Harwin
05-13-2009, 07:25 PM
Having won twice with Wizards (Dark Elf normal and Drakeling ULE) I wanted to try a melee win. I decided to pick hurthling farmer so I'd level up quickly, partly so I could get precrowns out of the way and also so I could get some of the nice class powers done. I won, but remind me never to go for 3 precrowns again. 1 is plenty, 2 is nice, 3 is just boring.
So I created Robbin, a wolf-born Hurthling Farmer. Since I wasn't going for a ULE I decided to skip the small cave entirely - hurthlings level up quickly and I started out really weak. With my big dog in tow I accepted the quest to go save the carpenter and headed down.
First kill: Goblin Rockthrower.
My dog stayed loyal for a while, saving me from multiple early monsters and allowing me to actually gain a few levels and some HP so I wouldn't just die. Hurthlings aren't exactly that tough at the start. After rescuing him and learning healing from Jharod, I headed over to the puppy cave to clear the vault and look for herbs.
I'd never used gardening before and wasn't sure how I wanted to do it, but the one thing I was sure of is that I didn't want to lose any seeds to an exploding door. Nevertheless, I did. After that stupidity though I got really lucky. On PC:3 there were 3 stable patches, each one with stomafillia, 2 with alraunia and 1 with pepper petals. Just below them, on PC:4 was a lawful altar... and right next to that a room full of hurthling-killing gnolls. About 20 live gnoll sacrifices later, the room was empty and I was feeling good. I harvested herbs and prayed to my god and got... Preserver! I went and cleared the vault(mixed, but not bad) to gain levels and got precrowned with Farslayer. I didn't really have any quarrels but still a nice gift.
At this point I used my 1 herb seed to change the PP/Stoma patch to a PP/Morgia patch and got my wisdom and toughness up to 25/26, respectively, and just kept farming everything. A long time later I got my 3rd precrown, Purifier. I was kind of hoping for a polearm, being a farmer, but Purifier would stand me in good stead the rest of the game, so I switched to maces and never looked back.
Although I'd spent a ridiculous number of turns, the day count wasn't too bad. I'd never finished a game in under 90 days before (As a wizard I'd drag every Orb guardian corpse back to Terinyo for potions, and that ate a lot of game time) so I resolved to make that my goal - I'd gotten great gifts from my god, it would be my failure if I squandered them.
The early CoC was easy, although I found a ridiculous number of bee hives - bees started to get really dangerous. If I hadn't had Preserver I'd likely be dead. I managed to skip a lot of later hives, but I think at least 6 were generated by the time I got to the banshee level (one of them on the banshee level - if that's the guaranteed one, make sure you've got monster detection.)
I screw up the dwarven quest - I thought as long as I didn't go past the forest before getting the quest, I could still get it. No luck. Instead of getting past the forest, I get a quest to kill a troll king. I never see a troll king the entire game. I also fail to do the arena, waiting to get the quest from the dwarf, so I never get tactics.
Khelavaster made me sad. I walked up to him, handed him my one unID'd amulet and... no luck. He dies in my arms. I walk down the stairs, and in the NEXT ROOM is a glowing wand. On the next level after THAT is an ordinary ring. 5 wishes total, all too late for him.
I had no method of generating darkness so I just whittled the snake down, taking some corrupting hits and counting on my regen and my huge supply of pepper petals to save me. I then walked back out of the CoC and easily get the RoTHK. Before doing the ToEF I spend my first two wishes - tower eternium shields and red dragon scale mails. I drop most of my stuff, bless my 1 fireproof blanket, and bravely walk into the tower.
About 100 turns later I flee out of the tower, my blanket destroyed. I spent my 3rd(of 5) wishes on fireproof blankets, and bless 2 of them with my remaining holy water. I make a mistake exploring the tower and open an entire room of fire giants and kings. Purifier doesn't do much against them and although I'm not at a huge risk of dying, they aren't risk free and they're starting to whittle down my healing supplies. Luckily, there's an L altar in the tower so I sacrifice a lot of giant kings.
