YAVP: My first melee win

[Harwin]

Having won twice with Wizards (Dark Elf normal and Drakeling ULE) I wanted to try a melee win. I decided to pick hurthling farmer so I'd level up quickly, partly so I could get precrowns out of the way and also so I could get some of the nice class powers done. I won, but remind me never to go for 3 precrowns again. 1 is plenty, 2 is nice, 3 is just boring.

So I created Robbin, a wolf-born Hurthling Farmer. Since I wasn't going for a ULE I decided to skip the small cave entirely - hurthlings level up quickly and I started out really weak. With my big dog in tow I accepted the quest to go save the carpenter and headed down.

First kill: Goblin Rockthrower.

My dog stayed loyal for a while, saving me from multiple early monsters and allowing me to actually gain a few levels and some HP so I wouldn't just die. Hurthlings aren't exactly that tough at the start. After rescuing him and learning healing from Jharod, I headed over to the puppy cave to clear the vault and look for herbs.

I'd never used gardening before and wasn't sure how I wanted to do it, but the one thing I was sure of is that I didn't want to lose any seeds to an exploding door. Nevertheless, I did. After that stupidity though I got really lucky. On PC:3 there were 3 stable patches, each one with stomafillia, 2 with alraunia and 1 with pepper petals. Just below them, on PC:4 was a lawful altar... and right next to that a room full of hurthling-killing gnolls. About 20 live gnoll sacrifices later, the room was empty and I was feeling good. I harvested herbs and prayed to my god and got... Preserver! I went and cleared the vault(mixed, but not bad) to gain levels and got precrowned with Farslayer. I didn't really have any quarrels but still a nice gift.

At this point I used my 1 herb seed to change the PP/Stoma patch to a PP/Morgia patch and got my wisdom and toughness up to 25/26, respectively, and just kept farming everything. A long time later I got my 3rd precrown, Purifier. I was kind of hoping for a polearm, being a farmer, but Purifier would stand me in good stead the rest of the game, so I switched to maces and never looked back.

Although I'd spent a ridiculous number of turns, the day count wasn't too bad. I'd never finished a game in under 90 days before (As a wizard I'd drag every Orb guardian corpse back to Terinyo for potions, and that ate a lot of game time) so I resolved to make that my goal - I'd gotten great gifts from my god, it would be my failure if I squandered them.

The early CoC was easy, although I found a ridiculous number of bee hives - bees started to get really dangerous. If I hadn't had Preserver I'd likely be dead. I managed to skip a lot of later hives, but I think at least 6 were generated by the time I got to the banshee level (one of them on the banshee level - if that's the guaranteed one, make sure you've got monster detection.)

I screw up the dwarven quest - I thought as long as I didn't go past the forest before getting the quest, I could still get it. No luck. Instead of getting past the forest, I get a quest to kill a troll king. I never see a troll king the entire game. I also fail to do the arena, waiting to get the quest from the dwarf, so I never get tactics.

Khelavaster made me sad. I walked up to him, handed him my one unID'd amulet and... no luck. He dies in my arms. I walk down the stairs, and in the NEXT ROOM is a glowing wand. On the next level after THAT is an ordinary ring. 5 wishes total, all too late for him.

I had no method of generating darkness so I just whittled the snake down, taking some corrupting hits and counting on my regen and my huge supply of pepper petals to save me. I then walked back out of the CoC and easily get the RoTHK. Before doing the ToEF I spend my first two wishes - tower eternium shields and red dragon scale mails. I drop most of my stuff, bless my 1 fireproof blanket, and bravely walk into the tower.

About 100 turns later I flee out of the tower, my blanket destroyed. I spent my 3rd(of 5) wishes on fireproof blankets, and bless 2 of them with my remaining holy water. I make a mistake exploring the tower and open an entire room of fire giants and kings. Purifier doesn't do much against them and although I'm not at a huge risk of dying, they aren't risk free and they're starting to whittle down my healing supplies. Luckily, there's an L altar in the tower so I sacrifice a lot of giant kings.

