Challenge Games

[Baranor]

I have found challenge games all over the interweb for ADOM. I have tried many of them, but I feel like I'm missing many of them out there. Does anyone know if there is a fairly comprehensive list? I used to use Andy Williams, but I have done all of those as much as I would like to try. Any help would be much appreciated.

[DeSt]

Some are there - http://www.andywlms.com/adom/challenge.html
and i heard of "fling the bling" - complete the game using only coins as weapon.

[Baranor]

I've at least attempted most of those, but some of the others like spitting acid the whole game are new to me.

[Molach]

I have no skill (or patience) for the really weird ones there.

I have completed one (which was on the hall of fame forums a year or so back) - start the game on friday the 13th - and never remove the cursing. (Means no precrowns, no pool-driunking, no eating karmics, no reading unID scrolls that might be luck). Finish the game.

Oh, another one which I made up myself - the Drizzt challenge. Play a dark elf ranger, and never use anything other than dual-wielded dagger/scimitars for the whole game. Dual all the time. Completed that too.

So restricted games are easy to make, and can be fun and not masochistic to complete. And can be thematic too

How about a staff-wielding wizard (restart until you have a starting staff, then never use anything else in melee.Finally wanderer is not totally useless)

Idea from ToME: The "Unbeliever". He does not believe in gods nor in magic, just plain common sense. No praying or saccing or using altars, obviously like atheist man. Also, no scrolls, magic effect potions. Poison would be okay, confusion mabye too (hallucinating drug mabye?), blindness (methanol), Berzio, cure poison (antidote), oil and oil of rust removal, sickness, plain water (useless, of course), booze (just for drinking). No wands. No magical effect on weapons or items (no dragon scale mails). No articacs used, orbs just picked up and throw in the slots.
Herbs - No morgia, no moss of mareillon. Stomachemptia - I guess a powerful vomiting herb could produce this effect. Fillia - no i just don't buy that. A 2s herb filling up more than several orc corpses - nope. Alrunia antidote we can accept - powerful antidote. Curaria too - fights sickness, yeah that might work. I'd say pepper petal or spenseweed would have to be okay - have to have some healing. And there are certain medicines that help poeple...which can be interpreted as healing. I don't like this, but have no choice, as ToEF would probably be impossible without.
Eating a corpse for poison resistance would have some root in reality and is okay. But not eating other intrinsic-giving creatures.

The Unbeliever Challenge is thus born.

[Maul]

The problem with many of the challenges is indeed: where's the fun? Eternium Man and Iron Man are the best because there is always action and you can just keep trying every time you die. But for challenges like Steel Man... the wilderness monsters will eventually be the same so you'll probably just do the same thing over and over.:(

[vogonpoet]

After gut's obsession, I too have found myself increasingly just trying to go for victory in as few turns as possible - being in a hurry = constantly being out of depth = hard. ONly draw back with limited turns game is that you die a lot.

Similar but not quite as hard-core as Molach's suggestion, I have been trying recently Wizards who hate the written word after being abused by their masters - no reading at all in game, try to eat cursed corpes to achieve illiteracy, steal every book from library and burn them on top level of ToEF, etc etc.

[Kato]

start the game on friday the 13th - and never remove the cursing. (Means no precrowns, no pool-driunking, no eating karmics, no reading unID scrolls that might be luck)
hhmm...what happens if you eat a karmic being?

[Ars]

hhmm...what happens if you eat a karmic being?

It gives you luck. If doomed/cursed, that's removed, or otherwise gives Lucky, if you got that already, the Fate Smiles.

[Soirana]

How about a staff-wielding wizard (restart until you have a starting staff, then never use anything else in melee.Finally wanderer is not totally useless)

I'd rather go for quiksilver. At least I did that with mine staff wielding archer:)

[meh]

I've recently been playing a challenge game of my own. The only restriction is that you may not carry any gold at any point in the game. The biggest consequences of this are:

-You must play as a monk, as all other classes start with a bit of gold.
-You cannot train with Yergius or Garth.
-Glod won't teach you smithing or fix your stuff.
-You cannot buy anything.
-You cannot sacrifice gold.
-You cannot pickpocket (well you can, but that risk of instant failure is too big).

