Stat Scumming.

[almack9]

I would like a thread that is a comprehensive list of all ways to scum up your stats :P And I mean ALL.
So if this exists already, I would like to be pointed in that direction, otherwise post away. Ill post some of the obvious ones.

Morgia/Moss - These two herbs are the easiest way to get Toughness/willpower/dexterity up to 25.

[Silfir]

Ring of weakness. Potions of exchange. Stoma patch.

Say hello to 99 in every stat!

[Sadface]

Starvation and sickness both reduce stats by a small bit, though
you'll have to get specifics on how long you're able to stay alive
while starving; I can't remember if it's until your stats can't be
drained anymore or if it's a certain number of turns. Starvation
drops the first 4 every couple of steps, and sickness reduces
a few, notably strength, willpower, dexterity, and toughness.

Carrying a Strained! load trains strength quickly; I'm not sure
if carrying lesser loads trains it or not.

(Method mentioned by Silfir already)

Normal claw, greater claw and killer bug corpses raise dexterity,
lower willpower and increase speed permanently, to a certain
range. I think I've gotten up to 28 dexterity and 117 speed just
by eating their corpses.

Quickling corpses raise speed, corpses of royalty reduce your
maximum lifespan too.

Correct me if I'm wrong on this one, I do not know the specifics
behind how the actions affect the outcome, but casting spells
from PP seems to train mana, and casting spells from HP seems
to abuse mana. Not a guaranteed thing; I noticed that my
latest elementalist's mana went up a little when casting a lot of spells,
but I got out of touch with everything when I had to cast from HP
a few times.

Though not necessarily "scumming", certain corpses give large
benefits to certain stats when eaten; ex. chaos archmage,
keriax, AKW, the oracle.

[almack9]

Ring of weakness. Potions of exchange. Stoma patch.

Say hello to 99 in every stat!

So...theoretically if I used this wish I just got from my first drink of a pool to get a ring of weakness...and in conjunction with a stoma patch on Ud 2 or 3, I could get like a 16 boost to my strength?

[Sadface]

You can get a +97 boost to your strength if you wanted to :)

The ring reduces your current strength to 2 (drop your stuff!),
and the game treats your strength as if it were really at 2,
so training happens easier. When you unequip the ring, though,
your strength goes back up.

[almack9]

You can get a +97 boost to your strength if you wanted to :)

The ring reduces your current strength to 2 (drop your stuff!),
and the game treats your strength as if it were really at 2,
so training happens easier. When you unequip the ring, though,
your strength goes back up.

Alright...im about to have a monster beast fighter then. xD

Theres nothing like farming up a crowning while getting 99 strength :P

[grobblewobble]

Dwarven trainer + casino.

Any method of scumming for potions (of gain stat).

Dex penalty from corruption, or boots of the slow shuffle, or moloch armor + moss of mareillon.

At the risk of being called cheap & scummer & booh, this is how I would use a ring of weakness:

1. Harvest stoma.
2. Goto peaceful clearing and lure away (or kill) the old barbarian.
3. Drop items on leftmost and rightmost extremes of the topmost line of the level.
4. Drop inventory except the ring and 1 holy water.
5. Put on ring; bless it.
6. Pick up plenty of stoma and just enough other stuff to become strained!
7. Now repeat w4 w6 w4 w6. The items dropped in step 3 prevent the "do you want to leave" messages.

This is faster than w5. It is also far safer than fighting giants, and faster than mining for them.

edit: I just realized you don't need to lure away the barbarian, you can just do this in the wilderness.

[gut]

> This is faster than w5.

It is? I don't know about that, but I have edited
my cfg file so that W5'ing takes more than 50
turns.

> I just realized you don't need to lure away the barbarian, you
> can just do this in the wilderness

You can also do it on the top line of Terinyo if
you dump the sheriff in the wild.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

Correct me if I'm wrong on this one, I do not know the specifics
behind how the actions affect the outcome, but casting spells
from PP seems to train mana, and casting spells from HP seems
to abuse mana. Not a guaranteed thing; I noticed that my
latest elementalist's mana went up a little when casting a lot of spells,
but I got out of touch with everything when I had to cast from HP
a few times.

