Booster
12-02-2015, 08:46 PM
I've always liked the idea of Monks in any game I've played, and wanted to try role playing a staff-only / no sharp weapon character. I went through many deaths before Gulveig was created, under the Book starsign - With a great skill set the Book really helps achieve higher numbers at lower levels thanks to +3 Le and one extra increase per level. Once I started finding spellbooks I only failed a few times and even then it was with the more difficult spells (Mystic Shovel, Death Ray). Below is my account.
Started off by heading to HIWL and killing a beggar, then over to Small Cave where I stayed until level 5 - luckily stairs were one room away from each other. Dive into UD had 2 royal vaults (obviously skipped for now), and graced me with an iron-shod quarter staff. On UD:5 I came across a ochre jelly in a big room (~9x7) and was forced to flee - I had to remove my staff/gloves for fear or corroding and wasn't doing enough damage to it. I kited it back into the room and closed the door, returning from where I came. I tried healing up but had to kill a few enemies, and afterwards went back to kill the jelly. Well, imagine my surprise when I open the door and see a room FULL of them (forgot that they breed). Needless to say I ran back to the small cave and headed to the Druid Dungeon.
Druid dungeon was uneventful aside from gaining -tctrl from a blink dog, and I got to the bottom level but opted to return later (no light source), and next headed to the PC. PC had an altar on a floor with a tension room full of gnolls so I was able to to get very close. Vault was an orc one, with not many mobs (unlucky) but enough for me get some decent armor and blue-dragon scale gloves [+0,+4]. Best armor piece I found was an elven chain mail (best armor for a Monk!), but it had the "of chaos" suffix which was a bummer (ended up selling it in HMV). I went back to take on the Ochre Jellies more easily with my additional experience/gear and ended up killing ~100 of them before coming out to HMV. HMV had a stone giant lord, ratling warlord and goodwife chasing me, but I was able to get the shopkeeper to dispatch them for me, and sold off a lot of gear I had been carrying around for a good amount of coin (~15k).
Next I headed to one of the low level random dungeons, but I can't recall anything special, and afterwards to Caverns of Chaos. On D:3 a rust monster rusted my quarterstaff (which promptly broke), so I went hand to hand for a bit, before finding another iron-shod quarterstaff. I reached Dwarftown and completed the first 2 quests (tunneling around the ancient forest by kicking my way through), and cleared the Ogre Caves for a nice strength buff and needed money, as well as an amazing ring of protection +6. At this point I was just below very close and had ~25k and was level 14. I knew the si had been generated but didn't find any other artifacts, so I decided to try precrowning. I checked the moldy cave (random dungeon with cavern levels) for a shrine but didn't see one, so headed back to UD to rob the vaults. After finding them I kick-broke a bunch of the walls to lead the guardians around on a merry chase (throwing up a locked down between us) - with the extra monk speed I was able to rob an additional 65k from both vaults which was enough for my precrown. Precrowned with Ironfist which was OK. Decided to go pool sipping for a wish in the various pools I've found and received -petr, -stun, -death, -sleep, but no wish. Cleared down to Khelly, and climbed back up, clearing the Pyramid, another random dungeon, and then to Darkforge.
At Darkforge I was ~lvl 18 and managed to clear the golems one by one, although I was taking quite a bit of damage from them. Luckily I had cure light wounds which I book-cast between fights. After clearing my way to the weapon room the RNG was kind to me as I received a quicksilver, adamantium, mithril and eternium staff! The eternium staff really increased my damage output and was a turning point in the game for me. Armor room had absolutely nothing, and I decided to start pool-sipping for a wish. For some reason Kherab joined me in there and after sipping two pools I had lost -sleep, -doomed (went back to clear it), snakes twice, gained teleportitis (not a good thing in Darkforge...), gained permanent invis (love this ability!!!), gained -seeinvis, and finally a wish for AoLS. One of the groups of snakes dropped a 7LB which Kherab picked up before I knew what was happening, but not as big a deal as Monk has built in 7LB.
Completed the dwarftown quests and dove to water temple, saving Khelly along the way. Brought corpse to town and visited sinister dungeon, which had a lesser vault that netted me "Trusted One" and Girdle of Giant Strength. Killed black druid, cleared Dwarven graveyard and Tomb of High Kings (getting bracers of regeneration), and snagged a giant boar skull from a random boar encounter.