The top level of the ToEF is more of a pain than normal. Without invis and darkness I have to clear a large chunk of the room. Purifier appears to kill elementals, and definitely works on grues so it isn't too bad. I manage to lure him out of that area and blind him, and start pelting him with dragon slaying. When that runs out I start meleeing him with Purifier. He manages to run away down the corridor a bit, and so although I kill him, I can't get to his corpse immediately. A few turns later, it burns away. Really? A giant dragon who lives in the tower of eternal flames doesn't have a fire-proof corpse?

Disgusted, I return to Terinyo(picking up the courage quest on the way, hmm, I'll need 33 goblin rockthrowers total), hand in my one guardian corpse, and prepare to make my final dive. The casino gets me a bunch of potions, wands, and ammo, and I decline to buy robes of resistance. I find an L altar a little bit below it but had underestimated how much gold I'd require after 3 precrownings so have to revisit the casino a few times to get more gold. Finally I get precrowned, get shock resistance(a slug had given me acid and I was wearing a crown of ice and red dragon mail) and... hammer of the gods. Oh well, I can't say my god wasn't generous before.

On D:36 I sense a greater vault and while trying to avoid it, ghosts come through the walls! (I have no source of invisibility at this point). I kill them, but get surprised by a ghost lord and go from Frodo->Bilbo in one turn. I manage to get away down the stairs, nervous. I grab the ring of the master cat, skip the air temple, encounter a patch of mareilon, and then see a greater vault of ogres and giants. Awesome! With all my extra morgia, cooking, giant corpses and mareilon, I get my old-age stats back up to young-adult levels. I also get Thunderstroke! At least it goes with Farslayer. Then, with 2 wishes left I wish for potions of youth and get rid of 46 years of unnatural aging. One of my 2 remaining red dragon scale mails gets damaged, but I switch it up.

I find out that Bugs disarms. Luckily I've got enough humanoid slaying ammo to finish him off and he does this after I've killed the bunnies.

The earth temple is easy, I've got purifier, they've got vulnerabilities to Purifier. I mostly berserk the ASB, at this point I've got ridiculous PV so except on crits he doesn't hurt me. Air is similarly easy. One of the walls to the central room is already open for some reason - and there's a fireball trap outside it. I trigger the trap four times and then learn that they run out of charges (With 3 fireproof blankets and immunity to fire, and most of my really vulnerable items on a previous floor I was hoping to abuse it). I use my one wand of Fireballs to clear a path and berserk the summoner to death.

I skip a lesser red dragon vault (I'm starting to worry about corruption - I've got one randomly dropped scroll and one potion at this point, and luckily no corruptions I can't live with) and head to the mana temple. After slaughtering a ton of guardians I find Nuurag-Vaarn and proceed to run back through the traps trying to kill him with humanoid slaying, and ducking out of sight eating pepper petals whenever I get a death ray hit (I'm wearing the AMW but no other death ray resistance). Finally I run out of humanoid slaying but he's pretty slow, so I kill him with Thunderstroke. Who says it isn't useful? I get the apish corruption and as you can see from my stats at the end, it has quite an effect, despite having paid quite a bit to train learning in Dwarftown.

I've got no potion of uselessness so I just head down. Right before entering D:50 I get mana battery. I'm hesitant to clear it. It blocks a wand of destruction ending but I could get something worse, and I've got 1 scroll and one potion, so I decide to chance it. Mindful of the ghost lords, I spend my final wish on cloaks of invisibility. About 10 kills later I find one. Sigh. I also, finally, at long last, bless Purifier. It's a demon and undead slayer... that I haven't blessed yet. Idiot.