The top level of the ToEF is more of a pain than normal. Without invis and darkness I have to clear a large chunk of the room. Purifier appears to kill elementals, and definitely works on grues so it isn't too bad. I manage to lure him out of that area and blind him, and start pelting him with dragon slaying. When that runs out I start meleeing him with Purifier. He manages to run away down the corridor a bit, and so although I kill him, I can't get to his corpse immediately. A few turns later, it burns away. Really? A giant dragon who lives in the tower of eternal flames doesn't have a fire-proof corpse?
Disgusted, I return to Terinyo(picking up the courage quest on the way, hmm, I'll need 33 goblin rockthrowers total), hand in my one guardian corpse, and prepare to make my final dive. The casino gets me a bunch of potions, wands, and ammo, and I decline to buy robes of resistance. I find an L altar a little bit below it but had underestimated how much gold I'd require after 3 precrownings so have to revisit the casino a few times to get more gold. Finally I get precrowned, get shock resistance(a slug had given me acid and I was wearing a crown of ice and red dragon mail) and... hammer of the gods. Oh well, I can't say my god wasn't generous before.
On D:36 I sense a greater vault and while trying to avoid it, ghosts come through the walls! (I have no source of invisibility at this point). I kill them, but get surprised by a ghost lord and go from Frodo->Bilbo in one turn. I manage to get away down the stairs, nervous. I grab the ring of the master cat, skip the air temple, encounter a patch of mareilon, and then see a greater vault of ogres and giants. Awesome! With all my extra morgia, cooking, giant corpses and mareilon, I get my old-age stats back up to young-adult levels. I also get Thunderstroke! At least it goes with Farslayer. Then, with 2 wishes left I wish for potions of youth and get rid of 46 years of unnatural aging. One of my 2 remaining red dragon scale mails gets damaged, but I switch it up.
I find out that Bugs disarms. Luckily I've got enough humanoid slaying ammo to finish him off and he does this after I've killed the bunnies.
The earth temple is easy, I've got purifier, they've got vulnerabilities to Purifier. I mostly berserk the ASB, at this point I've got ridiculous PV so except on crits he doesn't hurt me. Air is similarly easy. One of the walls to the central room is already open for some reason - and there's a fireball trap outside it. I trigger the trap four times and then learn that they run out of charges (With 3 fireproof blankets and immunity to fire, and most of my really vulnerable items on a previous floor I was hoping to abuse it). I use my one wand of Fireballs to clear a path and berserk the summoner to death.
I skip a lesser red dragon vault (I'm starting to worry about corruption - I've got one randomly dropped scroll and one potion at this point, and luckily no corruptions I can't live with) and head to the mana temple. After slaughtering a ton of guardians I find Nuurag-Vaarn and proceed to run back through the traps trying to kill him with humanoid slaying, and ducking out of sight eating pepper petals whenever I get a death ray hit (I'm wearing the AMW but no other death ray resistance). Finally I run out of humanoid slaying but he's pretty slow, so I kill him with Thunderstroke. Who says it isn't useful? I get the apish corruption and as you can see from my stats at the end, it has quite an effect, despite having paid quite a bit to train learning in Dwarftown.
I've got no potion of uselessness so I just head down. Right before entering D:50 I get mana battery. I'm hesitant to clear it. It blocks a wand of destruction ending but I could get something worse, and I've got 1 scroll and one potion, so I decide to chance it. Mindful of the ghost lords, I spend my final wish on cloaks of invisibility. About 10 kills later I find one. Sigh. I also, finally, at long last, bless Purifier. It's a demon and undead slayer... that I haven't blessed yet. Idiot.
D:50 takes me a LONG time, like 20000+ moves long. I read a scroll of vermin control at the start to stop the WMoPCs from spawning, but I'm terrible and drawing the balors out so I have to fight through a ridiculous number of chaos servants and greater chaos servants, all of which are really nasty by the end. The balors aren't a big deal, I've got blessed Farslayer and 18 blessed demonslaying quarrels. Most of them die that way, a few to Purifier. The few ghost lords I do see on D:50 I kill with undead slaying ammo
Fisti is still up and I have no hope of getting into the center room so I pull the levers, find him at one of them, kill him, and leave. I check my kill count. 33 goblin rockthrowers. I finally pick up courage. I t
Big mistakes:
1. Not getting tactics
2. Not blessing purifier
3. Not being more careful about ghost lords - that wasn't a wish I wanted to spend.
Things I learned:
1. Bugs disarms.
2. Getting 3 precrowns is BORING.
Questions:
1.Somehow, despite getting less XP and no ULE, my hurthling farmer ended up with about 2x as many points as my drakeling wizard.
