Hverld, Dwarven Duelist; Paragon gate-closer 1.2pr14

[gym21]

Duelists are the reason I got back into ADOM. They're interesting, powerful but extraordinarily limited, and I really wanted to play a high-level one. I also wanted to try to get the platinum girdle now that the restrictions have been eased a bit. And that is how I met my good friend Hverld, the dwarven duelist.

Started the came planning on a UD dive, but stairs in the Small Cave were generated very close and without many monsters nearby, so I decided to be a little more conservative and strengthen up in the village dungeon (killing Keethrax was out, since it would drop my alignment). A lawful altar was generated in the middle of VD:3, and so I livesacced to high heaven. First precrown was Kinslayer, second was Nature's Companion. That combination told me that I'd have to do something really dumb not to win. I'd accidentally run into a cat, though, which whoops.

Kinslayer's actually a pretty annoying weapon thanks to the autocursing. I had no means of dealing with ratling duelists or master swordsmen apart from hitting them in the face with the sword, and I kept having to re-bless after being disarmed. But that was far from the most troublesome thing about Hverld's quest -- after draining all the Darkforge pools without any luck, he somehow needed to get teleport control without killing a blink dog, and the random number god decided that he didn't need fireproof blankets or wands of cold either.

My solution to the blink dog problem was to wander around the big room until I found a corpse lying around. It's a stupid solution, but it worked eventually, and my boredom was alleviated by constructing the world's silliest wish engine. The big room was on D:7 for me, so reading a blessed scroll of danger put it in RoDS territory. The hope that a wish would drop make the wait far less tedious, and I netted an amulet of life saving, food preservation, detect item status and a whole bundle of magical writing sets* with the four that dropped before a beautiful, beautiful blink dog corpse appeared before me.

*For the minotaur maze.

I still hadn't found a wand of cold, and I ended up getting another RoDS before one arrived, so... I wished for wands of cold. (I'm not proud, ok!). By this point I was level 23, crowned as L+ and severely overpowered, so easily got the RotHK and killed the minotaur emperor for his potions and artifacts. He was carrying the black book around, so I think murdering him was justified. Minotaur mages are, as expected, a complete nightmare for duelists. I should have just teleported them out of my way.

On to the Tower! Nature's companion made things trivial, and Kinslayer dropped the ACW in melee without a problem. I cleared the top of the tower for experience, and a chaos servant gave me the Crown of Leadership. Awesome -- now it was time for a deep dive and a win.

The Casino had nothing of interest; the cat lord was killed in melee without any problem whatsoever. Two greater vaults appeared on the scouting run to D:48 -- karmics and undead, neither of which I disturbed because haha that's not happening with a duelist. I missed out on Sun's Messenger, Death's Blade, the Far Slayer, Skullcrusher and Wyrmlance as a result, which I can live with. Killed Yulgash with a sword and the Ancient Stone Beast with Thurndarr's wand.

A threat room of 24 werewolf kings on D:46 gained me a few levels, and one of 22 greater molochs on U:4 took me to level 45. Mana temple was trivial -- just put on an amulet of light and the mummy wrapping and killed the Archmage in melee. One point of charisma was drained in the process (oh no!).

And then it was time to see if I'd screwed up my quest to become a paragon. Passed through D:48, acquired the Staff of the Archmagi on D:49 through uselessness, and upon arrival on D:50, was surrounded in a silvery aura and presented with the platinum girdle. A couple of balors later (they fell in melee before they could attack, mostly), and Hverld was at level 50, with a speed in the 200s. Clearing out the rest of D:50 wasn't very difficult.

After winning, I found the shortcut to the surface, stopped by Dwarftown to pick up the artifacts I'd stashed there (trophies!), and did some inventory management via Waldenbrook. Found Blup's mum without water breathing, stopped by in Terinyo to tell him and buy a couple of large rations for no reason whatsoever, then drank a bunch of boost [stat] potions and left the chain as a true and pure paragon of Order.

