meh
06-30-2008, 10:19 PM
I think people often overestimate the dangers of corruption, so I decided to see if I could win without removing any corruption at all. Since it would not affect anything but the ending, I allowed myself to do the unicorn quest after closing the gate. Since this randomly generated character turned out to be a hurthling beastfighter, I decided to use some additional restrictions. Unarmed melee and thrown rocks were to be the only allowed forms of combat and shields would also be forbidden. I also decided to stay lawful throughout the game and to avoid some more or less scummy stuff (visiting the ID, playing in the casino, using my ring of weakness).
The early game was fairly eventless. I quickly found seven league boots and they eventually turned out to be my only pair. There was a good herb level in the UD, where I farmed morgia and stoma. I decided to attempt a pre-crowning before the pyramid. I was unsure if I had enough piety, so ended up using three unanswered prayers. Only then did I remember that I had generated the potion of literacy, making it three artifacts instead of two. This was my only divine interventions, as I never had any reason to pray later on.
I got crowned with acid immunity and Oman's cloak right after the pyramid. I found a ring of regeneration somewhere around this point, which helped a lot. In the TotHK, I used my wand of fireballs on the king out of habit. This was the only time I used a wand for offence, and I regret it as I could have killed him with rocks instead. The assassin cave was easily cleared next. The doppelgangers confused me regularly, but it didn't matter as none of the monsters could really hurt me. Darkforge was harder, but the golems did all fall eventually.
I decided to do the ToEF before diving down the CoC (I had only been to just under the animated forest). The Fire Giant Kings were tricky, but I could always retreat when necessary and patiently take them down. The creatures in the temple were not much trouble, apart from the ACW. Its energy bolts did a lot of damage and I had to drink three healing potions before my rocks finally killed him.
The water temple was easy and the next thing of notice was a greater vault of red dragons. I found preserver there and had an epic battle with the wyrm. Its attack was too strong for melee, so I had to resort to the rocks again. They only did slightly more damage than the wyrm healed, so I had to use nearly all the rocks I was carrying. When it eventually fell, I had only about ten rocks left in my pack. After this followed a classic case of overconfidence. I strolled right back to the centre of the vault without pausing to heal. An ancient dragon critically hit me down to 1 HP. I was more careful after this and cleared up the entire vault. I think I gained a total of five levels (26 to 31) here.
I was a bit worried about the cat lord, whom I had never killed before. I had so far slayed about 15 cats. Luckily there was a river on the level above and the cat lord can't swim. I simply lured him up, crossed the river and stoned him to death from the other side. A second greater vault contained giants and Nature's Companion.
The air temple was very easy and the earth one wasn't much of a challenge either. My strategy in all four temples was to use rocks on anything that corrupts and melee the rest. The only exception was the stone beast, who I meleed on berserk in order to do enough damage. Below the earth temple, there was a horde of greater molochs stuck on the wrong side of a river. Unfortunately, I had to turn down this chance of extra XP, since their PV was too high for my rocks. I also came across a third greater vault. This is the first time I've seen three in the same game. It contained undead, though, so I let it be.
I dove straight down to the mana temple. I think I had a wand of trap detection at some point, but it was now gone. With no alternative, I just had to stumble across all the traps. The acid and stone ones caused some inventory destruction, but most of it was harmless. One of my three wands of destruction was one of the items destroyed. This seemed totally insignificant at the time. I waited in the corridor and killed the archmage with rocks. His deathrays caused some damage, but nothing too dangerous.
It was only when I reached D50 that I remembered my potion of uselessness. I went back up and threw it in the direction I came from. Nothing happened. I guess you have to actually move to get the gift. No big loss, though, as it would probably just have been a weapon. D50 was undiggable, but this wasn't a problem. The occupants of the main room didn't notice anything while I cleared up the rest of the level. I got the mana battery corruption while doing this. With two wands of destruction left, though, this shouldn't have caused much trouble.
This is when I did something incredibly stupid. I zapped the wand before handling the lever. Thankfully, it seems impossible to destroy the levers when they are open, so it was not quite game over. It did, however, mean that I now had to kill everything (I don't like the door/monster creation ending). I destroyed one lever, and then started fighting the balors. The rocks were ineffective, but hit and run on berserk worked well. Even after I got stiff muscles, I was still more than twice as fast as the them. I killed Fisty and most of the others, but then realised that time was running out. I would probably turn into a WMoPC before everything was dead. I changed strategy and made my way to the open lever using the switch places class power. I closed the lever and then fought everything standing on that spot. A balor summoned some goblins. Once they made their way to me, I only needed to fight one tough opponent at a time. Once there were no monsters left in sight, I checked the loot and noticed that one of them had dropped a wand of destruction. I zapped it to close the gate for good. I decided to take a peak in the main room and noticed that all the ghost lords were still there. Since I had gotten this far I might as well clear up the rest. One of the ghosts got a critical hit and aged me from 44 to 66 years. This was definitively not worth it, so I ran away and back to the surface.
