Confessions of a former savescummer + Redemption!

[anon123]

Even if you're role-playing (which is great: you can play however you want, it's having fun that matters!), I still can't believe you received Vanquisher legitimately as a precrown, but savescummed to get an artifact staff!

I savescummed a lot when I was very new to this game, and in fact, still have many of those backups. This habit continued until getting my first scummed win, sometime in July 2009. I remember milking several wishes from a pool in the puppy cave, and taking a dozen reloads to realize entering the bug temple with low HP and DV and hoping I wouldn't get killed wasn't a good idea.

I was aware, however, that it wasn't a true victory, and eventually changed my ways to play legitimately. As it's been said above, it takes a little while to learn the dos and don'ts of survival, and when to run away from something you can't handle (something to date I still haven't completely mastered), but the game's way more rewarding, precisely because it makes you think carefully and plan accordingly. As nipon used to say, this isn't Quake.

[Booster]

Yes, that was my condition for attempting the savescum; to trade a much better artifact weapon for the lesser quarterstaff. I sat there for a good few minutes trying to decide whether or not to keep playing with the vanquisher as it is one of the best weapons in the game but ultimately knew that if I didn't play a quarterstaff monk it would irk me to no end. When I tried doing the same with my previous monk and got celestrix it was a mixed blessing. The [+13,+13] and positive intrinsics it grants are amazing, but the +Doom made me use it sparingly (mainly to heal and sometimes fighting certain enemies, and spawning the giant boar encounter in the wilderness). I needed my carrying capacity to stay non-burdened too so it was a tough decision between that and girdle of carrying.

Getting the vanquisher was one thing, but the pool two levels down is what floored me. Even when save scumming for pools (and boy did I do that a lot!) I would get max 5 or 6 drinks before it drying up. This time it kept going and I kept getting positive after positive result. Losing -fire was a minor issue, and cursing was easily removed (I could have been doomed too but I can't recall) and to top it all off with a wish was amazing. And it was my first pool! Too bad the wish was more or less wasted, as I'm just now started the CoC and have two AoLS stashed away.

[anon123]

Too bad the wish was more or less wasted, as I'm just now started the CoC and have two AoLS stashed away.

You wouldn't have found those if you hadn't made the wish

[gut]

iirc an eternium quarterstaff of devastation actually does more damage than an eternium 2-hander of devastation

[Al-Khwarizmi]

iirc an eternium quarterstaff of devastation actually does more damage than an eternium 2-hander of devastation

I once had a

blessed adamantium-shod quarterstaff of devastation (+0, 5d10+14) [57s]

I've never seen the eternium one though.

[Booster]

I would kill to get my hands on one of those. I'm hoping that DF has one of those for me; or maybe I can make a wish engine (is it still possible in v1.2.05?) to keep wishing until I get one. How would I wish for several? eternium-shod quarterstaves? Eternium is the only metal that isn't destructable so those are preferable to stop me from raging at exploding runes/acid vortexes. When I had the balanced battleaxe of devastation it was amazing until a vortex destroyed it. Damn iron weapons!

[anon123]

iirc an eternium quarterstaff of devastation actually does more damage than an eternium 2-hander of devastation

In that case, they're the ultimate two-hander - lots of damage with staff DV bonuses!

I would kill to get my hands on one of those. I'm hoping that DF has one of those for me; or maybe I can make a wish engine (is it still possible in v1.2.05?) to keep wishing until I get one.

I've found a few quarterstaves of devastation in Darkforge. None of them were eternium so far, though.

Wish engines are possible in pr5, but odds of getting the prefix/suffix you want are quite low. Except maybe if you're level 50.

How would I wish for several? eternium-shod quarterstaves?

Correct.

