starting out merchant, priest, or necromancer

[gosos]

I am 'ok' at the game. My best character is at the Casino which is a Gnome/Wizard. Have not played in a while. I posted about this guy in another thread. He is pretty badass.... have not played in a couple of months. More in the mood to try something different. Im ok with dying alot early to figure stuff out. I like to play aggressively early, lose alot of guys and then get 1 who is good who makes it through (so I prefer to hit the UD quickly).

1. Not sure that would work with these. What is the good race combination for merchant, priest, or necromancers? I usually prefer treasure hunter since I find the drops invaluable. However, with these guys it might be tough since they have hard starts. Are these the kinds of guys you want to start in the UD.

2. Should I stick with candle birthsign for these? I generally use that one. Not sure if anything else is better for these.

3. I am leaning towards merchant first since it looks 'neat' to play. Any special suggestions for these?

4. what talents (other than treasure hunter) go well with these? I have mainly played Paladin/wizards. Tried a few others.

[_Ln_]

I have to disappoint you, but priests and necromancers play pretty much in the same way as wizards. With lvl6+ necros you may want to use ghuls, but the difference is more or less marginal.

With merchants you may want to play a drake (obvious choice) or a dwarf. For these stick to PV line, unless you are confident you can survive.
Alternatively, take a high-Dx elf and use gold as thrown missiles. In this case you'll want archery-related talents (especially energy-cost reducing ones).

Raven is good for blinging (throwing gold), but Candle is your primary choice for early game survival.

I'd recommend rolling a wand wizard, since you'll probably start with a couple offensive wands, which is good.

[JellySlayer]

For caster priest, high/grey elf are a good choice--your start with a decent weapon and good armor and a bow and arrows. Your spells are more limited as a priest than as a wizard (you get 1-3 random books depending on race, and they're almost never attack spells), so you need to plan on doing a lot more fighting even if you want to be a caster mainly. Priests have pretty good skills, near-max detect item status at basically level 1 so you can equip-ID gear pretty safely. Alternately, if you play something like an orc priest, you'll basically end up with a paladin that is a slightly better caster and a slightly worse fighter. Candle isn't really necessary for priests, IMHO, since they start with Healing and usually can find some healing magic pretty easily. I'd go Raven or maybe a caster starsign.

Necros are basically bad wizards. They don't have particularly nice magical class powers, don't start with Healing, only start with one book. In practice though, like _Ln_ says, they play pretty much the same once you get started. The ability to raise undead is kind of cool, but mostly only as decoys or to train Ma in the early game. Ghul pets are okay, I guess. If you can kind some quickling corpses, you can make some excellent pets eventually. Candle is probably a good idea.

I agree that Drake or Dwarf are good merchant choices. Hurthling is okay too, if you want a more missile-oriented merchant (recommended), as is Dark Elf. You can even get okay prices for things as a DE merchant, though no better than a normal race IIRC. Potion merchants start with alchemy, which is handy later in the game, and can ID healing/cure poison/invis potions, which isn't terrible. If you start with invis, you can maybe rob the black market. Wand merchants can start with very nice stuff--a few bolt wands or even a wand of teleport if you're lucky. Ring and scroll merchants are both fairly weak. Candle is probably a good idea since you don't start with Healing.

[edit]I'd say priests are of comparable difficulty to paladins or barbarians. Necros are a little harder. Merchants are much harder.

[gosos]

what do you mena by a 'wand wizard' and then a 'wand merchant' from the two different posts? Is this just keep creating until you get one that starts with these items?

[JellySlayer]

I think by "wand wizard", _Ln_ meant wand merchant. Merchants start with a random specialty item--wands, rings, scrolls, potions.

[kordi82]

I am currently playing Orcish merchant - currently level 28 - this combo is much easier than expected to play. My choice was dictated by Find Weakness skill. However, what I did not take into consideration and what prooved to be Veeery useful is Mining. Merchants have gemology and mining + gemology = lot's of gold and crystals of knowledge.

Also, orcs are pretty tough which helps a merchant who lacks useful class powers.

Also remember tha potion merchants start with Alchemy and others not. Alchemy in it's main application is not THAT usefeul... but it can proove to be very useful using it offensively... or to boost your speed if you have cold blood corruption or if you play drake.

[_Ln_]

I am currently playing Orcish merchant - currently level 28 - this combo is much easier than expected to play. My choice was dictated by Find Weakness skill. However, what I did not take into consideration and what prooved to be Veeery useful is Mining. Merchants have gemology and mining + gemology = lot's of gold and crystals of knowledge.

Also, orcs are pretty tough which helps a merchant who lacks useful class powers.

Also remember tha potion merchants start with Alchemy and others not. Alchemy in it's main application is not THAT usefeul... but it can proove to be very useful using it offensively... or to boost your speed if you have cold blood corruption or if you play drake.

Mining is pretty useless IIRC, all it does is to reduce number of turns used for digging.

And yes, sorry for the typo, I meant a wand merchant of course.

[asdf]

Mining is pretty useless IIRC, all it does is to reduce number of turns used for digging.
Well, its a bug. It also supposed to reduce pickaxe breaking chance, but since pickaxes never break in prereleases...

[grobblewobble]

As birthsigns go, do not underestimate Tree. Since the buff it is one of the top starsigns, a very good alternative to Raven when you do not need the healing from Candle.

[kordi82]

Mining is pretty useless IIRC, all it does is to reduce number of turns used for digging.



Only reduces time? Remember there is 90 days effect in the game. Mining at 100 allowed me to gather 15 crystals of knowledge in 1 in game day... altogether with other gems that could be sold for tons of gold...

Gems I used in the minotaur maze, gold to restock shops that I found. Crystals of power give you quick fix to power points to cast spells when needed especially to book cast teleportation.

You can also mine on herb levels to gather herbs at the same time or at shop levels to restock the shop in the time you mine. Lots of benefits and very little time wasted.

However the greatest benefit of mining is that at 100 pick axe never breaks. I completely destroyed two levels without a single time it being broken.

Hence, mining + gemology (and metallurgy as orc merchant has it too is ) is very useful.

[asdf]

Only reduces time? Remember there is 90 days effect in the game. Mining at 100 allowed me to gather 15 crystals of knowledge in 1 in game day... altogether with other gems that could be sold for tons of gold...

Hence, mining + gemology (and metallurgy as orc merchant has it too is ) is very useful.
Due to bug with unbreaking pickaxes (they NEVER break. when this bug will be fixed - they would break even with 100 Mining sometimes) - Mining is useless. Speaking of Gemology... Merchants have excellent Gemology increases and any Merchant could earn 100 Gemology very quickly. Mining atm only decreases mining speed - with 100 Mining you are spending 1-3 turns (2 avg), without any mining - 6-8 turns (7 avg). Also i digged 15 crystals of knowledge in 2-3 game days with my hurthling merchant (but probably on lower level then you), so playing Orc _only_ because of gemology/mining - is a mistake.

