help the noob

[SixtySixPixiStix]

'The chaos knight seems to shrug off your magic missile'
How the hell is my wizard supposed to kill these bastards?
I can't even teleport them!
I could teleport myself but I'm going to have to face these guys SOME TIME!
Should I try to bless them?
Should I just start savescumming?

[I found an eternium halbred in the training caves [+11 4d7+8] (-2 +0) pretty awesome]

[Subconscious]

Savescumming can be helpfull if you want to train your skills (for some people), but in the long term it will ruin all the joy.

I have always beaten these guys in melee. They dont have much HP afterall so using magic shouldnt be problem as well.

Train your magic missile. NO enemy is immune to it, all enemies have chance to shrug bolt spells off. Dont care about it, just SPAMMM it. The other ones you should train is ball spells, they cant be shrugged off.

[vogonpoet]

Yeah, just keep magic missile-ing them. Try (counting very carefully) to bounce your magic off walls to hit your foe twice. Don't kill yourself doing this.

[Ars]

Meleeing them shouldn't be a problem - by the time you face them, you most probably can handle them easily.

[Shadow_2014]

Speaking of noob questions, I can never remember the details on precrowning as I've never successfully done it. What message do you receive? Because right now I'm constantly burning with the anticipation of power. I'm level 8 and to the best of my knowledge no artifacts have been generated yet.

EDIT: I now feel spiritually invincible.

[Kato]

Keep climbing. Your piety isn't high enough for a pre-crown...and if no artifacts have been generated, then you need to be at least lvl 8 or 11. Can't remember which for sure though.

[Shadow_2014]

But does anyone know what the actual received message will be? At the moment, The One Who Rages seems to be extremely close to me. Is it the one after this?

[Grey]

Haha, extremely is what you're after - pray and receive your reward!

[Shadow_2014]

Cool. My first precrowning gift. According to the Guidebook, the Sapphire Ring is a Ring of Immunity. Decent at level 8, I would say.

EDIT: So now I have to wait until level 11 for another one? And how do I actually get crowned? And is it worth it? I'm not used to this lack of atheism.

[DeSt]

Yes, at least 11. Sometimes worth, sometimes not. You can get everything between black tome(worst...) and BoW(best!). I've precrowned my farmer with Executor, Protector and BoW once.

[Siriah]

You can get crowned when your alignment is 'absolutely close', which takes just as much sacrificing as that precrown did, but you need to be either L+, N= or C- and there's no level requirement. It's quite good because you get an immunity (less useful if you already have that ring, but still...), an artifact and a permanent blessed status. The artifact is randomly chosen depending on your class, so for some classes it's better than for others. You can't change alignment too much after or you risk becoming a fallen champion, which will piss off your god.

[DeSt]

The artifact is randomly chosen at the character creation, not at the crowning.

[Ars]

And I suggest that you don't get a crowning when the artifact limits allow for a pre-crown, because that way you get more gifts as crowning can happen with any number of artifacts created.

And watch out for alignment changing when you sacrifice - just had a precrown turn into crowning because sacrificing took my alignment from N- to N=. Bye bye ultra.

[Nezur]

Press CTRL+r after sacrificing. This will update the screen so you'll see your true current alignment.

[Shadow_2014]

Do I need the same extremely close message to get my second precrown? There's just that one artifact created and I'm level 12. I've been saccing sooo many things but I just can't seem to get there. I only have about 4k gold, too. If I sacced that, would it help? Or would it be better to spend it on something and sac that?

[vogonpoet]

Second pre-crown takes ages and ages. Sadly, 4k gold is a drop in the ocean.

Persistence is your friend. Or you could be happy with the RoI and continue game...

[Shadow_2014]

Be happy with what I have?! Never! This isn't an after school special. This is ADOM! I want to maximize my artifact gains and maybe have a chance of surviving the Pyramid with my poor ill-equipped Archer.

[Evil Knievel]

I guess you especially maximize your frustration during the game and when the grim reaper eventually comes for you...

[Shadow_2014]

Funny enough, I've only had the grim reaper come cut me up once, and that was just earlier today. I sensed imminent danger and had to deal with a Ghost Lord that spawned a couple spaces from me.

[LFk]

I never find the second precrown to be worth it.

It takes such an extreme amount of time, and is in no way guaranteed to be useful.

Of course, if it's BoW or Preserver it'll let you drift through the game, but for sanity's sake it's probably better to deal without it.

If the RNG claims your life, there's a LOT less time lost.

[Silfir]

The "extremely close" message doesn't always appear for the second precrown even if you're eligible. As far as I've heard, it even never appears.

Do a test prayer!

[vogonpoet]

You definitely can get extremely close a second time, but it takes a while, and yeah, as long as you are at full health and PP, not wearing any cursed items and not hungry, a test prayer or two won't cost you much piety...

[Grey]

Believe me, you can get extremely close 15 times.

Second precrown costs around 270k gold, or about 270 livesacs. Can take a lot of time, and might end up being just the black tome or something equally useless. Ring of Immunity is a very nice artifact, especailly early game - be happy with it and carry on.

[Ars]

Believe me, you can get extremely close 15 times.

Second precrown costs around 270k gold, or about 270 livesacs. Can take a lot of time, and might end up being just the black tome or something equally useless. Ring of Immunity is a very nice artifact, especailly early game - be happy with it and carry on.
Hmm, how many stomas does that equal roughly?

[Grey]

Hmm, my figures were wrong actually... Second precrown is about 250k gold, or 250 stomas, or 180 livesacs (sometimes takes a bit more due to piety degradation).

[Shadow_2014]

Okay, if I'm C- and I've been precrowned, does that mean that if I pray my deity will want to Crown me? And is this a bad thing? I mean, I don't think I'm going to be eligible for an ultra ending. Plus, I've never even had a normal win, so I'd be happy with that. Given that, is it worth it?

[Nezur]

Do it if you are not going for an ultra. You need to sac until you are "absolutely close". Living monsters and non-cursed stomafillia herbs are nice sacrificial fodder.

EDIT: I just remembered that you'll get a couple of corruptions if a chaotic god crowns you. Many NPCs also refuse to assign quests or cooperate with chaotic characters. These side effects are enough to hold me back from aspiring to a chaotic crowning.

[Shadow_2014]

Deal. Is post-crowning the same thing as pre-crowning, aside from the obvious difference in syntax?

[Nezur]

The requirements are same for both.