Platnium Girdle

[Vertex007]

Is the Platnium Girdle still around or ever was around?
Has anyone ever actually been able to get it.

Just wondering.

[Jonas]

the most I have heard was that it is around, but no one has been able to get it legitly yet

[Grey]

There are several legit occurances of it in the hall of fame. It's very difficult though. The only requirement is not committing any unlawful acts. However this can be difficult as it means no pickpocketing monsters that aren't attacking you and no killing lawful creatures (including dwarves and blink dogs - the latter are most difficult since teleport control is almost essential in the game). You can't kill lawfuls even if they start hostile to you - it's considered a chaotic act anyway. You also can't attack non-hostiles without certain tricks (so killing Hotzenplotz can be a chaotic act).

You get a big points bonus for going through as a "true paragon of order", and you get the platinum girdle as well obviously. But the girdle only comes on D50, which is pretty damned useless if you ask me.

[Jonas]

yeah, I almost had this with my last game, but I accidently killed a freindly monster on the water temple without thinking of it... :(

[Grey]

Oh yeah, another problem is backstabbing, which can be considered a chaotic act (even if you don't get the "are sure you want to attack" message). The druid quest is also chaotic for lawfuls (it draws you toward neutral alignment). I figure the best chance for getting the girdle is dwarven mindcrafter - starts with Detect Traps and Teleport Control. Just have to be careful that bolt and ball mindcrafts don't hit friendlies.

I've tried courting this challenge briefly before and simply never enjoyed it. I really want to get the platinum girdle some time but it's just so horribly boring to play! It gets in the way of fun, which is no good in my books.

[Macros]

However this can be difficult as it means no pickpocketing monsters that aren't attacking you and no killing lawful creatures

I've heard something slighty different - that no lawful creature can die during game(obviously this includes lawful mobs killed by traps or other creatures). I'm not sure if it's true - never managed to get platinum girdle.

[Grey]

I've heard something slighty different - that no lawful creature can die during game(obviously this includes lawful mobs killed by traps or other creatures). I'm not sure if it's true - never managed to get platinum girdle.

That's not true, thankfully. The challenge has been completed by someone who got an OCG even, which means a farmer must die. It's also been done by someone who got the raw steel artifacts (which means killing Thrundarr - I presume a pet was used).

[Elone]

Oh yeah. I keep forgetting about using pets to kill stuffs. By using pets, you can kill all those things that you otherwise arent allowed to. Including blink dogs and white and black unicorns, whose corpses all have beneficial effex *cough*. Cats too, meow.

[Zeno]

That's not true, thankfully. The challenge has been completed by someone who got an OCG even, which means a farmer must die. It's also been done by someone who got the raw steel artifacts (which means killing Thrundarr - I presume a pet was used).

Do you have references for that? In Alex Pinachos's Ayukawa, Illiterate Platinum ULE, the farmer was apparently killed after obtaining Platinum Girdle (AFAIK Baba Yaga's quest itself is also a chaotic act). I suppose that the raw steel artifacts were also obtained after PG.

[Grey]

Hmm, I was basing my statement on this flg (http://adom.brinkster.net/hof/flg_disp.asp?display=karya.txt), where the character generated the raw steel artifacts and the chaos trinity along with True Strength. But looking in more detail though the PC isn't wearing the platinum girdle, and doesn't have the appropriate "true paragon of order" line in the summary. There's also a blink dog in the kill list (though no farmer or ancient dwarf, so a pet must have been used for them). This is odd actually - why is there a blink dog in the kill list when the char was a ULE? I suppose a spell accident would explain it...

I note that Alex Pinacho's illiterate platinum UCG does indeed contain a farmer in the kill list - I hadn't realised before that his tactic was to get the girdle then retcon on it. Evidently lawful deaths must be disallowed entirely, otherwise he would have had a pet kill the farmer and kept the paragon status.

[Jonas]

about that one....

notice that all the skill sets are at 100 and that every weapon skill is at grant mastery, and that many spells are above 10k, and all the attributes are at 99...

all in 62 days.

Possible?

I think not.

[warheart]

Well, I think that should be possible with hundreds of wishes (wish engine via gremlin bomb, or something). What I find kinda strange is the number of times the player asked for divine intervention, 1495 seems a bit high imo :P Maybe exploiting integer piety bug for many precrownings or something like that, but still it seems a bit much. Anyway, not that I can really comment about this kind of chars, I'm noob in ADOM :(

[Grey]

The character did indeed abuse the piety bug and generate a wish engine - both fairly dirty tactics in my books. The same goes for many of Alex Pinachos' chars. The sad thing is it's just really not necessary, and it takes all the fun out of the game.

