Mid skill tactics

[Vanguardj]

Warning: minor spoilers/scumming discussed

Good day, I've been buzzing about for a little while and playing ADOM for a few months. I've now been able to get PC's to dwarftown and on with a fairly high rate of success(and no I never save scum), but I'm hitting some walls there.

Wizards, Barbarians, Bards and even a necromancer (joy!). Once I get there, though, I have some real trouble pulling off mid level tactics, in a specific instance: the big room and pacification.

I just can't ever seem to get the tools needed to do it. No pick axes, no wands or spells of door creation or mystic shovel. Best luck I've had is doing it invisible.

So how the heck can you consistently get these needed tools to pull it off? Any other mid game tips and pointers (like securing trap detection wands for the pyramid, or is it advised to just pick pockets and train with the Thieves Guild) would be well appreciated.

[anon123]

I just can't ever seem to get the tools needed to do it. No pick axes, no wands or spells of door creation or mystic shovel. Best luck I've had is doing it invisible.

So how the heck can you consistently get these needed tools to pull it off?

There's a guaranteed pickaxe in the pyramid. There's also a guaranteed NPC that will provide infinite pickaxe repairs as long as he's alive and you have enough gold. Corroding it with the help of some jellies will make said repairs cheaper.

Wands of door creation should also be common enough for you to run into one in low-DL locations - although we all know the RNG will prevent that from happening when you're looking for one...

Any other mid game tips and pointers (like securing trap detection wands for the pyramid, or is it advised to just pick pockets and train with the Thieves Guild) would be well appreciated.

Wands of trap detection are danger level 2 according the wiki. This means continuously crawling I6 to I8 will eventually get you one, which can be charged with beggars' booze.

I always go the Yergius route, though. My early-game ID trekking provides enough gold to buy the Detect Traps skill, increase its dice to 4d5, and buy some practical lessons for it. Also, note the exact position of traps in the pyramid is always the same. With some so-called metagaming, you can know their exact location, get adjacent to them and 's'earch until they show up, eliminating risks and training Detect Traps a bit. I wouldn't open an online map of the pyramid as I walk through it to know where every ^ is, but after enough visits, you'll more or less remember.

[Silfir]

I used to bother with Detect Traps, then I decided to just run into the damn things. I do know the fastest route through the pyramid and Griff's tomb by heart, however. Trap detection wands only ever get used in the Mana Temple.

Wands of door creation are really common, so I usually have some when I decide that I could really use the Big Room pacified for herb farming. If I don't have even one (you can recharge it) though, I simply do something else, or farm some herbs while killing monsters for a while (yes, that's possible). Some games I plain don't bother. Pacifying the Big Room is not an obligatory step to completing the game, so I find it strange it's bothering you that much. "Hitting a wall" for me means that there's some point in the game where your characters just keep dying, and that's not what it sounds like is happening. Where do your characters die?

[Vanguardj]

Die, hrm. Stupid as this sounds, my deaths are from absolute stupidity early game(I always rush the UD for pools/herbs and never pass either by) to a vault/tension of crystal statues (hate them so much) or not at all. I just get frustrated with the problems with Thrun's quests (cats in the arena as a non caster, can't find the ******** troll he wants), don't have the equipment to challenge the ToEF, Pacify, etc and just hit S and move to a new one. Only one or 2 actually died to things post d-town ala a very out of depth monster spawning. (dragon? berserk charge!)

Biggest mid game character I've lost so far was a DE barbarian(my favorite class/combo) choking to death while super-training with herbs while sick(plenty of cures on him). That deserved a YASD.

P.S. I'm blessed/cursed with vaults. Every character, at least 2-3 per game, and I can never say no. See early game absolute stupidity (vaults in UD1/D2ish).

[JellySlayer]

Warning: minor spoilers/scumming discussed

Good day, I've been buzzing about for a little while and playing ADOM for a few months. I've now been able to get PC's to dwarftown and on with a fairly high rate of success(and no I never save scum), but I'm hitting some walls there.

If you can reliably make it to DT, you're doing very well. The early game is the hardest/most dangerous part of the game.

Wizards, Barbarians, Bards and even a necromancer (joy!). Once I get there, though, I have some real trouble pulling off mid level tactics, in a specific instance: the big room and pacification.

Personal opinion: it's not worth the effort. The big room is a dangerous place to be spending time wandering around in, and pacifying it is fairly unnecessary. Cross as quickly as possible, grab a couple herbs as you go by if you need them (better if they're on another level though). Attempting to pacify the big room is more likely to get you killed than just avoiding spending time there. Try to think about simplifying your gameplan: Do things that are necessary to win. Things that are dangerous or tricky, like saving Khelly, pacifying the Big Room, hunting for some obscure monster for Thrundarr (if it's an easy one, by all means, but don't waste your time trying to track down a vapor rat), using Banshee on animated forest, avoiding cats, or raiding the WDC are things that don't help you win and risk letting you die.