D:50 takes me a LONG time, like 20000+ moves long. I read a scroll of vermin control at the start to stop the WMoPCs from spawning, but I'm terrible and drawing the balors out so I have to fight through a ridiculous number of chaos servants and greater chaos servants, all of which are really nasty by the end. The balors aren't a big deal, I've got blessed Farslayer and 18 blessed demonslaying quarrels. Most of them die that way, a few to Purifier. The few ghost lords I do see on D:50 I kill with undead slaying ammo

Fisti is still up and I have no hope of getting into the center room so I pull the levers, find him at one of them, kill him, and leave. I check my kill count. 33 goblin rockthrowers. I finally pick up courage. I t

Big mistakes:
1. Not getting tactics
2. Not blessing purifier
3. Not being more careful about ghost lords - that wasn't a wish I wanted to spend.

Things I learned:
1. Bugs disarms.
2. Getting 3 precrowns is BORING.

Questions:
1.Somehow, despite getting less XP and no ULE, my hurthling farmer ended up with about 2x as many points as my drakeling wizard.

[Harwin]

Robbin        St:46  Le: 8  Wi:27  Dx:47  To:53  Ch: 5  Ap: 5  Ma:16  Pe:17 L+
DV/PV:105/49     H:886(886)    P:230(230)    Exp: 50/22839849   DrCh  Sp: 110
Blessed Invisible Bloated Burdened Coward
------------------------------------------------------------------------------


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                            Background Information
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Name: Robbin              Race: male Hurthling      Class: Farmer
Eye color: light blue     Hair color: blonde        Complexion: light
Height: 3'1"              Weight: 79 pounds
Age: 42 (grown-up)
Star sign: Wolf           Birthday: 15/Wolf (day 315 of the year)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                  Inventory
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total weight: 14539 stones                Carrying capacity: 19350 stones

He: uncursed eternium cap [+2, +4]                                    [28s]
Ne: uncursed sapphire amulet "Preserver" [+4, +4] {Wi+7}               [3s]
Bo: uncursed red dragon scale mail (-1, -4) [-1, +4]                 [220s]
Gi: blessed girdle of strength [+0, +0] {St+3}                        [15s]
Cl: uncursed cloak of invisibility (-1, +0) [-2, +3]                  [30s]
RH: blessed rune-covered heavy mace "Purifier" (+5, 4d5+5) [-4, +1] {Wi+4}
LH: uncursed tower eternium shield [+13, +4]                          [70s]
RR: blessed ring of the High Kings [+2, +3]                            [1s]
LR: blessed ring of the master cat [+0, +5] {Dx+16} (+16 spd)          [1s]
Br: uncursed bracers of toughness [+0, +0] {To+6}                     [10s]
Ga: uncursed thick gauntlets (-1, -2) [+0, +1]                        [15s]	<-I finally found these on D:50, luckily before I got poison hands.
Bo: blessed seven league boots [+1, +0]                               [30s]
MW: blessed heavy crossbow "The Far Slayer" (+18, +18)               [350s]
Mi: uncursed obsidian quarrel "Thunderstroke" (+8, 20d4+8)             [2s]
Tl: -


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                Weapon Skills
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Melee weapon           Lvl   Hit   Dam   DV   Level          Required marks
---------------------  ---   ---   ---   --   -------------  --------------
Maces & flails          13   +14   +10   +4   Mastery              12		<-first time I've ever hit mastery.
Pole arms                8    +8    +4   +8   excellent            254


Missile weapon         Lvl   Hit   Dam   Ra   Level          Required marks
---------------------  ---   ---   ---   --   -------------  --------------
Bows                     6   +12    +9   +2   skilled              70
Crossbows                8   +16   +12   +2   excellent            112

Shields                Lvl   DV               Level          Required marks
---------------------  ---   ---              -------------  --------------
Shields                 13   +26              Mastery              7985