At this point I went to visit Ice Queen domain and Jarl caves - greater vault was a fire dragon vault containing one wyrm. I started to clear it but was taking a lot of damage in the process so ended up leaving it alone for now. Headed to Fire Tower and cleared it relatively easily - stashed corpse in Terinyo and headed to casino. Casino had artifact shield "Protector" but nothing else (even after an additional half restock). Shame too, as I was swimming in money from all the Si's. Down a few levels got Ring of Master Cat, after which I headed up through Darkforge to grab the crown and while of Chaotic alignment kill Kherab for the 7LB he stole from me, allowing me to teleport freely in Darkforge
I now had enough artifacts for ratling fodder (and was at day 85) and I wanted access to Glod's smith for life, so I teleported him and tried to maneuver him the stairs, but being invis he didn't follow me off the level. I didn't have a potion of visibility so I started creating traps around him hoping to get him killed that way. After a stone block hit his head and he set off a fireball trap he became hostile to me for some reason and attacked me. As soon as I killed him a swarm of muscular dwarves came at me, as well as Waldenbrook, although none of the rest of the town seemed to care when I killed them. Smithy was now mine so I proceeded to melt all my iron ore into ingots for skill points, and started smithing my bracers of regeneration to [+7,+7] and crown of regeneration. Went to complete the Gaab'Baay's quests and got the amulet, and headed to the rift to kill the last few days before day 90. I lost a good amount of items on my fall, including my girdle of giant strength, and cleared the library. Unfortunately I didn't wait the 2000 turns and the librarian only told me to heed the silence when leaving, but I did get some decent books including Death Ray, Magic Missile, Teleport, and Lightning Ball).
Headed into Stone Circle to take on Keriax but I wasn't strong enough to do any real damage to him. After meleeing him for a few hits and being corrupted/stat drains, I bravely ran away, away. I had lost a previous Staff only monk to Keriax a few years back so didn't want to repeat the mistake. Now was as good a time as any to crown so I converted back to N (have all my inventory cursed in the process although I dropped all my blessed items beforehand) and was crowned with Iron Crown of Halvor. I was quite happy with that as I would have a replacement for my Crown of Regen when in destructible environments (i.e. red dragon vaults).
I was level 27 at this time and went to Minotaur Maze with 6 scrolls of magic mapping and luckily chose the correct initial staircase down at D:1. I managed to make my way to the mino emperor rather easily this time, although even with detect traps and alertness at 100 I was activating traps as I was coming across them in levels that I scouted myself. An acid trap melted my bracers of regeneration which really bummed me out, but I was hoping for a decent additional artifact at the end. Got to mino emperor and killed him and was gifted with Mino Axe, Mino Corpse, 3 PoCC, 1 PoStr, and 3 spellbooks - no artifact this time... Ported my way to the top and ate the corpse, praying for confusion removal.
Went back to Jarl caves to clear Dragon Vault and was rewarded with Obisdian Quarrel, and Wooden Shield "Nature's Friend". The real prize for me here was getting a quarterstaff of devastation (+0, 5d10+2) - although it was wooden and prone to environmental destruction I took extra care to never bring it to an area where it might be destroyed/burned and used it almost exclusively for the rest of the game. Dove down to kill Haggar without incident.
I checked at the crumbling cave and was greeted with a tension room of greater molochs (~18 of them) but wasn't yet strong enough to kill them with ease, so I left them for now. Headed back to CoC to clear air temple - I had never used a wand of destruction in ADOM before so I tried it out to give Yulgash a clear visual of me to follow me out of the danger zone and he took the bait. Dispatched him with ease and brought him back to Terinyo. Cleared entire level of Earth Temple (for some reason the stone beast was in the upper right corner in a wall not moving - confirmed with monster detection). Quarterstaff of Devastation made short work of him and he too was deposited in Terinyo. Headed down towards Unremarkable Cave and encountered my second Greater Vault on D:44 - again Red Dragons. So much for the Monk's vow of poverty this game. Cleared it with my trusty eternium-shod quarterstaff (to be safe) and was rewarded with a single artifact - Death's Blade. I pick pocketed quite a bit this game (a habit from my previous Mist Elf Thief win) which periodically brought me down to NC, but saccing heaping quantities of gold always brought me back to N=. Major gains from this vault was an elven chain mail [+2,+5] which I promptly smithed up to [+8,+11], my first and only RoDS, and an iron-shod quarterstaff of hunting.
