I won't have time to play ADOM much for a while, so I went a little overboard when I saw this character was doing well. After I got crowned, I decided to try to pull off everything--everything--that a Champion of Balance could do. The only things I didn't do were the Filk quest (I had over 200 kills) and the kissing of the frog (I did talk to them, but I never got a good response and I didn't care enough to farm them).

This character was very cautious and methodical until about the Minotaur Maze, at which point I realized that she had built up enough resources to crush the game beneath her heel. I made numerous backup savegames and would likely have been willing to savescum a little, but she never died--I feel good about that.

Deciding factors in victory:
  • Crowned with Executor
  • Found "Carrying" gear early to save up loot easily
  • Ironfist and Bracers of War found randomly at low levels
  • Good luck on first few corruptions (Eyes, Antennae, Bulging Cranium, Teleportitis, Thorns, and Horns, in that order, at which point I needed to use about 7 Blessed SoCR to reseed myself before I finally got Thin, Acid Breath, and Small without first having Mana Battery or Stiff Muscles)
  • Offensive Alchemy
  • Carefully cleared about half of the bug temple, gaining much speed in the process.


I handled the Assassin's Guild, SIL, Library, and Quickling Tree after I closed the gate. Everything else came before. I went overboard in the Guild; not only did I kill the Prince, sweep the whole guild clean, and use stomacemptia to make sure I devoured every corpse that dropped, I also took my Pick Axe and Wands of Digging and physically tore the place to shreds. When history remembers Assassins, it will remember me, and those fools will be forgotten.

That said, I did pull some scummy tactics:
  • I stairhopped 3 times (i.e. I went between I9 and I10 until I was Strained), primarily for potions of Water (which didn't start dropping often for me until the endgame). I did get the water, but nothing else especially useful came of it.
  • I outleveled the Minotaur Maze by killing Burp's mom, so I loaded a backup savegame to do the maze first. This cost me a wand of Destruction and a potion of Education that the dragon dropped the first time (she had nothing noteworthy the second time), but it did get me into the maze.
  • Most egregiously, I reloaded 3 times to get a stack of 7 Rings of Djinni Summoning on D8 while I only had 6 Potions of Exchange on hand. I didn't need any of the Khelly rewards as I already had better on all counts, but I wanted to save him, and I was getting bored of farming. My wishes only made the game marginally safer (I had already easily stomped the ToEF, Darkforge, Bug Temple, Tomb, and Maze), so I don't feel too bad about doing this, but there it is. I made all of my wishes right away:
    1. AoLS
    2. Crowns of Lightning (complement my Blue Dragon Scale Mail to limit item damage in the Air Temple and Blue Dragon Caves)
    3. Tower Eternium Shields (to replace the Medium Eternium Shield I had already smithed up)
    4. Pairs of Seven League Boots (though every single time I ran away from level 20+ was by teleportation, for which I had found several books)
    5. Concentration (I never got within 200 casts of being out of any spell and I never went below 15 Blessed Gem of Power, but it saved some micromanagement)
    6. Oils of Rust Removal (saved micromanagement of switching between backup crossbows)
    7. a tuna sandwich (didn't take, so I wasted the wish on purpose, it's not like I needed anything else by that point)



Code:
Gobbofinder   St:42  Le:41  Wi:35  Dx:57  To:50  Ch:22  Ap:34  Ma:36  Pe:26 N=
DV/PV:163/55     H:1003(1003)  P:639(639)    Exp: 50/40195756   DrCh  Sp: 176
Blessed Satiated
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                            Background Information
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Name: Gobbofinder         Race: female Gnome        Class: Assassin
Eye color: green          Hair color: brown         Complexion: tanned
Height: 3'1"              Weight: 88 pounds         Scars: 1
Age: 225 (grown-up, 107 years of unnatural aging added in)
Star sign: Cup            Birthday: 17/Cup (day 257 of the year)

YOUR HISTORY:
        Your parents belong to the nobility. They are rich, respected,
 wealthy and own more than they can count.
        In your childhood you were a credit to your family. Your people
 loved you and enjoyed your presence.
        In your youth you enjoyed competition against others to the
 fullest. You were a very active kid.
        Your young adulthood was characterized by hard and long work. You
 had decided to study under a renowned master. To your great disappointment
 you had to find out, that he was a hard, unjust and tyrannic man,
 embittered by his old age. Your apprentice years were quite terrible.
        You decided to become an Assassin.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                  Inventory
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total weight: 2674 stones                Carrying capacity: 19012 stones

rustproof crown of lightning [+8, +6] (+5 spd)        <- spare wish, for blue dragon caves
ankh                                                  
rustproof chain mail of carrying (-1, -3) [+5, +9]    <- found early, helped with money
girdle of carrying [+2, +3]                           <- found early, helped with money
hooded cloak [+4, +1]                                   
jet-black battle axe (Executor)...                    <- Crowning gift
medium obsidian shield (Protector)...                 <- D49 gift, replaced eternium tower
ring of searching                                     <- worn most of game for convenience
ring of ice                                           <- worn very nearly all of game (alchemy bombs)
bracers of war [+8, +4] {Dx+8}                        <- buried in Dwarven Graveyard!
iron gauntlets (Ironfist) (-1, +0) [+1, +3] {St+7}    <- pickpocketed in Unremarkable Dungeon!
seven league boots [+4, +4]                           <- spare wish when saving Khelly
rustproof heavy crossbow (+9, +6)                     <- many a slaying round was fired through this
bundle of 86 bland quarrels (+1, 2d6)                         
pick axe (+0, 1d6+2)                                  <- first one I found, never broke once


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                    Stuff
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Helmets ('[')
   helm of water breathing [+6, +7]                   <- what I used until pre-Khelly wishes
Armor ('[')
   clothes of the sea [+0, +0]                        <- found in HMV shop--handy for Water Cave!
   blue dragon scale mail (-1, -4) [+6, +12]          <- in lesser red dragon vault around D30, smithed for fighting dragons
One-handed weapons ('(')
   adamantium mace of penetration (+9, 1d6+9)         <- dropped in Unremarkable Dungeon!
Tools (']')
   heap of 2 magical writing sets (5)                 <- never tried to use these
   heap of 4 giant boar skulls                        <- I always find lots of these...
   magical writing set (2)                                
Rings ('=')
   ring of djinni summoning                           <- while clearing out Dwarven Halls post-victory
Wands ('\')
   wand of digging (2 charges)                        <- used most of my booze, facilitated lazy travel
   wand of destruction (2 charges)                    <- used once, just to see what happens; stat drain, ick