JellySlayer
02-02-2010, 04:26 AM
My latest challenge was to try to win the game as an orc barbarian, playing the entire game with the doomed condition. This is probably my 10th or so attempt at this, and the second to make it passed the ToEF (the first died in a tragic fire giant accident).
Playing doomed as a melee is a pretty nasty experience as far as ADOM goes. In the early game, ghuls, carrion crawlers, brown worms, mimics, staring eyes, floating eyes, and gelatinous cubes all have a paralysing attack that can amount to instant death if it sticks (yes, those last three can actually paralyse if they hit you... news to me too). Stat drains are a constant problem... in one iteration I lost 10 points of St and 4 points of To trying to clear the upper level of the Griffyard. Shadows are nasty buggers about that, but I've also learned that quasits, shadow worms and shadow trolls can also give the annoying "You feel weak!" message. Armor needs to be constantly replaced--any monster has the capacity to damage non-artifact armor, and it all loses PV very quickly. A suit of studded leather armor lasts probably 2-3 complete dungeon levels on average before it needs to be scrapped. Other pieces tend to last significantly longer at least. Rune traps can destroy multiple items--sometimes half of your worn inventory--in one blast. And of course, monsters have more health, more DV, hit harder and penetrate more often.
My PC was a Candle-born orc barbarian by the name of DoomedBarb. I generally looked for one with at least 24 St and 24 To, but I'd take a bit lower if the starting PV was above 10. I would ditch my gear at Terinyo, pray until doomed and gather my things. I started off by making a blanket run--the SMC is reasonably safe until level 4--but wasn't able to find the stairs before I was forced to leave. I killed Kranach, grabbed pick pockets, then headed to the Druid Dungeon. DD:1 had a surge of power--levelled dark elf wizard--who I avoided because I wasn't ready to deal with a spider factory yet. I killed the druid, equipped the torc, and picked up the scorched spear on the way back up. I ended up using this weapon until the Casino, since other weapons also tend to get destroyed on a regular basis. I then did the puppy cave before wandering over to the CoC. Cleared my way down to Dwarftown, found lots of herbs and the si, and did a few odd jobs for Thrundarr. I also picked up a scroll of education, which taught me Alertness... I settled on risking the DH, and got fairly lucky doing it since both had stairs relatively close to each other. With the fireball wand in hand, I was able to make quick work of the Pyramid, then stopped by Darkforge to find some gear, but didn't find anything too interesting. I did High Kings next, but couldn't quite finished because I didn't have enough charges of frost bolt (oops!) and also apparently sold a bunch of my useful scrolls to a random scroll merchant by accident.
Due to the aforementioned stat drains, the Griffyard is always a real pain, and by the time that was finished, my strength had taken a bit of a beating. I decided to do a UD run in hopes of finding a friendly merchant, and, using my teleport wand, managed to located the SMC stairs at level 14ish. UD was decidedly uneventful, and Leggot was another dwarf--Barnabas, an orc himself, ended up being the best merchant I found all game. I decided to kill Khelly and get the water orb in preparation for the ToEF, but as some point foolishly drank a random pool. First sip--teleportitis. Without control, of course. I ended up having to go to Darkforge to drain a bunch of pools to get control, but also ended up old or very old from pool aging. This, of course, further eroded by St and To stats. The undead graveyard was nasty, and, once again, I lost a bunch of St and To. I think by the time I slipped passed (with most of it uncleared) I was down to 15 or 16 St, and had dropped from 35 to 28 To. I managed to kill the snake without darkness though. At some point around this time I picked up the Apish corruption, which basically solved by St/To problems permanently, albeit at the cost of a few other replacable stats. The ToEF was surprisingly easy; I slipped through mostly with teleport and invis, and managed to pull the ACW through a mob of other critters. Confusion was a big problem--with doomed (and the crown of science), the odds of getting confused even with 38 Wi + the ankh is pretty ridiculous--but I managed to land a cursed potion of invis on him, and dispatched him while he was blinded.
I descended down through the CoC (then remembered I still needed the RoTHK and ran back to get it), went passed the Wall of Flames and EG, and hit the Casino. There, among other things, I found the legendary spear "Soaker", a steal at 2.7 million gold, but unfortunately I didn't have enough to buy it since I had already bought Executor for 3.7 million...
