furious_styles
04-01-2009, 04:43 PM
A Proton Man YAVP ;)
Proton Man / Naked Man is pretty simple - take all equipment off when the game begins, then never equip anything. This is my second shot at it with a DE wizard, the last one having been unexpectedly killed by Nuurag-Vaarn while I was already composing the YAVP in my head, so this second guy is out for revenge (and to advance the cause of naturism).
NoGearNoCry started out with an Invisibility tome, and headed straight for the CoC. My early-game approach was to get morgia ASAP, so that I could train To, then go and bolt bugs for XP and Dex and take the To-dependent Hardy > Skin talent line (Tough/Iron/Steel Skin) for some much-needed PV. I got lucky and had a herb-sustaining level on D:4 where I isolated stoma and morgia, and a gray altar on D:3 which I used to move from C to N before generating Dwarftown. I bolted bugs and ate corpses to take my Dex to 60 and base speed to 140 (it's the poor man's 7LB, don't you know). This helped twofold as I was now 80/8 on Coward - pretty survivable so long as I didn't get mired in a big fight - and fast enough to outrun anything I didn't care to be close to (which was a lot of stuff). I went back to the CoC and sacced stoma for a neutral crowning, getting cold immunity.
I spent a while in the ID where I swept the upper floors harvesting spellbooks and consumables, and raising my Unarmed skill. I found most all of the spells I'd need, and built up a big stash of PoGA also (I think I had 7 when I finally left). Once I was suitably outfitted, I cleaned up all the Terinyo and Dwarftown quests, finding an AoLS in the Griffyard (hooray!) and being denied SoCR from the Mystic (booo!). After that, it was away to Darkforge to ball-spell the steel zombies and play Intrinsics Roulette with the pools. I start sipping, and almost immediately I get a wish. I go for SoCR, and get four, making my total 11 (Khelavaster, Wish, HMV). Carry on sipping... another wish! Mindful of how badly Nuurag-Vaarn's confusion attack had owned my last Proton Man, I go for potions of willpower. Then I get another wish. Potions of willpower again. Thank you so much, RNG, for throwing wishes at me when I'm playing a no-equipment-at-all challenge game.
For intrinsics, I end up with shock resist, death ray resist, and see invisible. Could be worse, but could certainly be better - I don't have paralysis resist. Even at clvl 20, a lowly mimic or carrion crawler could still one-shot me if it gets the opportunity, to say nothing of the more dangerous paralysing monsters. No stun resist either. Lastly, the ToEF is going to have to be tackled soon, and I don't have fire resistance. I do the Rift, hoping a red dragon spawns in the Library, but nada. I turn in the Weird Tome, then clear out the CoC down to the Water Temple but still nothing. So, my options are, be sensible and go back to the ID and scum for fire creatures for god knows how long, or attempt the ToEF not only naked, but with no fire resistance.
So, I blessed and quaffed all my PoGA and potions of stat, gathered up some spenseweed and headed to the tower. Surge of power on TF:3, the RNG really likes to rub it in, huh? Scorched spear guarded by chaos sister. To the top level, Farsight on, dig a path with a side corridor to hide in, aggro the ACW from long distance, Stun Ray around the corner, Frost Bolt until he drops. The 10hp/turn lost to the heat made things a bit tenser than usual, but there were no heart-in-mouth moments. Here's how NoGearNoCry looked when he took on the ToEF:
You rub your wounds with the weed. Your pain is eased.
#########
#.......# # #
#################...>...# # # . . # #
#.........../.#./.......# .. .
#...........#.#.######### #. # #.. .
#...........#.#.# # #.....
#...........#.#.# ######### #&&..... #
#...........#...# #.......# # .#&.&...... #
###/###########.# #.......###################&..&....... .
#.# #.# #....................W.....&..&.C..[.. .. # #
#/## #####/###.......######@###########........_...
#.....# #...../.#.......######.# # .......... .
