, but it's by no means guaranteed even by level 15 or so. By level 15 with a warrior you're wielding an artifact weapon and wearing a blessed suit of armor.

I guess I was unnaturally lucky when I found the Strength Of Atlas book and had access to an altar and herb bushes in the early game. I picked up *everything* except rocks and corpses, especially all those spears from hill orc patrols. I dropped it all on the altar and equip-identified all non-cursed items. I found decent weapons and armor this way and with the help of herbs was mostly able to use melee on the weaker critters.

Also the ID is quite a good source of books and food if you aren't ashamed of continually going up and down the stairs for some time to find them and fight only if there's something you want in the room.