Let's play ADOM

[Chork]

I only bother with live sac precrowning if I can get a lawful alignment and find an altar either on a cavernous level (higher monster generation) or with an altar towards the center of a normal level so you can scoop up all the monsters quickly. There are many, many shitty precrowns and in ADOM you never use melee against the biggest threats; that only leaves a small handful of precrown artifacts that really do much to help you win.

I don't know, I didn't have too much problem meleeing almost everything (only things I exclusively used missiles on were damn karmic lizards/dragons). But I also had a preposterously high DV by the end.

 

[Elwro]

I think in this version DV tends to be more important than in earlier versions, when high PV was guaranteed to take you far.

 

[Higher Game]

They're both needed. I think 2-3 DV is worth 1 PV, as a rule of thumb. Against claw bugs, corrupting monsters, and 100+ damage/hit bosses, DV is worth much more. Early in the game, PV is more valuable, since getting a decent DV requires some weapon and shielding experience.

 

[Elwro]

Or being a coward :D

 

[Damned Registrations]

PV is actually kind of interesting in that it gives exponential returns- while the difference between 10 and 30 PV would be fairly meaningless, the difference between 80 and 100 is huge when everything hits for around 90-110 damage. Seems like if you went for broke you could get away with whoring PV, but you'd need to be wearing moloch armor as a fighter or something.

 

[Damned Registrations]

The latest ranger has had quite an adventure thus far. Did my usual start, going to lleywhatever to kill something rare but easily findable. Got poisoned by an assassin. Amazingly, actually lived through it. Which turned out to be somewhat helpful, since it let me raise healing a bit higher than normal for my first few levels. Went off into the SMC. Mostly uneventful. Found a neutral altar. Converted self. Yay. Next level, chaotic altar. Attempted to convert altar. Converted self. Oops. Went a bit deeper, finding useless herb formations along the way. Ate a pixie corpse out of spite. Got teleportitis. Crap. Went down to the next level: A river! Fuck! Or not... after much dicking around blinked to the exit. Handy. Next level had a goblin vault I cleaned out, netting me a 'thin dagger'. I check the guide to see what the hell could possibly be and it hits on the Cat's Claw artifact. No way! Equipped... cursed... definitely not the cats claw.... breaks... fuck. At least my adamant tower shield and mithril girdle are holding thigns at bay. I realize I can still kill things by using my sling. Whatever, just need to get to dwarf town and get this thing uncursed. HMV is basically pointless, since I can't really go shopping due to my lack of money and high likelyhood of accidently stealing everything.

Out the pass and off to the CoC. Relatively uneventful, mostly me dicking around try to get to the exit while blinking everywhere. Got by another river without getting wet. Down down... big room. Cool. Blink dog. Cool. 30 blink dogs. Me blinking to centre of room. With a cursed broken throwing dagger. Not so cool. Checking options.... wand of wonder. Ah hell why not, maybe it'll cast ball lightning or something. Zap. Darkness. Zap. Which item would you like to uncurse? JACKPOT. Broken dagger unequipped, orcish spear of dog lobotomy equipped. Stabbity stabbity. Ogre magus shows up and starts beaming me. Fuck. Head towards it and start stabbing with little effect. Not looking good. It seems to run out of hp or something though. My PV is keeping the dogs from hurting me, so it's basically down to me and the invisible ogre. Maybe the wand again? Last charge... ZAP. Acid bolt. Still not dead. Stabbity stabbity BLINK. Phew.

Except it blinks after me or something. At least I'm against a wall now, so my accuracy and DV go up 3 points each. Switch to berzerker mode and try and finish this cunt.... just barely succeed. Cool. Now for a dog corpse. Stab stab stab. Dog corpse. Cool! Stab stab stab. Finally got on it. Eat. Nope, bloated. Fuck. At least I'm strained too, so my hunger should kick in eventually. Stab stab stab stab stab blink stab stab stab blink. Argghhh. Satiated, finally. Now for another corpse. Stab stab stab... my hp are dropping now. Hmmm, only like 1-2 at a time though, no biggy. Corpse! Stab stab stab. Eat! 30 blink dogs are enraged at the sight! Hmmm... cool. DoyouwishtocontinueeatingwhileIspit30[more]promptsatyouyouslowfucksurroundedbyblinkdogs? Nope. Oh, shit. Lets try that again. Eat. Not enraged the second time, hehe. Chow chow chow. I feel in control. Sweet! Hp looking grim though, down to single digits. Might have to pop the ultra healing pot from the HMV. Switch to cowardly. Poke poke poke. Blink. Sweeeeet! Stairs > Down. 2 dogs follow and become martyred. I LIVE. And can blink wherever the fuck I want occasionally.

Awesomeness. I'm level 10, 85 hp, 41/10 armor, and have enough gold to buy a wet paper bag, assuming it's not from waldenbrook or anyone who notices my charisma of 4. I've got a slew of books, potions scrolls and amulets to dump once I know what the fuck they are. I can safely leave them in the mystic room though. Now I just need to clean up the big room so I can farm some herbs and get me an artifact.

 

[Zomg]

I don't know, I didn't have too much problem meleeing almost everything (only things I exclusively used missiles on were damn karmic lizards/dragons). But I also had a preposterously high DV by the end.

It's possible but usually suboptimal, I guess you could say. Why eat corrupting attacks from the bosslike monsters when you can just kite them with seven league boots and slaying ammo?

There is one high-powered use for melee, now that I think of it: Fighting inside of darkness spells. There are a good number of powerful enemies that are almost completely disabled by darkness, and a fair proportion of your attacks will count as backstabs if you have the skill.

