Save me from myself. [Archive] - ADOM & Ultimate ADOM Forums

melphen

10-26-2014, 09:14 PM

I have the most success with dwarf pallys normally. I find they are hard enough for melee in the early stages to survive well and learn enough spells later in the game to add a lot of useful ability to the class. I used to love orc barbs but I got real sick of trying to teach them to read before the latest versions of the game fixed the quest that would get me there for sure. I just haven't gone back to them because the pallys have been very nice to me in the past. In truth I can get most of the common race/class combos to around the same point in the game, but I have read over and over again that the two classes I mentioned are some of the best for a new player and despite the years I have played the game I haven't moved far enough forward to think of myself as a player of any more quality than a new player.

With the barb and pally characters I go through the SMC to HMV (I really hope I'm getting all these names and such right, playing solo for years the names didn't matter as much as the path to them). I have found this game to be almost unbearable without that water proof blanket so I make it a point to get to that if I can. If I can't normally I lose because I had to cross some water somewhere and lost half my gear to rust related damages shortly there after.

I normally go the the arena there after to collect as much cooked lizard as I can get my hands on. Then I go back around to complete the quest I picked to gain either healing or herbs depending on which my character needs. Barbs start with herbs, my pallys with healing so I'm used to completing both quest. If the barbs already need it sometimes I go get healing before I get food, but normally I find if I get through the first dungeon I'm more than ok to get to the arena before I have to worry about healing.

After I complete the healing/herb quest I kill the cop or crime lord depending on class again. This is another one I'm very good at timing and rarely have a problem with.

Then back to the main dungeon and the arena, normally I do the first 15 or so fights without issue and take that money to DT where I'll sell what I don't need and sacrifice enough gold and such to be able to make holy water at least. My chaotic characters might pre-crown before I reach this point with live sacrifices on random altars. If I'm not chaotic the first altar I tend to see that I can use if the one in DT. (Converting altars is something I believe it entirely too hard for this game given how important they really are to this game)

I'll knock out the quest in DT at this point. While I find going through the LF the most annoying thing in the game only the patience required challenges me. If I feel good about it I'll do the master of the arena, dwarf graveyard, and pyramid all in one move before going any further.

That is all pretty normal for me. Sometimes I run into something along the way that randomly kills me before I complete all this but I think that is normal and completely ok for the most part.

I normally get killed on the way to the water temple or in it. So far as I know that should really be the next stop. I haven't tried to new ice queen stuff (or whatever that is, I really haven't read into it enough to know, only enough to know I have to be lvl 15 to get in and cold damage is a problem but I haven't played with it). That looks to fill a gap in my progress if I understand right, but it also looks like a lot more complication I'm not ready for. With a few characters I have gone to get the ring of the high kings at this point and normally that gets me killed too. I can't get to the door, open it, and get off the damned bridge before I get thrown into those very mean fish.

I can't seem to do enough damage to finish off the boss in the water temple before I'm out of most of my consumable solutions to common problems. I'll leave there with no PP, no healing potions, no arrows and half dead most of the time if I leave at all. I've even skipped it before and come back to it only after being told I had to complete the fire temple to move further forward so I know it has to be something I'm doing wrong.

Aside from the advice that might lead to I could use some help with some other things as well. For example: there are games that I can't get enough arrows at all. I've tried milking monsters that will feed me arrows or rocks, or abusing traps but I often end up throwing random things at karmic lizards or trying to run from them and normally I end up having to hope for a creative cure to the woes they bring with them. Should I ever hit one I die VERY fast because I can't get to an altar and find enough to sacrifice to take the bad luck and all off.

Learning the best methods to identify items of higher quality in the game has helped a bit, but if you can't read, or you can't get to an altar to learn if these items are cursed using them gets risky as hell fast. If you have a character that can't do either this game becomes a total crap shoot. It doesn't do me much good to know I just picked up SLB if I can't get the cursed mithril ones I just put on off. Now I'm carrying extra items in hopes that I will find a solution that I don't normally get to. I spend a lot of time burdened with tons of arrows and no bow, or 100 torches with nothing to set them on fire.

I can't seem to get to a place where herbs are really useful for me. Every game I have seen played that ended in a win always uses herbs to a point I would call abuse. I can use healing herbs well, and I have a spread sheet because I can't remember what they all do and I have to go back to them all the time. When I get a character with a good herb skill I'm normally missing an altar with which to judge their C/U/B status and as such can't really use them well. Even with everything going my way I don't get the stat increases that are always a feature in the winning games I see.

I'm rambling a bit, but I hope there is something in there you can help me with that will help me move forward a little more. Either way, thanks for trying man. I'm going to start the game up and look to learn a little more.

boat

10-26-2014, 11:08 PM

Dont get discouraged! You seem like you are really on your way to win. Honestly, dwarf pallys are good for early survival but lack in mid-late game damage, unless you are crowned with justifier. I would say always get crowned before you hit the water temple because the artifact reward is a huge boost. That's strange that the snake is giving you lots of trouble. How are you completing the graveyard quests? Depending how you do it, the rewards are excellent. I usually use a wand of fireballs on the snake. You have many more challenges ahead of you, but quite honestly if you are getting to the snake consistently you should be well versed to take on the rest of the game.

melphen

10-26-2014, 11:36 PM

How do I help my chances of getting crowned? I've done it, and with increasing regularity, but whats my best shot at making sure it happens every game with a dwarf pally?

mjkittredge

10-27-2014, 01:24 AM

Sacrificing large amounts of monsters (or gold or artifacts you don't need) is the fastest way to get precrowned and crowned. Since you have no problem spoiling yourself look up the requirements for level (need to be at least 8 plus 3 for every artifact generated thus far, can't be of extreme alignment such as L+, N=, C-). Each successive precrowning takes more and more piety so going for more than 2 is an enormous expenditure of game time, real time, and effort.

While crowning is one of 6 possible items (IIRC) for each separate class, precrowning can be nearly any non-guaranteed artifact in the game. It's a complete crapshoot as to whether or not it will be useful, although I find more often than not it is. There are a few that are so good they are near game breaking. Preserver, Bracers of War, Executor, Suns Messenger, Ring of Immunity, Protector. To name a few. And many others that are good enough to be a huge upgrade to whatever you have at the time.

I think getting one precrowning is relatively easy if you find an altar in the right place, and 2 is doable, while 3 or more is borderline inefficient unless there are special circumstances. Like an altar generated in the SMC (high monster generation) or the big room in either the puppy cave or tomb of the high king.

So at least 2 artifacts you should be getting, plus the guaranteed ones and ones you find randomly in shops or loot piles. You can win without using a single artifact but they are so powerful.

mjkittredge

10-27-2014, 01:38 AM

Herbs are simple.

http://ancardia.wikia.com/wiki/Herbs

Use 4 at a time each of morgia/mareilon to boost your stats - dex, toughness, and willpower.

Use Stomacemptia if you have a bunch of stat boosting corpses you want to eat before they rot away. Like giants/trolls/ogres, dragons, lizards, maybe claw bugs or minotaurs if you don't care about willpower.

Alrunia if poisoned. Curaria if diseased.

Stomafilia for sacrificing on altar or eating.

After you have picked a huge pile, you can read a blessed scroll of uncursing to at least bring all the cursed ones up to uncursed. Depending on your needs you may then wish to bless a stack by dipping them into a potion of holy water. Although other things take a higher priority for holy water use.

Like blessing your main weapon (makes it more resistant to item destruction and adds +50% damage to undead and demons) and potions of stat, slaying ammo, piles of scrolls of identify

GordonOverkill

10-27-2014, 06:16 AM

Early game order spoiler:
What I didn't see on your list ist the beginners dungeon and the puppy cave. You could include these for some more loot early on.
Playing save, my current start usually is:
1. visit SC to spawn some low level monsters
2. visit the outlaw settlement to identify stuff in the black market
3. get quests from Terinyo (herbalism/healing and puppy)
4. completely scout the beginners dungeon for some levels and loot (highest priority during the whole early game is increasing PV and collecting missiles, which often means: rocks!)
5. scout the first level of the PC... not the second one since the ants are too dangerous
6. scout all but the last level of VD/DD. If I have reasonable PV (something like at least PV 7), I add the last level of the VD right now to finish the quest
7. scout the remaining PC, probably skipping the ant level and doing it on the way back to the surface, if I don't feel strong enough yet, probably doing the same with the cavernous level. ("Not strong enough" means "PV and/or damage output are not yet high enough. However, when I leave the PC, I usually have a very nice boost to my equipment from the lesser vault, I am around level 10-12 and often I also have -acid from the ants. Still it is a dangerous place, so if I see that one place is too dangerous (very likely one of the two last levels: A particuarly annoying spawn in the caverns or a mixed lesser vault with nasty creatures at the bottom), I just turn around and retreat , probably to come back later. (I take at least speed or long stride with practically all of my chars. If I am too slow anyway, I use some other method like getting my HP reduced below 1/3 and making use of the coward speed bonus)
8. finish VD/DD, if not done so yet
9. make a run for the downstairs in the SC. At this point I can just walk through the monsters that I spawned in the beginning, but new spawns might be VERY dangerous, so I am always ready to retreat. It's not worth dying at this point, because my char is already strong enough for the CoC. UD/HMV would just be a nice bonus to make him/her even more overpowered.
By the way, the blanked is not that crucial in my eyes. In the long term I want rustproof gear on most bodyparts, anyway. After finding the downstairs, I just do some careful scouting for the blanket, but as soon as I encounter something dangerous, I just descent as quick as possible.
10. probably check the DDL for herbs and take what ever loot it has to offer, probably start the courage quest, too
11. enter CoC and quickly dive to Dwarftown. Probably stabilize some 2x2 herb patches in the big room, but if some nasty foe spawns, I just skip that for later. At this point my char should be somewhere around level 10-13 and well enough equipped to make this dive a rather relaxed experience
12. get the portal quest and the first of Thrundar's quests
13. if I feel strong enough (PV of around 13-15 or higher): scout the levels below Dwarftown untill I find the two-downstairs-level; if I still feel a little weaker: scout the higher CoC. In the current version this is usually enough to finish Thrundar's first quest and allow me to identify my stuff. From here on my char is usually very well prepared.

