Improved Guidebook

[IGB]

Hello,

I have spent some time improving the Improved Guidebook. I believe it is now better structured, it contains stats for every unique, and stats for every non-random artifact within the location descriptions. It also has few notes about the upcoming v1.2.0, in places where the contents differs.

Since Andy Williams reportedly declared his Guidebook public domain, I see no more copyright or other issues with the improved one. I am humbly asking the community, if it could be offered as an official spoiler here on the forums, with the link to it - http://adomgb.sweb.cz, to the benefit of the growing number of ADOM players. Thank you.

[anon123]

I skimmed through the new sections and found a few things to correct:

Insects - ants a, bees b, centipedes c, and bugs i - artifact weapon ebony spear "Bugbiter" slays them all; they are immune to mindcraft.

Giant ant warrior, giant ant queen, giant bee queen, giant bee warrior and ankheg are curiously affected by mindcraft. A full list can be found here.

Some of them also spit webs.

You probably meant "spin"

Colored dragons and wyrms can be enraged by giving them a dragon-hide item that is the same color as them. They will also instantly destroy the item. There is, of course, usually very little reason to actually do this.

Even though it's extremely insignificant, it might be worth mentioning that due to a bug black and white dragons react to the opposite color when you give them items like this, instead of their own.

When a giant is approaching, you will hear "*THUMB*".

This only holds true for molochs and titans of both kinds. No other monsters go *THUMB* when they walk.

extra-special beings X

The manual describes the "X" as being shorthand for "extraplanar".

gray ooze, ochre jelly - breeder, corrodes weapons (or hands and gloves)

And boots, if you attempt to kick these guys.

Apart from animated trees in the Animated Forest, and the shambling mound, also green jellies are considered plants.

As are green blobs.

liches | glowing balls, confusion | more powerful liches have additional spells; immune to cold

Regular liches are also vulnerable to fire.

All undead can see invisible and attack in the dark.

Not all of them can see invisible, only liches, mummies, the banshee and Griff Bloodax can.

Thrown (or wielded) healing potions also work.

Healing potions don't damage undead, although holy water does.

[IGB]

All fixed.

[aerol]

IGB: If you are adding 1.2.0 information I recommend consulting this and this thread.

[aerol]

I have added the Improved Guidebook to the list of links on the second post of the Beginner information thread.

IGB, I suggest you start a thread in the spirit of Andy Williams' "guidebook work" thread to involve the community here at the forums in adding / correcting / tweaking information to the Improved Guidebook.

[JellySlayer]

I'm just gonna get out the popcorn and wait for the flamewar.

[anon123]

Some more things I found.

"0. Whole-game issues"
"Nine classes are born with Healing. It is essential to obtain this skill."

This is not exactly so with Candle born PCs. 2 HP every 12 turns makes the star sign way more effective than the skill.

"0.2 Religion"
"Three piety levels for three gods (lawful, neutral, chaotic) are always maintained. They can range arbitrarily, probably wrapping around integer boundaries."

They're signed 32-bit integers and indeed they can wrap around, leading to the infamous piety overflow exploit.

"Dropping items on a non-co-aligned altar will result in an annoyed deity and rats being summoned, item destruction might also occur."

Dropped items can also be cursed instead of stolen by the cross-aligned deity, possibly depending on their value.

"Sacrificed monsters drop all carried items, but no fixed drops. Sacrificing an orb guardian will therefore make the game unwinnable."

Orb guardians cannot be sacrificed on any altar anywhere. Chaotic gods will complain that they're more useful alive than you are, neutral and lawful ones will ask you to "*TAKE IT AWAY!!!*".

"Wear ARTIFACTS AND ARTIFACTS ONLY when attempting to convert an altar. Wield a si if necessary. This completely avoids the equipment destruction and dooming penalties."
"When converting an altar, remove all gear except for artifacts."

Putting the si in the missile slot and dropping all your items beforehand completely avoids the consequences of this and full inventory cursing.

"0.3 Food"
"Rats (simple rats, not giant rats) will make any race other than Trolls or Orcs vomit, but still increase satiation level slightly."

Rat corpses grant 500 nutrition for orcs and trolls, and 0 otherwise, which means there's no increase at all if you vomit.

"Races other than Trolls refuse to eat doppleganger corpses unless starving."

Doppelganger kings in particular can only be eaten by trolls, even if you're starving.

"wishing for "satiation" or "food""

Or "nourishment"

"0.3.2 Satiation levels"

The first table is correct, but doesn't include something which Soirana pointed out to me recently. There's a further penalty if you move while Burdened or above.

