Game progression help.

[Heclapar]

I have been playing Adom since last summer and (so far) i haven't been able to do any real progress after entering the CoC,because i dont really know what to do,and eventually die by my own stupidity. But i genned a pretty good Human Barbarian who got crowned with Vanquisher in the PC, and i would like some tips about how i should proceed, because he looks really promising. Also first post :o

[grobblewobble]

Tips: do dwarf quests and pyramid, raise your toughness (eat morgia and the right undead corpses), try to increase PV, try not to be burdened so don't carry too much junk around. Also make getting teleport control and the wand of teleportation a priority. If you post a character file it will be easier to give more specific tips.

Also hi, welcome.

[kordi82]

As mentioned wand of teleportation is a PRIORITY. Look in your invetory if you have scroll/wand of item detection or magic map or if you have crystal of knowledge. All of these will allow you to identify position of wand of teleportation. If you have teleport control you can go for it straight away (provided you have one of the items mentioned above). If you don't have teleport control first you need to enter the pyramid for pickaxe. With pickaxe you don't actually need means of identification of its position, you can just destroy the whole level with pickaxe and sooner or later you will get it. In prerelease 16 there is a bug making pickaxe not breaking ;). Just watch out for stone giants.

Once you have wand, go to outlaw village and find some beggars, to get some potions of booze from them. Afterwards use potions of booze to keep wand of teleporation with at least 2 charges at any given moment. Also bless the wand to make it less prone to destruction. From this point on this will be a single most important item in your inventory. In case of any problems teleport away.

Apart from the wand of teleportation please make sure you have high piety at any point in the game. In case problems PRAY. Print this at put it above your computer ;). I am serious. I remember how long it toook me to remember to use prayers.

Another piece of advice it to collect lot's of spensweed and use it as you staple healing method. It's free and you can have it in unlimited quantities. No reasons not to use it.

[Heclapar]

Thanks for the tips guys,but kordi82, unless i am missing something,is there an guaranteed wand of teleportation somewhere?

[kordi82]

Thanks for the tips guys,but kordi82, unless i am missing something,is there an guaranteed wand of teleportation somewhere?

Yup. There is. :)

[Heclapar]

Well, never mind. The character died to a freaking mimic hivemind during an arena rematch that i did to get some gold.The fight went like this "You slightly wound the mimic hivemind.The mimic hivemind hits you.You are paralysed... You died" He dropped me from 200 health to zero :(

[meekrab]

Yeah, never fight in the arena after becoming the champion, *any* non-unique monster can be generated as an opponent.

[Silfir]

I am squared shitless of a couple of monsters regardless of the stage of the game, and mimic hiveminds are one of them. Do not fight post-champion in the arena. Never ever.

[anon123]

Do not fight post-champion in the arena. Never ever.

That's a bit exaggerated. Post-championship monsters can be very tough (I've had to face greater molochs, diamond golems, chaos wizards, and ancient karmic dragons), but if you have a means of either dealing with them or simply teleporting the hell away when things look grim (as in well, every monster encounter in the game), you're not going to die. Granted, you only get some gold and the feeling of having completely finished your business in the Arena level, but that's good enough for me.

[Silfir]

If you have the means to defeat greater molochs, diamond golems, chaos wizards or ancient karmic dragons, and if those means do not require the consumption of resources more valuable than the gold (what do you get? 10k each?), you either do not exist or are too much of an outlier case to take into consideration. I'll just stand by the "never ever", if you don't mind.

One is always free to do stupid things for fun or a vague sense of accomplishment, of course. Even the most strongly voiced opinions of mine don't take on the power of law.

[grobblewobble]

Mimic hivemind was amazingly bad luck, though. It is perhaps the most dangerous monster in the entire game, at least I'm fairly sure it ranks number one in the list of monsters that killed high level characters.