Water Temple spoiler:
You can easiely disable the Snake from Beyond for a long time by throwing a blessed potion of cure poison at it. This makes the fight ALOT easier for melee chars, especially if you do so in the narrow corridors of the inner temple where it can hardly stagger away. Also the snake is rather slow, so if you kill all other monsters at first and got at least one speed talent, you can just run around the outside of the inner temple, the snake following you, and try to find out at which pattern you get a free move due to your superiour speed. These are the moments where you want to attack the snake. Every now and then you will have to suffer a hit anyway, but with a heavy hitting character like a barbarian this is quite a save strategy, anyway. Demon slaying ammunition of course does an amazing job, too, so if you found a nice stack, make sure to use it. And finally, as suggested, you can also do it with the wand of fireballs.
In any way, make sure to bless that weapon/stack of ammunition that you want to use! Also you you don't want to ever melee hte snake without -pois and a scource to heal poisoning (like alraunia antidote).

Tomb of the High Kings spoiler:
When finishing the tomb, you definitely want at least one source of confusion resistance! The ancient mummy wrapping should be in your possession anyway, so make sure to wear it. If you've got another ring, make sure to add it. Also high willpower helps to avoid being confused.
Furthermore you don't want to spend more time on your ice bridge than absolutely necessary. just open the door and then quickly retreat into the corridor in the east. There you can savely kill the king and his minons one by one.
Don't forget to bless your weapons before the fight and also equip some means of -fire to reduce the damage of the kings magic attacks.

Ammunition spoiler:
If you run short on ammunition despite your best efforts, go for rocks! Those are generally much underestimated and really do a great job (I am currently doing a challenge run with a hurthling archer who uses no other weapon but thrown rocks at all... he's at level 18 and doing quite well). Not only are those rocks quite easy to find in big stacks, also there are some ways to ensure an extra load of them. For example you can just lock yourself in a room far away from the ants on PC2 and wait for them to dig through the whole level, thus producing a very nice missile supply for you. Or you could kill a dwarf and steal his pickaxe to dig yourself. As a dwarven paladine you even start with the mining skill, so this would work very well. Whenever I run halfway short on arrows and quarrels in the early/mid game, I switch to rocks untill I got myself some new supplies, and I just drop them when I've got enough better ammunition to make sure to avoid a shortage.
Apart from that, don't forget to use your offensive wands with your melee chars! Sometimes they are the best option you have against particular enemies.

Identify spoiler:
I personally do alot of identifying through shop prices. Try to get a feeling for the prices of certain items... not the actual ones, but rather the relational cost in comparison to other items. You will develope a feeling for exceptionally expensive (=good) or cheap (=bad, probably cursed) prices.
Also there are certain items which you can equip without knowing the status and others for which this is rather dangerous...
- headgear: no particular danger; I equip everything that promises at least one point of protection
- neckgear: could be cursed amulet of hunger, so I do not equip anything without at least checking it's price at a shop
- bodygear: i equip everything that promises a nice PV bonus (= that makes me reach a certain PV value that I want to have before I start a cetain part of the game) and generally every higher metal piece that I find early on. Of course it could be a cursed armor of hatred, but well, I usually take this risk
- girdle: cursed girdle prevents me from changing bodygear, so I equip it blindly only if I have already got a nice body armor and it promises additional PV. Also cursed girdle of carrying could be a disaster, but those have got a different unidentified name
- cloak: no danger, so I blindly equip almost everything. You can easiely get it destroyed if you find something better
- weapon: cursed weapons prevent your from changing gloves (and as a result: rings), so I just equip them if it's definitely nice higher metal and I don't already have a decent weapon; also rapiers might be worth equipping them directly for they give a PV bonus; otherwise I want to at least check the price first
- shield: not sure if it also blocks the gloves slot... guess it should. However, if I am in need of additional PV, I blindly equip everything that is at least a medium shield and every guaranteed higher metal upgrade, also in order to train my shields skill higher
- rings: there are some auto-cursing rings with horrible effects and I generally like to be able to change my rings for different uses, so I rarely equip more than one without at least checking the price. I might though blindly equip a guaranteed usefull ring like ring of fire resistance (=wooden ring) on one hand. Even if it's cursed, I've still got one ring slot to change
- bracers: quite rare to find, so except for brass bracers I just equip whatever I can find
- gloves: prevent you from changing rings if cursed. Also gauntlets might be auto-cursing gauntlets of piece, which are quite a problem for every other class but spellcasters. I usually equip only colored gauntlets (for guaranteed PV) or gauntlets dropped by fencers/duelists, for they appear to be quite cool most of the time.
- boots of the slow shuffle could easiely ruin your game, but you should be able to recognize them by name. I blindly equip whatever gives me a guaranteed boost to PV
- missile weapon: if I have a nice supply of rocks, I don't want to get that blocked, so I usually try to check at least the price of a missile weapon before equipping it

Of course you are right that you might always find a better piece right after equipping something cursed, but especially early on each point of PV makes your life a while lot easier, so in my eyes it's absolutely worth taking the risks that I mentioned above. After you found your first co-alligned altar, you will be able to remove curses anyway.

Hope that helps you a little. All the best for your future runs! :-)

grobblewobble

10-27-2014, 08:18 AM

Tip one: make sure you get teleport control and the wand of teleportation as early as you can. This is extremely important.

Snake from beyond: as Gordon said. Throw a potion of cure poison. Also, offensive wands work very well. The snake is bad at shrugging bolts. A wand of trap creation works well too, because the snake is bad at dodging traps too.

If you still have trouble, throw a potion of cure corruption at the snake. That will weaken him so much that the fight should be trivial.

Make sure you are not burdened in big fights, like against the snake. Being burdened slows you down, which makes it harder to avoid being hit. Personally I hate being burdened and I dump any items that I don't really need as soon as I can, especially if they're heavy. But you can also leave big item piles on the stairs of the previous level when you're doing something difficult like the water temple.

How do I help my chances of getting crowned?
Sacrificing gold is one of the best ways to gain piety for anyone, but for dwarves this is even more true. Your god loves gold and you are guaranteed to get good prices from Waldenbrook. Get the dwarven rune axe, sell it and sac the gold. That alone will be nearly enough to get crowned.

One more tip. For melee characters like paladins and barbarians I can heartily recommend the PV talents. Especially for a dwarf. Get them all, including immune to pain. It makes a big difference.

grobblewobble

10-27-2014, 08:48 AM

While crowning is one of 6 possible items (IIRC) for each separate class, precrowning can be nearly any non-guaranteed artifact in the game. It's a complete crapshoot as to whether or not it will be useful, although I find more often than not it is. There are a few that are so good they are near game breaking. Preserver, Bracers of War, Executor, Suns Messenger, Ring of Immunity, Protector. To name a few. And many others that are good enough to be a huge upgrade to whatever you have at the time.

I think getting one precrowning is relatively easy if you find an altar in the right place, and 2 is doable, while 3 or more is borderline inefficient unless there are special circumstances. Like an altar generated in the SMC (high monster generation) or the big room in either the puppy cave or tomb of the high king.

In my opinion even the first precrowning is too much hassle unless I happen to get an altar on a level with a bee hive or anthill. More than one precrowning is something I haven't done in years.

As a paladin or barbarian especially, I just want my crowning gift as soon as I can. It's guaranteed to be good. Precrownings are a crapshoot indeed. More than half the time you get something worthless. And spending a very long time on a cavernous level with an altar to generate a precrown is both tedious and dangerous. You generate mountains of summoned creatures that you can't sacrifice and occasionally something really bad will spawn. The black tome isn't worth it.

Silfir

10-27-2014, 02:28 PM

It's true that some of the really good artifacts can allow you to run away with the game, but you shouldn't allow them to become a crutch. I can count the times I've precrowned on one hand, and I've won the game twenty-six times or so. I think it's a bit of a fad at best, and at worst it can destroy your motivation to just try again.

One weakness both dwarven paladins and orcish barbarians share is an almost complete reliance on melee. Barbarians actually have the tools to make it work against anything; judicious use of mighty blow and tremendous blow allow them to punch past any degree of defenses, and if you pick a tough race like orc, you have the sheer HP to last through any fight the hard way. Paladins lack that quality somewhat. Still, Big Punch should be enough. Artifact weapons, Justifier especially, are only a bonus.

melphen

10-27-2014, 03:33 PM

Thanks for the advice guys. More questions come from your advice. I should be working so I'll just ask the first big one on my list.

How do I get teleport control more often? Blink dogs give it to you if you can eat one, I know there are amulets too. I would say only 15% of my characters get teleport control. How can I increase that percentage?

Cactus

10-27-2014, 04:38 PM

...
How do I get teleport control more often? ...

