During-action-report of Saleya the dark elven wizard

[GordonOverkill]

Since we were talking about it on another thread, I decided to play a run with a wizard. Rolled a sword-born dark elven girl who started with Long Stride and Alert, Darkness and Lightning Bolt, learning 14, ring of cold resistance and ring of mental stability. Called her Saleya because I always lost with female elves of that name so far and someday I want to end that streak ;-) To really test her power, I decided to try a Lithium challange game.

The way to the CoC was already rather dangerous, being encountered by hobgoblins and jackals, but thanks to Long Stride Saleya managed to escape without having to attack them.
On D2 the first important event: An enemy drops a spellbook of Acid Ball! Amazing! Saleya reads it once and keeps the book for book-casting... well, at least that was the plan. On D4 a river blocks the level, so she completely reads the book and then drowns through the river. One prayer is needed to get to the other side. Well, bad surprise, the downstairs are not on the other side, so she has to cross again at another space. Although she uses her last prayer, she is down to 2 HP when she reaches the other side. There she finds an altar at least and converts to neutral allignment. Sadly there is too little space on this side of the river to consider excessive live-saccing.
So she dives further, kills some nasties on the way, buys a whole lot of lizards from the ratling traders, learns the Miser and Treasure Hunter talents, skips a level with a bee hive and finally reaches the big room. There she secures a 2x2 patch with stomaphilia e.a. but directly heads for the downstairs when a blink dog appears and starts to multiply.
Finally in Dwarftown Saleya is told to prove her valor by slaying a kobold. At Waldis shop she finds a whole lot of interesting items, in particular a spellbook of Magic Missile, a ring of acid resistance, a longbow of accuracy (+8/+4), a wand of webbing and a wooden shield (+2) [+6/+3]. Sooner or later she wants to buy all of that!
But at first she has to earn some money, so she dives deeper. D11 has got a lesser vault and an ant hive, so the level is skipped for the moment. D12 suddenly throws a kobold at our heroine, so she finishs the first quest and then decides to take a closer look at the special features from D11. There are already quite some ants around, so she retreats into a corridor and fights them one by one. After a short time she gets a corpse to eat and a pair of Mithril boots and bracers of Toughness +4 to wear. Instead of dealing with the remaining ants, Saleya decides to close a door between them and at first scout the rest of the level.
It turns out that the vault contains spiders... nasty! Soon she finds herself out of power points, so she uses her wand of magic missile to get away. But bad luck, when she tries to take out a single spider that was chasing her, that damn beast manages to poison her. So she eats her only antidote and decides to leave that dangerous area (too bad, still no poison resistance). The escape is quite threatening, since she is down to 20 HP and has to pass the ants again, but luckily she manages to panic the ant queen and maneuver around the rest with coward speed.
Back in Dwarftown Saleya sells her loot and buys the spellbook of Magic Missile. Too bad it disappears after two readings, so no book casting again. At this time she has got 94 points of Acid Ball, 44 points of Lightning Bolt and 156 points of Magic Missile... not quite enough to feel save, if you ask me.
So she decides to scout the higher levels at first, since the deeper ones were apparently too hard for her to handle. But well, D9 was not better either with a troll threat room. After killing a whole lot of them she is out of power points and also down to about 30 hp, so she retreats to regenerate a little. When she has finally finished off the last troll, she is down to 46 points of Magic Missile. But at least she finds some nice gauntlets and a leather armor, increasing her PV to 9.
Again she sells her loot, buys the wand of webbing this time and explores further, untill she gets double-critted by an invisible stalker on D8... down to 2 hp! The stalker gets annihilated by an acid ball, Saleya reaches Level 10 and I decide to call it a day.

All in all that was quite an exciting session! Of course Lithium is somehow special conditions, but still I did not feel like being overpowered in any way. There was a whole lot of situations where I had to retreat and although I was very lucky with the spellbooks of Darkness, Acid Ball and Magic Missile, I was in fear of running out of castings for most of the time... that's the reason why I tried to melee the invisible stalker at first. In comparison I definitely think that the Elementalist has a clear advantage during the early game, especially for a player like me who doesn't like to see halve a dozen characters dying just to get one through to the mid game.