[kordi82]

Due to bug with unbreaking pickaxes (they NEVER break. when this bug will be fixed - they would break even with 100 Mining sometimes) - Mining is useless. Speaking of Gemology... Merchants have excellent Gemology increases and any Merchant could earn 100 Gemology very quickly. Mining atm only decreases mining speed - with 100 Mining you are spending 1-3 turns (2 avg), without any mining - 6-8 turns (7 avg). Also i digged 15 crystals of knowledge in 2-3 game days with my hurthling merchant (but probably on lower level then you), so playing Orc _only_ because of gemology/mining - is a mistake.

Please read whole posts not just sentences. I clearly wrote that I picked Orc for Find Weakness. You picked hurtling most likely for food preservation and I well understand this... My dilema is always food preservation or find weakness. This time I picked find weakness hence I play orc. I considered also dark elf...

Mining is just a bonus. That's it that's it. I really liked how quickly I was able to dig crystals cause in my game I am already at day 140. For testing purposes I did some things i.e. second precrowning and it cost me a lot of in-game time. I did not know about pick axe damage bug hence I attributed it to Mining skill. However, I guess that with Mining at 100 it is still less likely to be broken, which is a nice thing.

[gosos]

1. looks like coin throwing does not get marks. does it get stronger other than as you level? I picked the bow and speed talents. Coin toss doesn't seem that good. getting archery with special arrows seems a lot better.

2. also about merchants, they generate more shops right?
3. I read somewhere that merchants can sell stuff to any shop. When I tried selling weapons to a ring shop, I couldn't do it. Is there any accuracy to this statement?
4. someone said that if I start with apotion of invisility I could rob the black market. I am a potion merchant and found a potion of invisibility. I thought merchants can see you when you are invisible?
5. someone also said they used gold from crystals of knowledge to 'restock shops'. I thought just stacking items is what got shops to restock, not buying them out?
6. how does alchemy help speed? Someone said that. I thought the offensive part revolved around failing to mix to lead to explosions.

I did the druid dungeon. found a neutral altar and did some sacrificing, but couldn't keep enough food to get to crowning. got very close. just entered the UD. Drakeling/paladin/candle with potion merchant. I got a lucky drop and got a flaming spear so I do nice damage. Blessed it too.

[kordi82]

5. someone also said they used gold from crystals of knowledge to 'restock shops'. I thought just stacking items is what got shops to restock, not buying them out?
6. how does alchemy help speed? Someone said that. I thought the offensive part revolved around failing to mix to lead to explosions.


If you buy evertyhing from the shop it will restock after some time. Stacking items will restock items once, maybe twice and it will not restock shop in full. However, buying the whole inventory from the shop will restock it in full after some time. With Merchant's class power + haggling you can get very low prices. I was able to buy everything from medium sized wand and scroll shops for about 5k of gold. Then you can sell it in HMV for up to 4k gold. If you have 20-30 k at your disposal you can restock a shop 10-15 times. It's great if you need a particular item. I scummed wand shop until I got wand of Paralyzation this way. Scroll shops can be scummed this way for scrolls of chaos resistance, education, danger, peace etc. The best part is that while waiting for the shop to restock you can dig crystals or pick herbs (if they are on the level or if you have gardening).

I am not sure if merchants generate more shops but it seems so for me. I got scroll, wand and book shops before reaching ToEF. Especially book shop made my life so much easier and made my char a semi spellcaster.

As for alchemy + speed, I wrote this. If you play drake or if you get cold blood corruption you can protect your char with resistances and create multiple alchemic explosions using herbs. This way you can speed your char temporarily up to ~200 speed. Needless to say with 200 speed all of the sudden games becomes so much easier ;). This has become very abusable in 1.2.0. In 1.1.1 was reserved only to drakes... now every char with alchemy can sooner or later do it.
I even believe that this should be removed from the game or limited as it is seriously overpowered. I think that the best way of taking care of it would be for alchemic explosions to abuse stats similarly to spell casting from health.

[gosos]

how do alchemical explosions raise your speed to 200? I thought they just did damage?

[kordi82]

how do alchemical explosions raise your speed to 200? I thought they just did damage?

They are generating HEAT. For drakes and for chars with cold blood corruption HEAT increases speed... in the same way COLD decreases speed. If you go to ToEF with a drake your speed will rise above 200 but you will be damaged even with immunity.

Using herbal explosions is only one of the ways to abuse this mechanic. You can also increase your speed by bolting yourself with wand of fire, with improoved fireball spell, fireball trap or as mentioned by going to ToEF. All the other ways are however more difficult at tedious to use. Herbal explosions are very easy to generate and you herbs are very easy to acquire.

[gosos]

ok I got it.

I am at dwarf town. level 12. found got seven league boots in HMV. I found a ring of djinni summoning. Should I wish for the amulet of lifesaving for khelevester or something else? Im just doing a normal ending. I have not crowned yet.
also, my monster kill quest is for a gargoyle. are there any particular locations to find them?

[Al-Khwarizmi]

I even believe that this should be removed from the game or limited as it is seriously overpowered. I think that the best way of taking care of it would be for alchemic explosions to abuse stats similarly to spell casting from health.
I think that would be quite forced, and also remove from the game something that can be genuinely fun.

Some ways of nerfing it without doing that:

- Fire resistance/immunity could also make you resistant/immune to the heat caused by the fire, so that the speed gains are reduced/eliminated if you have gear/intrinsics granting you resistance/immunity.
- Alchemical explosions could produce frost sometimes (maybe even acid?) instead of always producing fire.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

I am at dwarf town. level 12. found got seven league boots in HMV. I found a ring of djinni summoning. Should I wish for the amulet of lifesaving for khelevester or something else? Im just doing a normal ending. I have not crowned yet.
You'll find different opinions about this. Mine is that, unless you have a really pressing need of something else, you should wish for the AoLS. The value of the 6 SoCRs, spellbook of Teleport and 4 PoUH is much greater than what you can get from any other wish. And so much corruption removal might be unnecessary for non-ultra endings, but I personally feel much more comfortable with it, especially when I get a particularly nasty corruption sequence (and, by Murphy's law, you'll always get it if you don't save Khelly).

Edit: but you don't have to make the wish now, save the ring until Khelly. A RoDS is more durable than an AoLS and you can always use the wish if you have a pressing need.

[JellySlayer]

ok I got it.

