New to forum, not to ADoM - quick question about game version

[Chronicle]

Greetings to all,

I am a long time avid ADoM player, not quite a year played, but I'm getting there! I got my brother and friend's into it too. This game is sooo addictive, but I don't need to tell you about that now do I? :P
I have a quick question about the game version I am currently playing. Me and my brother both play the free version from the website. Version 1.2.0 - prerelease version 3. Is this the version we should be playing? I've read these forums and notice that people have posted their winning stats. It's really been bugging me how they beat the game with the amount of DV/PV they have. I remember I had a level 20 Dwarven Barbarian with over 55 PV and 110 DV (Coward)/50DV (Berserk) and he couldn't venture past level 25 of the CoC without getting smashed by everything that came at him. I had a scroll of enlightenment right before I died, I wasn't doomed or cursed, I was lucky, wearing two items that gave me luck, and I had about 5 - 7 artifacts on my person. I'm just confused how everytime I get to a certain place/level in this game the monsters just get uber tough. One thing I do notice though, is that everyone who wins with a melee character seems to find a <weapon> of destruction that adds insane damage. I've been playing for almost a year (with various wizards who ID hop for days and days at a time) and still never found one. I've found RoDS and Seven league boots out the wazoo, but never that weapon, is that the secret to beating this game? Don't get me wrong, not complaining...just wondering, I love the game and the challenge, and I won't stop until I beat it. I was just wondering if you guys could school me a little bit :)

[anon123]

The latest public prerelease is pr5. You might want to check it out. It fixes many bugs and adds a bunch of new corruptions.

Weapons of devastation are nice, but by no means an absolute requisite to win the game. There is no short supply of weapons in this game, and several good ones are guaranteed. Darkforge might have something good too. Some creatures are very dangerous to engage on melee combat no matter how tough or fast you are, however. If you have wands and missiles, use them, and don't be afraid to fight dirty. Do you remember which monsters in particular got you killed?

[JellySlayer]

Prerelease 5 is the most recent version that is publicly available. I don't remember the differences between 3 and 5 all that well--changelogs are posted. All of the prereleases, as well as 1.1.1 have bugs, so you kind of have to pick your battle. I think pre5 fixes the crowning bug which is really annoying in pre3 maybe?

A couple things for the endgame...

First, you don't need to fight everything. Vault monsters especially are very, very high level and can be quite dangerous even to very buff PCs. Most regular monsters and the Temple monsters are comparatively easy. There are some monsters that are simply too dangerous to fight in melee--doppleganger kings come to mind as an obvious one, though there's a handful of other monsters that you need to watch out for as well. In terms of bosses, it's really just the cat lord and the Archmage that actually pose a threat to you though. Cat lord in melee is a bit suicidal.

As for weapons... well, especially as a barbarian, getting yourself crowned is a great way to pick up something decent. Weapons with the slaying power, especially humanoid or daemon slaying, are extremely valuable and do tonnes of damage--Vanquisher for barbarians is sort of the gold standard for these, though if you really want to laugh your way through the endgame, play a paladin and pray for Justifier. One option to guarantee yourself a good weapon is to take Raven starsign. This will give you access to the rune-covered trident at level 16, a very, very nice weapon. I've won many games using this as my primary weapon most of the game. It has great damage, slaying powers, and nice defensive bonuses. My winners usually rely on artifact weapons--there's the odd time you'll get an eternium ego weapon, but not necessary. Heck, Big Punch does enough damage to be usable to the endgame.

Be sure to grab/max your tactics skill for extra to-hit and damage. High strength score helps too. Don't be afraid to train missiles. Usually by the time you've gone through the Casino, you should have a mountain of slaying ammo. Put these to good use.