I used to play lots of wizards and I confirm it works like that. Of course, like all stat trainings made by actually practising/abusing a stat (as opposed to eating corpses, etc.) the increases/decreases may not be immediate, but they are pretty much guaranteed.

Bookcasting is the best way of training your Ma since it uses lots of PP. A session of acid-balling the mana temple from HP's can reduce your Ma stat by 2 or 3 points.

[grobblewobble]

Ah! I never played around with the cfg file so far, but you could as well set W5 to hundreds of turns while you're at it. Your strength would be at 99 in no time. Eat, w5, eat, w5..

[Grey]

Dragon gold + dwarven trainer is an easy way to make the game insanely boring.

You can also stairhop the ID for orange potions and carrot smell rooms if you're desperate for a really high Perception score.

Of course there's also wish engines.

[almack9]

Ah! I never played around with the cfg file so far, but you could as well set W5 to hundreds of turns while you're at it. Your strength would be at 99 in no time. Eat, w5, eat, w5..

Im also kind of curious which variable effects that. lol

[Sami]

Archmage or ring wish engine.

[almack9]

Heh, 1d10+55 at level 11. Pretty tough I must say.

[grobblewobble]

The variable is called Recovery.

By the way if you do this, you should learn bridge building. It is fun to carry a heap of logs with ease and build a bridge wherever you like.

[almack9]

The variable is called Recovery.

Ahh, I see thanks. Too bad I already scummed up to 99 >.<

[jaakkos]

I tried scumming stats with a L50 gray elven wizard once. Ring of weakness worked pretty well coupled with scumming ogre armies in the wilderness. I also had the acid spitting corruption and food preservation. From time to time I had to figure out where to find potions of exchange when my strength hit 99. Used BDC for that.

Was fun but eventually gets very boring ;)

[CheatMan]

The variable is called Recovery.

Are you sure about that? I'm pretty sure the variable that controls the number of turns per 'w' action (w5, ws) is called Persistence...


Anyway, following these steps for proper herb training will bring your WI to 53, DE to 55 and your TO to 30.

(Note: These steps assume that you've already did regular herb training to bring WI, DE and TO to 25)

1) Eat a Devil's Rose and note the values of your LE, WI and DE. Example: LE 21 WI 22 DE 20

2) Eat a cursed stomacemptia and walk in place (5) until the values are half of the values noted in step 1 rounded down. Following the same example, stop the moment that LE 10 WI 11 DE 10 is reached. If you happen to go a few turns over, eat a few bones to bring it back up again.

3) Once you've stopped on the turn that your stats hit their halves, eat a morgia. This will bring your stats back up again, and you need to walk in place while counting the number of turns it takes to return to the half stat values. Once again, same example: after eating a blessed morgia, LE went up to 12, WI went up to 12 and DE went up to 11. I had to hid '5' eight times to return to LE 10 WI 11 DE 10. It is important to remember that the B/U/C status of morgia affects its nutritional values, the number of turns will be different for each status of morgia, so try not to mix and match your morgias if you can.

4) Walk in place for the same amount of turns as the number in step 3, then eat a morgia. If you counted right, your LE, WI and DE values should still be at their half stat amounts. Example: Once I've gotten back to LE 10 WI 11 DE 10, i hit '5' eight times, then eat another blessed morgia. After eating, my stats are still at LE 10 WI 11 DE 10.

5) Repeat step 4 for each morgia root eaten (ie. '5' x8, eat morgia, '5' x8, eat morgia, '5' x8, eat morgia...) untill you've consumed enough morgia to get your increase.

6) At this point, I 'u'se the appropriate number of moss of mareilon then eat a stomafilia and a curaria mancox or cast Cure disease.

7) Wait for stat/potential increase, return to step 1.



Steps 3 and 4 are necessary because ADOM uses the stat value AFTER consumption to determine if your stat can be raised or not so it is important to stay below the half-stat satiation point if you want to maximize.

In a sidenote, you may also use steps 1 and 2 to allow Crystals of knowledge training to go past 25 as well as eating Greater/Killer Bug corpses to jack up your DE and speed to ridiculous amounts. Of course, if you want to bug train, you might want to Drink a few potions of exchange to put your lowest stat in WI before doing any eating.

