Save scummer and cheater wants to play a legit game...

[Blasphemous]

Hello everybody, this being my first post I guess I should introduce myself; on second thought however, allow me to skip that part and get to the point.

I'm a bad case of a save scummer and cheat engine abuser. I'm not gonna deny that. However, the problem I run into recently is that because of this, the game bores me. I've been playing ADOM for years, at least since some 0.9 beta and have seen its development. I finished the game with uncounted deaths and savefile restorations, with many races, classes and ending, including ultra, L+ and C- and what not.
Now however I want to give a try and play the game the way it was meant to be played. No character reload after death, no reloading on undesirable pool outcome etc, you get the point. I know most (I think) of the tricks used in the game, scummy or not, including dipping 19 rings in PoE to get RoDS, stairhopping in ID and a lot more.
The problem is, obviously, I keep dying. In all kinds of ways - fatal sickness from drinking pools, ghul paralyzes, poisons, traps, etc. Usually that happens between lvls 1-10. I got a few chars around lvl 14-15 and managed to get to dwarftown or fortress-like village but everytime a char seems hopeful, he/she dies a terrible painful death.

My question is: could someone list a couple of things that would maybe help me out in getting used to the permanence of the legit game without reloads, like easier chars to play (I hear grey elven wizards are one such type) or some careful methods of exploration etc. Maybe the problem is in going through the dungeons too fast or trying to clear higher-lvl dungeons too soon (dark forge comes to mind, I can't even begin to count my deaths in that place)?

I've been visiting these forums for a long time but never really felt the need to share any of my experiences, until now. I saw a lot of people that play and finish the game with many different classes and races, even undertaking additional limits and challenges (iron/steel/eternium man comes to mind; a truly crazy way to torment oneself if you ask me) and I really hold those people in high regards, that's some incredible mastery of the game mechanics and various tricks.
At this point I don't aspire to be anything more than random chaos gate closer. No elder chaos gods or tridents of the red rooster for me, not yet at least.
Still, even getting to ToEF or any of the orb temples and killing the monsters/orb guardians and surviving seems like a daunting task for me.
Does anybody have any suggestions for a guy like me? How do people get so many intristics out of the pools when you can get so many bad ones? Where do people get all the wands of wishing with 4-5 charges or enough wands of digging to get through the walls of the orb temples? Is ID the only way to get enough spellbooks to cast as much as I want? I seem to be running out of spells quickly and have to resort to hand to hand even when playing with a wizard o_O
What about all those monsters that shrugg the bolts off? There are ball spells of course but the costs are usually high, spellbooks more difficult to get and willpower needed to reach 2 spaces radius is around 33, while I get 17-20 starting Wi. Also I can't seem to grasp the idea of precrowning and this seems to be a vital element of the early-mid game. It has something to do with the amount of artifacts generated but I don't know anything else. Another thing is speed. How do people get around 170-200 speed playing the game normally? I mean it's possible, there are quickling raiding parties and with food preservation the corpses are tasty, but this is a tedious and time consuming process.
Should I do as master Yoda told Luke: You have to unlearn what you have learned?

I mean being aware of what awaits me later in CoC does make things a bit more expectable but at the same time terrifying, knowing that I might die and lose days or weeks of playing with this single char. Not necessarily killed by Nuurag Varn with death rays but anything as simple and prosaic as getting confused after eating a corpse and eating cursed demon daisy instead of blessed moss of marelion - dying as a result of sickness.

Wow that's a lot of ASCII symbols in one post, I hope you don't mind reading through all the garbage above and you still might be willing to help me out a bit.

[Grey]

Should I do as master Yoda told Luke: You have to unlearn what you have learned?


By the sounds of it, yes. Forget about the tales of wands of wishing and 170+ speed - these are notable because they're unusual, and certainly only late game. At the start you should be overjoyed with the +10 speed from Raven, and you're lucky if you get a wish before the tower. And stick the hell away from DarkForge until you have 150+ HP and a way to kill the golems quickly.

Stop pool-sipping - the rewards can be good, but usually it leads to pain or death. Make sure you pay close attention to altars - don't step on the wrong ones, and keep up your piety with aligned ones. Praying gets you out of most situation and if you keep your piety high then you have practically unlimited prayers.

If you're running out of castings then I must presume you're playing a race with low Le. It's possibly the most important stat for a starting wizard. I'd suggest playing gnomes for excellent magic stats plus a bit more hardiness than an elf. Cup starsign is good too. Don't be afraid to bash things over the head in melee now and then, especially goblins and rats and the like. Stair-hopping for extra books in the ID is nothing to be ashamed of either. Make sure to get invisibility and teleport, as you can usually survive any situation with these.

One-handed weapon + shield is generally best for all characters. Use tactics changes a lot - explore on Coward and melee on Very Agressive (not Berserk). Build up your shield skill and make sure you have some decent PV items; a combination of good PV and DV will protect you from paralysis deaths. Make sure to switch to Coward tactics when running away too, as it will give you a movement speed bonus.

Missiles are pretty vital too, especially for non-mages. Missiles are very powerful in the game, and since most enemies don't have ranged attacks it means you can easily soften them up or kill them with zero risk to yourself. Drakelings should also make good use of acid spit, since it works extremely well against a lot of creatures.

Let us know how you get on, and maybe post some examples of actual character deaths.

[grobblewobble]

> I'm a bad case of a save scummer
Been there, done that. I know how difficult it is to get used to playing without save scumming. However, once you drop that habit, the game does become a lot more fun.

> fatal sickness from drinking pools
Pools are dangerous and can easily kill a low-level character. Don't drink from pools, unless you are well prepared to deal with all of the possible bad effects, especially sickness and dooming. In fact, in most normal games there is no reason to mess with pools at all.

> ghul paralyzes
Fighting ghuls is reasonably safe once your PV is above 5. Until then, be very afraid of them. Kill them from a distance with spells or missiles or run away.

> poisons
Poison resistance is very important to get in the early game. Try to eat a spider corpse as soon as you can. If you get a message about your throat feeling rough, you have the resistance.
Until you have the resistance, try to avoid snakes. If you can't avoid them, shoot them from a distance.

If you play a melee oriented character, try to get a pile of rocks as soon as you can. You need them to deal with monsters that are not safe to engage in melee, like ghuls and snakes.

> traps
Death from traps is hard to avoid as long as you have less than 40 hitpoints. What you can do:
- Play females, they are charged half the normal price from the cloaked ratling for keys.
- If you really hate being killed by stone block traps, try the tougher race/class combinations, like dwarf paladin.

> trying to clear higher-lvl dungeons too soon
Darkforge is a very dangerous place. No reason to go there unless you are well prepared. A well-know strategy is to rob it, using the wand of teleportation. However, this is in no way necessary. The easiest way not to die there is to avoid it.

> How do people get so many intristics out of the pools when you can get so many bad ones?
As I said above, you don't need pools at all. However, the bad effects can be removed. I assume you know how to remove dooming and cursing? For sickness, you need either a blessed potion of healing or a curaria.

> Where do people get all the wands of wishing with 4-5 charges
That's just luck. But you don't need this to finish the game. In the majority of wins, people haven't found such things.

> or enough wands of digging to get through the walls of the orb temples?
You need to recharge your wands with booze, potions of mana and scrolls of charging. You can get booze from beggars. Give them money (50 gold is enough) and then talk to them. If the beggar gives you a random advice instead of booze, try again. You can only get one booze from each beggar, though.
Bless booze and other rechargers before using them to add more charges.

> Is ID the only way to get enough spellbooks to cast as much as I want?
No. The ID is only needed for speedruns. For a normal victory, it is tedious and not necessary. Treasure Hunter is good for normal wizard victories. Monsters will drop more loot, including books.

> What about all those monsters that shrugg the bolts off?
If you keep trying, those monsters will occasionally fail to shrug off the bolt. There is also the burning hands spell (can't be shrugged).

> while I get 17-20 starting Wi
You can raise that to 25 with morgia roots. Herbs play a very important role in the game.

> Also I can't seem to grasp the idea of precrowning and this seems to be a vital element
> of the early-mid game.
It isn't vital. Without reloading savegames, precrowing is much less attractive. There is a good chance you end up with a junk artifact. If you are attempting an ultra you can at least feed it to the ratling, but for normal victories I recommend against precrowning. Getting the black tome for your hard work is too frustrating.

> easier chars to play
It depends on your playing style. Wizards and priests are powerful, but personally I prefer other classes. Dwarf paladins, high elf archers, dark elf beastfighters, orc/troll barbarians and gnome monks are some combinations that you could try. See what works best for you.

[Silfir]

From the sound of it, you've already achieved the most important thing: You aren't bored with the game anymore. That should count as a win in and of itself. Closing the gate is secondary compared to having fun in the attempt. That way you keep going even if you fail.

There is a lot you can do to stay alive, but no one ever started out a master. You don't have to be taught all that much; you just need to acquire more cautiousness, an almost healthy amount of sheer paranoia, and a more fine-tuned "OH SHIT RUN!" reflex. There is no quick fix to get any of these. Luckily, it's a problem that solves itself. The more horrible deaths you die, the more cautious, paranoid and panicky you grow.

The key would be to realize what caused your death. 99 times out of 100, it was something you did. Ask yourself what you did that contributed to you dying this way. Usually you'll come up with the answer, and know what to avoid in the future. If you can't, post it in YASD and have others try and find some for you. Bad habits can be hard to recognize because they may only kill you in a fraction of cases; but have enough bad habits and eventual death becomes inevitable, so let's excise as many of them as possible!

If you want to have an easier time, just play something that has Healing, decent armor, spells or all of these. (Druids.) You can swap decent armor for being simply the most powerful dude in the 'hood by playing a gray elven wizard.

