YASD - Human Merchant, Mana Temple

[LFk]

:( :( :(



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Bill Gates St:14 Le:30 Wi:32 Dx:20 To:17 Ch:29 Ap: 1 Ma:14 Pe:13 N=
DV/PV: 43/39 H: -58(297) P: 0(142) Exp: 34/5024465 MT Sp: 121
Blessed Strained
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Inventory
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Total weight: 4232 stones Carrying capacity: 3080 stones

He: cursed crown of leadership [+2, +7] {Ch+18} [65s]
Ne: cursed amulet of death ray resistance [7s]
Bo: cursed red dragon scale mail (-1, -4) [-1, +15] [220s]
Gi: cursed eternium girdle [+0, +4] [12s]
Cl: cursed cloak of defense [+5, +0] [20s]
RH: cursed rune-covered heavy mace "Purifier" (+5, 4d5+5) [-4, +1] {Wi+4}
LH: cursed tower crystal shield (-2) [+13, +6] [260s]
RR: cursed ring of the High Kings [+2, +3] [1s]
LR: cursed ring of mental stability [+3, +1] {Le+1} [1s]
Br: cursed bracers of regeneration [+0, +0] [18s]
Ga: cursed elemental gauntlets (-1, +0) [+0, +3] [10s]
Bo: cursed seven league boots [+1, +0] [30s]
MW: cursed heavy crossbow of accuracy (+9, +3) [140s]
Mi: bundle of 8 cursed penetrating quarrels (-1, 2d6) [16s]
Tl: cursed torch (806 turns of fuel remaining, lit) [10s]


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Stuff
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Total weight: 3222 stones Carrying capacity: 3080 stones

Helmets ('[')
(snip)
One-handed weapons ('(')
cursed sword of sharpness (+0, 4d8+6) [35s]
cursed dagger of death (+0, 5d5+3) [10s]
cursed eternium dagger of penetration (+1, 2d4+7) [5s]
cursed spear of penetration (+1, 1d8+1) [50s]
cursed sword of sharpness (+0, 4d8+5) [35s]
cursed pick axe of slaughtering (+0, 2d8+2) [75s]
Missiles ('/')
bundle of 6 cursed quarrels of undead slaying (+5, 2d6+3) [24s]
bundle of 3 cursed quarrels of undead slaying (+3, 2d6+6) [12s]
bundle of 6 cursed quarrels of giant slaying (+3, 2d8+3) [24s]
bundle of 8 cursed quarrels of undead slaying (+3, 2d6+3) [32s]
bundle of 3 cursed quarrels of jelly slaying (+3, 2d6+3) [12s]
cursed quarrel of dragon slaying (+3, 2d6+3) [4s]
bundle of 5 cursed quarrels of undead slaying (+2, 2d6+3) [20s]
bundle of 9 cursed quarrels of construct slaying (+4, 2d6+3) [36s]
bundle of 6 cursed quarrels of slaying (+1, 2d6) [12s]
bundle of 3 cursed quarrels of undead slaying (+4, 2d6+3) [12s]
(snip)



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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 18
Daggers & knives 7 +6 +3 +1 skilled 404
Clubs & hammers 3 +2 +1 +0 basic 65
Maces & flails 12 +12 +8 +4 Mastery 55
Swords 7 +5 +3 +2 skilled 298
Axes 3 +2 +1 +0 basic 65
Whips 1 +1 +0 +1 basic 25
Pole arms 7 +7 +3 +6 skilled 66
Twohanded weapons 1 +1 +1 +0 basic 25
Staves 1 +1 +0 +1 basic 25

(snip)

Shields Lvl DV Level Required marks
--------------------- --- --- ------------- --------------
Shields 10 +20 excellent 1187

