I'm currently doing my first ultra attempt (GE wiz) and 80% or so completed I decided to take a break and play something different and maybe a bit less stressful. So there goes Mr Boggo, the gnomish farmer, with a determination to close the gate!
First of all, Mr Boggo's stats aren't very good. Second of all, Mr Boggo claims knowledge of many things but he really sucks at all of them and he hardly shows any potential to learn either. Dies were +1 or at the best +1D5 for almost everything, and skill values started around 15-20. And Le is 8 or something. I never played a farmer before, but it looks like this little fellow just sucks and will keep sucking for a good while.
Anyhow, first kill was a kobold in SMC since I decidedly am not doing another ultra. Stairs were conveniently close, so I decided to come back later. I always look for the stairs, and if they're hard to reach I just go down immediately and usually die. Since Mr Boggo is a weak mofo and doesn't know anything about healing I was quite happy to let him run back to safety instead of descending to a likely death.
The plan now was to find Mr Boggo something to shoot with or throw, and to learn healing. And to become a member of the thieves guild. So, I got the pickpocket quest and went to the VD. Got back up with knowledge of healing and with enough thieving done to become a guild member without any issue. Mr Boggo throws rocks at things not pleasant to touch.
Onwards to look for the puppy corpse, and fortune smiles as Mr Boggo as there is an altar in the cave. Mr Boggo needs all the help he can get so I decide that pre crowning is a priority. Eventually the Far Slayer lands on Mr Boggo's lap. Great success!Got the dead puppy back to the whiny girl and then went down through the UD, which turned out rather boring. Popped out on the other side and darted to DT since experience was piling up and missing the pyramid is not an option. Not on my watch. Also created a garden of spenseweed, morgia and moss since gardening is pretty much the only thing Mr Boggo knows anything about.
The pyramid was uneventful as was the first few dwarftown quests. Stairs in DH were close. Something in the dwarven graveyard dropped an amulet of life saving, believe it or not. Another great success! Ran immediately to Khelly. Then I figured we might as well get Mr Boggo crowned, and we sacced and sacced and sacced for weeks and never got beyond 'very close'. Then I suddenly remember how pre-crowning (which I normally don't bother with) sometimes screws things up. A prayer and boom! Crowned. That wasn't time well spent. Anyway, lightning immunity (nice) and Skullcrusher (fucking amazing) made us forget about the many, many days by the altar. Skullcrusher (humanoid slaying is really OP, IMO) made Darkforge a joke, but there wasn't really anything super amazing there. First corruption happens, kind of early. Maggots. Got the wand of teleport and got the goods from the dwarven mystic. Also killed a few cats by mistake/frustration, but the ring is usually only trouble anyway
Things are looking up, as stats are decent now and we even have a nice pile of PoGA:s tucked away for later. And corruption won't be an issue. And we're good for the whole game with both missile and melee weapons. Ok, next logical stop is either Ice place or ToTHK, but we don't have any reasonable way of crossing dangerous waters so Ice it is. Ice dungeon has an emperor lich guarding the stairs and Mr Boggo didn't feel comfortable with that so we had to skip the wand for now. Mr Boggo then got a bit excited and picked up a rock or something at the battleground, but luckily nothing bad came of it. A dragon or two got upset but we're fast runners. Down in the FGJC a scroll of monster detection brings the good news that we're facing a greater giant vault, so we start bashing away. Fire giant kings, frost giant jarls and the odd titan were serious news and hit very hard. Got punched down to 1 HP at one point (same thing happened in last game) and had to sac the titan upstairs as anything else would have been suicide. All in all we used up three PoUH and almost 100 blessed spenseweeds clearing the vault. Not a good confidence builder.The loot included Perions's plate and a ring of slaying, so that's okay.
Still no bridge potential, so we decide to do the minotaur maze. But first we kill the snake from beyond since the Wi boost is helpful. The mino maze was ok, didn't take too long until we found our bearings. The emperor and his guards were all easily killed with poisoned quarrels fired from the amazing Far Slayer. Got Preserver, yet another really lucky artifact drop! After eating the emperor's cropse, training Wi back up and drinking my pile of 8 or so PoGA stats are suddenly end game worthy. I don't know about the rest of you, but I've regarded the minotaur maze as pointless in the past. Now it's almost mandatory.
ToEF was no problem with three levels of resistance and a blessed ring of ice. ACW went down to three dragon slaying quarrels.Found Blup's mom (for unlimited ranged slaying at the end game) and finished up the Ice Queen quests. Decided that the wand of cold guarded by an emperor lich is one out of very few options so we magic map and teleport around the problem. Then we spent another heap of time trying to do something useful with smithing, but all we ended up with was some corruption and a couple of out-mined levels.
Time for the final descent! Casino had another AOLS, but why would we want that? Preserver all the way, I say. The summoner and the ASB were easily killed. Ate the ASB corpse for the small stat boosts and got six new corruptions :/, but still worth it I guess. The greater vault in D45 had more giants. Great. It also had Nature's companion, the crown of leadership, soaker, the scorched spear and the hammer of the gods. And two rings of djinni summoning. Oh my. Used one wish for Find weakness and the other one was saved for later but never used. With the large heap of corruption removal things in mind Mr Boggo ate Nuurag's corpse as well at the cost of another six or maybe even seven corruptions, but who cares? Uselessness gift was the iron crown, a slight upgrade or the crown of leadership but still welcome. Final level was just a simple melee fest. White unicorn removed all the corruption and home we went!
All in all, a pretty soft, relaxing game that felt easy thanks to the great crowning gifts and random artifacts. It's really nice to play a race/class combo for the first time and win on the first try. But farmers still suck.
Mr Boggo the gnomish farmer closes the gate
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