Boom!

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                                 Screenshot
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Hverld        St:38  Le:36  Wi:60  Dx:57  To:77  Ch:53  Ap:55  Ma:41  Pe:42 L+
DV/PV:117/65     H:1188(1188)  P:429(739)    Exp: 50/25288104   DrCh  Sp: 246
Blessed Bloated
------------------------------------------------------------------------------


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

Name: Hverld              Race: male Dwarf          Class: Duelist
Eye color: brown          Hair color: black         Complexion: brown
Height: 3'11"             Weight: 171 pounds
Age: 91 (grown-up, 27 years of unnatural aging added in)
Star sign: Dragon         Birthday: 25/Dragon (day 175 of the year)

YOUR HISTORY:
        Your mother is a mighty enchantress. She is unmarried. Your father
 is living in the vicinity of your mother's tower. He is a humble shepherd.
        In your childhood you were tortured by your cruel parents. They
 seemed to thoroughly hate and despise you.
        In your youth you enjoyed competition against others to the
 fullest. You were a very active kid.
        Your path was always clearly lying before you. You knew about your
 destiny since your earliest years and fortunately your grandfather
 supported your wishes. You managed to find a competent trainer and began
 your studies.
        You decided to become a Duelist.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                  Inventory
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total weight: 5139 stones                Carrying capacity: 8002 stones

He: blessed crown of leadership [+2, +7] {Ch+18}                      [65s]
Ne: blessed ankh                                                       [3s]
Bo: blessed fine leather armor (named) (+2, +0) [+2, +8] (+15 spd)   [120s]
Gi: blessed platinum girdle (named) (+3, +0) [+18, +9] {Wi+15} (+15 spd)
Cl: blessed cloak of defense [+3, +0]                                 [20s]
RH: blessed black long sword (named) (+3, 4d5+3) [+4, +4]             [80s]
LH: -
RR: blessed ring of regeneration                                       [1s]
LR: blessed ring of slaying (+8 melee damage, +6 missile damage)       [1s]
Br: blessed bracers of toughness [+0, +4] {To+4}                      [10s]
Ga: blessed fencing gloves of St. Montojja [+6, +3] {Dx+12} (+12 spd)  [6s]
Bo: blessed seven league boots [+4, +3]                               [30s]
MW: -
Mi: -
Tl: -


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                    Stuff
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Total weight: 4783 stones   Carrying capacity: 8002 stones

Armor ('[')
   uncursed ancient mummy wrapping [+1, +5] {Ap-8}                    [60s]
Shields ('[')
   blessed dwarven shield "Rolf's Saviour" (+2) [+9, +6]             [120s]
Gauntlets ('[')
   uncursed elemental gauntlets (-1, +0) [+0, +3]                     [10s]
One-handed weapons ('(')
   uncursed lead-filled mace "Big Punch" (+1, 8d5+3) [-6, +0]        [800s]
   blessed dwarven rune axe "Rolf's Companion" (+3, 3d6+6) [+4, +4] {To+3}
Two-handed weapons ('(')
   uncursed axe of the minotaur emperor (+12, 4d20+16) [-6, +4]     [1200s]
   uncursed staff of the archmagi (+5, 5d2+2) [+9, +0] {Ma+10}        [40s]
Tools (']')
   blessed small key                                                   [1s]
   blessed stethoscope                                                 [5s]
   uncursed triangular key                                             [1s]
   uncursed square key                                                 [1s]
   heap of 2 blessed waterproof blankets                              [20s]
   heap of 3 blessed fireproof blankets                               [30s]
   uncursed tiny key                                                   [1s]
   uncursed hexagonal key                                              [1s]
Rings ('=')
   blessed ring of the High Kings [+2, +3]                             [1s]
Potions ('!')
   heap of 17 potions of holy water                                   [68s]
Scrolls ('?')
   heap of 3 blessed scrolls of corruption removal                     [6s]
   heap of 7 blessed scrolls of identify                              [14s]
Food ('%')
   heap of 2 uncursed large rations                                  [400s]
   uncursed cooked lizard                                              [3s]
   heap of 3 blessed stomafillia herbs                                 [6s]
Valuables ('$')
   194526 gold pieces                                               [1945s]