All game endings are possible with this restriction. The game is probably at the easy end of the spectrum of challenges, but still far from trivial. For someone like me, it's just the right level of difficulty.

[Laukku]

I've recently been playing a challenge game of my own. The only restriction is that you may not carry any gold at any point in the game. The biggest consequences of this are:

-You must play as a monk, as all other classes start with a bit of gold.
-You cannot train with Yergius or Garth.
-Glod won't teach you smithing or fix your stuff.
-You cannot buy anything.
-You cannot sacrifice gold.
-You cannot pickpocket (well you can, but that risk of instant failure is too big).

And you cannot sell anything.

[PeanutGod]

I've recently been playing a challenge game of my own. The only restriction is that you may not carry any gold at any point in the game. The biggest consequences of this are:

-You must play as a monk, as all other classes start with a bit of gold.
-

So basically, isn't that just a game as a monk that can't use money? Surely a challenge game would encompass all of the classes?

Better off picking any r/c, and then just dropping the gold at the start of the game.

[Covenant]

So basically, isn't that just a game as a monk that can't use money? Surely a challenge game would encompass all of the classes?

Better off picking any r/c, and then just dropping the gold at the start of the game.


Agreed. That aside though, it seems like a nice enough challenge. Not sure about the pickpocketing thing... I'd probably be more against 'Using' gold than having it.

[Laukku]

Agreed. That aside though, it seems like a nice enough challenge. Not sure about the pickpocketing thing... I'd probably be more against 'Using' gold than having it.

I think it'd be best to drop gold away immediately, when you get some. Simply carrying gold can be useful (GoGreed, training strength).

[heavensblade23]

I'm not sure what challenge games are worth doing at this point. I think the guy that killed Andor Drakon at level 1 pretty much took the fun out of it.

[PeanutGod]

Not at all, there are plenty of different variations you can try to liven the game up if it is getting boring for you.

How about - to think of a quick few

1) Complete the game as a vegetarian
2) A classic - kill one of every monster game - within reason
3) Collect one of every item - rather crazy, but I have tried it before - pre/suffixes excluded of course
4) Go blind. I think it was Soirana who tried this in the past. Not sure how far he got.
5) Use only a rock as a weapon
6) Never carry more than 100s at a time

Theres 6 - ok they might be a bit crappy, but it goes to show, the game can be made different. It doesn't always have to be the same!

[Grey]

There's also general class challenges. Play a monk that only kills things with his fists. Play a pure spellcaster. Pure melee, pure archer - all possibilities, and some of them quite fun. Pure mindcrafter would be quite a challenge (early on you're allowed to physically kill monsters confused with confusion blast). You can apply general restrictions to games like no altars, just to make things a little tougher. Fling the Bling is still an interesting challenge (merchant coin toss only) and you'd be surprised how fun it is to complete the game using only drakeling spit (you need to be a patient herb harvester though). And then of course there's the best which is still undefeated - Brimstone Man, where you go straight to the ToEF (no encounters allowed) and don't come out till you have the orb. This is fun in a "watch how fast your char can die" sort of way...

[PeanutGod]

Hmmm, a toughie indeed. Anyone tried this and got semi decent results? I'd imagine some sort of wizard would be good (with frost bolt of course). Although the burning might still prove an annoyance :D

[Baranor]

It would just be a random luck challenge. If you could restart over and over again until you had two rings of fire resistance and a spellbook of frostbolt. I think two rings and the spell book might allow you to gain a few levels, but I still don't know if you could really expect to get anywhere.

