I was playing ADOM v. 1.2.0p20 with Sage on the Ancardia.Us.To server and had a bit of bad luck with generated dungeon features and wilderness encounters.

First, my 1st character got attacked by a group of hill orcs on her way to the Druid Dungeon. There was no chance of escape or survival: Even in coward mode, she got hit by lots of thrown spears and axes and took lots of damage in melee. When I tried true berserking, I kept missing, and 4-5 hill orcs engaged me at once. I used up my prayers and potions of extra healing (I was playing as a female human healer), so I was sure to die. From that, I wish the chance of at least these kinds of encounters (hill orcs, barbarians, etc.) that block your escape routes should be lowered a bit.

Second, on Level 1 of the Druid Dungeon right in the first room, I encountered a river with no nearby passages, rooms, or doors. Even though my 2nd character (another female human healer) has Swimming, this would've essentially restricted access to most of this dungeon for those who can't swim or cast frost spells. Should've considered actually crossing the river that time, but I didn't want my only iron scalpel to be rusted and leave me "offense-less."
Here, I think the early dungeon levels (Druid Dungeon, early Caverns of Chaos, etc.) shouldn't have any rivers at all, or at least a very small chance of them.

Third, this game I encountered a mimic in a shop at the 1st level of the "rather boring cave entrance." Luckily, I could escape from this. Since I believe that was the way to a very high-level area, one half of me says it's reasonable. But the other half disagrees since that level is mostly composed of easy monsters.

Lastly, there was an ant nest at D: 3, after the shortcut level. My 2nd healer didn't have enough attack power at that point, mostly because of the above inconveniences. Even leveling up at the Infinite Dungeon didn't mitigate this problem because of the lack of good weapon finds. Small Cave at Level 1 was out of the question too since my healer's stats were too meager at the start.

Don't get me wrong. The setbacks of the RNG are what makes parts of this game so fantastic. It's just that placing lots of chance barriers in the early game can really discourage people new to the game. These new players if non-spoiled could even feel frustrated at these bouts of bad luck and quit altogether. Maybe this can be a compromise for both the newcomers and the veterans, to reduce game-crippling incongruities in the early game and to make role of chance more important in the mid-game and beyond.



P.S. I know the 2nd level of the Puppy Cave has a guaranteed ant nest, so no need to remove that ;)