ADOM Newcomer - First Victory (Gnome Monk)

[Steamhawke]

Hey, all! I was recently introduced to ADOM a few months ago by someone who has played it off and on for the past 10 or so years and immediately fell in love with its complexity and initial difficulty. After losing a few dozen characters learning the mechanics of the game, I rolled up a Gnome Monk and was able to close the Chaos Gate and leave the Drakalor Chain corruption-free. Somewhat surprisingly, this ended up being a Plutonium Man (Kill 95% on non-unique monster roster) run and had a couple of bizarre circumstances, like this floor filled with about 2 dozen Ki-Rins (attached below). Overall, the game went pretty smoothly without any real difficulties after the first few levels. Stand by for the obligatory wall of text chronicling my journey!

http://imgur.com/LorB6rf

Anywho, here's the victory dump:



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Background Information
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Name: Steamhawke Race: male Gnome Class: Monk
Eye color: green Hair color: brown Complexion: ruddy
Height: 3'4" Weight: 121 pounds
Age: 129 (grown-up, 12 years of unnatural aging added in)
Star sign: Raven Birthday: 24/Raven (day 24 of the year)




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Inventory
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Total weight: 1990 stones Carrying capacity: 14027 stones

Head : blessed Iron Crown of Havlor (-6, -6) [+12, +12] {Le+4}[65s]
Neck : blessed amulet of life saving [3s]
Body : blessed ancient mummy wrapping [+1, +5] {Ap-8} [60s]
Girdle : blessed eternium girdle [+4, +6] [12s]
Cloak : uncursed cloak of protection [+0, +3] [20s]
Right Hand : uncursed adamantium spear of hunting (+1, 1d8+6) [36s]
Left Hand : uncursed tower eternium shield (-1) [+16, +7] [70s]
Right Ring : blessed ring of regeneration [1s]
Left Ring : uncursed ring of elemental mastery [+0, +1] [1s]
Bracers : blessed bracers of regeneration [+7, +2] [18s]
Gauntlets : uncursed elemental gauntlets (-1, +0) [+0, +3] [10s]
Boots : blessed seven league boots [+1, +0] [30s]
Missile Weapon: -
Missiles : blessed rune-covered trident (+6, 3d12+6) [+4, +4] {Dx+12}
Tool : -



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Weapon Skills
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Melee weapon Lvl Hit Dam DV Level Required marks
--------------------- --- --- --- -- ------------- --------------
Unarmed fighting 1 +1 +0 +0 basic 25
Daggers & knives 1 +1 +0 +0 basic 25
Clubs & hammers 5 +3 +2 +1 skilled 170
Maces & flails 1 +1 +0 +0 basic 25
Swords 7 +5 +3 +2 skilled 445
Axes 1 +1 +0 +0 basic 25
Whips 1 +1 +0 +1 basic 25
Pole arms 14 +18 +11 +20 Mastery 4584
Twohanded weapons 1 +1 +1 +0 basic 25
Staves 5 +5 +1 +7 skilled 170

Missile weapon Lvl Hit Dam Ra Level Required marks

--------------------- --- --- --- -- ------------- --------------
Slings 0 +0 +0 +0 unskilled 7
Bows 6 +12 +9 +2 skilled 112
Crossbows 0 +0 +0 +0 unskilled 6
Thrown axes & hammers 10 +20 +15 +3 excellent 109
Thrown daggers 0 +0 +0 +0 unskilled 7
Thrown rocks & clubs 4 +8 +6 +1 skilled 40
Thrown spears 12 +24 +18 +4 Mastery 901
Boomerangs & scurgari 0 +0 +0 +0 unskilled 5

Shields Lvl DV Level Required marks

--------------------- --- --- ------------- --------------
Shields 11 +22 Mastery 2077

Damage caused with your melee weapons:
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Right hand: +114 bonus to hit, 1d8+47 damage

Damage caused with your missile weapons:
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Ammunition: 1, base range: 5, +80 bonus to hit, 3d8+47 damage







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His further life:
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After he leaves the Drakalor Chain he is welcomed by his people with great
honors. They acknowledge his noble deeds, his valor, his cunning and his
great skills that helped to prevent the complete destruction of the world he
knows. He is crowned to be the king of all gnomes and lives a long and
prosperous life full of love, happiness and pleasure.