----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                   Skills
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Archery ..................100    (superb)       [+1]				<-it took a LOT of levels to get this, from 60->100 at +1 a pop.
  Cooking .................. 94    (superb)       [+1d5] (ma)
  Courage .................. 10    (poor)         [+3d4]
  Food preservation ........100    (superb)       [+2d4]
  Gardening ................100    (superb)       [+2d4]
  Healing .................. 96    (superb)       [+1]
  Herbalism ................100    (superb)       [+1d5]
  Literacy ................. 73    (great)        [+1]
  

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                   Spells
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

   Farsight     :     1,  33pp     (Effectivity: +0)
   Magic Missile:    10,  15pp     (Effectivity: +0)
   Scare Monster:    10,  22pp     (Effectivity: +0)




----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                              His further life:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

After he leaves the Drakalor Chain he is welcomed by his people with great
honors. They acknowledge his noble deeds, his valor, his cunning and his
great skills that helped to prevent the complete destruction of the world he
knows. He is crowned to be the king of all hurthlings and lives a long and
prosperous life full of love, happiness and pleasure.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
              His achievements during his adventures:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Robbin, the hurthling farmer, saved the world with his brave efforts and
became a great ruler without even stopping to save himself.
He scored 21337808 points and advanced to level 50.
He survived for 0 years, 80 days, 7 hours, 12 minutes and 48 seconds (123388
turns).
1 companion was killed during his adventures.
Robbin visited 95 places.
His strength score was modified by +31 during his career.	<-aging, +apish corruption, +farmer
His learning score was modified by -1 during his career.	<-apish
His willpower score was modified by +1 during his career.	<-apish eating most of my gains
His dexterity score was modified by +14 during his career.
His toughness score was modified by +30 during his career.
His charisma score was modified by -5 during his career.
His appearance score was modified by -5 during his career.
His mana score was modified by +7 during his career.
His perception score was modified by +2 during his career.
He adhered to the principles of the Cat Lord and thus rose to great fame.
He left the Drakalor Chain after completing his quest and became a great
leader and famous hero.
3087 monsters perished under his attacks. 	<-about 20% of them on D:50
The following 21 artifacts were generated during his adventure:
  the si
  the scythe of corruption "Moon Sickle"
  the ring of the master cat
  the Chaos Orb of Elemental Water
  the Chaos Orb of Elemental Air
  the Chaos Orb of Elemental Fire
  the Chaos Orb of Elemental Earth
  the heavy crossbow "The Far Slayer"		<-2nd precrown
  the obsidian quarrel "Thunderstroke"		<-giant/ogre greater vault
  the elemental gauntlets
  the ring of the High Kings
  the crown of science
  the ancient mummy wrapping
  the ankh
  the hammer of the gods			<-crowning
  the bracers of war				<-??? greater undead vault?
  the Chaos Orb of Elemental Mana
  the jet-black battle axe "Executor"		<-??? greater undead vault?
  the robes of resistance 			<-casino
  the rune-covered heavy mace "Purifier" 	<-3rd precrown
  the sapphire amulet "Preserver" 		<-1st precrown
He possessed the following intrinsics:
  He was fire resistant (gained through an item). <-I can't believe I never got this
  He was poison resistant (enhanced through items).
  He was cold resistant (gained through an item).
  He was acid resistant.
  He was lucky (enhanced through items).
  Fate smiled upon him (enhanced through an item).
  He was invisible (gained through an item).
  He was paralyzation resistant (gained through an item).
  He was shock resistant (gained through an item).
  He was able to see invisible things (gained through an item).
  He was immune to shock attacks.
  He was immune to fire attacks (gained through an item).
  He was immune to acidic attacks.
He had the following talents: Affinity with Bows, Affinity with Crossbows,
Affinity with Maces & Flails, Affinity with Thrown Axes & Hammers, Alert,
Basher, Eagle Eye, Good Shot, Hardy, Healthy, Iron Skin, Keen Shot, Long
Stride, Mighty Strike, Miser, Missile Weapon Master, Powerful Strike, Tough
Skin, Treasure Hunter.
He had a final speed score of 110 (final base speed: 109).
He was a messiah of Shalla.
He asked for 5 divine interventions. <-I don't remember asking for that many, 3 precrowns, 1 postcrown, 1 prayer early on maybe?
He was a holy champion of Order.

