Blanket queries (pun intended!)

[Dazed]

Hello all!

Dipping my toe back into ADOM again and I've got a promising level 19 male Orc Barbarian on the go, but he's not been without snags. He was Candle-born, so he went straight down the Small Cave to the HMV, but didn't pick up the water blanket. Subsequent trips to the Small Cave with invis have been fruitless so far, and the difficulty level of the monsters has gotten too worrying to try again.

He was precrowned by his Chaotic God with Purifier, which he is now level 10 in (and annihilates quite a lot of things!), and then was crowned by his Neutral God with Skullcrusher (hoped for a fancier two-handed weapon, oh well). He's currently training that up (level 8 at the mo). I'm hoping to get him dual-wielding Purifier and Skullcrusher at some point just to look pretty, plus different from the usual shield/one-handed weapon combo. Have subsequently picked all the Quick and Basher line talents and also have level 5 in Bows, Crossbows and Thrown Rocks.

Sadly he has one corruption (Unholy Aura) and no methods of corruption removal as of yet. Black druid corpse decayed on me. He walked through Darkforge easily enough (Purifier woo!) but there were no artifacts :(, got the RotHK and has the choice of potentially going for the ToEF as he has one blessed fireproof blanket. He has teleport control. I'd like to try exploring the Ice Queen Domain (I've never been there successfully before) but I think I need a water blanket to protect my gear? Felt good to mash up those ice statues after my mist elf elementalist got munched by them.

Some initial questions for your collective perusal!

1. Is it possible to repair pickaxes via Smithing? I can't seem to get it to work... (I found an anvil and a forge one level above Dwarftown, go figure!)

2. Is the water blanket in the Small Cave the only guaranteed source? I think a monster may have picked it up and I'm worried that their level is too high for me to nab the blanket back without losing my character :( Thrundarr gave me armour and weapons that I didn't need as a reward for becoming champion of the arena, the fool.

3. Will Unholy Aura be useful in the ToEF? I'm being very careful every time I enter Dwarftown because I don't want to anger Waldenbrook. Should I find a method of removing it ASAP?

[JellySlayer]

Pickaxes cannot be repaired except by Glod or scrolls of repair.

Thrundarr gives a blanket for completing one of his quests, though I think for barbarians you might get some armor instead. Otherwise, SMC is the only guaranteed one. I think you may need a ring of fire to be safe in the Ice Queen domain, not a blanket, but I'm not certain.

Unholy aura will be moderately useful in the ToEF. Some of the strong monsters may still flee and you get some extra DV. If you're desperate to remove it, though, there's a scroll of corruption removal in the HMV.

[Dazed]

Thanks for the info... I may have to get the unholy aura removed soon, I totally forgot about it and angered a potions shopkeeper the level below the Water Temple. I liken it to having terrible BO! I don't suppose there's a nice way to rectify the situation without losing tonnes of alignment in the process and annoying the Neutral God (I'm crowned)?

Out of interest, which is better, Skullcrusher or Purifier? Purifier seems more interesting to me because Skullcrusher can appear as a random artifact, and has done on a few occasions for me, whereas I've not really seen Purifier.

[JellySlayer]

I think Purifier has better damage characteristics. Skullcrusher slays humanoids, which includes a fairly wide variety of dangerous monsters. OTOH, purifier slays daemons, undead, and unlife, which also covers almost everything. I would personally use Purifier, though I could imagine switching to skullcrusher against a particularly dangerous non-daemonic humanoid (a shopkeeper, say).

[edit]I think if the shopkeeper got angry with you, your god has already punished you however he feels is appropriate, so you should be able to kill the shoppie without any further trouble (if you can!) at this point. Unholy aura could end up making him flee, I suppose. Be mindful that you might be cursed/doomed though.

[Dazed]

Shopkeeper is dead - I think the unholy aura caused me to be cursed or doomed as I got the 'you feel relieved' message when I ran off and offered at an altar, so I ran back and showed him what Skullcrusher could do :D Picked up a potion of cure corruption from the shop as well.

ToEF was a blast, I ended up zapping my wand of poison and wand of stunning lots so that the ACW ran away, I threw a cursed invis potion at it just to make sure in the corner where it was hiding, and Purifier took it down in a single berserk hit. Killed most of the fire elementals, demons and grues whilst I was there too.

I still haven't managed to get the wand of teleportation from the VDDL though, I haven't got a wand of item detection or scroll of magic mapping to help :(

I don't suppose anybody knows what this statue might do?