(I play her on prerelease 5 because I want to keep the surprises of the new versions for my youtube series ;-) )

[Blasphemous]

Poor choice of a race for lithium man - the only guaranteed shop before casino has a shopkeeper that hates dark elves ;)
Also, dark elves don't exactly start off with a lot of learning so understandably you'll be short in the spell charges department.
Though I understand find weakness and alertness can be quite useful, so maybe you break even.
I once started with Le 25 and spellbooks of strength of atlas, acid bolt and invisibility.
That was fun but I guess it's on the other spectrum of difficulty from what you're doing.
Good luck with that.

[GordonOverkill]

Actually I did not think of effectiveness when I picked the race. I just think that female dark elves are somehow sexy ;-)

[Stingray1]

And they get to eat spiders. :)

[GordonOverkill]

...which is a little less sexy, to be honest x-D

[Stingray1]

Oh, I love chicks that are willing to put ugly things in their mouths.

[gym21]

If eating spiders is wrong, I don't want to be right

[Stingray1]

Are you recording Saleya? Oh, never mind stupid question.

[Singbird]

Well, I rolled a gray elven necromancer, read the frost bolt book twice before it disappeared and I have now 600 castings of frost bolt. I rolled a gray elven wizard, read a book of acid bolt and have 700 castings. Read the book death ray and got 300 castings.

If you want to experience the true power of a class then of course you need to use a race that allows to realize this (a dark elf does later on of course). You wouldn't want a troll for your beastfighter either, would you. : )

[GordonOverkill]

So this is what happened in her second session:

Saleya continues to scout the upper CoC levels in order to increase her experience and equipment. After just afew turns she finds a spellbook of Slow monster... nice! Due to constant shortage of offensive spells, she starts seriously training her melee skills. At this time she wields a very good orcish spear (+1) 1d8+4 and a medium mithril shield [+1/+5]. She also finds the Si on the same level.
Next is the big room again, which turns out to contain a spider factory in addition to the blink dogs. Saleya tries to kill them carefully at the stairs and actually gets rather lucky with the drops: Spellbook of Ice Ball... yes! Spider corpse... yesyes!! Blink dog corpse... yesyesyes!!! Anyway, at this point she was down to 23 hp, so she decides to return to Dwarftown at once to sell some stuff and regenerate.
A chasing blink dog drops another corpse which is sold to Waldi. Very nice, because our heroine had already found a pool at a higher level. While regenerating she tries to increase her piety a little by luring chaotic beings from the level above to dwarftown. Directly meets a cave tiger... shall the dwarves care about it! Well, in hindsight I guess that this decision ruined Saleya's karma, but who would have guessed? However, the tiger turned out to be quite a tough one, killing one dwarf after another. It's not untill Saleya magically slows him down, when a guard is finally able to kill the beast.
Next monster to be lured to town is a goblin slavemaster... and he directly kills a dwarven child :-( Oh my god, sorry!!! At least now I should have known that Saleya had a serious karma problem. But she went back up, got directly sickened by a mummy. Curaria mancox cured her, but one of the very next enemies was a lesser daemon that insta-killed her with a bolt for more than 40 points of damage. Honestly didn't know they could hit so hard.

Well, that's yet another Saleya to fail on her quest... cursed be this goddamn name! Guess I should have been a little less miserly with the ball spells... just didn't want to waste them. At the moment of her death she had 74 points of Acid Ball, 6 points of Ice Ball (wanted to book-cast that one when she had enough mana), 27 points of Lightning Bolt and 24 points of Magic Missile.


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Saleya St:12 Le:15 Wi:20 Dx:21 To:19 Ch: 5 Ap:12 Ma:24 Pe:16 N-
DV/PV: 19/9 H: -11(84) P: 135(135) Exp: 11/29975 D: 9 M: 6124
Strained
------------------------------------------------------------------------------


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Background Information
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Name: Saleya Race: female Dark Elf Class: Wizard
Eye color: blue Hair color: white Complexion: black
Height: 5'2" Weight: 97 pounds
Age: 133 (grown-up)
Star sign: Sword Birthday: 25/Sword (day 205 of the year)

