thecloud
12-14-2013, 12:31 AM
My first win was a drakeling paladin, about two months ago, who was crowned with Ayla's holy scarf, but later was lucky enough to find Justifier in some vault or other. It only took me like 10 years of on and off playing to get that first win. I've lost that character report since then, though.
Anyway, onto this character. I have extensive (if occasionally spotty) notes because of a personal writing habit I've started.
I had planned beforehand to do a two-hander monk, since the axe of the minotaur emperor was buffed. I started out barehanded of course, found an altar in UD:4 (I try to go down the UD when I can) and got crowned with Ring of Immunity. There was also a spellbook shop on UD:4, which was double-stocked because I spent so much time on that level. One neat feature is that the RoI made me immune to acid burn from attacking gray oozes, etc. I had planned to buy cooked lizards and return to the UD:4 altar, but I found another neutral altar on DD:3, and having a decent stock of food, I get postcrowned with True Aim. (At one point, a room got crowded with green worms that were neutral towards me, but I had a scroll of monster aggravation in my pack.) Slew the druid and exchanged his corpse, and visited Yergius to learn pickpocketing.
I ran across an undead vault in early CoC and practiced pickpocketing them... quite tedious. Get to Dwarftown, Thrundarr picks a dark elven lord. I did the Pyramid around level 15, no real problems (I most likely learned Detect Traps before entering.) An attempt to enter Darkforge was decided against because I had moderate trouble taking down the steel golem guarding the stairs. I also accidentally wasted a potion of toughness by dipping something into it - hit the wrong letter. Oh well. At least I have the AMW, which would be my body armor for most of the game.
Eventually I found that dark elven lord and finished the rest of the dwarf quests. I even found a potion of education that gave me archery - quite nice with True Aim - and a magical writing set with 2 uses. For some reason, I really like how monks don't lose Mana when scribing. Judicious use of blessed scrolls of protection (and defense) really help shore up the monk's defenses. Next I found Khelevaster, then went back up to do Tomb of the High Kings and Griffyard. Poured holy water on Griff's grave - I think I had 7lb at this point, on top of monk movement speed I was able to run circles around the horde of undead. I believe I raided Darkforge on this surface trip as well, and after repeated trips between the pool room and an altar to remove dooming, got a wish, which I used for AOLS. I also got permanent invisibility there, which really let me train up my archery skills. Now I felt like a sniper, it was pretty awesome. I dove down to the wall of flames and back up, finding bracers of war (!!) in a dark elf vault on D:20.
I think like I'm ready to attempt the ToEF now; I had gone down the PV talent tree, and between BoW's regen and Immune to Pain, the background damage was barely noticeable. I got my first corruption somewhere around this time: unholy aura. I kept it for now but would remove it when I passed through Dwarftown again. I found a RoDS somewhere in the Tower as well... was tempted to go for magical writing sets but had a water shortage to manufacture and bless blank scrolls, so instead I go for crystals of knowledge, increasing my learning skill (post-potion of exchange) from 10 to 16. Somewhere in the D:30's there's a greater vault - I didn't have any monster detection but decide to take a peek anyway, confident I could escape - it's a giants vault. In addition to a decent chunk of experience (and another corruption, "larger eye") I spotted no less than four artifacts in there! Robes of resistance (awesome!), Far Slayer (eh, too bad I already have True Aim), Scorched Spear, and Death's Blade (sacced.) I also found another writing set with 4 uses, which I used towards SoCR, defense/protection and magic mapping in preparation for the Minotaur Maze.
Down to the Casino, where I bought Wyrmlance but pass on Brannalbin's Cloak, and also stock up on other supplies. Entered the Maze at level 24, got through the first few levels with MM and crystals, and eventually find the emperor, accepting two stat draining hits in toughness for the heap of gear. The other artifact was Staff of the archmagi, pretty useless. I bought out the spellbook shop from earlier just for kicks, reading all of them. Went down through the air and earth temples, finding a red dragon normal vault along the way - no artifacts that I spotted. Even the red wyrm there fell to the power of the axe; I didn't even have to use Wyrmlance. The temples were similarly pretty easy, I even melee'd the ASB to rubble in under 10 turns IIRC. Also I was awarded the RotMC along the way.