[gut]

no pool sipping till crowned

learn to use irc and putty, if you play on the server, while chatting
to experienced players who are watching you, you will learn faster
than any other way

[Blasphemous]

What I meant by traps was more in the line of pits and teleport traps on the dungeon floor. I generally use the Knock spell to deal with doors. Sometimes I don't even have to kick them or attempt to disable the trap with a skill. It's enough to just try to open a door and "your blessed phase dagger (+3, 1d4+5) is consumed by the heat! 3 out of 5 blessed scrolls of chaos resistance are burned to ashes!" and so on.

Still, I didn't know about the beggars and booze as well as recharging with anything else than the scroll or potions of mana. I remember collecting booze in my early games to give to yggaz in exchange for random pots but that's the only use of booze I knew (at least in adom universe, not the real life ;)).

Burning hands is indeed a useful spell, though a bit risky due to the limited range.
Also, what is the best weapon choice for a character that doesn't specialize in weapons? Like a wizard or, I don't know, elementalist? Phase dagger?

Also there's the question of which talents are useful and which are not. I mean obviously some are more convenient for wizards, some for barbs but there are universal talents as well, so many that I can never know for sure which one will be of the highest value for me. 20% faster hp regen sounds interesting yet I don't see anybody around picking it up. On the other hand talents that give +PP tend only to give small amounts when a wizard class usually has an already decent starting value of power points and gets more with subsequent levels, not to mention regen time. That said, I wouldn't choose that talent even if it gives a total of ~20 extra pp. Yet I see people playing and choosing the associated talents pretty often. This puzzles me. I remember there was an interesting comparison of talents proving their usefulness or uselessness and most of the talents belonged to the latter group. Not sure though if it was for the current version or some older ones.

I used irc a long time ago and remember visiting #adom but never thought about analyzing my game with those ascended masters. Maybe cause I was even more of a save scummer back then.

I started a new game yesterday, following this guide http://plog.atspace.com.
I'm lvl 11 at the moment, looking for a blink dog in ID, so far unsuccessfully.
Gray elven wizard, candle birthsign. Also I might break some of the rules of early exploration of forbidden places, if I feel the risk is worth it.
We'll see about that but expect some serious spamming of the YASD section.

EDIT: Yeah I just found a blink dog. He summoned a lot of his friends and one left a corpse. Now I have a teleport and teleport control :)
Also, I've found a very useful spellbook of strength of atlas. This will simplify looting.

[Silfir]

Nobody uses Healthy because in practice it does very, very little. +3 HP does more to keep you alive. Same for Charged; it hardly does anything for characters with Concentration.

Potent Aura is very popular as a prerequisite, for instance the Book Caster talents; the PP talents on their own aren't very good either. Hardy, +3 HP, is also chosen mainly as prerequisite for Tough Skin, Iron Skin and the decendants.

[Blasphemous]

I think this will turn into a whole new thread.

I'm incredibly lucky. I went to CoC and down to dwarftown. Sold some items, bought some other. On my way there, I got plenty of herbs, including blessed stomafillia. And a pool. I couldn't resist. First sip: you start the trip on a road to nowhere... ok that's not good. Second - you feel exhausted. Ok now I really shouldn't have done that. Third sip: you suddenly are gone. Ok that's more like it, not sure if this is perma or temp but it's good anyway. But since we're here already, why not take another sip. After all I have learned cure disease since the spellbook was in dwarftown shop. 4th sip - wish!

All my life as a save scummer, I never got a wish only after 4 sips, and now this. I've decided to wish for pairs of seven league boots, since I had no other ideas. I spoke about portal to ancient dwarf so I got holy water and can bless the boots right away. Was this a good choice?

EDIT: Forget my last question, I died :(
Going to post YASD now since this certainly deserves to be there.

[Grey]

It was a good choice, but obviously it didn't work out too well :) Being cursed probably didn't help you - did you remove it at an altar?

Most talents are pretty worthless, especially after level 10 or so. The speed ones make a nice difference though, and I always choose Long Stride first (makes it easier to run away from enemies in the early game). Some people like the PV talents too. The PP talents aren't to be sneezed at very early on. It's also universally accepted that Treasure Hunter is the best talent of all - but don't feel the need to rush to get it until level 9 or 12.

Door traps are a bloody nuisance. Do you know the trick about opening doors from the diagonal? Helps against two of the trap types.

Best generic weapon for non-melee types is spear, since it gives a good DV boost. Don't be afraid to use whatever nice higher metal weapon you find though. Phase daggers aren't much special since they're only made of iron.

[breeolson]

A big thing from savescumming to non savescumming for me was: you can't try to kill every enemy.
Also, if you have problems during early game, try choosing hardy (it still comes in handy later game) line or PV lines or cocaine line. Treasure hunter doesn't help survival as much as these in the early game.

[Soirana]

It's also universally accepted that Treasure Hunter is the best talent of all - but don't feel the need to rush to get it until level 9 or 12.


Just no. let's start this all over gain, okay?

[Silfir]

"Universally accepted" is not the term I'd use. Can't have a new year without Treasure Hunter debates though.

[grobblewobble]

I think a lot of confusion about TH and ID stairhopping comes from speedrunners versus people trying to minimize RL playing time. Stairhopping is great to achieve much in a low number of game turns. If you want to find items in short RL time, though, clearing a few lesser vaults and easy tension rooms with TH is faster (all you need to do is basically hold the left arrow button for a few seconds).

[Soirana]

I think a lot of confusion about TH and ID stairhopping comes from speedrunners versus people trying to minimize RL playing time. Stairhopping is great to achieve much in a low number of game turns. If you want to find items in short RL time, though, clearing a few lesser vaults and easy tension rooms with TH is faster (all you need to do is basically hold the left arrow button for a few seconds).

as far as i know it is not proved TH works on vault monsters [okay, i am to lazy to go to IRC and ask sorear or Twinge]

before questions go on it is more or less known vault guys have different item drop rate to start with.

[Silfir]

ID stairhopping is just dumb.

[breeolson]

I stairhop on wizards and wizards only. Although I can see why you would want to; it pisses me off when I find noq water or id scrolls or uncursing scrolls the whole game. Is there gonna be another TH debate? Or maybe a hardy debate? Quick debate? Affinity with slings debate?

[gut]

> I think a lot of confusion about TH and ID stairhopping come
s from speedrunners versus people trying to minimize RL play
ing time.
...
> clearing a few lesser vaults and easy tension roo
ms with TH is faster .

to my knowledge also, vault drops aren't influenced by TH.

pivot point of TH was not fast vs faster, that was side (trivial) aspect.
main point of my criticism was there being no difference between finding
10 id scrolls vs 11, but go on believing anyway.

[Tourtiere]

In response to OP:

I think you should switch to another rogue-like and come back to ADOM.
I was save scummy on Nethack and couldn't go back. Try something else for a while and get used to no scumming.

[Toan]

In response to OP:

I think you should switch to another rogue-like and come back to ADOM.
I was save scummy on Nethack and couldn't go back. Try something else for a while and get used to no scumming.

Lol. Double ascender of Nethack here. (Tourist, Wizard). Imo, ADOM is harder and easier at the same time, because there's less items and cursed armor and such isn't automatically negatively enchanted, so it might be a pain, but it still gives PV/DV. Then again, it's a different game, but I'm just pointing it out. I've been playing ADOM for longer, and I still haven't won. =/ (Spoilered to bits with both.)

Other than that...

Treasure Hunter theoretically could give you a better chance of survival, but that's item dependant, and use-ID'ing isn't exactly the best. If you luck out with an ID scroll, maybe, but if you've got 0 PV and no armor to help, I'd suggest one of the defensive talents. Maybe get alert at Level 1 if you feel that you need TH later.

Might be wrong, but just my 2 cents.

[grobblewobble]

as far as i know it is not proved TH works on vault monsters
Ok, didn't know that..


there being no difference between finding 10 id scrolls vs 11
I do find that without TH you sooner run out of simple things. My non-TH ultra couldn't find a wand of monster creation anywhere, my non-TH beastfighter constantly ran out of simple things like potions of invis, never found a scroll of item detection or similar to obtain the teleport wand, never found a wand of cold for the RoTHK, never found a wand of trap detection before the mana temple, was lucky to shop a single fireproof blanket before the tower (dwarf gave stupid shield).. Next game I will try playing with TH again.

And sorry for hijacking your thread, Blasphemous. About doors exploding when you touch them: this doesn't happen if you have a full set of keys.

[Soirana]

if you have a full set of keys.

full set of blessed keys, yes.

[Blasphemous]

Or the knock spell. Or high dex to avoid most of the traps, except maybe the exploding ones. Anyway I don't feel like learning to play another rougelike game so I'll stick to adom. In fact it's already a bit more exciting when I have to count every food ration, each potion of water is important etc. At this point I do find playing wizard-like chars to be easier but might switch in the future to a more melee oriented class.

[vogonpoet]

Silfir's post seems to be the most useful in the thread - learn when to run away.

Other issues you may not have paid enough attention to as a savescummer:

1. Burdened and Strained suck. Unless you have a reason (early game St training), try to avoid being strained, and even burdened is bad. Running away, and even hand to hand combat, is a lot more effective if you are not burdened.

2. "You should cut down on your porklife mate and get some exercise". Stop eating blessed stoma herbs - they are only useful for saccing for piety. No point avoiding burdened status if you are wandering around bloated all the time. Small regular snacks from now on.

3. Never bring a knife to a gun fight. Bring a boozed and blessed wand of paralysis and some cursed invisibility potions instead. Remember that potions of blindness also blind monsters. Missiles of darkness and thunder are also awesome in this regard. Do not fight fair with the orb guardians. Use darkness, use poison.