[Grey]

Wizard ain't much good - you can only read the books in the tower, which means both you and the book will burn before you get much spell knowledge. Elementalists are the obvious choice - they can start with two rings of fire resistance and begin with knowledge of Frost Bolt. However the challenge is still insanely hard, since you still take heat damage and some of the monsters can be very difficult. I've gotten to level 17 in the tower, with several levels pacified and the character building up nicely, only to die of starvation in the end. It's a fun challenge, but it tends to be short-lived to say the least.

[AlterAsc]

Got interested in "Unbeliever" challenge.Some questions:
Alchemy - is it normal to get "common-sense-potions of blindess/confusion/etc" from "uncommon-sense-ingridents"?Same question with assassin lvl6 class power - can i create poison from boost charisma?
Alchemy blasts?I think not normal,but who knows.
smth of penetration - common sense?
Since you can't eat BD corpse means no TPC.Ring of TPC is magical and can't be used.
Mindcrafters have TPC since lvl1 - is it ok for them to use generated TP traps to get somewhere?

Even more questions - crystals of light/fire/darkness - common, i think?
Scrolls of education - well, someone can write a manual,can't he?
Ring of the High Kings, common sense version - "some stupid guy wants to see stupid old ring, not a problem, right?".Only for passage of EG,before and after that usage of the ring is not allowed.
(Oh my god...just understood how many logs will be taken to Tomb to create normal bridge.)

[Dudley]

Got interested in "Unbeliever" challenge.Some questions:
Alchemy - is it normal to get "common-sense-potions of blindess/confusion/etc" from "uncommon-sense-ingridents"?Same question with assassin lvl6 class power - can i create poison from boost charisma?
Alchemy blasts?I think not normal,but who knows.
smth of penetration - common sense?
Since you can't eat BD corpse means no TPC.Ring of TPC is magical and can't be used.
Mindcrafters have TPC since lvl1 - is it ok for them to use generated TP traps to get somewhere?

Even more questions - crystals of light/fire/darkness - common, i think?
Scrolls of education - well, someone can write a manual,can't he?
Ring of the High Kings, common sense version - "some stupid guy wants to see stupid old ring, not a problem, right?".Only for passage of EG,before and after that usage of the ring is not allowed.
(Oh my god...just understood how many logs will be taken to Tomb to create normal bridge.)

Personnal opinion :
Alchemy : I don't think you should be allowed to make out of "uncommon-sense" items. Assassin class power is fine though, in my opinion.
Alchemy blast : NO.
penetration (or any suf-pre i can think of, save : balanced, barbed, extra-heavy, fragile, heavy, hefty, light, masterwork) should be forbidden IMO.
No for using magical trap (corruption and tp trap)
Crystals => fantasy. Maybe light as ok.
Scrolls, in general : (allowed IMO)blank, crumpled, education, IBM manual, information, literacy check, magic mapping (a map :P), monster aggravation (you saying motha fucka is probably going to get all monsters on the level hostile), papyrus, rat pamphlet, strange message, warning.
Ring is of course accepted on symbolic value. Or you kill ET, your choice.

[AlterAsc]

Crystals of fire - explosives exist. * of Darkness - yeah, probably unreal.
Ring of searching - can't say about it much, theoretically if thieves can search automatically, everyone shoud be able to?Or is it stupid magic?
Phase daggers - strange ultra-thin edge that "easily cuts through armor"?Though Ancardia doesn't have nanotechnology...probably.
And btw there are artifacts like Whirlwind(which doesn't give fire res when equiped properly) and Far Slayer - IRL they could be considered as an excellent items and thus given names.

[kapsi]

What about corruption? Does the unbeliever ignore that suddenly he has 12 eyes and hooves?

[littlebrather]

wands of acid, poison and fire probably are just like my spray cans =)

[fazisi]

Corruption exists in the ancient domain as much as nuclear radiation exists in our domain.

I don't want to dictate what is common sense and what isn't though. Many would agree with some and many would agree against it. If you can draw a direct parallel of an item to its real-life equivalent, then you can use it. I will give my opinion on some items though.

Potions: berzio, blindness, booze, carrot juice, cure poison, oil, oil of rust removal, poison, sickness, troll blood, water. All others, not allowed.

