Irony of aging.

[Doorsfan]

I'd like to share a small story of mine regarding the irony of "age"
in ADOM. I have recently been working my way through to level
a class and try to beat the game - so far i quite fancy the Monk
class as for several reasons. Anywho, as a monk, i was always
in a crossroads regarding 1 thing ; Age. At first, i thougt of it as
no greater problem or consequence, but as my first character,
whom was about lev 13 Dwarf Monk, got a total penatly of -6
in strenght due to aging and some to toughness etc, i got a thorn
in the side and thougt ; "screw it, im going to level a elf". Thougt
as i leveled a elf, or rather said, after having tried to level a grey elf
monk for about 4 hours and continously having the element of RNG
against me in different ways, i said "hell naw, im going human".

Now, here is where the funny part comes in - i thougt i was invinciable.
I got my human monk rolling, dodged some serious close to death experi-
ences and managed to get along fine. Got 7 league boots as a drop,
helmet of waterbreathing, tons of potions and increases etc ; everything
was going beyond swell. And well, as i was crossing DH, i thougt of the age
- would something come along to hurt me? "Naa, that won't happen".

Well, at this point, ADOM decided to point the finger at me and on DH:2
i was ambushed in a narrow hallway, by no less then 5 ghost lords. In
approximately 3 rounds, i was unnaturally aged by 80 years,
resulting in a very swift death and even if i'd not die, i would STILL have
to live through a SEVERE penatly to all my favored stats. Sucks, really.
Oh well, going to try level a elf through it all.

[Jack the Ripper]

And that is why you should always zap some sort of wand of monster detection, or read a scroll immediately when going on the DH levels. You just can't know what lies beyond the corner. Quickling king, titan, etc etc . Or have a wand of teleport + control so you can get the hell out of there in a single turn

[Doorsfan]

You do have quite a solid point in what you say - and as a
matter of fact, it is the only thing that ever kills me in ADOM ;
to be put into a situation where your ego and illusion of being
unkillable overshines your true efforts and capacity. I mean
the only thing that really allowed them to ambush me to begin
with was that i thougt it impossible - but had i prepared, i could
have easily perservered through it all. Going to try a different
stratergy this time ; but still with a monk.

[vogonpoet]

Ive had an awesome mega powerful dark elven weapon smith aged to death on DH2. She was a beauty, but also failed to zap a monster detect, and was totally unprepared for being surrounded by at least 15 ghost *kings*. DH are often a breeze, but they will kill you every now and then, even when you have controlled teleportation and caution on your side...

[MrNiceguy]

I've lost too many early stage characters to the DH. I still risk them, especially if I have monster detect and/or magic mapping that shows the stairs close by.

Unless you get ambushed by something that can pass through walls, you can usually get back to the stairs if something really nasty shows up. If it follows you up, you can lead it into the forest and let the trees deal with it. Even if it's slaying trees left and right, it will be so busy with the trees that you can get away.

(Also a handy way of dealing with cats)

[Jack the Ripper]

Ive had an awesome mega powerful dark elven weapon smith aged to death on DH2. She was a beauty, but also failed to zap a monster detect, and was totally unprepared for being surrounded by at least 15 ghost *kings*.

So they killed and/or aged you in one turn?Or they showed up near the stairs and you couldn't get away??
Dying simultaneously of old age and damage would be fun 'You see the Grim Reaper. The ghost king hits you! You die!' Can't recall the normal death-by-old-age message, but that kind of combination would be fun

[modular]

Invisibility is your friend against ghosts. It's not to uncommon to find these creatures in the dwarven halls. (while invisible you can safely use bolt spells, drakeling acid spit, invisibility spell on monsters, you cannot use missiles or melee or ball spells and stay undetected by the monster you attacked)

[Laukku]

So, what's the irony? Does aging give a different effect than you expected?

[Erik Piper]

You age! A bowl of soup appears before you! A thousand forks rain down upon you!

[Doorsfan]

The irony lies in the matter of fact, that i spent approximately 4 hours creating elven characters that did not make it to the point of DH where it would matter, and the amount of time spent upon that, is about 4 hours.

Now, when you take that one single time that i do manage to get that far, and it's not a elf - well, guess what. I guess i'd call that ironic ; to get poked by ADOM in this way by the RNG going "no you". And yes, it is RNG cause the odds for 5 GL's at the same time, in a narrow hallway with the walls ; it most likely means a tension room/vault of them and them going through the wall. So, it's pretty low odds and it happened on the time of that i did not expect it = irony.