"You stumble upon a statue. It is clearly ancient. What race or gender is represented by the miserable form in front of you it is impossible to tell. The centuries have slowly taken their toll and it is a mass of cracks; it looks like a single kick would reduce it to dust."

It appears to be kick-able but I've not done so in case bad stuff happens... It doesn't sound like a positive statue.

[Blasphemous]

There's still plenty of statues that few people have encountered. Personally, I kick them every time and usually just get the message that nothing happens.
As for purifier vs skullcrusher - this is a funny situation, I'm in the same spot with my mindcrafter.
Got precrowned with purifier and found skullcrusher soon after.
I think the deal is that you use them interchangeably depending on enemies.
I had a greater vault of giants so I used skullcrusher since all giants are at the same time humanoids.
On the other hand I cleared the dark forge and a lesser golem vault using purifier due to the unlife slaying.
Later also a greater undead vault appeared on my way so I used purifier again.

The only problem I see here is when you encounter for example a dragon vault.
Neither of the weapons slays dragons and their damage output is mediocre and in case of skullcrusher quite low so you might want to have a backup eternium two-hander or something that slays dragons.

[Dazed]

I've got two eternium two-handed swords - one has the suffix - of lightning, and the other one has the prefix frozen- - picked those up in Darkforge. I'll train them up a little. I'm also level 7 in polearms, so once I get the right level, the rune covered trident is an option too, but that doesn't slay dragons either :(

No more blanket issues either, I picked up a waterproof blanket in the Casino as well as a helm of teleportation, plus I now have the wand of teleportation from the VDDL. Got the corruption removal scroll from the HMV, unfortunately the Dwarven Mystic gave me a ring, 2 potions of training and a PoGA. Go figure. No artifacts seen in the Casino though :(

My cat karma is TERRIBLE though, luckily the exit was close to the entrance with a locked door leading further into the level, I locked that door so I may pop back there later for a showdown. I've got the blood freezing corruption though.

On the plus side, I managed to backstab a doppleganger king to death with one of the eternium two-handed swords, which was pretty epic! I need to be more careful when running around, I thought it was a caveman!

[divij]

I think the only think that can get you killed at the moment is overconfidence! you should bypass all levels and just keep heading down. if you see elemental level clear it and go further down. you are probably far too overpowered for all the monsters you HAVE to fight because of skullcrusher =humanoid slayer except ASB which is a demon so you can use purifier! Also if you ever get a wish consider getting alchemy beacuse that means you can increase your speed to 250-300 easily by misusing alchemy with you blood freezing corruption!! beware of d49 though! Best of luck

[JellySlayer]

All of the Temple Bosses are considered daemons, so you can just stick with Purifier if you'd prefer (recommended), or switch to the RCT when you get it.

[Dazed]

Thanks for the vote of confidence all, shall try not to be overconfident though! I'm at the Air Temple at the moment, which shouldn't be too troublesome (fingers crossed!). Unfortunately I got crowned with acid immunity, but got some higher metal armour (I've smithed my mithril girdle to [6, 2] and looted a chaos knight of some eternium stuff :) ) I'm a bit disappointed not to get more artifacts though, I do have a potion of uselessness for D:49 ready to go.

I'm pretty worried about diving straight down as Nuurag-Vaarn tends to royally screw over my characters. I don't have any scrolls of corruption removal either, is it worth training up Climbing/Stealth at this stage for a trip to the Rift to get the weird tome? I usually pop back up to the surface to give the corpses to the druid for PoCCs but I'm having issues with decay :( I'd also like to explore the Ice Queen's Domain but it might be too risky at this stage? Also nervous about getting aged to death, my Orc is 23 years old now... Again, I'm being slow, I'm over 90 days :)

[divij]

Believe me bro, you will CRUSH Nuurag-Vaarn.late game adom is a piece of cake esp. with a barbarian (actually so is early game!!) ..just lure him out so that you are 1 v 1 with him then go to melle range with him and tremendous blow him (that sounded so wrong!!). no need for any scardy ass ranged combat!!! 1 time and he is moderately wounded, 2 times he is dead
you will evade ALL his spells guaranteedly cause of your alertness and as i said you can get your speed upto base+99 with wand of fire so he will be walking like a 100 year old man in front of you.
also you are absolutely right abt fearing aging..i never play trolls and orcs for this very reason.stay well clear of ghost lords or god forbid ghost kings!!
also DONOT attempt icequeen level with bloodfreeze corruption else RIP for you.
the only ral challenges are stray mimics quickling royalty and fisti
take care best of luck :)

[Dazed]

My Orc Barbarian is now level 26! Air Temple was a breeze (no pun intended) but I didn't manage to make it to the surface to get the PoCC. Descended further and came across a lesser vault of red dragons complete with wyrm! I killed the wyrm but it's taking me a while to deal with the rest (and they're a bit painful, my necklace of rapid healing got burned :( ), I've backed off from it for now. Is it possible there might be an artifact hidden there? I didn't get the message for greater vault on entering the level. Also, I figured as it's a fire type dragon vault I might be able to use the blood freezing corruption to boost my speed prior to the big push down?