Even the most strongly voiced opinions of mine don't take on the power of law.
Wait, they don't? :confused:

[Al-Khwarizmi]

To be honest, when I see a mimic hivemind in the late game, I put on an amulet of free action and charge with whatever I have available. It's a monster that requires preparation and care, but I don't find them so scary as to avoid them, to be honest. But maybe I have just been lucky with rolls.

The late-game monsters I do avoid (at least if I'm not a very good spellcaster) are doppelganger kings and berserker emperors, though. Doppelganger kings are just... brutal.

[JellySlayer]

Well, as the OP learned, they're almost certainly lethal without paralysis resistance.

With it... well, they have decent HP, a powerful melee attack, and are fast enough to run you down with 7lbs (>100 damage per hit against decent PV and 160 speed is typical). I put them on about the same level as werewolf kings. If you try to fight one in melee, you'll very quickly realize this it is an endgame monster and not just something you can mow over. The kind of thing that is probably worth teleporting passed if you find a threat room of them. They're a lot more dangerous than berserker kings, IMHO.

[kordi82]

Yeah, never fight in the arena after becoming the champion, *any* non-unique monster can be generated as an opponent.

Very wrong piece of advice. The right piece of advice is: "Never enter arena without means of teleportation." If you find something in the arena you cannot deal with, simply teleport away.

[grobblewobble]

To be honest, when I see a mimic hivemind in the late game, I put on an amulet of free action and charge with whatever I have available. It's a monster that requires preparation and care, but I don't find them so scary as to avoid them

Of course, but as a mimic you may not see it before it's too late.. that's why I said "most dangerous". (And meeting them in the arena without a way to teleport out or any source of -par is just horrible.)

[quik]

Well, never mind. The character died to a freaking mimic hivemind during an arena rematch that i did to get some gold.The fight went like this "You slightly wound the mimic hivemind.The mimic hivemind hits you.You are paralysed... You died" He dropped me from 200 health to zero :(

If you want to make progress and achieve your first win, have one thing very clear. Don't do anything other than the necessary for a regular win, e.g., don't visit other dangerous locations, don't try to clear greater vaults, don't explore the levels deep down the CoC, just find the stairs. If you follow this piece of advice, you'll limit the odds of making a mistake and dying.

My second piece of advice is play a wizard. Being able to kill monsters en masse and from afar, added to utility spells like teleport and invisibility, is *very* valuable.

Cheers!

[kordi82]

Offtopic

quik - looking at your footnote. Try mindracfter, for me it's my favorite class by far. Very different from all the other classes, has no penalties that spellcasters have for weapon combat and past level 30 becomes a true monster :). Greater Telekinetic Blast for the win! ;).

Farmer is also very fun class and much better that most people believe it is.

P.S.
Does anyone know if Mindcraft invoked teleportation cost has been changed in 1.2 in a similar way that teleportation from spells has?

[quik]

Offtopic

quik - looking at your footnote. Try mindracfter, for me it's my favorite class by far. Very different from all the other classes, has no penalties that spellcasters have for weapon combat and past level 30 becomes a true monster :). Greater Telekinetic Blast for the win! ;).

Farmer is also very fun class and much better that most people believe it is.



I've tried it a couple of times but always died soon in the game. Same with the farmer. It's been a while since I last played ADOM, but when I come back I'll try those. Any suggestions on what races to pick?

[Al-Khwarizmi]

I played some merchants for the resurrection anniversary challenge, and I discovered that I love that class. You can start with really great items, and you get double carrying capacity, which is a great ability, at least for my packrat playstyle.

[kordi82]

I've tried it a couple of times but always died soon in the game. Same with the farmer. It's been a while since I last played ADOM, but when I come back I'll try those. Any suggestions on what races to pick?

Offtopic

As someone already mentioned on the forum... everything is easy with Drakling ;). For mindcrafter this is particularly true due to the fact that everything he cannot deal with mindcraft he can deal with acid breath. Food preservation is also nice, also drakelings have high toughness that allows you to survive in the early game. Mindcrafter does not need find weakness as much as other classes so no need to dictate your choice by this skill. As for birthsigns salamander is really nice due to increased PP. Tree IMO is overestimated for mindcrafters since you will be able to raise your Wi with morgia sooner or later.