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His achievements during his battles:
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Steamhawke, the gnomish monk, saved the world with his brave efforts and
became a great ruler while saving himself 52 times.
He scored 7795336 points and advanced to level 40.
He survived for 0 years, 57 days, 3 hours, 56 minutes and 24 seconds (118313
turns).
Steamhawke visited 144 places.
His strength score was modified by +23 during his career.
His learning score was modified by +14 during his career.
His willpower score was modified by +14 during his career.
His dexterity score was modified by +17 during his career.
His toughness score was modified by +15 during his career.
His charisma score was modified by +5 during his career.
His appearance score was modified by +12 during his career.
His mana score was modified by +5 during his career.
His perception score was modified by +6 during his career.
He was unnaturally aged by 12 years.
He was the champion of the arena.
He was a member of the thieves guild.
He made a little water dragon very happy.
He defeated the arch enemy of a mighty karmic wyrm.
He left the Drakalor Chain after completing his quest and became a great
leader and famous hero.
6897 monsters perished under his attacks.
The following 30 artifacts were generated during his adventure:
the si
the dwarven rune axe "Rolf's Companion"
the scythe of corruption "Moon Sickle"
the golden gladius "Death's Sting"
the Iron Crown of Havlor
the thin dagger "Cat's Claw"
the Chaos Orb of Elemental Water
the Chaos Orb of Elemental Air
the Chaos Orb of Elemental Fire
the Chaos Orb of Elemental Earth
the heavy crossbow "The Far Slayer"
the rune-covered long sword "Trusted One"
the lead-filled mace "Big Punch"
the rune-covered trident
the elemental gauntlets
the ring of the High Kings
the phial of Caladriel
the crown of science
the ancient mummy wrapping
the ankh
the hammer of the gods
the intricate wooden shield "Nature's Friend"
the black torc
the Chaos Orb of Elemental Mana
the black rune-covered dagger "Needle"
the black rune-covered dagger "Sting"
the crown of leadership
the shining long spear "Soaker"
the rune-covered halberd "Wyrmlance"
the tome of donors
He possessed the following intrinsics:
He was fire resistant (also through an item).
He was poison resistant (also through an item).
He was cold resistant (also through an item).
He was acid resistant.
He was lucky.
Fate smiled upon him.
He was sleep resistant (gained through an item).
He was stun resistant (gained through an item).
He was resistant to death rays (gained through an item).
He was shock resistant (also through an item).
He was able to see invisible things (also through an item).
He was immune to shock attacks.
He was immune to fire attacks (gained through an item).
He was immune to ice attacks (gained through items).
He had the following talents: Alert, Beast of Burden, Good Shot, Hardy,
Healthy, Immune to Pain, Iron Skin, Keen Shot, Long Stride, Master Packager,
Miser, Porter, Steel Skin, Tough Skin, Treasure Hunter.
He had a final speed score of 163 (final base speed: 163).
He was a messiah of Gnarl.
He asked for 7 divine interventions.
He was a holy champion of Order.