YOUR HISTORY:
Your parents were poor people. They loved you and cared for you,
although you had to hunger more than once.
During your childhood one of your uncles taught you a lot of things
about the history of your people. Your vast knowledge on the legends and
the lore of your people made you very popular with your friends because of
all the exciting stories you knew.
In your youth you enjoyed competition against others to the
fullest. You were a very active kid.
Your young adulthood was characterized by hard and long work. You
had decided to study under a renowned master. To your great disappointment
you had to find out, that he was a hard, unjust and tyrannic man,
embittered by his old age. Your apprentice years were quite terrible.
You decided to become a Wizard.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inventory
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total weight: 1419 stones Carrying capacity: 1200 stones

Head : -
Neck : uncursed amulet of perseverance {Wi+3} [3s]
Body : uncursed leather armor [+0, +3] [150s]
Girdle : -
Cloak : -
Right Hand : uncursed orcish spear (+1, 1d8+4) [75s]
Left Hand : uncursed medium mithril shield [+5, +1] [80s]
Right Ring : uncursed ring of cold resistance [1s]
Left Ring : uncursed ring of mental stability [+0, +1] {Le+1} [1s]
Bracers : uncursed bracers of toughness [+0, +0] {To+4} [10s]
Gauntlets : uncursed gauntlets (-1, +0) [+0, +2] [10s]
Boots : cursed mithril boots [-1, +2] [96s]
Missile Weapon: -
Missiles : heap of 6 uncursed rocks (+0, 1d4) [30s]
Tool : -


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stuff
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Total weight: 963 stones Carrying capacity: 1200 stones

Shields ('[')
uncursed small shield [+2, +0] [50s]
Necklaces (''')
blessed amulet of health [3s]
Missile weapons ('}')
uncursed short bow (+1, +0) [20s]
Missiles ('*')
heap of 4 cursed rocks (+0, 1d4) [20s]
bundle of 2 uncursed arrows of thunder (+0, 1d6) [4s]
uncursed arrow of slaying (+0, 1d6) [2s]
bundle of 15 uncursed quarrels (+1, 2d6+2) [30s]
bundle of 20 uncursed arrows (+0, 1d6) [40s]
heap of 4 blessed rocks (-1, 1d4) [20s]
uncursed arrow (+0, 1d6+3) [2s]
heap of 2 uncursed rocks (+0, 1d4+1) [10s]
heap of 2 blessed rocks (+0, 1d4) [10s]
heap of 12 uncursed rocks (+0, 1d4) [60s]
bundle of 3 uncursed quarrels (+4, 2d6) [6s]
uncursed rock (+3, 1d4) [5s]
uncursed dark elven quarrel (+3, 1d4+3) [2s]
uncursed rock (+1, 1d4) [5s]
uncursed quarrel of thunder (+1, 2d6) [2s]
bundle of 12 uncursed quarrels (+1, 2d6) [24s]
bundle of 4 cursed arrows (+0, 1d6) [8s]
bundle of 2 blessed arrows (+0, 1d6) [4s]
uncursed arrow (+3, 1d6+2) [2s]
uncursed balanced arrow (+4, 1d6) [2s]
Tools (']')
uncursed si [10s]
Rings ('=')
cursed ring of stun resistance [1s]
Wands ('\')
uncursed wand of magic missiles (1 charge) [3s]
uncursed wand of door creation (6 charges) [3s]
uncursed wand of cold (1 charge) [4s]
uncursed wand of poison (4 charges) [3s]
uncursed wand of webbing (2 charges) [3s]
Potions ('!')
uncursed potion of healing [4s]
heap of 2 uncursed potions of carrot juice [8s]
uncursed potion of insight [2s]
uncursed potion of invisibility [4s]
uncursed potion of extra healing [2s]
heap of 3 potions of holy water [12s]
uncursed potion of boost dexterity [2s]
uncursed potion of potential toughness [4s]
Scrolls ('?')
uncursed scroll of increase melee accuracy [2s]
blessed scroll of balance [2s]
uncursed scroll of identify [2s]
Books ('"')
uncursed spellbook of Ice Ball [100s]
Food ('%')
heap of 90 uncursed cooked lizards [270s]
cursed pepper petal [2s]
heap of 2 cursed stomafillia herbs [4s]
heap of 5 uncursed stomacemptia herbs [10s]
uncursed stomafillia herb [2s]
blessed pepper petal [2s]
cursed displacer beast corpse [120s]
blessed stomafillia herb [2s]
uncursed alraunia antidote [2s]
heap of 2 blessed curaria mancox herbs [4s]
heap of 5 blessed spenseweeds [10s]
blessed alraunia antidote [2s]
cursed devil's rose [2s]
heap of 2 blessed devil's roses [4s]
heap of 2 cursed curaria mancox herbs [4s]
uncursed devil's rose [2s]
heap of 3 uncursed spenseweeds [6s]
cursed spenseweed [2s]
Valuables ('$')
1031 gold pieces [10s]
Gems ('*')
uncursed crystal of light [1s]