Name the first blink dog. If it is not hostile, attack him but avoid killing him (e.g. a kick in coward mode). If in a corridor, lead it to a bigger room. Let it summon more blink dogs and only kill those. If the original (named) one is exhausted, wait till it recovers and summons more. Sooner or later you'll get the corpse.
I usually fight from a corridor standing on a door tile, so that I face two blink dogs at a time. That way, even if the summoner stands before you you can attack the rest of the bunch.
The reason for naming the original one is that freshly summoned monsters won't be able to summon themselves for a while.

Blasphemous

10-27-2014, 04:40 PM

You need to know where blink dogs can be found.
Most notably, go to ID, descend to I:5 then start jumping between I:5 - I:4 and wait in between.
Blink dogs typically teleport to the PC's vicinity if they are on the level, but it usually happens after 5-10 turns.
It goes like this: -> I:4, w5 -> I:5, w5 -> I:4, w5 etc.
w5 stands for waiting on the spot.

I'd say that if I don't find a blink dog randomly in DD/VD/PC/UD or early CoC, I will ultimately go to ID and look for one there.
When one is found, it should be named immediately to distinguish it from the others he will summon.
You avoid killing him and only kill wave after wave of his summons.
A corpse will drop eventually, this is how I get my teleport control 95% of the time.
If you have some arrows/quarrels of hunting, that should be even easier.

There are also rings and like you said amulets of teleport control.
Certain artifacts give it too, notably boots of the divine messenger.
Pools can grant teleport control intrinsic but it is an unreliable source.

grobblewobble

10-27-2014, 05:49 PM

Yeah, what Cactus said. Often you can find a blink dog somewhere along the way. If you're unlucky and never find one, the ID method from Blasph above takes some patience, but it works. Either way, the important bit is to keep the original dog alive until you get a corpse.

melphen

10-27-2014, 05:51 PM

Killing blink dogs is a choatic act. I have had issues in the past where my character slipped to NL doing this, and I didn't get the chance to try to convert back. If I slip to NL how with the dwarf pally how hard will it be to get back to L? I don't want to risk converting the alter in DT so I figured I would ask instead of screwing up again.

Speaking of screwng up I was waiting for a monster to step up onto an altar last night, and instead of 5 I hit 6. Such typos get good characters killed in this game. The stakes could not be higher.

grobblewobble

10-27-2014, 06:03 PM

Killing blink dogs is a choatic act. I have had issues in the past where my character slipped to NL doing this, and I didn't get the chance to try to convert back. If I slip to NL how with the dwarf pally how hard will it be to get back to L?
The easiest method is to use the altar in DT, provided it was generated L.

Take measures to avoid any punishments from an angry god first. If your god is angry, he may curse your items (including pack) or even destroy your worn items. Both of those can be easily avoided, however.

Take off all equipment and then put something worthless (like a si, or a devil's rose or whatever) into your missile slot. Next, leave your good items somewhere safe (for example on the stairs down on the level above). Now it is safe to convert yourself on the altar. Sacrifice one gold, repeat until you are LN.

There are alternative ways to change alignment. You can feed a beggar tons of bad ratling food or herbs, for example. Next time you sacrifice anything on an altar, the same safety measures still apply. Changing alignment may anger your god. But once you have made some small sacrifice, he will soon forget his anger.

Converting the altar only happens if you make a *big* sacrifice. That is why you should only sac one coin at a time. This will only convert you, never the altar.

And if you want to convert an altar you just need to do the opposite: sacrifice at least 5000 gold at once. This will always convert the altar and rarely yourself.

mjkittredge

10-27-2014, 07:11 PM

While I don't think paladins or barbarians are bad choices, it might be worth your while to try other race/class combos.

Troll Priest - can kill in melee early game (around 25-30 strength and toughness to start) while also getting lots of spells, plus there is the Detect Item Status skill which when you get to 100 in it every items cursed/uncursed/blessed status is IDed soon as you find it. If you don't like the troll drawbacks another hardy race such as Orcs, Dwarves or Drakelings will work.

Hurthling Archer - they start out with several skill levels in thrown rocks, the easiest ammunition to find. High dex, good toughness, and strength you can train up to 18 just going around strained. The talent tree has some very nice ranged weapon bonuses. Other good races are Gnome (start with crossbows, extra talents, and level up fast), and elves (high dex, high learning, dodge skill)

Dark Elven Assassin - double trained find weakness (more crits) and alertness (helps with dodging spells and dv), Alchemy to make potions, backstab is tons of damage. Starts the game very good at throwing daggers. Getting a ring of invisibility makes this class shine.

Wizard and Healer can be good choices too.

Then look at birthsigns. I think you should reroll unless you get candle (fast healing) or raven (extra speed), while the others are helpful depending on class, those 2 are the best for survival early to mid game

GordonOverkill

10-27-2014, 08:41 PM

Talking about birthsigns, I have got 18 winners on my list so far and not a single one of them was candle-born. Candle is the very starsign that regularly makes me die of over-confidence ;-)

boat

10-27-2014, 09:24 PM

Talking about birthsigns, I have got 18 winners on my list so far and not a single one of them was candle-born. Candle is the very starsign that regularly makes me die of over-confidence ;-)

That's an interesting stat. I tend to agree that Candle isn't a significant advantage, but it depends on your play style. If you play more casually, Candle is great for healing nice and fast and continue on with your game.

Also I wanted to agree above that Dwarf Pally is great for early survival, but they top off quickly for damage and overall effectiveness in the mid/late game. I can't really suggest a specific class, typically any race/combo with find weakness. I would caution towards Trolls and Orcs, or any race that can die easily of unnatural aging. Maybe go with a Dark Elf?

melphen

10-27-2014, 09:31 PM

I have already applied the information on blink dogs with success. Thanks for the advice, that worked really well and didn't take too long at all once I found one. Oddly on the next level I opened a door to a room of blink dogs and could have feasted on those puppies. There is no telling how many of those things I killed to get through to the next room.

JellySlayer

10-28-2014, 02:13 AM

That's an interesting stat. I tend to agree that Candle isn't a significant advantage, but it depends on your play style. If you play more casually, Candle is great for healing nice and fast and continue on with your game.

Also I wanted to agree above that Dwarf Pally is great for early survival, but they top off quickly for damage and overall effectiveness in the mid/late game. I can't really suggest a specific class, typically any race/combo with find weakness. I would caution towards Trolls and Orcs, or any race that can die easily of unnatural aging. Maybe go with a Dark Elf?

If you get crowned with Justifier, paladins are pretty much unstoppable. Otherwise, paladins are no worse than a lot of other classes as far as melee damage goes. Get them a decent slaying weapon or Big Punch and they'll be fine in the endgame. They also make passable casters and find lots of spellbooks, so you can use some magic missiles in a pinch.

No live for drakelings in this thread? Acid spit, nice starting skills and stats. If you take something like a paladin, you'll have good gear too, actually. Plus you basically get a free pass to finish the ToEF without difficulty. No ice queen area though.

Blasphemous

10-28-2014, 08:27 AM

I always take gray elves.
Though I wouldn't say they are easy, once you get used to low strength, toughness and hp, they're pretty awesome otherwise.
Always high learning guarantees literacy and 4-5 skill increases per level.
Coupled with high mana it also makes learning and casting spells easier for classes that rely on melee.
Finally gray elves have the second longest livespan of all races, reason I don't play orcs or drakes anymore.
My most recent gray elven thief found herself inside a huge tension room of ghost kings deep in CoC.
Since they spotted me and they pass through walls, I had no choice but to destroy them all.
I was aged more than 500 years, something that non-elven races would not have survived.
My gray elf was middle-aged, that doesn't happen too often.

LexyBoy

10-28-2014, 11:57 AM

I'd say there's something in picking a r/c combo which is fairly weak at the beginning but strong in the midgame. I started playing ~15 years ago, with all the time in the world, and never got close to winning - probably around ToEF was the farthest I got without savescumming (which totally kills the game BTW). After a hiatus, started playing again around a year ago and have since won 4 times - despite only having time to play a few hours a week.

Thus I think playing less can help - you become more attached to characters you've known for a month than those you only started yesterday, and you have time to think of your strategy (and how you could have avoided deaths) between plays. And take your time in the game too - though you might feel panic on seeing a dangerous monster, the game cares not if you spend 10 minutes looking through your inventory (or spoiling yourself on the wiki, though this does take some of the fun out). It's almost always easier to escape a situation than fight your way out.

gut

10-30-2014, 03:26 AM

yhal003

10-30-2014, 05:06 AM

> I can't seem to get to a place where herbs are really useful for me.

well, there's your problem. Herbs are the single scummiest scum in a world of scums.
A noob trying to beat adom without properly using herbs is like attacking yourself with a bag of hammers. Yeah, it may be fun, but you'll just wind up hurt in the end.

Herbs are somewhat less important in 1.2.0 without stomafillia precrownings and not being able to push stats past potentials. Characters with attribute potential of 25 tend to have high attributes anyway.

melphen

10-30-2014, 03:26 PM

If herbs are scum give me another way to deal with all the stat draining things in the game please. Its really easy to end up with stats drained to the point where things get real silly. I have to say I don't understand nerfing herbs in this game with everything else already lined up against you. It was something that used well balanced the game a little from what I could see. It requred both knowlege and skill to use correctly so taking it away at all seems odd to me.

This is one of the things that frustrates me with this game. A new version comes out, fixes some problems and makes the game harder. It seems every time there is a new release something gets toned down a little. I understand that the better players want more challenge, but those of us still trying to get to the end for the first time need something too. There are more non-players than expert players so why make this game so much more challenging to get into? I don't get much time to keep up with what is coming for ADOM, but with Steam coming up it would seem like we want new players. I understand that version looks to have some features that make the game something entirely different IMO but it still isn't doing much for someone like me, someone with a real interest in the RL part of this game.