[gut]

Wish engines, piety abuse, they both equal exploration
mode to me.

[Smite]

Umm..

I've been playing ADOM for about 4 years and I know Andy's Guidebook pretty much backwards. So I feel kind of stupid asking, but:

What is a wish engine, and how do I make it work?

What is a Gremlin Bomb?

Also, is there somewhere that gives a detailed explanation of how to exploit the piety bug. I had a character once that found a chaos alter, and a lawful alter on adjoining levels in the UD. Apparently this is a good start?

[Grey]

A wish engine means getting infinite wishes. Usually this is done through dipping rings into potions of exchange on D8 to get RoDSes, then spending the wishes on more potions of exchange to get more wishes etc. This requires a lot of luck to get started (unless you have an early potion shop). It should only really be used for testing since it breaks the game horribly.

Gremlin bomb means setting up a situation where infinte gremlins are spawning from a water trap. The infinite gremlins are then pickpocketed and killed off for items. Can be done in the gremlin cave, but it's fairly low level for items (no RoDSes there) so people who abuse this usually either read scrolls of danger there or take a fluff ball to somewhere else like the dwarven graveyard. Considered a very scummy tactic, but some people justify this as a way to get an AoLS for Khelly (personally I avoid it).

Piety abuse I won't describe - the information's out there if you really want to use it. It's a disgusting tactic, and most importantly a buig, so exploiting it in a normal game is often considered cheating.

[gut]

I'll do it! I'm feeling a bit C right now.
Well, maybe just CN, sense it is a pretty
dull tactic, I will just give a summary of
it.

Every time you pray, you lose a bit of
piety. If you pray repeatedly, you would
lose so much piety, that your diety would
start to hate you. Someone discovered a
bug in the game, that makes the piety
numbers loop around, if your diety hates
you enough. So with enough praying,
your piety would eventually loop around
to an insanely high number.

I think it would break the game slightly
less than a wish engine, because you
are limited to fewer benefits. Like an
unlimited source of healing, PP's restoring,
poison curing, precrowning, uncursing,
and so on. It's definitely a bug though.

[Grey]

I'll do it! I'm feeling a bit C right now.
Well, maybe just CN, sense it is a pretty
dull tactic, I will just give a summary of
it.

Not that C evidently since you don't describe how to do it safely :P Since I'm leaning on NC at the mo I will say that key ingredients are usually L alignment, ID, darkness or wands of door creation and keys/locking, holy symbol, '_' key. Give some imagination as to how they can be applied together. Not actually done it before myself, but I know the theory well enough.

[Jonas]

teleport can be handy too, and door creation is mainly for C alignment

[Smite]

Actually come to think of it I think I have heard of some of these tactics. Is the idea to surround yourself with locked doors so that the the solars, gray slayers can't get to you. If so, I'm guessing you put the doors around the staircase so that you can exit the level safely?

I must agree with the other comments though; personally I've never explored the wish engines, or gremlin bombs.

Where does luring the Banshee to the Animated Forrest come into it? I've done that. Also whenever I get to the Casino I usually find at least one artifact in the shop. Along with a Girdle of Greed you could spend as much time as you like in the Casino buying out the shop and waiting for a particular Artifact. Any comments?

[vogonpoet]

Thats a pretty dull way of trying to generate more artifacts.... NOt generating any of the guaranteed artifacts, then chilling out in the ID until you reach Level 50 sounds much more fun.

[Covenant]

Back to the original topic (though I know it was slightly dead), I really think the Platinum Girdle restrictions were just too excessive to make it a fun, or even reasonable, challenge. Things like, no backstabbing, no attacking non-hostiles, etc, would be fine - but 'No lawfuls must die' is ridiculous. When you get ambushed by Blink Dogs on a corridor of one of the early dungeons, there's not much you can do.

