Suicidal Dwarven Priest...

[Sturmgeweiht]

Hello. I have been playing ADOM for more than two years and every character is funnier to play ;)

This one was a Dwarf Priest... I did the black druid dungeon, saved the (living!) puppy and killed Hotzenplotz. Then I went to Dwarftown and killed the monster Thundarr told me to eliminate. The he told me to cross the (damn) animated forest... Tragedy.

I did not have two shields avaliable, so I changed into Coward mode and tried to go through. Damn trees started to swarm me and, although my god loved me quite a lot, he lost his patience and did not heal me...

Tried to escape with a scroll of teleportation in the last moments... But got swarmed anyway. I started zapping my wands with one HP left.

I accidentally killed myself in the process, hitting the '5' key.

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His achievements during his adventures:
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Cap, the dwarven priest, electrocuted himself with a wand of lightning!.
He scored 51607 points and advanced to level 13.
He survived for 0 years, 19 days, 1 hour, 34 minutes and 16 seconds (15636
turns).
Cap visited 32 places.
His strength score was modified by +1 during his career.
His willpower score was modified by +2 during his career.
His toughness score was modified by +3 during his career.
His mana score was modified by +4 during his career.
His perception score was modified by +1 during his career.
He ended his adventuring life on level 15 of the caverns of chaos.
792 monsters perished under his attacks.
The following two artifacts were generated during his adventure:
the si
the black torc
He possessed the following intrinsics:
He was fire resistant (gained through an item).
He was poison resistant.
He was cold resistant (gained through an item).
He was lucky.
He was cursed (gained through an item).
He was shock resistant (gained through an item).
He had the following talents: Alert, Healthy, Miser, Porter, Treasure
Hunter.
He had a final speed score of 110 (final base speed: 100).
He was despised by Morodwyn.
He asked for 8 divine interventions.
He was lawfully aligned.
He was slightly tainted by Chaos.

[Silfir]

The Animated Forest requires very careful handling.

- Two shields is good. your DV/PV should read something like 70/15 on coward.
- Two shields is very good, since you can't attack trees that way. If you don't attack trees, hitting the 5 key should lead to an open square in the right direction eventually. Just do it step by step and don't panic.
- Invisibility plus two shields makes you invincible, since only trees that you have attacked can attack you when you are invisible. Just bring enough food! Potions of invisibility won't do, so you have to wear a ring or cloak, and these increase food consumption heavily.

The Animated Forest is tedious, but certainly doable, and safer than the Dwarven Halls.

[Sturmgeweiht]

Thank you very much for the advice ;-). Now that I remember, just before going down to the animated forest I saw a rather nice shield, but did not pick it up because I did not want to burden myself.

By the way, I checked your blog the other day and the guides are simply great! Keep it up.

[gut]

A priest should have the darkness spell by then.
Darkness = 100% safe forest crossing.

[Silfir]

Darkness = 100% more annoying because there's ALL THOSE GODDAMN TREES YOU CAN'T EVEN SEE

(I kid, I kid. I once had to resort to Darkness and was surprised how well it works. You can just hold down the keys until you're on the other side. Takes ages in game time, but mere minutes in real time. You should wear a good weapon and switch on berserk mode, that will make it faster.)

[Jonas]

or, if you have enough door creation charges and teleport control and teleport you could enclose the stairways and lock them, and teleport (hopefully) to the other side, then enclose that one with doors too.

note: this works best if you already have crossed it.

but for me, I generally prefer the DH as it seems like they generate the stairs closer together for me, and the RNG hasnt really generated a bad monster for me there since I started up again this year

[Grey]

Invis + teleport also makes DH easier. But then the same with the animated forest... One cast of invis, and usually just 2 or 3 casts of teleport and you're across.

[Sturmgeweiht]

Will try to find invisibility, using darkness and wielding two shields :-P.

[Starhawk]

You might be better off just gaining a level or four. I commonly take characters across the Animated Forest without two shields, darkness, or invisibility -- but not at level 13. If you have decent armor you can just waltz across, and if you have a melee weapon that's worth anything you can waste time hacking away at the few trees that turn hostile while you're waiting for gaps to open.

Your stats were also poor (farm herbs!) and you were cursed. This probably contributed to your death.

[Nethack]

Do not take the DH! First time : Ancient blue dragon! thankfull for the seven league boots
second times was the diamond golem room, then ghost lord vault room, then ancient lich... and i survived thanks to teleportation.
Also, one thing to be reminded : taking the banshee to the animated forest is cool (in my experience you should critically wound her before doing that, but remind yourself that the more of a kind of monsters dies, the better they are generated... a lvl 50 animated tree does *alot* of damage.

[Maul]

... and i survived thanks to teleportation.

That's precisely what makes DH easier than the forest: not much can kill you if you have controlled teleportation, except for a GM or the like standing next to the stairs. And zapping a wand of monster detection can avoid even that.

[mike]

Also, one thing to be reminded : taking the banshee to the animated forest is cool (in my experience you should critically wound her before doing that, but remind yourself that the more of a kind of monsters dies, the better they are generated... a lvl 50 animated tree does *alot* of damage.

Well... this is only true if they are killed *by you*.

[JellySlayer]

Do not take the DH! First time : Ancient blue dragon! thankfull for the seven league boots
second times was the diamond golem room, then ghost lord vault room, then ancient lich... and i survived thanks to teleportation.
Also, one thing to be reminded : taking the banshee to the animated forest is cool (in my experience you should critically wound her before doing that, but remind yourself that the more of a kind of monsters dies, the better they are generated... a lvl 50 animated tree does *alot* of damage.

Tension rooms in the DH actually make it so much easier most of the time. With a tension room on the level, there might be 3 other random monsters at any given time, which makes it pretty safe. Just use a wand of monster detection at the start, identify the tension room, and don't open it! Even if you don't have the wand, just wander the level carefully and see if you can find the stairs without opening any doors. Or use check the doors with the stethoscope.

When I first started playing I always took the forest. Now I usually take DH... the forest is way too boring. Unless the level is really bad, even if a dangerous monster spawns, you can usually run away from it. The only real killers are greater daemons, unicorns, and very experienced quicklings.

Using the banshee on the trees doesn't increase their level. The trees only get stronger if you kill them.

[Dorten]

Using the banshee on the trees doesn't increase their level. The trees only get stronger if you kill them.
Yeah, but it increases HER level. So wait until she is superpowerful => lots of nearly free exp.