I am at dwarf town. level 12. found got seven league boots in HMV. I found a ring of djinni summoning. Should I wish for the amulet of lifesaving for khelevester or something else? Im just doing a normal ending. I have not crowned yet.
also, my monster kill quest is for a gargoyle. are there any particular locations to find them?

Depends on your character's needs and your race/class. AoLS is never a wrong choice, though other things may be more valuable in the near-term (or even the long term).

[gosos]

I am thinking of wishing for find weakness instead. merchants are kind of weak...

[kordi82]

I think that would be quite forced, and also remove from the game something that can be genuinely fun.

Some ways of nerfing it without doing that:

- Fire resistance/immunity could also make you resistant/immune to the heat caused by the fire, so that the speed gains are reduced/eliminated if you have gear/intrinsics granting you resistance/immunity.
- Alchemical explosions could produce frost sometimes (maybe even acid?) instead of always producing fire.

FUN? I think you underestimate how broken it is.
Both of your suggestions are NOT enough. Both of them will only cause that I would have to heal myself a little bit more inbetween explosions. Believe me, when I say that for 200 speed I am willing to do this...

Think about it... all the dangerous monsters in the game can be easily mitigated with this. With 200 speed only quicklings and Andor Drakon are faster than you.

[asdf]

FUN? I think you underestimate how broken it is.
Both of your suggestions are NOT enough. Both of them will only cause that I would have to heal myself a little bit more inbetween explosions. Believe me, when I say that for 200 speed I am willing to do this...

Think about it... all the dangerous monsters in the game can be easily mitigated with this. With 200 speed only quicklings and Andor Drakon are faster than you.
I think you are understimating amount of OP things in game right now. Bug temple accessible to everyone, morgia could return Wi even cursed, and you leave Bug Temple with permanent speed of 140 + 30 Dx (without any means of food preservation/hunting)/160 + 35 Dx (with food preservation)/180 + 40 Dx (with food preservation/hunting weapons or missiles). Alchemy is kinda meh compared to this, not get me wrong - its certanly useful, but it needs certain corruption, which is relatively rare.

[kordi82]

I think you are understimating amount of OP things in game right now. Bug temple accessible to everyone, morgia could return Wi even cursed, and you leave Bug Temple with permanent speed of 140 + 30 Dx (without any means of food preservation/hunting)/160 + 35 Dx (with food preservation)/180 + 40 Dx (with food preservation/hunting weapons or missiles). Alchemy is kinda meh compared to this, not get me wrong - its certanly useful, but it needs certain corruption, which is relatively rare.

Relatively rare? IIRC there are about 40 corruptions in the game. If you have 10 corruptions your chances of getting cold blood are 25%... Your chances of getting it before D50 high above 50%.

And because some other thing is OP doesn't mean that it is a reason to keep this same way. It happens so that these two things stack together. I guess that with both you will have a char that could reach up to 260 Speed.... potentially with boots of great speed this can be 360... with additional boosts 400.

One last thing. There is a great difference between 140-160 speed and 200 speed. 140-160 speed means you are same speed as some tough mosters in the game. 200 speed means you are much faster then them.

[asdf]

Relatively rare? IIRC there are about 40 corruptions in the game. If you have 10 corruptions your chances of getting cold blood are 25%... Your chances of getting it before D50 high above 50%.
I'd rather not to have 10 corruptions of my character. So yes, it is rare. Also i've got cold blood maybe once in a 5 games, maybe even less.



One last thing. There is a great difference between 140-160 speed and 200 speed. 140-160 speed means you are same speed as some tough mosters in the game. 200 speed means you are much faster then them.
There is no difference. Ancient dragons - 112-120 +-10%. Ancient wyrms - 115-130 +-10%. Mimic hiveminds/werewolf kings - 140 +-10%.

120-130 speed is not enough to outrun some of them, but 140-160 speed is more than enough.

[JellySlayer]

It's not just outrunning monsters that matters. Getting multiple attacks is very nice as well.

It's also worth noting that, IIRC, corruptions are chosen in the same sort of way that random artifacts are. Not all corruptions are possible every game.

[kordi82]

I'd rather not to have 10 corruptions of my character. So yes, it is rare. Also i've got cold blood maybe once in a 5 games, maybe even less.


There is no difference. Ancient dragons - 112-120 +-10%. Ancient wyrms - 115-130 +-10%. Mimic hiveminds/werewolf kings - 140 +-10%.

120-130 speed is not enough to outrun some of them, but 140-160 speed is more than enough.


Top of my head.... Master Cat I just fought - 148 speed. Minotaur Emperor roughly the same. Andor Drakon over 200. So what? What does this prove?

Seriously I do not understand this discussion. You are telling me that scumming bug cave and reaching 160 speed is OP and when I tell you that you can get 260, you see no problem with it... Twisted logic.




If you reject all the other arguments consider fighting Andor Drakon in the end game. You WILL most likely have cold blood corruption before entering the gate and you can boost yourself before the fight and remove all the corruptions once inside chaos plane. =[

[asdf]

Top of my head.... Master Cat I just fought - 148 speed. Minotaur Emperor roughly the same. Andor Drakon over 200. So what? What does this prove?
That those are one-time enemies, which you know to be in a certain places, and you will prepare for them, speed or not speed.



Seriously I do not understand this discussion. You are telling me that scumming bug cave and reaching 160 speed is OP and when I tell you that you can get 260, you see no problem with it... Twisted logic.
Because when you could hit-run-run-hit-run-run a killer bug without him fighting back, nothing else matters. You could do this with all other monsters. Doing hit-hit-run-hit-hit-run with 500 speed or do the same to some relatively slow monster with 300 speed hardly makes a difference. It just lessens the distance you need to run, which rarely matters. In my experience, speeds above ~180 are not really needed.



If you reject all the other arguments consider fighting Andor Drakon in the end game. You WILL most likely have cold blood corruption before entering the gate and you can boost yourself before the fight and remove all the corruptions once inside chaos plane. =[
Fought him several times, usually as Avatar of Order, never had cold blood corruption, he did not pose significant problems with blessed potions of boost speed (between 250 and 450 speed usually, depends on RNG with finding them).

Your point is that you could easily beat certain hard enemies with certain corruption and certain skill which is possessed by Assassins, Necromancers, Wizards and some Merchants. Necromancers and Wizards just does not care, honestly. Corruption is random and far, far from guaranteed. Compared this to available-to-everyone Bug Temple which gives roughly the same benefits... Sorry, i fail to see how this is "OP". Nice trick to help some classes/races? Sure, why not. OP? No.