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

Melee weapon           Lvl   Hit   Dam   DV   Level          Required marks
---------------------  ---   ---   ---   --   -------------  --------------
Unarmed fighting         1    +1    +0   +0   basic                50
Daggers & knives         7    +6    +3   +1   skilled              321
Clubs & hammers          7    +5    +3   +2   skilled              321
Maces & flails           7    +5    +3   +2   skilled              321
Swords                  15   +18   +12   +6   Grand Mastery
Axes                    12   +12   +10   +3   Mastery              3554
Whips                    7    +8    +4   +7   skilled              321
Pole arms                1    +1    +0   +0   basic                56
Twohanded weapons        1    +1    +1   +0   basic                56
Staves                   1    +1    +0   +1   basic                56

Missile weapon         Lvl   Hit   Dam   Ra   Level          Required marks
---------------------  ---   ---   ---   --   -------------  --------------
Slings                   0    +0    +0   +0   unskilled            66
Bows                     2    +4    +3   +0   basic                113
Crossbows                0    +0    +0   +0   unskilled            66
Thrown axes & hammers    0    +0    +0   +0   unskilled            66
Thrown daggers           0    +0    +0   +0   unskilled            66
Thrown rocks & clubs     0    +0    +0   +0   unskilled            66
Thrown spears            0    +0    +0   +0   unskilled            66
Boomerangs & scurgari    0    +0    +0   +0   unskilled            66

Shields                Lvl   DV               Level          Required marks
---------------------  ---   ---              -------------  --------------
Shields                  0    +0              unskilled            35


Damage caused with your melee weapons:
--------------------------------------
Right hand: +168 bonus to hit, 4d5+56 damage


Damage caused with your missile weapons:
----------------------------------------
No missile weapons available.




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

  Alertness .................100    (superb)       [+1d5]
  Athletics .................100    (superb)       [+1d5]
  Backstabbing ..............100    (superb)       [+3d3]
  Climbing .................. 88    (great)        [+1d3]
  Concentration .............100    (superb)       [+1d5]
  Courage ...................100    (superb)       [+3d5]
  Detect item status ........100    (superb)       [+3d4]
  Detect traps ..............100    (superb)       [+1d3]
  Dodge .....................100    (superb)       [+2d4]
  Find weakness .............100    (superb)       [+2d4]
  First aid .................100    (superb)       [+1d5]
  Food preservation .........100    (superb)       [+1d3]
  Haggling .................. 60    (good)         [+1]
  Healing ...................100    (superb)       [+1d5]
  Law .......................100    (superb)       [+3d3]
  Listening .................100    (superb)       [+1d5]
  Literacy ..................100    (superb)       [+1d3]
  Metallurgy ................ 88    (great)        [+1d3]
  Mining .................... 68    (good)         [+1]
  Pick pockets .............. 53    (good)         [+1d3]
  Smithing .................. 51    (good)         [+1]
  Swimming .................. 87    (great)        [+1d3]
  Tactics ...................100    (superb)       [+1d5]
  Two weapon combat ......... 62    (good)         [+1]


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

   Disarm Trap  :    11,  18pp     (Effectivity: +0)
   Knock        :     6,  23pp     (Effectivity: +0)
   Mystic Shovel:    15, 185pp     (Effectivity: +0)
   Teleportation:   186,  26pp     (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 dwarves and lives a long and
prosperous life full of love, happiness and pleasure.