Thanks for the help guys. Things have taken a sudden turn in my personal life and ADOM has been a great escape for a little while these last few days.

mjkittredge

10-30-2014, 06:35 PM

Melphen, I think TB has a tough job of making the game accessible to new players but at the same time limiting the game breaking exploits and scumming experienced players use which can trivialize the content and diminish their experiences.

Herbs are still very very useful, get dex and toughness and willpower to 25, heal yourself, cure disease and poison, most satiating/low weight food in the game. And get some free piety from saccing stomafilia, so it was a compromise, instead of taking it completely away from unlimited piety. Also keep in mind, If those stats get lowered beneath 25 you can use herbs to raise them back up to that again.

yhal003

10-30-2014, 08:00 PM

This is one of the things that frustrates me with this game. A new version comes out, fixes some problems and makes the game harder. It seems every time there is a new release something gets toned down a little. I understand that the better players want more challenge, but those of us still trying to get to the end for the first time need something too. There are more non-players than expert players so why make this game so much more challenging to get into? I don't get much time to keep up with what is coming for ADOM, but with Steam coming up it would seem like we want new players. I understand that version looks to have some features that make the game something entirely different IMO but it still isn't doing much for someone like me, someone with a real interest in the RL part of this game.

I would say that new versions are actually easier. There is new 3 level introduction dungeon for weak characters, new ice giant dungeon to prepare before ToEF, guarantied GVs. Guarantied ice wand and ring of ice make certain locations doable. There is significantly less corruption on lower levels. New corruptions make it easier to cherry pick benign ones. Early rivers are rare, so there is smaller chance of getting stuck in UD or on the way to dwarftown. All in all this is more than enough to compensate for herbs and scumming.

Herbs are still useful but no longer essential. Yes, their use requires some skill and resources either to pacify the big room or holy water to grow gardens elsewhere, but gathering herbs once the garden is grown is boring and repetitive. I used to always go for one precrowning in the past, but now do it only when conditions are right (altar on cavernous level, cooking and hurthlings, few treasure vaults etc.).

grobblewobble

10-30-2014, 10:12 PM

Eating morgia roots until your toughness reaches its potential maximum still works and really helps.

In addition, carrying a bunch of herbs to cure both sickness and poison is worth it. Very lightweight and it can save your life.

A pile of spenseweeds is also great to have, this can make difficult places much easier.

A pile of stomafillia solves your food problems once and for all. Cooked lizards can do that too, but stoma weighs less.

gut

10-31-2014, 05:10 AM

> If herbs are scum give me another way to deal with all the

You misunderstood. Scum is not a 4-letter word in adom, it is the cornerstone of the game.
Playing adom without properly using herbs is like playing tetris without the long narrow blocks.
It is like playing that knife game that convicts play where they stab the knife into the table between their fingers, but doing it while drunk, blind and confused.
It is like playing darts without arms.
It is like shaving your dog with a spoon.
It just doesn't work for noobs, period.
This is the main reason to lessen the effect of herbs, it makes the game trivial for those who know the exploit, while making the game impossible for those who don't.

gut

10-31-2014, 05:12 AM

oh, to put herbs in perspective: if you pool sip and get a wish, then wish for 'toughness', you get +2 toughness

melphen

10-31-2014, 12:38 PM

@mjkittredge I wish TB would spend some time thinking about my play experience. Because...

@yhal003 Sure things might have gotten easier, but you have to be here and spoiled by more than a little to know it. If you just downloaded this game, read the manual, and started playing you would know nothing about all those things you listed. As a matter of fact I have been playing for a while now and still don't know where all the things you are talking about are. Most importantly I don't know how those things really help me. Sure, a dungeon for weak characters helps, but then the danger level on SMC goes up, and you cut off an entire part of the game for yourself should you take those 3 extra dungeon levels and get to level 5 before you enter SMC.

Sometimes I think we are all forgetting that this is the expert community, and not the total of all the people that play this game. Even coming here and trying to read enough to help takes a lot of time to understand.

EDIT: Imagine what this is going to be like if ADOM gets big on Steam. You are going to have tons of poeple coming here looking for help with things you would think of as normal everyday problems. If you suddenly have to learn all the potions, scrolls, wands, spells, alt names for the spells, ect... then add the C/U/B status for all those items and the little tricky things that can make or break a game. How, for expample, will a new player learn that you have to 'U'se a blessed ring to get a wish instead of looking for an effect by wearing it? Missing that wish is sure to change the way the game goes for you. Hell, without being spoiled its very hard to know what to wish for, and wishing for the wrong things can be just as bad. There is no learning curve here really, its all or nothing.

melphen

10-31-2014, 03:50 PM

At what point does going through the DH become a reasonable possiblity? I have been slaughtered everytime I went near there so I have stayed away for a long time now.

LexyBoy

10-31-2014, 04:29 PM

I will only do the forest if I have controlled teleport and invisibility now. A couple of frustrating deaths surrounded with hostile trees has ensured that. I'll usually cross DH from around level 16 ish - after Nonnak and the pyramid. Sure you can die, but it's more avoidable with some skill than the frustration of being stuck in the forest with no teleport. Any or all of magic mapping, detect monsters and teleportation will help.

You are going to have tons of poeple coming here looking for help with things you would think of as normal everyday problems. If you suddenly have to learn all the potions, scrolls, wands, spells, alt names for the spells, ect... then add the C/U/B status for all those items and the little tricky things that can make or break a game. How, for expample, will a new player learn that you have to 'U'se a blessed ring to get a wish instead of looking for an effect by wearing it?

Well, some things can be taught in the tutorial (which could be expanded, I can't remember if it teaches B/U/C differences now, which was one of the things it took me a *long* time to realise when I started). Other stuff can be worked out fairly easily, or is not necessary to get along in the game (herbs for example, would be hard to work out for yourself but are not necessary). The ring example is actually in the FAQ in the manual.

Blasphemous

10-31-2014, 04:48 PM

I regularly go through DH and out of 10 trips, maybe one ends with me dying, and usually to a tension room of nasties.
My mindcrafter recently opened a door in DH:2 and found 20 lich kings.
Even with confusion resistance, I just had no chance, I was perma confused, I couldn't teleport and liches started summoning acid vortices and giant kings.
That is however just one case that you can protect yourself from, with a fairly common wand of monster detection or a scroll.
I made a mistake of not using either of those and paid dearly for that.
Normally all I see in DH are monsters between goblins and berserkers. If the staircases are close enough, it's perfectly safe for multiple trips.
The forest is much more tedious and not necessarily easier or less dangerous.

melphen

10-31-2014, 08:44 PM

@Blasphemous Thanks for the advice. I have a character set up about as well as I ever have right now (Thanks in no small part at all to the information gained in this thread so thanks again guys.) and I'm trying to pick my path.

On a side note this is my first time being crowned with Vanquisher and deciding to use it or not is a fun problem to have. So far I'm using it with glee and hoping that I don't have to regret it in the future. Is putting it away and swapping to sword and shield while in coward mode during combat a bad back up plan?

Silfir

10-31-2014, 10:16 PM

It's not a complete back up plan. Switching to sword and shield and Coward mode is perfect if you're reaching into your backpack for your wand of paralyzation and the like. If something is strong enough that you will lose if you use Vanquisher on it, you want to disable it and finish the job with Berserk Vanquisher if possible; that's the best way to use any two-handed weapon with massive damage output. Coward is not a good idea if you're planning to do any melee fighting; the defensive benefit is outweighed by the fact that you will be fighting much longer. I usually do my fighting in Normal, or one of the in-between modes if I have a good Tactics skill - and berserk against the paralyzed and otherwise helpless.

melphen

10-31-2014, 10:17 PM

@Silfir I'm pretty sure I watched you beat the game... pretty sure I didn't see much half stepping in your tactics... I'll take your advice but with a grain of salt lol.

If you haven't already you should do a video through the new stuff too. I have to ashamedly admit I haven't visited your page in a while.

Silfir

10-31-2014, 10:26 PM

I'm doing my run of ADOM 1.2.0 p20 again these days; I'm at the Pyramid at the moment. I'm going to miss out on a bunch of the new stuff because it wasn't in that version yet, and I don't have closed prerelease access.

What are you referring to by "half-stepping"? Giving ground during fights to get free attacks because of different speeds and energy costs? I'm pretty sure I do do that when it's relevant... Or are you referring to Tactics settings? It's true that I will frequently use Coward and Berserk modes, but it's more or less automatic. Coward is a given whenever you perform any action other than fighting, and Berserk is a given when you're attacking without fear of retaliation. Outside of that, I think I used Aggressive or Very Aggressive through much of the later stages of Hocus Pocus' run, and Normal in the beginning. I think.

melphen

11-01-2014, 02:18 AM

Oh you did more than enough with the tactic settings. Watching your videos showed me the value of those settings. Before then I rarely changed them. I said "half stepping" in reference to the tactic settings.

I also learned your trick to let the monsters come to you for the free attack. Another very handy trick indeed.