Despite having the best weapon in the game, I found the endgame surprisingly challenging. A single ancient dragon of any colour (except karmic, curiously) could take off 2/3 of my health--the three dragon vaults that I came across were far too dangerous for me to clear. Elementals, both at Air and Earth, gave me more trouble than their respective chaos beasts (both of which were very easy). I stocked up on SoCR from the Rift (supplementing those from the mystic), and cleverly left those at the barbarian glade before hitting the Mana temple at level 32. Mana was probably the hardest part of the game. I picked up mana battery right as I was about to open the temple, and added stiff muscles about half way through. Between mana battery and dooming, my stockpile of wands were useless (almost impossible to wrench charges), so I was left with the tedious task of killing all of the chaos servants and WMoPC by hand. Eventually, the archmage showed up, and I pulled him into the trap line, hid behind a summoned elemental until I (eventually) become unconfused, and thwacked him with a potion of invisibility before dispatching him with Executor. I cleansed myself at the unicorn glade, then did the final dive.
D:50 was exciting. There was a threat room of frost giant jarls right by the stairs, and a huge mixed tension room directly blocking access to the main area. I decided I would ignore both and dig my way in, cleared the levers without too much difficulty, and planted a summoned elemental on each closed lever before escaping and leaving the chain, still doomed.
This adds another tally on my quest to complete the game with every class. Only ranger, bard, and healer left. [edit]Maybe I'll try the ranger doomed next.
Server recordings, if anyone is interested:
jellyslayer - ttyrec-Tue-Feb-2-03:16:37-2010 (Endgame)
jellyslayer - ttyrec-Tue-Feb-2-00:31:18-2010 (Air, Rift, Earth, Mana)
jellyslayer - ttyrec-Mon-Feb-1-07:31:52-2010 (Water, ToEF, Casino)
jellyslayer - ttyrec-Mon-Feb-1-06:43:24-2010 (UD)
jellyslayer - ttyrec-Mon-Feb-1-01:45:47-2010 (Griffyard)
jellyslayer - ttyrec-Sun-Jan-31-21:44:59-2010 (Dwarftown, Pyramid, Darkforge, High Kings)
jellyslayer - ttyrec-Sun-Jan-31-07:32:57-2010 (Early game up to Dwarftown)
Playing doomed as a melee is a pretty nasty experience as far as ADOM goes. In the early game, ghuls, carrion crawlers, brown worms, mimics, staring eyes, floating eyes, and gelatinous cubes all have a paralysing attack that can amount to instant death if it sticks (yes, those last three can actually paralyse if they hit you... news to me too). Stat drains are a constant problem... in one iteration I lost 10 points of St and 4 points of To trying to clear the upper level of the Griffyard. Shadows are nasty buggers about that, but I've also learned that quasits, shadow worms and shadow trolls can also give the annoying "You feel weak!" message. Armor needs to be constantly replaced--any monster has the capacity to damage non-artifact armor, and it all loses PV very quickly. A suit of studded leather armor lasts probably 2-3 complete dungeon levels on average before it needs to be scrapped. Other pieces tend to last significantly longer at least. Rune traps can destroy multiple items--sometimes half of your worn inventory--in one blast. And of course, monsters have more health, more DV, hit harder and penetrate more often.
My PC was a Candle-born orc barbarian by the name of DoomedBarb. I generally looked for one with at least 24 St and 24 To, but I'd take a bit lower if the starting PV was above 10. I would ditch my gear at Terinyo, pray until doomed and gather my things. I started off by making a blanket run--the SMC is reasonably safe until level 4--but wasn't able to find the stairs before I was forced to leave. I killed Kranach, grabbed pick pockets, then headed to the Druid Dungeon. DD:1 had a surge of power--levelled dark elf wizard--who I avoided because I wasn't ready to deal with a spider factory yet. I killed the druid, equipped the torc, and picked up the scorched spear on the way back up. I ended up using this weapon until the Casino, since other weapons also tend to get destroyed on a regular basis. I then did the puppy cave before wandering over to the CoC. Cleared my way down to Dwarftown, found lots of herbs and the si, and did a few odd jobs for Thrundarr. I also picked up a scroll of education, which taught me Alertness... I settled on risking the DH, and got fairly lucky doing it since both had stairs relatively close to each other. With the fireball wand in hand, I was able to make quick work of the Pyramid, then stopped by Darkforge to find some gear, but didn't find anything too interesting. I did High Kings next, but couldn't quite finished because I didn't have enough charges of frost bolt (oops!) and also apparently sold a bunch of my useful scrolls to a random scroll merchant by accident.