One killed black unicorn later I was cleared of corruption an headed back home.
The early game was fairly eventless. I quickly found seven league boots and they eventually turned out to be my only pair. There was a good herb level in the UD, where I farmed morgia and stoma. I decided to attempt a pre-crowning before the pyramid. I was unsure if I had enough piety, so ended up using three unanswered prayers. Only then did I remember that I had generated the potion of literacy, making it three artifacts instead of two. This was my only divine interventions, as I never had any reason to pray later on.
I got crowned with acid immunity and Oman's cloak right after the pyramid. I found a ring of regeneration somewhere around this point, which helped a lot. In the TotHK, I used my wand of fireballs on the king out of habit. This was the only time I used a wand for offence, and I regret it as I could have killed him with rocks instead. The assassin cave was easily cleared next. The doppelgangers confused me regularly, but it didn't matter as none of the monsters could really hurt me. Darkforge was harder, but the golems did all fall eventually.
I decided to do the ToEF before diving down the CoC (I had only been to just under the animated forest). The Fire Giant Kings were tricky, but I could always retreat when necessary and patiently take them down. The creatures in the temple were not much trouble, apart from the ACW. Its energy bolts did a lot of damage and I had to drink three healing potions before my rocks finally killed him.
The water temple was easy and the next thing of notice was a greater vault of red dragons. I found preserver there and had an epic battle with the wyrm. Its attack was too strong for melee, so I had to resort to the rocks again. They only did slightly more damage than the wyrm healed, so I had to use nearly all the rocks I was carrying. When it eventually fell, I had only about ten rocks left in my pack. After this followed a classic case of overconfidence. I strolled right back to the centre of the vault without pausing to heal. An ancient dragon critically hit me down to 1 HP. I was more careful after this and cleared up the entire vault. I think I gained a total of five levels (26 to 31) here.
I was a bit worried about the cat lord, whom I had never killed before. I had so far slayed about 15 cats. Luckily there was a river on the level above and the cat lord can't swim. I simply lured him up, crossed the river and stoned him to death from the other side. A second greater vault contained giants and Nature's Companion.
The air temple was very easy and the earth one wasn't much of a challenge either. My strategy in all four temples was to use rocks on anything that corrupts and melee the rest. The only exception was the stone beast, who I meleed on berserk in order to do enough damage. Below the earth temple, there was a horde of greater molochs stuck on the wrong side of a river. Unfortunately, I had to turn down this chance of extra XP, since their PV was too high for my rocks. I also came across a third greater vault. This is the first time I've seen three in the same game. It contained undead, though, so I let it be.
I dove straight down to the mana temple. I think I had a wand of trap detection at some point, but it was now gone. With no alternative, I just had to stumble across all the traps. The acid and stone ones caused some inventory destruction, but most of it was harmless. One of my three wands of destruction was one of the items destroyed. This seemed totally insignificant at the time. I waited in the corridor and killed the archmage with rocks. His deathrays caused some damage, but nothing too dangerous.
It was only when I reached D50 that I remembered my potion of uselessness. I went back up and threw it in the direction I came from. Nothing happened. I guess you have to actually move to get the gift. No big loss, though, as it would probably just have been a weapon. D50 was undiggable, but this wasn't a problem. The occupants of the main room didn't notice anything while I cleared up the rest of the level. I got the mana battery corruption while doing this. With two wands of destruction left, though, this shouldn't have caused much trouble.
This is when I did something incredibly stupid. I zapped the wand before handling the lever. Thankfully, it seems impossible to destroy the levers when they are open, so it was not quite game over. It did, however, mean that I now had to kill everything (I don't like the door/monster creation ending). I destroyed one lever, and then started fighting the balors. The rocks were ineffective, but hit and run on berserk worked well. Even after I got stiff muscles, I was still more than twice as fast as the them. I killed Fisty and most of the others, but then realised that time was running out. I would probably turn into a WMoPC before everything was dead. I changed strategy and made my way to the open lever using the switch places class power. I closed the lever and then fought everything standing on that spot. A balor summoned some goblins. Once they made their way to me, I only needed to fight one tough opponent at a time. Once there were no monsters left in sight, I checked the loot and noticed that one of them had dropped a wand of destruction. I zapped it to close the gate for good. I decided to take a peak in the main room and noticed that all the ghost lords were still there. Since I had gotten this far I might as well clear up the rest. One of the ghosts got a critical hit and aged me from 44 to 66 years. This was definitively not worth it, so I ran away and back to the surface.
One killed black unicorn later I was cleared of corruption an headed back home.