I just couldn't help but give you a little crap while I had your ear. I enjoyed watching them very much, and they were what actually got me back to the game. I randomly searched ADOM on youtube and found your video with graphics and I was shocked. I played ADOM without graphics for a long time. In truth I still can't handle the look, just too at home with the normal stuff, but it was enough to get me back here. So if I'm making anyone crazy blame Silfir.

mjkittredge

11-01-2014, 04:03 AM

Silfir

11-01-2014, 01:08 PM

melphen

11-01-2014, 03:22 PM

LF has always made me a little nuts too and that is why I asked about clearing DH. I got through it with only one scare. I went through to complete the quest with no issue, nice close exits and I got lucky to go right to them. On the way back to turn the quest in I ran into a quickling king. I don't remember seeing one in person before but I knew enough to know this was bad. I tried to run but that didn't go so well as you might expect but I got lucky with a mighty blow and Vanquisher doing it's thing and dropped him. This character has had the lowest DV and highest PV I've ever played with.

melphen

11-01-2014, 04:35 PM

How do I better control corruption? Seems like every corruption I get completely kills game progress. I'm aware there are corruptions that are almost seen as good, but when I can't own a wand with a charge on it for example, things start to get real tricky.

Silfir

11-01-2014, 05:04 PM

Always save corruption removal for the truly unmanageable ones (of which mana battery certainly is one). Usually I have corruption removal a good bit before I have corruptions. Getting the potion of cure corruption for Keethrax' corpse helps.

That's about all I know. Get the guaranteed corruption removal in the game whenever possible, and use it wisely. There's not much else.

mjkittredge

11-01-2014, 06:00 PM

SPoiler alert, apologies if you know these already.

There is always a scroll of chaos resistance in the Mountain Village, in a small square room at the top you have to teleport to. Same type of room in the Dwarftown, talk to the mystic if you're not Chaotic and he might give you a bunch or some other rewards. And try to get an amulet of lifesaving, wish for them if you have to in order to save Khelevaster the dying sage in the CoC by handing him one. You get ***6*** scrolls from him!!!

Cook/bless chaos boss monster corpses (like orb guardians) so they don't rot along the way, and bring them back to the druid in Terinyo you get a potion of cure corruption. If you can't or don't want to deal with the corpses for the moment, you can drop them in a shop and they stay perfectly preserved there until you pick them up again. Sometimes using fire spells (not burning hands) or wands or monster breath or fireball traps (or dropping it on the floor of the Tower of Eternal Flames) can cook a corpse, but it's risky as it might destroy it and might take multiple castings. But if you don't have food preservation/cooking, or tons of holy water you might as well try.

Remember to bless the scrolls and potions in the largest pile possible at a time, to get the most effect out of them, and store extra ones in a safe place (like the Ogre caves in Dwarftown or old Barbarians glade) if you're doing something dangerous like a trap infested level/vault of breathers, or don't have fireproof blanket to avoid risking them being destroyed by fire/acid/water/lightning/explosions.

Blessed scrolls will remove 2 corruptions at a time, so wait until you have 2 crappy corruptions and don't ruin the good ones you want to keep. Unless it's something you just have to get rid of immediately, like poison hands (wear thick gauntlets to prevent ruining potions and food), mana battery (touch useless wants for free Power points first), stiff muscles, unholy aura (makes shopkeepers attack you randomly if you go near them). If you only want to remove 1 at a time use a blessed potion.

Hope that helps. In the newer versions the rate of corruption has been reduced.

divij

11-02-2014, 06:05 AM

ok i will give my 2 cents on this question since i am the authoritative body when it comes to playing adom perfectly ;) beware of spoilers.
get a good starsign..reroll if you want! the best 2 are w/o a doubt candle and raven.
get a good race/class (dont random for now) i recommend for race...drakeling (for d.spit, food pres, help in toef and reasonably shop prices) and for class...there is only 1 best class and that is barbarian (excelent class powers and incredible crowning gifts )
do the smc cave till you get wp blanket and hit lvl 5/6 and descend into UD. there care for all cavemen, trolls and dark elven warriors, mixed tension rooms, vaults and kill every1 else. drakes will give you foodpres which will generate corpses of good monsters like spiders, blinkdogs and ankhegs! if you get an altar in a level on/abv/blow a vault then get crowned (dont bother with precrownings). get to hmv and chk shop and goto main dungeon. this is your very early game. congrats you survived.
in you early game, goto arena and get lizrds and do arena fights = your lvl + 5. that should be safe. descend to big room and find the downstairs asap and descend. goto sis lvl get sis and descend to dwarftown and get the first quest of thundrar. it should be cavemen/troll if all is well. find and kill them (i think you can by now) and go back and collect your reward and take the 2nd quest. read a blessed scroll of identify and check your items for upgrade. here you have to do something non-intuitive in that you should ignore this 2nd quest for now since you are not strong eunf for that..but keep this in mind. btw you should start training str and To/Wi by emcumbrance training and herbalism => morgia (barbs have herbalism so hooray) get the herb on the 1st/7th/last row of a full level (lvls have 13 rows). your very-early game ends when you have 18 St and max/26 To.

divij

11-02-2014, 06:28 AM

in your mid-early game you have to essentially prepare for thundy 2nd quest. do so by trying to find a BD. name the 1st BD and never kill him. let him spawn more BDs and kill them till you get a corspe. take it ascend/descend a lvl and eat it and you can generate another 1 and sell it to dwarftown. now you need to get a blessed scroll of magic mapping/ ?o item detection/ wand of item detection. go to the VDDL and use this in ascii mode and get the wand in the map by stepping on a tp trap. juice in up. get the courage quest from barbarian and descend all the way in the main dungeon till you get to the lvl with 2 downstairs. if you have good shield skill/invis do the animated forest..else the dwarven halls(careful) and try to finish the 2nd quest....this is a massive bottle neck much like the TOEF so dont fight nething, even kobolds. descend thru DH1 and DH2 and directly ascend back. complete the quest by talking to thundy. get the wand you get and take the 3rd quest. you must be lvl 13 by now so go do the pyramid now and kill rehetep using invis+wand of tp to tp next to him+fireballs and get his artifacts but use only the ankh and not both of them since your hunger rate will double. here you need to get crowned. so lead these ogres from orgre cave to the top 2/3 at a time and sacc them...if they get into a fight with some1 be careful that they are in melle since if they throw rocks at some1 then you will be blamed (odd i know and waldenbrook will hump your behind). if 1 of them is raging then use him to get runn killed by moving them close to ruun till they starts fighting...ruun will almost always loose...now the remaining dwarfs will get mad at that guy and promptly die to him as well!! this might give you multiple pickaxes. if all goes well then you will either your diety will favour you greatly or atleast he will favour you. wear AMW for ogremagus and kill them and be careful of ogrelords who you need to sacc since trying to kill them can be dangerous. collect the 5000 gold as reward for 3rd quest and take the 4th quest...do arena till 20th fight and get get gladius/complet your quest and descend and give GG to bart. also collect your reward and take the 5th/final quest. wear the wooden ring and lead the greater demon to altar and sacc him. collect reward. read blessed identify and sell all items that are useless. bless the big punch before selling it. now you must have enuf gold for crowning. sacc gold 5000 at a time till you are absolutely close to your diety. wear AMV. get crowned. there is a .44% chance you are immune to fire so extra hurray. now you are firmly into the mid game. will post more if required. best of luck and may the rng-gods be with you! :)

grobblewobble

11-02-2014, 08:47 AM

At what point does going through the DH become a reasonable possiblity? I have been slaughtered everytime I went near there so I have stayed away for a long time now.

This is coming too late I guess, a tip for next game. If you have a wand of monster detection, be sure to use it in the DH. This gives you a good idea how bad things will be. It also shows you in advance if there is any area on the level that you need to avoid. A scroll of magic mapping is worth using, too.

Teleport control and the wand also make it much safer, that way you can escape if anything really bad pops up.

melphen

11-03-2014, 04:02 PM

So if one finds them self without the needed gear to complete the LF quest or too low level where should one go to catch up?

How does one complete the PC quest and SMC? It has been recommended here that I add the PC quest to my standard game run, but if I start there then I'm too high level to be thinking about walking into the SMC.

Any advice in best strategies to get lawful or neutral characters crowned? It is easy enough with chaotics if you get an altar but with non chaotics live sacrifice is a lot harder and that pretty much sums up my tactic for getting chaotic characters crowned. I think I managed to get one lawful character crowned with a ton of money and a 4 or 5 artifacts. What troubles me is that was a dwarf and they get a bonus with gold sacrifices that other lawfuls don't meaning I would have had to have a lot more than I did if I was another race.

Should I be messing with this new ice queen stuff? I did read that it was best to do it ASAP if at all and lvl 15 was the minimum. Does the ice queen stuff fill a gap in the leveling process that would help me out? How hard is it to prepare for the cold damage there?

So long as I'm getting good answers and learning more I have to take the chances I'm given to ask away.

GordonOverkill

11-03-2014, 04:47 PM

"How does one complete the PC quest and SMC? It has been recommended here that I add the PC quest to my standard game run, but if I start there then I'm too high level to be thinking about walking into the SMC."

If you enter the SC just for an instance in the beginning of a run, a set of low level monsters is spawned. Then you can leave, do other quests and come back later. You just have to take care of new spawns. If you realize a particularly strong enemy, don't hesitate to retreat. You can always give it another try later on with invisibility/teleport/magic mapping.
That's how I usually do it, but of course you can also do the PC at any time after the SMC/UD/HMV.

"Any advice in best strategies to get lawful or neutral characters crowned? It is easy enough with chaotics if you get an altar but with non chaotics live sacrifice is a lot harder and that pretty much sums up my tactic for getting chaotic characters crowned. I think I managed to get one lawful character crowned with a ton of money and a 4 or 5 artifacts. What troubles me is that was a dwarf and they get a bonus with gold sacrifices that other lawfuls don't meaning I would have had to have a lot more than I did if I was another race."