If alchemy allows for the creation of above mentioned potions, recipe can be used within reason. For example, booze from pepper petal and water would be allowed or blindness from burb root and carrot juice. Non-common-sense ingredients could possibly also be used. Maybe cure poison made from booze and potion of boost toughness. You can pretend ingredient potions are just "alchemical chemical mixtures" if you want to really. Alchemical explosions aren't realistic.

Penetration weapons seem to function using some sort of dimension-phasing technology. Not allowed.

Mindcrafters depend if you believe that telepathic and telekinetic powers exist in ADOM. Since several monsters exist in the Drakalor Chain who have powers over the character's mind, one could say yes. It is also assumed that it is these strong powers of mind which allow a character to control teleportation. I don't know the precise rules of Unbeliever but I haven't seen anyone teleport into my house yet.

Scrolls of education could be used. I would like to think all the reading I do at school teaches me something. Consider them written manuals or diagrams. Expect the occasional strange result though. *imagines a scroll with the images of a dagger with an arrow directing it into something's back*

Ring of the High Kings for guardian passage is understandable. I could totally see this happening in a real life quest to save the world. The ring is unique and recognizable (it was worn by the ruler of the entire known world) and the eternal guardian could be a really old dude.

Crystals are just shiny rocks. You can pick them up and sell them as precious stones, but not as magical devices.

Certainly more prefixes. Balanced, barbaric, barbed, brutal, corrupting (if we agree corruption is essential part of ADOM), extra-heavy, fragile, heavy, hefty, light, masterwork, murderous, nasty, unwieldy, weeping, and wicked.

As for missile weapons, no penetrating or winged missiles prefixes and no suffixes. One could make an argument for the logic behind ammo of darkness, claiming that while there is no "darkness", certain ammunitions could be used to effectively blind your opponent.

I agree with Dudley's scroll list.

When you start looking at wands, rings, amulets and etc. they should not be allowed. These are the fantasy icons of curvy stick and lumps of metal seeming to hold mystic powers. Artifacts are also disallowed on the basis they are indestructable gifts from some higher power. Artifacts should be allowed to be generated but using them for any purpose other than rational reasons is disallowed.

Some possible explanations of artifact use:
Chaos orbs - To beat the game
Chaos trinity - If all other sources of corruption is accepted as inevitable in ADOM world, so should these. The power granted by wearing these items can be associated with the twisting powers of corruption on character's body.
Raw steel - Similar reasoning as the chaos trinity
Perion's mithril plate mail - A really sweet suit of plate mail. This artifact is so underpowered, most won't argue against someone using it.
Axe of the minotaur emperor - Giant cow emperor's axe is truly this bad ass. If someone is willing and brave enough to navigate the minotaur labyrinth with Unbeliever restrictions, he should be rewarded with the use of this weapon.
Golden gladius - This is essentially the counter strike knife. Also acceptable to give to grizzled gladiator in exchange for training.
Scythe of corruption - Corruption is part of ADOM.
Ring of the High Kings - Only for Eternal Guardian passage.
Boots of great speed - Similar reasoning as the chaos trinity.

[gut]

> What about corruption? Does the unbeliever ignore that suddenly he has 12 eyes and hooves?

radiation isn't necessarly magic. Maybe his genes mutate like bruce banner :D

[Molach]

"A lich screams words of magic! You are confused"

Easily explained to an unbeliever. A lich screams what he believes are words of magic! This is obviously very confusing to our character. Why wouldn't the lich just attack instead? Hm. I am sure confused.

I won't speculate into the "barrage of golden balls". I could, but for reason best left unmentioned, I won't.

Energy ray is quite obviously some sort of laser. These creatures must have evolved/mutated to the point where they can [enter long phrase about how high-energy laser beams may be formed] in their own bodies. Unusual, but hardly 'magic'.

Undead as a race we explain like in 'Zombie survival guide' or 'Resident evil'. Virus. And dragons aren't much weirder than dinosaurs.