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Weapon Skills
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Melee weapon Lvl Hit Dam DV Level Required marks
--------------------- --- --- --- -- ------------- --------------
Unarmed fighting 0 +0 +0 +0 unskilled 22
Daggers & knives 0 +0 +0 +0 unskilled 6
Clubs & hammers 0 +0 +0 +0 unskilled 24
Maces & flails 0 +0 +0 +0 unskilled 24
Swords 0 +0 +0 +0 unskilled 10
Axes 0 +0 +0 +0 unskilled 24
Whips 0 +0 +0 +0 unskilled 24
Pole arms 3 +3 +1 +2 basic 56
Twohanded weapons 0 +0 +0 +0 unskilled 24
Staves 0 +0 +0 +0 unskilled 24

Missile weapon Lvl Hit Dam Ra Level Required marks
--------------------- --- --- --- -- ------------- --------------
Slings 0 +0 +0 +0 unskilled 14
Bows 0 +0 +0 +0 unskilled 14
Crossbows 0 +0 +0 +0 unskilled 14
Thrown axes & hammers 0 +0 +0 +0 unskilled 14
Thrown daggers 0 +0 +0 +0 unskilled 14
Thrown rocks & clubs 1 +2 +1 +0 basic 19
Thrown spears 0 +0 +0 +0 unskilled 14
Boomerangs & scurgari 0 +0 +0 +0 unskilled 14

Shields Lvl DV Level Required marks
--------------------- --- --- ------------- --------------
Shields 2 +4 basic 13


Damage caused with your melee weapons:
--------------------------------------
Right hand: +14 bonus to hit, 1d8+6 damage


Damage caused with your missile weapons:
----------------------------------------
Ammunition: 6, base range: 2, +10 bonus to hit, 1d4+6 damage




----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Skills
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alchemy .............. 93 (superb) [+2d4]
Alertness ............ 62 (good) [+1d5]
Climbing ............. 40 (fair) [+2d4]
Concentration ........100 (superb) [+2d4]
Find weakness ........ 55 (good) [+1d5]
First aid ............ 28 (mediocre) [+3d4]
Haggling ............. 23 (mediocre) [+3d4]
Healing .............. 53 (good) [+1d5]
Herbalism ............100 (superb) [+2d4]
Listening ............ 47 (fair) [+3d5]
Literacy .............100 (superb) [+2d4]
Stealth .............. 51 (good) [+1d5]
Ventriloquism ........ 38 (fair) [+3d3]


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Spells
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Acid Ball : 74, 40pp (Effectivity: +3)
Darkness : 286, 4pp (Effectivity: +1)
Ice Ball : 6, 44pp (Effectivity: +1)
Light : 197, 3pp (Effectivity: +3)
Lightning Bolt: 27, 16pp (Effectivity: +10)
Magic Missile : 24, 12pp (Effectivity: +8)
Slow Monster : 306, 7pp (Effectivity: +1)





----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Her achievements during her adventures:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Saleya, the dark elven wizard, was torched by a lesser daemon.
She scored 34376 points and advanced to level 11.
She survived for 0 years, 6 days, 0 hours, 27 minutes and 20 seconds (6124
turns).
Saleya visited 13 places.
Her strength score was modified by +4 during her career.
Her mana score was modified by +3 during her career.
Her perception score was modified by +2 during her career.
She ended her adventuring life on level 9 of the caverns of chaos.
220 monsters perished under her attacks.
The following artifact was generated during her adventure:
the si
She possessed the following intrinsics:
She was poison resistant.
She was cold resistant (gained through an item).
She was acid resistant.
She was able to control teleportation.
She was able to resist confusion attacks (gained through an item).
She had the following talents: Alert, Long Stride, Miser, Shield Specialist,
Treasure Hunter.
She had a final speed score of 92 (final base speed: 102).
She was a fervent follower of Anssaria.
She asked for 2 divine interventions.
She was neutrally aligned.
She was slightly tainted by Chaos.

