Ratlings are seriously underrated.

[Tyrnyx]

Accidentally created a double post. I like ratlings for the high To. A valuable point since the changes.

[Blank4u47]

Let me explain, my personal opinion:
1. Skill at ~20-30 does ID status of maybe 15 of that 100 armor you seem to be interested. 85 still has to be dealt. So you have to put bunch of skill increases, instead of getting awesome skills like alertness and find weakness. Or at least healing and food preservation.
2. Egos are very low chance with low lv char in low DL dungeons.
Armors don't come in hundreds, since all clothes, robes, leather armors can safely rot there they happened to drop.
Weapons come in hundreds if you milked every orc or every gnoll. Well, if you did, you just pile them on and let anything which stacks with anything rot in that pile too. (egos are low drop chance at this point, right).
At this point every high metal armor I would just put on, and some weapons need to be dragged to altar or BM. So all detect items did was save one trip... no wait, it probably identified half so you have twice as much not stacking weapons, which might require two trips. (yeah, you can equip known status stuff, but extra stuff comes from weapons which might have stacked with ones you Id status)
3. Best aid in early game is anything that helps to reach midgame, Det status tragically fails at that. From mid game I got blessed Id going, so this skill does next to nothing except having important skills at lower value.
4. Now, if you grind Id or are go for four precrowns with livesacs (and pickpocket every mob before saccing it) type of player, I guess detect item status is very useful for you. Other, then helping with grinding I fail to see skill's uses.

1. who actually puts a lot of skill increases into those skills you mentioned?? I may put a few points into food pres early, but alertness pretty much trains itself, as does find weakness, food pres, and healing. That leaves a ton of points to put into things that don't train well, such as archery dodge athletics swimming, and detect item status.

2. everything that's ID'd you can safely drop, sounds like an asset not a hindrance. And I don't milk weapons from orcs etc. so I don't worry about stacks.

3.so I guess you're saying it's not helpful at all to find an early holy water or blessed scroll of ID? The skill trains itself, and allows you some very useful time saving options.

4. What? I'm sorry you don't like pick pocketing, but that doesn't mean that someone who does it grinds too.

[Tyrnyx]

I'm trying to beat the game with every class. I'm also trying not to repeat race again. I have the following classes left: thief, farmer, and assassin. I have the following races left: high elf, grey elf, mist elf, gnome and ratling.

I believe (with that selection) that ratling makes the best choice for farmer. Because of high potentials he can reach 25 in both TO and DEX. That level of To gives you +5 PV which is really strong in the early game. I value that highly at least. I'm a bit biased because I've already gotten a ratling farmer to D50 and would have won if I hadn't shot my GEE pet on accident.

I'm thinking gnome thief for obvious reasons and HE or GE assassin ultra to finish.

If anyone thinks differently (blasphemous) I'm welcome to hear their argument. I probably won't listen but I'll hear their argument . I care very little about long life and very much for PV. Early game is more challenging IMO so that is why I value those as I do. Flame away people.

[Soirana]

1. who actually puts a lot of skill increases into those skills you mentioned??

3The skill trains itself, and allows you some very useful time saving options.

4. What? I'm sorry you don't like pick pocketing, but that doesn't mean that someone who does it grinds too.

The one who believes skills raise themselves to reasonable levels is certainly grinder.

I put the raises in mentioned kills early on (<lv12) a lot, because they help me a lot to avoid doing boring stuff and get towards more fun than bashing helplass goblins.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

I don't grind, and precisely because I don't grind, making several trips to a far away altar to ID a bunch of plate mails is a no-no. I just take the few items that look best at a first glance, which means that sometimes, especially in vaults, I leave stuff that may be good. In the early game taking 3 or 4 ring mails and plate mails can be a problem for many chars.

I do agree some skills like healing have a higher priority than detect item status, of course. But often you don't have that many high-priority skills or you just reach a limit and can't spend more dice for now, I often spend some points on climbing or swimming in the early game with many R/C combos and I'd much rather have detect item status.

As for food preservation, I don't find it that good. Yes, you find more corpses and maybe that will give you TP control earlier, and you have a higher chance to get some rare intrinsics like acid immunity from slugs. But detect item status can help you ID a weapon of hunting that does the same thing And then you can preserve the orb guardian corpses, but PoCC are quite less valuable than in previous versions of ADOM, and when you're facing orb guardians you have had plenty of skill dice to spend anyway.

[Soirana]

I don't grind, and precisely because I don't grind, making several trips to a far away altar to ID a bunch of plate mails is a no-no. I just take the few items that look best at a first glance, which means that sometimes, especially in vaults, I leave stuff that may be good. In the early game taking 3 or 4 ring mails and plate mails can be a problem for many chars.

