Roleplaying newbie

[garyd]

Hmm what precisely do you mean by role playing vs power gaming? If you were born after 1972 I've been playing RPG's longer than you've been alive. This is after all a rogue like and it tends to be quest oriented at certain spots. But you really don't have many opportunities for roleplaying in the sense that most of the people from the frustrated actors guild (RPGA) think of it.

[aj_]

I believe Beastfighters can wear any armor they want, up to and including Plate Mail. Possibly even Moloch Armor, but I never see anyone use that except for EXP gain. In fact, I think Monks are the only class that need to watch weight.

As for why your ranger failed... Well, Ants have a high armor value. It can be difficult to damage them, especially at a low level. What was your Strength? This is a primary component of damage; most characters can get up to 16 easily, just by carrying stuff around. Secondly, the Puppy Cave is a rather difficult cave to start in; for beginners, I would suggest the Infinite Dungeon, SSE of Terinyo(SE of Bandit Town). Easy monsters there, decent loot, and if you encounter something problematic you can run away.

I didn't check his strength :x. BTW, do all those questions at the character generation influence these stats, or something else?

As for what I meant by roleplaying, obviously I wasn't referring to pen&paper style of roleplaying, but more to playing a believable character and avoid weird stuff like dual-wielding shields or wizards packing plate armour (not that there's anything wrong with that if you're just interested in beating the game).

[spectre]

Well to be frank, I don't see anything wrong with wizards in plate armor. Pesky D&D, ruined more than a generation :-P

[garyd]

I'd recommend you ignore the questions and go for random. The question do help generate your stats. You will in general start out with better over all stats. Oh and until very late in the game dual weilding weapons sucks as you give up significant amounts of DV and PV if you don't have a shield. By the way don't try to replicate your approach to AD&D in this milieu. They are very different games and what is perfectly acceptable and in fact demanded of one in AD&D can and will get you killed in Adom. ADOM in certain regards is far more similar to Runequest in play style than it is to AD&D.

In Adom you want a shield no matter what character class you play. And a spear even if you aren't a heavy melee type. To learn why check out the chart in the manual.

[Grey]

I think polearms are a little overrated - the DV bonus is minor at low levels and completed dwarfed by a well-trained shield. Use whatever is the best weapon you find. Generally it's best to scum gnolls for battle axes, orcs for crude knives and orc scorchers for crude spears. Get a good prefix/suffix and the game will become much easier. Of course the best form of attack in ADOM is missiles...

The question system may seem nice from a role-playing perspective, but it quickly gets tiresome. All it does is swap some stats for others, and often the answer seems to have little bearing on the result. It's certainly not worth the time it takes to go through. You're best off changing the adom.cfg file to have it always random.

As for role-playing, one nice aspect of ADOM (in comparison with other roguelikes) is the number of NPCs and quests and the alignment system. From the very start of the game you have several choices in good, evil and neutrality. For actual gameplay though it's often best to ignore roleplaying and go with whatever is optimum, especially when still learning the game. Still, many people do succeed in applying elements of roleplaying and even winning with extreme roleplay restrictions throughout the game. Personally I'd say it's best to play in whatever way you find fun, even if it leads to frequent deaths (which are part of the fun of the game anyway).

[aj_]

Things are going much better now with my dwarven beastfighter. He messed about a bit in that infinite dungeon, then completed the druid quest. He's now level 9, but has a number of problems. Firstly, on my way out of the druid cave I ate a quasit and now he seems to be permanently sick, doesn't regen hp and, because the walk commands don't work now, I assume that it can lead to death. How do I get rid of this thing? Secondly, he has 3 cursed items on him, the worst being a girdle because it won't allow me to change the loincloths he started off with :P.

Also, I chose power as the reward for the druid quest, and got a book I can't read, and some wand. What is the reward for the knowledge option?

Thanks for putting up with a newbie .

[Al-Khwarizmi]

What is the reward for the knowledge option?

He teaches you Herbalism if you don't know it. If you already know Herbalism, he teaches you Gardening.

Herbalism is very useful, while Gardening is all but useless. The wand that he gave you can be very useful for melee characters later in the game, so if you plan to go very far with your character you may want to store it somewhere safe (if you're dying in the early game, better use it).

[gut]

> dwarven beastfighter

Good choice.

> completed the druid quest. He's now level 9

Good start.

> ate a quasit

Bad idea.

> How do I get rid of this

Eat a curia mancox herb. Prayer won't work, as it will just
fill your HP's, and you will (almost?) always imediately
lose so much HP's that a second prayer will just refill them
again. Drinking a potion of healing has a decent chance of
healing sickness, if memory serves. As a beastfighter though,
you probably have enough HP's to survive, just by waiting.
Go somewhere that you won't be pestered by enemies, like
a wilderness square, and just hold down 5. Should work.

> has 3 cursed items on him

You can pray repeatedly to anger your diety enough to turn
them to dust. Unfortunately, you will not be able to pray for
divine assistance after that.

> Also, I chose power as the reward for the druid quest,

Then you got a frost bolt wand. Knowledge would have
given you the herbalism skill if you did not have it, which
you did, so good choice : )

[Al-Khwarizmi]

I think polearms are a little overrated - the DV bonus is minor at low levels and completed dwarfed by a well-trained shield. Use whatever is the best weapon you find. Generally it's best to scum gnolls for battle axes, orcs for crude knives and orc scorchers for crude spears. Get a good prefix/suffix and the game will become much easier. Of course the best form of attack in ADOM is missiles...

I agree. It is true that polearms have the best modifiers overall, but they are not as good as to say that you absoloutely NEED spears. In the early/mid game, a good prefix/suffix can make up for those differences in modifiers, and there are some relatively easy-to-find weapons that are nice by themselves and perfectly usable, like halberds of defense and quicksilver quarterstaves. And in the late game, I don't really care about a bunch of points of DV so much. It's not as if the difference between having, say, 120 or 130 DV is so great, and you can always set a more defensive tactic if you want some more DV.

So, if you're obsessed with optimality, it's probably good to hunt for spears, but the game can be played pretty well without worrying about that.

[Dudley]

can't exchange your clothes...
Next time, get a dark elf.