1.20 hurthling druid Radaghast gate closer, 1st win in 11 years of playing

[mjkittredge]

Finally closed the gate and exited, but have not yet left the Drakalor Chain. Might try to find some chaos removal items for the last few corruptions. Will post the victory shots or whatever once I leave.

Thinking was, in creating her, to have the thrown rocks skill for the early game to help her survive, which she did with no close calls. Ducked into SMC for blanket and peak down the stairs, went smoothly and got a few fast levels. Kranach and his crew had a shocking experience of having lightning bolts shot in their faces. Puppy cave had an altar on the floor below the cavernous level so precrowned with Natures Companion fine leather armor which served me well the entire game.

Through the UDC to HMV (came back later with humanoid slaying ammo for oracle corpse), and on to the CoC she went, spear and shield in hand, with some mace & missile training here and there, with bolt spells for lined up monsters. Dwarf quests, no problem, tunneled around tree level, Griff and Nonnak got smacked down with slaying ammo. Ducked out for Pyramid and then crowned with Fire Immunity, useless due to Natures Companion, was hoping for Acid which I did get later.

Game started getting a lot easier with Big Punch and Tower Adamantium shield smithed up. Darkforge raided, nothing of note. Rothk taken without a problem, wished for Amulets and Khelevaster got saved. Snake got stomped. Tower of Fire came next and at that point gear was good enough to handle it with minimal trouble, even 2 huge tension rooms loaded with fire giant kings. Got some nice strength bonuses from their corpses. Minotaur lair next, magic mapping spell and teleport sped that up. One paralyzing wand shot then several swings from Vanquisher and big bull went down. Suns Messenger long bow was the artifact there. Ate the corpse for the stat bonuses. Library didn't have anything too strong, or any good books. Decided to kill big momma water dragon. She nearly killed me a few times, once was down to 5 hps (out of 500) due to ridiculous water breath, but I had blessed AoLS on as insurance and she succumbed to dragon slaying ammo. Nothing of note in her hoard.

At that point with 40-50 stats each, 150 speed, stilt leg corruption for reduced action point cost (made up for not finding any SLB), and smithed eternium armor rest of game was a breeze. Blessed Cow axe cleaved through everything. Cat Lord got stuck in some webs and slaying arrows found their mark. Greater undead vault took a while with all the summons but was eventually cleared and 2 useless artifacts procured. After getting all the orbs and playing Russian Roulette with potions of raw chaos I was 90% corrupted so went back up to do the White Unicorn quest.

PoU got me robes of resistance, peh. The hordes of Chaos on d50 were no match for me and my newfound Greater Earth Elemental friend, we smashed our way through with a vengeance and when all perished the levers were handled and I departed. Decided to execute Sharad Wador on my way out for shits and giggles. He was stationary and underwhelming.

Now I'm screwing around in SMC, used the druidic summoning ability and got 3 extremely experienced rattlesnakes, hehe. "I call the big one bitey!"

I think the reason I won is because I didn't screw around too much, with altars or getting doomed & cursed. And I had good luck with item drops, no out of depth monsters or things I didn't have tools to handle came at me. Probably about 500 characters before this one were played, 75% of which did not survive the early game.

[Dogbreath]

Congratulations!

Game started getting a lot easier with Big Punch and Tower Adamantium shield smithed up.

I'm happy you were using Big Punch. I read all sorts of posts from people lamenting how they haven't found any good weapons by the ToEF and I'm all like "um, there's a gauranteed good weapon available to anyone who can reach D:10..."

PoU got me robes of resistance, peh.

Eh? The Robes of Resistance are pretty great. They're comparable with Eternium Plate Mail, give +5 toughness, and are indestructable. (Which is important in the late game where you can get your armor destroyed in one hit)

[jfmancilla]

Coongratulations!
Lol on this ->

"I call the big one bitey!"

I like how even though you did not "screw around too much" you still did the maze and the library, I have only won once recently and I avoided all possible problematic places. Kudos for that.

[mjkittredge]

Congratulations!



I'm happy you were using Big Punch. I read all sorts of posts from people lamenting how they haven't found any good weapons by the ToEF and I'm all like "um, there's a gauranteed good weapon available to anyone who can reach D:10..."



Eh? The Robes of Resistance are pretty great. They're comparable with Eternium Plate Mail, give +5 toughness, and are indestructable. (Which is important in the late game where you can get your armor destroyed in one hit)

Yeah for me Big Punch is pretty much mandatory for all characters unless I luck out with a good precrown weapon, crowning gift, or 'of devastation/penetration' weapon. I know some people who don't find a girdle of carrying or take the carrying capacity talents hate the Big Punch for it's 800 weight. That's about its only drawback.

I'm sure in most situations Robes of Resistance are great, but seeing as I had been precrowned with Natures Companion body armor, and only got the robes on d49 ice level from throwing the potion, it was useless at that point. At that point I was like "Please, bracers of war or preserver! Or maybe Farslayer... Noooooo!"

[mjkittredge]

Coongratulations!
Lol on this ->
I like how even though you did not "screw around too much" you still did the maze and the library, I have only won once recently and I avoided all possible problematic places. Kudos for that.

TY! Well by the time I did those places, I had all 4 immunities, Amulet of Free action, Amulet of Death Ray Resistance, bunch of intrinsic resistances like petrification, great equipment, 50/50 dv/pv, 500 hps, 30+ in most stats, 150 speed, over 100 to hit with melee and missile, teleportation and healing spells, plenty of potions of extra healing, wands of paralization... You have to have really bad luck or horrible judgement at that point to lose. Like taking a string of armor piercing crits from a multi-attack monster. People have won the game with weaker characters. Just have to pay attention and think ahead, not back yourself into a corner or take big risks. All my hundreds of deaths taught me this.

Bitey loves the taste of extremely experienced Kobolds

[mjkittredge]

Decided to not spend more time looking around for corruption removal, so left the chain. With 4 corruptions, I got the sad ending message mentioning that I was "Severely corrupted". If 4 is severely, I can only imagine how the story goes if you're 50% or 90% corrupted. "You return to your village. Your people are horrified by you, and burn you at the stake. They dump your charred body in the deepest ravine"

[plllizzz9]

Hah, I doubt they'd dare to try - a gate closing character is fully capable of facing literal armies

[Dogbreath]

Plus, you know, the fire immunity. "They attempt to burn you at the stake... you appreciate the pleasant warmth."