Safe herb training for newbies

[Doalag]

Myself, when I train with herbs and do something else at same time, it is currently my main source of stupid deadly errors.

I just find a sample nice trick to do a quick herb training totally safe and quick for real time: It's cutting wood with a hatchet in wilderness woods as you train with herbs. Before to do the training session you just need:
- A hatchet and probably the bridge skill plus the bridge manual.
- Take plenty morgia to train TO and WI. How many depends on your current maximums and potential maximums, plus take a few more if you do few errors. Number is 62 - (Current TO+Current potential TO)*2 + 54 - (Current WI+Current potential WI)*2 + 10/20 more for being safer. Blessed morgia are better and faster but uncursed too should do the work and still fast with this method.
- Take many mareilon to train DX. Number is 60 - (Current DX+Current potential DX)*2 + 10 + 10/20 more for being safer. Blessed mareilon are better and faster but uncursed too should do the work and still fast with this method. But don't use cursed mareilon.
- Take some devil's rose herbs to get sickness. All type should to the job fine, around 20 unblessed should be more than enough.
- If you don't have the cure disease spell, takes also some blessed curaria mancox to cure sickness.

Now exit from CoC, and go to nearest wilderness wood, eventually plan this at your next exit from CoC like to do the pyramid quest or the Griff quest.

There train TO and WI with herbs as explained in the guidebook. And cut trees. With blessed herbs and stats not too high you get the herb training after one or two tree cutting. Train them to 25 then do the same with DX and train it to 25 too. Now it's time to use sickness. So eat one devil's rose and train TO and WI to 25 with sickness, DX to 24 wit sickness. Sometimes eat one more devil's rose to be sure to keep sickness. Once DX is at 24 then use 10 mareilon in a row. Either you feel safe leaving the safe woods then it's time to exit and continue your journey, keep sickness until DX reach 27 with it or 25 or higher but the time is too long. Wait this during some more wood cutting can be nice too if you want it safer at price of more game time and turns.

Take care that carry too heavy load can break your DX training so either use the atlas spell to avoid this or be sure to use the hatchet on a square with no tree, this will allow you to use logs cut. You'll need for that the bridge skill and the bridge manual.

I noticed that, unlike mentioned in the guidebook, I could have both training from morgia and mareilon at same time. But I didn't test it a lot it was more consequences of some errors. I'll try that with my next character with same method that makes testing herb training quite easy.

EDIT: This method is only for newbies because you'll lost game time and game turns because during all this training you could do something else required and train with herbs at same time.

[Grey]

This would be my own guide on how best to use herbs:

-You'll normally need about 100 morgia and 50 mareilon (depends on initial stats). If you plan to use sickness you'll want around 140 morgia and 70 mareilon. Never hurts to have more, and you can always sell the surplus.
-Eat or use morgia and mareilon as you go along. Always use them both together since all stat increases happen at once. Watch out for stat increase messages as the game plays (ADOM Sage helps since it highlights these in green).
-Remember to 'u'se mareilon in the tool slot, and 'e'at morgia (so don't eat blessed stomafillia or you'll be too bloated to make use of your morgia).
-2 morgia for a To increase, 4 for a To potential increase, 4 for a Wi increase, 8 for a Wi potential increase. 2 mareilon for a Dx increase, 4 for a Dx potential increase.
-Cursed mareilon should not be used, but cursed morgia is fine. Blessed makes no noticeable difference until you get the stats into the 20s, so it's best to save till last.
-Remember to take off any equipment that increases Wi, Dx or To when eating or using the herbs. These will get in the way of stat increases. Feel free to put them back on as soon as you've eaten or used the herbs.
-If you want to abuse sickness then have plenty of devil's rose and curaria mancox (they are both harvested from the same bush). You'll want 20 of each, or 30 to be on the safe side. Use the devil's rose to reduce your stats temeporarily, then eat or use the morgia or mareilon, and then straight after eat a curaria mancox to cure yourself. You should only lose a few hp this way, which will be quickly recovered, but be sure not to be under attack whilst doing this.
-Stat increases always happen when you level up, or can happen randomly after a length of time. If 1000 turns go past without an increase, then make use of your herbs again. If you level up without a stat increase than make use of your herbs again straight away. If you know you're about to level up then be sure to use some herbs beforehand. If you think you might be getting several level ups at once (for instance in the Tower, or DarkForge) then it's wise to use lots and lots of each herb you have to ensure you get several increases.
-If you get any stat to 24 (or 29 with sickness) with the potential at 25 (30 with sickness) then eat or use loads of the remaining herbs, preferably blessed. At this stage you may as well use them all up, since you'll likely not need them again.
-Certain corruptions allow you to gain further increases since they reduce the related stats, so you may find yourself able to gain additional increases later in the game (though certain corruptions also increase those stats and make it harder to raise them). Moloch armour can potentially let you raise your Dx by a further 20 points.
-Starvation is another tactic to get your stats up higher with herbs, but I personally don't recommend it for newbies (or for anyone for that matter - it's really not necessary).