The following monsters were vanquished:
1 bandit
1 barbarian
1 barbarian leader
3 black hurthlings
28 blink dogs
1 carrion crawler
11 cave fishers
1 cave lizard
1 caveman
1 claw bug
1 corpse fiend
1 dark elven archer
1 dark elven wizard
1 dark sage
1 displacer beast
4 fire beetles
1 fire lizard
1 flesh golem
1 floating eye
1 gelatinous cube
1 ghost
1 ghost bat
3 ghuls
2 giant ant warriors
4 giant ant workers
1 giant bat
3 giant lizards
6 giant rats
1 giant spider
1 gnoll
7 goblins
1 goblin berserker
1 goblin chieftain
2 goblin rockthrowers
4 goblin slavemasters
5 gray oozes
1 gremlin
1 harpy
1 hill orc
1 hill orc sergeant
3 hobgoblins
1 hobgoblin chief
1 homunculus
1 huge bat
1 invisible stalker
13 kobolds
3 kobold chieftains
3 kobold shamans
6 large bats
1 large gnoll
7 large kobolds
2 large orcs
4 large spiders
2 leucrottas
1 master swordsman
1 mimic
1 mummy
5 ochre jellies
6 orcs
2 orc scorchers
1 owlbear
6 pit vipers
1 quasit
1 raider
5 rats
2 ratling archers
3 ratling thieves
2 ratling warriors
1 shadow centipede
21 trolls
1 white worm
1 wolf
2 wraiths


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Version Information
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ancient Domains Of Mystery
Version 1.2.0
Windows Prerelease 5
Build: Nov 14 2012 20:36:30

[Stingray1]

You know ball spells is the way to go with spellcasters. :(
I wonder whether teleportation would have made a difference?

[GordonOverkill]

The problem was that she didn't have very many castings of these ball spells either and it somehow felt wrong to use my few acid balls on a lesser daemon. Don't think that teleportation had made a difference because I just didn't realize how dangerous these guys were. Never thought that they could hit so hard with their bolts. That must have been more than 50 points of damage. Next time I'll be more carefull.

However, I continued the experiment today by playing one Lithium run with female dark-elven incarnations of each of the other spell-casting classes. The elementalist felt pretty well, had a whole lot more castings, but finally died to a mimic who instantly paralyzed and killed her. That death was really hard to avoid because I had never been in the mimic's room before, so it could as well have been a real item. She died some levels above Dwarftown and reached experience level 8. Afterwards I tried a druid, but that girl didn't even reach the Caverns... got ambushed by outlaws, one of which had a speed of 112 and couldn't be outrunned.
Well, and then I started a priestess and this girl is still active and alive! Level 12, already finished the first dwarven quest, pacified the big room, stabilized morgia, moss, pepper petals and stomaphilia and is currently going for a lawful crowning. She has got quite a nice supply of spells, good equipment (PV 14 I think), teleport control + backup corpse at Waldi's... slowly but surely I am getting optimistic that she might become the first Saleya to win the game! I have recorded this run, so if you'd like to see it, I could upload it on youtube. At times it has really been so exciting that my heart litterally stopped beating ;-)
Afterwards I will try not to forget the necromancer.

[Stingray1]

I'll watch it if you upload it. Priestesses are half decent fighters, so find weakness will come better into play. I note that the wizard had very low weapon skills and almost no missile skills, so you were playing her like a wizard? In my experience wizards cannot rely on magic alone, they run out of castings too often.

[GordonOverkill]

I actually tried. Afterwards I wondered if I maybe had done better if I had played her like my usual melee/missile fighter with spell access for special situations, but on the other hand I'd somehow love to unveil the true mysteries of spellcasting ;-)
The priestess is indeed by far the best physical fighter of the four, starting with PV5 and almost decend hitpoints. That's really a big advantage.. the elementalist for example was a little unlucky with her drops and didn't reach PV 5 during her whole run.

[Deathwind]

Try a wizard of a race with better learning, you will see a difference.