I had an altar-cation on the earth temple altar (note to self: sac gold and not monsters/corpses at high levels) and got my equipment destroyed, but most of it was artifacts by this point anyway, although I did lose my only 7LB and a few other magically smithed up pieces. I found another potion of education somewhere, which gives me Gemology - a decent synergy with wall-kicking, if I had needed gems at all. Further down, I clear out rooms of chaos warriors and molochs respectively, also easy.
On D:45 I cleared a greater vault of fire creatures, only one artifact spotted - Cat's Claw... Also I lost all my PoCCs to poison hands, trying to get rid of poison hands. I had to rely on scrolls for the rest of the game, which concerned me a little, but it would turn out I had more than enough by the end. On D:46, another (normal) fire-creature vault, where I spotted Trusted One. I descended into the Blue Dragon Caves (without chatting with the karmic wyrm first as it didn't notice me - does it still not see invisible, or is this an overlooked thing from that change?) I slew my first balor there, as well as a greater titan who rather conveniently fled from me because of the unholy aura corruption which I received again. I noticed later that I missed out on eating its corpse, as it rotted away. I engaged the ancient blue wyrm, but had the sudden insight to go back up, chat with the AKW, and then kill the ABW.
Mana temple was not too difficult, I melee'd the boss and ate a few stat drains, not a huge deal since I barely took any damage. I had on an amulet of light, and had made sure that BoW gives death ray resistance.
I accidentally attacked a cat :(
I got through D:49 with winged arrows; those things have a huge range. I only needed one per each segment of the level, even the longest section. So I go down to D:50, clearing a room of greater air elementals as a warm-up, use a scroll of familiar summoning just for kicks (a greater earth elemental, lazy thing that it was), then proceed to literally slaughter everything else on the level, down to the last ghost lord who had fled from me into the walls.
Having checked several times with wands of monster detection, I ascended the CoC, went to Terinyo to get the unicorn quest, accidentally pissing off Munxip with unholy aura. I also did the puppy cave on the way out of the region, returning a dead puppy to the girl while invisibly running circles around Munxip and his guards. It was quite an amusing scene, and a good way to end the PC's story in the Drakalor Chain :)
Anyway, onto this character. I have extensive (if occasionally spotty) notes because of a personal writing habit I've started.
I had planned beforehand to do a two-hander monk, since the axe of the minotaur emperor was buffed. I started out barehanded of course, found an altar in UD:4 (I try to go down the UD when I can) and got crowned with Ring of Immunity. There was also a spellbook shop on UD:4, which was double-stocked because I spent so much time on that level. One neat feature is that the RoI made me immune to acid burn from attacking gray oozes, etc. I had planned to buy cooked lizards and return to the UD:4 altar, but I found another neutral altar on DD:3, and having a decent stock of food, I get postcrowned with True Aim. (At one point, a room got crowded with green worms that were neutral towards me, but I had a scroll of monster aggravation in my pack.) Slew the druid and exchanged his corpse, and visited Yergius to learn pickpocketing.
I ran across an undead vault in early CoC and practiced pickpocketing them... quite tedious. Get to Dwarftown, Thrundarr picks a dark elven lord. I did the Pyramid around level 15, no real problems (I most likely learned Detect Traps before entering.) An attempt to enter Darkforge was decided against because I had moderate trouble taking down the steel golem guarding the stairs. I also accidentally wasted a potion of toughness by dipping something into it - hit the wrong letter. Oh well. At least I have the AMW, which would be my body armor for most of the game.
Eventually I found that dark elven lord and finished the rest of the dwarf quests. I even found a potion of education that gave me archery - quite nice with True Aim - and a magical writing set with 2 uses. For some reason, I really like how monks don't lose Mana when scribing. Judicious use of blessed scrolls of protection (and defense) really help shore up the monk's defenses. Next I found Khelevaster, then went back up to do Tomb of the High Kings and Griffyard. Poured holy water on Griff's grave - I think I had 7lb at this point, on top of monk movement speed I was able to run circles around the horde of undead. I believe I raided Darkforge on this surface trip as well, and after repeated trips between the pool room and an altar to remove dooming, got a wish, which I used for AOLS. I also got permanent invisibility there, which really let me train up my archery skills. Now I felt like a sniper, it was pretty awesome. I dove down to the wall of flames and back up, finding bracers of war (!!) in a dark elf vault on D:20.