A moot point, of course, given that development on ADOM is dead, but here are some alternative platinum girdle restrictions I would have preferred:

- No eating chaotic/undead/chaos corpses (so no snacking on goblins or orcs!)
- No attacking non-hostiles (only the 'Are you sure you want to attack y/n?' ones, though).
- No attacking monsters while invisible.
- No pickpocketing (period).
- No robbing stores/the Water Dragon.
- No accepting the Kranach reward (i.e, leave the gold on the ground).
- All Chaos Corpses (they'd be guaranteed to be generated) must be taken to the Druid in Terinyo.
- Holy Water must be poured on Grif's grave, either instead of or after he's killed in melee, but before leaving the level after killing the necromancer. If you follow me.
- No ratling/Gaab'Bay quests.
- No gambling in the Casino.
- All lawful quests must be completed (i.e, Thrundarr's, Water Dragon, White Unicorn, Rynt/Guth'Alak, Kranach AND Puppy quest (a pain in the ass, believe me, I have to do both every time because of my OCD)) excluding the 'Kill Hotzenplotz' one (alternatively, make Hotzenplotz hostile if bandit town is visited after receiving this quest).
- No grave digging.
- 90 day time limit - it's unlawful to allow the background Chaos corruption to proceed to such a high degree.

Also:
+ It's permitted to attack hostiles of any alignment.
+ No penalties for friendly/otherwise creatures dying.

Would have made an Ultra platinum ending impossible, but it'd still be fun, at least.

[Epythic]

Back to offtopic, namely to wish engines:

So if I'd just wish for rings and potions of exchange, what do you think how many wishes (acquired from elsewhere) would i need to get it started?

[Laukku]

Back to offtopic, namely to wish engines:

So if I'd just wish for rings and potions of exchange, what do you think how many wishes (acquired from elsewhere) would i need to get it started?

Hmm... The chance of getting =oDSes is something like 1/30 on DH:2. I have gotten them a few times, the chance is reasonably high IMO. So when you dip 19 stacking rings and get djinni rings, you must bless them and use around 10 wishes for potions of exchange to get 30 potions. This leaves 9 free wishes per round. Occasionally water must be wished for and blessed, but water is easily found.

EDIT:Never done this myself, this is just theory. I've never found enough stacking rings and !oExes in one game.

[Grey]

Best place to ring-dip is D8 - going deeper reduces your chances (it/s about 4/100 there, about 3/100 in DH2). From what I hear you want a buffer of about 70 blessed potions of exchange at all times, so all your first wishes should be PoEx to get this many ASAP (70/3 = 23). Personally I'd be extra cautious and always keep it over 100. You also need many wishes spent on water and a nearby altar for blessing them.

[Laukku]

Best place to ring-dip is D8 - going deeper reduces your chances (it/s about 4/100 there, about 3/100 in DH2). From what I hear you want a buffer of about 70 blessed potions of exchange at all times, so all your first wishes should be PoEx to get this many ASAP (70/3 = 23). Personally I'd be extra cautious and always keep it over 100. You also need many wishes spent on water and a nearby altar for blessing them.

4/100=1/25! Wow!

And what does that "70/3 = 23" mean?


Personally I'd be extra cautious and always keep it over 100.
IMHO keeping even 70 potions is extra cautious :p Even 50 is enough for a long time.

[Grey]

You need 70 PoEx, and you get an average of 3 per wish, so it'd take about 23 wishes just to build up the necessary initial buffer.

[gut]

Perhaps it is just my distorted opinion, but I
think a memory editor would be easier.

[Epythic]

*THAT* would be cheating :)

[Grey]

I believe gut was trying to make a point along those lines... Not that wish engines are cheating, but they reduce the game to the "what's the point?" position in the same way as cheating. What's the point in playing a wish engined game? There really isn't one, unless you're just doing testing.

[gut]

Yep. Wish engines, memory editors, they both equal 'exploration mode' to me.

[Epythic]

The difference is that a memory editor bypasses the engine.
Wish engines, on the other hand, are a legitimate strategy...

Seriously, the real problem is that TB is not fixing it.

See why I want the source code? ;)

Disclaimer: your decision, TB, no offense intended.
Quote: sir, I may disagree with your choice of license, but I shall defend to the death your right to choose it.

(i like that quote)

[gut]

> The difference is that a memory editor bypasses the engine.
> Wish engines, on the other hand, are a legitimate strategy...

They are both legitimate strategies, as far as game-play is concerned.
Wish engines/memory editors do the exact same thing to game-play
(squish it like a bug), the only difference is that one method takes far
longer.

Any victory that uses piety bug, wish engine, or memory editor,
just feels to me, like an exploration mode victory.