Brimstone man attempts

[Xevoc]

I suppose nobody has completed the brimstone man challenge yet? I made a few promising attempts and decided to do it using save scumming. I'd like to hear others' experiences about this. I'm following these rules:

- Enter ToEF immediately (no wilderness square may be entered for any reason, but you may eat food and put on rings)
- Do not exit the tower before you have the orb

I considered trolls for regeneration, but discarded the idea, because a trollish elementalist will starve before he reaches the tower. My last attempt is very promising:

Starting EQ:
- Gnomish elementalist with heir to obtain 2 resistances from rings
- Wand of teleportation (3) *useless if you save scum*
- Blessed scroll of familiar summoning *haven't used him yet*

I entered tower, read familiar scroll to obtain a red dragon (didn't use) and zapped the teleport wand to find a fire giant, which died from two frost bolts giving me 6 levels. With save scum I would've gotten a corpse from him, which would've saved me 1 prayer. With the teleportation wand I found the stairs and went up to find an altar. I found a red dragon from the next room, killed him with 3 bolts and ate his corpse for total resistance. I also found nice small mithril shield and crystal chain mail along with a spear of devastation and potion of blindness. I sacced ~3000 money to get 1 extra prayers.

I now have 2 prayers and limited food, but I can kill the wyrm if my potion of blindness survives long enough. I probably need to scum dragons for food and wand of digging so I don't have to waste a prayer for pick axe. I even considered scumming money using dragons to get 2 precrowning gifts. Anyway, this sounds a very promising character with only little save scumming (I died maybe 3 times) and I'm almost there. I have decent PV and DV and hit points so I don't instantly die unless somebody does a critical.

Any tips? Even without altar I would have 1 prayer left, so it would still be doable, although a lot harder. But this makes me think that brimstone challenge is not impossible...

[Necropassion]

A painful challenge to say the least. Props if you make it!
These kinds of challenge games always seemed a bit too tedious for me to attempt them, but I greatly respect anyone who does, and even more so one who succeeds.
Did you follow the speedruns (succesfully) undertaken by gut and evariste? It was impressive to say the least...

It's certainly doable, and I think you're going about it the right way.

[meh]

I tried it some time ago with Tree-born hurthling elementalists. I didn't have much success, but discovered that two rings of fire resistance and the immune to pain talent is enough to deal with the background heat. Getting a corpse early on is not necessary. The main problem then is that some monster will inevitably shrug off a couple of bolts and kill my weak elementalist with one or two attacks. This strategy could eventually work, but it requires a lot of luck.

[Grey]

Biggest risk is either a grue shrugging off too many bolts, or a fire giant (king) throwing a rock from out of sight.

It's been done save-scummed before with a rock-throwing hurthling monk, who used the weaker challenge rule of allowing exit to the wilderness square to heal and apply survival for food. Even with save-scumming the Wyrm was a huge challenge to kill, mostly because of his confusion attacks.

[Xevoc]

I must say it wasn't even very tedious or difficult in the end, but I did savescum probably around 20-30 times and got lucky a few times. FLG is attached. Main tips to do it without scumming:

- Start the game on creator's day to get lucky+fate smiles (if you have them, all your items won't burn instantly)
- Choose elementalist for fire resistance ring and if you get 3 talents, you might want to choose heir.
- Go to ToEF and kill something quickly to gain HP and mana before you need to pray.
- You should find a corpse ASAP to be able to survive without taking damage.
- If altars are allowed, hope to find one. Brimstone man is much harder without an altar.
- Whenever you find a dragon, drop your gold, let the dragon pick it and get at least 100 000 money while gaining exp.
- Elementals, demons and grues are annoying, but demons can be sacced and grues/elementals don't open doors.
- Crown yourself using the altar. You can get as many pre/postcrownings as you wish, but I didn't bother getting any. Chances are you'll get fire immunity and be able to use other rings if you find some.
- When you have enough piety, pray for a pick axe and dig a way to temple. You should be around level 20 after you take on the wyrm.
- I was lucky to find a ring of mental stability, but elementalists might even start with one.
- Bolt the wyrm to death. Pray whenever you need heals.
- Get away (only grues should be dangerous to you and even them you can probably kill with 1 succesful bolt).