[Blasphemous]

If you establish a wish engine then it's really only a matter of time until you get something with desired pre- and suffixes.
Once you get your stack of 19 RoDS it's pretty much scriptland from there (or any kind of tediousness automation/macro/whatever) until you get ~1000.
Then scripts again to wish for eternium stuff in plural and there you go.
Frankly, from my current perspective (1.2.0.pre13) I consider wish engine to be an abuse if not downright cheating.
It certainly works the same way as savescumming, considering player's psychology - you become careless, because you have an AoLS on your neck and 20 in your inventory.
Plus 200 RoDS to wish for any number of small things that you suddenly need but would never wish for if you only had one ring...
Yeah, wish engines corrupt. It's a good thing they aren't possible in later prereleases (at least the ring dipping) but a part of me will always regret that it's no longer available.

[gut]

devastation: +4 damage dice, +6 damage

eternium-shod quarterstaff quarterstaff 40s (+0, 2d10+10) eternium
so that means (+0, 6d10+16) = min:22, max:76, avg:49

eternium two-handed sword two-handed sword 50s (+18, 6d5+18) [-1, +0] eternium
so that means (+18, 10d5+24) = min:34, max:74, avg:54

So it only wins on max to-damage, and of course this isn't taking into
consideration DV or to-hit.

[Booster]

Well, that was easily the most fun and nerve-wracking game I've ever played of ADOM. I switched off between Staves and H2H most of the game, but the RNG was pretty cruel to me in that I wasn't able to find decent weapons/armor. I stupidly forgot to learn smithing before letting the Greater Daemon kill Grod, and wasn't able to get a ring of ice in time to do the ToEF. I unequipped most of my gear that was melt-prone and headed in there to take out the ACW. I had a few close calls with fire giant kings but managed to get to the top floor and I immediately used a scroll of familiar summoning. I got a quickling queen who immediately died to the heat (doh!). After kicking my way into the temple area, I was able to take out fire grues relatively easily, but the Fire elementals were very strong and had me close to dying a number of times. I dragged the ACW out of the temple, threw a potion of sickness and poison at him, casted darkness (which didn't help at all), and took him out. At one point he got me down to 1 (!) hitpoint but I prevailed! This was all in melee as when I tried to equip my crossbow it melted the turn after.

Prior to this I visited DF and cleared the golems, but literally found nothing I could use - no decent armor, and only 1 eternium item (2HS). I continued to dive down CoC, taking out the Earth and Wind temples, finding a few lesser vaults along the way. I soon found a greater giant vault which I cleared (found Wyrmlance and a bunch of $), and on the next level I found a named ancient red wyrm surrounded by red dragons and baby red dragons. that was probably the hardest fight I've ever faced, and I used up almost all my ultra and extra healing potions before I managed to kill him. I thought I'd get an artifact out of that for sure but was so bummed when it was all standard loot. I was now approaching day 120 so I headed out to try and kill Keriax (I had already received the amulet from Gaab Baay and stashed it), but I had 7 days to kill so i went into the rift. I had the ankh, blessed climbing set, and fate/lucky but still lost a TON of items. I ended up climbing my way out, only to reach the wrong exit (back to the entrance)! I didn't risk going back in and losing yet again half my items so I headed towards the stone circle.

Once inside I took out the majority of the lesser mobs, buffed up my wisdom with the relevant orb, and proceeded to melee Keriax with Wyrmlance (now at polearms skill 5). This was my ultimate undoing as he drained my toughness to abysmal levels and although I got him to critical, he landed a crit on me that took me down to Chinatown. At that point I was out of healing potions and my deity was not too happy about healing me anyway (ground rumbling) due to all my alignment shifts. Thus endeth that character.

I had a great start with him, but ultimately died to my own stupidity. I was talking to my wife when I was fighting Keriax and was taking a huge chance with him - I decided to fight to the death which is unfortunately what happened. I'm sure my corpse made a tasty snack for him.

Waiting on TB for my pre-release access and I think I'll try a human assassin next; will be curious to see how the new herb/stat potentials system plays out.

Learned a lot on this playthrough and I'm proud to say that aside from the pre-crown scum switching Vanquisher with Staff of the Wanderer I didn't save scum after that at all.