Due to the aforementioned stat drains, the Griffyard is always a real pain, and by the time that was finished, my strength had taken a bit of a beating. I decided to do a UD run in hopes of finding a friendly merchant, and, using my teleport wand, managed to located the SMC stairs at level 14ish. UD was decidedly uneventful, and Leggot was another dwarf--Barnabas, an orc himself, ended up being the best merchant I found all game. I decided to kill Khelly and get the water orb in preparation for the ToEF, but as some point foolishly drank a random pool. First sip--teleportitis. Without control, of course. I ended up having to go to Darkforge to drain a bunch of pools to get control, but also ended up old or very old from pool aging. This, of course, further eroded by St and To stats. The undead graveyard was nasty, and, once again, I lost a bunch of St and To. I think by the time I slipped passed (with most of it uncleared) I was down to 15 or 16 St, and had dropped from 35 to 28 To. I managed to kill the snake without darkness though. At some point around this time I picked up the Apish corruption, which basically solved by St/To problems permanently, albeit at the cost of a few other replacable stats. The ToEF was surprisingly easy; I slipped through mostly with teleport and invis, and managed to pull the ACW through a mob of other critters. Confusion was a big problem--with doomed (and the crown of science), the odds of getting confused even with 38 Wi + the ankh is pretty ridiculous--but I managed to land a cursed potion of invis on him, and dispatched him while he was blinded.
I descended down through the CoC (then remembered I still needed the RoTHK and ran back to get it), went passed the Wall of Flames and EG, and hit the Casino. There, among other things, I found the legendary spear "Soaker", a steal at 2.7 million gold, but unfortunately I didn't have enough to buy it since I had already bought Executor for 3.7 million...
Despite having the best weapon in the game, I found the endgame surprisingly challenging. A single ancient dragon of any colour (except karmic, curiously) could take off 2/3 of my health--the three dragon vaults that I came across were far too dangerous for me to clear. Elementals, both at Air and Earth, gave me more trouble than their respective chaos beasts (both of which were very easy). I stocked up on SoCR from the Rift (supplementing those from the mystic), and cleverly left those at the barbarian glade before hitting the Mana temple at level 32. Mana was probably the hardest part of the game. I picked up mana battery right as I was about to open the temple, and added stiff muscles about half way through. Between mana battery and dooming, my stockpile of wands were useless (almost impossible to wrench charges), so I was left with the tedious task of killing all of the chaos servants and WMoPC by hand. Eventually, the archmage showed up, and I pulled him into the trap line, hid behind a summoned elemental until I (eventually) become unconfused, and thwacked him with a potion of invisibility before dispatching him with Executor. I cleansed myself at the unicorn glade, then did the final dive.
D:50 was exciting. There was a threat room of frost giant jarls right by the stairs, and a huge mixed tension room directly blocking access to the main area. I decided I would ignore both and dig my way in, cleared the levers without too much difficulty, and planted a summoned elemental on each closed lever before escaping and leaving the chain, still doomed.
This adds another tally on my quest to complete the game with every class. Only ranger, bard, and healer left. [edit]Maybe I'll try the ranger doomed next.
Server recordings, if anyone is interested:
jellyslayer - ttyrec-Tue-Feb-2-03:16:37-2010 (Endgame)
jellyslayer - ttyrec-Tue-Feb-2-00:31:18-2010 (Air, Rift, Earth, Mana)
jellyslayer - ttyrec-Mon-Feb-1-07:31:52-2010 (Water, ToEF, Casino)
jellyslayer - ttyrec-Mon-Feb-1-06:43:24-2010 (UD)
jellyslayer - ttyrec-Mon-Feb-1-01:45:47-2010 (Griffyard)
jellyslayer - ttyrec-Sun-Jan-31-21:44:59-2010 (Dwarftown, Pyramid, Darkforge, High Kings)
jellyslayer - ttyrec-Sun-Jan-31-07:32:57-2010 (Early game up to Dwarftown)