I think like I'm ready to attempt the ToEF now; I had gone down the PV talent tree, and between BoW's regen and Immune to Pain, the background damage was barely noticeable. I got my first corruption somewhere around this time: unholy aura. I kept it for now but would remove it when I passed through Dwarftown again. I found a RoDS somewhere in the Tower as well... was tempted to go for magical writing sets but had a water shortage to manufacture and bless blank scrolls, so instead I go for crystals of knowledge, increasing my learning skill (post-potion of exchange) from 10 to 16. Somewhere in the D:30's there's a greater vault - I didn't have any monster detection but decide to take a peek anyway, confident I could escape - it's a giants vault. In addition to a decent chunk of experience (and another corruption, "larger eye") I spotted no less than four artifacts in there! Robes of resistance (awesome!), Far Slayer (eh, too bad I already have True Aim), Scorched Spear, and Death's Blade (sacced.) I also found another writing set with 4 uses, which I used towards SoCR, defense/protection and magic mapping in preparation for the Minotaur Maze.
Down to the Casino, where I bought Wyrmlance but pass on Brannalbin's Cloak, and also stock up on other supplies. Entered the Maze at level 24, got through the first few levels with MM and crystals, and eventually find the emperor, accepting two stat draining hits in toughness for the heap of gear. The other artifact was Staff of the archmagi, pretty useless. I bought out the spellbook shop from earlier just for kicks, reading all of them. Went down through the air and earth temples, finding a red dragon normal vault along the way - no artifacts that I spotted. Even the red wyrm there fell to the power of the axe; I didn't even have to use Wyrmlance. The temples were similarly pretty easy, I even melee'd the ASB to rubble in under 10 turns IIRC. Also I was awarded the RotMC along the way.
I had an altar-cation on the earth temple altar (note to self: sac gold and not monsters/corpses at high levels) and got my equipment destroyed, but most of it was artifacts by this point anyway, although I did lose my only 7LB and a few other magically smithed up pieces. I found another potion of education somewhere, which gives me Gemology - a decent synergy with wall-kicking, if I had needed gems at all. Further down, I clear out rooms of chaos warriors and molochs respectively, also easy.
On D:45 I cleared a greater vault of fire creatures, only one artifact spotted - Cat's Claw... Also I lost all my PoCCs to poison hands, trying to get rid of poison hands. I had to rely on scrolls for the rest of the game, which concerned me a little, but it would turn out I had more than enough by the end. On D:46, another (normal) fire-creature vault, where I spotted Trusted One. I descended into the Blue Dragon Caves (without chatting with the karmic wyrm first as it didn't notice me - does it still not see invisible, or is this an overlooked thing from that change?) I slew my first balor there, as well as a greater titan who rather conveniently fled from me because of the unholy aura corruption which I received again. I noticed later that I missed out on eating its corpse, as it rotted away. I engaged the ancient blue wyrm, but had the sudden insight to go back up, chat with the AKW, and then kill the ABW.
Mana temple was not too difficult, I melee'd the boss and ate a few stat drains, not a huge deal since I barely took any damage. I had on an amulet of light, and had made sure that BoW gives death ray resistance.
I accidentally attacked a cat :(
I got through D:49 with winged arrows; those things have a huge range. I only needed one per each segment of the level, even the longest section. So I go down to D:50, clearing a room of greater air elementals as a warm-up, use a scroll of familiar summoning just for kicks (a greater earth elemental, lazy thing that it was), then proceed to literally slaughter everything else on the level, down to the last ghost lord who had fled from me into the walls.
Having checked several times with wands of monster detection, I ascended the CoC, went to Terinyo to get the unicorn quest, accidentally pissing off Munxip with unholy aura. I also did the puppy cave on the way out of the region, returning a dead puppy to the girl while invisibly running circles around Munxip and his guards. It was quite an amusing scene, and a good way to end the PC's story in the Drakalor Chain :)