How do I get to L+ easily?

[magpie]

I'd like some advice here!

I've currently got a good High Elven Archer going - level 19, nice gear, and I've done the Dwarven Graveyard (but can't go back thanks to the emperor lich waiting for me there...), Water Temple, Pyramid, and the quests from Terinyo. I'm ready to hit the TotHK and ToEF, but I'd like a crowning before I do it - especially since I stand a pretty good chance of being crowned with Sun's Messenger.

My problem is, I can't seem to get my alignment to L+ for a crowning. I've already pumped something like 140k into an altar (including selling some artifacts for the gold), and I have a blessed Amulet of Order. But my alignment is still sitting on L!!! (I usually crown as a Neutral, but I've stuck with L for this character.)

What can I do to get my alignment up to L+ for a crowning?!? Thanks for your advice.

[magpie]

Giving food to beggars? (I've gone to the Bandit Village to feed beggars. Is it more effective to give them 1 piece of food at a time, or should I give them lots at once? And will crappy herbs work, or do I need to feed them stomafillia?)

Giving candy to dwarven children? (ha ha, they don't accept gnomist candy because it's 'bad for you' - and it is!)

Find a whip and hit myself with it?

What else will do the trick easily?

[Stingray1]

If you haven't completed all the lawful quests, you can do those. Making peace with monsters that are afraid helps. You do this by chatting to them, ones that can speak that is. Healing monsters that you did not harm. Also the ones you've mentioned, but I've not done the feeding beggars one before, so don't have an answer there. It does take some time to get from L to L+, I know, but persist and it will happen. Keep wearing that amulet.

P.S. Why is there an Emperor Lich in the GY, digging graves is not going to get you to L+ very fast?

[Cactus]

If you have the amulet of order, the most important thing is avoiding any chaotic acts and knowing that saccing alone will never take you all the way to L+, regardless of the amount. So if you want to get crowned wait for your L+ alignment first before saccing all your gold.

I usually just keep the amulet of order equipped, it will do the job eventually.

Of all the other lawful acts you mentioned, in my opinion only self-flagellation is worth the effort. If you remove all your PV and have some herbs, it's just pressing 'u' and occasionally changing your tool slot from whip to spenseweed and back.

Patience and Good Luck with getting the bow!

[gut]

see my sig

EDIT: my sig isn't very informative, is it?

Seriously, you have to set up an engine and automate it. Trap a monster (hawkslayer is best) where they will continually take damage (water cave), and repeatedly heal them.
Alternatively, trap a beggar in a room and 'g'ive them burb roots, demon daisies, stomachemptias, or devil's roses (or some other infinite, lightweight food source).

[grobblewobble]

If you do the beggar thing and you have a big pile of burb roots or something, what is the best way to feed them? One by one, ten at a time, all at once?

[magpie]

see my sig

EDIT: my sig isn't very informative, is it?

Seriously, you have to set up an engine and automate it. Trap a monster (hawkslayer is best) where they will continually take damage (water cave), and repeatedly heal them.
Alternatively, trap a beggar in a room and 'g'ive them burb roots, demon daisies, stomachemptias, or devil's roses (or some other infinite, lightweight food source).

It's good to know that I can feed them any old crap herbs, and it will still net me a boost to my alignment. I've been using stomafillia, but I'd rather save those for myself - cooked lizards or not.

[magpie]

It's good to know that I can feed them any old crap herbs, and it will still net me a boost to my alignment. I've been using stomafillia, but I'd rather save those for myself - cooked lizards or not.

Well, this worked. I fed a beggar a bunch of stomaceptia, demon daisies, etc ... until I got to L+, then went to get crowned. With Thunderstroke ... sigh. It's nice to know that even with a double chance to receive Sun's Messenger, I still got Thunderstroke. I guess it could have been worse ... :rolleyes:

20d4 + 38 damage (20d4 + 43 on Berserk) is nice to have, I guess. It will certainly do a lot of damage when I poison it and shoot it at the ACW, and it's nice to know it won't be destroyed on the ground by the heat of the Tower.

PS: I just looked in good old Waldenbrook's shop, and found something I've never seen before. A rabbit knife ... OF MAYHEM! <cue the heavy metal riff> Maybe I have a strange sense of humour, but there is something very funny about that.

[Mobius]

Well, this worked. I fed a beggar a bunch of stomaceptia, demon daisies, etc ... until I got to L+, then went to get crowned. With Thunderstroke ... sigh. It's nice to know that even with a double chance to receive Sun's Messenger, I still got Thunderstroke. I guess it could have been worse ... :rolleyes:


It's not so meh if it's the returning variety. Used it on the Emperor Moloch to good effect (with Find Weakness, natch)

[Sami]

At lower levels (up to about level 30) wearing a blessed amulet of order and just continuing with the game is likely the easiest way to go.

