Royal Guardians should try saving the world themselves...

This is my first time playing ADOM in like 10 years. I had a handful of ultras back in the day, so I decided to try my hand, since the game has changed so much.

I had Lejes, a really good level 30ish Gnome Necromancer going. He got really lucky and was precrowned with Chain mail of the martyred crusader. In the Unremarkable Dungeon, he found Bracers of War! Looting the Underwater Cave after a fierce battle with the dragon (a few prayers were necessary) scored a ring of djinni summoning. I gave the subsequent amulet to Kelly, and was well on my way to an ultra ending. Sacced a bunch of flak artifacts to the ratling, started Gaab Baay's quests.... and then got crowned as a champion of balance...getting Vanquisher as a crowning gift!

Armed with lots of castings of Acid Ball and Vanquisher, I quickly dispatched both Keriax and the Ancient Chaos Wyrm. Equipped the Orb of Fire, grabbed some beeswax, and started my big dive. Around D:20ish, I heard the footsteps of the royal guard. Huh, I don't remember what those are. Looked it up real quick. Oh, it's just a room full of gold. Cool! I found it with magic map and teleport and picked up gold, triggering the royal guardian. Swung at him once with Vanquisher, took him down to mostly dead in one blow.

He attacked me, hitting about 12 times, some of which were crits. I was left with 1 HP. Holy crap. I teleported away... only to die of 1 hp of bleeding the next turn.

Holy crap. I guess I'll make a mental note to take those guys much more seriously. I'd have been much more careful picking a fight with those things had I known they were that ridiculous. Now that I'm looking them up, they are generated at twice the level of the PC. So I basically tried to pick a fight with a skeleton warrior I created at the small cave. Welp, lesson learned.

Also, I should have immediately gone Coward and prayed for healing or something. I was in 'very aggressive' mode.

I think I'll finally give Archer a shot.

Yeah those royal guardians got buffed pretty seriously in a former update. Sad for your necro.

Archers are very cool, pretty powerful from the start to the end. Good luck.

I find it silly that a rando royal vault guard is that much stronger than the ACW and Keriax. Especially given how easy it is to come by gold in the mid-late game; They aren't really guarding anything big, so I really don't see the need to buff them that much.

It's more of a trap than anything else. Now I know to just ignore royal vaults.... and my necro survived a greater undead vault in the Frost Giant Caves. Emperor Lich and all.

If royal vaults had a guaranteed artifact, it might be work risking the guardian. But it's not worth it for just gold.


As for my archer....

...I got precrowned with Thunderstroke at level 8, on floor 2 of the village dungeon. :)

Guess I'm going crossbows. :D

Royal vaults are deathtraps alright. At least for the unprepared. I guess you could turn invisible, teleport into the room, pick up some gold and teleport the heck out of there before the guardian gets the chance to get to you. The gold can be useful if you want an early crowning, or when you find a really sweet artifact item in a shop that you really want. For example in a recent game I found Robes of Resistance in the Dwarftown shop, took me a long time to collect the 126k gold it cost.

But getting down to 1 hp, teleporting away only to die of bleeding the next turn... That is really really sour...

Yeah, I guess I need to emphasize that there is no reason for the Guardian to be that powerful.

If a royal vault is generated in the early game, there’s not enough gold to be useful, as the gold is low DL.

If it’s generated in the mid to late game, the gold is better but gold isn’t exactly hard to come by. It isn’t nearly worth the risk.

Compare this to a greater vault. Similar risk level, very powerful monsters and such, but they are guarding what could be 4 artifacts; a potential huge power spike.

A royal vault has the risk but a much more situational reward. I think the right answer is simply ignoring them.

It's good idea to throw Potion of Exchange at Royal Guardian and hope he'll transform into sth. more manageable. Preferable by surprise, before he becomes hostile!

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Originally Posted by Carmallow

It's good idea to throw Potion of Exchange at Royal Guardian and hope he'll transform into sth. more manageable. Preferable by surprise, before he becomes hostile!

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... emperor lich?

Seriously I want to see if an Emperor Lich can save the world.