The following monsters were vanquished:
3 acid vortices
22 air demons
10 air elementals
8 air grues
1 ancient black dragon
7 ancient blue dragons
1 ancient blue wyrm
1 Ancient Chaos Wyrm
1 ancient karmic dragon
2 ancient minotaurs
4 ancient red dragons
1 Ancient Stone Beast
2 ancient white dragons
4 animated armors
123 animated trees
6 ankhegs
4 annihilators
3 annis hags
63 assassins
1 assassin prince
9 balors
27 bandits
1 banshee
31 barbarians
24 barbarian leaders
12 battle bunnies
2 beggars
53 berserkers
3 berserker emperors
1 berserker king
19 berserker lords
3 berserker princes
8 big dogs
3 black baby dragons
3 black dragons
1 black druid
20 black hurthlings
1 black slayer
5 black unicorns
15 black wizards
26 blue baby dragons
13 blue dragons
1 bone golem
4 brown bears
8 brown worms
21 bugbears
4 bulettes
1 bunny master
5 carrion crawlers
9 cave bears
40 cave fishers
15 cave lions
59 cave lizards
9 cave tigers
45 cavemen
1 Chaos Archmage
8 chaos brothers
1 chaos diplomat
28 chaos eyes
7 chaos knights
13 chaos lizards
70 chaos mutants
13 chaos plague bearers
11 chaos rats
178 chaos servants
15 chaos sisters
3 chaos spawn
8 chaos spiders
4 chaos vipers
31 chaos warriors
21 chaos wizards
25 claw bugs
8 clay golems
9 clay statues
1 cloaked ratling
3 cobras
3 cooshoos
36 corpse fiends
3 corruptors
1 crime lord
6 crystal statues
12 cutpurses
5 cyclopes
6 dark elven archers
11 dark elven lords
10 dark elven priestesses
4 dark elven princesses
14 dark elven warriors
7 dark elven wizards
30 dark orcs
11 dark sages
3 death oozes
2 diamond golems
63 dire wolves
26 displacer beasts
32 doppelgangers
7 doppelganger lords
4 Dorn Beasts
1 dwarf
35 dwarven chaos knights
28 earth elementals
1 emperor lich
15 ettins
21 eyes of destruction
2 farmers
42 fire beetles
16 fire demons
19 fire drakes
12 fire elementals
22 fire giants
4 fire giant kings
3 fire grues
41 fire lizards
7 fire vortices
11 flesh golems
6 floating eyes
195 fomorian giants
84 frost giants
39 frost giant berserkers
13 frost giant jarls
1 frost salamander
6 frozen ones
14 gargantuan rats
17 gargoyles
36 gelatinous cubes
57 ghosts
12 ghost bats
47 ghost lords
94 ghuls
2 giant ant queens
30 giant ant warriors
29 giant ant workers
41 giant bats
3 giant bee queens
84 giant bee warriors
17 giant bee workers
19 giant centipedes
1 giant eel
6 giant frogs
18 giant lizards
5 giant raccoons
106 giant rats
1 giant rust monster
1 giant shark
27 giant slugs
34 giant spiders
15 gibbering mouthers
40 gnolls
5 gnoll chieftains
66 goblins
42 goblin berserkers
18 goblin chieftains
65 goblin rockthrowers
51 goblin slavemasters
40 gray oozes
3 gray slayers
1 great black wyrm
3 great blue wyrms
5 great karmic wyrms
1 great red wyrm
55 greater air elementals
1 greater balor
1 greater black unicorn
127 greater chaos servants
2 greater daemons
5 greater fire elementals
4 greater mimics
2 greater molochs
17 greater mummies
1 greater water elemental
6 green blobs
10 green hags
55 green slimes
14 green worms
3 gremlins
19 griffons
10 grizzly bears
2 half-orc bouncers
33 harpies
55 hell hounds
70 hill giants
9 hill giant chieftains
35 hill orcs
29 hill orc sergeants
22 hippogriffs
41 hobgoblins
2 hobgoblin chiefs
10 hobgoblin leaders
13 homunculi
24 huge bats
7 hydras
19 hyenas
5 ice elementals
10 ice lizards
1 ice statue
5 ice vortices
9 imps
4 invisible stalkers
3 iron golems
177 jackals
5 jackal demons
15 jackalweres
2 karmic baby dragons
10 karmic lizards
2 ki-rins
10 king cobras
97 kobolds
25 kobold chieftains
17 kobold shamans
53 large bats
23 large dogs
18 large gnolls
14 large jackals
47 large kobolds
41 large orcs
7 large rust monsters
11 large snakes
58 large spiders
16 least daemons
5 lesser daemons
13 leucrottas
4 liches
1 lich king
9 lightning lizards
5 lightning vortices
61 lizard men
11 magebane eyes
3 magedoom eyes
4 margoyles
40 master assassins
5 master liches
2 master mimics
1 master necromancer
1 Master Summoner
24 master swordsmen
1 master thief
12 mimics
1 mimic hivemind
16 minotaurs
1 minotaur lord
3 mist wolves
2 molochs
2 muggers
28 mummies
1 mummy lord
7 necromancers
5 ochre jellies
65 ogres
2 ogre emperors
4 ogre kings
47 ogre lords
10 ogre magi
81 orcs
2 orc butchers
17 orc chieftains
24 orc scorchers
29 outlaws
16 outlaw leaders
25 owlbears
42 pit vipers
8 pixies
6 pixie archers
3 purple worms
19 quasits
2 quicklings
1 quickling king
4 quickling lords
4 quickling queens
9 rabid dogs
21 raiders
171 rats
24 ratling archers
9 ratling duelists
10 ratling fencers
6 ratling master thieves
30 ratling thieves
6 ratling warlords
16 ratling warriors
7 rattlesnakes
18 red baby dragons
8 red dragons
9 red worms
4 revenants
62 rust monsters
78 shadows
7 shadow centipedes
9 shadow lords
7 shadow trolls
1 shadow wyrm
15 shambling mounds
30 silver wolves
4 skeletal kings
55 skeletal warriors
112 skeletons
7 slow shadows
1 Snake from Beyond
6 snow golems
26 spectres
10 staring eyes
34 steel golems
1 steel horror
8 steel zombies
166 stone giants
32 stone giant lords
16 stone golems
28 stone grues
1 stone ooze
7 stone snakes
34 stone statues
4 swamp hydras
22 swordsmen
31 tarantulas
1 thug
4 titans
55 trolls
22 troll berserkers
8 troll chiefs
2 troll kings
1 undead chaos dwarven berserker
9 vampires
49 vapor rats
4 vipers
2 wall beasts
5 water demons
3 water elementals
21 water grues
24 water snakes
27 wererats
17 werewolves
6 werewolf lords
31 white baby dragons
5 white dragons
38 white worms
77 wights
7 wild cats
5 will o'wisps
109 wolves
82 wraiths
131 writhing masses of primal chaos
17 yellow oozes
72 yetis
121 zombies