There is a guaranteed pickaxe in the Pyramid, and a guaranteed wand of digging awarded for killing/saving Khelevaster. There is another available from the Griffyard rewards. So if you need these things, this is where you can get them. But, again, I wouldn't bother. Those wand charges can be put to better use.

So how the heck can you consistently get these needed tools to pull it off? Any other mid game tips and pointers (like securing trap detection wands for the pyramid, or is it advised to just pick pockets and train with the Thieves Guild) would be well appreciated.

Wand of trap detection is not necessary for the Pyramid. Neither, really, is Detect Traps (although you can get it easily at this point if you want it). You can get through the Pyramid, if you know a good route, with setting off no more than a small handful of traps (my preferred route is to take the east path to where the pickaxe is, use the teleport trap there to go straight to the stairs). More important is having a good way to deal with the top level--the traps in the Pyramid shouldn't be overly dangerous at this point in the game. If you want to train detect traps, head to the VDDL and search for teleport traps--this is a good, safe area to learn detect traps. And while you're there get the teleport wand. This is the most important item in the early game you are likely to find (unless you're a wizard who gets a teleport book). The second most important is a blink dog corpse. You can find the wand using a wand/scroll of item detection or a scroll of magic map. You can do it using random teleports as well, but this is pretty tedious.

[grobblewobble]

Personal opinion: it's not worth the effort. The big room is a dangerous place to be spending time wandering around in, and pacifying it is fairly unnecessary. Cross as quickly as possible, grab a couple herbs as you go by if you need them (better if they're on another level though). Attempting to pacify the big room is more likely to get you killed than just avoiding spending time there. Try to think about simplifying your gameplan: Do things that are necessary to win. Things that are dangerous or tricky, like saving Khelly, pacifying the Big Room, hunting for some obscure monster for Thrundarr (if it's an easy one, by all means, but don't waste your time trying to track down a vapor rat), using Banshee on animated forest, avoiding cats, or raiding the WDC are things that don't help you win and risk letting you die.

This, exactly. I blame the ADOM guidebook. Before I found the forum I was just like you and always tried to pacify the big room, because the ADOM guidebook makes it seem like you should. Got me a nice death from an extremely experienced white worm, once. The guidebook also maliciously tells you cats are important. It's a lie, don't believe it. Kill any cats you see without mercy. If you make it to the master cat, you will probably win anyway, ring or no ring.

A much easier way to get herbs is to farm them somewhere else. Usually there is at least one other level that has them, for example the UD or just below dwarftown. Other levels are much easier to pacify - all you have to do is to lure a breeder into a side room and shut the door (and lock it if you happen to have the right key). And even without pacifying, they're still much safer places to get your herbs.

I also see that you drink from pools. Pools are death, imo. They make you sick, give you teleportitis without control and doom you. I recommend to ignore them unless you want to score an ultra (and even then, only drink when you are ready to deal with all the negatives).

Then pickpocketing and training with Yergius. This is another thing the guidebook makes you believe you need. You don't. For the pyramid and the dwarven graveyard, if you want to avoid item destruction, you could do the following. First drop all your vulnerable good items (scrolls, potions, etc) somewhere and do a scouting run, where you find most of the traps on your way to the goal. Then go back, retrieve your items and return for the kill.

[quik]

I think a good strategy when playing for a first win is trying to minimize the chances of finding yourself in a difficult situation you can't handle. This translates into doing just the essential areas to finish the game, not spending time in dangerous levels and in general, playing very conservatively (although the latter applies to every kind of game in my opinion).

Regarding your race / class combos, if you want to maximize the chances of a first win happening, you may want to stick to wizards or archers. Wizards are easier than other casters because more spellbooks are found (not sure if there is any exception to this though... Priests, perhaps?) and mainly because of the reduction of the spell PP costs. Archers are awesome thanks to the ammo of slaying, which gives you an easier time fighting the nastiest monsters in the game.

Regarding melee chars (barbarian in particular), although the early game is a breeze, later on you may find some difficulties when fighting the main bosses, as meleeing exposes you to eventually take more hits than it is advisable. Because of this, I consider barbarians to be a point of difficulty higher than wizards or archers.

Die, hrm. Stupid as this sounds, my deaths are from absolute stupidity early game(I always rush the UD for pools/herbs and never pass either by)

You can consider a slower start of the game and go to the UD later on when you have means of invisibility to pass through the SMC (skipping it for good is also a possibility), although I admit that if you play a strong race/class combo it's a nice way to start the game, as your character will have better equipment (and a waterproof blanket, you only appreciate it when you lack it) by levels 10-12.

