So promising, too...

[Captain Platypus]

Rolled up a nice Candle drakeling monk. Started out going to Lawtown for my acid-spit first kill. Outlaw. Went to the ID to level up for a bit and find a spear and then headed to the druid dungeon. Ran into a whole ton of trouble with cats, but managed to lock them all up. DD:6 had a spider factory that I managed to not only shut down early, but get poison resistance from. It also had an altar, and I tried to crown at level 9, but ended up accidentally descending to DD:7 and generating the torc. Ah well, time to kill Keethrax. More cats, but giant slugs took care of them - and also nearly killed me with acid. Only a casting of darkness from Keethrax allowed me to kill them. He'd run, so I had to chase him through the whole damn level, going back up the stairs about three times to heal from slugs and spiders - and to lock up another cat. Finally managed to find him - surrounded by monsters. Decided "fuck this I'll come back later", headed for the staircase...and he chased me, alone, out of the darkness he'd cast. Five hits and he was down. I even managed to get the corpse back to Terinyo for once.

Puppy quest. Yawn. Melee'd the ants to death with my spear, cavernous level had good stair placement, vault was hyenas and gnolls. Grabbed the corpse and headed back to Terinyo. Managed to nom a blink dog on the way down. Became a member of the thieves' guild, checked out hotzenplotz' inventory - I had a pile of five scrolls of identify. Went to the DD:6 altar to get my water holy'd, read one, and checked out my inventory...

AMULET OF LIFE SAVING.

I. Love. Pick. Pockets.

Decided then and there that this was an ultra ending character. Dove the small cave to the UD, it was a cakewalk. Scroll shop on UD:1 (robbed while invisible, lots more identify and uncursing scrolls), lesser vault of lesser undead on UD:2 (farmed), nothing for the rest but two forges. Managed to melee the stone giant lord to death (at level 13, thank you very much) fighting very defensively.

Headed over to the Caverns of Chaos, and this is where things started getting crazy. Surge of power in the big room yielded Preserver guarded by an easily-defeated slow shadow. Combination of stomafillia and livesaccing earned me a precrown on an altar right below the big room - got Purifier. Then came the si, and a couple levels after that, just above dwarftown, I hit a mixed-creatures vault that yielded Executor and Serpent's Bite.

Soooooo glad this is a monk and not a beastfighter.

At this point I was level 16, so I picked up Thrundarr's quests (chaos sister, not bad at all) and headed for the Pyramid. Between Executor and Purifier, I had slaying against every significant monster there, and a blessed potion of invisibility made it even more of a sure thing. Rehetep went down in about four hits from Purifier and I had myself some ratling fodder - I'll take Preserver over the ankh any day, and ancient mummy wrappings unfortunately aren't light enough for monks. Oh well, I had see invisibility in a ring anyway. Headed to the graveyard - Purifier destroyed everything that wasn't Nonnak with extreme prejudice, Executor lopped his head off. Took out Griff in melee, holy watered his grave anyway, and then defiled it for the sword (ratling fodder) for good measure. Got 14 years of aging on some unlucky ghost hits, but a blessed potion of youth took care of that.

So, about now I had the black torc, the wrapping, the ankh, the sword of Nonnak, the elemental gauntlets, Purifier, Executor, and Serpent's Bite, and I was only comfortable using the first four as fodder - and I wanted the gladius to trade for two-weapon fighting, so I could use Executor/Purifier and Serpent's Bite together for maximum awesome. Big Punch was obvious fodder, but that left one more artifact to fetch. I COULD use the gauntlets, but I like them to protect a blessed ring of ice (which I already had!) in the ToEF, so that I can use a girdle of carrying. Alternatively, I could hop over to the gremlin cave for the phial. 27 days had already elapsed, but I was doing pretty well on potions of cure corruption...I decided to go for it. On the way, I farmed some groups of outlaws on the road to get courage from the old barbarian. Then I remembered Darkforge, and that I had Purifier for the steel golems.

Only artifact I got was the crown (fodder pile), but I found a phase dagger and a nice eternium halberd to put my polearm skills to good use with. Headed back to the Caverns, did the rest of the Thrundarr quests, saved Khelly. Found a scroll of danger at some point, hid it in the ogre cave with my ratling fodder and spare crap. Decided to go back down to the graveyard and dig some ancient treasures up for the rewards and the alignment penalty so I could feed the ratling.

First one I dig pops an emperor lich, who death rays me. I knew there was a resistance I was missing...

Snipped flg follows.