 

[Elwro]

There seem to be lots of corruption traps in this version. And the funny thing is critters may get changed into writhing masses of primal chaos if they walk over them too many times :D

 

[dragonfk]

One of my most promising characters...And he fell of the stairs...God dammit! I hate this game. Had he (Bishop) thought about everything that may harm a PC?

PS. Thank god my next character is almost as promising as my previously deceased wizard. Back to ADOM.

Is it profitable to max my Alchemy to 100? And when I want to harvest herbs should I have 100 Herbalism skill?

 

[Higher Game]

Try training strength by kicking stairs. You can also sacrifice yourself, and wearing an amulet of life saving doesn't help.

Getting any skill to 100 is worth it. The benefits from 90-100 are often equal to the benefits of 0-90.

 

[Elwro]

By maxing Alchemy you most likely get the recipe for the potion of gain attributes. It's worth it.

 

[Castanova]

OK, so I've got a semi-promising character going and I'm a complete n00b. Help me with what to do next:

Level 8 Dwarf Paladin
DV/PV: 19/13
Got Treasure Hunter. Been pumping Healing, Dodge, and Athletics mostly.

I killed a mugger to start. Got the blanket from SMC. Then I decided to be conservative (instead of going through the UD) and I leveled up to level 6 in the ID, not really finding much. Then I talked to the tiny girl and now I just finished the puppy cave. The puppy was dead, obviously, however:

(a) I drank from a pool and got shock resistance
(b) I found a cavern full of blink dogs and got teleport control
(c) I found an uncursed amulet, uncursed ring, a wand, a ton of potions, 3 types of scrolls of which I have 3 of type A, 2 of type B, and 1 of type C. A gem, and a cursed tome.
(d) I found two altars in the puppy cave, too.

What next?!??!?!

 

[Solohk]

Try training strength by kicking stairs.

I just tried that and ended up causing the dungeon to collapse on me.

 

[Higher Game]

OK, so I've got a semi-promising character going and I'm a complete n00b. Help me with what to do next:

Level 8 Dwarf Paladin
DV/PV: 19/13
Got Treasure Hunter. Been pumping Healing, Dodge, and Athletics mostly.

I killed a mugger to start. Got the blanket from SMC. Then I decided to be conservative (instead of going through the UD) and I leveled up to level 6 in the ID, not really finding much. Then I talked to the tiny girl and now I just finished the puppy cave. The puppy was dead, obviously, however:

(a) I drank from a pool and got shock resistance
(b) I found a cavern full of blink dogs and got teleport control
(c) I found an uncursed amulet, uncursed ring, a wand, a ton of potions, 3 types of scrolls of which I have 3 of type A, 2 of type B, and 1 of type C. A gem, and a cursed tome.
(d) I found two altars in the puppy cave, too.

What next?!??!?!

The caverns of chaos, of course. Just go west of the village and you should find it, a "truly foreboding cave". Ask the mayor about "quest" and "portal". Killing the random monster should identify all your stuff.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I just rolled up an gnomish archer. I feel like I'm cheating. I'm not even through the UD yet (Which I'm breezing through without the healing skill) and I'm level 8, and my shots have +50 to hit and deal 2d6 +19 damage. And I'm not even berzerking or anything. I got my ranger killed by wandering into darkforge hoping to teleport myself into an armory, but I noticed even he could injure a steel golem with a crit using a fucking throwing dagger he has no skill with, so they'll fall like flies if I ever get slaying ammo. Even without I could probably take out the one guarding the stairs with this guy right now.

 

[Higher Game]

I think critical hits by definition ignore PV. :wink:

 

[Damned Registrations]

I don't think so. I play DEs pretty much exclusively, and I see a hell of a lot of 'You hit the foo with full force, but fail to deal any damage'.

 

[Elwro]

Yeah, archery feels like cheating... until you begin to have ammo problems.

 

[Higher Game]

I just lost my latest character....

to a crash. I don't feel like ADOM anymore, not for a long time. :evil:

 

[Damned Registrations]

Yeah, archery feels like cheating... until you begin to have ammo problems.

I started out with a stack of 8 and a stack of 27 bolts. I switched to the 27 when I ran into a tension room and didn't bother switching back, and still had 20 of them by the time I hit the HMV. Considering the amount you can apparently get from fletchery and hell, just the amount I see hanging around in shops and from drops, I don't see how this could ever be an issue, especially if you used both a bow and crossbow. Not to mention you can melee just as well as any other fighter whenever you run into something like a tension room, vault, or summoner and need to clear out a swarm.

The only part they seem gimped on is having their ammo destroyed by fire. But aside from the ToEF, where are you going to encounter anything that spits fire at you that survives more than 2 arrows of slaying?

 

[Elwro]

Deeper down in the CoC. But do you really think you'll have as much slaying ammo as you'd like?

I killed the emperor moloch with a crossbow, though; my beastfighter just couldn't (at level 50) punch through the PV of 200.

 

[Zomg]

You should always be more than set for slaying ammo after the Casino. It's the middle time between Dwarftown and the TOEF where you never have enough of the right ammo unless you get lucky and fletch a log for 80 arrows of slaying or something.

 

[Castanova]

OK, the game is starting to get a bit annoying. I got to Dwarftown with my level 11 dwarf paladin and got assigned a "large spider" for my first quest. Been wandering around, hoping to find one and having no luck. This is grinding at its worst, right here.

Is there somewhere else I can go besides the CoC in the meantime that's good for a level 11 guy?

 

[Elwro]

Not really (not counting single levels like the one above Darkforge etc), though the ID is always an option.

 

[Zomg]

Large spider is actually a really easy one. Just go back up to the big room and hack around a bit, a dark elf summoner will show up and start spewing a billion spiders everywhere shortly (I think large spiders are either the cyan or the blue ones). The big room has significantly higher monster generation than normal levels so it's usually a good place to knock out the dwarftown quest.