I just get frustrated with the problems with Thrun's quests (cats in the arena as a non caster, can't find the ******** troll he wants)

I don't know if this is subjective and/or just wrong, but I feel that the lower your level the easier the monster Thrundarr asks you to kill. Because of this, I usually go straight to the Caverns of Chaos after finishing the UD (around character level 9) and rush my descent to Dwarftown by taking the downstairs as soon as I find them. After I get to Thrundarr and get the quest, I go back up and clear all the levels. Regarding this quest, there is also a hypothesis that says that the monster Thrundarr asks you to kill is usually found in the first level below Dwarftown, although I'm not very fond of this theory.

don't have the equipment to challenge the ToEF

This is an interesting topic. Perhaps when you have a char worth considering to tackle the ToEF you may ask for advice about this subject.

Only one or 2 actually died to things post d-town ala a very out of depth monster spawning. (dragon? berserk charge!)

Sometimes you just have to runaway

P.S. I'm blessed/cursed with vaults. Every character, at least 2-3 per game, and I can never say no. See early game absolute stupidity (vaults in UD1/D2ish).

Sometimes when I find an early game vault and I feel my character is not ready yet (or I try it and find it difficult) I just leave and come back a couple of levels later. Perhaps if you can't say no you can say 'later'?

(my preferred route is to take the east path to where the pickaxe is, use the teleport trap there to go straight to the stairs)

That's an interesting route I never have thought of. I'll try it in my next game

[Vanguardj]

This thread has so far been quite informative and encouraging, thank you. Seems like I just have to gird my loins and go on with it, but that's hard for a Bartle Achiever - type player. Winning isn't good enough, absolute domination is life!

But, for now, I'll stick to just grinding on. Pulled out a new character last night, utterly random. Hit G, got Tree with the falling star special and said screw it, I'll play this. DE wizard with 20 learning and 21 mana out the gate, and a book of teleport to boot. Booyah.

He's in dwarf town, spawned Keethrax at level 4, hopped through most the UD levels (without herbs again, FFFFFF), killed Kran and ignored the puppy cave like any chaotic should. Now, when Thrun asks me to kill a karmic lizard or some preposterous request like that, I'm going to spit in his face and keep going down. Looking forward to this tonight.

As a side note, I've another tactic I'd like to discuss.

So I rolled a bard about two weeks ago when I scored a Candle with a two headed calf message. Grey elf, great stats, and his skill list was simply . . . unbelievable. First time I got a bard with SLB's, alert, and a skill list to die for.

Alertness, athletics, archery, dodge, find weakness, concentration, literacy, herbalism, (healing added via VD), and a few other less awesome but nice to have skills for the early game. So, I took him the pet meat shield archer route. Problem is he zipped down to D town with little resistance, but I can't seem to dredge up any good ammo for his longbow. Should I simply resign myself to going topside and scumming bandits/barbarians for their arrows?

[grobblewobble]

Do you have access to Bugwil? If you use a blessed instrument (and 100 music skill) you can tame killerbugs. Dangerous, but if you're that type of player you will love it. ;-) Gut posted a video of how to do it, the gist is that you dual wield torches for best vision and let the greater claw bugs kill each other. Use ctrl-o to command them to attack.

Anyway, scumming barbarians for arrows is a good idea. For herbs, did you check the DDL? That place also has them often. Otherwise, just below dwarftown maybe?

[Silfir]

It's interesting that you seem to mention several characters post-Dwarftown that you lost interest in because (essentially) they weren't lucky enough, not actually dead. If an in-game quest or guidebook recommendation is going on your nerves, feel free to ignore it entirely. Boredom is the greatest killer. Most of that stuff is best treated as a recommendation. I wouldn't have pacified the Big Room in my Let's Play either if I hadn't already had the wands of door creation to do it with. The only place where it's pretty crucial, not just helpful, to have the HP from 25+ Toughness is the Tower of Eternal Flames, and there's tons of stuff before that.

That said, I don't consider either a troll or a karmic lizard to be particularly preposterous. The Big Room will get you either pretty quickly.

As for ammunition: I always swim in the damn stuff, but I also a) always pick Treasure Hunter and b) always use both bows and crossbows. That effectively doubles your ammo stock, including slaying ammo.

ADOM is a huge game with lots of possibilities and things you can do to really pump your character. I only do like half of them and I've won the game several times. As long as you're alive, you're winning. Giving up on a character that's not even dead yet is pretty silly in that light. At the very least, send them for a mad dash towards the next objective to see what it's like to fight the Snake from Beyond, or Ancient Chaos Wyrm, and so forth. Rather than pile up savegames you're never going back to, use them for research!