[Captain Platypus]

###### ################################################## ############### ######
#....###.#.#.#.#.#.#.#.#.#.#.#.#.#.#.#.#.#.#.#.#.# .#.#.#.#.#.#.#.#.#.#.###....#
#.<../............[..............&#37;....%....%.....%...........[.........../....#
#...*###.#.#.#.#.#.#.#.#.#.#.#.#.#.#.#%#.#.#.#.#.# .#.#.#.#.#.#.#.#.#.#.###....#
#####.############################################ ###################### ###/##
##]## #.#
##.############################################### ################# #.#
##.+.+........+..+......+.*.Ff@F+++...++++...+++.. ....+..+...++++# #.#
#+.+.+...++.+.++..+.++...++ffLfF++......+.....++.+ ..++.....+..>.# #.#
#.+++.+..+++[.........+..++..FG.[++.+.+.+++.++....++.+.+.....+.+# #.#
#..+++..+............[.[+.++....++....+.+....+..[.+...[+++...+.+# #.#
#+++%+.......%+....+.+..+.+......+.....+....++.... .........+..+.# #.#
###### ####/################################################## ########## ###.##
#....### #.# #....#
#....*.####.###################################### ########################....#
#....*...............................[.................................../....#
####*.*########################################### #############################
#####

Shiny St:19 Le:17 Wi:37 Dx:24 To:30 Ch:12 Ap:15 Ma:20 Pe:16 N=
DV/PV: 40/16 H: 0(289) P: 174(174) Exp: 20/947597 D: 17 LE: 763

Total weight: 3715 stones Carrying capacity: 5280 stones

He: uncursed horned helmet [+1, +1] # found nothing better
Ne: uncursed sapphire amulet "Preserver" [+4, +4] {Wi+7} [3s] # seriously, easiest surge of power ever
Bo: blessed robe [+0, +1] [60s] # every time I put something on, it got burned off me. I felt like a movie heroine.
Gi: blessed girdle of carrying [+0, +0] # found this WAY early
Cl: - # similarly burned off constantly, I had some NICE cloaks
RH: uncursed rune-covered heavy mace "Purifier" (+5, 4d5+5) [-4, +1] {Wi+4} # for the lich...
LH: - # monk means no shield :(
RR: blessed ring of damage # :D
LR: blessed ring of ice # wasn't wearing this for the aforementioned forcible stripping
Br: uncursed bracers of toughness [+0, +0] {To+4} # meh.
Ga: uncursed elemental gauntlets (-1, +0) [+0, +3] # better than what I was finding
Bo: uncursed light boots (+1, +1) [+0, +0] # can't believe this was the best pair of boots I managed to grab
MW: uncursed light crossbow of accuracy (+6, +0) # had about four of these
Mi: bundle of 3 uncursed rusty quarrels (+1, 2d6-2) # ...but very little ammo for them
Tl: uncursed pick axe (+0, 1d6+1) # for the grave


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stuff
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Total weight: 3144 stones Carrying capacity: 5280 stones

uncursed jet-black battle axe "Executor" (+2, 5d6+6) [-4, +1] {St+3} (+3 spd) # seriously, a mixed vault with nothing dangerous in it
uncursed emerald dagger "Serpent's Bite" (+3, 3d4+3) [+3, +1] [13s] # same vault
uncursed phase dagger (+0, 1d4) # darkforge
blessed eternium dagger (+0, 2d4+7) # khelly
uncursed eternium warhammer (+2, 4d3+8) # dwarven halls, maybe?
uncursed eternium halberd (+11, 4d7+8) [-2, +0] # darkforge, main weapon
heap of 2 uncursed waterproof blankets
heap of 4 uncursed tiny keys # keys were growing on trees!
heap of 2 uncursed fireproof blankets
heap of 2 blessed fireproof blankets
uncursed climbing set # had a spare stashed
uncursed thieves picks
blessed si # managed to keep most of these sold/sacced off
blessed waterproof blanket
uncursed everburning torch [-2, +0]
blessed berserker king figurine of wondrous power # pet shop on D:22ish, was gonna take it to the small cave eventually
uncursed ring of see invisible # so, so nice, I never get these
heap of 2 uncursed potions of ultra healing
heap of 9 blessed potions of extra healing
heap of 4 blessed potions of ultra healing # not that any of those help when the other guy can instakill you
heap of 11 blessed scrolls of identify # biggest stash I've had in a while
heap of 6 blessed scrolls of chaos resistance
blessed scroll of familiar summoning # shoulda used this in the DH, I suppose
blessed spellbook of Teleportation # was still working up my Le for this
heap of 37 uncursed curaria mancox herbs # NO SUCH THING AS OVERKILL
heap of 99 uncursed cooked lizards # ate exactly one of these all game, had another ~100 stashed
heap of 68 uncursed spenseweeds # never came in handy, candle + healing + regen
heap of 7 uncursed lumps of bee wax # you know, in case...of...a randomly generated banshee? SHUT UP
heap of 10 blessed stomafillia herbs # sacced about 90 on my way to precrowning, had a disaster with going down to CN