Dispatched the legendary lizard man Grakkus.
Dispatched the legendary troll Okla.
Dispatched the legendary barbarian Andra.
Dispatched the legendary swordsman Gaelwynn the Unlucky.




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Playing Time
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You played for 23 hours, 19 minutes and 24 seconds.


I received the Iron Crown of Havlor as my crowning artifact in my late teen levels. Amulet of life saving was from a wish after getting quite spooked by the Mana Temple orb guardian. Only saw one pair of Seven League Boots all game, and they dropped right in front of the Chaos Portal on my way out. I upgraded shields a few times, but used the same weapon for about 25 levels, and never really had anything nice for bracer / cloak / belt / boots, so indulged in some minor smithing. Most fights consisted of softening targets up from range with the Rune Covered Trident or Rolf's Companion (2x returning weapons was amazing) and/or bashing faces in melee. Unfamiliar monsters (everything past DL 20 or so) got a degree of kiting with absurd Monk movement speed to avoid nasty status / corrupting attacks and learn their behavior.

While 30 artifacts were generated during this run... I didn't actually see a lot of them. I have huge treasure hoarding tendencies, and picked up damn near everything that dropped as I went (especially once I had the Orb of Fire and found a book of Strength of Atlas) so I was rather surprised that so many slipped past me. While some of these really wouldn't have made a difference, several of them would have been very nice additions to my gear. I never laid eyes on the Cat's Claw, Trusted One, Far Slayer, Crown of Leadership, or Nature's Friend but I suspect some of these appeared in my greater vaults that I couldn't seem to locate artifacts in. I don't know the layout of Darkforge, so I never grabbed the Crown of Science. I stepped foot in the Gremlin Cave but never explored it, so didn't receive the Phial of Caladriel. I really only ended up using the guaranteed artifacts and my crowning gift. I supposed everyone's mileage varies when it comes to random artifacts, but I barely touched mine despite there being quite a few of them.

[Steamhawke]

Game Flow:

Started out with typical Monk gear with no DV / PV to speak of. Grabbed quests in Terinyo and headed to the Small Cave looking for gear. Didn't find anything useful, but did a little bit of grinding, and progressed through to the High Mountain Village. Lack of any healing capabilities and no defense at this point in the game was very scary. Most of the time I was at sub 30% HP, and had no real ranged capabilities.

Made it safely to the HMV and got attacked by some nasty monsters right outside the shop, but managed to kill them, dump my loot for money and buy some decent gear. Now I had a spear, shield, and decent leather armor, so I didn't feel like the next gentle caress of a goblin would kill me. Popped out of the HMV and had the Moldy Cave spawn right next door so I didn't have to wander the world map to grab the Tome of Donors. Cleared each floor of the Moldy Cave and grabbed the Tome, blessing it as soon as possible.

Aside: This is my typical starting strategy, as the Tome of Donors is absolutely amazing (and the early game pile of gold is very nice), but I never really got much from the Tome. It never left my possession for the rest of the game, and I got maybe 20-something uses out of it, but probably half of those were temporary blessings, and I never got the sweet, sweet resistances or any particularly impressive stat gains. Kinda underwhelming for lugging this thing around so long, but it offer huge potential benefits for very little investment, so I always prioritize grabbing this thing.

Headed back east to do the Puppy Cave and Druid Dungeon and look for a convenient altar. Luckily found a Lawful altar in the cavernous room of the Puppy Cave, and grinded up to level 14 while saccing monsters. Precrowned twice and received Soaker followed by Hammer of the Gods. Wasn't familiar with either, and wasn't too keen on using a 2H weapon at this point while my defenses were already low and I needed to train shields, so these ended up going unused all game. Obliterated the Druid Dungeon and grabbed the Herbalism skill before heading off to the CoC to set up base camp in Dwarftown.