Artifacts per se may be okay, only trouble is what powers they confer. A great sling or crossbow, that happens to be made of a material rendering them extremely hard to destroy are okay. +critical hits should be okay, every char gets a critical hit every now and then, and that some weapons are better balanced and therefore seem to hit better is okay. A ring, for instance, should not ever give this ability. Neither can a ring give 'protection from fire' because a tiny ring is only capable of protecting a small bit of finger, not your whole body. A 'red' armor giving such protection is okay, surely. What do firemen wear again? Same with white armors, that just means it's properly insulated to resist freezing.

Radiation, yes that is what so-called corruption is. Would also explain the purple glow certain creatures get.

Now off to explain teleport traps...

[Dudley]

I won't speculate into the "barrage of golden balls". I could, but for reason best left unmentioned, I won't.
It's obvious though : the lich digged to get pools, found frogs with a glowing ball in them, and sends them to you after having made them heat in a furnace. Unfortunately, droplets of ball hurt then evaporate.

[enter long phrase about how high-energy laser beams may be formed]
You mean, make a resonance chamber made of ruby and put some light in it? Then the ruby is destroyed because their muscles containing the ruby no longer work when you kill them, thus making them destroy from the inside. It's also the reason they do not leave corpses.


And dragons aren't much weirder than dinosaurs.
Breathing attacks being generated by some kind of glands inside.

A ring, for instance, should not ever give this ability.
Nor can they iirc. Unless wielded, because hitting someone in the eye with a ring hurts them like hell... And some are balanced enough to allow you to do that.

Now off to explain teleport traps...
Quantum effect. They are a device which disrupts your atoms, send them through guided tunnel effect to another random place, then give them back form. At distance.

[Molach]

Made a typo, was supposed to be glowing balls, not golden. And I did not thnk about the kind you'd ever consider playing soccer with either...hehe. Go QPR.

[kapsi]

Quantum effect. They are a device which disrupts your atoms, send them through guided tunnel effect to another random place, then give them back form. At distance.
What if we assume everything is nanotechnology? Or better yet...what if the PC believes he is in some sort of virtual reality...controlled by an outside intelligence...a "player" of sort. This could be called...Paranoid Man.

[Dudley]

What if we assume everything is nanotechnology? Or better yet...what if the PC believes he is in some sort of virtual reality...controlled by an outside intelligence...a "player" of sort. This could be called...Paranoid Man.


"You shoot an arrow at the rat. Dudley says : "You shall pay for your cowardice!" You are hit by a bolt of raw power! You are turned to steel. You wake up."

[Molach]

Have had an idea for a new challenge. This is adapted from a gaming idea from someone else a year or two ago, but I'm probably the first to put it as a 'challenge'. Since it is not on the _list_ and all.

I might call it the longevity challenge, or the suck up to the RNG challenge, or the grinding challenge, or the Molach challenge. But

"THE TEAM CHALLENGE" it shall be.

The Challenge:
Start up 10 games, one with each race. The PCs all must have unique classes. Style points for choosing appropriate ones.. (elf archer, dark elf assassin, troll barbarian, orc priest, gnome wizard and so forth) but up to the player. Apart from that, and obvious rules like "do not savescum" thats it for rules.

Except for the TEAM. Which means, you must prove your advanced ADOMing skills and take them all home to victory. Yeap, all. One dies, you scrap all other savegames and try again.

To keep with the team spirit challenge of things, you must never allow a gap of more than 10 levels between the PCs without switching chars (to the lowest levelled one). For instance, you can take one char to level 12 (or even to level 15 if you went from 11-15 in one kill) but then need to change to one of the level 1s. You can also of course change PC earlier if you wish.

Short Rules:
Start up 10 games, all different races and classes. Finish the game with all 10 without any deaths. If more than a 10-level gap between the PC should develop you switch to (one of) the lowest-level characters.