[MrNiceguy]

Obviously you can train Mana by book-casting. (If I remember right, Mana is actually trained by regenerating PP, book-casting is just a convenient way to deplete PP.) But I prefer to gain some other benefit at the same time, so I book-cast Strength of Atlas, Farsight, or Bless. The multiple castings stack, extending the duration of the spells. Obviously, doing this with a book of SOA doesn't pair well with training Strength by carrying lots of stuff to get Strained!.

With my melee characters, I generally deplete PP anytime it's full, once the character has something they can book-cast. If you're worried about doing this with your casters, then finding yourself without any PP and getting jumped by something bad, then stick to training this way while walking through the wilderness. If you do have an encounter you can't avoid, you can usually run away or teleport to the edge of the screen and escape.

[JellySlayer]

Some easy ways to train stats:

-Morgia/Moss will train To, Wi, Dx up to 25 and much higher if you combine with sickness or starvation
-Crystals of knowledge will train Le up to around 25 and much higher if you combine with sickness or starvation
-Eating giant corpses, mining, or carrying heavy loads will train St up to 18 with ease. Combine with sickness/starvation scumming (or ring of weakness) for best results.
-Ma can be trained by casting a lot of spells, bookcasting, or using necromancy. Mindcraft and other non-spell uses of PP (eg. crystal phial) will not train Ma, but will train concentration.
-Easiest way to train Pe is probably to stairhop for carrot rooms, although you want decent appearance or you may lose more Pe to mirror rooms than you gain. Pe can also be trained a bit using starvation/sickness + carrot juice IIRC. Learning can also be trained by stairhopping for comfortable chair rooms, although it results in a net loss of strength.
-Greater claw bugs and killer bugs will train Dx and speed. I've hit up to about 170 speed from claw bug training, and with enough effort, I would assume you can go higher. Eating these corpses devastates Wi though.
-Apish corruption will train St and To up to their potential maximums, at a cost of magic related stats

[edit: a few more]
-Train with Garth for boatloads of cash
-Potions of balance can be used to raise your stats up to 25, and maybe further if combined with starvation/sickness. They seem a bit buggy for if any stat is at 25 though.
-PoGA can be stolen en-masse by thieves with the level 32 class power.
AdomBot will instantly set all of your stats to 99. If you're planning on using a ring of weakness extensively, this might be an easier solution.

[almack9]

Some easy ways to train stats:

-Morgia/Moss will train To, Wi, Dx up to 25 and much higher if you combine with sickness or starvation
-Crystals of knowledge will train Le up to around 25 and much higher if you combine with sickness or starvation
-Eating giant corpses, mining, or carrying heavy loads will train St up to 18 with ease. Combine with sickness/starvation scumming (or ring of weakness) for best results.
-Ma can be trained by casting a lot of spells, bookcasting, or using necromancy. Mindcraft and other non-spell uses of PP (eg. crystal phial) will not train Ma, but will train concentration.
-Easiest way to train Pe is probably to stairhop for carrot rooms, although you want decent appearance or you may lose more Pe to mirror rooms than you gain. Pe can also be trained a bit using starvation/sickness + carrot juice IIRC. Learning can also be trained by stairhopping for comfortable chair rooms, although it results in a net loss of strength.
-Greater claw bugs and killer bugs will train Dx and speed. I've hit up to about 170 speed from claw bug training, and with enough effort, I would assume you can go higher. Eating these corpses devastates Wi though.
-Apish corruption will train St and To up to their potential maximums, at a cost of magic related stats

[edit: a few more]
-Train with Garth for boatloads of cash
-Potions of balance can be used to raise your stats up to 25, and maybe further if combined with starvation/sickness. They seem a bit buggy for if any stat is at 25 though.
-PoGA can be stolen en-masse by thieves with the level 32 class power.
AdomBot will instantly set all of your stats to 99. If you're planning on using a ring of weakness extensively, this might be an easier solution.

Nice :P As far as im concerned if it can be done ingame without outside interference its legit in my book. I know most people dont agree with this view however.