#.....# #.....#.#..............# . .##......... #
#.....# #.....#.........######.# #. ## #####
####### #.....#.######### #.# . . ## . . # # #
#...../.# #.# ## . #
######### #.# # ## # #
#.#
###
NoGearNoCry St:27 Le:31 Wi:48 Dx:68 To:33 Ch:25 Ap:23 Ma:50 Pe:29 N=
DV/PV: 53/12 H: 245(258) P: 124(400) Exp: 21/902495 TF: 4 M: 104044
Blessed Invisible Bloated
Things began to pick up from that point on, as I got some luck with corruptions, getting Thin and Nimble and Tough Scales, bringing me up to around 90/20 cowarding. Looking semi-respectable now, though obviously great care needed to be taken around anything that hit hard or had a status-effect attack. The Air and Earth temples were uneventful, the cat lord gifted me a cat's eye ring, and somewhere around D:38 I Acid Balled a tension room of chaos knights into soggy mush, and found among their remains a glowing wand, with four charges, no less. I took the Dodge skill, and then, having pretty much run out of ideas, spent the other four wishes on yet more potions of willpower. I killed Sharad-Waador and Shyssiryxius, and spent a while in the lower levels of the BDC trying to soak up XP before taking another run at Nuurag-Vaarn.
Eventually, at clvl 37, I took a deep breath and dug my way into the Mana Temple. For some reason, the magebane/magedoom eyes didn't drain my PP in the corridor, which gave me a huge advantage, as I was able to bust straight in through the secret door with a full tank of PP and Acid Ball the hell out of half the temple before they had a chance to react. Distressingly, Nuurag-Vaarn still confused me instantly - it seems like any PC doing a Proton Man challenge will invariably be confused here, as there's no confusion resistance intrinsic and even a ludicrously high Wi (I think it was 61) didn't make a blind bit of difference. Fortunately, I could still cast roughly every other turn, so I just kept on re-lighting the area, healing, and waiting for the archmage to close in to within ball spell range. Though it was a bit hair-raising being Confused and surrounded in the middle of the temple with Nuurag bolting me every now and then, I never came seriously close to dying and he eventually fell to Acid Ball.
Onward, then, to what was to be one of the biggest hurdles of the whole run - D:49. Now, the rules of Proton Man prohibit equipping anything in any slot, so you can't use missiles here. I'd assumed that if you 'U'sed a projectile from your inventory, you'd throw it, but no. After some experimentation with ADOM Sage and a .svg from D:50, I was lost. I tried digging the ground, I tried using a scroll of familiar summoning (thinking I could move a pet in front of me and :s it, but no), casting Earthquake, dropping big piles of gear to try and bounce myself off of by kicking it, all failed. The only Proton Man YAVP I could find with Google was posted long ago and the discussion was on a Russian-language forum. Eventually, I figured it out, and felt stupid for not having realised it earlier. For those who hadn't contemplated traversing D:49 without missiles, as I hadn't, I'll spoiler how I actually did it in case you want to ponder this one yourself... [use Mystic Shovel / a pickaxe / wand of digging etc to make the corridor two squares wide, then kick the walls diagonally backward to propel yourself around in a zigzag fashion].
.vlg of char on D:49 here (http://uk.geocities.com/furi0us.styles/d49.txt).
Another annoyance here was that I had a potion of uselessness, but would have broken Proton Man rules if I'd thrown it :(. Ah well, it's not like I could've used the artifact anyway.
D:50 itself was as uneventful as you'd expect for an endgame wizard. As I was faster than the balors, I could ball-spell, back off, repeat, and the other mobs presented no real danger so long as I didn't jump into the thick of things. Here's the PC, naked as the day he was born, standing triumphantly next to the closed Chaos Gate.
############ #######################################
#!.[...%...# #...../[....(.......(.....[./......[..#
#...[.*....############ ####### #..<..#######################.........#
#.[[[....../.....(.![.# #.....# #.....# #..........[......../.........#
#.###################(# #.%...# #/##### #.........#####################
#...........## #.# #.....# #.# #.........#
#....%[[[....## #.########[....# #(#######.........###############
#@...!.[([....# ###.......######.# #....././........./...+.........#
#..(..[(..[...#####...[......#####.#####.....###.#############.........#
#8...([[[.....(.......[....'...[......./.$...# #.# #.........#
#...[..[[.}...#####..........#####.########### #+# #...[.....#
#.....(.[.....# ###.......######.# #.........#
#.......(....## #.########(.(..# #####+#####
#../.%%.....## #[# #...].#
#.###################(# #.....#
#](......[[/%.......[.# #.....#
#!.........############ #######
############
NoGearNoCry St:30 Le:33 Wi:65 Dx:64 To:48 Ch:27 Ap:13 Ma:55 Pe:31 N+
DV/PV: 94/28 H: 724(789) P: 895(1119) Exp: 50/24598460 D: 50 Sp: 140
Blessed Bloated Coward
Proton Man / Naked Man is pretty simple - take all equipment off when the game begins, then never equip anything. This is my second shot at it with a DE wizard, the last one having been unexpectedly killed by Nuurag-Vaarn while I was already composing the YAVP in my head, so this second guy is out for revenge (and to advance the cause of naturism).