Cleared down to Dwarftown and ended up having to do Thrundaar's quests twice for some reason. Had me kill a Troll, then pass the forest, then kill a Chaos Servant before giving me the arena quest. I chilled in the Big Room for awhile gathering some herbs and waiting for my quest targets to spawn. I didn't realize that Chaos Servants were higher DL than Chaos Brothers/Sisters/etc. so I wasted a lot of time before heading back down under Dwarftown to find one, letting Khelavaster die.

Being the requisite level, I went back to the surface and cleared the Pyramid, Dwarven Graveyard, and with a Ring of the Fish in hand bravely waded through the Water Dragon Lair to talk to Blup's mother and place a pre-order for the Rune Covered Trident. Went back to the Puppy Cave to sacrifice monsters and received Iron Crown of Havlor as my crowning gift. My business in the East complete, I headed West.

At this point I didn't have any Rings of Fire and no method of freezing the lake in the Tomb of the High King, so I bounced around a lot trying to find either, but was ultimately unsuccessful. I kept delving deeper into the Caverns of Chaos, finding the Water Temple for the first time (I'd passed it on multiple characters with no clue that it existed) and killed the Banshee (who surprised me and wrecked one of my former best characters). Once I hit the wall of flames (that I'd heard about, but was expecting a huge... wall... of flames, not a little circle around the staircase), I headed back to the surface.

Cleared the Tomb of the High King, but couldn't cross the lake, so I mindlessly killed monsters in the cavernous levels trying to spawn an Ogre Magus or Ice Vortex to build the bridge for me. No dice, though. Got bored and decided to dump everything and do the Ice Queen's quests instead.

Cleared the Frost Giant Jarl Caves with minimal difficulty, with a greater giant vault spawning inside. Sat there slaughtering and eating giants for a long time and accumulating levels and decent armor in the process. I'm guessing most corpses respect stat potentials now, too, as I couldn't get STR increases to save my life (was capped at 21 /21 or so), but was thankful for the equipment upgrades. If there was an artifact spawned in the vault, I missed it, but had developed some impressive defensive stats via random higher metal items and some dragon chain mail. Obliterated the Chaos Diplomat with the Rune Covered Trident, but was very scared that my potions of corruption removal wouldn't survive the trek back out of the IQD. Fortunately, they did, and I slaughtered some yetis and other tundra denizens as I left the area. I identified my loot and found I had a book of Frostbolt, so I read it and back tracked to grab the Ring of the High Kings.

Dumped ALL my items and went to do the Tower of Eternal Flame. Normally I dump non-essentials and hold on to fireproof blankets and some food, and things like that, but for some reason I didn't think about preparing for the ToEF, and just walked right in. A few turns later, my cloak, bracers, etc. were consumed by fire and I felt very foolish. Regardless, I climbed the tower, and dug through the wall to the altar (Monks kicking through walls is AMAZING in this game) and waded through the sea of fire elementals and dragons to tempt the Ancient Chaos Wyrm out. Kited him and killed him quite easily with the Rune Covered Trident, stopped by my loot stash and the Dusty Level for the Wand of Teleportation, and headed back to Dwarftown.

Aside: I had only ever made it to the ToEF once before (previous character, a Troll Monk who was in a similar, but better position at this point), so everything from here on out was new territory for me. I had heard that the worst of the game was over at this point, but wasn't really sold on that. My previous Troll Monk had cleared the ToEF like a champ (2 shotted the orb guardian) and then got murdered shortly thereafter by a Doppelganger King. I hear most people fear and avoid Doppelganger Kings, but the stat gains from that tasty, tasty corpse were very enticing and I had been obliterating all the other Doppelgangers I had encountered up to that point, so I decided to poke him. The fight didn't seem that bad, as I took out a good chunk of his HP without suffering too much damage, but his next hit was an armor puncturing crit that dealt about 270 damage (of my ~300 max HP). I'm not entirely sure how much of your stats these guys copy, and if they always ignore PV or not. I was wearing a weapon of penetration, so it's possible they copied that bonus but I'm not sure if they copy your gear / intrinsics or not. Anyone know?

After playing Inventory Management simulator 2.0 for a while, I blessed and drank potions, and visited the Dwarven Mystic for my first time, scoring Rolf's Companion. After messing around with potential weapon setups, I settled on my mainstay of spear + shield, while throwing the RCT and continued the dive, with the general notion that I wouldn't be back until I had won the game. I had recently received my first corruption, which was Sulfuric Breath, and was perfectly happy walking around with only a Charisma penalty, so I brought along a potion of corruption removal to pre-empt my next one.