4. Don't overestimate the gear/stats required. If you remember points 1-3 above, you will be pleasantly surprised how far you can progress. Other types of scumming like ID stair hopping, or spending in game days in cavernous levels trying to level up, or pool-sipping for a wish, or starvation/sickness herb scums are NOT necessary to win the game. Patience IS necessary, but if you devote hours of gameplay to robbing gremlins, boredom might kick in, which will lead to carelessness, resulting in death.

5. Ignore the 90 day time limit, and don't fight heavily corrupting monsters one on one for no reason.

6. Never enter a discussion about the merits of the incredibly crappy treasure hunter talent with any forum member with more than 1000 posts.

[gut]

> I used irc a long time ago and remember visiting #adom

are you refering to freenode, or the... other adom channel

> And a pool. I couldn't resist. First sip: you start the
trip on a road to nowhere

I'm preeety sure that wasn't in the guide :D

[Blasphemous]

Yeah, about that 90 day limit: from what I understand after that point in game time, the corruption kicks in stronger than before, but does it increase gradually? Is the result of not finishing the game before then so severe that people would speedrun the game at the cost of carefully planned exploration?
During my cheating games (since it wasn't just save scumming) I never had any probs with corruption since I just wished for SoCR and got over it, but I do realize they are very rare if one is to find them randomly and there are more important things one would wish for since corruption can be largely avoided.

[grobblewobble]

Background corruption is increased after day 90, but for normal victories this is hardly something to worry about. You can gain scrolls of chaos resistance from the dwarven mystic or the library. Either of these will give you plenty corruption removal (especially if you add in one or two potions from the druid). Just don't try to remove every corruption you get. Remove really bad stuff as soon as possible, but keep the others. There is still the white unicorn.

[vogonpoet]

Yeah i should have been more detailed for the corruption point. There is more than enough guaranteed corruption removal in the game for gate closers, as long as you control how corrupted you get - don't smith in Dark Forge, and don't decide to read a spellbook of wish when you arrive on D50.

Also: try not to accidentally eat Keriax's corpse - I did that once on the way back to Terinyo to trade it in for a PoCC - quite a costly food menu typo :(

Learn to love corruption. Stiff muscles should almost always be cleared immediately, all the others you can live with. Sure, if you don't have thick gauntlets, you might want to remove poison hands, and some melee PCs may want to remove the mana battery corruption for wand reasons already mentioned. But basically, the more corruptions you learn to love, the less removal you will need.

[Blasphemous]

Yeah some corruptions are nice, personally I think the worst would be the mana battery exequo with poison hands. I just hate to see that wand of wishes (5) sucked dry and then use another one cause the first didn't work for some reason. Or drink potions of gain attributes and wonder where's that invisible snake that just poisoned me. Oh and about that #adom channel, I'm not even sure what server it was on. I remember there were a couple of guys from Finland and a bot that responded to querries about adom. They hated people from Poland so it was hard to get those guys to talk to me. Can't blame them either since some people just don't know how to behave in the web or on an irc channel.

[Grey]

#adom on Freenode is quite a friendly place. People are always willing to give good advice there, especially if you're playing on the server.

Mana battery and poison hands are rare. Wands of wishing are even rarer, so it's really nothing to worry about.

[Silfir]

Poison hands is a mass-potion-pickup accident waiting to happen. It's plain unacceptable without thick gauntlets, and I always remove it right away if I can even if I have some. ("Suddenly a stream of acid pours down from the ceiling! Your thick gauntlets [+3, +4] are destroyed! Your stack of 7 pairs of thick gauntlets is destroyed!") Well, if I'm about to enter a difficult area with poisonable monsters, I'll probably delay it for a bit. Still a potion-drinking accident waiting to happen. ("Okay I barely survived that bolt from the Ancient Chaos Wyrm, let's drink that potion SON OF A--")

Mana battery is just plain unacceptable. I like my wands useful, thank you very much. Though you should still suck dry your wands of gold detection and maybe some of your twenty wands of knocking. (I guess if you're a wizard with every spell in existence you might wanna keep it, but if you're a wizard with every spell in existence and still need advice of any kind there is no helping you.)

Stiff muscles reduces your speed doing absolutely everything by a third, without giving you the speed benefit you'd otherwise receive from being that slow. That's like being Bloated and Strained! by default. Unacceptable.

Everything else is more or less fine, though you have to be careful with unholy aura; spend as little time as possible near shops. On the other hand, if you're away from civilization it's a very nice DV bonus. Also, spellcasters should remove the apish corruption as quickly as possible.

[gut]

you want irc.freenode.net

I tried the other also.
A couple of times.
For about 2 minutes each time.
A few years apart.
Same result each time.

[Blasphemous]

Wow, wow, wow. Started a new char. High elven wizard this time so kinda similar. Now I'm lvl 14, just cleared the pyramid and fire bolted Rehetep. I've never been this far without scumming, it would be a huge waste if I died now. I will probably die anyway, and soon. I was close a few times. A moderately exped Bulette hits decently and got me to 6 hp and stunned but I cleared my head next turn and teleported out. Huh. The game is so much more exciting now that I can lose everything via one fatal mistake. Oh and I finally got through UD and found acid ball spellbook in fortress-like village, helped me a lot in pyramid. Also herbs are of great value now that I have to raise stats without endless wishes for pots of GA ;)

Btw does it make any difference if I bless ankh, or should I just leave it uncursed?

Btw2 which item/artifact gives resistance to confusion attacks? I dug up two treasure graves and two master liches jumped out. I managed to teleport but they can confuse me from afar even outside of my LoS. They are vulnerable to fire so I will try to dispose of them and dig some more.

[Chris]

Blessed or Uncursed Ankh makes no difference.

Rings of clear mind gives confusion resistance. High Willpower helps a lot, so if you're going to kill them with magic you might as well equip the Sword of Nonnak for the +Wi. Not that it's going to help THAT much.

Artifacts such as the Staff of the Archmagi give confusion resistance. There's 5-6 more, I think, but none of them are guaranteed artifacts.

[Grey]

I would seriously recomend you stop digging up graves if you're so worried about dying.

[Silfir]

Ankh is one of the few items that are literally identical in all respects blessed or uncursed. There is no difference in effect and it's already indestructible since it's an artifact.

[Toan]

Grave digging is something I don't do that often, because you can get really scary stuff like higher-level liches. Then again, I'm sure wizards can take them on. Just remember that it's chaotic to be digging graves.

I guess the only piece of advice I can give is:

There's no such thing as being over-prepared, being under- means you're dead.

[JellySlayer]

Now however I want to give a try and play the game the way it was meant to be played. No character reload after death, no reloading on undesirable pool outcome etc, you get the point. I know most (I think) of the tricks used in the game, scummy or not, including dipping 19 rings in PoE to get RoDS, stairhopping in ID and a lot more.
The problem is, obviously, I keep dying. In all kinds of ways - fatal sickness from drinking pools, ghul paralyzes, poisons, traps, etc. Usually that happens between lvls 1-10. I got a few chars around lvl 14-15 and managed to get to dwarftown or fortress-like village but everytime a char seems hopeful, he/she dies a terrible painful death.

What it sounds like to me is that because you've been playing so much with save scumming, you haven't really learned how to survive. So let's start there...

When you roll a character, the most important things are starting To and starting PV and a ranged attack. Pretty much everything else (except maybe Le for casters) doesn't really matter. Starting To gives you more HP, more PV (if you're high enough), and makes you more resistant to early-game killers sickness and poison. Starting PV means you take less damage. 90%+ monsters in early game are melee only and thus can be safely killed with missiles or spells from a distance. I'd suggest Candle born (massive healing bonus)High/Grey Elf Archer--they're a lot tougher than wizzies with 5-7 starting PV, a bow and a huge pile of ammo. Ammo can be easily augmented by killing barbarians in the wilderness. If you fight a lot with ranged or spells, use at least one--maybe two--shields always.


Maybe the problem is in going through the dungeons too fast or trying to clear higher-lvl dungeons too soon (dark forge comes to mind, I can't even begin to count my deaths in that place)?

The important thing is to give some consideration to what you're fighting, and be prepared to run if the need arises. A brief list of things to watch for early on are:
Any poisonous monster: assassins, pit vipers, spiders, etc. Kill from a distance. If I see pit vipers on DD:1 or VD:1, I normally turn tail and leave the dungeon/level until I'm stronger because they can destroy low level PCs easily.
Any paralysis monsters: ghuls and mimics are most notable. Brown worms, gelatinous cubes, carrion crawlers, and staring eyes can also paralyse-kill if your DV is very low.
Heavy hitters: Large gnolls, ogre magus, werewolf lords, outlaw leaders, to name a few, can show up quite low level but are very dangerous. Each of these can deal 50+ damage in a single turn.
Vortices: Darkness if you have it. Missiles if you don't. If you aren't resistant, be especially careful around the extremely fast lightning or acid vortices.

Keep an eye on the speed of your foe. If a monster has more than ~20 speed than you, then the only way for you to escape it is to kill it or disable it. If it has less than that, then you can use coward speed to flee if you get badly injured.


How do people get so many intristics out of the pools when you can get so many bad ones?

You don't need to use pools to get intrinsics
-Fire resist: corpses, elemental gauntlets, high kings. This gives all you need for ToEF.
-Acid resist: kill ants in the puppy cave. Corpses are fairly common.
-Cold resist: wear the ancient mummy wrapping, elemental gauntlets, high kings
-Lightning resist: Elemental gauntlets, high kings.
-Poison: spider corpses
-Teleport control: blink dog corpses
-See invis: AMW
-Death resist: AMW
-Luck/Fate: Piety, ankh

-Confusion resist can be picked up by various common items (pools don't give it anyway).
-Teleportitis can be picked up from pixie corpses, various items, or corruption.
-Paralysis resist can be picked up from a common amulet.
-Invisibilty can be cast as a spell, or from the ring or cloak. Permainvis is probably the only intrinsic that I would seriously consider pool sipping for.