Even with merchants - they are ridiculously broken if they manage to generate decent-sized ring shop in convenient location. Like so broken that 260 speed seems boring in comparison. Like this one which i'm even too lazy to complete, because he is too powerful (2 ring shops, 1 potion shop) - http://ancardia.uk.to/adom_users/asdf/merch.vlg

[kordi82]

Once again... your whole argument is that this is not broken cause something else is broken. Twisted logic.
Johnny, it's ok for you to kick Tommy, cause George does it harder... lol.

[asdf]

Once again... your whole argument is that this is not broken cause something else is broken. Twisted logic.%
This is not broken because it requires specific race or class combined with specific preparations, while almost the same could be achieved by guaranteed location in the game. Its not even really affects this races/classes as a whole - majority of characters would still die before they could use it, and even if it could improve survival of survived 5% from 70% to 98% - it is far from broken in my opinion.

Your logic im insisting that this is "broken" is comparable to "i've found adamantium dagger of devastation in the griff graveyard, it is so much better that my mithil spear, daggers must be broken!".

Spears are better. Usually. Everyone could grab a spear, earn some mastery levels, enjoy a lot of DV. This is strong and safe bet. It could be broken and there even was some RFE to nerf spears - but it is in the game now.
But in this specific game, lets say, you found adamantium dagger of devastation. Comparing it to average spear - does it seems broken? Most certanly so. It gives a lot more damage, less DV, but overall it is better and even more "broken". Now, based on that - should you go on forum and post that daggers of devastation is "broken"? I doubt so, because you cant just go and buy one from the shop for your character. You can get lucky, but every character has his luck/unluck, thats what differentiates them.

Now about cold blood + fire explosions - does it provides exceptional benefits just from having it, which would enable you to kill everything on sight? Not so much, it is good - but with its own drawbacks and speed boost it provides is already available to everyone to some extent. You cant say that something is broken without comparing it to other methods.

[kordi82]

Nope... this is broken cause all the "bosses" that you anticipate in the game suddenly stop being dangerous. What's the point of having a "boss" in the game if defeating it is child's play. Master cat - no longer a problem, minotaur emperor - can't even get close. Keriax - with 200 speed you can hit and run him in melee - lol.

Seriously, the thing is that over the years Adom became too easy to play. You said it yourself that there are chars that you abandon cause they become too powerful. Same goes for me. JellySlayer dooms his characters at level one to find some challenge - this should paint you a picture.

I chose merchant for challenge and quickly discovered how I can break it so that I already got bored.

BTW.
I just completed Earth Temple with 45 speed. There were moment were it really started to be dangerous when 5 grues and ASB were attacking at the same time. IMO Adom should feel like this for the most part....

Oh... and the funny thing is that I completed the temple with Alchemic explosions and without them I might have even not survived this - but that's a different story.

[asdf]

Nope... this is broken cause all the "bosses" that you anticipate in the game suddenly stop being dangerous. What's the point of having a "boss" in the game if defeating it is child's play. Master cat - no longer a problem, minotaur emperor - can't even get close. Keriax - with 200 speed you can hit and run him in melee - lol.
You could submit an RFE for removing slaying ammo then. There is even some guaranteed slaying ammo, and it kills most bosses with several hits already. Using guaranteed wand of teleportation + slaying ammo makes all those bosses as easy as you describe for most characters, instead of semi-random corruption + alchemy.

Also you could hit Keriax to death in melee after throwing in him potion of confusion + potion of cure poison. All of that is guaranteed/almost guaranteed and makes bosses easy too. Alchemy speedup is one more trick in the book, nothing more. It could be tweaked, but removing it is wrong - randomness and variability kept ADOM alive though all those years.



Seriously, the thing is that over the years Adom became too easy to play. You said it yourself that there are chars that you abandon cause they become too powerful. Same goes for me. JellySlayer dooms his characters at level one to find some challenge - this should paint you a picture.
ADOM varies from "insane" difficulty for newbie to "easy" difficulty for experience player. Finding methods to raise my character to power is what keeping me in the game. Easy classes first, difficult last, challenges later... If you remove all that from the game for balance or blend it into one "everything-is-almost-simular" - that would be ToME, i guess. With much lesser replayability.

[kordi82]

You could submit an RFE for removing slaying ammo then. There is even some guaranteed slaying ammo, and it kills most bosses with several hits already. Using guaranteed wand of teleportation + slaying ammo makes all those bosses as easy as you describe for most characters, instead of semi-random corruption + alchemy.

Also you could hit Keriax to death in melee after throwing in him potion of confusion + potion of cure poison. All of that is guaranteed/almost guaranteed and makes bosses easy too. Alchemy speedup is one more trick in the book, nothing more. It could be tweaked, but removing it is wrong - randomness and variability kept ADOM alive though all those years.

Once again... this is not broken cause something else is more broken.... I don't feel like arguing with this logic.



ADOM varies from "insane" difficulty for newbie to "easy" difficulty for experience player. Finding methods to raise my character to power is what keeping me in the game. Easy classes first, difficult last, challenges later... If you remove all that from the game for balance or blend it into one "everything-is-almost-simular" - that would be ToME, i guess. With much lesser replayability.

As mentioned. Currently I feel like my char is too strong because of this. Period. Makes me re-play the game even less as I do not see challange in this. Period.

I will no longer continue this discussion. I will most likely submit RFE. You can rage all you want. Let Admin decide. Lesser things have been toned down in 1.2.

Edit:
After some thought I think that reasonable way of dealing with offensive Alchemy would be to remove possibility to use two herbs as alchemic combination. This way one would have to use a herb and a potion and there is limited number of useless potions in the game as opposed to herbs. Player would still be able to use offensive alchemy and speed boosts but it wouldn't be abusable.

[asdf]

Once again... this is not broken cause something else is more broken.... I don't feel like arguing with this logic.
This is not broken, because -

1) It could be used in theory by ~10% of characters, but 7% of them are Wizards/Necromancers, which... does not need it. It leaves us with 3%.
2) It kicks in mid-game/late-game, depends on how lucky you are with corruptions. I estimate about 20% chance of using this mid-game and 50% late-game.
3) Surival rate for those 3% characters in early game is quite low, and maybe 1 of 10 goes into mid-game. 1 of 2 then could survive to winning, playing properly.

Overall - 0.06% which could do this in mid-game and another 0.06% in late-game. Effect - slightly better than GUARANTEED (it means 100%) location. Seriously, it hardly seems broken to me while remembering... late-game Duelists, early-game Chaos Knights and Trolls in general, Archmage Wizards, Cow Axe, archers damage, barbarians tremendous blow, etc, etc, etc, etc.....


Edit:
After some thought I think that reasonable way of dealing with offensive Alchemy would be to remove possibility to use two herbs as alchemic combination. This way one would have to use a herb and a potion and there is limited number of useless potions in the game as opposed to herbs. Player would still be able to use offensive alchemy and speed boosts but it wouldn't be abusable.
This would be an excellent RFE, which limits possible Alchemy abuse while keeping Alchemy itself intact.