Entered the casino and found that it held nothing of interest. Stat training with Garth would be absurdly expensive, and I didn't really want to deal with the corruption associated with long-term gambling. (I had a writing set, but never encountered scrolls of peace, so pacifying the casino --- which I've always wanted to do --- wasn't a possibility.) The gift store had some decent looking eternium weapons, but that was about it. Nothing had a price tag orders of magnitude higher than the other items, and there were no wishes to be had, so I didn't think there was much to be gained via money / theft. Regardless, I used a local dragon to kill the shopkeeper for me (I was shocked that the guards didn't care if I brought hostile monsters from another floor into the casino) and cleaned the place out. Got a few decent items like a helm of teleportation, and fancy weapons that I would never equip but as my initial investigation had revealed, there wasn't a single artifact or wish in the casino.


I kept clearing a little further and went up through Dark Forge (my first visit) and found nothing of interest so I emptied my bags and kept diving through the CoC. The Battle Bunny level was practically empty... Bugs spawned really, really close to the down stairs, and I only had to kill a few rabbits to move on. I thankfully had the ability to see Invisible when I came upon the Cat Lord, or I would've certainly died. Avoiding killing cats seems like an enormous pain in the butt, so I'd always indiscriminately murdered them, but I may have to rethink this approach as this guy was incredibly scary. I took him to the floor above and outran him so I could keep progressing.

I passed a cavernous room with a hoard of Ki-Rins, which surprised me, as there were probably two dozen in a single area, and most people say they've only ever seen a few over years and years of playing ADOM. I tentatively killed one or two before deciding to leave the majestic murder unicorns alone and continue my journey. Air Temple went down super easily, with minimal item destruction (I had been crowned with Shock Immunity), but the orb guardian summoned a bunch of Great Karmic Wyrms so I had to do a lot more throwing and a lot less poking than normal. The Earth Temple was also really easy, with the Ancient Stone Beast getting demolished in a few RCT throws, though I had some difficulty finding the entrance to the temple. There was another greater vault full of giants that were slowly and methodically murdered as I received then cured the Poison Hands corruption.

Up 'til now, things had been progressing very smoothly. Many of the deeper CoC levels I encountered held a few new monsters that died easily, and surprisingly quite a lot of low DL monsters that were scaled up, but in no way scary. I ran into quite a few kobolds and bats and whatnot in the D:40s, which I expected to be teeming with much nastier creatures. I felt that I could survive fights with most anything that didn't pierce armor, and while my damage was a bit lacking, I could grind through health pools of monsters without much danger.

Reached the Unreal Caverns and the scary stuff started appearing. I ran into a Doppelganger King and had to kite him away from the stairs so I could progress, but he took a couple of good whacks at me. There was a tension room of Ghost Lords that started aging me and making me very concerned about dying in that regard. They streamed out and set up camp in the small area between the up and down stair cases so they couldn't effectively be ignored. (Looking at the wiki now, this seems like a relatively unwarranted fear. If what I'm reading is correct, Gnomes die at around 600 years of age, and I was only at ~130. For some reason, I was under the impression I only had 12 years left in my lifespan, so a single aging attack would destroy me, making me very very cautious). Chaos Warriors were common fixtures and they took a lot of hits to bring down with ranged attacks and I was afraid to melee them. Then, I finally reached the Mana temple.

Oh... Mana Temple. This was a place I was NOT prepared for. I was very confused when I couldn't find a way in, and spent ages digging until a random passive search revealed the secret passage. The passage that was laden with traps. While my relative safety wasn't too much of a concern, the item destruction was. After diving headlong into the passage and eating a few traps, I slowed down and started 's'earching each step to try and avoid the next one. This worked well for about 2/3 of the passage until a single trap went off and demolished my corruption removal, cloak, bracers, scrolls of identify, holy water, and some other highly valuable items. After making it through this gauntlet of destruction, the fight with the orb guardian did not go well. I had absolutely no means of generating light, and it appears throwing weapons in the darkness doesn't work. I killed a few minions, before the orb guardian chased me back out the passageway, darkening everything along the way. We got into a bit of a stalemate where he was hiding in his darkness casting spells at me, and I was just outside in a lighted area, tossing my trident at him until the trident didn't come back...

After this, there was a lot of running and digging and terror as I would bounce between 30% and 80% HP without making any real progress on his health. Eventually I lured him into an area I could close the distance and melee him, but this didn't seem like a winning strategy. His attacks in melee packed a significant punch, drained stats, and rapidly corrupted me, all while I was fighting in the dark and had no idea if I was winning or not. Deciding this was a great way to die, I backed off and started running again. Some of his minions from the altar area trickled out after me and THANKFULLY one of them was kind enough to carry my Rune Covered Trident all the way down the trap infested, inescapable corridor for me so I could recover it. I popped back upstairs and strongly considered trekking back to Dwarftown for some corruption-management and equipment changes, but opted to try the Blue Dragon Caves first.