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

Hverld, the dwarven duelist, saved the world with his brave efforts and
became a great ruler while saving himself 10 times.
He scored 24670744 points and advanced to level 50.
He survived for 0 years, 46 days, 22 hours, 24 minutes and 28 seconds
(129973 turns).
Hverld visited 125 places.
His strength score was modified by +24 during his career.
His learning score was modified by +18 during his career.
His willpower score was modified by +29 during his career.
His dexterity score was modified by +21 during his career.
His toughness score was modified by +23 during his career.
His charisma score was modified by +15 during his career.
His appearance score was modified by +20 during his career.
His mana score was modified by +10 during his career.
His perception score was modified by +10 during his career.
He was unnaturally aged by 27 years.
He was the champion of the arena.
He made a little water dragon very happy.
He killed the emperor of the ancient minotaur race.
He was a true and pure paragon of Order.
He saved Khelavaster from certain death.
He left the Drakalor Chain after completing his quest and became a great
leader and famous hero.
13395 monsters perished under his attacks.
The following 29 artifacts were generated during his adventure:
  the si
  the dwarven rune axe "Rolf's Companion"
  the scythe of corruption "Moon Sickle"
  the golden gladius "Death's Sting"
  the dwarven shield "Rolf's Saviour"
  the elven long bow "Sun's Messenger"
  the ancient claymore "Death's Blade"
  the black long sword "Kinslayer"
  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"
  the lead-filled mace "Big Punch"
  the elemental gauntlets
  the ring of the High Kings
  the crown of science
  the ancient mummy wrapping
  the ankh
  the rune-covered club "Skullcrusher"
  the Chaos Orb of Elemental Mana
  the fine leather armor "Nature's Companion"
  the staff of the archmagi
  the crown of leadership
  the black tome of Alsophocus
  the platinum girdle "True Strength"
  the rune-covered halberd "Wyrmlance"
  the axe of the minotaur emperor
  the fencing gloves of St. Montojja
He possessed the following intrinsics:
  He was fire resistant.
  He was poison resistant (also through items).
  He was cold resistant.
  He was acid resistant.
  He was lucky (also through items).
  Fate smiled upon him (also through items).
  He was able to control teleportation.
  He was stun resistant (gained through an item).
  He was resistant to death rays (gained through an item).
  He was shock resistant.
  He was able to see invisible things (also through an item).
  He was immune to shock attacks (gained through an item).
  He was immune to fire attacks (gained through an item).
  He was immune to acidic attacks.
  He was able to resist confusion attacks (gained through items).
He had the following talents: Affinity with Swords, Alert, Careful,
Defensive Fighter, Dodger, Good Learner, Greased Lightning, Great Learner,
Hardy, Immune to Pain, Iron Skin, Miser, Porter, Quick, Tough Skin, Treasure
Hunter, Very Quick.
He had a final speed score of 246 (final base speed: 136).
He was a messiah of Morodwyn.
He asked for 3 divine interventions.
He was a holy champion of Order.

[gym21]

A quick aside: I read the concerns in this RFE about how easy it would be to become a Paragon and decided to try a version in line with the community's thoughts. Added restrictions for myself in this run: Cannot kill lawfuls with traps or pets. Cannot gamble. Must save Khelevaster and carpenter. I also intended to save the puppy, but I forgot about the day count since I am stupid. Do I get half credit?

[grobblewobble]

Very nice.

(killing Keethrax was out, since it would drop my alignment)

My understanding is that this quest draws you to N= if you are already neutral, but counts as a lawful act if you are lawful to begin with. So if your alignment is N= or below, it is a lawful act; if you are in the N= to NL range it is a chaotic act and breaks the platinum rules, but if you are LN or above it is a lawful act and does not. All of this makes no sense whatsoever from a roleplay perspective, but afaik this is how it currently works.
However, picking up the corpse of Keethrax is supposed to be a chaotic act.