[GordonOverkill]

Maybe later, at the moment I am still very busy with my Lithium priestess! She is now at experience level 14 and has finished all dwarven quests. also got more than 20 points of PV, a nice supply of spells and more herbs than she can ever use. Only bad thing is that she is only at L=, so crowning is not yet possible. Gonna care about that tomorrow. Explored the whole CoC down untill Khelly, so the poor old sage is gonna die soon. Need some more power before the tower.
I really think that she could become my first successful Lithium char... and thus doubtlessly prove that priests are actually the most powerfull spellcaster class in ADOM ;-)

[Stingray1]

L+ is somewhat of a hassle to reach in a Lithium game if you start at C. Why did you opt for that alignment on a chaotic race?

[GordonOverkill]

Well, I wanted an early altar and I thought L is a little easier to play than N later on. Maybe not a wise decision ;-)

[Mobius]

Well, I wanted an early altar and I thought L is a little easier to play than N later on. Maybe not a wise decision ;-)

N= is not too hard to swing. Kill a ton of Ds, trend to N+
Then just kill a few friendly types to get back to N=
Rob a few graves, get to N-, fix it again.

Only annoying thing is you can't sac a large class of hostiles.

[GordonOverkill]

Maybe I will try to convert to N at one point. Luckily Saleya the priestess is still alive. She is now at Lvl.16, has got more than 30 points of PV, a nice supply of spells, and has scouted the whole CoC down untill the portal. Looking forward to see how I will open that portal x-) At first I thought of luring the demon into Thrundarr's house, but I decided to rather go for big punch.

[GordonOverkill]

Thrundarr is kind of a problem... just tried to provoke him by luring a fire drake to dwarftown, but the drake was unable to penetrate his defense. Are there no monsters which are able to harm him or do I just have to find something stronger?

[Stingray1]

Even fairly weak pets I've tamed have been able to slay him, they miss often because of his high DV, but eventually succeed.

Edit - If you have the Bless spell you can also improve their luck, I think it even stacks.

[zasvid]

Even fairly weak pets I've tamed have been able to slay him, they miss often because of his high DV, but eventually succeed.

Edit - If you have the Bless spell you can also improve their luck, I think it even stacks.

Thrundarr has small DV, his 100 PV is the problem usually.

If you want to slay him with a monster pet (or otherwise), you want a claw bug.

[Stingray1]

Thrundarr has small DV, his 100 PV is the problem usually.

If you want to slay him with a monster pet (or otherwise), you want a claw bug.

Oh yeah, it felt a bit weird while I was typing it. They take some time to harm him, but succeed eventually. I've used dogs at least twice and a cave lion at least once.

[GordonOverkill]

Well, I decided to finish off Thrundarr by brute force during a stylish Dwarftown massacre. I'm afraid that I also killed my chances to get something nice from the Mystic, right?
However, at least Saleya is diving again! Just finished the Water Temple and obtained the orb to increase the range of her fireball :-) I guess corruption will become an issue in the long term. Only one randomly dropped potion of cure corruption so far, Mystic angry, Khelly already dead, no teleport spell or seven league boots... gonna be exciting at least ;-)

[Stingray1]

Nice. :p

Did the elementalist run out of castings? I notice the wizard did not have fire resistance. The elementalist would have had fire resistance in the current prerelease.

Edit - I'm not trolling, just pointing out some facts, as this effort you are putting in, is to determine whether an elementalist is such an underdog as debated. But it also has been indicated that the real problem lies elsewhere.

[GordonOverkill]

Nope, the elementalist was doing fine! He was a little unlucky with his item drops and never got more than 2 or 3 points of PV, so he heavily relied on spells. Still he never ran out of firepower... in my eyes that's definitely a clear early game advantage. He finally died to a mimic which paralyzed him at sight.

[GordonOverkill]

Saleya has just entered the Tower of Eternal Flames... damn, already looking forward to the next session! She's got only one fireproof blanket and even no intrinsic fire resistance yet (just two rings and a pair of red dragon-hide gauntlets, so she still gets some damage). Gonna be bloody exciting! At least she's got a nice supply of healing herbs and Neather Bolt castings, so I hope that she will find a corpse rather quickly ;-)

[GordonOverkill]

Hmmm, any good idea how to get a source of deathray resistance during a Lithium game? Or alternatively: A good tactic against Nuurag-Vaarn without deathray resistance?