So I created Robbin, a wolf-born Hurthling Farmer. Since I wasn't going for a ULE I decided to skip the small cave entirely - hurthlings level up quickly and I started out really weak. With my big dog in tow I accepted the quest to go save the carpenter and headed down.
First kill: Goblin Rockthrower.
My dog stayed loyal for a while, saving me from multiple early monsters and allowing me to actually gain a few levels and some HP so I wouldn't just die. Hurthlings aren't exactly that tough at the start. After rescuing him and learning healing from Jharod, I headed over to the puppy cave to clear the vault and look for herbs.
I'd never used gardening before and wasn't sure how I wanted to do it, but the one thing I was sure of is that I didn't want to lose any seeds to an exploding door. Nevertheless, I did. After that stupidity though I got really lucky. On PC:3 there were 3 stable patches, each one with stomafillia, 2 with alraunia and 1 with pepper petals. Just below them, on PC:4 was a lawful altar... and right next to that a room full of hurthling-killing gnolls. About 20 live gnoll sacrifices later, the room was empty and I was feeling good. I harvested herbs and prayed to my god and got... Preserver! I went and cleared the vault(mixed, but not bad) to gain levels and got precrowned with Farslayer. I didn't really have any quarrels but still a nice gift.
At this point I used my 1 herb seed to change the PP/Stoma patch to a PP/Morgia patch and got my wisdom and toughness up to 25/26, respectively, and just kept farming everything. A long time later I got my 3rd precrown, Purifier. I was kind of hoping for a polearm, being a farmer, but Purifier would stand me in good stead the rest of the game, so I switched to maces and never looked back.
Although I'd spent a ridiculous number of turns, the day count wasn't too bad. I'd never finished a game in under 90 days before (As a wizard I'd drag every Orb guardian corpse back to Terinyo for potions, and that ate a lot of game time) so I resolved to make that my goal - I'd gotten great gifts from my god, it would be my failure if I squandered them.
The early CoC was easy, although I found a ridiculous number of bee hives - bees started to get really dangerous. If I hadn't had Preserver I'd likely be dead. I managed to skip a lot of later hives, but I think at least 6 were generated by the time I got to the banshee level (one of them on the banshee level - if that's the guaranteed one, make sure you've got monster detection.)
I screw up the dwarven quest - I thought as long as I didn't go past the forest before getting the quest, I could still get it. No luck. Instead of getting past the forest, I get a quest to kill a troll king. I never see a troll king the entire game. I also fail to do the arena, waiting to get the quest from the dwarf, so I never get tactics.
Khelavaster made me sad. I walked up to him, handed him my one unID'd amulet and... no luck. He dies in my arms. I walk down the stairs, and in the NEXT ROOM is a glowing wand. On the next level after THAT is an ordinary ring. 5 wishes total, all too late for him.
I had no method of generating darkness so I just whittled the snake down, taking some corrupting hits and counting on my regen and my huge supply of pepper petals to save me. I then walked back out of the CoC and easily get the RoTHK. Before doing the ToEF I spend my first two wishes - tower eternium shields and red dragon scale mails. I drop most of my stuff, bless my 1 fireproof blanket, and bravely walk into the tower.
About 100 turns later I flee out of the tower, my blanket destroyed. I spent my 3rd(of 5) wishes on fireproof blankets, and bless 2 of them with my remaining holy water. I make a mistake exploring the tower and open an entire room of fire giants and kings. Purifier doesn't do much against them and although I'm not at a huge risk of dying, they aren't risk free and they're starting to whittle down my healing supplies. Luckily, there's an L altar in the tower so I sacrifice a lot of giant kings.
The top level of the ToEF is more of a pain than normal. Without invis and darkness I have to clear a large chunk of the room. Purifier appears to kill elementals, and definitely works on grues so it isn't too bad. I manage to lure him out of that area and blind him, and start pelting him with dragon slaying. When that runs out I start meleeing him with Purifier. He manages to run away down the corridor a bit, and so although I kill him, I can't get to his corpse immediately. A few turns later, it burns away. Really? A giant dragon who lives in the tower of eternal flames doesn't have a fire-proof corpse?
