Tackling the new quests & maps for ADOM

[asdf]

Those who start with none will be quite likely to find at least a robe of some sort (they are unlikely to even make it through a goblin camp at 0 PV for that matter, depending on layout) and will benefit just the same from a mithril girdle.

DL 1 goblins die from one hit, deal 1d6 damage and there would not be more then 5-6 of them with 2-3 in the same place and rest on the sides. It is supposed to be a lot easier then Kranach. Lore justification: Kranach is roaming the countryside, you could kill him or make him flee by destroying his camp, while he took most his raiders with him.

Perhaps 1 raider + 3-4 goblins?

[JellySlayer]

You're right. Keep the "Stinky" artifact but change the +1 To to +5 speed. Speed also helps newbies a lot and would make more thematical sense, as goblins are not alien to the concept of getting the hell away from trouble.

That would be insanely good early game item. Far more valuable than Kranach quest--giving a set of clothes with [+0,+0] and +5 speed is better than 3000 gold by a decent margin. Remember, this is a quest intended to be completed by level 1-3 characters with poor starting gear/stats--an artifact reward, let alone one with extremely useful bonuses, is pretty powerful at that point in the game. Look at the rewards you get from doing other early game quests and their respective difficulties.

[0,+2] leather armor is a fine reward for a very easy quest. If you want the better reward, do Kranach instead.

[Dogbreath]

I had an idea inspired by Baldur's Gate 2, specifically:

In BG2 you can learn the Wish spell (it's a level 9 spell and quite difficult to find), and one of the things you can wish for is "an adventure", at which point a djinni appears and starts you on a new quest that leads you on a wild goose chase around the game world and ends in a little unique dungeon. I think it would be really, really cool if this could happen in ADOM, maybe a little quest that involves various underused NPCs (like Yggaz) and ends at the Red Rooster Inn, where you can sit and have a few drinks with some legendary adventurers (who coincidentally have the same names as the $1000+ donors from the campaign ) This would be a cool way of honoring the donors, and also be a really cool way of spending a wish, while simultaneously not being something you'd feel the need to do in every game.

[grobblewobble]

an artifact reward, let alone one with extremely useful bonuses, is pretty powerful at that point in the game. Look at the rewards you get from doing other early game quests and their respective difficulties.

[0,+2] leather armor is a fine reward for a very easy quest. If you want the better reward, do Kranach instead.

I thought the idea was to give the armor a suffix, rather than make it an artifact? If a leather armor of speed is too good, how about a leather armor of travelling? (Halves food consumption in the wilderness.) A fun and newbie friendly item, without being overpowered.

[Silfir]

I cannot imagine who would lift a little finger for a suit of leather armor, affix or not. You can find stuff like that lying about on VD:1. Half of the possible starting r/c-combos start out with armor of that level or better. The recommended-for-newbies dwarven paladin starts out with plate mail. This is just not a very good use of the new map & quest real estate. If it was a mithril girdle, or even a metal girdle [+0, +1], at least most characters would get a use out of it, but apparently even that is considered overpowering?

Every CRPG seems to have the equivalent of a "kill a bunch of rats, get slightly less crappy gear than nothing" quest, and it wasn't counting against ADOM that it was an exception to that rule. I'm getting bored just thinking about the whole concept of it now. I can't imagine players new to ADOM getting very excited, either. If Kranach wasn't worth bothering with, I doubt the solution was to invent a quest that was even more underwhelming.



Keep in mind that ADOM's difficulty curve doesn't start at the peak - its learning curve does. In my very first days of ADOM, I had little trouble getting my human fighters to live to level 6 or so, finding several suits of leather armor I did not care about in the process. VD:1-3 are not hard. The only thing that was difficult was getting a grip on all the commands I needed to learn to even play the game. Context-sensitive control instructions ("Press C to chat!" the first time you stand next to a town NPC and so on and so forth) would probably be the best way to handle that.

[Stingray1]

The primary goal of this 'goblin camp' is not to gain items though, but a level or two. The loot is just a small reward at the end of a hard battle. I would actually be happy if it only supplied a generic sling and a stack of rocks as reward. Much more valuable than a 2 PV leather armour.

Edit - At the moment you have to go to the bandit village to gain your first few levels and as you know some of the hostile monsters there can easily kill a level 1 weakling.

[Silfir]

At the moment you have to go to the bandit village to gain your first few levels

Okay, I was probably a confused individual before now, but this threw me for a complete loop. I'm still dizzy.

[SirTheta]

Edit - At the moment you have to go to the bandit village to gain your first few levels and as you know some of the hostile monsters there can easily kill a level 1 weakling.

This is possibly the most untrue thing you've ever said. There is no way any new person is starting out in the bandit village to gain levels unless they are literally crazy (and I personally rarely even visit the bandit village now-a-days!).

Silfir is correct, as is usual.

[Stingray1]

Well, where else do you go then? In the wilderness you can get ambushed and the first step in a dungeon can kill you.

Who ever said this is for new player? This is an alternate quest for weak starting characters.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

That would be insanely good early game item. Far more valuable than Kranach quest--giving a set of clothes with [+0,+0] and +5 speed is better than 3000 gold by a decent margin. Remember, this is a quest intended to be completed by level 1-3 characters with poor starting gear/stats--an artifact reward, let alone one with extremely useful bonuses, is pretty powerful at that point in the game. Look at the rewards you get from doing other early game quests and their respective difficulties.

[0,+2] leather armor is a fine reward for a very easy quest. If you want the better reward, do Kranach instead.

The reward for the Kranach quest is not worth it either. I have done the quest in the past, for roleplaying reasons, experimentation and bragging rights. I doubt anyone does it for the money, it is easy to get 3000 gold in the early game with considerably less risk.

As Silfir says, standard leather armor and similar quality items are common as pebbles in VD:1. I wouldn't bother for one, now or when I was a noob.