getting a Wand of Frost

[Stingray1]

Yeah, without SoA you do many, many, many and more trips up and down. I'd rather do that than grind for an uncertain amount of time though.

If you are into poolsipping and haven't done so yet you can also hope for a wish, although maybe too risky as an orc.

[JellySlayer]

You can just skip the eternal guardian. If you have controlled teleportation, it's easy to do. You just can't use the Darkforge shortcut afterwards.

[Nobbse]

last time I had such a problem I drank all my potions of wonder and I was lucky to get some few castings of Iceball -

[Tyrnyx]

For me grinding out the ToHK is usually the best bet. Only a few corruptions in exchange for at least some good gear usually even if you don't come up with the wand. I think getting an ogre there is less infuriating than hoping for the wand in the ID.

I tend to grind the ToHK if I need something in the earlier game and have climbing gear (and think I can survive it).

[magpie]

For me grinding out the ToHK is usually the best bet. Only a few corruptions in exchange for at least some good gear usually even if you don't come up with the wand. I think getting an ogre there is less infuriating than hoping for the wand in the ID.

I tend to grind the ToHK if I need something in the earlier game and have climbing gear (and think I can survive it).

I did that in an earlier game where I'd managed (by using up holy water) to get some PoCC from the druid. But in this game, so far, I've only managed to get SoCR by saving Khelavaster (I was lucky enough to find a AoLS), and in the version I'm playing (1.2.0 pre 5), those are somewhat unreliable in the hands of a orc barbarian with 50 Literacy (and with a skill increase of +1). And since many of my end-game characters have been ended by unavoidable corruption, I'd like to avoid grinding the Tomb cavernous levels.

Honestly, bridge-building is sounding more and more appealing ... My skill is at 30-odd right now.

[Blasphemous]

Grinding TotHK has the additional benefit of getting quite a lot of exp and generating lots of items.
I used this method to get an AoLS once and instead got 7LBs, eternium plate mail and a RoDS.

[GordonOverkill]

Honestly, bridge-building is sounding more and more appealing ... My skill is at 30-odd right now.

Skipping the High King completely is not an option?

[Deathwind]

Depending on the player's skill and the character, no it might not be an option.

[magpie]

Depending on the player's skill and the character, no it might not be an option.

I've never tried, but I'd rather have access to the shortcut if it's possible. I do have +TCtrl and a wand of teleportation, so I guess I could skip, but ...

(I'm not too bad, I'm not a n00b, but I am impatient and prone to distraction - which can be a death sentence in this game.)

As it stands, work is busy right now so I don't have time for more than 30 mins / 1 hr of ADOM a day at the moment. Grinding ID:9-10 is a good way to do it. I'd grind the TotHK, but I have a lot of the top-end stuff that I'd be grinding it for (AoLS, SLB, et cetera.), and I really don't want the corruption. In some ways, this character has been very lucky, and I don't want to waste it.

I noticed something interesting (which may be statistically insignificant, but ...): ID:10 seems to have a good chance to generate tension rooms, which are a good source of drops. The last one was a tension room of werewolves - managed to fill the level nicely with different types of wolves, which is great for grinding out clubs and hammers weapon marks (to get better use out of Skullcrusher, my crowning gift).

Actually, my weapon marks are looking very healthy from this exercise: 11 in Clubs so far, 10 in Maces (Big Punch), and 9 in two-handers (an early adamantium two-handed sword), plus 3 in slings, 4 in crossbows, and 6 in bows.

This is something I've never done before to any extent (grinding ID), and while it's a bit boring, the results have been pretty good so far. Even if no WoF has dropped, lots of other good stuff has, too (including some Potions/Wands of Wonder, which may well prove to be the substitute I need, truckloads of water, et cetera.)

Plus the weapon marks, which for a barbarian are really, really important. Especially now that scrolls are fairly unreliable.

[magpie]

YES!

What I did was, I went to ID:9, cleared it out, went to ID:10, cleared that out, and then rinsed and repeated until I finally generated a wand of frost ('golden wand') on about the 30th ID:9 I generated.

It was a bit frustrating, but actually worth it in the long-run: 10 more points of Literacy, truck-loads of potions of potential stat, a PoGA, potions of training and longevity, and about 25 potions of water.

Plus some other nice stuff (another wand of digging, a stack of good slaying ammunition, a ring of elemental mastery, a few girdles of carrying ...)

And no more corruptions, either!

Awesome. Totally worth the boredom of grinding. I will say, though, that some of the threat rooms generated on ID:10 would have been pretty damn harsh if I'd gone there with a fresh character (one of Werewolf Lords, and another of Black Wizards, is what I'm thinking of here).