If you plan on pool sipping, then you should have at least "very close" piety to treat dooming, and either a ring/amulet of teleport control, or a handy blink dog corpse to replace TCtrl if you need to. If you don't have these things, pools are best avoided unless you're desperate.


Where do people get all the wands of wishing with 4-5 charges

You don't need that many wishes. If I get one wish in a game, I'm pretty happy. But you don't need them.


enough wands of digging to get through the walls of the orb temples?

There's two guaranteed in game. You only need one. Pickaxes are easy to acquire if you're really in a bind.


Is ID the only way to get enough spellbooks to cast as much as I want? I seem to be running out of spells quickly and have to resort to hand to hand even when playing with a wizard o_O

Start with high Le. Don't read your books completely--just read, get a couple hundred castings, then put them in a safe place until you get low. Actually, this goes for a lot of important items. Hide them somewhere safe. You don't need to be carrying 25 holy waters, 10 pots of ultra healing, 4 SoCR, etc. if you aren't using them. Keep a few of these sorts of items on your for emergencies (SoCR I almost never carry, in fact), but leave the rest in a convenient area for you to get when you need. Barbarian glade, D:1, top row of Terinyo, are good places to stash stuff.


Also I can't seem to grasp the idea of precrowning and this seems to be a vital element of the early-mid game.

Totally unnecessary. And boring.


Another thing is speed. How do people get around 170-200 speed playing the game normally? I mean it's possible, there are quickling raiding parties and with food preservation the corpses are tasty, but this is a tedious and time consuming process.

Totally unnecessary. If you're going for an ultra, it might be worth scumming bug cave or quicklings for speed. For normal game, not worth it.


Here's some other general tips:
Darkness, blindness, confusion, stun. Most monsters are weak against these. Including orb guardians. Cursed potions of invisibility can be thrown to blind monsters. So can the crystal vial. Darkness can be cast from spell, scroll or gems. Thrown pots of wonder are a poor man's confusion blast. Most monsters act pretty stupid if they're fighting in the dark, blinded, etc.

If you're a wizzie, monsters who can't see invis won't attack you even if you bolt them.

Use herbs. A lot. You can figure out from the row you're standing on what kinds of herbs are growing on any square on the map. If you're careful, you should be able to keep track of what herbs you have in your inventory, even if they're not identified. Learn how to build 2x2 squares and move herbs up or down rows. Scum morgia root. You should be able to easily get your To up to 25 with morgia. If you're a bit clever, you can get up to 32. Wi and Dx can get up to 25 with casual use, and can be pushed up to stratospheric (~50) levels if you work at it.

Don't equip unID items blindly. Think about if it is likely to be an improvement over your current gear, even if it's cursed. Taking off a [-1,3] studded leather armor for a pair of unID clothes is not a good idea. Swapping a 1d6 shortsword for an unID orcish spear is. Some items have distinctive names or weights. Swords of sharpness are the only 35s sword. Wooden rings are always fire resistance.

[Grey]

Ankh is one of the few items that are literally identical in all respects blessed or uncursed. There is no difference in effect and it's already indestructible since it's an artifact.

All non-weapon artifacts are the same, surely?

[Silfir]

Of course. There's not that many, right?

[Blasphemous]

I currently have a high elven wizard, lvl 16. I got tele control, teleports, invis, magic mapping, strength of atlas, plenty of different offensive spells, mostly elemental, but I've found acid ball, magic missile and death rays somewhere. From what I remember though, most strong monster shrugg the last spell off anyway. I cleared the pyramid and graveyard, so I have ele gaunts, ankh, AMW, nonnak's sword and got rolf's in dwarftown (not sure if 4 socr wouldn't be a better prize). Also I took down the skeletal king and have the ring of high kings. Got some nice medium crystal shield (+3) [+9, +4], ring of mental stability +1 Le. Oh and I visited gremlins so I have the phial and climbing set.

Currently I'm hunting down red dragons in mountainous regions to get some exp, gold and items. Maybe there's a better place to exp and gather wealth for a wizard like mine? 46/19 dv/pv on coward, 80hp, 169pp, Ma, Pe, Wi = 20, Dx = 21, Le = 24, St = 16, To =14. I've found some morgias in the big room and UD but not enough to train a lot. I'm thinking about ToEF to get to casino, make some money, buy spellbooks and other items as well as eventually get growned for that money. L+ is the plan, I have a stomafillia 2x2 square prepared somewhere ready for harvest. I could really use 7LB but I need some lightning spells to visit dark forge and maybe sip some pools. Also got spare blink dogs in the big room so hopefully I will retain teleport control.

Any suggestions? 162 days passed.

[grobblewobble]

Tower with 80 HP is suicide. Get more morgia and train.. just visit the big room. Don't pacify if you don't happen to have the needed stuff for that, just use the stairs to deal with summoners.

PS: for wizards, morgia is much more important than stoma. The crowning gifts of wizards are mostly junk, unfortunately. So crowning is not so important for this character. But increasing toughness is absolutely vital.

[Grey]

Yeah, you desperately need higher toughness. Farming for morgia is pretty much essential. Morgia will have the added bonus of increasing your Willpower - get it above 32 for big ball spells.

Have you done the High Kings dungeon yet? If not then it's probably your next stop. Go do the Water Temple too.

Killing red dragons for xp won't get you far. Advancing in the game is much more profitable, as most xp comes from bosses. DarkForge might get you a level or two though - you can clear it with radius 2 acid balls.

[Blasphemous]

Just found another acid ball in ID since I went there to get some spells, I was running out of them. I can't seem to find any sources of morgia. No more in big room and none in UD, where usually I get 1-2 herb levels. And yes, I've been to high kings tomb, I got the ring. Any other source of morgia? I know that herb generation is random but I also know I can plant some herbs on herb levels and grow that way. Just need lots of holy water. Also I considered taking banshee on a round trip through animated forest but I'm not sure that's such a good idea at this point. Also I've found another pool but managed to resist the overwhelming urge to drink from it ;)

[Grey]

You can't start up herbs on a level without them. Have you tried the dusty dungeon for herbs? Without herbs the best way open to you is eating undead, just be wary of the alignment issues.

[Silfir]

You can start up herbs on a level without them. You need to have the Gardening skill and herb seeds though.

Wizards want to go to the Rift anyway, but that's not exactly a nice place to go without Toughness either. I second Grey's recommendation of undead munchies; farm the CoC graveyard for a while.

[Blasphemous]

Ok I dug up some graves, got some corruptions, no serious alignment drop since I'm still L. I got some spellbooks and potions but nothing too exciting. Master liches went down in 3-4 burning hands and my 69 DV allowed me to evade all but one hit which took some of my perception unfortunatelly. I decided to call it a night when a king lich jumped out. Just teleported away to be safe, not sure what he's capable of, still I guess can't be remotely as dangerous as emperor. I also brought banshee to animated forest, just couldn't resist. Drops are nice with treasure hunter, I'm hoping for enough potions of water to bless most of my stuff, sell the rest and get some piety with the gold. Still no morgia anywhere around but I have one herb seed and around 75 gardening so we'll see.

Edit: Interesting. I just got wyrmlance in darkforge, along with some garbage. Might be easier with ancient chaos wyrm if I train it up a bit. Also got knife of endurance +7 toughness, which I'm considering to use. However if I use it, my DV/PV goes down to 49/19 on coward which is a significant drop vs 80/19 with two shields. Hp on the other hand goes to 176 while with higher dv but lower To, it's only 116.

Edit2: The trees were so awed by the song of banshee that they decided to drop 2 socrs and 3 poga so far, along with numerous weapons, armors, rings (no rods though, so far) pendants, books, scrolls... I even got spellbook of item creation and remove curse. This is highly scummy I think, although banshee might become quite powerful after enough trees perish, she can rarely hit my with 89 dv but when she does, she takes half of my hp :O

[grobblewobble]

I second (or third) the advice of Grey & Silfir. Go to the graveyard, find some wights / vampires and eat them. Not sure why you didn't do so? Extra hitpoints are all you need for the tower. This is risky, the banshee is quickly getting stronger. If you can't completely avoid getting hit by her, she will kill you eventually.

[Blasphemous]

I did go there but no wights, vampires or wraiths dropped any corpses. Maybe except one. I don't have food preservation either. I cleared the whole graveyard. Unless of course they keep respawning and the only ones that respawn are undead. In that case, I'm on my way.

BTW animated forest farming did pay off. I got 7LB :)

[Toan]

The closest thing I've played to a wizard would have to be an Elementalist, which is one of my favourite classes, no less. Having said that, they don't really run out of spells. Anyway, the you'll probably need some kind of escape (read: TP) so you can get away from the banshee if it turns out that it just hit you for almost all your hps. Then you can just firebolt it or something. IIRC, the graveyard's top level doesn't respawn. Ever. Graves are probably the only way you can get more UD corpses. Liches, and what have you. Neither does the yard in the CoC. Again, barring Liches. If you really can't survive the tower, you could always try the SoRS. Corrupting, but you're a wizard, you need the best shield in the game.

162 days passed means that you're no longer rushing to beat some deadline of 90. So, you might as well take your time to finish things slowly, because so much time has already passed. If you feel up to it, you can do the sidequests such as Rift, the Unicorns, or the Blue Dragon Caves. Death Ray has a low hit chance, IIRC, but of course, when it DOES hit, it should kill most things. Probably Undead stuffs excluded, seeing as banshees have no effect on them, nor on Earth Elementals.

You're going to need more than 14 To, unless you've got some really good items to heal, and escape. Also, wilderness isn't exactly the best place to be farming, but you've already passed the 90 day mark, so it doesn't matter anyway. SI's = gold, too. If you find an anvil + hammer, you could always start smithing, 46/19 is a bit pathetic, you might need to find better armors. Darkforge + TP?