At any level whipping is also really effective way if you have +regen item(s) or other means to heal you. If I recall correctly whipping gives (51-level)*(damage dealt)*0.2 stones (rounded down) per whipping and damage is determined only by the die (minus your PV) so taking off all items that grants +PV and wearing all items with -PV increases the efficiency significantly. For example whip of slaughtering (1d30+3) with 5PV would deal 1d30-5 damage (or 0 if it's below 0) and give you about 70 stones on average each time.

If you have a healing spell then healing a monster (enemy or friend) that you did not hurt will be extremely effective way. (51-level)*6 stones/healing, no matter how much you heal. So at level 19 it gives as much as 192 stones/healing and getting from N= to L+ would only take about 26 healings!

[JellySlayer]

It's not so meh if it's the returning variety. Used it on the Emperor Moloch to good effect (with Find Weakness, natch)

Yeah, if you're playing on 1.2.0, Thunderstroke is actually pretty good. Maybe not quite Sun's Messenger good, but... not so very far off either.

[magpie]

Yeah, if you're playing on 1.2.0, Thunderstroke is actually pretty good. Maybe not quite Sun's Messenger good, but... not so very far off either.

From a quick look at the title screen, I am currently playing on 1.2.0 pre 5. In this pre-release, Thunderstroke doesn't return.

It doesn't really matter though. I would have much preferred Sun's Messenger, but this is still nice. And I have plenty of other good ammunition. And it gives me an incentive to build up my Crossbow skill (currently my highest weapon skills are Bows at 11, Swords at 10 thanks to a Sword of Sharpness which I found early, rust-proofed, and have been using for most of the game, and Polearms at 7 from the orcish spear which I used until I found my Sword of Sharpness).

[gut]

> If you do the beggar thing and you have a big pile of burb roots or something, what is the best way to feed them? One by one, ten at a time, all at once?

I don't know, but I always assumed it (being adom) would be most efficient if it were done in the scummiest way possible, meaning one at a time.

[Deathwind]

crossbows are less likely to be wrecked by the heat of the tower anyway.

[magpie]

crossbows are less likely to be wrecked by the heat of the tower anyway.

I have a big enough pile of fireproof blankets, and a blessed ring of ice. So I don't need to worry too much about that.

After another ID:9 grind, I finally have a wand of frost, so I'm ready to hit the TotHK and the Tower of Fire now ... hopefully this game ends up the right way. I've put a lot of work into this Archer and want it to pay off in the long run.

[Aerin]

I attempted getting suns messenger with a high elf archer a while back, got whirlwind instead so, yeah. Uselessness gift was true aim, with returning, much better than a silly sling.

[Blasphemous]

then went to get crowned. With Thunderstroke

Could have been worse. My last archer was crowned with ironfist when I already had elemental gauntlets (and needed the resistances more than str bonus) and girdle of giant strength.

[magpie]

Sigh. Critted from full health (230-ish health) to -22 in a single round by a Fire Elemental after somehow missing with 4 construct slaying arrows in a row (and this was with +80 to hit). And despite having fire immunity ...

I think I'm close to taking a long ADOM break for a while. Sometimes, dying for want of a single rare item which refuses to spawn anywhere, despite hours of boring grinding (in this case, 7LB, which would have made this encounter trivial, and allowed me to actually kite the adds rather than simply bottle-necking them in a corridor so they couldn't surround me) can be a real annoyance.

Actually, the drop rates of items in ADOM seems very strange.

For example, some games (like my last decent game, an Orc Barbarian), 7LB drop all over the place (I had 4 pairs on hand in that game, and didn't even really need them thanks to Barbarians being so fast), and sometimes they never drop at all. In this game? I didn't see a single pair drop anywhere at all, and I did a lot of grinding.

Even assuming I did finish the ToEF, I probably would have ended up being transformed by Chaos in the late game (yet again), thanks to the lack of 7LB drops (you know, to cut time spent crossing the wilderness) and thanks to the very meagre stash of chaos removal I had at my disposal.

I don't play video games to be bored out of my head by hours of repetition for a slim chance of getting a basically-required item, I play video games to have fun. Sometimes, playing ADOM can seem to be more like work than fun - without the renumeration of actually working.

[GordonOverkill]

7LBs are not basically required. I finished halve of my wins without any. Actually I almost never grind for a specific item... rather see what I get and make the best out of it.
Well, this death of your character was just bad luck, I guess. Like you said, you were quite well prepared and in 19 out of 20 fights you would have kicked the burning behind of that elemental.

[magpie]

Like you said, you were quite well prepared and in 19 out of 20 fights you would have kicked the burning behind of that elemental.