[Stingray1]

A good tactic even with resistance is to not be in a straight line with him. Deathrays can only be fired in straight lines. If you want to fight him in the corridor, blind or confuse him. What artifacts does she have? Bracers of resistance is also good, but maybe a bit rare? A wish for some pairs maybe?

[GordonOverkill]

Not many... Shirt of the Saints (crowning gift), Big Punch (main weapon), Hammer of the Gods and the Ring of the Mastercat, as well as all orbs exapt mana. A couple of levels above her there are some Bracers of War lying on the ground... ironically within the central room of a greater undead vault featuring an emperor lich x-)
She has got a great supply of utility spells (including darkness, ethereal bridge, heal and many others), but rather few offensive spells (one ball spell among them, but just 150 points). Her biggest advantage is speed around 140 plus blessed seven league boots. Girdle of giant strength is also worth mentioning, if needed cold immunity by dragon scale mail and lightning immunity by crown. Acid immunity was granted during crowning.

[Stingray1]

Well done on getting the cats eye ring. :) The bracers of war is an option. Is the lich or any monster standing on the bracers. If there is space and it is a lesser undead standing on it you can teleport in quickly kill it take the bracers and teleport away. I did it with True Aim yesterday against a Lich King which I killed destroyed before it could do anything.

Remember to equip confusion resistances for this theft. You can still cast spells while confused, simply keep pressing 'Z' until it works. e:- you can also pray confusion away. No, need. You are playing prerelease 5 right? Just keep pressing Z when confused eventually you will be able to cast a spell, no turns will advance during this.

[GordonOverkill]

With helm of mental stability, shirt of the saints, ring of the clear mind and water orb confusion should not be the biggest problem ;-) It's the vault layout that Gordurian encountered in this episode: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkA4qhQ1hhk&list=PLOdHNY3MGPauYP4YOT0d_XJh1s8u9t-F4&index=36. The big room is almost completely filled with liches of higher kind and other undead.
Already played quite alot today, so I will continue tomorrow. Guess I will need 100% concentration to steal those bracers! Exciting, never been so close to win a Lithium game :-)

e: re-checked the video... the BoW are in the very northeastern corner of the central room with a lich king standing on top of them and ghosts and vampires around. I can teleport inside, but no closer than three squares to the west and one square to the south of it. Can a wand of destruction destroy vault-walls? Then I could get a whole lot closer to them.
Holy cow, seems that there's also Preserver within one of the top rooms and a weapon in the inner room! Didn't even recognize them at first because I was blinded by the grace of the BoW! Preserver is actually almost easy to get with just a single lich kind and a couple of master liches around! Did I mention that I also found Saleya's seven league boots on that level? Absolutely amazing!

[Stingray1]

I'm not 100% sure about the walls being destructable, but don't think they wouldn't be. The biggest threat is Emperor Liches with their deathray and paralyzing melee attacks. Lich Kings don't have those, but they can deliver devastating stat drains.

You never want to stand next to an emperor lich either, when you get paralyzed by one it is game over.

Plan carefully and if things are getting zorky get the fuck out.

The Archmage is not too difficult to handle without deathray resistance, if he confuses her and it looks like he's going to even maybe going to get a deathray off in 2 turn, pray the confusion away.

Whatever you decide, good luck.

[GordonOverkill]

Soooo, I started uploading the first episodes of that run! Hope you enjoy it ;-)

Here's the link to the current episode:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Cqt0xCCnOw&feature=c4-overview&list=UUMWW1k4ZUEB5Fu9EfjYMTUg

Episode 10: Crossing the Graveyard
Episode 9: Questing the dwarven style
Episode 8: Almost a champion of law
Episode 7: Saleya is sure she won't survive this one
Episode 6: Doing "hero stuff"
Episode 5: Searching for a yellow ooze on the deeper levels
Episode 4: Reaching Dwarftown
Episode 3: Diving deeper while constantly on low HP
Episode 2: Further exploration, featuring the arena and the big room
Episode 1: Character creation, travel to the CoC and exploration of the first levels

[Stingray1]

Ah, wonderful. I was missing my lunch-break entertainment. :) Wrt the ADoM roll, maybe that is fate speaking too. I fully understand you not wanting to play the same class again immediately, I had a similar "disappointing" roll. In the end that also turned out to be my first Lithium attempt and it turned out successful. :)

[Stingray1]

I just watched the 2nd episode. She was getting hit pretty bad there. The reasons maybe you realize already, being Strained! and having up to 4 opponents next to her at times.

