Early-game help needed

[Long Sting]

So I really want to do a Hurthling Assassin Run. I've rolled like 20 characters and my usual route, which involves starting at the Small Cave. I think part of the numerous failures have to do with my lack of knowledge. For example, I don't totally get how the Two-Handed Combat skill works. When I look at my damage chart, a lot of times I have giant minuses to hit right off the bat and it seems like i have to not dual-wield until I raise the skill, but I'm still not sure. I also don't know when I should poison my weapons, or for how long it lasts. I'd love any help on the route I should do, and how I should play it tactically. I really want a Bilbo character wielding Needle and Sting, that's the main goal of the whole thing.

[JellySlayer]

Two handed combat is quite weak. Your attacks are slower than normal, so you often end up taking extra damage, plus you don't have the added protection of a shield.

Small cave is tough for characters without Healing skill. Better to do the Village Dungeon instead. Also, consider using thrown daggers early in the game... you get a bunch of ranks in them and some extra daggers, so they're fairly strong out of the gate.

[edit]Here's the Wiki article on early game survival. Some spoilers in there, if you care about that sort of thing.

[Blank4u47]

So I really want to do a Hurthling Assassin Run. I've rolled like 20 characters and my usual route, which involves starting at the Small Cave. I think part of the numerous failures have to do with my lack of knowledge. For example, I don't totally get how the Two-Handed Combat skill works. When I look at my damage chart, a lot of times I have giant minuses to hit right off the bat and it seems like i have to not dual-wield until I raise the skill, but I'm still not sure. I also don't know when I should poison my weapons, or for how long it lasts. I'd love any help on the route I should do, and how I should play it tactically. I really want a Bilbo character wielding Needle and Sting, that's the main goal of the whole thing.

You can keep wielding daggers, just unequip the 2nd one until you get both your weapon skill and two weapon combat skill high. In the meantime wear a shield when you find it.

As a hurthling you get massive skill advancement discounts to thrown rocks and slings, you should wield those. Also practice bows so that you can poison up to 40 at a time.

[Tyrnyx]

Two-handed skill is especially bad right off the bat. It needs to be trained to make it reasonable and even then it's pretty bad. In total - looked at from a power gaming perspective - dual wielding is not the 'best' strategy. It is almost always better to wield a shield. This is true all the way up to the time you actually get needle and sting. Rangers FYI are the masters of dual wielding (smaller to-hit penalties) but even then there is an energy cost penalty - energy costs is in my opinion the most hidden and one of the more important aspects of ADOM. Consider switching to dual wielding later in the game OR stick it out for role-playing and stubbornness reasons and then brag about it later (this is the path of pain - more will die for glory and it will HURT... but...).

Hurthlings are a good race but they have low str. No way to get around that (except for playing certain classes). Plus you want Hurths for Bilbo reasons. Consider getting the heir gift (not as good as thieves but still good) and you'll have a poisoned dagger all the time and you'll never need to choose. Applying poison manually is pretty much only a strategy to use for very strong monsters (in my exp.) and typically 'best' applied to missiles.

Speaking of missiles: take your biggest stack of daggers and throw them. Much stronger than you'd expect since they start with level 4. Annoying since they don't auto-pickup into the missile slot unless you have one there already but worth the little extra effort. Some may suggest milking orcs for a large stack of their daggers but that's waaay too much work in my opinion.

Good luck. Further explanation of your background could lead to better advice.

[Long Sting]

Thanks a ton for the help guys. What other background things would be helpful to explain? I've been running Alert-Miser-Treasure Hunter for Talents, cause that's what I usually do. Have a feeling I could do something different though. I really appreciate the help. So what I'm gathering from this is that I should probably not start small cave, use a shield for most of the playthrough, and throw daggers/rocks?

[Soirana]

So what I'm gathering from this is that I should probably not start small cave, use a shield for most of the playthrough, and throw daggers/rocks?

Yes, in general get Healing ASAP, use shield + best one hander weapon and use missiles (arrows/quarrels have a bit more long time potential than daggers/rocks).

Other than that... depends on where your problems are (whether you have issues with hurthling assasin in particular or handling the game or something else). Maybe post few character logs as you progress, since it is easier to talk on less absrtact subjects.

[Long Sting]

Yes, in general get Healing ASAP, use shield + best one hander weapon and use missiles (arrows/quarrels have a bit more long time potential than daggers/rocks).

Other than that... depends on where your problems are (whether you have issues with hurthling assasin in particular or handling the game or something else). Maybe post few character logs as you progress, since it is easier to talk on less absrtact subjects.

I'll start up a character. So Should I go to Terinyo first, get Carpenter/Puppy quest and go straight to VD-PC?

[Shinae]

Personally when I run assassin, Candle starsign can be really good if you go in smc route to hmw. Otherwise it's recommended to get healing skill asap. Remember that weapon weight affects a lot for your dualwield bonuses, don't dualwield heavy weapon. Anything above 40s or so is a big no. Daggers work the best or dagger/sword route. I usually go dagger/sword personally.

I don't run assassins with shield. You can carry one for tough places, but it's doable without shield as well. It helps a lot if you find something mithril/adamantium/eternium between smc and hmw. But remember that assassin is still pretty weak early game. Usually takes me 10-20 characters as well to get to hmw. After that they usually last pretty long and midgame isn't that big of problem.

Poison doesn't help you that much, but keep dipping at least in smc and early game. Poisons do you no good if you are dead. It should read on your inventory if your weapon is poisoned. Keep in mind that poison sometimes poisons corpses you get, so if you are low on food on your way to hmw, it might be wiser not to poison weapon.

[JellySlayer]

I'll start up a character. So Should I go to Terinyo first, get Carpenter/Puppy quest and go straight to VD-PC?

You don't have to do the PC if you don't want to. Most important is getting Healing from the Carpenter quest. If you can survive that, then see what kind of shape you're in and assess your options. PC isn't a wrong choice, but the dungeon features there do make it a bit dangerous. The bottom level can be very dangerous if you get unlucky with the dungeon feature there, so if you do get down that far, don't feel bad if you need to make a hasty retreat. Running away is always better than dying

[Tyrnyx]

Personally, I go small cave to HMV every game. However, this has a higher casualty rate - I like the early crucible effect - if they can make it through the UD then they're probably worth it, if they can't then I haven't invested to much time in them (this is the path of pain - I do it because I'm lazy and for the glory). However you'll probably find more success in the more cautious VD route. Plus, many consider the healing skill essential (and it's damn good) but I've learned to make do without it. To help sometimes Candle born can be taken, especially if you choose to go for the heir gift. Raven/tree also have survival pros.

Talents are one of the places this forum is pretty aggressively split on and a great question to absolutely derail this thread. It goes something like this (for me!): start with 3 talents? How good is the heir gift? (Judgement call) If good get it. If not good, get alertness and as many of the hardy + pv talents I can get. As leveling continues favor the PV talents tree over treasure hunter tree. Gives treasure hunter late which some might argue makes it not with it but it's how I do it. Then quickness talent tree and maybe archery talents if that's available. DV talents next. The end. Packing talents if nothing else. I never do the book reading talents because I don't play spell casters much. Feel free to argue over this with others.

(Also try to remember to not take miser if you took the heir gift over alertness - a common silly mistake I make occasionally. NBD usually but annoying)

You can check the small cave first to see if the stairs are close. If they are you can go the UD route after you get healing skill.

Oh and jellyslayer up there said the #1 rule of adom (one I forget too often): running is better than dying. I also agree that the puppy cave is often a trap usually best left for a time when you're stronger (cavernous levels are more of a low/mid-teen level difficulty IMHO).