Strategy:
Choosing races and classes carefully seems to be a given, so you give races weak in one area a class that can compensate for it. The rule about forcing the challenger to keep switching characters is to avoid it being played like "win 10 times in a row", but more like a team game. It has the added benefit of keeping the challenger confused about which character did what and so forth. So (how this was originally thought out to be played) a good stategy might be to play the chars to the same point - Finish starting dungeon with all, then reach dwarftown with all, then ...whatever. The Troll character will probably soon be the 'advance scout' for the party...until he starts levelling too much up from the balors from the deep. I hope the rules are clear that you will not FAIL the challenge if a big gap appears (after you gain 20 levels from killing cat lord or something) it just means change character. But remember, lose one and you delete them all, even the unplayed level 1 cannon fodder waiting behind the scenes. So it could be called the 'endless PC genetative' challenge as well. I foresee that one would need either a memory bank like mr. Cray, or take careful notes about the progress of PCs. I also foresee a great lot of cursing. That is what I did when I had a team around level 13-17, all at dwarftown, when I managed to get killed with the bleeding WIZARD. Never tried it since.

I guess it could be evolved to the LEGION challenge, in which you get 2 of each race, and 1 of every class. 20 guys. Take em all home.

Or how about starting small, the ADVENTURE PARTY challenge. Take 4 guys, Dwarf, Elf, Human and...whatever. Fighter, Priest, Wizard and Thief. Same rules, win with them.
-M

[Grey]

Instead of 10 levels, maybe "never leave a dungeon alone"? As in every dungeon each character does the others must do at the same time.

10 chars is pretty crazy though. One is bound to get horribly bored at some point, and then frustrated at a stupid death.

[fazisi]

I would play a scaled down "D&D circle" challenge. This sort of challenge game could very easily be turned into a community challenge game. Simultaneous server games with irc sounds pretty fun.

Possible rules:
Four simultaneous characters, each with a unique race/class combination. They must fill sufficiently different roles. (i.e. druid, mindcrafter, beastfighter, merchant).
All characters must enter the same dungeon at the same time.
All characters must be within 10 dungeon levels and 5 character levels of each other.
Trolls are permitted to have a some (50%?) level penalty from the highest level character.
Party alignment cannot contain a L alignment and C alignment at the same time.

Winning:
You are allowed to win with a subset of your starting team (i.e. your mindcrafter dies in a horrible acid vortex accident) but to get a true win, your entire party must complete the the game.

Special cases:
If any member is to attempt some ultra ending, they must pass through the Chaos Gate before any member closes it. (Mega bonus points for the most members to accomplish ultra endings.)

[Molach]

Instead of 10 levels, maybe "never leave a dungeon alone"? As in every dungeon each character does the others must do at the same time.

Perhaps. But a diverse team should probably do different dungeons. Silly to drag the beastfighter through the library, and for strong starting chars going through the UD is a good thing (speeds up the pace in the game greatly). Rule is a bit easier to enforce. 10+, you switch. Each as heck. But style points, again, for taking it as a team. You still can.


10 chars is pretty crazy though. One is bound to get horribly bored at some point, and then frustrated at a stupid death.
In order:

Yes
I would not agree with boring part, as you play over as much time as you want. The suspense is always there, more so than any other game. One false step and ...kaBooM
Oh yes, totally frustrated


There is a good balance here, you can't play too conservatively or you will get bored out of your mind. A challenge not for the most brilliant player, but the most thorough ones.

Great idea about the Adventure Party as community game. Just make sure there is no weakest link in the party... I'd simply disallow trolls as player race, and keep the 10 level

[AlterAsc]

Special cases:
If any member is to attempt some ultra ending, they must pass through the Chaos Gate before any member closes it. (Mega bonus points for the most members to accomplish ultra endings.)
I think it would be a nice joke if some member did OCG, others closed the gate and new poor chaos god would not have the gate to Ancardia to send minions.
'And instead of sending Chaos troops to Ancardia every couple of centuries you suffer from boredom, go insane and kill yourself.'

