Newbie questions: corruption, cursed items...

[TheMightyOne]

Hello guys I'm new to ADOM, playing for 3 days now. It's great fun but it's also very difficult :/ I'm very sure I'm doing pretty everything wrong ^^ anyway, my current problems are:

I'm on the 5th level of the dungeon in the bottom right (the one thats always changing), i was fighting a chaos brother and became corrupted im only lvl11, human barbarian, finished just 2 quests (dog, carpenter) is there a way to cure corruption this early in the game? or is my character doomed?

problem nr2 are cursed items and altars:

ive read that i can uncurse items with blessed water, i bless the water if im in a good relationship with my god and put it on the altar. now the problem is to find water and altars, are there places where i can always find water or always find altars?? this leads me to the next point: all altars look the same and the description is the same aswell so are they? i sacrificed some monsters and apparenrtly they were of the same alignment as my god. how the hell am i supposed to know that? and furthermore how am i supposed to distinguish the altars of my god.

final question:
ive got the quest to kill this badass criminal in the outlaws town but i'm waaaaaay too weak. so is grinding unavoidable to successfully complete the game? or did i miss some quests?

[Necropassion]

Welcome to Ancardia, friend! Great fun, yet challenging is a good way to describe this game.

I'm very sure you're not doing everything wrong - starting the game in the ID is in itself a smart move for a novice player. Congratulations for completing two quests after only three days of playing - I can assure you it took me much longer than that. I'll try to answer your questions in order.

Corruption is an issue in most games of ADOM, but as you probably know there are ways to deal with it.
My best advice is to try to stay away from the corrupting areas during the early stages of the game. The upper levels of the ID are non-corrupting areas. Your character is probably not doomed. What corruption(s) have you aquired?
Items of corruption removal are generally found a tad later in the game, and are generally used to remove the very bad corruptions, rather than keeping your character completely clean.

My advice to you for avoiding annoying corruptions is thus: When you are building up/training your character, try to stay away from corrupting areas. There are ways to know which areas these are - just ask if you want to know.

Now for question number two.
I recognise this problem; having a cursed rusty broken fickle spear of damnation sticking to your right hand is far from ideal. Here are some tips to avoid this situation:

Most items are uncursed, therefore you should try equipping items that are arranged in a stacking heap. If you find a decent uncursed or blessed weapon I suggest you stick with it until you can identify all of your inventory.

If you are in the ID you are in the right place to find plenty of water. Altars are, however, never generated in the ID.

Some altars are of black obsidian, some of pure white marble, some of gray granite (IIRC). Can you guess which corresponds to which alignment?
Most of your humanoid antagonists are chaotic.
Most animals are neutral.
Some creatures are lawful, but they are generally few and far between.

To answer your final question:
Hotz is a tough nut to crack. So tough that I, in fact, never bothered with the quest. Magic or missiles are the best way to take him out, though.

Please note that I've tried to minimize the amount of spoilers in this post. If you want more precise information, feel free to ask!

Best of luck to you.

[TheMightyOne]

Thanks for the quick answer.

How do I find out what kind of corruption I have? The message was something like "The Chaos Brother touches you, you feel corrupted!".

If I'm not going to kill Hotz what should I do next? Where should I go? Is there another town nearby where I can get quests? What about my grinding-question? Should I train a bit more before I look for new quests?

What's the best character for a newbie? I've read that Priests are easy coz they fight well and have good healing abilities. My biggest success was a gnomish elementalist who died in the cave to the north west of the village, I've gone in too deep, didn't know the monster were twice my lvl after respawn. Learn this lesson the hard way... Having tried out some of the classes I have to say that its much more fun for me to play wizards and elementalists. Maybe there are some great combinations that I should know of?

Maybe you have some other general tips? Like run away if you're past 60% of your HP... Something that you just do without thinking about it

[JellySlayer]

Thanks for the quick answer.

How do I find out what kind of corruption I have? The message was something like "The Chaos Brother touches you, you feel corrupted!".

If I'm not going to kill Hotz what should I do next? Where should I go? Is there another town nearby where I can get quests? What about my grinding-question? Should I train a bit more before I look for new quests?

What's the best character for a newbie? I've read that Priests are easy coz they fight well and have good healing abilities. My biggest success was a gnomish elementalist who died in the cave to the north west of the village, I've gone in too deep, didn't know the monster were twice my lvl after respawn. Learn this lesson the hard way... Having tried out some of the classes I have to say that its much more fun for me to play wizards and elementalists. Maybe there are some great combinations that I should know of?