I dumped everything on Sharad-Waador's steps and poked into the caves. After killing a few dragons in the first 2-3 floors, I started realizing their spawn rate was outpacing my damage capabilities, so I needed to hurry through the cave rather than fully explore the levels as I usually do. Reaching the bottom floor, I created some choke points to fight dragons (again... Monk wall kick... preeeettttyyyy gooooood) and stumbled through the level until finding Srraxxarrakex. Knowing I was shock immune, I didn't really think these caves would be particularly hard, but the fights often got nasty. I ended up killing maybe 6 or so named wyrms before finding my mark and luring him into the murder tunnels. It was a very rough fight. I slowly whittled his HP down until he hit about 25% HP, then he just started healing like crazy and I couldn't ever polish him off. This wasn't looking good for me given the intense background corruption and my somewhat exhausted resources from my failures in the Mana Temple. I decided to change tactics (literally and figuratively), and moved the Rune Covered Trident into poking position and started berserking on the dragon to try and bring him down. Eventually he fell, and I cowardly fled the cave with my collected loot. Surprisingly (or perhaps not, given the Mana Temple's proximity), the dragons dropped torches and flint/steel like candy so upon exiting the Blue Dragon Caves I now had an ample source of light. I gathered my things, figured out how to light a torch (another first for me) and poked back into the Mana Temple to see if this would make a difference.

It made ALL the difference! Apparently my previous tactics, while relatively ineffective, had made considerable progress on the guardian's HP, so now that I was able to see, we sat a few squares away from each other exchanging death rays for trident tosses until the bastard finally died and relinquished the final Chaos Orb. Evaluating my current corruptions as not too bad, I decided I'd take the plunge and check out this "Chaos Gate" that all the kids these days are into. The last few CoC floors were pretty uneventful. I was sad to part with my beloved Chaos Orbs (raw stats are my favorite thing), but realized if I truly loved them, I had to let them go. D:49 was not what I expected, but pretty simple, given my ample supply of rocks from wall kicking. For whatever reason you can dig through the walls on that floor so getting from staircase to staircase really isn't particularly hard with on-demand tunneling. Finally, I arrived at the Chaos Gate.

On a whim, I decided to head south instead of east when I arrived, so I never actually explored the area as a random dungeon level. Instead I started plowing through the hordes of chaos monsters towards the gate. Initially I was very careful, kiting them backwards down the corridor while tossing missiles at them. After a few of them closed in on me, I realized they couldn't really hit me so I didn't have much to fear in melee. That sped things up considerably as I basically held 'A' as my character progressed onward. I had some vague understanding that the words "lever" and "Balor" were relevant to this floor, but didn't really know much more than that. I cleaned out the top and bottom lever rooms and started working on the blob of chaos monsters in the middle. the ghosts and chaos servants went down easily enough, then the wave of wizards came and summoned hundreds of adds. After many, many turns slogging through bodies, I started making use of my Monk power to swap positions (:s) so I could actually damage the darn wizards and stem the flow of summons. All this time I'd been steadily accumulating corruptions, and was getting somewhat nervous. I was sitting at 6, and knew that becoming overly corrupted would kill you instantly. In my mind this meant 7 corruptions. After the fact I read this is more like 18. (Strangely enough 3 separate potions of corruption removal dropped during this push towards the gate, but I realized a bit too late that I had gotten the poison hands corruption once again, so I was carrying several hundred potions of poison instead.) All this ruckus attracted the attention of the Balors in front of the gate and after a prolonged game of chasing the teleporting cowards and performing intricate dance steps with the masses of chaos servants the gate was finally closed, and I could begin my ascent. I stuck around for a bit continuing to kill the hordes of chaotic monsters before realizing that was a somewhat pointless endeavor and headed back to Dwarftown.