NoGearNoCry started out with an Invisibility tome, and headed straight for the CoC. My early-game approach was to get morgia ASAP, so that I could train To, then go and bolt bugs for XP and Dex and take the To-dependent Hardy > Skin talent line (Tough/Iron/Steel Skin) for some much-needed PV. I got lucky and had a herb-sustaining level on D:4 where I isolated stoma and morgia, and a gray altar on D:3 which I used to move from C to N before generating Dwarftown. I bolted bugs and ate corpses to take my Dex to 60 and base speed to 140 (it's the poor man's 7LB, don't you know). This helped twofold as I was now 80/8 on Coward - pretty survivable so long as I didn't get mired in a big fight - and fast enough to outrun anything I didn't care to be close to (which was a lot of stuff). I went back to the CoC and sacced stoma for a neutral crowning, getting cold immunity.
I spent a while in the ID where I swept the upper floors harvesting spellbooks and consumables, and raising my Unarmed skill. I found most all of the spells I'd need, and built up a big stash of PoGA also (I think I had 7 when I finally left). Once I was suitably outfitted, I cleaned up all the Terinyo and Dwarftown quests, finding an AoLS in the Griffyard (hooray!) and being denied SoCR from the Mystic (booo!). After that, it was away to Darkforge to ball-spell the steel zombies and play Intrinsics Roulette with the pools. I start sipping, and almost immediately I get a wish. I go for SoCR, and get four, making my total 11 (Khelavaster, Wish, HMV). Carry on sipping... another wish! Mindful of how badly Nuurag-Vaarn's confusion attack had owned my last Proton Man, I go for potions of willpower. Then I get another wish. Potions of willpower again. Thank you so much, RNG, for throwing wishes at me when I'm playing a no-equipment-at-all challenge game.
For intrinsics, I end up with shock resist, death ray resist, and see invisible. Could be worse, but could certainly be better - I don't have paralysis resist. Even at clvl 20, a lowly mimic or carrion crawler could still one-shot me if it gets the opportunity, to say nothing of the more dangerous paralysing monsters. No stun resist either. Lastly, the ToEF is going to have to be tackled soon, and I don't have fire resistance. I do the Rift, hoping a red dragon spawns in the Library, but nada. I turn in the Weird Tome, then clear out the CoC down to the Water Temple but still nothing. So, my options are, be sensible and go back to the ID and scum for fire creatures for god knows how long, or attempt the ToEF not only naked, but with no fire resistance.
So, I blessed and quaffed all my PoGA and potions of stat, gathered up some spenseweed and headed to the tower. Surge of power on TF:3, the RNG really likes to rub it in, huh? Scorched spear guarded by chaos sister. To the top level, Farsight on, dig a path with a side corridor to hide in, aggro the ACW from long distance, Stun Ray around the corner, Frost Bolt until he drops. The 10hp/turn lost to the heat made things a bit tenser than usual, but there were no heart-in-mouth moments. Here's how NoGearNoCry looked when he took on the ToEF:
You rub your wounds with the weed. Your pain is eased.
#########
#.......# # #
#################...>...# # # . . # #
#.........../.#./.......# .. .
#...........#.#.######### #. # #.. .
#...........#.#.# # #.....
#...........#.#.# ######### #&&..... #
#...........#...# #.......# # .#&.&...... #
###/###########.# #.......###################&..&....... .
#.# #.# #....................W.....&..&.C..[.. .. # #
#/## #####/###.......######@###########........_...
#.....# #...../.#.......######.# # .......... .