As for Farmer - orc is a pretty obvious choice due to find weakness skill. Farmers level 6 skill is really nice and allows you to make most of speed talents. With long stride + all the other speed talents and no burden status your farmer will be constantly around 110-115 speed. Nice birthsigns for farmer are sword (stacks with Farmers polearms natural affinity) and especially Raven. If you pick raven, you don't have to invest in speed talents at all opening other options i.e. ranged weapons talents - farmers have archery which opens path for quick and lightning shot. Additionally early Rune Covered trident and farmers natural bonus to polearms will allow you to breeze through mid game.

[quik]

Offtopic

As someone already mentioned on the forum... everything is easy with Drakling ;).

(...)




Hey, thanks a lot. This evening I may play, I'm feeling like it.

[grobblewobble]

Tree IMO is overestimated for mindcrafters since you will be able to raise your Wi with morgia sooner or later.

Tree for mindcrafters used to be the single worst piece of advice in the guidebook. In 1.2 Tree is actually decent due to +2 toughness and +1 PV. Besides Salamander, Candle and Raven are top starsigns as they are for everyone.

True berserk works very well for mindcrafters. Confusion blast + true berserk is very powerful.

Mind blasts work through walls, this can be exploited against monsters that can't open locked doors. For example the crime lord can be taken out easily that way and the assassin prince can be murdered for xp if you lock him in. (As a drakeling you should be able to gain millions of xp if you slow yourself down to speed 10 with a wand of cold just before finishing him).

[kordi82]

Tree for mindcrafters used to be the single worst piece of advice in the guidebook. In 1.2 Tree is actually decent due to +2 toughness and +1 PV. Besides Salamander, Candle and Raven are top starsigns as they are for everyone.

True berserk works very well for mindcrafters. Confusion blast + true berserk is very powerful.

Mind blasts work through walls, this can be exploited against monsters that can't open locked doors. For example the crime lord can be taken out easily that way and the assassin prince can be murdered for xp if you lock him in. (As a drakeling you should be able to gain millions of xp if you slow yourself down to speed 10 with a wand of cold just before finishing him).

Salamander for mindcrafter is more useful than for other classes. I do not consider salamander a particularly good starsign even for wizard but for mindcrafters that's a different story.

True berserk is maybe good for the first 3-4 levels until you find some decent armor. Later on rocks are preferable to true berserking. With confusion blast there is always a chance that you will get hit. With rocks there is none and trained slings/rocks will quickly outdamage true berseking ... Besides monsters that can be confused aren't really a problem for mindcrafter...

Mindcraft through walls is exploitable, especially once you find wand of door creation and you are able to pick locks. However, this is probably one of the top reasons for early death for mindcrafters. A few undeads behind the wall and you are dead.... So it is to be used with caution.

[Heclapar]

Besides my very bad luck with them,i am really loving the barbarian.Is it worth picking human as a race just for the two-handed sword?

[JellySlayer]

Orc barbarian is much better, IMHO. Humans start with a nice weapon and an amulet of luck, true, but they have fairly poor stats and starting PV. Orcs have much higher St and To to start, as well as much better armor (7-10 starting PV is typical). Their weapon is decent enough. They also get find weakness, which is nice for any melee character (though, admittedly, food preservation is great too). A nice roll on a troll barbarian can be pretty hilarious too--you can start with up to ~38 To for monster early PV/HP.

If you really want a big starting weapon for a barbarian, you might as well go all out and try a Gnome or Hurthling. With Candle or Falcon starsign (or a bit of luck), you can draw a monstrously powerful heir gift. Hurthling barbarians also start with a bow and arrows, IIRC, which are very nice to have.

Humans are pretty much the worst race, IMHO (though ratlings are a close second). You always have a better choice.