Also, have you done BUGWIL? It'll probably get your to level 17. You seriously could probably get to C, donate 6 artifacts to the ratling, and get Keriax's corpse, for either a PoCC, or very large stat boosts. I've never eaten his corpse though, so it's all theoretical (8 corruptions isn't going to help). Or you know, to get exp. Just because you don't want to or can't do an ultra, doesn't mean you can grind the extra bosses for exp.

If you can get/have invisibility, getting to the HMV would be a nice idea too, you never know what Leggot might have. And a SoCR + PoUH is a nice enough reward.

Might have missed out a few things, but I always do. Someone correct me where I'm wrong.

[Blasphemous]

Woohoo, TotEF completed :D
This wasn't as hard as I thought. Trees dropped bracers of toughness +4 plus I got 3 pots of boost toughness and 24 base toughness. That made up a decent 200+ hp. For some reason, despite 3 resistances to fire, I was still taking damage. I blessed 3 fireproof blankets but there were casulties anyway :( Damn wyrm started panicking when his HP got low and ran toward the altar. Since nothing else worked, I was trying to take him down using ice balls, it worked with 100 DV, he couldn't hit me that often but still managed to get my hp down to 75. I had blessed potions of extra healing so it wasn't much of a problem. Mana was running low but I also had blessed scrolls of power and those helped a lot. And right then in the middle of the temple poof! "Your blessed cloak of invisibility is torn to shreds by the flames. Ok now all dragons, grues, elementals and daemons saw me. I cast invisibility spell but some of them did hit me, luckily it wasn't serious. I delivered the final blow with frost bolt and the wyrm was down. Took the orb and corpse, and on my way out, guess what? "Your uncursed bracers of toughness melt in the oppresive heat!". Great. Then right by the stairs "Your uncursed girdle of giant strength..." you get the picture. Ah well at least 7LB didn't burn, and I had another girdle stashed at barbarian's glade. I also found ring of invisibility at the lowest level in TotEF so I've pretty much minimized my loses. Anyway, now I'm on my way to casino :)

Oh and currently I'm level 21 and 266 days passed. No rift for me yet since my climbing skill is at around 67. Same for unicorns since the level req is 30 IIRC.
Also I didn't finish the bug temple yet, but since I have 7LB now it might be easier, although I'm not sure if rewarding since I'm 21 at the moment. Any interesting items there?
Besides keriax is a bad boy and I don't yet have means to deal with him. I could probably handle most of the corruptions since I have 3 SoCR and 1 PoCC, but I think I'll just save those for a different occasion. Stats aren't bad now that I got 5 PoGA in the forest. Banshee is dead but her death gave me another lvl so ultimately it was a very resourceful "adventure" in the forest. Shame though I only discovered I got 7LB after I killed her, those boots make collecting loot much easier when the trees don't respawn that fast (relatively). Also I got several different stat potions which also helped and I'm well into 25+ now, except Ch and Ap.

[Toan]

I wouldn't normally take cloak of invis and 7lb's to the tower. They just burn, as you can see. Even with your fireproof blankies. Higher metal armor suffices well enough. Also, I think you need 4 sources of fire resistance, to take no dmg, not just 3. At 3, I think you take 1hps per turn.

And congrats at beating one of the hardest areas in the game. (Certainly, the hardest in a non-sidequest one.)

[grobblewobble]

I hope we didn't scare you *too* much. A base toughness of 14 and 80 HP is too low, but with 24 base toughness and 200 HP you are fine. Congratulations!

Blankets only protect items you carry, not items you wear. So yeah.. you're very lucky to still have those boots. Still, good job. Casting invis on yourself was the right thing to do.

Now the deep CoC is open to you, have fun!

[Blasphemous]

I was hoping that somewhere in the animated forest a RoDS would drop and I'd wish for rings of ice but it didnt happen. I just went through casino too. Gathered all the stuff and IDed it but it was all crap :/ not a single artifact, no useful books, and just a few useful potions and scrolls. Plus ring of invis in case I waste the one I have somehow.

Indeed I was losing 1 hp every turn in TotEF. I was wondering if I had 1 intristic resistance, would then 3 item resistances combine to give 4 and thus no damage? I won't probably find out for a while, I'm just glad the tower's over.

[Toan]

Yes that should work. Word of caution though, the level 6 elementalist class power doesn't work in the Tower. Not sure why. (It's -Fire, btw) Might not even work outside of the tower, I have no checked.

[Grey]

If you want some more experience clear all the elementals and such at the top of the two. Ice ball will make short work of them if you get your Willpower to 32. Just make sure you aren't wearing anything flammable...

[JellySlayer]

Mana was running low but I also had blessed scrolls of power and those helped a lot.

Don't be afraid to cast from HP as the game progresses. Especially in the late game temples, greater vaults, and D:50, you almost certainly won't have enough PP to be able to clear everything. Casting from HP is relatively cheap if you've got decent sources of health regeneration and high HP. Yes, over time it will hurt your mana score, but it will take a long time to see any significant drops. If you cast from HP pretty much constantly from here to the end, you might see a drop of 5-10 points.

[Guru]

As the guide says, intrinsic Fire res gives two resistances. I used Bracers of Res, Elemental Gauntlets and had intrinsic Fire res and took no damage in the Tower (before I found out I had Red Crown, which didn't melt in my game). Good job getting past the Tower though! ;)

[Blasphemous]

If I happen to find rings of ice then I will surely clear the rest of the tower.

[Blasphemous]

I got 4 orbs so far. Lost some items but gained others. By killing orb guardians my alignment went to L+ (or due to some other reason, maybe killing chaos servants got me there). I got crowned with brannalbin. Then at d42 I got greater undead vault. I had magic mapping and noticed a weird colored ring in one of the storages, so tele and I stand before a king lich. Couple of fireballs did the job and I had my hands on ring of immunity. I took a glimpse at the rest of the tomb - about 10 lich kings and one emperor, plus numerous other undead so I passed. Also I cleared the bug temple and nearly died twice. Damn those bugs are fast. No surprises in statues. Now I'm on my way to mana temple. My blessed pick axe broke just before the earth temple could be accessed and I had no wands so I had to go back to dwarftown and repair it :/ Also those wands along with GoGS and a couple of potions and scrolls got out of the game on some trapped doors (from now on EVERY door I'm about to open will be opened with knock spell). We'll see what Nuurag has for me. I've got death ray res, and I have 300 hp, 400 pp, lvl 32.

[Blasphemous]

Aw crap I died :/

Nuurag Varn, that should explain everything. Well he bolted me to death with energy bolts. I had about 230 hp left and then suddenly 60 and -80. Well I half expected that at this level, but it's still a shame. That was a nice char and indeed it's possible to play without wishes. Just some luck in finding items here and there as well as treasure hunter and most of the valuable items in the game are available.
Anyway this run has taught me a lot and I guess I will try either the same class and race again or something very close. I'm also tempted by archers and barbarians. Not sure how I'd manage a non-mage type of character.



## ## ###
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#.........+.. ... . .........# #^#....... ... ..#.#
###### # # ### #########/### #*#...... ## #^#
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####+ ##### # ### ## #.# #/..(... @ #%#
#...../.. .... ......# #.# #^#..... # #^#
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#.. ..# .. .... #.# #(#....... # #
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###### #.. .. .# #.<...######^#.^../^^(*^ .#
#. ... # #......**.]###.########################
### ##### ###########**..#
######

MisterGutsy St:21 Le:33 Wi:21 Dx:22 To:22 Ch:17 Ap:16 Ma:30 Pe:23 L+
DV/PV:113/33 H:-80(276) P:1(391) Exp: 31/5464022 MT Sp: 101
Blessed Invisible Strained Coward


Name: MisterGutsy Race: male High Elf Class: Wizard
Eye color: light blue Hair color: golden Complexion: light
Height: 6'5" Weight: 130 pounds Scars: 3
Age: 237 (grown-up, 14 years of unnatural aging added in)
Star sign: Cup Birthday: 27/Cup (day 267 of the year)



YOUR HISTORY:
Blah blah blah: Wizard.



Total weight: 3462 stones Carrying capacity: 2475 stones

Head : uncursed horned helmet [+1, +3] [100s]
Neck : uncursed ankh [3s]
Body : uncursed ancient mummy wrapping [+1, +5] {Ap-8} [60s]
Girdle : uncursed metal girdle [+0, +1] [25s]
Cloak : blessed Brannalbin's Cloak of Defense [+3, +3] [30s]
Right Hand : uncursed tower adamantium shield (-2) [+11, +5] [108s]
Left Hand : uncursed tower adamantium shield (-2) [+13, +2] [108s]
Right Ring : uncursed ring of immunity [1s]
Left Ring : uncursed ring of invisibility [1s]
Bracers : uncursed brass bracers [+0, +0] [10s]
Gauntlets : uncursed elemental gauntlets (-1, +0) [+0, +3] [10s]
Boots : blessed seven league boots (+1, +1) [+1, +0] [30s]
Missile weapon: uncursed long bow of hunting (+9, +2) [30s]
Missiles : bundle of 24 uncursed arrows (+3, 1d6+1) [48s]
Tool : blessed pick axe (+0, 1d6+1) [75s]