[sorear]

Nice :P As far as im concerned if it can be done ingame without outside interference its legit in my book. I know most people dont agree with this view however.

Don't complain to us when you start getting bored. :)

[almack9]

Don't complain to us when you start getting bored. :)

Lol, I BARELY managed the one win I do have. I would like to atleast get an ultra. Even though it intimidates me so much...What I really need is quite literally a step by step guide to it.

[sorear]

1. Do not get crowned in the early game.

2. Do not chat with Khelevastar until you have 'g'iven him
the amulet.

3. Do everything in section 4 of the guidebook.

[Sadface]

(sorear posted first :) )

Good luck on your attempts to complete an ultra! If
I may recommend, try an ULE first, due to the corruption
requirements of UNE and UCG; it's just a bit easier, especially
if you don't really know what to expect. (My first was ULE,
and I was still turned into a chaos creature the first time I
fought AD. I had a backup of the save, in which I did manage
to kill him, though I didn't bother posting it as it is technically
"save scummed").

[almack9]

Thanks :P
I have a prospective. Gray elven wizard. So far I made my first kill as an orc bouncer, so that should be easy. Im scumming the ID for some valuable spells atm.

[grobblewobble]

AdomBot will instantly set all of your stats to 99. If you're planning on using a ring of weakness extensively, this might be an easier solution.
What amazes me is that ring of weakness provokes this kind of reaction while starvation scumming, pickpocket/gremlin bomb scumming, ring wish engines, stairhopping, wish bookcasting, casino scumming and even dragon gold doubling do not. These methods are at least as abusive in my book (except dragon gold doubling which is worse because it is clearly bug abuse), only they happen to take more time and / or be less effective.

[Silfir]

Um... They do provoke the same reaction for the most part, at least from me. ;)

[Al-Khwarizmi]

What amazes me is that ring of weakness provokes this kind of reaction while starvation scumming, pickpocket/gremlin bomb scumming, ring wish engines, stairhopping, wish bookcasting, casino scumming and even dragon gold doubling do not. These methods are at least as abusive in my book (except dragon gold doubling which is worse because it is clearly bug abuse), only they happen to take more time and / or be less effective.

I think most of these are dishonourable scumming and I don't do them.

An exception is scumming for gold in the casino; the game puts you in front of a ridiculously overpriced shop and some slot machines where you win rather than losing in the long term... I think that's an intended feature, not a bug or a result of haphazard coding. Even if you roleplay, well, any char with more than 12 Le would play a slot machine repeatedly if he were earning more money than he was losing. Not that I like the feature, I actually think the casino is quite lame and ADOM would be a better game with that level removed altogether. But if slot machines that give you net gains are there, and they seem to be intended, it's difficult to pretend that they don't exist. A different issue is picking up all the stuff in the Casino and leaving it on a single square to restock, I think that's scummy and dishonourable since that's a limitation in TB's implementation of shops (to be realistic they should restock only when the amount of items for sale drops below a certain amount).

Bookcasting wish would also be another exception for me. I have never done it, but if you actually are able to get powerful enough to do it *without* other scummy techniques (like ring of weakness + potions of exchange); because you bothered to get the necessary talents, cast lots of spells to train your Ma, cast during the adequate date in the adequate room, etc... well, you deserve the reward.

The others, as I say, are dishonourable in my book, and are not better than ring of weakness scumming.

[grobblewobble]

> A different issue is picking up all the stuff in the Casino and leaving it on a single square to restock

This is actually what I meant with "casino scumming".

[flibble]

An exception is scumming for gold in the casino; the game puts you in front of a ridiculously overpriced shop and some slot machines where you win rather than losing in the long term... I think that's an intended feature, not a bug or a result of haphazard coding.
I would say it's a bug that you can play the slots a tremendous number of times and only take one turn's worth of corruption. Otherwise it would be a meaningful tradeoff, and it would make an interesting tactical decision about how much (if any) the player wanted to do.