I had already killed about 20 or so fire elementals with construct slaying ammunition (most of them one-shot, I might add), not to mention a tonne of fire grues, fire demons ... Basically, this elemental was the last man standing before I shot the ACW to death.

But that's just it. Without 7LB, in that situation you can't outrun the elementals, and have to stand there like a chump shooting while they whale on you. Thanks to a string of improbably misses on my part, and thanks to a couple of lucky crits on its part, I was killed from full health to nothing in one round - one round - of combat. Didn't even end up on 1 health, as often happens in those situations. And this is after a lot of preparation to be as ready as that character could be for the Tower.

[GordonOverkill]

That's what makes this game so great and (at times) so frustrating ;-) You are on a quest to save the world... greatest possible challange... and you can never be 100% sure to make it out of there alive!
My current Let's play character - a mist-elven chaos knight - did not find any 7LBs so far, too, and she even started with stiff muscles, so I was forced to take all possible speed talents and am still slower than the average enemy. To complete her "lucky" streak, she wrenched out the last casting of her wand of teleportation during it's very first use. In the last episode the Skeletal King punched the crap out of her and she somehow had to flee, though being a whole lot slower than him... definitely an exciting play ;-) I am sure I would not have enjoyed it so much if I had spent several hours grinding just in hope of finding some 7LBs that she maybe just was not destined to find. I rather try to grind as little as possible in order to enjoy each moment of an ADOM adventure as much as possible.

[grobblewobble]

Thanks to a string of improbably misses on my part, and thanks to a couple of lucky crits on its part, I was killed from full health to nothing in one round - one round - of combat.

Were you in coward mode, berserk or something in between?

[magpie]

Were you in coward mode, berserk or something in between?

I was in berserk when I was shooting at him, then I switched over to normal when he got to melee range.

I believe it was in a blind rage from a stray wand of frost hit which didn't kill it (it did hit me like 4 times in that single round, two of which were crits), which might explain why it managed to kill me in one round.

[Stingray1]

I also used to grind for items(even pick pocketing every monster) until a couple months ago I stopped it completely. I'm having much more fun playing and think I've become an even better player through it. My past 3 games I did not even farm herbs. The only times I grind a little now is for a few live sacs for crowning, but that isn't even really necessary, you can just wait till you have collected enough gold and then crown. Try It, you'll have fun playing a smooth free flowing game, you'll probably die a few times, but once you've mastered to get along with less resources you'll see what I'm talking about.

[gut]

> But that's just it. Without 7LB, in that situation you can't outrun the elementals,

How fast was this elemental? I think > 120 is pretty rare. You can easily get > 120 speed through talents and such.
I thought the insane blind raging thing was fixed in the new versions, isn't it?
Hmm, you say you were bottlenecking them... was that in a room, perhaps, not the temple area? It is possible that
if you were in a room, it might have been a 'chilling silence' room.

[magpie]

> But that's just it. Without 7LB, in that situation you can't outrun the elementals,

How fast was this elemental? I think > 120 is pretty rare. You can easily get > 120 speed through talents and such.
I thought the insane blind raging thing was fixed in the new versions, isn't it?
Hmm, you say you were bottlenecking them... was that in a room, perhaps, not the temple area? It is possible that
if you were in a room, it might have been a 'chilling silence' room.

I'm not sure, but it was faster than 101, which I was on thanks to being burdened (lots of ammunition).

This was in 1.2.0 pre 5, which I'm still on. I might switch to pre 20 since it's been publically released, but I don't like NotEye and I don't like the idea of ADOM coming with music. Personally, I like ADOM being a relatively small game that still has such a massive amount of complexity in it. But the community has spoken on those things, and it's for me to make do with what's been released. I think the Fire Elemental was a cat's hair away from death, if it was hit by a Wand of Frost - most of the fire elementals that were hit by it, were one-shot by it. So, you've got an experienced, nearly-dead, blindly-raging Fire Elemental, and a string of bad luck. I think if it was a chilling silence room, I would have been one-shot by the first hit by it. I never, ever fight in one of those rooms!

I was bottlenecking them in a corridor I made with a wand of digging.

I guess, usually, I have little trouble with the ToEF (although it's always close), and this time, I just got really unlucky.

[JellySlayer]

You don't need to get NotEye. You can download an ASCII version of pre20.

[magpie]

You don't need to get NotEye. You can download an ASCII version of pre20.

Thank goodness you told me that!

I really don't like NotEye (not because it's not good, but because of my personal preferences), so I'm glad to have access to the latest public release of ADOM without having to play ADOM with NotEye. Chaos Knights are very interesting! And Mist Elves, wow, there's an interesting race to start as! (I haven't gotten far enough with a Duelist or a Ratling yet to comment on them.)

I also like the changes to some of the crappier star signs - Tree is pretty good now!