Probably the biggest thing that help win games is to not fight fair. Thrown potions are an ADOM players best friend. Blindness, curse invisibility and cursed raw mana will blind enemies throwing the crystal phial will also blind certain enemies. Wonder and confusion will confuse. Potions of cure poison will stun poisonous enemies. Wands of paralysis work on almost everything given enough persistence. Many monsters can't see in darkness and will stand around like idiots while you slaughter them. This includes lategame dangers like most dragons, mimic hiveminds, titans, and doppleganger kings, and early/midgame horrors like vortices, spiders, and ogre-magi. Wands of poison can do absolutely massive damage and are very effective as well. Even wands of stunning can knock out some dangerous monsters like minotaur mages. These are your lifelines.

Finally, later in the game having effective ways to get HP back is very important since you have so much, and Healing/Candle don't recover you fast enough for the most part. A huge pile of blessed spenseweeds is nice for general purposes. A few potions of extra/ultra healing or the Water Orb are good emergency heals. Grabbing a couple of rings of regeneration or wielding a knife of endurance in the missile slot can make life a lot easier by dramatically increasing your health regen so you fight every battle at full strength.

[Chronicle]

Thanks for the replies guys. I'll download and check out the 5th prerelease and see if things are any different. I do tend to powersmash my way through the game, making it a point to destroy everything in a dungeon before I go to the next level, I guess I should just play it safe and be a little sissy unless I know for sure i'm safe. I did have the Justifier with my dwarven pally once, I think I got creamed on the SMC by some overpowered Wall Beast or something of the sorts. I had another character that was badass die because he got corrupted with the poison hands, and he was deep into a dungeon and all his cooked lizards turned to shit when he ate them, and all my potions were useless. I couldn't use my potion of cure corruption either *boggle*. My dwarven wizard didn't pack enough punch to kill the Ancient Wyrm in the ToEF eventhough he had every spell in the game except wish (Thank you ID scumming, lol), so he got vaped. My level 20 dwarven weaponsmith just got done smithing his entire inventory and had some badass DV/PV and he got surrounded by ghuls that paralyzed him for 15 rounds + and just beat the snot out of him (no dodge sucks). I guess all my characters get to ~ level 20 and then seem to die in the most stupid, horrible, BS way. All learning experiences I guess. Like the time I learned not to venture into the claw bug temple until i'm well into the 30's :)
Anyways, thanks again guys!

[Joe]

Running around in the SMC with a high level character is like dooming yourself on purpose. Don't ever do it and if you must make sure you have invisibility and controlled teleportation just in case.
Also, the bug temple is nice to clear but extremely dangerous and unnecessary really (especially for non-spellcasters). Same goes for the minotaur maze. Don't expose yourself to crazy things if you want to win instead of to die. Just grab the fire orb and the RotHK and then dive the CoC to close that gate. After that you can still kill yourself in the SMC ;)

[Mekran]

Running around in the SMC with a high level character is like dooming yourself on purpose. Don't ever do it and if you must make sure you have invisibility and controlled teleportation just in case.

To clarify: Monsters in the SMC spawn around double your level. Trying to fight things once you're past level 6 or so is a recipe for suicide. Like Joe said, if you must go in there, do everything you can do to get to the other staircase as fast as possible. Casters have a bit more of an advantage, as it tends to spawn low danger level monsters, which can't shrug off bolt spells.

[Stingray1]

To clarify: Monsters in the SMC spawn around double your level. Trying to fight things once you're past level 6 or so is a recipe for suicide. Like Joe said, if you must go in there, do everything you can do to get to the other staircase as fast as possible. Casters have a bit more of an advantage, as it tends to spawn low danger level monsters, which can't shrug off bolt spells.

For those interested. If you are high level in the SMC and try to melee a rat, you'll DIE! Also higher dl monsters do spawn if your lvl is high, I'd guess the dl to be around half the PC's.

[anon123]

Not all monsters seem to spawn at twice your level every time. Which might falsely lead you to think this effect has been exaggerated by us and isn't actually such a big deal, then attempt to melee your way through.

Repeat - falsely.