priests, merchants, and bug temple

[gosos]

1. do i have to have 100 characters of the same version? I have 1.1.1 characters sitting around and earlier prereleases, if I copy them all to the save file and get to 100 characters will that work?
The guide and wiki and don't say how to find the bug temple. Where is it?

2. Has anyone had success with merchants? They look unplayable. Gold isn't that important. Ok you can crown early with it and get a post crown item, but first off you have to live long enough to get there and that is a crap shoot. Plus you have gold to buy stuff in Lewinthol, if it happens to have stuff. how do you get these started and what race? I'm guessing this is the hardest class?

3. I have seen that some people consider troll priests cheating. I don't get it. Troll Priest with Candle may heal quicker, but its weak in combat. You can die to alot of things other than HP if your slow or you can get armor destroyed by jelly and stuff if you can't take them out at range or in one shot. Or a ghul can paralyze you. You don't heal THAT fast either. I even had one where I got preserver as a crowning gift and couldn't make it to dwarftown. Why do you guys like these so much? HP heal isn't that hard once you get to the big room and get some herbs. I guess they are better now that First Aid has been buffed.

[Grond]

1. You need to have 100 character deaths, so just copying the saved games wont do anything. Bug temple is to the northwest of CoC, and west of the mad minstrel's hut. You may find this map useful.
   
2. Yes, although they aren't the easiest class. Thrown coins are pretty fun. I prefer potion merchants because of alchemy.
   
3. I think you mean troll healers. They're quite good in combat thanks to troll stats and find weakness; the problems you listed apply to pretty much any melee focused character. Personally, I despise trolls; I don't think the drawbacks (fast metabolism, slow leveling, short lifespan) are worth it.

[grobblewobble]

Very few people like troll healers except gut. The part of the guidebook that lists "good classes for each starsign" is best ignored, it has really strange advice. (The part that says Tree is "good for mindcrafters" is especially bad. Willpower is the last thing a starting mindcrafter needs to worry about and later on you will be able to raise it with morgia, anyway.)

Here is a more accurate one:

Candle: This is the best starsign for any character, no matter what race or class. Especially for early game survival.
(Still true even now that it has been nerfed a bit.)
Raven: Most interesting alternative. +10 speed is a lot and getting the RCT before the ToEF is great.

All other starsigns: avoid them, unless you like challenges.

[gosos]

@grond: I die alot. So this isn't a problem. I'll see if it works. Player death is just create a character and then quit. This rule of 100 characters is kind of tedious...

so if i copy guys over from 1.1.1 will this work? I don't have a 100 yet. probably 50 or so.

[Stingray1]

Most players will reach 80 or so deaths before they reach the bugs for the first time and then they aren't close to ready anyway. It is not a place for new players, hence the 100 deaths.

[JellySlayer]

so if i copy guys over from 1.1.1 will this work? I don't have a 100 yet. probably 50 or so.

There's a file in your adom directory called adom.cnt. Edit this file in a text editor. In it will be a single character. Just change it to something that has an ASCII value >100. Quitting does not count as death. BugCave is a good way to increase your death count if you don't know what you're doing though...

2. Has anyone had success with merchants? They look unplayable. Gold isn't that important. Ok you can crown early with it and get a post crown item, but first off you have to live long enough to get there and that is a crap shoot. Plus you have gold to buy stuff in Lewinthol, if it happens to have stuff. how do you get these started and what race? I'm guessing this is the hardest class?

Drakelings are a good bet for tough classes. They have decent starting stats and you can spit acid at enemies to get yourself out of trouble. I also like Dwarf Merchants... you get relatively good starting gear, and enough gold to visit Lawenthelolil and buy a shield or better weapon maybe. Or play hurthling and pick up a bunch of missile talents to assist your coin throwing. There's various options that are playable. If your starting PV sucks (2 or less for sure, maybe even 3 or 4 if your To is decent), you should true berserk as well.

3. I have seen that some people consider troll priests cheating. I don't get it. Troll Priest with Candle may heal quicker, but its weak in combat. You can die to alot of things other than HP if your slow or you can get armor destroyed by jelly and stuff if you can't take them out at range or in one shot. Or a ghul can paralyze you. You don't heal THAT fast either. I even had one where I got preserver as a crowning gift and couldn't make it to dwarftown. Why do you guys like these so much? HP heal isn't that hard once you get to the big room and get some herbs. I guess they are better now that First Aid has been buffed.

Wizards are ADOM easy mode. From what I've seen, there's about an 80 percent chance your first win will be a wizard. Trolls healers are meh. I don't know that I've ever actually seen someone win with one. They're okay in early game, but, like most trolls, tend to fall behind pretty fast in the midgame. Troll barbarian is a better choice if you really want to play a troll, but most people dislike trolls immensely. If you want a good melee character, I'd go for orc barbarian or beastfighter, dwarf paladin, or drakeling monk.

[persy]

Don't bother with bug temple. It will bring you more harm than good, unless you know exactly clear what you need from there.

Wizards have their difficulties, you get so strong that you death ray yourself or get crushed or else :-)

[grobblewobble]

Actually tree isn't a bad starsign either, now that you get +2 to and +1 pv. Still not as good as candle though.

Dwarf Merchants

These can get amazing amounts of starting gold if they choose the rich talents. I wonder if there is some way to exploit this? IIRC you can get about 40k, two-thirds of what a dwarf needs for a crown or precrown.

[Silfir]

There's really very little you can do with gold in the early game. You get your pick of Barnabas' wares and all food issues solved, and that's about it. If you find an early altar, you can get Lucky and maybe Fate Smiles.

Gold notwithstanding, Dwarf merchants wear chain mail and have decent Toughness, that puts them several dozen spots above rock bottom. I'd have to second Gray Elven thieves.

I have no idea who decided that troll anything was good. I raised my "Hate Trolls" skill to 100 ages ago and took the "Improved Hating Trolls" talent, so you certainly haven't heard it from me. That said, the paradigm is pretty simple:

1. The best race is the one that helps the most with the hardest part of the game.
2. The hardest part in ADOM is surviving the early game.
3. Survival in the early game is easiest with a high Toughness and healing rate.
4. The highest toughness and healing rates are found on trolls.
5. Therefore trolls are the best race.

It's true insofar that playing a troll maximizes your early game survival. Any class combined with troll can be played as a troll: Bash faces with a heavy club. (Exception beastfighter - bash faces with bare fists then.) For the rest, you're running a Marathon uphill in the snow naked and Strained!, but by the Gods, you have survived the crap out of that early game!

[quik]

1. The best race is the one that helps the most with the hardest part of the game.
2. The hardest part in ADOM is surviving the early game.
3. Survival in the early game is easiest with a high Toughness and healing rate.
4. The highest toughness and healing rates are found on trolls.
5. Therefore trolls are the best race.

I can't agree more. I'd like to add, just to put some con, that playing a troll kind of limits your scope if you want to go for an ultra ending. Trolls are slow levelers. Therefore, in order to gain the needed XP you'll eventually have to recur to some grinding or some exploity tactics.