Was going to head to Blue Dragon Cave but realized I had my Blue Dragon Scale Mail stashed in Dwarftown so I went to clear Mana temple instead. With my new found excitement of wands of destruction I tried to clear the walls directly to the Archmange but was unsuccessful, so went around to the standard entrance. Inside was an Emperor Lich which summoned a few karmics who in my confusion accidentally meleed once or twice losing Fate (quickly remedied with a scroll of luck). Archmage eventually fell to my Staff and he joined his friends in Terinyo. Headed back to BDC with my blue dragon scale mail and received Sun's Messenger from a random kill, as well as a spellbook of Farsight (favorite non-combat spell). Cleared the final floor and got my reward, but even after killing the Greater Karmic Wyrm I was only level 42 - the curse of 170 speed. I next headed back to the crumbling cave and killed the greater molochs bumping me to lvl 45. A number of the moloch's died to the Monk's instakill ability (which is freaking awesome), so apparently it is not limited to H2H only as stated in the wiki.
Went next to kill the White Unicorn for PoGA but was afraid alignment hit would drop me so I went to Small Cave to summon a friendly familiar and received a greater earth elemental. Brought him to the grove and ordered him to attack - it took awhile for him to catch up with the constant teleporting and a fight ensued. It seemed to be relatively even but every time Yrruir got down he ran away. I realized I needed to do the job myself, so donning a amulet of balance I killed him nut was only dropped to N-.
Went to Scintilating Cave and dove to Emperor Moloch who also died to an instakill attack (did I mention I love this class power?). It was now day 105 and I needed to kill 15 days to go back to Keriax so decided to clear the quickling tree for corpses. "Found" the tree next to the White Unicorn Glade and stashed everything there, going in with my elven chain, iron staff of hunting, a few select items, and stomaceptia. Entered on day 105 with 170 speed, left on day 118 with 216. Killed Keriax with sling bullets, and went to library to grab weird tome (losing a few more items on the way down), after which I headed back to Terinyo to eat/trade some corpses for necessary corruptions. Dove down to D:50 with ~12 corruptions.
D:49 granted me Wyrmslayer, D:50 was cleared without incident - it was also on D:50 that I finally reached GM in Staves. Prepared myself to enter the Chaos Gate by drinking all my boost potions and wishing for Speed (entered with ~530 speed) and jumped in. Immediately I used all my scrolls and a few potions to bring me down to ~4 corruptions and proceeded to attack Andor. I had blessed a wand of paralyzation to try out on him but for some reason it seemed to bounce off him - I later realized he was in a wall. Swapped out crown for my regen crown and amulet for AoFreeAction, and proceeded to whittle away at his health with bullets of humanoid slaying at first, and afterwords my quarterstaff of devastation. He died relatively quickly.
All in all was a very fun game.
Started off by heading to HIWL and killing a beggar, then over to Small Cave where I stayed until level 5 - luckily stairs were one room away from each other. Dive into UD had 2 royal vaults (obviously skipped for now), and graced me with an iron-shod quarter staff. On UD:5 I came across a ochre jelly in a big room (~9x7) and was forced to flee - I had to remove my staff/gloves for fear or corroding and wasn't doing enough damage to it. I kited it back into the room and closed the door, returning from where I came. I tried healing up but had to kill a few enemies, and afterwards went back to kill the jelly. Well, imagine my surprise when I open the door and see a room FULL of them (forgot that they breed). Needless to say I ran back to the small cave and headed to the Druid Dungeon.
Druid dungeon was uneventful aside from gaining -tctrl from a blink dog, and I got to the bottom level but opted to return later (no light source), and next headed to the PC. PC had an altar on a floor with a tension room full of gnolls so I was able to to get very close. Vault was an orc one, with not many mobs (unlucky) but enough for me get some decent armor and blue-dragon scale gloves [+0,+4]. Best armor piece I found was an elven chain mail (best armor for a Monk!), but it had the "of chaos" suffix which was a bummer (ended up selling it in HMV). I went back to take on the Ochre Jellies more easily with my additional experience/gear and ended up killing ~100 of them before coming out to HMV. HMV had a stone giant lord, ratling warlord and goodwife chasing me, but I was able to get the shopkeeper to dispatch them for me, and sold off a lot of gear I had been carrying around for a good amount of coin (~15k).
