Hardship of a ratling farmer

[blunk]

Have been trying to get a ratling farmer through SMC/ud and oh my ...
Sometimes I've gotten through, sometimes even with a prayer left but never with any pv, rarely with and ranged ammo.
One of the more primising got back out in wilderness and ganged by barbarians ....

Finally I got blanket and polearm (another scythe) and cloak but didn't dare search for downstairs or shield because no PV, managed to get out to wilderness.
Did some pc1 and then VD, finally a small leeway with an N altar on vd3.
Got my first shield somewhere around vd4-5, got my first armour (-1+4) on vd 5 or 6!
Managed with some luck to save the carpenter and get healing.
Got a lawful orc spear (+d8 extra vs C).
Now about to challenge PC with a staggering 8 PV.

Lesson learned:
Seems items from UD is a lot better. The junk from VD... yuck.
For some mobs even as low as 3 pv can be useful to avoid nasty afflictions.

Ratling farmers approximate:
Strength 14-19 (extra carry capacity at lvl 6 on top of that)
1/3 have 10+ learning.
Dex 14-19
Toughness 15-22 (mostly 18-19)
Cha/ap seldom above 5.

Tons of not so useful early game skills.
Detect item status helps a lot for eqip id ... if you've actually found anything.
You'll never ever run out of food thanks to cooking, food preservation and lower food consumption. I realised I could use cooked corpses on the N altar to get very pleased.

[JellySlayer]

You should pump gardening early on. Farmers typically start with a bunch of herb seeds (4-6 for non-mist elfs) so with about 60ish gardening, there's a good chance that you can get an early herb farm up and running. Use seed gathering to accumulate more seeds and get all the herbs you need, and you can cover a lot of early game nuisances.

[blunk]

You should pump gardening early on. Farmers typically start with a bunch of herb seeds (4-6 for non-mist elfs) so with about 60ish gardening, there's a good chance that you can get an early herb farm up and running. Use seed gathering to accumulate more seeds and get all the herbs you need, and you can cover a lot of early game nuisances.

Oh I can plant herbs on a non herb level? I failed once and then forgot to check. Gardening was probably too low with that character.
While 3 skill gains per level aren't much a lot of skills get bad dice really early so I have paid some love to Gardening its 62.
I had the worst luck with spiders for poison resist and ants for acid resist but I got blink dog and just got the tele wand.
With teleport, 12 pv and potion of invis as backup I can now probably reach smc down to get to UD at lvl 11.

The spear of course got broken and replaced with orc spear d8+4.

I'll just go try get a potion of booze from beggar I think it is and get some holy water from that altar (good I didn't switch to L yet).


Edit:
Addition, PC went very well.
I cleaned out easy undead lesser spiral vault. Dog went into shop for now so as not go L.
Did use a blessed ID scroll (my only id) a potion of gain attributes, cure corruption and wand of acid and item detection were items of note.
Wand of item detection helped for getting tele wand.

[blunk]

Poor Thanquoil, got through smc and already on ud1 the hardship continued.
Lesser mixed vault ...
Luckly he'd picked up a blessed ring of fire resist earlier which help my hps vs the 2 stone statues, they still beat me up a bit.
I got caught by an acid vortex, which brought hps far down once again ... yes my only offensive wand was acid, can you tame it with that wand?

I heard several scary messages about distant wind and finally decided to read monster detection before considering central chamber (here you also see some of my stats):
ud1central.JPG


I think this will have to wait a bit....
Fire vortex isn't bad but ice is, summoners are both good and bad.

[sweetnothing]

Bloated and strained? Lol

[blunk]

Bloated and strained? Lol

Haha yeah always, note thats strained as farmer with extra innate carrying AND blessed girdle of carry.
I cleaned out the level below and found a ring of prot +3, dropped a bunch at stairs and equipped a girdle +3.
So ended up with 19 pv and a few more hps so I think I'm ready for the task.

[sweetnothing]

I would leave this vault alone and continue exploring UD. Of course after dropping junk and waiting till bloated will go away, so the speed will go back to 100 or higher. Ice vortex scares me here.

[blunk]

I would leave this vault alone and continue exploring UD. Of course after dropping junk and waiting till bloated will go away, so the speed will go back to 100 or higher. Ice vortex scares me here.

I did and on ud3 an acid vortex showed up around the corner and killed me.
In hindsight I should heave healed up more.

[blunk]

Next champ looks promising (after a few short fails inbetween).
SMC mostly cleared.
Got L altar on ud2.
Now slowly clearing bees on ud3 that had an increased healing rate room at stairs with a door.
Kill a few bees, get poisoned, heal up, rinse repeat.

Starting T of 20 helped with some extra hps, that L altar was huge.
Rocking 6 PV with shield and hoping for armour drops.

[blunk]

Tried gardening, managed to get some herbs going but wanted 2 south of my 2x2 patch looked like it was about to work when it suddenly decided not to be stable anymore
Got 4 morgia with which I could raise my T to 22 one pepper petal and 3 burb.
I sort of understand that I'd want really high gardening.
That along with clothes +0+2 and some spanking fencing gloves +3+3 brought up to 12 pv.
I also got poison resist which will be good ....

I happily straddled down and opened a mixed room ...
Now I will probably be able to clean the mess up but first I need to grind out sickness I got from corruptor