The other corruptions I have are the stilts for legs, and the mists in front of my eyes. My perception is now 6, and Climbing and Stealth are at 100, is it worth me trying for the Rift to get the weird tome for the scrolls of corruption removal?

[JellySlayer]

Stilts is quite nice and worth keeping if none of the other corruptions aren't too much of a hassle, though I'm not sure how much it will help you as a barbarian. If you are thinking about doing the Rift and are a little worried about doing corruption, I suppose there's no harm in it. It shouldn't be any more difficult than what you've dealt with before. Having low Pe at this point in the game can be annoying and a bit dangerous, though.

A lesser vault probably won't have an artifact, but they occasionally (maybe 1 in 8) have one. I don't think the speed boost lasts long enough for it to be that useful in the final push. Can't hurt to try though.

Keep an eye out for rings/bracers of regeneration. They are much better than rapid healing, and really almost essential for the endgame.

There should be at least one greater vault, I think usually on D:45 or so. There could be others as well, of course. D:45 is very corrupting though, so if you can spot the artifacts (wand/scroll of item detection), you may want to just grab them with teleport. Be especially careful if the vault is full of undead. There's another greater vault available through the Ice Queen quest if you haven't done that. No need to visit them, just something to keep in mind. [edit]Although with freezing blood, Ice Queen quest is very, very hard and probably not worth the risk.

[Dazed]

I made a quick trip to the surface to check shops and stuff, then decided to forgo the Rift and try and dive down the CoC. Picked up yet another corruption - the babbling mouth on forehead. Perception is now at 2 but I have a blessed necklace of the eye, and I'm very much not stealthy any more because of this corruption so I can't do the Library and get the scrolls even if I tried?

The greater vault is on D:43, one level above the Earth Temple. Sadly, it's an undead one so am ignoring it. Looks like it has 2 potential weapon artifacts, but I guess all I can do really at this stage is go for survival and ignore them :( The Earth Temple level also appears to have an abandoned mimic shop, so I've made sure to lock the door on that!

Hopefully my orc barbarian will survive the Earth Temple... I'm a bit nervous because I'm usually a higher level at this point :/

EDIT: Booo, sadly came to an end in the Mana Temple - picked up the mana battery corruption so all my wands ended up being useless. Nuurag-Vaarn got me whilst blinded and zapped me to pieces :( Oh well, better luck next time!

[divij]

omfg how did this even happen?
how did he zap you while blinded? its not possible...he can only melee you while staggering..and if you have luck+fate shines, its is almost impossible for him to kill an orchish barbarian..zzz. or were YOU BLINDED? i dont get it! anyways its sad you lost but this is an appropritate way to play is to rush down with this race/class combo since you are tough enuf...im assuming you had -deth, lightsource, fireorb, -conf

[Dazed]

I was blinded, I stepped on a light trap. Tried to find my way out, I got melee'd. Didn't even realise it was Nuurag until the memorial page told me, whoops! Had all the required gear, the mana battery corruption really hurt me though, I had a wand of paralysation with 6 charges on it :(

[mjkittredge]

Ah, that's where a wand of detect traps would have saved you. If I get a crippling corruption like Mana Battery I drop what I'm doing until I get it removed. Usually I find a safe spot (like Dwarven Mystics room in Dwarftown) to stash extra scrolls of chaos resistance, but keep one blessed potion of cure corruption on me at all times for emergencies like getting that shitty corruption.

[Dazed]

Sadly I didn't have any corruption curing stuff either :( I'm guessing the mouth on forehead corruption prevents you from being quiet enough in the Library to get the weird tome :(

I'm going to work on a Ratling Monk now (named Splinter!) and see how that goes...

[Dazed]

The Ratling Monk didn't survive but I've got a female Human Assassin on the go at the moment who seems to be doing well, fingers crossed...

On that note, I was wondering if there was a list somewhere of what the letters above the health bar in NotEye mean? I've seen a 'C' and a 'Y' so far...