p50 late game

[BenMathiesen]

So I finally got a character down to D50 and beyond in the latest prerelease. Here are my thoughts:

--Background corruption is still very low compared to "classic" ADOM, at least in D40-D50 and the Mana level. There is definitely no pressure to get through these levels.
--The monster distribution is better than "classic" ADOM, but not weird like it was in R49, where giants and ancient dragons accounted for 3/4 of the monsters seen.

Overall, the late game had really nasty monsters showing up often enough to be a challenge, but it could use more background corruption to keep the pressure on. I cleared the Mana temple for the very first time, and also cleared a greater giant vault without gaining a single background corruption.

Finally, Andor is about ten times nastier than the last time I faced him. I never managed to pull ahead--every time I got next to him he just blew through my 70 PV and did 100's of HP of damage. I hit him in melee a few times but spent most of the time drinking my pitifully small reserve of healing potions and reading scrolls of chaos resistance. I'm not sure I have a good strategy for him other than staying as far away as possible and making sure I have a wish in reserve for speed; but he should be beatable without a wish, I would think. I had 2 blessed potions of boost speed but they didn't last long.

The scintillating cave and ChAoS could use some special FX. Everything else was simply gorgeous--the corrupted glade, the ice palace, great eye candy.

Finally, I had piles of slaying ammo for slings but some kinds are still not recognized as valid ammo. Dragon slaying and demon slaying bullets worked, the other slays did not (OK, I didn't actually try the plant slaying ammo.)

By the way, this was a ratling priest. I'm not going to upload the flg, the point is just to share my experiences with game balance.

Here he is, ready to go to his doom. :-)

2524

[Blasphemous]

Andor now ignores PV so 7 or 70 doesn't make a difference. DV is the way to go and a powerful melee attack, as in AotME powerful.
On the other hand, trident of the red rooster (if you're going for an ultra) is the best weapon imaginable against him.

[Heikki]

Andor now ignores PV so 7 or 70 doesn't make a difference. DV is the way to go and a powerful melee attack, as in AotME powerful.
On the other hand, trident of the red rooster (if you're going for an ultra) is the best weapon imaginable against him.

Rudolf, the gnomish wizard, was killed by Andor Drakon, the invisible ElDeR
cHaOs GoD.

I was hitting him with ToTRR, level 8 with polearms but still most of the time I was drinking PoUH as well.. Slaying missiles were quite useless because despite the helm of mental stability and ring of mental stability, I was confused almost all the time. Nasty bugger indeed.

[BenMathiesen]

Good to know about the penetrating attack for the next time I get that far. The problem is high DV and high melee damage are kind of contradictory. I was at about 70/70 with no tactics, and it's true that when I went to coward mode (DV 120 or so) I gained a round or two to heal myself, but I couldn't stay there indefinitely either. Maybe I should have tried fighting defensively. I tried a bit of melee with Skullcrusher/shield, and a bit with the ToRR, but I couldn't tell which one was working better. All I could tell was that I was getting slaughtered!

Confusion was not a problem for me, but my willpower was high and I had a ring of mental stability on.

Next time I'll be more cautious.

[aerol]

Post an RFE about increasing the background corruption and you certainly have my yes vote.