Actually lawful crownings are easy to achieve, too, since you can also sacrifice almost all enemies. Neutral can be somehow tedious by sacrificing monsters.
I personally crown most characters - and especially the neutral ones - a little later after collecting enough gold (around 80k I think).

"Should I be messing with this new ice queen stuff? I did read that it was best to do it ASAP if at all and lvl 15 was the minimum. Does the ice queen stuff fill a gap in the leveling process that would help me out? How hard is it to prepare for the cold damage there?"

I think for a char unprepared for the animated forest, the ice queen's realm could be a little tough. You definitely want to be able to deal with traps and water before entering, probably also cold damage to your equipment. The cold damage that you and your equipment suffer depends on the number of foes you have slain in there, so it can be clever to avoid fighting as far as possible.
However, I would rather do the PC, the Pyramid and the dwarven graveyard first (the top level of the last-mentioned is an amazing place to collect quality loot at rather low risk).

JellySlayer

11-03-2014, 04:49 PM

In terms of piety, lawful characters are as easy to crown as chaotics (I'd argue easier because you don't have to worry about getting yourself sacrificed). Pretty much the only common monsters the lawful gods will reject are dwarves and blink dogs. You do need to get your alignment to L+, but if you wear the amulet of order, this will happen on its own as long as you're aiming for a mid-game crowning. Neutral is the only one that is annoying.

IMHO, if you're strong enough to clear Darkforge, you are probably strong enough to attempt the Ice Queen area. There's a few parts that can be a bit tricky. Of course, this area and its associated quests are much easier if you've got a tonne of fire magic at your disposal.

Don't worry so much about completing the PC quest. Saving the dog is not so important. The PC itself is a great area because it has very nice dungeon features (ants for acid resist, early missiles, and a vault, plus chance for herbs, shops, etc). Probably the best way would be to immediately go to the SMC, poke around a bit and try to find the stairs (and if you're strong, maybe the blanket), then get out and do the VD/DD and then the PC. The SMC monsters you generated at low level will remain there, so you can sort of safely move around if you come back at higher level. Worse comes to worse, if you've found the stairs, you can use controlled teleport to access the UD later.

[edit]As far as the forest/DH part goes, I usually leave this until after I've at least done Pyramid and Griffyard unless there's some very specific reason to dive right away. The fireball wand is nice for these areas, but not necessary.

[edit2]For levelling, there are a number of new dungeons (putrid, etc.) in the mountains on the outside of the chain. My experience is that there's usually two that are suitable for level ~12 characters that are good ways to get some extra xps. Pay attention to the message at the start of the dungeon. If it says that your death is imminent, then you've entered one of the high level areas and should flee.

melphen

11-03-2014, 05:49 PM

I have never entered DF. I have thought a few times to give it a go but I really have no idea where that place fits into the grand scheme of things. What advice have you on this front?

JellySlayer

11-03-2014, 06:15 PM

I would say that for a non-mist elf, Darkforge can usually be safely cleared with ~200 HP and a fairly high damage weapon (eg. Big Punch), or a penetrating weapon. Usually level 16-18 characters can do it (12-13 for trolls), though you can do it lower if you happen to have a big pile of construct slaying ammo or a bunch of lightning ball castings or have had better-than-average equipment drops. The main thing about Darkforge is that the golems have very high PV (35, if memory serves) and a fair amount of HP, plus can occasionally do critical hits for 100+ damage. So you need to have enough HP to take a big critical hit, and have enough damage output to punch through their armor.

mjkittredge

11-03-2014, 06:22 PM

For Darkforge, should be about level 20 or so (unless troll or have really good equipment).

You will need either a blessed ring of ice (Dwarven Mystic might give you one) or wearable equipment that is immune to burning. The steel golems that guard the place breath fire which will eventually destroy your stuff otherwise. So a blessed fireproof blanket is also highly recommended. The aforementioned golems hit hard and have a large amount of PV, so you need a lot of those yourself. Either a penetrating weapon, eternium weapon, or artifact like big punch (Swords of sharpness and maces of disruption will also do nicely and you can wish for both). And I would say a PV of at least 25 if not higher. Plus a reliable source of healing such as spell, spenseweeds or pepper petals.

Once in there don't mess with the pools, leave those for later. So easy to get cursing/dooming from them and then get wrecked as you try to leave. Raid the weapon and armor rooms then gtfo. The evil dwarven smith in there has an anvil if you kill him, but he is stronger than the steel golems so I wouldn't try it unless you have ammo of slaying/humanoid slaying.

melphen

11-03-2014, 07:28 PM

So I'm looking at completing the water temple and ToHk before DF if I'm putting all this in the right order?

Does anyone actually build a bridge in ToHK or the the ice bridge the way to be?

JellySlayer

11-03-2014, 07:52 PM

I'd go with "around the same time" as those areas. The exact order depends on the strengths of your character, and what's most convenient for you to visit (i.e. I try to avoid unnecessary trips through the wilderness or CoC to minimize corruption). The Darkforge treasuries have some potentially very nice (occasionally artifact) weapons and armor in them, so doing them as early as you can get away with might give you a big edge. If nothing else, you can probably get 20-30k worth of gear, plus the crown of science, to sell, which might help complete a crowning or something.

Definitely ice bridge. There's no trees near the ToHK unless you're high level enough to access the Maze, and each log is 800s, so you probably can't carry enough in one trip to build your bridge in
one go. I'd rather just fight around the cavernous levels looking for an ice wand or a helpful monster than bridge build. Note that there is a guaranteed ice wand in the Ice Queen Domain, though it involves traversing a fairly dangerous area to get it, but if you had to take carpenter quest for healing, that might be a workaround.

GordonOverkill

11-03-2014, 08:12 PM

Note that there is a guaranteed ice wand in the Ice Queen Domain, though it involves traversing a fairly dangerous area to get it

Wow, didn't know that! Guess I have to take a closer look at the particular areas with magic mapping :-)

JellySlayer

11-03-2014, 08:46 PM

It's pretty hard to find if you don't know to look for it.

melphen

11-04-2014, 11:02 PM

Ok, I really need to know where to get past lvl 12/13 at this point. It is clear the game wants your level higher before trying to clear LF or DH. There was a post here about other dungeons to go to but I'm not finding them. (DV 96 PV 46 and I still can't live through LF... WTF?)

I tend to increase my knowledge and skill and still struggle with this stupid little things. If I can clear this stuff I start to do better but I struggle with it damn near every time. I'm getting back to the point that I'm sick of these little things on a level that makes me think about walking away from this game again.

It really seems the big room and LF are both designed to just be a pain in the ass and there to kill you at any moment. I understand they need to be challenging but both have the ability to be well beyond that. So one might think this is an indication that your PC isn't leveled or geared high enough to deal with these things, but that simply is not the case. Couple this with the constant need to go up and down through the CoC and it is getting really old. With a game already this challenging it just seems cheap to have this kind of crap thrown in on top of it.

It would seem I should just be happy there is another option instead of just being go through LF, but DH isn't much better. I understand now how it can be done, but most of my characters don't have blessed scrolls of magic mapping at this point in the game and I have about a dozen uses for them (including trying to get to that wand of teleportation which pretty much requires a blessed scroll of magic mapping as far as I can tell). Blessed scrolls of monster detection might tell me what I need to look out for, but again, I have to have them to make use of them and I normally don't.

For the record, this was a dwarf pally, completed all the quest on the right side of the map, (DD, SMC, PC, dug through I5 to get tele control...) and cleared all but the last fight in the arena. I cleared EVERY level I came to, (save the big room naturally which I did visit the entire map at least once) and did all I could find to do, but I can't get past lvl 12 or 13 by the time I'm in DT. I don't know what else to do.

Cactus

11-04-2014, 11:15 PM

Hmmm, get the portal quest, clear the surface of Griffyard, hit level 13 there and do the pyramid?

Btw, PV 46 is stellar for that stage of the game, I wonder how the Big Room can pose a problem for such a character. What monsters are giving you trouble/blocking the dwarven halls? Maybe post the .vlg for better advice?

melphen

11-05-2014, 12:15 AM

Thanks Cactus. I didn't think about the top layer of the grave yard. I have been trying to avoid too much up and down in CoC. I'll try a few games with your idea in my pocket in case I get into this spot again.

It wasn't the big room that killed me, it was the living forest. Sorry if I said the wrong thing. I had two crystal tower shields and I found a few scrolls of protection during the game too.

I didn't save a .vlg for that character. I normally don't bother, if they will help in the future I'll start doing it though.

This character was really well geared. He found a ton of the right things at the right time, and even got a wish. This is why I'm ticked off that LF got him. Hell, he died with 2 blessed potions of corruption removal and 2 blessed scrolls of chaos resistance. Both lucky and fate smiles were gained the level above LF. I had every reason to think this was going well and was even double checking my notes to make sure I understood every item I had. I get bad luck, but I actually had the chips stacked in my favor for this point in the game.

Anyway, I guess I have said enough about that character now. I'll roll and new one in a few and try again. I would still like more advice on how to level a little faster or just be better prepared at that point of the game if it isn't about leveling.

Also, my pallys have hardish time learning spells. I normally wait until con and lit are both above 80 before even trying. I have tried some of the things I have seen about casting wish in so much as getting to the right places and such, but it doesn't seem to help a bunch. What can I do to increase my odds of learning spells with a pally or other class that isn't quite a caster?

yhal003

11-05-2014, 02:57 AM

It would seem I should just be happy there is another option instead of just being go through LF, but DH isn't much better. I understand now how it can be done, but most of my characters don't have blessed scrolls of magic mapping at this point in the game and I have about a dozen uses for them (including trying to get to that wand of teleportation which pretty much requires a blessed scroll of magic mapping as far as I can tell). Blessed scrolls of monster detection might tell me what I need to look out for, but again, I have to have them to make use of them and I normally don't.