Disgusted, I return to Terinyo(picking up the courage quest on the way, hmm, I'll need 33 goblin rockthrowers total), hand in my one guardian corpse, and prepare to make my final dive. The casino gets me a bunch of potions, wands, and ammo, and I decline to buy robes of resistance. I find an L altar a little bit below it but had underestimated how much gold I'd require after 3 precrownings so have to revisit the casino a few times to get more gold. Finally I get precrowned, get shock resistance(a slug had given me acid and I was wearing a crown of ice and red dragon mail) and... hammer of the gods. Oh well, I can't say my god wasn't generous before.
On D:36 I sense a greater vault and while trying to avoid it, ghosts come through the walls! (I have no source of invisibility at this point). I kill them, but get surprised by a ghost lord and go from Frodo->Bilbo in one turn. I manage to get away down the stairs, nervous. I grab the ring of the master cat, skip the air temple, encounter a patch of mareilon, and then see a greater vault of ogres and giants. Awesome! With all my extra morgia, cooking, giant corpses and mareilon, I get my old-age stats back up to young-adult levels. I also get Thunderstroke! At least it goes with Farslayer. Then, with 2 wishes left I wish for potions of youth and get rid of 46 years of unnatural aging. One of my 2 remaining red dragon scale mails gets damaged, but I switch it up.
I find out that Bugs disarms. Luckily I've got enough humanoid slaying ammo to finish him off and he does this after I've killed the bunnies.
The earth temple is easy, I've got purifier, they've got vulnerabilities to Purifier. I mostly berserk the ASB, at this point I've got ridiculous PV so except on crits he doesn't hurt me. Air is similarly easy. One of the walls to the central room is already open for some reason - and there's a fireball trap outside it. I trigger the trap four times and then learn that they run out of charges (With 3 fireproof blankets and immunity to fire, and most of my really vulnerable items on a previous floor I was hoping to abuse it). I use my one wand of Fireballs to clear a path and berserk the summoner to death.
I skip a lesser red dragon vault (I'm starting to worry about corruption - I've got one randomly dropped scroll and one potion at this point, and luckily no corruptions I can't live with) and head to the mana temple. After slaughtering a ton of guardians I find Nuurag-Vaarn and proceed to run back through the traps trying to kill him with humanoid slaying, and ducking out of sight eating pepper petals whenever I get a death ray hit (I'm wearing the AMW but no other death ray resistance). Finally I run out of humanoid slaying but he's pretty slow, so I kill him with Thunderstroke. Who says it isn't useful? I get the apish corruption and as you can see from my stats at the end, it has quite an effect, despite having paid quite a bit to train learning in Dwarftown.
I've got no potion of uselessness so I just head down. Right before entering D:50 I get mana battery. I'm hesitant to clear it. It blocks a wand of destruction ending but I could get something worse, and I've got 1 scroll and one potion, so I decide to chance it. Mindful of the ghost lords, I spend my final wish on cloaks of invisibility. About 10 kills later I find one. Sigh. I also, finally, at long last, bless Purifier. It's a demon and undead slayer... that I haven't blessed yet. Idiot.
D:50 takes me a LONG time, like 20000+ moves long. I read a scroll of vermin control at the start to stop the WMoPCs from spawning, but I'm terrible and drawing the balors out so I have to fight through a ridiculous number of chaos servants and greater chaos servants, all of which are really nasty by the end. The balors aren't a big deal, I've got blessed Farslayer and 18 blessed demonslaying quarrels. Most of them die that way, a few to Purifier. The few ghost lords I do see on D:50 I kill with undead slaying ammo
Fisti is still up and I have no hope of getting into the center room so I pull the levers, find him at one of them, kill him, and leave. I check my kill count. 33 goblin rockthrowers. I finally pick up courage. I t
Big mistakes:
1. Not getting tactics
2. Not blessing purifier
3. Not being more careful about ghost lords - that wasn't a wish I wanted to spend.
Things I learned:
1. Bugs disarms.
2. Getting 3 precrowns is BORING.
Questions:
1.Somehow, despite getting less XP and no ULE, my hurthling farmer ended up with about 2x as many points as my drakeling wizard.