Melee weapon Lvl Hit Dam DV Level Required marks
--------------------- --- --- --- -- ------------- --------------
Unarmed fighting 5 +3 +2 +1 skilled 73 # psh, who needs fists when you have artifacts and eternium
Daggers & knives 4 +3 +1 +0 skilled 91 # didn't end up using the phase dagger or Serpent's Bite much
Maces & flails 10 +9 +6 +3 excellent 1640 # Purifier. so awesome.
Axes 7 +5 +4 +1 skilled 143 # Executor. so badass. I spent about ten minutes being impressed by "you hit the -foo- and execute it" messages
Pole arms 11 +12 +7 +14 Mastery 2244 # just a plain ol' orcish spear for the early game, followed by that eternium halberd

Missile weapon Lvl Hit Dam Ra Level Required marks
--------------------- --- --- --- -- ------------- --------------
Bows 3 +6 +4 +1 basic 31 # most advanced missile skill, I was meleeing EVERYTHING and getting away with it...until the end

Shields Lvl DV Level Required marks
--------------------- --- --- ------------- --------------
Shields 0 +0 unskilled 15 # monks represent!

Right hand: +39 bonus to hit, 4d5+20 damage

Cure Light Wounds: 10, 9pp (Effectivity: +0) # potion of wonder
Magic Missile : 16, 14pp (Effectivity: +0) # actually managed to read a book. this was the result, and the reason I gave up on casting.

Shiny, the drakish monk, was extinguished by an emperor lich.
He scored 426317 points and advanced to level 20.
He survived for 0 years, 40 days, 2 hours, 25 minutes and 4 seconds (65862
turns). # moved pretty slowly :/
Shiny visited 67 places.
His strength score was modified by +2 during his career.
His learning score was modified by +3 during his career.
His willpower score was modified by +7 during his career.
His dexterity score was modified by +12 during his career.
His toughness score was modified by +7 during his career.
His charisma score was modified by +5 during his career.
His appearance score was modified by +7 during his career.
His mana score was modified by +6 during his career.
His perception score was modified by +4 during his career.
He was unnaturally aged by 9 years. # silly ghost lords.
He saved Khelavaster from certain death. # easiest ever, too
He ended his adventuring life on level 17 of the caverns of chaos.
3668 monsters perished under his attacks.
The following 16 artifacts were generated during his adventure:
the si # god this thing annoys me, I'll stop picking it up at all eventually
the scythe of corruption "Moon Sickle"
the golden gladius "Death's Sting"
the lead-filled mace "Big Punch"
the sword of Nonnak
the elemental gauntlets
the crown of science # doomed-scumming is for people who have more than 50 days before the corruption increase
the ancient mummy wrapping
the ankh
the black torc
the jet-black battle axe "Executor"
the staff of the archmagi # never saw this one, probably in the great treasures grave I was digging
the rune-covered heavy mace "Purifier"
the sapphire amulet "Preserver"
the black tome of Alsophocus # never saw this one either
the emerald dagger "Serpent's Bite" # not all that great when you have executor, funnily enough
He possessed the following intrinsics:
He was fire resistant (enhanced through an item).
He was poison resistant (enhanced through an item).
He was cold resistant (enhanced through an item).
He was acid resistant.
He was lucky (enhanced through items).
Fate smiled upon him.
He was able to control teleportation.
He was paralyzation resistant (gained through an item).
He was shock resistant (gained through an item).
He was immune to acidic attacks. # giant slug corpse on the banshee level
He had the following talents: Careful, Defensive Fighter, Good Learner, Good
Shot, Master Packager, Porter, Quick, Strong of Will. # good learner bug, plus a vague desire to go for melee weapons master and some clumsy fumbling around
He had a final speed score of 123 (final base speed: 123).
He was a fervent follower of Issrecht.
He asked for 3 divine interventions. # precrowning and two early heals
He was neutrally aligned.
He was slightly tainted by Chaos. # got one corruption, mana battery. got rid of it instantly.

The following monsters were vanquished:
1 berserker emperor # executed
36 blink dogs # two corpses, never got the second to a shop
2 greater daemons # dwarftown and another, would have been a problem without purifier
1 moloch, 30 mummies # dwarven halls. thank you, phase dagger!
34 rust monsters # something ridiculous like 3 tension rooms of these guys
33 steel golems # purified

[pblack]

First, i think the torc is only generated when you KILL keethrax, so you could have gotten that precrown.