Total weight: 2823 stones Carrying capacity: 2475 stones

Armor ('[')
blessed mithril ring mail (+0, -2) [-1, +3] [240s]
uncursed studded leather armor (+1, -2) [-3, +3] [250s]
uncursed studded leather armor (-1, +0) [-3, +3] [250s]
uncursed robe (+1, +1) [+2, +1] [60s]
uncursed eternium plate mail (-1, -2) [-1, +13] [240s]
Cloaks ('[')
blessed cloak of defense [+6, +0] [20s]
Boots ('[')
blessed eternium boots [+0, +5] [55s]
Necklaces (''')
blessed amulet of order [3s]
uncursed brass amulet [3s]
uncursed amulet of protection +2 [3s]
One-handed weapons ('(')
uncursed phase dagger (+0, 1d4) [5s]
uncursed sickle (+0, 1d4+2) [55s]
Two-handed weapons ('(')
uncursed iron-shod quarterstaff (+3, 1d10+4) [80s]
blessed poisonous eternium two-handed sword (+18, 6d5+18) [-1, +0] [50s]
uncursed trident (+2, 3d5+2) [70s]
Missile weapons ('}')
cursed sling (+0, +1) [3s]
Missiles ('*')
heap of 5 blessed rocks (+0, 1d4+3) [25s]
Tools (']')
uncursed climbing set [180s]
Rings ('=')
blessed ring of the High Kings [+2, +3] [1s]
uncursed ring of invisibility [1s]
uncursed ring of slaying (+6 melee damage, +6 missile damage) [1s]
uncursed ring of acid resistance [1s]
blessed ring of invisibility [1s]
Wands ('\')
uncursed wand of teleportation (5 charges) [4s]
Potions ('!')
heap of 3 uncursed potions of booze [12s]
heap of 4 potions of holy water [16s]
heap of 2 blessed potions of booze [8s]
heap of 9 uncursed potions of cure poison [18s]
uncursed oil of rust removal [2s]
uncursed potion of uselessness [2s]
cursed potion of blindness [2s]
heap of 2 blessed potions of ultra healing [4s]
cursed potion of booze [4s]
uncursed potion of carrot juice [4s]
uncursed potion of boost learning [2s]
Scrolls ('?')
heap of 2 uncursed scrolls of charging [4s]
heap of 2 blessed scrolls of chaos resistance [4s]
uncursed scroll of identify [2s]
cursed scroll of charging [2s]
Books ('"')
uncursed spellbook of Slow Monster [100s]
Food ('%')
heap of 42 blessed curaria mancox herbs [84s]
heap of 34 blessed alraunia antidotes [68s]
heap of 24 uncursed spenseweeds [48s]
heap of 38 blessed spenseweeds [76s]
heap of 8 uncursed moss patches of mareilon [16s]
heap of 23 blessed moss patches of mareilon [46s]
heap of 7 uncursed demon daisies [14s]
heap of 23 blessed demon daisies [46s]
heap of 38 blessed devil's roses [76s]
heap of 18 uncursed devil's roses [36s]
heap of 13 uncursed curaria mancox herbs [26s]
heap of 20 blessed stomacemptia herbs [40s]
heap of 4 uncursed stomacemptia herbs [8s]
heap of 4 cursed burb roots [8s]
heap of 7 blessed pepper petals [14s]
heap of 3 uncursed pepper petals [6s]
heap of 2 uncursed burb roots [4s]
heap of 11 cursed spenseweeds [22s]
heap of 6 uncursed stomafillia herbs [12s]
heap of 8 blessed stomafillia herbs [16s]
heap of 10 uncursed alraunia antidotes [20s]
Valuables ('$')
33217 gold pieces [332s]
Gems ('*')
heap of 13 uncursed crystals of health [13s]
uncursed worthless piece of red glass [1s]
uncursed emerald [1s]
uncursed sapphire [1s]
uncursed turquoise [1s]
uncursed crystal of knowledge [1s]

[Blasphemous]

Melee weapon Lvl Hit Dam DV Level Required marks
--------------------- --- --- --- -- ------------- --------------
Unarmed fighting 1 +1 +0 +0 basic 50
Daggers & knives 1 +1 +0 +0 basic 50
Clubs & hammers 1 +1 +0 +0 basic 50
Maces & flails 1 +1 +0 +0 basic 50
Swords 1 +1 +0 +0 basic 50
Axes 1 +1 +0 +0 basic 50
Whips 1 +1 +0 +1 basic 50
Pole arms 2 +2 +0 +1 basic 80
Twohanded weapons 1 +1 +1 +0 basic 50
Staves 1 +1 +0 +1 basic 50

Missile weapon Lvl Hit Dam Ra Level Required marks
--------------------- --- --- --- -- ------------- --------------
Slings 0 +0 +0 +0 unskilled 14
Bows 0 +0 +0 +0 unskilled 14
Crossbows 0 +0 +0 +0 unskilled 7
Thrown axes & hammers 0 +0 +0 +0 unskilled 14
Thrown daggers 0 +0 +0 +0 unskilled 14
Thrown rocks & clubs 0 +0 +0 +0 unskilled 14
Thrown spears 0 +0 +0 +0 unskilled 10
Boomerangs & scurgari 0 +0 +0 +0 unskilled 10

Shields Lvl DV Level Required marks
--------------------- --- --- ------------- --------------
Shields 4 +8 skilled 125


Damage caused with your melee weapons:
--------------------------------------
No melee weapons available.


Damage caused with your missile weapons:
----------------------------------------
ĆAmmunition: ?24Ć, base range: ?8Ć, ?+25Ć bonus to hit, ?1d6+8Ć damage




----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Skills
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alchemy ..................100 (superb) [+2d4]
Athletics ................ 69 (good) [+1d5]
Backstabbing ............. 42 (fair) [+1d5]
Climbing ................. 93 (superb) [+1d3]
Concentration ............100 (superb) [+2d4]
Dodge .................... 72 (great) [+1]
First aid ................ 65 (good) [+1d3]
Gardening ................ 74 (great) [+1d3]
Gemology ................. 51 (good) [+3d3]
Haggling ................. 29 (mediocre) [+3d4]
Healing ..................100 (superb) [+1d5]
Herbalism ................100 (superb) [+2d4]
Listening ................100 (superb) [+1d5]
Literacy .................100 (superb) [+2d4]
Pick pockets ............. 63 (good) [+1d3]
Stealth ..................100 (superb) [+1d3]
Swimming ................. 50 (fair) [+2d4]
Tactics .................. 84 (great) [+1]
Two weapon combat ........ 55 (good) [+1]
Ventriloquism ............ 52 (good) [+1d5]



Acid Ball : 478, 18pp (Effectivity: +19)
Acid Bolt : 1057, 9pp (Effectivity: +2)
Bless : 1100, 5pp (Effectivity: +0)
Burning Hands : 2985, 4pp (Effectivity: +11)
Calm Monster : 908, 5pp (Effectivity: +1)
Create Item : 1059, 150pp (Effectivity: +4)
Cure Light Wounds: 716, 3pp (Effectivity: +0)
Darkness : 3300, 2pp (Effectivity: +5)
Death Ray : 723, 59pp (Effectivity: +5)
Destroy Undead : 1085, 5pp (Effectivity: +0)
Disarm Trap : 998, 6pp (Effectivity: +1)
Farsight : 3165, 10pp (Effectivity: +8)
Fire Bolt : 1262, 5pp (Effectivity: +49)
Fireball : 1642, 11pp (Effectivity: +7)
Frost Bolt : 2062, 6pp (Effectivity: +34)
Ice Ball : 1156, 14pp (Effectivity: +9)
Invisibility : 2399, 5pp (Effectivity: +13)
Knock : 3918, 7pp (Effectivity: +9)
Know Alignment : 52, 9pp (Effectivity: +0)
Light : 4351, 1pp (Effectivity: +9)
Lightning Bolt : 1698, 7pp (Effectivity: +9)
Magic Lock : 2940, 4pp (Effectivity: +11)
Magic Map : 1363, 22pp (Effectivity: +10)
Magic Missile : 4205, 4pp (Effectivity: +10)
Neutralize Poison: 1220, 6pp (Effectivity: +0)
Remove Curse : 1004, 30pp (Effectivity: +3)
Revelation : 1167, 20pp (Effectivity: +3)
Scare Monster : 876, 8pp (Effectivity: +0)
Slow Monster : 1103, 5pp (Effectivity: +1)
Strength of Atlas: 2981, 5pp (Effectivity: +12)
Stun Ray : 2204, 5pp (Effectivity: +1)
Summon Monsters : 1135, 18pp (Effectivity: +0)
Teleportation : 42, 17pp (Effectivity: +24)
Web : 1224, 8pp (Effectivity: +1)



Your corrupted tissue seems to heal much faster.
Your feet have been transformed into hooves (+8 kicking damage, Dx: -6).

MisterGutsy, the high elven wizard, was blasted by Nuurag-Vaarn, the
invisible Chaos Archmage.
He scored 1111911 points and advanced to level 31.
He survived for 0 years, 310 days, 9 hours, 47 minutes and 59 seconds (73707
turns).
MisterGutsy visited 100 places.
His strength score was modified by +11 during his career.
His learning score was modified by +13 during his career.
His willpower score was modified by +8 during his career.
His dexterity score was modified by +8 during his career.
His toughness score was modified by +13 during his career.
His charisma score was modified by +5 during his career.
His appearance score was modified by +10 during his career.
His mana score was modified by +14 during his career.
His perception score was modified by +5 during his career.
He was unnaturally aged by 14 years.
He was the champion of the arena.
He stopped the generation of nasty bugs.
He ended his adventuring life in the temple of elemental Mana.
2589 monsters perished under his attacks.
The following 18 artifacts were generated during his adventure:
the si
the dwarven rune axe "Rolf's Companion"
the scythe of corruption "Moon Sickle"
the golden gladius "Death's Sting"
the Chaos Orb of Elemental Water
the Chaos Orb of Elemental Air
the Chaos Orb of Elemental Fire
the Brannalbin's Cloak of Defense
the sword of Nonnak
the elemental gauntlets
the ring of the High Kings
the phial of Caladriel
the crown of science
the ancient mummy wrapping
the ankh
the black torc
the ring of immunity
the rune-covered halberd "Wyrmlance"
He possessed the following intrinsics:
He was fire resistant (gained through items).
He was poison resistant (enhanced through an item).
He was cold resistant (gained through items).
He was acid resistant (gained through an item).
He was lucky (enhanced through an item).
Fate smiled upon him (enhanced through an item).
He was sleep resistant (enhanced through an item).
He was able to teleport.
He was able to control teleportation.
He was invisible (gained through items).
He was stun resistant (enhanced through an item).
He was resistant to death rays (gained through an item).
He was shock resistant (gained through items).
He was able to see invisible things (gained through an item).
He was immune to shock attacks.
He was immune to fire attacks (gained through an item).
He was immune to acidic attacks (gained through an item).
He was immune to ice attacks (gained through items).
He had the following talents: Alert, Careful, Defensive Fighter, Greased
Lightning, Miser, Quick, Shield Expert, Shield Specialist, Treasure Hunter,
Very Careful, Very Quick.
He had a final speed score of 101 (final base speed: 111).
He was a messiah of Corellius.
He asked for 1 divine intervention.
He was a holy champion of Order.
He was tainted by Chaos.