Things you can do whilst training stats:
-Harvest more herbs. Pacifying the Big Room helps a lot with this, and is simple enough with a pick axe, wand of door creation and a source of invisibility. You'll obviously want as many morgia and mareilon as you can get, and a few devils rose/curaria aren't unwelcome, but other things are worth harvesting too. Pepper petals are worth a lot in shops, and getting gold from these can be used for Garth training (sickness helps with this too y'know). Stomafillia is worth a lot to the gods, and it's always good to have high piety. If you've generated few artifacts so far then you can easily go for a precrowning or two with lots of stoma.
-Mining for ore and gems. If you have gemology this is very worthwhile, since crystals of knowledge can get your Le to a very nice level. Crystals of light and darkness are handy to have, and health and power have their uses too. Normal gems fetch good prices, and worthless glass serves as great cannon fodder for the RNG. Mining generates stone giant which can be eaten for St increases (sickness helps here too). Ore can be sold, or serves a more obvious purpose:
-Smithing. If you haven't found a forge then the Dwarftown one can be used if you get the demon to kill the smith there (last dwarven quest - be sure to learn smithing first). I think Ventriloquism also works well in luring the smith off the level where he can be disposed of safely (and it is good to kill him for his anvil and hammer). Smthing allows you to increase the power of your metal gear immensely. It's a good idea to use a blessed scroll of peace in Dwarftown if it isn't generated on D9.
-Continue with the game. There's nothing to stop you going out and exploring other places. Gaining level ups speeds up the stat-rising process. Other than a bit of care when abusing sickness there should be no significant risk.

There are various good guides on using herbs and generating them in good patterns. Guidebook obviously contains some vital info, but here's a couple of other useful resources:
-The Double Square pattern (http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.roguelike.adom/msg/2a188ec27d25d06c), which allows for easy duplication of bushes.
-The r-pentomino (http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.roguelike.adom/browse_frm/thread/afbe30dd01aa94cf/d4c3102c6f4f83e3), which explodes into huge patterns that can be cut down for loads and loads of bushes.
-Game of Life simulator (http://www.bitstorm.org/gameoflife/), to help you predict how herbs will grow.

[Doalag]

I won't advise this advanced method to newbie because just one detail : "Watch out for stat increase messages as the game plays". That's enough to lower the attention on something else and start do many stupid errors. Sure that a trained player don't have this problem. Another way is for those on windows that allow them to cheat by using Sage, with sage no watch out required and it's fine.

[Grey]

If a newbie player isn't paying proper attention to all messages they're receiving than they're gonna stay a newbie player for a long time ;)

[warheart]

Pacifying the Big Room helps a lot with this...

So, noob question of the day. I've read many times about pacifying the big room, but, how do you pacify it?

[Nezur]

So, noob question of the day. I've read many times about pacifying the big room, but, how do you pacify it?

Instructions can be found here (http://www.andywlms.com/adom/adomgb-2-3.html).

[Macros]

There are two ways to pacify a big room - one require pick axe/wand of digging and wand of door creation with two charges, second require just wand of door creation, but you need much more charges here(around 15). Second way it my favourite. All you need to do is to create a room with wand of door creation, something like:



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#++++++++
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Edit: something is screwed with code, but I think the idea should be clear.


In next step you need to find any breeder(white worm or chaos rat for example), and lock him inside that room. Very important thing - room needs to have at least 40 squares. You need to be cautious here, because monsters can unlock doors(and you don't want it, you can lock doors with keys, or magic lock spell, but some strong monsters will be able to break them). Then wait untill room will be full of monsters, and this will stop monsters generation on whole level.

[Grey]

I personally prefer digging out the bottom-right corner. Simply dig in diagonally, and then excavate out a long room up the right-hand side of the level that's two squares wide. Add about 4 squares under the bottom wall and you'll have 40 spaces in total (GB has a proper diagram). Then just makes a door outside the corner square you dug up (with a wand of door creation) and lure in a jelly or worm that duplicates fast. Close the door on it, and wait outside the door listening to popping noises. Kill any humanoids that come near so they don't open the door. Eventually the room you made will fill up (check with a wand or scroll of monster detection) and no new monsters will get generated on the level. Kill off the remaining monsters outside and then harvest herbs in peace. I prefer to do all this whilst invisible - otherwise you'll keep getting attacked whilst digging.

[Doalag]

If you have a chance to simplify the game, caught it, I'd be curious to see a veteran be against that for newbie advice.

About reading all messages, play with pets first! Otherwise you really take care of all messages when you are stuck in a mass of jackals. You are reading carefully every messages including all those quite boredom? When reading reports from veteran playing a shared game (Rhea on the other forum), it's quite obvious that many didn't saw clearly during game the attributes changes, I could even say some didn't saw most.

[Dr. Sceptismo]

This would be my own guide on how best to use herbs:

Pepper petals are worth a lot in shops, and getting gold from these can be used for Garth training (sickness helps with this too y'know).



Is it a general rule in the game that when you increase stats with Garth or herbs, the <Stat> level at the time of eating or training counts, not the <Stat> level at the time of potential increase (level-up, regular check)?

--
Dr. S

[Grey]

Yes, it's only the level at the time of training that counts. And that includes any modifiers too (so it's the stat you see on the main window that counts and not the base stat).

[Nezur]

This an excellent herb thread so it's worth renewing for more people to see.

Additionally two tips that were not mentioned:

You can tell the condition of a herb bush if you have identified it by [a]pplying Herbalism
If you want to thin down herb patterns quickly you can use either Fire, Acid or Lightning Ball (all other non-icy explosions should work too)

[Silfir]

Bolts also work, if I remember correctly - all but frost bolts. At the very least, breath attacks of monsters can burn herbs - be very careful around fire lizards in the big room, as useful as they are to get rid of cats.

[Nezur]

At least the bolts of the PC do not work. Or if they do, they are very very unreliable. I cast Fire Bolt at herb bushes during my test multiple times without any effect.