Wand or scroll of item detection is much cheaper way of getting the teleportation wand, assuming you have them. Or you can just jump around and hope to end on right square :)

Do you never find any invisibility items? In my last four consecutive runs through the forest I had at least one, after clearing all easy surface areas. Learning invisibility from the book and book casting might be an option too. Dwarven paladins get mining, if you get it to 100, blessed pick axe should never break - you can dig a tunnel and enclose it in doors. Still, 96/46 should be enough to just walk through but if you get surrounded by hostile trees the only way is to fight, so two shields will not do.

JellySlayer

11-05-2014, 03:43 AM

I'm a little confused about the 46 PV thing too. At that point, you should be protected enough to basically hold up-left and mow through all the trees with your weapon without really worrying about taking any damage.

mjkittredge

11-05-2014, 07:22 AM

Sounds like he was cursed and doomed, so the trees got critical/armor piercing hits on him. With that much DV/PV he should have been able to wreck all hostile trees unless his weapon was garbage.

melphen

11-07-2014, 05:07 PM

How do you get around early game disarming monsters? If I can get my hands on a few options they are no problem, I just got trapped by a swordsman with a group of other random monsters on no concern, but not being about to hold a weapon gets you killed fast and to be honest this too feels pretty cheap.

GordonOverkill

11-07-2014, 07:17 PM

Very early in the game I usually use missile weapons or offensive wands. If I don't have anything like that at hand, I just try to outrun them and get away.

mjkittredge

11-07-2014, 08:04 PM

You need to see the situation developing in advance and not get trapped. Retreat to a doorway/corridor and take the monsters on one by one. Don't waltz into a room full of hostile monsters. Start shooting as soon as you see them and train those missile skills up. Then when they are badly injured and finally get in melee range finish them off with your weapon. You can also remove your melee weapon and shoot the swordsman point blank. It seems in the newer versions of the game that disarming monsters use this ability far less often than before.

What I do is exploit it - if I have the dv/pv (or healing) to make disarming monsters a trivial threat. Try on every weapon in your inventory. If it's cursed just let the monster disarm you and continue.

melphen

11-08-2014, 02:28 AM

I just got caught in a real bad spot. I don't know what I hoped to get as advice but in reflection I know I just kind of got screwed. Normally the only problem I have with them is remembering to pick up all the crap they knocked out of my hands.

Any tips of playing a wizard or other spell caster class in general?

On a side note, I have completed ToEF for the first time in a decade. I'm certainly on the edge of anything I have ever seen in the game. Thanks for all the help again guys.

mjkittredge

11-08-2014, 08:02 AM

Congrats on beating the Tower, that's no small feat.

Casters can do horribly or amazingly in the early game depending on your strategy. If they start off with a bolt spell, you can kill 6 monsters in one shot. Like the wands you use with your melee characters. But, they don't have the HP or defensive stats or melee ability of the other classes, so when the Power Points run out, they can be in big trouble. So, training up strength by being strained, get it to 17 or 18 that way, and train melee/ missile weapons too so when you're out of power you can still kill things.

This means getting Concentration skill to 100 is your first priority. That will regenerate your PP much faster. And leveling quickly because you get more PP each level.

You have to balance building up spell effectivity by repeatedly casting spells, with how many castings you have left. Highly effective spells do more damage, go further, are cheaper to cast, and are more likely to work. But as your spell knowledge number decreases, it becomes more expensive to cast the spells and once you run out, it's gone until you get another book.

Then you have to learn which spells penetrate enemy defenses. Certain monsters will shrug off your bolt spells. Certain monsters are resistant or immune to certain elements. BUT - Ball Spells (IE Acid Ball, Fireball, ect) cannot be resisted or shrugged off. And magic missile is non elemental. So build that one up and you can crush anything with it, including yourself if it bounces. Like Lightning Bolt and Death Ray. Burning Hands spell is point blank and single target, but it does massive damage and can't be shrugged off.

Ball spells - which do damage in a circle around you as you may know from using a wand of fireballs, increase in radius as your willpower stat increases. First increase is at 32, then at 48, and again at 64.

Casters are fun. They can handle situations that give melee or physical ranged builds lots of trouble, with ease. Summons? Couple bolt spells tears them to shreds, no meleeing them one by one. Lined up monsters with a wall behind them? Lightning bolt/magic missile will hit them twice with a single casting. River? Frost Bolt your way across safely. Monsters have an elemental weakness? Wow they die fast when you figure it out. Something dangerous hitting you hard? Go coward and cast burning hands or ball spell repeatedly. Cursed item? Don't waste a holy water, cast Remove Curse spell! Think you might have gained an intrinsic or become cursed? Cast Revelation. Worried about trapped doors? Cast Knock. Want to see farther? Cast Farsight. Traveling between floors goes fast with a large amount of Teleportation castings. Can't find a room or the down stairs? Collapse the level with Earthquake or cast Magic Map to reveal parts that are unexplored. Don't want to use a blessed ID scroll, but are curious about that item you just picked up? Cast the Identify spell. Carrying too much and overburdened? Cast Strength of Atlas. Invisibility spell is super useful too.

melphen

11-08-2014, 03:24 PM

I have run a few casters before but never far enough to become areana champion that I can remember. The new cave at the start of the game really helps get them going. I have to avoid SMC because I'm not quite good enough to do that with a squishy character yet, but so far so good. The caster is the current work character, the home character is the one now in the casino.

Work just stopped in the last week so I have had a bit more time to play. If there is nothing else to be doing I get to play around and we are in a holding pattern right now while we stall for the next period of insanity.

The character in the casino has a blessed ring of elemental mastery that I have never owned before but it very nice. He natrually has the elemental guantlets and all those things, crowned and all that jazz too. He also picked up a mithril spear of penetration early in the game and that is cheating. With my high skill level with that thing nothing stops it so far. Natrually I'm picking my battles, but anything I would hit with it dies pretty fast. The LF has never been easier :D .

Oh, teleport control and a helm of tele too, and got both of those early.

mjkittredge

11-08-2014, 08:00 PM

melphen

11-09-2014, 12:12 AM

Sounds like he is doing great. Make sure you have sources of Paralyzation resistance, Death Ray resistance, Confusion resistance, and Petrification resistance. All those can spell your demise very quickly if you are not prepared and I've lost many characters to them.

Oh something I just thought of for your caster (or any class that gets access to a healing spell) - you can cast those spells on an adjacent monster that is injured, and if it is neutral or tamed you gain Alignment boosts for it. Very handy if you're getting your alignment lowered fighting white unicorns, Kirins, grave digging, pick pocketing, backstabbing. Or trying to get L+ for your Paladin.

At this point I still lack some of those sources so I'm concerned about it, but I'm kind of out of things to go do to help with this that I know of.

I thought DF would allow controlled tele for some reason, but it doesn't. I seem to remember reading that too, so did that change or is there something I did or am doing wrong?

Thanks for the info on the healing spells. How much alignment change are we talking about here?

mjkittredge

11-09-2014, 07:16 AM

It's a significant boost for healing monsters. You can even have pets follow you to the tower of flames or underwater cave and as they take periodic damage keep healing. Doing this several times on wounded monsters brought me from N= to N+. I don't think it works on hostile monsters though, if they are panicking and running afraid, and you catch up to them and offer them (P)eace, they turn neutral and then you can heal. Can make dogs friendly and tamed by giving them bones, can make cats friendly by giving them giant rat corpses, black hurthlings by giving them fish, rust monsters by throwing them iron items.

If you did the pyramid and picked up the Ancient Mummy Wrapping chest armor, that is a source of Death Ray Resistance. If you don't have that, there is an amulet that gives the same benefit. Can get it from pool sipping too (message generated is "You feel bold at the thought of danger!"). This will come in handy vs some of the orb guardians who use the death ray spell. Without resistance, you can die in one shot from it.

If one of your amulets identifies as Amulet Of Free Action that is Paralyze resistance. Ring of the Clear Mind and Ring of Mental Stability give confusion resistance. But it's not just having them, it's knowing what monsters use those attacks so you can put the stuff on if you see them. It's not optimal to wear them all the time.

Sometimes teleport control works in DF, other times not.

yhal003

11-09-2014, 08:14 AM

Teleport control in DF always works if you kill dwarven artificer.

melphen

11-10-2014, 04:24 PM

I did have AMW but I did not know it worked for that. I'll keep that in mind, thank for the information.

The dwarven artificer killed me, hince how I DID have AMW. I didn't know he was hostile to me and got caught off gaurd. I learned a lot from this character though so I'm more than happy with the way things went down.

Is he always hostile? I seem to remember that he wasn't but I don't remember doing anything to piss him off.

Does tele control work only after he is dead, randomly (as in it might work for this casting, but not the next), or randomly by character (as in it will always work for a character it works for at all)?

Anyway, I have a lvl 14 wizard running around now. He is noticably weaker but kills very very well at range. I'm kind of hoping to find something with invisiblity soon because my slow trek through DH is taxing and there is no way in hell he would live through LF righ now.

On an intersting side note the barb that was doing so well killed 419 trees before he died, so I feel a little better about the number of characters killed by them at this point.

Metalhunter

11-10-2014, 11:03 PM

I have only made it to DF twice, both times with a Dwarven Wizard. Both times, the artificer was friendly for me, I was either N= or N+ both times I met him.