Next I headed to one of the low level random dungeons, but I can't recall anything special, and afterwards to Caverns of Chaos. On D:3 a rust monster rusted my quarterstaff (which promptly broke), so I went hand to hand for a bit, before finding another iron-shod quarterstaff. I reached Dwarftown and completed the first 2 quests (tunneling around the ancient forest by kicking my way through), and cleared the Ogre Caves for a nice strength buff and needed money, as well as an amazing ring of protection +6. At this point I was just below very close and had ~25k and was level 14. I knew the si had been generated but didn't find any other artifacts, so I decided to try precrowning. I checked the moldy cave (random dungeon with cavern levels) for a shrine but didn't see one, so headed back to UD to rob the vaults. After finding them I kick-broke a bunch of the walls to lead the guardians around on a merry chase (throwing up a locked down between us) - with the extra monk speed I was able to rob an additional 65k from both vaults which was enough for my precrown. Precrowned with Ironfist which was OK. Decided to go pool sipping for a wish in the various pools I've found and received -petr, -stun, -death, -sleep, but no wish. Cleared down to Khelly, and climbed back up, clearing the Pyramid, another random dungeon, and then to Darkforge.
At Darkforge I was ~lvl 18 and managed to clear the golems one by one, although I was taking quite a bit of damage from them. Luckily I had cure light wounds which I book-cast between fights. After clearing my way to the weapon room the RNG was kind to me as I received a quicksilver, adamantium, mithril and eternium staff! The eternium staff really increased my damage output and was a turning point in the game for me. Armor room had absolutely nothing, and I decided to start pool-sipping for a wish. For some reason Kherab joined me in there and after sipping two pools I had lost -sleep, -doomed (went back to clear it), snakes twice, gained teleportitis (not a good thing in Darkforge...), gained permanent invis (love this ability!!!), gained -seeinvis, and finally a wish for AoLS. One of the groups of snakes dropped a 7LB which Kherab picked up before I knew what was happening, but not as big a deal as Monk has built in 7LB.
Completed the dwarftown quests and dove to water temple, saving Khelly along the way. Brought corpse to town and visited sinister dungeon, which had a lesser vault that netted me "Trusted One" and Girdle of Giant Strength. Killed black druid, cleared Dwarven graveyard and Tomb of High Kings (getting bracers of regeneration), and snagged a giant boar skull from a random boar encounter.
At this point I went to visit Ice Queen domain and Jarl caves - greater vault was a fire dragon vault containing one wyrm. I started to clear it but was taking a lot of damage in the process so ended up leaving it alone for now. Headed to Fire Tower and cleared it relatively easily - stashed corpse in Terinyo and headed to casino. Casino had artifact shield "Protector" but nothing else (even after an additional half restock). Shame too, as I was swimming in money from all the Si's. Down a few levels got Ring of Master Cat, after which I headed up through Darkforge to grab the crown and while of Chaotic alignment kill Kherab for the 7LB he stole from me, allowing me to teleport freely in Darkforge
I now had enough artifacts for ratling fodder (and was at day 85) and I wanted access to Glod's smith for life, so I teleported him and tried to maneuver him the stairs, but being invis he didn't follow me off the level. I didn't have a potion of visibility so I started creating traps around him hoping to get him killed that way. After a stone block hit his head and he set off a fireball trap he became hostile to me for some reason and attacked me. As soon as I killed him a swarm of muscular dwarves came at me, as well as Waldenbrook, although none of the rest of the town seemed to care when I killed them. Smithy was now mine so I proceeded to melt all my iron ore into ingots for skill points, and started smithing my bracers of regeneration to [+7,+7] and crown of regeneration. Went to complete the Gaab'Baay's quests and got the amulet, and headed to the rift to kill the last few days before day 90. I lost a good amount of items on my fall, including my girdle of giant strength, and cleared the library. Unfortunately I didn't wait the 2000 turns and the librarian only told me to heed the silence when leaving, but I did get some decent books including Death Ray, Magic Missile, Teleport, and Lightning Ball).
Headed into Stone Circle to take on Keriax but I wasn't strong enough to do any real damage to him. After meleeing him for a few hits and being corrupted/stat drains, I bravely ran away, away. I had lost a previous Staff only monk to Keriax a few years back so didn't want to repeat the mistake. Now was as good a time as any to crown so I converted back to N (have all my inventory cursed in the process although I dropped all my blessed items beforehand) and was crowned with Iron Crown of Halvor. I was quite happy with that as I would have a replacement for my Crown of Regen when in destructible environments (i.e. red dragon vaults).
I was level 27 at this time and went to Minotaur Maze with 6 scrolls of magic mapping and luckily chose the correct initial staircase down at D:1. I managed to make my way to the mino emperor rather easily this time, although even with detect traps and alertness at 100 I was activating traps as I was coming across them in levels that I scouted myself. An acid trap melted my bracers of regeneration which really bummed me out, but I was hoping for a decent additional artifact at the end. Got to mino emperor and killed him and was gifted with Mino Axe, Mino Corpse, 3 PoCC, 1 PoStr, and 3 spellbooks - no artifact this time... Ported my way to the top and ate the corpse, praying for confusion removal.