[mimhoff]

3) Surival rate for those 3% characters in early game is quite low, and maybe 1 of 10 goes into mid-game.

You're talking to me here right? If you discount Wizards and Necromancers then we're left with Assassins and sometimes Merchants, and I've been keeping the Assassin survival rate down pretty low recently...

[gosos]

my thread has been invaded and taken completely off topic...

1. what do you think i should wish for as a drakeling merchant. Im level 12 right now. haven't played in a few days. i know the cure corruptoin stuff from the amulet of life saving is useful, but is it essential? I have not won the game. I have a level 30 something gnome wizard sitting around i got kind of bored with. He is at the Casino. So i dont know how essential those cure corruption stuff is. I am thinking find weakness might be better. note, i have not played characters much who get find weakness. so not sure what the new critical rate is. btw, how much more damage is a critical.

2. blessing spell book of atlas strength is probably absolutely awesome for a merchant. how hard is this to read for a merchant? ill get my literacy to 100 before I do it. with bonus items i have 24 learning. this strikes me as a great thing to book cast for a merchant. with bonus to prices, i can haul massive loot and use gold to buy up my stats. its harder to get gold now. i also found a ring shop, so i can use gold to buy that out in hopes of getting better rings. then sell in dwarf town.

3. how effectively does throw coin level? do i also need to work up archery? I am guessing probably yes since ill need to use some slaying ammo.

4. i saw in the wiki or the guide that merchants can sell to any shop. that doesn't seem to work. ring shops dont buy other stuff. did i read this wrong?

5. so i far i have done UD, Village Dungeon and gone to dwarf town and generated 1 shop. now it could be bad luck. one person said he thinks merchants generate more shops. That is in the wiki. does anyone know for sure if this is true?

6. btw, how do you tell what immunity you get when you crown? In the past, I scummed. i did a 'q' and then looked. I was never able to figure it out.

[JellySlayer]

my thread has been invaded and taken completely off topic...

1. what do you think i should wish for as a drakeling merchant. Im level 12 right now. haven't played in a few days. i know the cure corruptoin stuff from the amulet of life saving is useful, but is it essential? I have not won the game. I have a level 30 something gnome wizard sitting around i got kind of bored with. He is at the Casino. So i dont know how essential those cure corruption stuff is. I am thinking find weakness might be better. note, i have not played characters much who get find weakness. so not sure what the new critical rate is. btw, how much more damage is a critical.

Critical is double damage. Find weakness, IIRC, increases critical hit rate by 20 percent at 100 skill, so it effectively increases your damage output by 20 percent (not exactly due to PV effects). I generally feel that wishing for skills is a bad idea. Unless you have a book shop available and want to wish for concentration, I think you can find something better. If you aren't planning on wishing for an AoLS, then you should probably wish for equipment. Exactly what depends on the gear you have. Eternium tower shields, red dragon scale mails, rings of regeneration, seven league boots are all good choices IMHO. If you desperately need a better weapon, a mace of destruction is okay, but you may be able to just hold off until you get Big Punch. A girdle of giant strength will also up your damage considerably, but you only get one and they're a vulnerable material...


2. blessing spell book of atlas strength is probably absolutely awesome for a merchant. how hard is this to read for a merchant? ill get my literacy to 100 before I do it. with bonus items i have 24 learning. this strikes me as a great thing to book cast for a merchant. with bonus to prices, i can haul massive loot and use gold to buy up my stats. its harder to get gold now. i also found a ring shop, so i can use gold to buy that out in hopes of getting better rings. then sell in dwarf town.

Merchants have pretty good carrying capacity, so it isn't essential most of the time. At 100 literacy and 24 learning, you probably have a shot at reading it. If you get more than a few dozen castings, you can probably just bookcast it indefinitely beyond that.


3. how effectively does throw coin level? do i also need to work up archery? I am guessing probably yes since ill need to use some slaying ammo.

Generally, you're probably better of picking up a bow. Coin throwing isn't terrible, but you can pretty easily out-damage your coins with a bow. Also, throwing coins is naturally slower than regular missiles (1200 energy), so it makes you a little more vulnerable. Pick up the archery talent quick shot to try to cut this down.


4. i saw in the wiki or the guide that merchants can sell to any shop. that doesn't seem to work. ring shops dont buy other stuff. did i read this wrong?

Merchants do not have this ability.


5. so i far i have done UD, Village Dungeon and gone to dwarf town and generated 1 shop. now it could be bad luck. one person said he thinks merchants generate more shops. That is in the wiki. does anyone know for sure if this is true?

Well, you never find shops in the Village Dungeon. I believe that merchants generate more shops as well, but it's not a massive effect. You might see four shops in the game instead of one or two.


6. btw, how do you tell what immunity you get when you crown? In the past, I scummed. i did a 'q' and then looked. I was never able to figure it out.

It's based on what the god tells you upon crowning:
"You no longer fear the heats of all hells combined" : Fire
"You feel prepared for the most chilling tasks" : Cold
"You feel that neither thunder nor lightning will be able to prevent the success of your mission" : Shock
"You look forward to being digested by the Chaos Lords/Lords of Order themselves" : Acid

[Singbird]

1. what do you think i should wish for as a drakeling merchant. Im level 12 right now. haven't played in a few days. i know the cure corruptoin stuff from the amulet of life saving is useful, but is it essential? I have not won the game. I have a level 30 something gnome wizard sitting around i got kind of bored with. He is at the Casino. So i dont know how essential those cure corruption stuff is. I am thinking find weakness might be better. note, i have not played characters much who get find weakness. so not sure what the new critical rate is. btw, how much more damage is a critical.


From my limited experience corruption removal stuff is not essential for a gate-closing. You can go down, do everything except the final location, come up, get all corruption removed and then go to the final level. You might perhaps still be in trouble if you have to wade through all the monsters on the final level. You will be in even more trouble if you have to melee the balors there. It's very nice to have a wand of destruction if you don't have corruption removals, because then you don't have to fight the balors necessarily.

Where corruption removal helps is removing corruptions you don't want. If you don't have any removals and you get mana battery or stiff muscles, tough luck.

There is a chance to get some removals in dwarf town if you're neutral. Look around. Ferrying the guardian corpses to the dude will net more removal than it will corruption. Then there's the Rift, which should also net more removal than corruption if you have the skill.

Find weakness helps nicely in the earth temple where killing the inhabitants might be difficult otherwise.