[Blasphemous]

The following monsters were vanquished:
3 acid vortices
4 air demons
9 air elementals
4 air grues
1 Ancient Chaos Wyrm
1 ancient minotaur
1 ancient red dragon
155 animated trees
3 ankhegs
8 annihilators
10 bandits
1 banshee
1 barbarian
1 barbarian leader
1 battle bunny
1 beggar
6 berserkers
1 berserker emperor
1 berserker king
2 berserker lords
1 berserker prince
4 black dragons
1 black druid
5 black hurthlings
2 black wizards
13 blink dogs
1 blue baby dragon
2 brown worms
6 bugbears
1 bulette
1 bunny master
1 carrion crawler
1 cat lord
6 cave bears
28 cave fishers
4 cave lions
17 cave lizards
12 cave tigers
10 cavemen
2 chaos brothers
1 chaos knight
3 chaos lizards
77 chaos servants
2 chaos sisters
2 chaos warriors
9 chaos wizards
12 claw bugs
1 clay golem
2 cobras
14 corpse fiends
1 corruptor
1 crime lord
3 crystal statues
5 cutpurses
3 dark elven archers
1 dark elven priestess
2 dark elven princesses
1 dark elven warrior
13 dark elven wizards
4 dark orcs
8 dark sages
1 death ooze
4 dire wolves
4 displacer beasts
9 dopplegangers
2 dwarves
1 dwarven chaos knight
17 earth elementals
4 ettins
1 eye of destruction
23 fire beetles
8 fire demons
7 fire drakes
11 fire elementals
1 fire giant
1 fire grue
5 fire lizards
1 fire vortex
1 flesh golem
4 floating eyes
1 frost giant
2 gargoyles
36 ghosts
7 ghost bats
1 ghost lord
60 ghuls
17 giant bats
1 giant bee queen
89 giant bee warriors
9 giant bee workers
7 giant centipedes
10 giant frogs
5 giant lizards
5 giant raccoons
31 giant rats
1 giant rust monster
30 giant spiders
4 gibbering mouthers
11 gnolls
2 gnoll chieftains
20 goblins
3 goblin berserkers
4 goblin chieftains
26 goblin rockthrowers
8 goblin slavemasters
1 gorgon
2 gray oozes
30 greater chaos servants
112 greater claw bugs
1 greater daemon
4 greater mimics
12 greater mummies
2 green blobs
9 green slimes
1 green worm
47 gremlins
17 griffons
2 half-orc bouncers
1 harpy
37 hell hounds
9 hill giants
6 hill orcs
3 hill orc sergeants
6 hippogriffs
10 hobgoblins
1 hobgoblin chief
1 hobgoblin leader
1 homunculus
2 huge bats
1 hydra
4 hyenas
1 ice vortex
3 imps
3 invisible stalkers
51 jackals
4 jackal demons
2 jackalweres
1 karmic lizard
224 killer bugs
1 king cobra
33 kobolds
4 kobold chieftains
6 kobold shamans
34 large bats
3 large gnolls
3 large jackals
30 large kobolds
2 large orcs
1 large snake
47 large spiders
12 least daemons
5 lesser daemons
24 leucrottas
12 liches
2 lich kings
3 lightning lizards
2 lightning vortices
14 lizard men
8 magebane eyes
6 magedoom eyes
5 master liches
2 master mimics
1 master necromancer
1 Master Summoner
2 master swordsmen
25 mimics
3 minotaurs
1 mugger
20 mummies
1 mummy lord
1 necromancer
3 ochre jellies
58 ogres
1 ogre emperor
1 ogre lord
3 ogre magi
43 orcs
1 orc butcher
4 orc chieftains
3 orc scorchers
4 outlaws
1 outlaw leader
36 pit vipers
2 pixies
3 pixie archers
1 purple worm
6 quasits
1 quickling
1 quickling queen
15 rabid dogs
5 raiders
39 rats
6 ratling archers
3 ratling fencers
8 ratling thieves
1 ratling warlord
2 ratling warriors
1 rattlesnake
14 red dragons
5 red worms
1 revenant
1 rust monster
30 shadows
4 shadow centipedes
2 shadow lords
1 shadow troll
5 silver wolves
1 skeletal king
6 skeletal warriors
35 skeletons
1 slow shadow
1 Snake from Beyond
16 spectres
2 staring eyes
13 steel golems
2 steel zombies
3 stone giants
1 stone golem
21 stone grues
5 stone snakes
2 swamp hydras
6 swordsmen
27 tarantulas
10 trolls
1 troll berserker
1 troll king
1 undead chaos dwarven berserker
12 vampires
6 vapor rats
3 vipers
6 water demons
4 water elementals
7 water grues
7 water snakes
6 wererats
1 werewolf king
3 werewolf lords
2 white baby dragons
3 white worms
35 wights
7 wild cats
6 wolves
28 wraiths
29 writhing masses of primal chaos
37 zombies


Would somebody be willing to give me a suggestion as to what class/race should I play next? I'm being pulled in many directions and can't decide.

[JellySlayer]

Would somebody be willing to give me a suggestion as to what class/race should I play next? I'm being pulled in many directions and can't decide.

My top choice would be:
High Elf Archer (ridiculously powerful in pretty much every way)

Other good choices might include:
Drakeling Monk (killer skillset, good stats and abilities)
Dwarf Paladin (monster starting stats and PV--get crowned quick and hope for Justifier)
Dark Elf Beastfighter (a bit tricky to start, but very powerful as you go forward)

[edit]Protip: Death rays can only go in straight lines. Stay at off-diagonals and use balls or missiles to drop the archmage.
[edit2]Drakeling wizzies are pretty fun too. It might take while to roll one with half-decent learning, but they're a lot tougher (plus acid breath) early on.

[Toan]

Disabling the Archmage is also an idea. As is Far-slaying wands to make him "wake up". Then you lure him to a corridor, and do what you wizards with acid ball do the best. Using it.

As for suggestions, I would roll a race, then try picking a class that suits it. Ie; If you get an Elf, get a magic-ey class. Eventually, you want to try out all the classes, and then just play the class you like the feel of/has cool abilities. Heck, you might like Merchants because they can throw coins and NOT have it disappear.

It's up to you though.

[Grey]

Shame about the death, but you did well to get so far, and hopefully had fun along the way.

Some important points though:
- Your To and Wi stats were too low, especially the former. With more To you would have more HP giving you more of a buffer against strong attacks. Morgia is a huge priority in the early to mid game, so keep a close eye out for it. Also wear the water orb in the tool slot for +10 Willpower. Ideally you should have 32 Willpower minimum, so that your ball spells increase in radius.
- You were "Strained", reducing your speed by 10 and letting the Archmage get extra attacks in. There's really no need to lumber around junk like two-handed swords, climbing sets, studded leather armours and redundant herbs. Clean out your inventory regularly and don't pick up any old shite.
- Invisibility doesn't help much in the Mana Temple, it just makes you hungrier. A ring of speed would have been better to wear.
- Level 31 is a bit low. Most people leave off the Mana Temple till they've done pretty much everything else. You should kill the guardians on D48 and do the blue dragon caves quest for more levels. You were wise to avoid that undead vault.
- Avoid going into the central chamber in the Mana Temple. Stay at the narrow entrance bolting everything, trying to kill the annoying eyes and wizards when possible, and wait for the big guy to come join the party. Helps to have an amulet of light on so you can see what's happening.
- You had a potion of blindness. Against an enemy like Nuurag-Vaarn there's no reason to fight fair. Lure him into a corridor, blind him, keep casting acid ball till he turns to mush.

If you want to keep going with wizards then I'd suggest drakeling or gnome. Drakelings have much less need of herbs, and their acid spit helps a lot against many enemies (I've even cleared the whole game with just it). Gnomes are decently tough with good magic stats and level up very fast - combine with Cup starsign for a great spellcaster combo.

Archers are good, but I find them boring myself. Bards are great fun if you fancy something a little odder. Gnomes bards especially - tough start, but you learn a lot from them.

[Toan]

If you set your auto-pickup in either the actual .cfg or every time you reload your game to wands, books, scrolls, potions, missiles, etc, leaving out armor, weapons and corpses, you'll be picking up most of the items you want anyway. Just be careful of picking up random throwing clubs or even huge rocks which will get you strained for not much use. You want all potions, if only for making PoRC, you want all scrolls because they tend to be valuable gold wise, and you never really know when that scroll of familiar summoning might be useful. As well, in an emergency, an Un-ID'd scroll is going to be much more useful than 2 Un-ID'd armors/weapons.

Books are something I pick up all the time, because anyone can be a spellcaster, it depends on how much time you invest trying to get your literacy and LE high. Well, anyone can be a spellcaster, Troll Barbarians aren't exactly the best, but later on, having the option of casting teleport, even just once is reason enough to at least try spellcasting.