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Skills
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Appraising ................100 (superb) [+2d4]
Backstabbing ..............100 (superb) [+1d5]
Bridge building ........... 62 (good) [+1d5] (mr)
Climbing ..................100 (superb) [+1d5]
Concentration ............. 87 (great) [+2d4]
Courage ...................100 (superb) [+3d5]
Detect item status ........100 (superb) [+1d5]
Detect traps .............. 76 (great) [+1d5]
Dodge ..................... 14 (mediocre) [+3d4]
Find weakness ............. 52 (good) [+1]
First aid ................. 58 (good) [+1d5]
Food preservation .........100 (superb) [+1d5]
Gemology ..................100 (superb) [+2d4]
Haggling .................. 62 (good) [+3d5]
Healing ...................100 (superb) [+1d5]
Herbalism .................100 (superb) [+2d4]
Listening .................100 (superb) [+2d4]
Literacy ..................100 (superb) [+1d5]
Metallurgy ................ 59 (good) [+3d4]
Pick pockets ..............100 (superb) [+2d4]
Smithing .................. 52 (good) [+1d5]
Stealth ................... 69 (good) [+1d3]
Survival .................. 46 (fair) [+3d5]
Swimming .................. 79 (great) [+2d4]
Tactics ................... 72 (great) [+1]
Two weapon combat ......... 31 (fair) [+1d5]

[LFk]

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Spells
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Create Item : 9, 477pp (Effectivity: +0)
Darkness : 7, 7pp (Effectivity: +0)
Fire Bolt : 41, 15pp (Effectivity: +4)
Fireball : 2, 39pp (Effectivity: +1)
Ice Ball : 10, 47pp (Effectivity: +0)
Light : 1, 5pp (Effectivity: +0)
Neutralize Poison: 19, 18pp (Effectivity: +0)


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Effects of Corruption
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You have grown a total of 12 eyes (Ap: -6, Pe: +6).
You have grown thorns (3d3 melee damage, Dx: -2, Ap: -3).
You have become very light (1/10 weight, St: -6, Dx: +4, To: -6, Ap: -6, +20
speed).
Your antennae explore the details of your environment (Ap: -4).
You rage (DV: -9, +6 melee damage)!
You have grown a bulging cranium (Le: +6, Wi: +4, Ap: -6, PV: -4, To: -3).



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His achievements during his adventures:
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Bill Gates, the human merchant, was blasted with energy by Nuurag-Vaarn, the
invisible Chaos Archmage.
He scored 559333 points and advanced to level 34.
He survived for 0 years, 60 days, 6 hours, 39 minutes and 41 seconds (83650
turns).
Bill Gates visited 107 places.
His strength score was modified by +7 during his career.
His learning score was modified by +7 during his career.
His willpower score was modified by +8 during his career.
His dexterity score was modified by +6 during his career.
His toughness score was modified by +16 during his career.
His charisma score was modified by -1 during his career.
His appearance score was modified by +1 during his career.
His perception score was modified by -5 during his career.
He was unnaturally aged by 2 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 ended his adventuring life in the temple of elemental Mana.
4528 monsters perished under his attacks.
The following 18 artifacts were generated during his adventure:
the si
the scythe of corruption "Moon Sickle"
the golden gladius "Death's Sting"
the Iron Crown of Havlor
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 lead-filled mace "Big Punch"
the elemental gauntlets
the ring of the High Kings
the crown of science
the ancient mummy wrapping
the ankh
the rune-covered heavy mace "Purifier"
the crown of leadership
the black tome of Alsophocus
He possessed the following intrinsics:
He was fire resistant (enhanced through items).
He was poison resistant (enhanced through items).
He was cold resistant (gained through items).
He was lucky (enhanced through an item).
Fate smiled upon him.
He was able to control teleportation.
He was resistant to death rays (gained through an item).
He was shock resistant (enhanced through items).
He was able to see invisible things (gained through an item).
He was immune to fire attacks.
He was able to resist confusion attacks (gained through items).
He had the following talents: Alert, Careful, Defensive Fighter, Greased
Lightning, Hardy, Healthy, Iron Skin, Long Stride, Miser, Porter, Quick,
Tough Skin, Treasure Hunter, Very Quick.
He had a final speed score of 121 (final base speed: 131).
He was hated by Istaria.
He asked for 17 divine interventions.
He was a holy champion of Balance.
He was severely tainted by Chaos.