With my mission complete, I messed around a little bit to knock off a few of the easy steam achievements, cured all my corruption and THEN did the white unicorn quest, again making me feel a bit foolish. Proud of myself, I traveled North East and exited the Drakalor Chain to secure my first win. All in all, it went very well. Early game was challenging and the Mana Temple was merciless given my lack of preparation, but nothing was particularly hard. I prayed for health twice, I think, but never used a healing consumable. I've barely scraped the magic portion of ADOM, having played primarily martial characters and never really bothering with wands and scrolls (other than identify). I can see how the game would be relatively easy for an Archer or Magic-using class, but the Monk was a very strong class for a first win. All in all... a great game. :)

[Steamhawke]

A few thoughts for other newcomers or players who have yet to beat the game:


ADOM is a game that heavily rewards meta knowledge, or information you gain between games. Since it's been out for many years now, there's a wealth of useful information that other people have archived for you. I'd strongly recommend making use of this to reduce the difficulty in beating the game, as well as minimize frustration from losing promising characters to unexpected instant death scenarios. Some players want to experience the game in a vacuum, where they have to figure everything out for themselves, and that's fine... but that will be a VERY slow process. Other players want to read and prepare as much as possible in advance, and that's fine too. I took something of a middle road and experienced much of the game organically without spoilers, but had plenty of general knowledge like "The ToEF will destroy your gear" or "rob the casino for wealth / gear" or "you get the Rune Covered Trident at level 16 if you're Raven born". It's an enormous pain in the ass to use Greater Identify on everything or try and remember the effects of weapon prefixes / suffixes. I personally feel that the game is still very engaging if you read "bring death ray protection on level X" as opposed to have a character die on that level to death rays, but how much you read ahead is ultimately up to you. I am very grateful to the people who have put together the ADOM wiki and improved guidebook, as those are invaluable resources.
Greed and over-confidence are character killers. At various points in the game, you may be nearly invulnerable, but there's always something that can go wrong. Play safely and methodically to avoid silly deaths.
PV is amazing throughout the entire game. Like... absolutely incredible. It is not a universal answer for everything you will encounter, but it's pretty darn close. Boosting your PV in the early game makes you very durable, and a lot of the nasty effects that monsters can inflict are negated if they can't damage you. Relatively little in the game penetrates PV, and those things are generally best engaged from outside melee range for any number of other reasons, as well. I sat at about 40 - 60 PV and very little could touch me.
The flip side of this is that critical hits are amazing for boosting offensive power. Since monsters have PV that applies to every attack, then that flat reduction makes critical hits much more valuable then they might seem at first. In theory, gaining a 20% chance to deal 2x damage is nice but relatively unimpressive boost. In practice, it means 1 in 5 of your hits will take huge chunks out of your enemy's HP that are much more impressive than one might expect. For example, if you hit a monster with a PV of 18 two times for base damage of 20, the final damage is only 4 (20-18=2, 20-18=2). However, if you land a critical hit on the same monster for 40 damage, the final damage will be 22 (40-18=22), over 5 times the total of the two separate normal attacks.
It's pretty hard to boost your stats in the current version of ADOM. As such, your starting values and starting potentials are rather important. There's no shortage of good equipment to be had, but ways of boosting your stats to reasonable levels are few and far between. You don't generally NEED high stat values, but they can greatly improve your success. Most everything respects your stat potentials nowadays, and often have additional limitations. For instance, herbs can be used to boost your DEX, WI, and TO... but only up to ~25 or your stat potential... whichever is lower. As such, the game generally favors characters with lower stats and potentials in the mid 20s. This can be frustrating as if you play a Troll, for instance, you have a huge starting STR, and an extremely high potential... but can't actually improve it. Burdening yourself, eating giant corpses, and training with Garth are basically worthless endeavors for you so your potential of 56 goes to waste. Conversely, a Gnome starting with 12 STR can train the stat through the Athletics skill and carrying heavy loads up to his potential of 22, and then still boost it to 30 by eating giants and boosting the potential. Both characters have about the same STR now, but the Gnome didn't sacrifice other stats to get it.
On that note, potions and alchemy are very good at boosting your stats. Blessed potions of attributes can greatly increase your stat potentials and then boost your stats to meet the new limit. Given the number of relatively useless potions you're likely to encounter during the game, if you have the Alchemy skill, I'd heavily advise that you put it to use!
Digging is extremely strong in this game. Having access to wall destruction is not only essential to beat the game, but incredibly handy in almost any situation. You can dig around difficult or tedious areas (Animated Forest); you can create choke-points so enemies can't swarm and surround you; you can create exit routes for when you get in over your head; you can gain access to valuable items locked behind walls; there's just so much you can do with wall destruction in this game. Learn to love it.

[Tito]

Gratz! First victory is the sweetest. I could write my signature under your final thoughts:) Now i want to try gnome monk too.

[blunk]

You may want to read scroll of magic mapping in greater vaults (of check common layouts on the wiki) so as not to miss out on the goodies.

[Phoobnahr]

I always use a wand or scroll of item detection as soon as I come down the stairs into a level with a greater vault. That way I know what artifact/artifacts I'm looking for and if they'll be worth the trouble.