Maybe you have some other general tips? Like run away if you're past 60% of your HP... Something that you just do without thinking about it

Press \ to review your corruption status. If a monster has a corrupting attack (eg. chaos brother), that does not necessarily mean you have so much corruption that you will see any effects. If you don't see anything, don't worry about it in the short term. Corruption removal items are fairly rare (but may be the rewards for completing some difficult quests or finding some hidden locations), so you'll have to put up with most of the effects for now.

There are a few guaranteed altars in the game, but they're a little farther on from your present location. They can also be found randomly in dungeons. Be careful with altars of dieties that don't have the same alignment as you. Waters can be found randomly from killing monsters, or, on occasion, in stores. I believe they will be automatically identified when placed on a friendly altar. If not, well, it's pretty obvious what potion they are.

For a starting class, I like to recommend a strong melee class like an orc or troll barbarian. They're strong enough that you'll be able to kill most things easily, and will have enough health that you will survive a little longer. Troll healers are a great beginner class too, since they're practically indestructible. Trolls level a lot slower than other classes... don't be alarmed by this. Wizards are a great class once you know the ropes a bit... they're weak to start with so you need to play carefully until you get going.

Almost all of the quests are unnecessary to finish the game. Do the ones you want. The main location in the game is a cave in approximately the middle of the map. You'll want to make your way there eventually. You can press 7 to walk diagonally if you haven't done this before.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

In reply to another of your questions that I think is unanswered at the moment, no, if you are level 11 you don't need to scum now. You can perfectly proceed to the main dungeon in the game (the elder in Terinyo will provide a helpful description to identify it).

In fact, most of the time it isn't necessary to scum at all in ADOM, you can perfectly gain levels and experience by doing quests and exploring new locations. There are people who scum because they want to maximise their chances of survival, but if you're not the scumming type, you just don't need to do it.

A corrupting hit by a chaos brother corrupts you a bit, but probably not enough to see any effects yet. In fact, even if he hadn't touched you, you're probably already corrupted, because the world of Ancardia is tainted by chaos and many places in it slowly corrupt you over time. When your corruption level is enough to cause noticeable effects, the game will warn you (with a more specific message stating the effects, not just "you feel corrupted"), and then it will be convenient for you to have corruption removal items. But you probably needn't worry a lot at the moment if all you suffered is a single hit by a chaos brother.

[Necropassion]

Sorry it took me so long this time, but your questions have now been answered by two players much more experienced than I am, so you should listen to these guys. I'll just add a couple of thoughts.

You asked for tips regarding races and classes. Here are my picks for a beginner:
Drakish Fighter
Drakish Priest
Dwarven Paladin
High Elven Archer
Gnomish Wizard

JellySlayer's picks are all good ones, but it can be tough to change your alignment in order to receive 'Healing' with them.

For general advice (stuff I wish I knew when I started playing) I have some suggestions:

It's nice to have a low energy cost for your actions so you become quicker.
Train a weapon group to high levels so you can attack more quickly.
Long stride allows you to move at a faster rate.

PV is very important in the early stages of the game. Every point can be a potential life saver.

You don't need the 'Archery' skill to be succesful in ranged combat. Train your missile weapons. Pick up the first heap of rocks you encounter, and later start training in bows and crossbows.

Correct use of the tactics settings can mean the difference between life and death in a tight spot, so I recommend you to familiarize yourself with their uses.

That's what I can come up with for now.

[Sadface]

Maybe you have some other general tips? Like run away if you're past 60% of your HP... Something that you just do without thinking about it

1. Always remember that ADOM is completely turn-based. It won't do a thing until you tell it to. Use this time to scope out difficult situations, and a possible way to escape from some otherwise-deadly ones.

2. If it's a j, be careful around it. They all have some kind of special attack - for example: [SPOILER]

White j's paralyze you when they attack, and can paralyze you
when you attack them with a melee weapon. Yellow j's can poison you when
they attack, and green ones can sicken you.

(If you want to see the spoiler, just highlight the text inside the box)

3. Be aware of the different alignments. Sometimes it's easy to know what the alignment of an enemy is - a chaos brother, for example, is chaotic. Sacrificing live enemies can be dangerous if you're unsure about the enemy's alignment and that of the altar. Attacking some creatures that are Chaotic, or Lawful, will sometimes push your alignment in the other direction, sometimes in little tiny nudges, sometimes in humongous leaps.

4. Train up missiles - whether it be bows, crossbows, slings, or thrown rocks. It is exceedingly helpful to be able to pepper a nasty enemy full of arrows/bolts/bullets/rocks before it can reach you. Also, you can fire a ranged weapon in melee range.