Went back to Jarl caves to clear Dragon Vault and was rewarded with Obisdian Quarrel, and Wooden Shield "Nature's Friend". The real prize for me here was getting a quarterstaff of devastation (+0, 5d10+2) - although it was wooden and prone to environmental destruction I took extra care to never bring it to an area where it might be destroyed/burned and used it almost exclusively for the rest of the game. Dove down to kill Haggar without incident.
I checked at the crumbling cave and was greeted with a tension room of greater molochs (~18 of them) but wasn't yet strong enough to kill them with ease, so I left them for now. Headed back to CoC to clear air temple - I had never used a wand of destruction in ADOM before so I tried it out to give Yulgash a clear visual of me to follow me out of the danger zone and he took the bait. Dispatched him with ease and brought him back to Terinyo. Cleared entire level of Earth Temple (for some reason the stone beast was in the upper right corner in a wall not moving - confirmed with monster detection). Quarterstaff of Devastation made short work of him and he too was deposited in Terinyo. Headed down towards Unremarkable Cave and encountered my second Greater Vault on D:44 - again Red Dragons. So much for the Monk's vow of poverty this game. Cleared it with my trusty eternium-shod quarterstaff (to be safe) and was rewarded with a single artifact - Death's Blade. I pick pocketed quite a bit this game (a habit from my previous Mist Elf Thief win) which periodically brought me down to NC, but saccing heaping quantities of gold always brought me back to N=. Major gains from this vault was an elven chain mail [+2,+5] which I promptly smithed up to [+8,+11], my first and only RoDS, and an iron-shod quarterstaff of hunting.
Was going to head to Blue Dragon Cave but realized I had my Blue Dragon Scale Mail stashed in Dwarftown so I went to clear Mana temple instead. With my new found excitement of wands of destruction I tried to clear the walls directly to the Archmange but was unsuccessful, so went around to the standard entrance. Inside was an Emperor Lich which summoned a few karmics who in my confusion accidentally meleed once or twice losing Fate (quickly remedied with a scroll of luck). Archmage eventually fell to my Staff and he joined his friends in Terinyo. Headed back to BDC with my blue dragon scale mail and received Sun's Messenger from a random kill, as well as a spellbook of Farsight (favorite non-combat spell). Cleared the final floor and got my reward, but even after killing the Greater Karmic Wyrm I was only level 42 - the curse of 170 speed. I next headed back to the crumbling cave and killed the greater molochs bumping me to lvl 45. A number of the moloch's died to the Monk's instakill ability (which is freaking awesome), so apparently it is not limited to H2H only as stated in the wiki.
Went next to kill the White Unicorn for PoGA but was afraid alignment hit would drop me so I went to Small Cave to summon a friendly familiar and received a greater earth elemental. Brought him to the grove and ordered him to attack - it took awhile for him to catch up with the constant teleporting and a fight ensued. It seemed to be relatively even but every time Yrruir got down he ran away. I realized I needed to do the job myself, so donning a amulet of balance I killed him nut was only dropped to N-.
Went to Scintilating Cave and dove to Emperor Moloch who also died to an instakill attack (did I mention I love this class power?). It was now day 105 and I needed to kill 15 days to go back to Keriax so decided to clear the quickling tree for corpses. "Found" the tree next to the White Unicorn Glade and stashed everything there, going in with my elven chain, iron staff of hunting, a few select items, and stomaceptia. Entered on day 105 with 170 speed, left on day 118 with 216. Killed Keriax with sling bullets, and went to library to grab weird tome (losing a few more items on the way down), after which I headed back to Terinyo to eat/trade some corpses for necessary corruptions. Dove down to D:50 with ~12 corruptions.
D:49 granted me Wyrmslayer, D:50 was cleared without incident - it was also on D:50 that I finally reached GM in Staves. Prepared myself to enter the Chaos Gate by drinking all my boost potions and wishing for Speed (entered with ~530 speed) and jumped in. Immediately I used all my scrolls and a few potions to bring me down to ~4 corruptions and proceeded to attack Andor. I had blessed a wand of paralyzation to try out on him but for some reason it seemed to bounce off him - I later realized he was in a wall. Swapped out crown for my regen crown and amulet for AoFreeAction, and proceeded to whittle away at his health with bullets of humanoid slaying at first, and afterwords my quarterstaff of devastation. He died relatively quickly.
All in all was a very fun game.