Nutrition penalty from encumbrance if waiting in place:

(Unburdened)	None
Burdened	None
Strained	+2 points/turn
Strained!	+2 points/turn
Overburdened!	+3 points/turn

Nutrition penalty from encumbrance if moving:

(Unburdened)	None
Burdened	+2 points/turn
Strained	+3 points/turn
Strained!	+4 points/turn
Overburdened!	+3 points/turn(1)

⁽¹⁾ = You can't move while overburdened, but attempting to has no additional penalty.

"any corruption (the suspicious mana battery and corrupted tissue corruptions were tested)"

The "thin and nimble" corruption (the one that gives +6 DV) increases food consumption per turn by 1.

"If the character is already starving (satiation value below 50), then the satiation value is decreased by 20, but not below 0, irrespective of B/U/C status of the herb."

It does keep decreasing the satiation value, even below 0. This can actually push it below the -(To*8)+2 boundary, which means the PC will walk around starved without dying. Eating more stomacemptia at this point doesn't seem to further decrease satiation; eating food will get you back to "Starving" or above depending on how sating it is. This exploit is useful for stat training, particularly Dexterity and Learning which can be pushed to 50 with enough moss patches of mareillon and crystals of knowledge.

"0.5.1.3 Wish"

It might be worth mentioning that removing all artifacts (except those that increase Learning) and invisibility-granting items prior to reading the book is recommendable. Otherwise, their food consumption penalties really stack given the long amount of time it takes to learn Wish.

"0.6 Attributes"
"Morgia Root trains Toughness up to 25, 5d100+200; trains Willpower up to 25, 50d10. B/U/C DOESN'T MATTER. About 18 are needed to maximize chance for Willpower."

18 is too excessive. Eating 7-8 morgia roots guarantees a Wi increase if applicable (stat is currently below 25), no matter what its current level is.

"0.6.1.5 Increasing attributes with potions"

The effect of cursed potions of -stat- and cursed potions of potential -stat- is worse if the PC is cursed and/or doomed. -2 points if you're cursed, -3 if doomed, -4 if both.

"There is a special room effect "The air of this room is filled with the smell of carrots." which will cause a one-time +5 increase to Perception when a blessed or uncursed potion of carrot juice is consumed while in the room."

Cursed potions work too.

"0.6.5 Speed"

Slow Monster, boots of the slow shuffle, moloch armors, armor of sloth, high burden and high satiation can be used to guarantee spd increases from corpses, akin to starvation training for stats.

"0.7 Attack"
"The advantage of becoming very proficient with one weapon becomes clear from reading the manual: bonuses to the to-hit and to-damage as well as reduced attack cost when using the weapon."

Don't forget the DV bonuses, which are the reason many people stick to polearms + shield

"...few non-artifact items can compare to eternium tower shields averaging [+16, +6]"

The average DV and PV of tower eternium shields is [+13, +4].

"0.9 Monsters"
"Rats r - the artifact weapon Cat's Claw slays them"

Except for vapor and chaos rats.

"eyes of destruction: may destroy worn items and cause confusion"

Additionally, they shrug bolts off with frustrating frequency.

"they have a corrupting hit (princesses only?), princesses also can paralyze in melee."

Only dark elven priestesses corrupt and paralyze.

"0.9.5.3 Late game"

In addition to everything mentioned, all quicklings punch through armor, and titans don't see in darkness.

"If Dwarftown is generated on D: 10 or D: 11, for instance, reading two blessed scrolls of peace will probably stop corruption."

A single blessed scroll would be enough.

"0.1.1 Companions"
"One problem that many players have with companions is that companions have a fixed speed."

They can be sped up by throwing non-cursed potions of quickling blood (as can any other monster), although it is more likely that the PC will want to keep these for himself.

"Taming Monsters"
"Rust monster | iron items"

Rust monsters cannot be tamed by giving iron items, only made non-hostile.

"0.12.1.1 Resistances"
"Poison resistance can be gained by eating giant centipede, cave fisher, tarantula, snake, viper, spider, or dark elven corpses. Be aware that most of this both poisons the PC and grants resistance"

Of those listed, only spiders, cave fishers, tarantulas and chaos vipers will grant -Pois and poison you.

"Petrification resistance can be gained by eating gorgon corpse (but the PC should have it already by other means, else is risking death)"

The chance to get -Petr from a gorgon corpse is extremely low.

"0.12.1.3 Dooming and Cursing"
"Since monsters become tougher, they are worth more experience and carry better items."

I haven't noticed better item drops from being cursed and/or doomed. I once asked JellySlayer (who has tons of experience playing doomed PCs) about this, and he said it's definitely false.

