Easy ways to increase Literacy in new version of ADOM?

[magpie]

I've rolled an orc barbarian who has, at level 18, turned out pretty well: crowned with shock immunity and Skullcrusher, found Hammer of the Gods randomly (!), something like 60/40 DV/PV on Normal tactics, plenty of stats and herbs... basically, all the elements to roll the end-game pretty effectively.

The problem is, my dumb barbarian's Literacy is a paltry 47 (and I have reduced my skill-up amount to 1d3), which I can see will be a problem at some point (imagine wasting a SoCR?!?!).

So, my question is, how can I go about grinding whatever I need to grind to increase my Literacy to a decent level before I start getting annoying corruptions? I know PoCC are obtainable, but with chaos removal, it's never better to have less... so I want to get the full use of all of my SoCR.

[anon123]

Reading graves is said to train it, as do scrolls. You could try reading the pyramid invitation a few dozen times :p

[magpie]

I've already done all the Dwarftown 'quest' quests, but have not done the 'portal' quest. I have cleared out DF - no wish. *sigh* I have been crowned but I had to bless and sac every artifact (and every good weapon, though I didn't bless the non-artifact stuff) I had at that point (with the exception of the pyramid stuff) to get the piety for a neutral crowning.

Maybe ransacking graves in the GY will do the trick, as well as giving up a wish for Khelavaster?

EDIT: thanks, anon! I do have a big pile of ratling leaflets (seriously, I love the ratlings; maybe my favourite flavour element of ADOM, very Fritz Leiber!) as well as the pyramid invite. Will reading the same stuff over and over continue to train the skill?

Also: I know dark sage corpses can increase Literacy, but can any others?

[grobblewobble]

Be careful with dark sage corpses, they can decrease the skill, too.

If you satisfy the ghost librarian your literacy will instantly be raised to 100. Or almost, anyway.

[anon123]

EDIT: thanks, anon! I do have a big pile of ratling leaflets (seriously, I love the ratlings; maybe my favourite flavour element of ADOM, very Fritz Leiber!) as well as the pyramid invite. Will reading the same stuff over and over continue to train the skill?

Yes, if you read them repeatedly, you'll get some skill points from training. It's not much, but better than +1d3. The pyramid invitation (and I think the ratling pamphlets too) are special and never disappear if you fail to decipher them.

Dark sage corpses won't increase literacy, they only grant the skill if you don't have it already (and if cursed, decrease it!). They're the only corpse in the game that can directly affect a skill, to my knowledge.

[_Ln_]

If you have generated a potion shop, you may wanna scum it for potions of training. Visit the mystic if you haven't (he may give you two blessed). Not even remotely guaranteed to hit Literacy, but still worth a try while you're training it naturally.

If you have 100 Climbing and Stealth (you can train them in Holeinthewall), just go to the Rift and get the Weird Tome. Getting it automatically sets Literacy to 100.

[asdf]

Move between two adjacent graves, spend 12-24h ingame hours doing that, enjoy several +10-15 Literacy increases. Even after you move along - there would probably be 2-3 more increases of Literacy later.
Graves = guaranteed fast and simple 100 Literacy.

[Stingray1]

Moving between 3 herb patches drives me mad. Imagine moving between 2 tiles for 12 hours. I think I'll poke my fingers in my eyes after 30 minutes. The library seems more fair on sanity.

[asdf]

Moving between 3 herb patches drives me mad. Imagine moving between 2 tiles for 12 hours. I think I'll poke my fingers in my eyes after 30 minutes. The library seems more fair on sanity.
Ingame hours, not real-life ones. Thats probably 5-10 real-life minutes of pressing two buttons, not so bad as you imagined:)

[gosos]

can you still read scrolls? read scroll of warning at up entrance to SMC over and over again or read the ratling ramphlet repeatedly. that seemed to work in 1.1.1.

[magpie]

My Literacy went up to 54 and I got horribly bored going back and forward on graves, so then I did the GY, went back and did Keethrax and the Crime Lord (I remembered I started this game diving through the UD), and have done as far as the Snake From Beyond.

Thanks to finally finding some seven league boots I managed to get both Keethrax and the Snake's corpse back to the druid, so that should cover corruption (3 Potions, 3 Scrolls so far).

In response to my earlier issue: at this point it will be more worth it to get my Stealth and Climbing up to 100 so I can go to the Library and get the Tome (with the SoCR and Literacy that implies), than messing around with graves and stuff to level my Literacy the boring way.

Found some VERY nice stuff just lying around in people's tombs (crystal plate mail of life, seven league boots, demon and dragon slaying ammo), but no wish. So I had to let Khelavaster die. This toon won't need his stuff to win anyway...