Second. Executor AND Serpent's bite from one single lesser vault??? WOOOOAAAAHH. That's lucky my friend.

Third. I never dig graves w/o on demand teleportation and possibly some undead slying ammo. But still, the risk of a major undead (ie, your emperor lich) is minimal but still far too great for someone that already had AoLS, SoD, 2 major artifacts and what not... that digging was utterly unecessary.

And just to be clear, the emperor lich death rayed you in 1 turn (right after you climbed out of the grave)? If so, that's why you should have on demand teleportation. Even w/o tele control it's worth it. Remember that next time.

[tapi]

blaa
10char

[zeteginara]

Yeah, I don't understand WHY you went grave digging when you essentially had everything your character could possibly need to complete the game. 2 of among best one handed weapons in the game, you got your AoLS. You have PRESERVER. Whenever I find Preserver and/or Bracers of War, I usually say to myself "I just won". And you could have, too... and you probably would have had no significant problems.

Monks can use shields without penalty, am I wrong? The only thing they are restricted in what they can wear is armor.

Also, if you were going for an ultra, it might have been possible to finish Gaab'Baay's quest by now. Especially with all of the artifacts you generated (and you aren't going to use ALL of them, especially multiple one handers) That means you could have gotten crowned, and THAT means you could have gotten some awesome chest armor like Robes of Resistance or Shirt of the Saints. I usually do that before I go deeper in the CoC unless I'm going for a Chaotic Ultra.

I would have fed the ratling the Crown, The Phial, Ankh, Wrappings, Torc, and the Sword of Nonnak.

Not sure how good you were on a scroll of danger though.

Edit: I read through your generated artifacts, and I absolutely disagree that Serpent's Bite is 'not that great' if you find Executor. Executor is awesome, it does more damage, grants resistances, and raises your stats... but it also *CURSES YOU*. This is huge. It makes everything you fight more powerful.

Serpent's Bite, however, does still excellent damage, is *always poisoned*, and it weighs a paltry 13s making it an excellent choice for dual wielding if you are into dual wielding. Even if you are not, the fact that it doesn't curse you makes it at least on par with Executor.

[Captain Platypus]

Yeah, I don't understand WHY you went grave digging when you essentially had everything your character could possibly need to complete the game. 2 of among best one handed weapons in the game, you got your AoLS. You have PRESERVER. Whenever I find Preserver and/or Bracers of War, I usually say to myself "I just won". And you could have, too... and you probably would have had no significant problems.

Monks can use shields without penalty, am I wrong? The only thing they are restricted in what they can wear is armor.

Also, if you were going for an ultra, it might have been possible to finish Gaab'Baay's quest by now. Especially with all of the artifacts you generated (and you aren't going to use ALL of them, especially multiple one handers) That means you could have gotten crowned, and THAT means you could have gotten some awesome chest armor like Robes of Resistance or Shirt of the Saints. I usually do that before I go deeper in the CoC unless I'm going for a Chaotic Ultra.

I would have fed the ratling the Crown, The Phial, Ankh, Wrappings, Torc, and the Sword of Nonnak.

Not sure how good you were on a scroll of danger though.

Edit: I read through your generated artifacts, and I absolutely disagree that Serpent's Bite is 'not that great' if you find Executor. Executor is awesome, it does more damage, grants resistances, and raises your stats... but it also *CURSES YOU*. This is huge. It makes everything you fight more powerful.

Serpent's Bite, however, does still excellent damage, is *always poisoned*, and it weighs a paltry 13s making it an excellent choice for dual wielding if you are into dual wielding. Even if you are not, the fact that it doesn't curse you makes it at least on par with Executor.
As someone else also said, the gravedigging was a mistake. It was early in the morning and I was thinking "need a fast way to drop alignment, might as well dig an ancient treasures grave or two and see what I can get". Then an emperor lich popped, and for some idiotic reason I decided to try meleeing it with purifier instead of teleporting away. It wasted a bit of time summoning cats (which was annoying, but hardly deadly), which boosted my confidence - and then it remembered it had death ray.

As for executor and cursing, I agree, it is annoying - but that message is so damn cool. I was eventually planning to transition into dual-wielding of serpent's bite and phase dagger, but I never got the chance.

I had a scroll of danger stashed, and five of the six artifacts you mentioned (Big Punch subbed in for phial) also set away for ratling fodder. This was my way of lowering my alignment to feed the ratling - and, as we've seen, a terrible idea.

