Chaos Knight post-mortem

[BenMathiesen]

Well, I just got pretty far with a ratling Chaos Knight. The most interesting thing about the class, I think, is that it forces you to find non-standard solutions to many problems in the game.

I began with the mana battery corruption, which was a pain--your earliest corruptions are nearly impossible to get rid of. I was wondering if I would ever be able to complete the chaos trinity quests with that one, for example by dipping a wand in booze then giving it to the crone. But it became a moot point when dwarftown went hostile after I confused Thrundarr and scared Waldenbrook; the dwarves killed the mutated ratling.

Getting past the Eternal Guardian was very difficult. I didn't have a penetrating weapon throughout the game, so the only thing that helped me there was the acid blood mutation, which would occasionally blind one of the guardians and cause them to stagger around. With 7LB, I could sometimes get to move onto the staircase before another EG appeared. But by the time I died, there were 8 EGs on the level. :-( One of them finally killed me because I got the poison hands corruption during a fight and didn't switch gloved before drinking my potion of extra healing. Dumb! Even dumber, maybe, was returning to the surface so that I had to cross the EG a second time, which is what caused that fight in the first place. Wands of teleportation? Mana battery, remember?

Biggest challenges were getting Str and App exchanged by an unIDed potion, and going through most of the game without literacy. (Got it L19 at library--fortunately, you don't need to have the skill already to get it from the ghost librarian!)

Best weapon found was an eternium scimitar of devastation.

Thanks, Thomas!

[grobblewobble]

Out of curiosity, was there a special reason why you didn't convert? Special challenge game?

[plllizzz9]

Out of curiosity, was there a special reason why you didn't convert?

I found the tediousness of that task enough of a 'special reason' currently, possibly it was the case here aswell

[BenMathiesen]

Not a challenge game so much as wanting to see how the CK plays out when used as intended.

It does play more quickly for one thing. It's a bit of a relief not having as many side quests to worry about! And I would have had a shot at OCG if it weren't for the ratling, I think--I found a nice amount of dragon slaying ammo for the Crown, and plenty of artifacts that I could sacrifice. (Silver Key on D2, which I mentioned in another thread; Robes of Resistance in the Casino). I even had a wish in reserve, which I probably would have had to use on scrolls of corruption removal.

[SirTheta]

I'm pretty sure it is nigh impossible (even with TP) to get to the stairs once one hostile EG is generated. You have to kill off all hostile copies before attempting it (as I learned the hard way with about four EGs…can't imagine eight.)

[BenMathiesen]

There were already hostiles around when I made it down the stairs. IIRC, EG no. 4 was on the stairs, another was in the same room, and two more were elsewhere in the level. What happened was that EG4 hit me, got splashed with acid blood, got confused, and staggered off the stairs. I was able to step on and escape.

Earlier in that fight, the same thing happened with EG2--I saw the stairs appear for one turn but I was too far away to take advantage. EG3 appeared on the stairs right after my move.

So I think it just has to do with being fast enough to act before EG, at least some of the time.

NB: I did have the ring of the High Kings, the EG refused me passage anyway. Yet another disadvantage of Chaos Knights.

[plllizzz9]

My tactic was similar, but in my case it was stand proud and tall and BASH HIS F*IN FACE IN

Acidic blood made it esier since I just stepped on the stairs after he stumbled off and I kept wailing on him

lack of !oEH sources for nonconverted CK hurts as hell though in cases like that... figures you can use Water Orb, but adding even more corruption points without sources of SoCR and Elemental Gauntlets... I kinda think CK needs more -alternatives- to converting right now. Since it quickly becomes the 'proper' way to play one [even the standard ending for a Chaotic one is a bad one]

[BenMathiesen]

Wow, I had the spiked armor but he was still doing about 50HP of damage per hit. But maybe that's because he was EG4 and not EG1. And I had some good weapons, but they weren't getting a lot of damage through his armor.

[grobblewobble]

Did you have a wand of trap creation? Alarm traps are an enormous help there. Turns two eternal guardians into one massive pile of easy xp.

The spiked armor doesn't help you at all against the EG, he punches through armor so the PV does nothing.