#.....# #.....#.#..............# . .##......... #
#.....# #.....#.........######.# #. ## #####
####### #.....#.######### #.# . . ## . . # # #
#...../.# #.# ## . #
######### #.# # ## # #
#.#
###
NoGearNoCry St:27 Le:31 Wi:48 Dx:68 To:33 Ch:25 Ap:23 Ma:50 Pe:29 N=
DV/PV: 53/12 H: 245(258) P: 124(400) Exp: 21/902495 TF: 4 M: 104044
Blessed Invisible Bloated
Things began to pick up from that point on, as I got some luck with corruptions, getting Thin and Nimble and Tough Scales, bringing me up to around 90/20 cowarding. Looking semi-respectable now, though obviously great care needed to be taken around anything that hit hard or had a status-effect attack. The Air and Earth temples were uneventful, the cat lord gifted me a cat's eye ring, and somewhere around D:38 I Acid Balled a tension room of chaos knights into soggy mush, and found among their remains a glowing wand, with four charges, no less. I took the Dodge skill, and then, having pretty much run out of ideas, spent the other four wishes on yet more potions of willpower. I killed Sharad-Waador and Shyssiryxius, and spent a while in the lower levels of the BDC trying to soak up XP before taking another run at Nuurag-Vaarn.
Eventually, at clvl 37, I took a deep breath and dug my way into the Mana Temple. For some reason, the magebane/magedoom eyes didn't drain my PP in the corridor, which gave me a huge advantage, as I was able to bust straight in through the secret door with a full tank of PP and Acid Ball the hell out of half the temple before they had a chance to react. Distressingly, Nuurag-Vaarn still confused me instantly - it seems like any PC doing a Proton Man challenge will invariably be confused here, as there's no confusion resistance intrinsic and even a ludicrously high Wi (I think it was 61) didn't make a blind bit of difference. Fortunately, I could still cast roughly every other turn, so I just kept on re-lighting the area, healing, and waiting for the archmage to close in to within ball spell range. Though it was a bit hair-raising being Confused and surrounded in the middle of the temple with Nuurag bolting me every now and then, I never came seriously close to dying and he eventually fell to Acid Ball.
Onward, then, to what was to be one of the biggest hurdles of the whole run - D:49. Now, the rules of Proton Man prohibit equipping anything in any slot, so you can't use missiles here. I'd assumed that if you 'U'sed a projectile from your inventory, you'd throw it, but no. After some experimentation with ADOM Sage and a .svg from D:50, I was lost. I tried digging the ground, I tried using a scroll of familiar summoning (thinking I could move a pet in front of me and :s it, but no), casting Earthquake, dropping big piles of gear to try and bounce myself off of by kicking it, all failed. The only Proton Man YAVP I could find with Google was posted long ago and the discussion was on a Russian-language forum. Eventually, I figured it out, and felt stupid for not having realised it earlier. For those who hadn't contemplated traversing D:49 without missiles, as I hadn't, I'll spoiler how I actually did it in case you want to ponder this one yourself... [use Mystic Shovel / a pickaxe / wand of digging etc to make the corridor two squares wide, then kick the walls diagonally backward to propel yourself around in a zigzag fashion].
.vlg of char on D:49 here (http://uk.geocities.com/furi0us.styles/d49.txt).
Another annoyance here was that I had a potion of uselessness, but would have broken Proton Man rules if I'd thrown it :(. Ah well, it's not like I could've used the artifact anyway.
D:50 itself was as uneventful as you'd expect for an endgame wizard. As I was faster than the balors, I could ball-spell, back off, repeat, and the other mobs presented no real danger so long as I didn't jump into the thick of things. Here's the PC, naked as the day he was born, standing triumphantly next to the closed Chaos Gate.
############ #######################################
#!.[...%...# #...../[....(.......(.....[./......[..#
#...[.*....############ ####### #..<..#######################.........#
#.[[[....../.....(.![.# #.....# #.....# #..........[......../.........#
#.###################(# #.%...# #/##### #.........#####################
#...........## #.# #.....# #.# #.........#
#....%[[[....## #.########[....# #(#######.........###############
#@...!.[([....# ###.......######.# #....././........./...+.........#
#..(..[(..[...#####...[......#####.#####.....###.#############.........#
#8...([[[.....(.......[....'...[......./.$...# #.# #.........#
#...[..[[.}...#####..........#####.########### #+# #...[.....#
#.....(.[.....# ###.......######.# #.........#
#.......(....## #.########(.(..# #####+#####
#../.%%.....## #[# #...].#
#.###################(# #.....#
#](......[[/%.......[.# #.....#
#!.........############ #######
############
NoGearNoCry St:30 Le:33 Wi:65 Dx:64 To:48 Ch:27 Ap:13 Ma:55 Pe:31 N+
DV/PV: 94/28 H: 724(789) P: 895(1119) Exp: 50/24598460 D: 50 Sp: 140
Blessed Bloated Coward