New Game

[aerol]

You can survive just fine without finding an altar just yet - divine favor just makes things a little bit easier. You can pray about twice from the get go before your god gets tired of your continued requests and you need to start making sacrifices. Altars are relatively rare but you are bound to find one eventually. Focus on completing the carpenter quest - the reward (if you complete it in the "merciful" way) will already make you more likely to survive. If you find an altar in the VD, great. If you don't, don't worry. You're bound to find one in the next dungeon.

[Jered]

Things seem to go better now. I discovered an altar in DV2 and feel now spiritually invincible. We'll see in the days to come

[Cass]

I've played Adom for years (though not often and I never got to the end) and I've never been 'spiritually invincible'. It's certainly not necessary. You could also try playing an archer, I find that a fun class and much easier than melee types. Or try a priest, if you'd like to use some magic plus melee. You can find healing spells then, or attack magic if you're lucky. Also, human is not a very easy race. If you just want to melee, try a troll healer - it needs to eat A LOT but is otherwise capable of surviving almost anything. (Not being sacrificed though, lol. That's a lesson I also learned the hard way...)

[aerol]

I've played Adom for years (though not often and I never got to the end) and I've never been 'spiritually invincible'. It's certainly not necessary.

But it helps.

[anon123]

If you sacrifice until you get one step after "spiritually invincible", even better. It will highly increase your character's intrinsic Luck, and that hidden mechanic affects so many things, it's always nice to have as much as possible. A certain guaranteed artifact makes that surplus even higher...

[aerol]

I was under the impression the extra luck was granted at the spiritually invincible level (specifically, at the "spiritually elated" message, which precedes "spiritually invincible" but is not always displayed, for some reason).

[anon123]

Some Luck is granted when you feel an inner strength lifting your spirits - I was talking about that other increase you get when very close to your deity

I think the "spiritually elated" message only appears when you sacrifice enough to get both powers in one go.

[aerol]

I was talking about the same kind of luck you were talking about, but I believe it's granted at the spiritually invincible level, not at the next level.

Edit: I checked two dark spoily resources and they say anon123's right. So, Jered, I echo his suggestion - next time around, if you can, try sacrificing until you feel "very close" to your deity. They say it might increase your luck.

[Jered]

Thanks also for the previous suggestions.
I sacrificed monsters to the altar and now it says that it 'seems to be very close to you'.
Three questions:
1. Is there a way to measure in figures hat effect this 'state has? (some kind of counter)
2. Does this state stay with me for the rest of the game - and if not is there any 'counter' keeping track of the 'very close' or 'spiritually invincible' level
3. Is there a counter where I can see how 'satiated' I am, so that one can see a state of 'hungry' approaching?

I continued and went West as someone suggested that would be easier than the girls dog, went into a cave and after having met a crystal statue, I survived and then met a flesh golem. I didn't get much chance of testing him, because after one or two blows, I was dead.

New game this evening or tomorrow!

[Joe]

1- Not really. You can 'u'se a holy symbol to get a rough estimation of your standing to your specific deity. Being in a good standing with your deity has several good 'effects': you can use it to pray for divine intervention (which can be lifesaving for sure!), you can use the altar to identify item statuses and bless water; finally it also grants +luck and +fate smiles (which both increase your luck and are nice to have; these states can be removed (most notably by meleeing karmic beings), but sacrificing a single gold piece will restore them if your standing is still sufficient).
2- Note that your standing with deity does decrease over time if it's positive (and increase if it's negative I think). Also note that if you convert (going from lawful/neutral/chaotic to another) you have a new deity (and your old one won't like your move). Again, you can use a holy symbol to roughly estimate your standing. Also you can just pray for help.. If you have a nice standing your god will heal you (or eventually do nothing if you're all okay). It he doesn't like you this might get you killed though so it's not safe if you have no clue how your standing is (notably after alot of conversions this is not a good thing to try).
3- As far as I know there is no such thing at all. Satiation should be no problem once you can reach the main dungeon in the center of the map though.. You'll find some traders that offer really nice food there. Also note that you can again pray to get divine manna if you have a good godly friend