We still speak early game, right? If so what's the point to ID armor which will be replaced by AMW fairly soonish? If you want me to believe PC6 reliably drops 4 (Where have hundreds gone, huh?) , so 4 mithril armors, I will need screenshots (regular scale/ring mails - I put one for PV and ignore rest - served me tactically well for last 10 yeras ). Early on BM is on way from PC exit to CoC, early CoC vaults are close to Dwarftown, UD to HMV... (and if uou have food preservation, you don't need to drag that many rations, which leaves capacity for good stuff)

Later on, between carrying capacity (Garth, ogres, fire orb, some giants) and blessed ID scrolls that problem does not exist in my games.

So, as I have said before detect item is cute, but lacks impact of any kind.

[Blank4u47]

The one who believes skills raise themselves to reasonable levels is certainly grinder.

I put the raises in mentioned kills early on (<lv12) a lot, because they help me a lot to avoid doing boring stuff and get towards more fun than bashing helplass goblins.

Thanks for that, but I progress pretty fast through any given game, I'll take on the pyramid at lvl 13, often directly followed by darkforge (not everytime, just very often) I save the puppy 50% of the time, always clear out smc, and always do the raider lord quest. This leaves very little room for actual grinding. I do always take pick pocket, and use it, I do this because it lets me get to harder areas faster. Healing raises itself just by playing carefully. I train alertness by allowing kobold shaman or dark sages follow me around while I progress through a dungeon. I do not ever press w5 or ws. Food pres, I just carry any corpse with me, this also trains my str. Find weakness I never bother putting any points in. Ever. Just fighting things trains it.

[Soirana]

Thanks for that, but I progress pretty fast through any given game, I'll take on the pyramid at lvl 13, often directly followed by darkforge (not everytime, just very often) I save the puppy 50% of the time, always clear out smc, and always do the raider lord quest. This leaves very little room for actual grinding. I do always take pick pocket, and use it, I do this because it lets me get to harder areas faster. Healing raises itself just by playing carefully. I train alertness by allowing kobold shaman or dark sages follow me around while I progress through a dungeon. I do not ever press w5 or ws. Food pres, I just carry any corpse with me, this also trains my str. Find weakness I never bother putting any points in. Ever. Just fighting things trains it.

If you wanna prove something, could I get your average turncount?

Just cause

I save the puppy 50% of the time, always clear out smc, and always do the raider lord quest
Healing raises itself just by playing carefully.
I train alertness by allowing kobold shaman or dark sages follow me around while I progress through a dungeon

are right in my definition of grind. To everyone his own, I guess.

p.s. What sill you do put points in? The ones more important than healing, food presevation and find weakness...

[Tyrnyx]

I save the puppy 50% of the time, always clear out smc, and always do the raider lord quest. This leaves very little room for actual grinding. I do always take pick pocket, and use it, I do this because it lets me get to harder areas faster.

All of the things you just mentioned I consider grinding. I guess we have different definitions. For me grinding is doing unnecessary things i.e. anything in Terinyo, pick pocketing, thieves guild, etc. For you, I'd guess, grinding is killing monsters in a cavernous level (I often have do this in the big room to get to 13). Different definitions and play styles.

Healing raises itself just by playing carefully. I train alertness by allowing kobold shaman or dark sages follow me around while I progress through a dungeon. I do not ever press w5 or ws. Food pres, I just carry any corpse with me, this also trains my str. Find weakness I never bother putting any points in. Ever. Just fighting things trains it.

What do you put points in then? Seriously.

[Blank4u47]

All of the things you just mentioned I consider grinding. I guess we have different definitions. For me grinding is doing unnecessary things i.e. anything in Terinyo, pick pocketing, thieves guild, etc. For you, I'd guess, grinding is killing monsters in a cavernous level (I often have do this in the big room to get to 13). Different definitions and play styles.



What do you put points in then? Seriously.

Herbalism, so I can get early herbs, dodge, because it doesn't train itself, literacy, because I like reading books with most characters, few points in first aid to get it going, haggling if I'm playing a mist elf, climbing if leftover points, gemology if character gets it, alchemy if I get it, archery, detect traps, and when I get to dwarftown finally I put all into tactics and twf.

How is it grinding to sweep past most monsters in smc to maintain lvl 1ish? How is it grinding to get the puppy by lvl 5? Not a troll either.

Monster attacks me, I pickpocket. Doesn't attack, dies or left alone, doesn't take much.

And soirana, it highly depends on the game, if I'm going quick, or enjoying myself by visiting all locations. My average ultra is about 110,000 turns, but if I'm unlucky with drops and I want the ultra, it'll be about 140,000. Regular ending if I'm quick about it is 70k or if I don't care, which is normally the case, it'll be 90k. I do not re-roll. I've been playing steam version for 4 months and I have 4 victories, 2 ultra, 2 regular and a total of 40 deaths, so I still can't go to bug temple I like to make every character count, even weak ones.