Perhaps you should just go down with that wizard and see what's down there. : )

[kordi82]

You should wish for Amulet of life saving. Period. 4 scroll + spellbook of teleportation. Choice can't be easier. Once you complete darkforge, get pickaxe and dig some crystals of knowledge. Pump up your learning as high as you can with all the potions you find, bless the book and give it a two or three times. If it doesn't work, wait until you find wand of wonder. Go scum for some beggars and potions of booze. Then use them all on wand of wonder. With some luck you will get a few teleportation casts and will be able to bookcast TP. In the meantime start gathering talents for good book caster.

As far merchants spellcasting is concerned I managed to turn my orcish merchant to semi spellcaster by wishing for Concentration. I was basically able to read every book apart from acid/ice/lightning ball and death ray.

Strength of Atlas is unnecessary for merchant... he already has twice carrying capacity. If you find girdle of carrying this goes to 4 times normal carrying capacity... Remember that once you get fire orb and you put it into tools slot your carrying capacity will skyrocket with his class power.

BTW.
When I think of it maybe good book caster isn't that great if you don't have concentration... and those potions of booze maybe can be better spent on wand of teleportation instead with much less hassle. On the other hand, around level 25 there aren't really any talents left that are worthwhile....

[Al-Khwarizmi]

I just completed Earth Temple with 45 speed. There were moment were it really started to be dangerous when 5 grues and ASB were attacking at the same time. IMO Adom should feel like this for the most part....
Maybe this deserves its own thread.

The underlying problem is that ADOM is a rather long game (for a game with permadeath). Finishing a game can take something like 6-8 real-life hours. If you (as an experienced player) were at serious risk of death during all that time, then it would be almost impossible to finish the game. If D:25 feels that dangerous, D:26 feels that dangerous, D:27 feels that dangerous... you'll just die.

Also, there's a skeleton in the closet: dying many times in the mid/late game is quite frustrating for most players. Dying in the early game is fun, you just learn from your gruesome death and reroll. But when you have already invested 5 real-time hours on a character, dying in the deep CoC is not very fun. You have to spend a lot of time getting back there.

I think that's the reason why the current ADOM balance (or rather unbalance) works rather well, in the sense that it managed to sustain an active community for many years (even when development seemed dead). You have a difficult, fun early game, and if you survive that, there is a long, epic late game where you are able to enjoy your powerhouse character. There are some climax moments in the late game where you can die (cat lord, mana temple, balors, greater vaults, etc.) but most of the late game is not very dangerous if you are well prepared and play reasonably carefully.

If every late-game level was like a mana temple or a greater vault, I honestly don't think most people would have the patience to keep playing the game. Mind you, probably some people would (maybe you would), but it would be a very different game to the ADOM we have grown with, and I don't think the majority of the community would like it.

EDIT: Now that I come to think of it, I have just remembered my D&D campaigns, and the most fun ones were like that too. The DM would be ruthless and kill us if we screwed up when we were low level, but much more forgiving when we were high-level epic heroes killing ancient dragons and such. No one wanted to lose those chars. In fact, the D&D game itself ensures that if you're high-level enough, it's quite difficult to die. There are resurrections that you can buy with gold and that kind of thing. So I suppose this kind of difficulty curve is not specific to ADOM, it's probably something tried and tested in other long games with permadeath, as are tabletop RPG's.


After some thought I think that reasonable way of dealing with offensive Alchemy would be to remove possibility to use two herbs as alchemic combination. This way one would have to use a herb and a potion and there is limited number of useless potions in the game as opposed to herbs. Player would still be able to use offensive alchemy and speed boosts but it wouldn't be abusable.
I like that suggestion, it prevents abuse and has no downsides for people who just want to use the ability as a fallback or a one-off trick.

[grobblewobble]

I would wish for a banshee to clear Bugcave. :-) Either that or AoLS. (Or some fun item as Jellyslayer mentioned.)

Find weakness is usually not worth a wish.

[Stingray1]

Wrt what Al-Kwharizmi said. I think a lot of us would agree that the early to mid game is exciting and the endgame rather boring because of the unbalance.

I, For one, often play a character up to the casino and then for a week or two stop playing ADOM because of the challengeless endgame laying ahead of me. 20 levels of it.

In my view, as it is now, D:50 might aswell be moved to D:30.

I think it is fair to ask for a little more excitement in the endgame. I'm not saying have greater balors and ancient karmic wyrms on every level, but running through goblins and rats on D:40 is a waste of my time.

I thus think it is fair to ask for more dangerous monsters in the deeper CoC. Our hero will still defeat these and not die, but atleast it's not just a matter of holding a movement key down.

We are still in beta testing phase, so I think now is an ideal time to test these concepts.

[kordi82]

We are still in beta testing phase, so I think now is an ideal time to test these concepts.

I agree.... just stopped playing the mentioned merchant while he was at level 37 due to no challenge. I cleared the whole earth temple with herbal alchemy and started doing the same in bug cave when I just stopped playing and picked mist elven thief (he is already level, 12 and has immunities or resistances to all elements ;)). The reason for this was that for the past 6-7 levels the only time I felt endangered was when I deliberately used slow monster on me and underestimated amount of c...p that fell down on me as a result. i.e. when I used it on master cat level to kill some death oozes and found myself with 45 speed far from the stairs and cat lord taking down 1/3 of my lifebar each turn ... and these were actually "fun" situations. When you find yourself in such spot then you really have to think what to do next instead of holding forward.... and god bless wand of paralyzation ;).

[grobblewobble]

Kordi: I think you would find new enjoyment in the game if you try speedruns. It means higher score and much more challenge. I notice from your posts that you spend a lot of time in the early to mid game preparing and building your character. Nothing wrong with that, but this is the reason the late game is such a pushover. You will see that if you challenge yourself to finish the game within 50k, 40k or 30k turns, that the game suddenly becomes interesting in new ways. When you don't have time to farm so many herbs, when your character is lower level, when you lack all sorts of items... suddenly you need to be creative again.

[kordi82]

Kordi: I think you would find new enjoyment in the game if you try speedruns. It means higher score and much more challenge. I notice from your posts that you spend a lot of time in the early to mid game preparing and building your character. Nothing wrong with that, but this is the reason the late game is such a pushover. You will see that if you challenge yourself to finish the game within 50k, 40k or 30k turns, that the game suddenly becomes interesting in new ways. When you don't have time to farm so many herbs, when your character is lower level, when you lack all sorts of items... suddenly you need to be creative again.

There is a degree of truth to what you are saying. i.e. I already found the new 90 days system to make the game more interesting as now I have to make choices if something is worth in-game time. i.e. I had a spare wish and had to decide whether to wish for SLB or Concentration. In 1.1.1. choice would be very simple. Concentration wins as I prefer teleportation to SLB anyways. Now SLB were more tempting... in the end I decided for concentration and SLB created using Chaos Roulette :) but the choice wasn't as obvious.