[gut]

Get all the wins that are fun for you in any
way you like. Just, if you post an flg, make
sure to document your scumming. Everyone
who stays with this game for any time always
winds up adding the restrictions they like.
For me, wizards and prayers don't mix. It
doesn't make any sense, but it doesn't have
to : )

[vogonpoet]

Well if you were strictly playing an athiest wizard, no use of altars, no dipping potions of water into other potions of water, then that would make sense. Thou art a man of science after all.

If you are going to bless stuff, you may as well pray as well though.

[Anonymous]

Ring of weakness. Potions of exchange. Stoma patch.

Say hello to 99 in every stat!

I put on the ring of weakness, I got burdened and my strenght goes to 99.. after that I exchange the 99 into another attribute and so on.. why the stom patch?

[Harwin]

What amazes me is that ring of weakness provokes this kind of reaction while starvation scumming, pickpocket/gremlin bomb scumming, ring wish engines, stairhopping, wish bookcasting, casino scumming and even dragon gold doubling do not. These methods are at least as abusive in my book (except dragon gold doubling which is worse because it is clearly bug abuse), only they happen to take more time and / or be less effective.

I also don't like those - except wish bookcasting - never done it but that's because it takes a lot to get into that state - if you're bookcasting wish repeatedly you've already "won" by getting the archmage ending.

I've done stair hopping for speed runs for challenge games because that's the logical way to get spellbooks.

For me, herbs take me to 25-28 (the natural herb), plus anything I get from temporary corruptions, and the casino is a one-time source of all the items I could want and enough gold for crowning if I'm not already.

I admit I want to do a ring of weakness engine once - just to have done it.

[JellySlayer]

What amazes me is that ring of weakness provokes this kind of reaction while starvation scumming, pickpocket/gremlin bomb scumming, ring wish engines, stairhopping, wish bookcasting, casino scumming and even dragon gold doubling do not. These methods are at least as abusive in my book (except dragon gold doubling which is worse because it is clearly bug abuse), only they happen to take more time and / or be less effective.

Well, ring of weakness is more game breaking than nearly any of the other tactics you mention. With 99 in every stat, ADOM is dead easy even if you are naked and doomed the entire game. Few of the methods you mention (exception: wish engines and maybe dragon doubling) provide anywhere near the same benefits as RoW.

FWIW, I consider most of those methods you mention similarly scummy to RoW, and don't use them in regular play. Even playing some sort of challenge game, the only methods I would probably even consider are stairhop and maybe a bit of starvation scumming. In any case where I might consider using one of the other methods, I would actually prefer just to use AdomBot and save myself the hassle.

[DumbleDoor]

I really don't look down on people playing with scummy methods, even save-scumming, as long as they don't brag. I'm even fine if they still post about it. However, I really think that people overrate and underrate certain things. Dragon gold doubling. Unless you purposely scum for dragons, it really isn't all that bad. If you are scumming for dragons, then, in my book, it's the same as stair hopping. Sickness/starvation is = RoW, RoW was meant to be a burden (no pun intended) and sickness/starvation was not meant to still allow stat training from the lower stat.

[Pumpernickel]

I really don't look down on people playing with scummy methods, even save-scumming, as long as they don't brag. I'm even fine if they still post about it. However, I really think that people overrate and underrate certain things. Dragon gold doubling. Unless you purposely scum for dragons, it really isn't all that bad. If you are scumming for dragons, then, in my book, it's the same as stair hopping. Sickness/starvation is = RoW, RoW was meant to be a burden (no pun intended) and sickness/starvation was not meant to still allow stat training from the lower stat.

Of course, if wearing a ring of weakness, being sick or starving would heavily _abuse_ the relevant stats, the problem should mostly disappear; and with the ring, you'd at least have to dig up stone giants faster than the ring would suck your strength away.

Just to be obnoxious: seeing how temporary and equipped boni to your attributes prevent you from effective training, i daresay pushing the other end of the seesaw is fair game. I'm afraid i find ADoM as a game broken in many ways, so my standards in dealing with it aren't too high - there are even two zombie (resurrected after by-standards-of-the-game-legit death via backup saves[1]) winners on my highscore, although i wouldn't dream of putting anything like that up in the YAVP forum.

[1] mind you, without ADoM 1.1.1's 'sphere of character annihilation' crashes, there would be no backup saves.