I managed to find lots of good armor: crystal chain mail, blue dragon scale mail, black dragon scale mail and adamantium ring mail. I also found small mithril shield and tower mithril shield and two pairs of mithril boots. Spear is nice, but I used it only to kill fire drakes, beetles and lizards to save PP. Girdle I found on the way out and Iron Crown of Havlor was my crowning gift. Wands tend to survive extremely well in the tower - I started out with wand of teleportation and wand of light and neither of them ever burned.

I pumped concentration 100 as fast as possible. The rest of skill points I spent on healing and mining. In the end frost bolt effectivity was +24, which is enough to kill the wyrm in 5-8 shots.

Brimstoner, the gnomish elementalist, left the Drakalor Chain never to come
back.
He scored 115181 points and advanced to level 21.
He survived for 0 years, 7 days, 17 hours, 16 minutes and 44 seconds (4471
turns).
1 companion was killed during his adventures.
Brimstoner visited 5 places.
His strength score was modified by +3 during his career.
His learning score was modified by +1 during his career.
His toughness score was modified by +1 during his career.
His charisma score was modified by +3 during his career.
His appearance score was modified by +1 during his career.
His mana score was modified by +3 during his career.
His perception score was modified by +1 during his career.
He ended his adventuring life in the wilderness.
267 monsters perished under his attacks.
The following two artifacts were generated during his adventure:
the Iron Crown of Havlor
the Chaos Orb of Elemental Fire
He possessed the following intrinsics:
He was fire resistant (enhanced through an item).
He was cold resistant (gained through an item).
He was lucky.
Fate smiled upon him.
He was shock resistant (enhanced through an item).
He was immune to fire attacks.
He was immune to acidic attacks (gained through an item).
He was able to resist confusion attacks (gained through an item).
He had the following talents: Boon to the Family, Careful, Charming,
Defensive Fighter, Greased Lightning, Healthy, Heir, Long Stride, Quick,
Very Quick.
He had a final speed score of 104 (final base speed: 109).
He was a fervent follower of Berwyn.
He asked for 13 divine interventions.
He was a holy champion of Balance.
He was slightly tainted by Chaos.

The following monsters were vanquished:
1 Ancient Chaos Wyrm
7 chaos servants
15 fire beetles
42 fire demons
36 fire drakes
36 fire elementals
41 fire giants
12 fire giant kings
5 fire grues
13 fire lizards
10 red baby dragons
9 red dragons
39 red worms
1 stone giant

[gut]

Probably the best chance I ever had was just a few months
after I first started playing ADOM. I entered, frosted a
dragon, and picked up a wand of wishing with 4 charges.
I was so stupid back then, I didn't know what to wish
for...

[vogonpoet]

Hmmm, I have found WoWishing in the Tower a few times, but never in a Brimstone attempt... Not even sure what optimal wish strategy would be... If no altar:

Straight off: RDSMs, Tower eternium shields.
Much later: WoDigging, WoParalysis?

[Grey]

Very nicely done - certainly the closest anyone has come to doing it without savescumming. What did you mostly have to rely on backups for?

However, I must say that I'd consider taking advantage of special dates to be outside of the challenge. Altars are also questionable. Both of them evidently help a lot.

[Soirana]

there is good reason why in classic brimstone altars are not allowed. Of course one could overflow piety but i am not that desperate, yet.

[mike]

One small think I've noticed re: the pot of blindness and similar stuff. Items won't burn from background heat while in a mob's inventory. So if you can get a dude to pick it up and lock him away somewhere, it'll stay relatively safe for later.