Still I do not really like artificial restrictions to the game. As someone mentioned rats and goblins on D40 are a waste of time. Maybe we should suggest RFE that not only corruption increases with time but also danger level? Oh... and why every 90 days? Maybe the system should be more fluent. i.e. small increase every 5 days. There would be in built incentive to race against the clock.

EDIT:
I just had an idea that made me laugh inside... Maybe Adom needs to have difficulty settings. The scale would be: very hard, extremely hard, don't even try, ADOM hard ;). We could then end balance discussion quickly. Less experienced players could choose basic setting as it is right now and those bored of us could have some fun trying to beat the game on more difficult ones.

[grobblewobble]

There would be in built incentive to race against the clock.

There is such an incentive. Score. Turncount is the main factor there (with xp coming second). Turncount works better than game days, too, imo. Game time is influenced too much by wildernerness travel (which means 7lb make too much of a difference and things like herb farming matter too little).

Although I have to admit that this system just barely fails to work perfectly, because the cap on the bonus score for xp is far too high, which means that an archmage who takes forever to complete the game but kills 5000 ancient karmic wyrms very easily beats the score of the greatest speedrun run ever (which is far, far, far more of an accomplishment.)

[_Ln_]

What I would like in difficulty department is a challenge editor which will allow you to export your scenarios for other people to try out. But this is not ADOM I material, not even close.

[kordi82]

There is such an incentive. Score. Turncount is the main factor there (with xp coming second). Turncount works better than game days, too, imo. Game time is influenced too much by wildernerness travel (which means 7lb make too much of a difference and things like herb farming matter too little).

Although I have to admit that this system just barely fails to work perfectly, because the cap on the bonus score for xp is far too high, which means that an archmage who takes forever to complete the game but kills 5000 ancient karmic wyrms very easily beats the score of the greatest speedrun run ever (which is far, far, far more of an accomplishment.)

Bleh.... I couldn't care less about anything in Adom than my end score. Seriously... if score system was removed I wouldn't even notice.

[GordonOverkill]

What I would like in difficulty department is a challenge editor which will allow you to export your scenarios for other people to try out. But this is not ADOM I material, not even close.

Sorry, but I somehow have to comment on this again x-) If you do not want to renounce the usage of any survival tactic (including scumming and close-to-exploits), if you also decline any kind of "artificial" challanges and if you still want the game to be hard (which equals: a bigger chance for you to die), wouldn't that mean that this mode would be more or less unwinnable without the usage of these methods? And if this would be the hardest mode, of course most true fans of the game would feel impelled to play this mode and thus to use these methods, thus decreasing their enjoyment of the game. Sorry, but I really don't like this idea.

[kordi82]

Sorry, but I somehow have to comment on this again x-) If you do not want to renounce the usage of any survival tactic (including scumming and close-to-exploits), if you also decline any kind of "artificial" challanges and if you still want the game to be hard (which equals: a bigger chance for you to die), wouldn't that mean that this mode would be more or less unwinnable without the usage of these methods? And if this would be the hardest mode, of course most true fans of the series would feel impelled to play this mode and thus to use these methods, thus decreasing their enjoyment of the game. Sorry, but I really don't like this idea.

What I would really like is for the game to be more balanced start to finish. Early game is balanced enough - although I have to play something like ME Thief to find it really challenging. And as for scumming - there is less and less of it in 1.2 and this is the direction I like. You can see my debate above how alchemy is overpowered and should be toned down. Right now you start with different degree of "it's hard" at the beginning... and it changes to different degrees of overpowered towards the end... Recent changes are going in the right direction but we still aren't there....

i.e.
I love the change to stat potentials - especially to herbs. In 1.1.1. in mid game all of my characters had more or less same stats regardless if I was playing Troll or Gray Elf. Now you really have to work for this.
I also like change to teleportation. It balances a little bit spellcasters vs. other classes - still I believe the change is not enough and teleportation should be further toned down. i.e. there could be some monsters on the map that if present would prevent you from teleporting at all or if you use controlled teleport you would leave a portal behind you open for the monsters to come down and chase you... or casting teleport would last 3-4 turns during which monster can still hit you. In other words, no more get out of jail free card teleportation is.
Someone mentioned that currently speed boost you can get from bug cave is OP. There is also simple solution to this... if you have WI at 1 and you eat a bug your Potentials should drop. If your WI is at 1 and Potential is at 1 toughness is next in line etc.
Also as mentioned there shouldn't be countless amounts of rats and goblins once you get deep into CoC. Make a random chance to find dangerous mobs (mobs not monsters). etc.

In other words, near end game I would like the game to be as challanging as in the beginning. Right now I basically divide the game into two chapters. Until I have wand of teleportation and after I have wand of teleportation....

[Silfir]

Wrt what Al-Kwharizmi said. I think a lot of us would agree that the early to mid game is exciting and the endgame rather boring because of the unbalance.

I, For one, often play a character up to the casino and then for a week or two stop playing ADOM because of the challengeless endgame laying ahead of me. 20 levels of it.

In my view, as it is now, D:50 might aswell be moved to D:30.

I think it is fair to ask for a little more excitement in the endgame. I'm not saying have greater balors and ancient karmic wyrms on every level, but running through goblins and rats on D:40 is a waste of my time.

I thus think it is fair to ask for more dangerous monsters in the deeper CoC. Our hero will still defeat these and not die, but atleast it's not just a matter of holding a movement key down.

We are still in beta testing phase, so I think now is an ideal time to test these concepts.

"A lot of us", sure, but who is that "us"?

Right now, the game is more challenging in the beginning than it is in the endgame. If you are really, really good at the game, the endgame might even feel like a foregone conclusion. I know it feels like that for me now, too. No questions asked.

But I started playing ADOM in 2002. I didn't see the endgame until three years later. Even after I won, the endgame felt dangerous and exciting to play for a couple more years to be sure. 2009 I completed an ultra ending and by the end of 2010 I had closed the gate at least once with every class. My only win since then was the Let's Play, and I haven't played ADOM for fun quite a while. There are a lot of games out there, after all. FTL succeeded in feeling a whole lot like ADOM in the best of moments.

But let's take one step back and look at the whole picture. Yes, the ADOM 1.1.1 late game, if I were to get there again, would probably end up feeling like a foregone conclusion again. But we're at 2013 now. A decade has passed since I discovered the game. I've played the hell out of it and back. In a game where many people give feedback that winning it is basically impossible and depends purely on luck, in which there are 147 (or something like that) ways to die, I've accumulated something like twenty-seven victories. I've played it for thousands of hours to be sure; sleepless nights, endless numbers of deaths clogging up my highscore list and beyond. I've had more fun with this one game than any other in my lifetime.

