Advice needed - normal or ultra?

[kraya]

Ive been playing ADOM on and off several years now and this is the closest I have ever come to finishing the game.

I'm playing a grey elf ranger, crowned- completed all 4 temples, Keriax and Malakai, completed
GaabBay's quests and am right now in Sharad Waador's room. Havent talked to him yet.

I have some 7 corruptions now, with 1 RoDS and 1 WoW (1 charge), bracers of war, Sun's messenger
(neutral crowned) - High strength (60 - with GoGS) mid 20s dex, learning, willpower, mastery in
swords (eternium scimitar and eternium scimitar of swiftness), bows mastery (got fletchery from a
scroll of edu, I think) and skill with crossbows - found Far Slayer in a greater H vault, and
Preserver from grave robbery and Protector from a greater Red Dragon vault -
which also had something like 12 Greater Red Wyrms and took me from my mid 20s
(which I have never got beyond - to something like level 39).

Right now I'm level 47 and I want some perspectives - I badly want to complete the game, but an ultra
ending seems to be within reach.

There is one catch - I'm not sure what my first kill was - except I made it in the bandit village -
usually a beggar or a mugger - but could have been a cutpurse (40 something killed so far)
What are my odds of surviving? Oh I have two writing sets (4/5 uses) and was able to scribe two SoCR
out of 3 attempts.

WIll I become too corrupted - by trying to go for the ultra? Its already 240 odd days - should I
just play safe and go straight for a normal ending?

[lotuskip]

Presumably you know what you're planning and Khelavaster was saved? If not, forget ultra. Same thing if you are chaotic.

You've done MaLaKaI? Why on Earth? Anyway, this opens the possibility to finish an ordinary Chaos God ending, giving you a chance to take a look at ChAoS and encounter Andy.

You would still need to do the blue dragon caves, the ID dive and beat the Emperor Moloch. And run around the wilderness and the CoC. That can be a whole lot of corruption. What alignment are you? L+ significantly reduces corruption. If you're N=, the prospects are poorer.

[edit: I missed that you indeed mentioned being NEUTRAL crowned. Sorry.]

[Maul]

If you only have 3 wishes and all the guaranteed corruption removal methods are already gone, don't try for an ultra. If nothing else, you will be corrupted to death in the Chaos Plane because you won't have enough wishes left over to wish for speed, so you'll be much slowed and will get much more corrupting hits.

You could, of course, attempt to do the rest of what you need to try an ultra, then if you still have enough corruption removal left, you can decide. After all, you'll get much of the corruption inside the Chaos Plane. Characters (esp. weaker ones) getting corrupted to death there is common.

[kraya]

Hmmm.
It looks like the default ending will be safer...
Sniff.
I've been playing this guy for about two weeks now, stopping play whenever I think Im
getting too cocky.
Spoken to SW and in the BD caves now.
Who knows, maybe I'll get lucky with SoCR.
(Or I could die - thats always there )

Just realized that the Chaos Archmage has reduced my mana to 1! Have a
sinking feeling I really screwed up by going into the Blue Dragon Caves...

Thanks.

Oh, and Malakai? I started off trying to find a wand of cold for the Ring of the high kings
and kept going deeper and deeper.
Bad Idea - I got so corrupted by the time I came out that I used all the Mad Minstrels
scrolls to clear them up..

[meh]

Just realized that the Chaos Archmage has reduced my mana to 1! Have a
sinking feeling I really screwed up by going into the Blue Dragon Caves...

That's more likely to be from writing scrolls.

[kraya]

That's more likely to be from writing scrolls.

Oh God.

Is there anything in this game that is straightforward?
And I thought I was as spoiled as could be.

I've stopped my game and switched to Dragon Age.

[nathrakh]

Scrolls of chaos resistance are the hardest scrolls to write. Only monks can write them without penalties. Wizards and priests have lowered penalties but still better to prepare getting your mana stat fucked if you write them. But as the game is like it is - mana stat is almost trivial even for spell casters. Sure it helps some minor stuff and some spells but you can cast from HP's too.

[Sadface]

The only time I'm truly concerned with my Mana stat is when I'm
starting the game as a gnome elementalist*, I pray for 24+ so I
can get Extended Magic so I can munch on greater claw bug/killer
bug corpses without making my bolt spells have a range of 4 (Wi
affects the distance your bolt spells travel). Otherwise, I don't
really care too much.

Unless you saved Khelavaster, you can't really do an ultra, but
you could go for the original chaos god ending.

*This is sort of a speed game I play from time to time. The point
of it is to get to lv 16 from bugs, do the pyramid, do the tower,
open up the portal (usually via ventriloquism, but sometimes I
tried for the graveyard too) and try to finish the game from there,
with very little help from herbs. It's probably not a challenge to
the more experienced players, but all of my wins so far have taken
between 150 and 400 days in-game time, so speeding through is
not something I usually do.

Spoilies: Andor Drakon can be paralyzed.
As can just about every other boss in the game, which is one
reason that I prize and safeguard every wand of paralyzation
I come across.

[kraya]

Oh, I saved Khelavaster. Found 2 Amulets of Life Saving.

Why I feel bad about the mana loss is - though I'm a ranger -
those 400 points in frost bolt saw me through some 12 levels

and

I spent something like 30 level 2 magic missiles to kill my first greater moloch.


I hadnt really planned on using spellcasting much - but those frost bolts were very useful -
as I had something like 8 dragon slaying arrows and 5 dragon slaying quarrels when
I got to that red dragon vault.

[Edit:Afterthought]
I dont suppose AoLS can bring you back from being Masses of Primal Chaos?
Or if you die when heavily corrupted you can comeback uncorrupted?

[Grey]

Corruption doesn't "kill" you in the physical sense, so the AoLS is useless against it.

Normal ending definitely seems like the way to go. Make sure you have some blessed humanoid or demon slaying ammo for the balors - Farslayer and Sun's Messenger should make short work of them. I'd also bless and read all scrolls of peace you have upon hitting D50 if you're worried about corruption.

You can still cast spells by the way. Low mana stat can mean you have less PP, but you can still cast from HP very comfortably. Some duration spells (like Farsight and Strength of Atlas) have their effect based on your Mana stat, but most offensive spells are completely unaffected.