Though, I haven't tried Barbarians..so..Apparently, they're the gods of melee combat, alongside Fighters. Maybe you could consider one of those. I don't think the Archmage casts Death when he's confused. So you can just bash him to a purple pulp.

[Blasphemous]

I forgot to mention that I killed a lot of cats and obviously cat lord wasn't happy. Almost killed me but acid ball did the job again. I think he had ove 180+ speed and hit like a moloch but didn't have much hp. Damn cats were pissing me off the entire game, especially in the beginning when I had no other means to deal with them than to kill. Anyway I didn't complain although the ring would be nice. Also archmage sucked out some of my toughness and will along with some other stats, but not much. Before I entered the mana temple I had 28 Wi and 24 To. Also I had constant problems with my char getting hungry. I always thought that invis increases food consumption only if it's intristic from a pool, not from item. Seems I was wrong.

[Grey]

Other way round - intrinsic invis doesn't affect hunger, only items do.

[Blasphemous]

Ahhh that would explain why my scummed chars never had this problem. I always had intristic invisibility from pools.

Edit: I'm considering chars that have food preservation, in order to maybe train toughness at graveyards. The problem is that neither archers/wizards nor high/gray elves have this skill, so the only three ways (all difficult) in which to get it would be a wish, a scroll of education or maybe a potion. On the other hand I could try playing a human or any other race that initially has food preservation, but it creates other problems (aging, lesser initial stats...). I'd love to play an archer but without food preservation it might be difficult to raise toughness if I choose to play an elvish race. Also there are longbows of hunting and arrows which I believe increase corpse generation, but from what I remember they can enhance food preservation but not replace it since they don't provide the same result - frequency of corpse drops.

[Soirana]

Ahhh that would explain why my scummed chars never had this problem. I always had intristic invisibility from pools.

Edit: I'm considering chars that have food preservation, in order to maybe train toughness at graveyards. The problem is that neither archers/wizards nor high/gray elves have this skill, so the only three ways (all difficult) in which to get it would be a wish, a scroll of education or maybe a potion. On the other hand I could try playing a human or any other race that initially has food preservation, but it creates other problems (aging, lesser initial stats...). I'd love to play an archer but without food preservation it might be difficult to raise toughness if I choose to play an elvish race. Also there are longbows of hunting and arrows which I believe increase corpse generation, but from what I remember they can enhance food preservation but not replace it since they don't provide the same result - frequency of corpse drops.

herbs, man, use herbs. Herbs +sickness is good for 30ish toughness which is point corpse hardly work anyway.

hunting stuff works only on animals according to some rumours. Unluckily no undead animals in this game.

[JellySlayer]

Human archers aren't half bad, actually, but yeah... herbs are way more efficient than corpse scumming to raise toughness. Lifespan isn't that big of a problem for archers (and wizards) anyway due to their natural ranged attacks--it's really only melee PCs that need to be careful about this.

[edit]Drakeling archers are good too, of course, but your starting gear is somewhat terrible.

[Grey]

Don't get the silly idea that only elves are good for casters. Personally I think drakelings beat all other races by a mile. You don't have as high learning initially, but the greater starting toughness makes them much more survivable.

[Blasphemous]

I slowly start to appreciate toughness the way I never did before. HP does indeed make a hell of a lot of difference. But out of all the parameters defining the early char's capabilities, the most I value learning, since it determins how much initially I can put into various skills. It's great to have a 100 concentration on lvl 2 as a mage, or a lot of alertness, find weakness or 2 weap combat as a melee char. Another thing is I often see chars with a lot of mana or willpower that technically don't need that much of these attributes. There's a certain importance of randomity during char creation that can potentially make a huge difference. Last time I started a drake wiz, I had 8 learning... please.

Another thing: I don't exactly understand the mechanism behind sickness and weakness (rings of, weapons etc). I mean I noticed that hp drop stops at some point when sick and that stats are generally significantly lowered but how exactly can I use this to my advantage? Lower stats are easier to train I suppose? When it comes to weakness, it abuses strength but how can I use this feature to maybe raise it above normal levels?

[gut]

> I could try playing a human or any other race that initially has food
preservation, but it creates other problems (aging,

This is true. In Ancardia, a race has one of two inherent abilities: either
to have a natural lifespan that sometimes extends to even thousands of
years, OR the ability to preserve meat. Never both.

[JellySlayer]

I slowly start to appreciate toughness the way I never did before. HP does indeed make a hell of a lot of difference.

Toughness/HP is king in the early game. Not dying is the single most important thing in ADOM. Everything else is secondary.


But out of all the parameters defining the early char's capabilities, the most I value learning, since it determins how much initially I can put into various skills. It's great to have a 100 concentration on lvl 2 as a mage, or a lot of alertness, find weakness or 2 weap combat as a melee char.

Skills are overrated IMHO. Concentration for casters, sure, very important. Healing for non-Candles, of course. Everything else? Doesn't matter all that much. (You shouldn't be using 2 weapon combat, btw. Ever.) Having low learning for a non-caster isn't too detrimental in early game, although below 6 is annoying since you can't ID wand charges. Train up to 14 using Garth, eat oracle to bump to 20. Plenty for non-casters.


Another thing: I don't exactly understand the mechanism behind sickness and weakness (rings of, weapons etc). I mean I noticed that hp drop stops at some point when sick and that stats are generally significantly lowered but how exactly can I use this to my advantage? Lower stats are easier to train I suppose? When it comes to weakness, it abuses strength but how can I use this feature to maybe raise it above normal levels?

Here's how it works.

Let's use morgia as an example. You can only use morgia to train your To up to 25. After that, morgia will not train To any higher. Now, suppose your PC gets sick. His To reduces to 20 (from 25). Morgia training only cares about your current stats, not your base ones. So, eat some morgia, and when sickness wears off, you'll get to 26. Repeat, and you can push to 30. If you eat a huge amount of morgia when you're at 29, you might be able to get to 31 or 32.

Similar thing happens with starvation. Ogre corpses rarely give increases if your St is above 20. You are only in danger of starving if your St is (base - 4)/2 or something. So, if your St is 22 and you go into ogre cave, then starve yourself down to as low as 8 St, eat an ogre, and you are more likely to get an increase. This can be repeated until your St about 36 (or you run out of ogres). Combining starvation (and sickness) with herbs can push Wi and Dx up to 53 IIRC, although I've never personally scummed that high since it gets pretty tedious. To is not affected by starvation, unfortunately. Ring of weakness is even better--it locks your strength at 1, 2 or 6 (depending on B/U/C status). Any time you eat an ogre, or train St through burden, your base will increase, but your current will not. So you can raise St to 99 using it. If you combine RoW with potion of exchange, you can raise ALL stats to 99 if you're willing to waste the time doing it.

[Toan]

> I could try playing a human or any other race that initially has food
preservation, but it creates other problems (aging,

This is true. In Ancardia, a race has one of two inherent abilities: either
to have a natural lifespan that sometimes extends to even thousands of
years, OR the ability to preserve meat. Never both.

Somehow I can just imagine Humans and the like using the magical item : SALT

GE Lesser Minion Thing: "Sir, the Humans have discovered a new item which can let meat stay fresher for longer"

GE King/Higher Up: "Bah! We don't need their filthy magic! We have our own!"

Anyway, Low TO can be mitigated with good starting equipment. Fighter based elves tend to get Elven Chain Mail, which is one of the best armors during Early/Mid IMO and IME, because it's 10s, and can be smithed, is higher metal, and starts off at [+0,+5]. So, while they might have pitiful TO, 5PV is probably enough to help. If you rush TH, you can play more item based game and such.

[vogonpoet]

There are no half bad archers. Some of them start with crappy equipment, but it really doesn't matter - just pick up whatever you find, throw it at monsters, watch them die.

Dark elves probably have the worst archery starting equipment, but are awesome just as soon as you head to bandit town, buy 6 rocks from the black market, then use them to obtain some more rocks in the PC (the dark quarrels you start with will be plenty for your mugger first kill). After that, keep rocking (don't bother with slings) until to you find a bow and some arrows, switch, kill some barbarians, and slay everything you see.

[kinda off-topic]

The rock-throwing skill you gained in the very early game will then serve you nicely in the Tower of Eternal Flambe, allowing you to completely by-pass the RoIce requirement which so many players seem to obsess about for some reason:

Keep your two favourite (+1, 0) bows inside your fireproof-blanket protected kit bag, next to some arrows of darkness, your blessed wand of digging, your emergency wand of teleport and some arrows of whatever (seriously, you won't need dragon slaying, but use them if you got 'em, barbed arrows work well, normal 1d6 arrows will also work fine, but then you might need a third (+1,0) bow).

Rock to death everything in the lower tower levels, dig into the temple, wake up the W, retreat to decent sized room, stand out the line of fire, equip your (+1,0) bow, blind the W with an arrow of darkness, then shoot it repeatedly with 1d6 arrows or dragon slaying ammo until it dies, replacing your bow as and when and if it burns up. Watch the W die, pick your best arrows up again, get the hell out of dodge, then try to explain why some people (including the Guide Book for Lolth's sake) are so obsessed with finding rings of ice for their archers.

[/kinda off-topic]

[Toan]

Actually, Archer should be the LEAST concerned about getting a RoICE for the tower, because:

1.You have more than enough arrows to just hold down T when you see a vault of any sort, past level 18, with a hatchet and fletchery set/sets
2.Anything can melt/explode outside of higher metal stuff and artifacts. This includes gold and rocks, IIRC, and seeing as Archers can pull billions of arrows out of their...somewhere, it doesn't matter too much.
3.Lots of arrows = RNG fodder anyway.

Well, in my humble opinion. But, I haven't played archers much either, so, don't take my word for it. Though like vogon said, you really don't need it, and scumming for it is boring, long time, etc.

(Coming from the person who likes smithing.)