[grobblewobble]

A quick aside: I read the concerns in this RFE about how easy it would be to become a Paragon and decided to try a version in line with the community's thoughts. Added restrictions for myself in this run: Cannot kill lawfuls with traps or pets. Cannot gamble. Must save Khelevaster and carpenter. I also intended to save the puppy, but I forgot about the day count since I am stupid. Do I get half credit?

Hmm well you did eat the corpse of a lawful being, you monster.

[Harwin]

Hmm well you did eat the corpse of a lawful being, you monster.

It would be unlawful to let poor Blinky's sacrifice be in vain.

Congratulations on your win!

[gym21]

you did eat the corpse of a lawful being, you monster.

I was... combining our powers!

Edit: For seriously, though, I wouldn't be against eating lawful creatures causing an alignment drop. I think I'd even be for eating humanoids of any stripe causing a tiny alignment drop -- how about that for making this quest harder?

Edit edit: I don't even think I needed teleport control to win this game. I think it was cast three times outside the Minotaur Maze. Should be possible to win without on a tanky enough character.

[grobblewobble]

Duelists are the reason I got back into ADOM.

By the way I agree, duelists are the coolest addition to 1.2 so far, really awesome. :-)

[Al-Khwarizmi]

Very nice win. Congrats!

Edit edit: I don't even think I needed teleport control to win this game. I think it was cast three times outside the Minotaur Maze. Should be possible to win without on a tanky enough character.

Yes, the same happened to my recent duelist win. He only cast teleport from the guaranteed wand and he never recharged it with booze IIRC, so he probably didn't cast it more than three times.

Teleport control is handy but the game can definitely be won without it, especially with strong melee chars that don't care about charging into places. I don't think renouncing teleport control is not a great cost for getting the girdle (I'd definitely have done that rather than waiting for a corpse to drop spontaneously!), I think for many chars it's a way smaller cost than renouncing catslaughter for the cat lord ring. Probably the biggest disadvantage of not having teleport control is that you lose the dwarven mystic's items, but typically some amulet/ring of control drops in the late game so you could get them anyway.

Which makes me think that yes, without questioning the value of your hero's deeds (which were awesome), the conditions for the girdle have probably been softened a bit too much.

By the way, I agree that duelists are really interesting. And CK's are, too, but they need some tweaking. I hope TB gives them a normal ending that doesn't imply them being stupid, then they will be a really nice class to play too.

[gym21]

Which makes me think that yes, without questioning the value of your hero's deeds (which were awesome), the conditions for the girdle have probably been softened a bit too much.

Definitely agree. This might be a function of the way I play, but I'm inclined to think that the Ring of the Master Cat's actually a more difficult accomplishment (with a strong melee character) than True Strength. I'd absolutely have loved to have gotten both -- combining RotMC, NC, GoSM and TS is +70 speed, +40 DV and +25 PV plus a whole boatload of excellent intrinsics from four items) -- but I've never been very good at avoiding cats. Or at ADOM, really. That I managed to play a platinum character kind of implies it's too easy .

By the way, I agree that duelists are really interesting.

They're just a really strange class. At level 19, I was able to kill diamond golems, greater demons and doppleganger kings* in melee without taking a scratch but was still completely unable to deal with karmic lizards without spending precious wand charges. I don't think any other class combines 'crippling limitations' and 'horrendously powerful' quite so well. Admittedly I haven't played CKs yet.

*The RNG really wasn't nice to me on the descent to the wall of flames.

[Stingray1]

Congrats.

By the way, I agree that duelists are really interesting. And CK's are, too, but they need some tweaking. I hope TB gives them a normal ending that doesn't imply them being stupid, then they will be a really nice class to play too.

I haven't read any victory posts or spoily threads regarding CKs, but you must agree that a CK closing the gate is stupid, he's not supposed to stop the incursion of chaos.

Has anyone figured the correct finish for a CK, Yes/No will suffice and if Yes, is it only chaos god?