[Sian]

got an idea for another challenge

Elitist Jerk

Never use any item in any slots unless its an artifact...
bonus points for doing it with a character without spells or Natually boosted unarmed fighting (ie. Beastfighter & Monk)

Double Bonus if you never carry anything but Artifacts (dropping as soon as you make sure stuff aren't an artifact which should be done asap)

[Molach]

Great idea, and simple too. "A designer knows he has attained perfection, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to take away"

Another of these hard-to-start-but-growing-easier-but-still-some-restrictions-near-the-end challenges.

I'd disallow full bonus with drakelings as well.

[gut]

snobman challenge! how funny :D

[Soirana]

got an idea for another challenge

Elitist Jerk

Never use any item in any slots unless its an artifact...
bonus points for doing it with a character without spells or Natually boosted unarmed fighting (ie. Beastfighter & Monk)


Marks this as to do thing for 2011. Surely as assassin since if i do not make this my Adom geekishnes won't be complete

[Molach]

I'll start today. Got an idea of sorts which should be pretty easy to test out and see if works.

[JellySlayer]

Double Bonus if you never carry anything but Artifacts (dropping as soon as you make sure stuff aren't an artifact which should be done asap)

I like this idea.

What should be done about food? Only eat stuff you find on the ground?

[gut]

only livesac crownings would be practical, thus reducing the value of dt altar

edit: I see pictures of me rolling troll fighter/barbarian/assasin and looking for SMC altar

EDIT2: poor khelly

[Dudley]

No special ending.
Poor smith. (happy too, you're not gonna kill them... are you?)
Poor wizards. Poor archers.

[fazisi]

I won't try it.

[Albahan]

I won't try it.

Me neither, I hate elitists.

[JellySlayer]

I like this idea.

What should be done about food? Only eat stuff you find on the ground?

Trying this as a Dwarf ranger. Got to level 10, found a N altar in the DD. Tediously worked up to a livesac crowning... got the elven longbow :mad:

Guess I didn't have much chance of a useful gift as a ranger anyway... I'll see if sun's messenger is any good as a missile. I guess it still probably slays undead.

[_Ln_]

got an idea for another challenge

Elitist Jerk

Never use any item in any slots unless its an artifact...
bonus points for doing it with a character without spells or Natually boosted unarmed fighting (ie. Beastfighter & Monk)

Double Bonus if you never carry anything but Artifacts (dropping as soon as you make sure stuff aren't an artifact which should be done asap)

I vote for a special bonus for anyone who chooses a thief, gets crowned with Silver Key and uses only it in weapon slot.

[Dudley]

I vote for a special bonus for anyone who chooses a thief, gets crowned with Silver Key and uses only it in weapon slot.
Meh. Thieves have relatively easy access to a *good* artifact weapon.

[gut]

> I vote for a special bonus for anyone who chooses a thief, gets crowned with Silver Key and uses only it in weapon slot.

women's-self-defense challenge

[Grey]

Women use keys as weapons? I must admit I've never witnessed this myself...

[fazisi]

You don't know the damage a thrown set of keys can do?

[gut]

you don't throw the keys. doh

In modern female-self-defense classes, they teach females (who are less
likely to carry switchblades than one might imagine) to use whatever they
have available if they are attacked. Since most females DO carry keys, they
are trained to go for them immediately if attacked. A key can make for a
servicible weapon (better than fingernails at any rate), and make it much
less likely for the female to panic, just because they have been trained on
what to do.

[Grey]

My girlfriend's keys would act more like a flail than a dagger, due to the high proportion of uselss bloody keyrings. Could certainly take someone's eye out, I suppose...

[Dudley]

(better than fingernails at any rate)
You, sir. Did you ever get fingernailed?

[Theym]

One of my friends back in HS got fingernailed, for some reason there were more scraches in his mouth than on his face..... It looked painful, but if she'da had a key, I do believe she'da gone for the jugular.

[fazisi]

Go for the eyes.