[Grey]

Bill Gates? Haha... What happened? Looks like you got stat-raped and had all your eq cursed by a god. Is there an interesting story behind this?

[LFk]

Sigh...

There were probably a number of things i could've done better, the first being to bring a better prepared PC into MT. However, i was trying to play with no real scumming of anything, including excessive pickpocketing, ID runs. Its hard to really define the rule, but in general i only moved this character forward, and did not remain on any dungeon levels in search of something i'd like to have.

As such, it is of note that not a single wish was generated this game, and only a single !oCC outside of the guarunteed chaos resistance items (Guthalak potions + HMV SoCR).

I snipped my item list already, but if i hadn't, you'd see that this PC was running low, particularly moving on to D:50. However, if it really came to it, rift was always an option, and that would've provided plenty.

I tried the standard way, luring him out to the corridor and throwing every sort of debilitating potion i had at him. Devoid of humanoid slaying ammo and any real form of attacking from a distance, I had to resort to meleeing Chaos Archmage, and the natural perpetual cursing/massive stat drains followed. At the beginning of the battle, my stats were all ~35-40 and you can see the end result. Running out of !oEH was the disaster point. I should've run for it right then and there and tried to patch up this PC as best as i could to fight again later, but he was at severely injured, i got greedy, and i turned to praying. Well, that quickly got my god angry at me (used 6 prayers), cursed my inventory. By then, it was too late. I was stuck, ironically, with a cursed pair of 7LB, and blasted away while running.

His energy blasts did in the neighborhood of 150-180 damage per shot to me, which is way more than i remember this being. Then again, every other PC i've brought to temple has been a walking tank and i probably never noticed. I'm not too used to the "no scumming" limitation i've set on myself: I usually at LEAST spend little time in ID:8-9 for weak classes looking for stat potions, !oEx, RoDS, etc.





So here's the story.

Bill Gates started off with the ring talent, and so he had his choice of resistances at the beginning. Nothing remarkable happened early, just going the VD quests to get healing. PC quest was done afterward, with the first bit of luck in that an altar was generated on PC:5, the cavernous level. At the moment, he didn't have enough money to safely convert it, and he ran into a bit of trouble with summoners on the level so he left for the time being.

He did an early shallow dive into main dungeon, with a lesser vault getting generated and cleared. Early blink dog corpse meant teleport control, which was very nice. Could get dwarven mystic, though unfortunately his reward was not the SoCR. Sword of sharpness generated in Waldenbrook's, switched from pole arms to swords. Did thundarr quests... resurfaced since the monster to kill was a zombie, so he headed for the graveyard to get one real quick. Revisited PC:5, was stronger now and cleared out the earlier mob that overwhelmed him. He made sure to stay at N- and got precrowned with Purifier, which was absolutely great. Seconds after precrown, worn boots dropped from a quasit 3 steps from the altar.

After thundarr quests, went and got crowned, iron crown of Havlor.

Purfier made a number of things in the game extremely easy, including getting RotHK and killing Rehetep. Temples were chock full of undead/unlife/demons as well in grues and elemental demons (ASB is unlife himself), so purifier made all the temples fairly easy, the hardest being ToEF. Herbalism + pacify big room = Wi/To/Dx to 25, combined with orb of fire, made this char roll along pretty comfortably.

After that ridiculous luck on PC:5, this PC was getting little in the way of drops. Nothing resulted from digging all the graves in graveyard and CoC Grave. No wishes or AoLS meant khelly dies. Garbage armor drops meant using AMW all the way up to casino (usually an enternium or adamantium something drops).

Crown of leadership generated in casino. Very nice. SeeI and -Conf are great intrinsics. Casino helped Billy Gates get his gear up to speed: Dragon Scale Mail, eternium girdle, tower shields.