JellySlayer

11-11-2014, 01:01 AM

I've never seen the artificer hostile by default.

biomateria

11-11-2014, 01:19 AM

Hey man, I've been playing on and off for over three years and I've only made it past the ToEF thrice. Sometimes I think I should feel pretty bad about it, but I'm still enjoying the game now and then, and I can tell I'm getting better over time. The important thing is to just try to figure out what went wrong and how you could have prevented your death. ADOM has taught me that no game was unsaveable, it was my own poor decision making that lead to my demise. Keep it up mate! You'll get further more and more often, it just takes a really long time.

melphen

11-11-2014, 01:56 AM

Apon further inspection I believe I must have stuck him or something. I certainly never meant to harm him but I'm willing to bet I did.

mjkittredge

11-11-2014, 02:54 AM

Did you have the Acid Blood corruption? Maybe a steel golem hit you and one of the acid blood drops sprayed onto him if he was standing nearby. Never heard of him going hostile without being attacked first. But yeah he hits hard, I would recommend staying in melee range. First turn he attacks, teleport away, then flee or shoot him with humanoid slaying ammo. Wand of paralyzation could work too. He has a guaranteed anvil in case you wanted to do some smithing.

melphen

11-12-2014, 05:34 PM

Can you remove the curroption you get when you are crowned chaotic?

mjkittredge

11-12-2014, 07:25 PM

melphen

11-13-2014, 01:21 AM

I read a blessed SoCR and it only removed 1 of the 2 corruptions I had. I thought they removed 2. Maybe I did something wrong. Hell I don't know.

Dogbreath

11-13-2014, 03:19 AM

They remove 1.5 corruptions. So you were more than halfway to your 3rd, which is why it didn't work.

melphen

11-13-2014, 03:56 AM

I see... I might read one now then because it has been a while since the last one and I know one is coming soon. Well, it would stand to reason another corruption is coming soon anyway.

I cleared the Air Temple for the first time today, and I'm standing at the wall preparing to dig into the Earth Temple now. I've saved the game to get some sleep but tomorrow I'll be able to get right back to it. Any last min advice for a first timer? I have seen video from Silfer on how to draw the "wall walking" creatures to another level to kill them solo but other than that it looks like a pretty simple deal of not getting into melee with the boss man.

GordonOverkill

11-13-2014, 05:01 AM

Level drawing doesn't work anymore in the latest version. Those monsters just won't follow you up or down the stairs. So you should take care not to "activate" too many of them at once. Keep in mind that they can all walk through walls and thus easiely surround you. I suggest you slowly walk through the tunnel that you dig, waiting a couple of turns on each square to see if an enemy comes towards you. As soon as you see a few of them, retreat a couple of steps and fight them.
Also those foes in the earth temple have very high PV, so you need either a very high damage weapon, a weapon of penetration, construct slaying or powerful magic. Just make sure that you have a plan for that.

divij

11-13-2014, 08:26 AM

for me it has worked sometimes....but only for upstairs...though it might only work for summons. i remember my last win..it was with a drakeling elementalist. and yuglaash summoned berserker emperors and ancient karmic dragons and i led them 1 by 1 to another lvl and killed them off..but i also remeber grues and earth elementals not coming with you to another lvl...so even i am confused..

melphen

11-13-2014, 12:51 PM

Damage hasn't been a problem for this guy. I'll just have to be careful.

I don't know that I care for too much of this player proofing. This is just making the game harder again because something can be done to make the game harder. I thought the idea was to reward solid planning, granted I'm spoiled but I've also done a lot of work to make sure I have everything set up. It isn't like there is no challenge in leaving it be.

melphen

11-13-2014, 02:56 PM

Ok, I'm done with that temple too and moving forward. Lots of slaying ammo helps a lot. I do look forward to doing some of this with a caster later because I can see that they would be much more effective in some of this.

I'm now much beyond anything I have seen and without corruption.

GordonOverkill

11-13-2014, 03:00 PM

Congratulations! Fingers are crossed for the adventures to come :-)

melphen

11-13-2014, 07:11 PM

Ha! You jinxed me. I got killed in the Mana Temple. Again, I learned so much with this character it was all well worth it! Looking forward to starting another character but it will probably be tomorrow.

I picked up all the ranged weapons I came across for the entire game, but I had a real problem with ranged combat options the entire game too. Human Barb I started just to see what I could do with a human really, I didn't expect more than a little learning about playing my native race.

On the up side I feel I know enough about the game to try some of the more advanced RC combos, so I'll do some reading tonight and try something a little more adventurous next time.

_Ln_

11-13-2014, 07:15 PM

yeah you can remove any corruption, with 1 of 4 ways. I'm sure you're already familiar with the PoCC and SoCRs

There are also tracts (which drain piety and anger your god) there is one for each separate alignment type. If you had just gotten a bad corruption and either didn't want to use a scroll or potion, or didn't have them, the tracts can just barely remove it and then you can get a new one shortly thereafter which hopefully will be less sucky.

Once you get to level 30 there is also the White Unicorns quest, have to talk to the druid in Terinyo, and then you can find the glade over by the old barbarians hut. If you complete the quest you get all corruption removed, so save this for when you really need it.

I'll be more careful with tracts if I were you. There are some specific considerations to reading them unlike books to get the desired effects. Having problems with piety can easily unleash all kinds of hell on the PC.

Moreover, only tracts of order remove corruption. Tracts of balance do nothing corruption-wise, while tracts of chaos grant additional corruption.

mjkittredge

11-13-2014, 11:10 PM

What killed you in the Mana Temple?

divij

11-14-2014, 01:07 PM

i dont even know how you die with a barbarian to nuuragwaan except if you forgot death ray resistance....you just stand next to him..go berserk and tremendous blow him and watch him go miss miss miss miss. repeat until he is dead..i swear once i killed him with my elementalist with a sword of sharpness cause i didnt have acid ball spell or ranged slaying ammo, and i had to use (only?) 3 extra healing potions...though i must say that he stat drained me to oblivion (since i fought him for a good 20 turns) and i died cause of it on d50

Dlightfull

11-14-2014, 01:28 PM

Hey melphen, i've played this game for some years too, never won, but what i found out is good R/C combos is not the way to go. You should pick a character you like. I never liked melee so i couldn't get Troll Healers and Dwarf Paladins and stuff like that to midgame. Even the overpowered Archer doesn't really work for me.

I tried a lot of casters, i enjoy them most. And, btw, it was easier for me to get casters through SMC than melee chars.

The R/C i liked the most is Dark Elven Priest, it has very good starting gear, great skills and are very powerful with anything, be it missiles or weapons (due to normal progression and Find Weakness), have a very easy early game with usually at least 5 PV from the start and the Detect Item Status skill and can become real monsters mid and late game.

Just like you, i don't feel comfortable without the blanket.

I pick up always the Cup starsign (it gives me less problems with learning spells) and i roll my DE Priests until i get at least 16 Learning score, anything lower and you have problems with learning spells. I also try to have at least one damaging spell (Priests can start without one). This can be tedious, but it's almost a guaranteed ticket to midgame.

I always start with going to SMC to find the blanket and get everything i find there too, since there are almost always good shields and weapons. I try to avoid fights until i get the blanket, and fight my way back to the stairs up, even if i find the stairs down. If i get to lvl 5 i get out asap. I get out with the blanket and good stuff 90% of the time and even if i die, it's not a big loss, since it's just the start and i can re roll another char, not much time lost.

Since i am a completionist, i try to always find and kill the raider lord, especially that 3k more gold might give me access to some good spellbook, depending on the black market.

After the raider lord i go to DD and enter the last level to spawn the druid, then on the way back i clear all the levels, then i go to PC and get the dog and stash it in terinyo, for later use (lawful alignment boost). If i get an altar on PC 4-5 i usually get precrowned twice before leaving the PC.

Afterwards, i usually go to the ID to farm for some spellbooks (on lvl 1-2, at least a couple of damaging spells and Strength of Atlas, i am a big hoarder so i can't imagine my game without SoA :D) and a blink dog corpse (lvl 4-5, as stated before, only i don't do the wait trick, i explore the whole levels, getting some loot too), in case i didn't find one yet. By the way, if i get spare ants or blink dog corpses, i get them to the shop and sell them for safekeeping. When i have found what i wanted from the ID i get out, usually i am already around lvl 12.

After that i usually have at least a scroll of magic mapping or find item, so i go to VDDL after the wand of tele, then i come back and go through the SMC to the UD and HMV (at this point i lose some chars due carelessness, usually to vortices, which are very damaging in the UD). After HMV, depending on what i do or don't have and my level, i either go to the pyramid or to CoC.

In the meanwhile, if i find some altars, i try to convert to L. when i get to Lawful i go to DT and spawn the L altar, then try to get back to N alignment (this is easy with pickpocketing while also getting enough tries to get into the guild, which i always do for the Detect Traps skill) to get the shinies from the Dwarven Mystic, going back to L at this point is easy with the altar in DT.

All this may change depending on what the game throws at me, but most of the time it goes like that, pretty well. Be careful with Magic Missiles, Lightning Bolt and Death Ray, i lost almost all my promising chars to these. I got to the point of being almost unbeatable and just one mistakenly aimed MM did the trick of killing me. I had a char that killed Lich Emperors in melee, cleared DF, Ice Queen Domain and other nasty places, killed all the orb guardians without many problems too, but i died to my own MM :).

Anyway hope all this helps you, find the char you really enjoy playing and have some fun.