5. It's bad for your "karma" to smack things that change colors. This doesn't actually happen if the creature is struck or killed by a ranged attack, though. See spoiler if you would like a more in-depth note about it...

Attacking a Karmic creature (Karmic Lizards are the kind you're most likely to see)
with a melee weapon will occasionally produce the message "You feel that this was
a bad idea!", which means the Karmic creature's defense has activated, and it will
either remove good luck/fate smiling, or grant cursed (character, not equipment)
or doomed. Cursed causes the game to nudge some rolls against you; doomed causes
many, many bad things to happen. Good luck and fate smiles are the opposite of cursed
and doomed, though the effects from Cursed are greater than the benefits from Good
Luck, and the effects from Doomed are greater than the benefits from Fate Smiles.

6. Have fun and explore! Though watch out for a "long and non-descript tunnel". That place is for higher-level characters, or those with ways to bypass its guardians. The more you know about the game's world, the easier it will be in future games to know where you can go, when.

Correct use of the tactics settings can mean the difference between life and death in a tight spot, so I recommend you to familiarize yourself with their uses.

Very good advice right there.

[TheMightyOne]

Thanks a lot of your tips.

Why I was so worried about corruption is because I thought it would be like a desease, so if I dont care of it it will spread and I end up dead. But the way you explained it it seems to be just a glass which is getting filled by every contact with corruption, so I just have to watch that it won't overflow.

I *want* to do all the quests coz I was promised a great story of epic proportions ^^

I think I understand how tactics work but I havent used them that much... It seemed logical to me to use Berserk with my Barbarian as long as he was able to kill anything with 1 hit. I also read that two shields + coward is a good option for wizards. Some guy claimed that if you're using a shield you should find a tactic that would make enemies hit your shield so you can train it that way. Apart from that I dont see a lot of use :-/ I mean I switch to coward if I'm running away from a bunch of enemies but thats basically it....

This leads me to another question, I use pp for casting, so what is mana good for then?

I read that there should be a manual.doc in the ADOM.zip which contains more information then the online manual. It's not in the win 1.1.1 zip. The only manual.doc I've found was in the DOS zip but I'm pretty sure its the same as the online one.

I've found some good sources of information though:
http://www.adomgb.info/
http://adom.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

Is there more?

[Laukku]

I've found some good sources of information though:
http://www.adomgb.info/
http://adom.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

Is there more?

Guides for several classes:

http://adomguides.blogspot.com/

[JellySlayer]

Thanks a lot of your tips.

Why I was so worried about corruption is because I thought it would be like a desease, so if I dont care of it it will spread and I end up dead. But the way you explained it it seems to be just a glass which is getting filled by every contact with corruption, so I just have to watch that it won't overflow.

That's about right.

I *want* to do all the quests coz I was promised a great story of epic proportions ^^

Nothing wrong with that Just don't feel obliged to do the quests in any particular order--if you aren't strong enough, you can always come back later (with two notable exceptions...).

I think I understand how tactics work but I havent used them that much... It seemed logical to me to use Berserk with my Barbarian as long as he was able to kill anything with 1 hit. I also read that two shields + coward is a good option for wizards. Some guy claimed that if you're using a shield you should find a tactic that would make enemies hit your shield so you can train it that way. Apart from that I dont see a lot of use :-/ I mean I switch to coward if I'm running away from a bunch of enemies but thats basically it....

I would say that you should try to use the tactics setting that minimizes the amount of damage you take. If you're too far into defensive tactics, it will take longer to kill things and increase your risk of getting hit by criticals... if you're playing on berserk all the time, you will kill a lot of things in 1 hit, but if you miss you could be in trouble against some monsters. It takes a bit of practice to figure out what setting is best.

This leads me to another question, I use pp for casting, so what is mana good for then?

The Mana attribute is determines your maximum power points. It is also strongly correlated with the character's intrinsic luck, which plays a role in all sorts of things.

I read that there should be a manual.doc in the ADOM.zip which contains more information then the online manual. It's not in the win 1.1.1 zip. The only manual.doc I've found was in the DOS zip but I'm pretty sure its the same as the online one.

In winbeta, start the game, and before you load, you should see an option to access the manual. I think you can get there by hitting '?' 'M' ingame too.

I've found some good sources of information though:
http://www.adomgb.info/
http://adom.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page

Is there more?

The guidebook is probably the best source of information for most purposes (these forums are pretty good too though). It is very spoily though, so if you want to discover things for yourself, you may not want to read all that much of it. The wiki is still very much a work in progress. I don't know how reliable it is at this point. I think a lot of the information there was originally derived from the guidebook, although there's been an effort recently to revive that wiki.