Battle with Cat Lord was pretty epic, emptied entire loads of penetrating quarrels/potions onto him. Fought sparsely, used \oDigging to get plenty of corridors to put a monster in between to reload and/or zap \of(insert bolt). 1.2 m exp = 4 levels.

Something like D:37 had a truly excited. Zap wand of item detection... disappointing. Easily identifiable: Black tome of Alsophocus and Farslayer. Farslayer is worth getting, though, so zap wand of monster detection... Greater Undead. Fantastic. Ignored the vault. Temples were no trouble at all... and then came MT.


:mad:

[LFk]

The lesson here is to not be freaking greedy and test the limitations of your god.

Nuurag Vaarn was on critically injured when i died and was about a hit or two away from death.

But i could've easily run away when i didn't have a cursed inventory. Stat drains are stat drains. With herbalism, 3 important stats are guarunteed to be at a passable level and as such, there really is no lasting damage that Nuurag can do save for a bit of strength abuse.

I still had blue dragon caves and rift to do, and could've easily come back stronger and better prepared.


:(:(:(:(

My first non-paladin/wizard win. I thought it would be this one.

EDIT: Maybe I can finally achieve it on the July 2 contest i just read about? I would laugh if i randomed out a Wizard or Pally.




Merchants are absolutely apalling spellcasters. I didn't think it was that bad, but I couldn't successfully read a spellbook to save my life. And the ones i was trying to read were spells such as Light and Darkness. He somehow got a successful read on Fire Bolt, but that was the only one all game. The rest of the spells were all from WoWonder and !oWonder, which actually turned out to be very useful given that there were some ball spells in that mix (fireball helped to kill cat lord, ice ball for the finishing touches on ToEF).

[Grey]

You were just too low level I think. Doing the BDC first would have helped immensely - that's something I normally do before the Mana Temple for extra levels and items. Usually good to sac a lot of money to your god before the final dive too - you have no need for it any more, and the extra prayers can prove vital. Still, good run obviously. You don't need those scumming techniques evidently if you can get that far without - just make sure you leave off the Mana Temple till you've done everything bar D50.

[LFk]

You were just too low level I think. Doing the BDC first would have helped immensely - that's something I normally do before the Mana Temple for extra levels and items. Usually good to sac a lot of money to your god before the final dive too - you have no need for it any more, and the extra prayers can prove vital. Still, good run obviously. You don't need those scumming techniques evidently if you can get that far without - just make sure you leave off the Mana Temple till you've done everything bar D50.


All very valid points.

/agree on the BDC. I generally always do MT dead last, this was poor judgement on my part.

I actually did sac all my gold before the dive, but it was only 100k. I bought out the casino's stock of wands and scrolls prior to the dive.

This was basically a wakeup call to me anyway:
I think Purifier actually made me far too confident in this character's melee skills. I dispatched all the other temples with such ease that it didn't register how much nastier MT is. The last character I took through here was my YAVP in the other forum, and i didn't remember MT being hard at all.

Some combination of these factors led me to forget how bad this place can be. I don't know how one "forgets" how difficult MT is, but i sure managed to underestimate it pretty badly.

[Siriah]

Ouch, it's never fun to lose a character at such an advanced stage. The Mana Temple is a nasty place. Why didn't you fire the six slaying quarrels at Nuurag-Vaarn, though? Those probably wouldn't have been enough to kill him, but even if only one of them hit it would have softened him up for meleeing.

[LFk]

Ouch, it's never fun to lose a character at such an advanced stage. The Mana Temple is a nasty place. Why didn't you fire the six slaying quarrels at Nuurag-Vaarn, though? Those probably wouldn't have been enough to kill him, but even if only one of them hit it would have softened him up for meleeing.


AUGH I had those quarrels of slaying?!

I already cranked off my 8 quarrels of humanoid slaying at him (not a single one hit him) but i entirely passed over those looking for the word "humanoid".

Nuurag was a hit or two away from death, that FOR SURE could've helped me scrape a victory. Maybe, maybe not, who knows, but i definitely should've fired those off before entering melee combat.

Score one for not paying attention.