The following monsters were vanquished:
      1 battle bunny <- I've never had that few.  I guess wand of digging plus seven-league boots plus some luck was enough

     67 chaos mutants
    237 chaos servants <-D:50 was painful at the end
     25 chaos spawns
     39 chaos warriors
     18 chaos wizards
    199 greater chaos servants <-these were no joke
    122 writhing masses of primal chaos

      1 giant bee queen
    165 giant bee warriors <-too many hives
     41 giant bee workers

     33 goblin rockthrowers <-precisely enough for Courage at the end

      4 troll berserkers
      4 troll chiefs
      0 troll kings <- sigh

[JellySlayer]

Congratulation on the win! Farmers are a tough class to play, and you seem to have done very well with it.

The early CoC was easy, although I found a ridiculous number of bee hives - bees started to get really dangerous. If I hadn't had Preserver I'd likely be dead. I managed to skip a lot of later hives, but I think at least 6 were generated by the time I got to the banshee level (one of them on the banshee level - if that's the guaranteed one, make sure you've got monster detection.)

More than 3 hives in 1 game is really nasty. I usually try to use door creation to block them off after I've seen the second one. I've never seen a hive on the banshee level before. Usually there is one generated a floor or two above.

I screw up the dwarven quest - I thought as long as I didn't go past the forest before getting the quest, I could still get it. No luck. Instead of getting past the forest, I get a quest to kill a troll king. I never see a troll king the entire game. I also fail to do the arena, waiting to get the quest from the dwarf, so I never get tactics.

You can always just do the arena on your own. By the mid-game, the benefits of tactics are far better than any of the stuff the dwarf gives you for finishing it.

About 100 turns later I flee out of the tower, my blanket destroyed. I spent my 3rd(of 5) wishes on fireproof blankets, and bless 2 of them with my remaining holy water. I make a mistake exploring the tower and open an entire room of fire giants and kings. Purifier doesn't do much against them and although I'm not at a huge risk of dying, they aren't risk free and they're starting to whittle down my healing supplies. Luckily, there's an L altar in the tower so I sacrifice a lot of giant kings.

Did you have luck + fate smiles on at the time? If not, you were just really unlucky I guess. Without those intrinisics (or, weirdly, cursing and dooming...), blankets will usually burn in a few hundred turns. With, it's several thousand.

Questions:
1.Somehow, despite getting less XP and no ULE, my hurthling farmer ended up with about 2x as many points as my drakeling wizard.

ULE doesn't give any more points intrinsically than a normal ending as far as I know. The only extra points you get are for the extra artifacts and experience you would get doing all of the quests. My guess for the points difference would be piety. You can get an absolutely ridiculous number of points from piety (40 million or something...), and you seemed to have played a very pious character, so that would probably do it.

[Harwin]

Did you have luck + fate smiles on at the time? If not, you were just really unlucky I guess. Without those intrinisics (or, weirdly, cursing and dooming...), blankets will usually burn in a few hundred turns. With, it's several thousand.

I should have, after 3 precrownings and no karmics/pool sipping. I was carrying *very* few items. Maybe when a blanket comes up on the RNG it is less likely to protect itself? When I brought 3 blankets I brought most of my stuff, figuring it was all covered and wanting to have options.

[vogonpoet]

I bloody hate those fireproof blankets. What a bloody misnomer.

Even blessed, there are some games where they should be called 'vaguely fire resistant sometimes blankets'. I had a nicely pious lucky fates smiley mindcrafter loose 1 blessed blanket to a fireball trap and 2 blessed blankets in the tower once. Grr. Nice win though BTW

[deepshock]

Good job on the farmer win. Those aren't easy to do in the slightest.