It is not optimal to do Strength training while in these fights, as I like to say: training or anything else means nothing to a dead character.

Edit - Also wrt to book casting, I know this is not always easy, but once the value in the first column(Castings) falls below 100 the spellcost is higher than when above 100.
So, ideally you want to have this value above 100. Unless you want to abuse book casting for Mana training.

[GordonOverkill]

Also wrt to book casting, I know this is not always easy, but once the value in the first column(Castings) falls below 100 the spellcost is higher than when above 100.
So, ideally you want to have this value above 100. Unless you want to abuse book casting for Mana training.

Thanks alot, didn't know that yet :-)

[Stingray1]

Wrt my statements about Strained!, I was watching in low quality due to pathetic data transfer speeds on my connection. So I could not read the messages. It is also very likely that she fell down the stairs a few times, which in itself was life threatening with her HP so low at times.

[Stingray1]

Lol, Saleya tried to sacrifice Ruun on his own altar! Classic.

[Stingray1]

Very nice items from that undead vault she found. The robes of resistance seems to have been a random drop.

[GordonOverkill]

Yeah, that was one hell of a level! Bracers of War, Robes of Resistance and Aylas Holy Scarf... and in the episode before she even found a pair of seven league boots on the very same level :-) That was definitely worth the stat drains!

e: For those who'd like to take a look, here's the link to this particular episode:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5h5lZJ0MLME&feature=c4-overview&list=UUMWW1k4ZUEB5Fu9EfjYMTUg

[thecloud]

Gordon, do you realize you've had the poison hands corruption for a few videos now? Just thought I'd point it out...

[Stingray1]

Yeah, she must have atleast 200 potions of poison by now. :)

[GordonOverkill]

Would you believe me if I said that I was well aware of this all the time? x-)

[Stingray1]

At least she was getting rid of all that weight she was carrying around by having to eat more often.

[GordonOverkill]

My pack-ratting is a thing I should definitely work on. At the moment I play a no-scumming-run with a trollish duellist which kinda forces me to care about the weight of my equipment a little... at least I hoped so, but then I found a crystal tower shield and a black dragon scale mail and decided to delay the use of my class powers a little x-)

[Stingray1]

No scumming is so much more fun, loving it lately myself. Are you also giving up herb farming? And what ever happened to your Westside CK?

Actually after watching the last video I think that bug that doesn't always curse food with poisoned hands was still present, so the statement in my previous post is not so accurate.

[GordonOverkill]

Poor, poor westside char x-) I reached the ancient stone circle one and a half days too late, so I had to kill some time. Tried to clear the library and well... I was a little too careless and ran into a doppelganger king. Died within a single turn.

And yes, no herb farming in my current game. I harvest each herb spot as soon as it comes in sight! I am almost done with the mid game... Darkforge is the last location missing before the tower.

[Stingray1]

The best thing about poisonous hands is that it turns Kinslayer into a poisoning weapon as well. Also she could have wished for some square keys. :p

[Stingray1]

Congratulations Gordon! I think I did congratulate you earlier in this thread, but that doesn't really count as I wasn't sure that you did it.

This is also to congratulate you on the speed(turncount). The necromancer hasn't had a go yet though, so you can't say that only priests are the best. :p

[GordonOverkill]

Thanks alot :-) I am currently trying to beat the turn count with my no-scumming run and it looks very good, though my char was close to dying more than once.

[Stingray1]

Is it a Lithium run too? I think I should attempt that, a Lithium run without any scumming/grinding. Sounds like fun.

[GordonOverkill]

Nope, but kind of a speed run. Originally I wanted to finish the game in less than 60k turns, but it seems that I'll be alot quicker. I have finished all overland locations that I had on my list, water temple and tower of eternal flames after just 30k turns. No-scumming makes it extra-difficult... just experience level 15 and not even crowned yet. I am recording the run (mainly because I play more careful while recording ;-)), so I might also upload the videos if you like.

e: Keep me updated about your no-scumming Lithium run! That sounds like an extremly cool challange ;-)

[Stingray1]

I would like to watch, yes please.