"0.12.2.3 Bleeding"
The information regarding HP loss is incorrect. Bleeding status occurs when the number of turns the PC is to bleed for is between 1 and 4 inclusive, Bleeding! when it is 5 or higher. HP loss caused by either status is always equal to the amount of bleeding turns left, which decreases by 1 each turn.

"0.12.2.6 Other"
"Combat staggering by wiping your Face."

You will be too confused to do that, but cleaning your 'E'ars or 'a'pplying First Aid will work fine.

"0.12.3.4 Slaying"
You might want to include Cat's Claw rat-slaying power for the sake of completeness.

"0.13.3.4 Special door features"
Creating a door with a wand of door creation and kicking it down also leaves an invisible doorstep.

"0.13.12.1 Permanent effects"
This room seems to vibrate with life. Insects are crawling everywhere, strange mushrooms cover the walls and moss is growing at the ceiling. | monster PV is increased, as well as the PC's - untrue, instead takes off some melee damage"

This is the counterpart to chilling silence, and divides all melee damage by 10.

"0.13.12.2 One time effects"
"The breeze accompanying you causes some ancient bones on the floor to transform into dust. You feel a sense of relief. | heals 1 HP"

I've entered these rooms while not at full health several times, and never got any HP increase from doing so.

"0.14.9 Safe places to store items"
"Once the Ogre Cave is cleared, monster generation there is slow or nonexistent."

Monsters are never generated in the ogre cave, so leaving your items anywhere on the level is okay.

"0.15.5 Darkness"
Amulets of light have the same effect as torches in this regard. Wishing for "light" lights the area around you, although it's very unlikely that a player would do that.

"0.15.7.1 Bugs causing the game to crash"
Eating werewolf king corpses doesn't crash the game as of 1.1.1. Reading a scroll of item destruction if your inventory is only four or more stacks of other scrolls of item destruction will freeze the game. Reading a scroll of repair without any other items whatsoever will crash the game. Also, "occasionaly" should be "occasionally".

"0.15.7.4 Other bugs"
"If wearing a ring of teleport control and have +TCtr intrinsic, you can lose the ability to control teleportation by drinking from pool, despite wearing the ring"

During testing, I was unable to reproduce this bug.

---

Typos
"The IGB might get updated only after new ADOM version" (missing "the")
"you naturaly age very slowly" (naturally)
"undead attacks may unnaturaly change your age" (unnaturally)
"reverse the effects of unnatural againg" (aging)
"chopping trees in Terynio" (Terinyo)
"scepters if fallen champion" (spectres)
"Take this for ye impunity!" (impudence)
"(especially blessed stomafilia herbs)" (stomafillia)
"They generally have only 90 speed and thus can be outruned." (outrunned)
"Additionaly, 75% of demons will be generated neutral to crowned chaotics." (Additionally)
"Branalbin Cloak of Defence" (Brannalbin's Cloak of Defense)
"IBM guild manual confuse permanently" (confuses)
"Poisons 1d6 damage, 2d10 frequency, no effect if posion resistant." (poison)
"producing message death message 'was ripped apart when confronting Order and Chaos'." (repeated word)
"Since used rings of djinni summoninng become brass rings..." (summoning)
"For completness, here we list all of them." (completeness)
"stell/iron/bronze bracers (iron)" (steel)
"rings (many iron, 4 adamantium - adamantium/onyx/opal/ordinary, 1 mihril - mithril)" (mithril)
"the number of actually demaged/destroyed items" (damaged)
"...picked or dropped, or the iventory is viewed." (inventory)
"An anvil is nothing more then an oversized ignot of iron." (ingot)

[Dogbreath]

0.9.1.3 : You should mention that beggars, goodwives, children, and farmers all make good, risk free first kills. (the alignment drop is pretty negligible) For the latter 3, you should lure them out of town first. Also, if you're going for both Courage and the Filk Quest, Outlaws are *excellent* first kills, since they're rare enough to avoid, but can be easily generated on the road by the Pyramid. (As well as being guaranteed in Holeinthewall)

0.9.4.1 : Minor, but IRL spiders aren't insects either. They're closer to crustaceans (like lobsters or crabs) actually - though all three (insects, arachnids, crustaceans) are arthropods.

[Laukku]

improving the Improved Guidebook

Should we call it now the IIGB?

[IGB]

Thanks for the effort, all is fixed except:
"Of those listed, only spiders, cave fishers, tarantulas and chaos vipers will grant -Pois and poison you."
Not true, eg. giant centipede also both poison and grants -Pois. Besides, is says "most", not all, so I leave that unchanged.

I did not just blindly correct everything, but verified using AdomBot or other sources. I must say that except for the one case above, you were always right.