I was under the impression that using a shield with a monk removed your DV penalty as well. If not...my ludicrous-DV monks are about to get even more silly. I'll test it next time I make one (I've been taking silly risks with high elven archers and ghomish mindcrafters for a bit).

As for "I just won" with preserver or the bracers of war, I'm a relatively inexperienced player - I know the game pretty well, just from sheer number of hours played, but very few of those tend to be in the late game. Hence occasionally taking stupid risks I'm not prepared for and losing amazing characters.

The one problem I had with this character was that time seemed to be passing way faster than normal - it was around day 40 when I died, and it wasn't like I'd spent that much time wandering around the wilderness. I guess that was probably my ridiculously time-consuming precrown (I ended up dropping to CN by accident and having to work back up from spiritually invincible).

Anyway, if I ever get this lucky on artifact generation again, I'm going to be damn sure not to waste it.

[Captain Platypus]

First, i think the torc is only generated when you KILL keethrax, so you could have gotten that precrown.

Second. Executor AND Serpent's bite from one single lesser vault??? WOOOOAAAAHH. That's lucky my friend.

Third. I never dig graves w/o on demand teleportation and possibly some undead slying ammo. But still, the risk of a major undead (ie, your emperor lich) is minimal but still far too great for someone that already had AoLS, SoD, 2 major artifacts and what not... that digging was utterly unecessary.

And just to be clear, the emperor lich death rayed you in 1 turn (right after you climbed out of the grave)? If so, that's why you should have on demand teleportation. Even w/o tele control it's worth it. Remember that next time.In reverse order, it didn't death ray me in one turn - I was stupid enough to try taking it on. I was feeling a bit cocky after that moloch.

And I agree, it was unnecessary, stupid, risky, et cetera to be gravedigging at all. Should have just killed some ratling traders, or lured some dwarves away and killed them, or something to drop to CN and feed the ratling.

On the luck score...tell me about it. When I saw "jet-black battle axe" my jaw dropped about three inches, and then I found some thirteen stone dagger and picked it up because that sounded weird...and didn't realize it was serpent's bite until my next scroll of identify.

As for the torc only being generated when you kill Keethrax, I wish I'd known that at the time - would have saved me the ridiculously time-consuming precrown I did later. Ah well, next game.

[DumbleDoor]

It seems you may have gotten the rarest instrinct in all of ADOM. It is generated on character creation, and does not show up in your instrinct page.
"RNG's Artifact luck."
But it seems you also got,
"RNG's relative revenge."

[fazisi]

In my opinion, the RNG is karmic. If you get good, it gives bad. Just people seem to weigh good vs bad differently. You have to be more objective and realise that since the RNG gave you such an easy time getting through D:5 means he's going to kick your ass on D:6. Enjoy.
________
Bong pictures (http://glassbongs.org/)

[Captain Platypus]

Tested it, and shields do indeed take away the monk DV bonus.

As for the RNG, it's a random number generator. Well, pseudo-random, but the point is that aside from certain things that influence it (cursing and dooming, I think?), there's no correlation between what gets generated and what has been generated. Just got a string of good rolls and wasted them with a single stupid decision - which is, really, what roguelikes are all about.

[fazisi]

Don't wreck our fun by inserting logic into your statements.. The RNG does not approve.
________
Volcano vaporizers (http://volcanovaporizer.net/)

[Grey]

There is of course the RNG of life...

[DumbleDoor]

Tested it, and shields do indeed take away the monk DV bonus.

As for the RNG, it's a random number generator. Well, pseudo-random, but the point is that aside from certain things that influence it (cursing and dooming, I think?), there's no correlation between what gets generated and what has been generated. Just got a string of good rolls and wasted them with a single stupid decision - which is, really, what roguelikes are all about.
Don't you DARE talk badly about the RNG. Yeah, of course we know, but don't ruin the joke :(

[Jack the Ripper]

Don't blessed weapons do double damage against undead and demons? In that case, a BLESSED Purifier might have taken that emperor lich out in time :) . The RotHK makes good rat-fodder as well, and it doesn't waste a lot of time to make a dash for the Phial while you're in the area.

[Pumpernickel]

As for the RNG, it's a random number generator. Well, pseudo-random, but the point is that aside from certain things that influence it (cursing and dooming, I think?), there's no correlation between what gets generated and what has been generated.

I'm a code illiterate, but i thought that most RNG programs really do generate a _sequence_ of pseudo-random numbers, meaning that each number drawn is a _function_ of previously generated numbers, which is a shade more than just correlation. It's just that the spread of numbers generated is pseudo-random enough that we can't predict the next results simply by looking at what happens to our @ in-game.

Or did i get the wrong idea?