Am I really the one that ADOM 1.2.0 should cater to in every way? In a game with permadeath where investment in a particular character rises the farther you get, having a more challenging early game and a more manageable late game is a good thing. It allows players who've finally, finally gotten the hang of the early stage of the game a fighting chance as they discover new places farther along. Make no mistake about it; the middle- to late game has more than enough pitfalls to trap any but the most experienced players.

And the most experienced players? Those are the ones who end up clumping together in forums like this one, discuss strategy, reminisce, and just generally chat about one of the grandest pleasures that computer gaming has brought them. And we share our ideas about how to play the game in different ways to make it exciting again. And that's wonderful, it's great that a forum like this exists, that an obsessed bunch like us can come together and be obsessed together.

But does that mean we're representative of ADOM players at large? Certainly not. We know more about the game, about its fault and exploits and the degenerate crap in it than anyone, sure. But are our subjective estimations of how hard it is at the moment the standard the game is to be judged by? If I take my whole playing career into account, the only verdict I could come to is that ADOM's difficulty curve is as close to perfection as anything could get. This game, including the late game, has engaged me and kept pulling me back in for more for close to ten years. Nothing lasts forever. If the ADOM late game is a "waste of my time" to anyone today, it's the result of thousands of hours of game play that were amazing.

This is not to say that our ideas for adjustment are by necessity terrible. We can change things. But we have to look at the whole board, and keep in mind that we ourselves would not be here if the game had not been awesome in all those years (or if you're a genius, months) it took for wins to become routine and the lategame to become "boring". The average ADOM forumgoer is not the standard we should be judging the game's difficulty by. And "adding more difficulty", rather than more gameplay features and interesting things, should not be on Thomas' list of priorities. Not even in brackets under "optional".

[_Ln_]

Sorry, but I somehow have to comment on this again x-) If you do not want to renounce the usage of any survival tactic (including scumming and close-to-exploits), if you also decline any kind of "artificial" challanges and if you still want the game to be hard (which equals: a bigger chance for you to die), wouldn't that mean that this mode would be more or less unwinnable without the usage of these methods? And if this would be the hardest mode, of course most true fans of the game would feel impelled to play this mode and thus to use these methods, thus decreasing their enjoyment of the game. Sorry, but I really don't like this idea.

I'm not sure you quoted the right person :D

There are a couple of threads here with character savefiles where characters were heavily modified using memory editing (Adombot?). I recall one started by JellySlayer. Typically you load a character in some screwed situation and have to use your knowledge of the game to perform some task (survive, for example). JellySlayer's were quite short but interesting. If we had a legitimate tool to create such things, this would have been pretty interesting.

Waiting on your second boss stage video :D

[JellySlayer]

I'm not sure you quoted the right person :D

There are a couple of threads here with character savefiles where characters were heavily modified using memory editing (Adombot?). I recall one started by JellySlayer. Typically you load a character in some screwed situation and have to use your knowledge of the game to perform some task (survive, for example). JellySlayer's were quite short but interesting. If we had a legitimate tool to create such things, this would have been pretty interesting.

Waiting on your second boss stage video :D

I think he's referring to this (http://www.adom.de/forums/showthread.php/11803-A-Few-Little-Puzzles). One of my favourite challenges that I ever made for this game, so I always self-promote it ;) Yes, these were made with AdomBot.

I should make more one of these days, if I can come up with some good ideas.

[anon123]

I hope you can. I liked those puzzles, and since there's usually more than one way to solve them, it was very interesting to see how the others reasoned.

[GordonOverkill]

I'm not sure you quoted the right person :D
...
Waiting on your second boss stage video :D

You are absolutely right ;) Hope you enjoy the last video, too!

[Stingray1]

Wrt what Silfir said. It also took me 3 years to get my 1st victory in, there is a lot to figure out. [:eek:] The endgame had its challenges in that 1st playthrough, obviously.

This might sound surprising, but I was dissapointed that that character did not die in the endgame.

All I'm suggesting Silfir is that instead of encountering heaps of dl 1 monsters in the deep CoC, they be replaced with higher dl monsters. I'm asking for more excitement in the endgame. There is plenty in the special levels, but I think more in the in-between-levels would be good.

Not for "us", but for everyone.

The "waste of time" is the low dl monsters in high dl areas.

Edit - Just to clarify, I'm talking about types of monsters here, not their experience level.

[grobblewobble]

I should make more one of these days, if I can come up with some good ideas.

One where the farmer ability to turn corpses into iron rations is your only hope, please. :D

[JellySlayer]

One where the farmer ability to turn corpses into iron rations is your only hope, please. :D

I think I already used that one. You had to fight your way through a bunch of gorgons with a starving troll or something. #5, it looks like.

[GordonOverkill]

Do farmers actually have this ability 8o ? How does it work? Need to try it... right now x-D

[Silfir]

Like a great many things people have comically surprised reactions about in this forum, the Farmer's level 25 class power is documented in the game manual. :P

[GordonOverkill]

Ups x) I must confess that I never managed to get a farmer to lvl 25 so far.

[gosos]

@kordi: what is SLB?

I thought about find weakness. I got the idea from the wiki that lists it as a good choice for a wish. Ill probably go wit AMoLS.

How do i tell if i have 100 characters created so i can get to the bug cave? Alot of my guys have died and are from previous versions (they appear to all be in the same save file) of 1.2. Do i have to manually count files in the save directory?

[GordonOverkill]

what is SLB?
I guess it's seven league boots.

[JellySlayer]

@kordi: what is SLB?

I thought about find weakness. I got the idea from the wiki that lists it as a good choice for a wish. Ill probably go wit AMoLS.

How do i tell if i have 100 characters created so i can get to the bug cave? Alot of my guys have died and are from previous versions (they appear to all be in the same save file) of 1.2. Do i have to manually count files in the save directory?

In 1.2, the number of deaths required has been reduced to 5 for testing purposes, IIRC.

7LBs or SLBs are seven league boots.

[kordi82]

@kordi: what is SLB?

I thought about find weakness. I got the idea from the wiki that lists it as a good choice for a wish. Ill probably go wit AMoLS.


Yup... seven league boots. Find weakness ... yes generally is great. In my particular dilema above I was not considering it as I played orc, so I had it already. However, the stronger your character is (meaning the better physical attributes it has) the less valuable find weakness is as you will be able to manage even without it.
Seven league boots were tempting in my particular situation as I wasted a lot of in-game time that normally I would not. I wouldn't necessarily recommend to wish for them in normal situation. There is quite high chance you will find them sooner or later. You can also try chaos roulette to create them (google it ;)).