Early-game help needed

[Tyrnyx]

I feel like your spoiled enough to get yourself in trouble but not enough to get too crazy - this is a good thing. I would suggest 1) not looking at the guidebook anymore - it gives pretty arbitrary values to certain things. Shows you everything you can do not everything you should do i.e. twin daggers 2) I also strongly suggest you don't try to role play yourself to a win (especially since Bilbo was hired as a thief). Play stronger classes and strong combinations with race. There are people who get there first win on a mist elf mindcrafter ultra but that is DEFINITELY the path of pain. Assassin's are mid-line. They have some nice skills but notably lack healing and don't excel on magic. Magic is strong and so are missiles. I suggest a dwarven priest or orc monk/archer for powerhouse characters.

Feel free to ignore this advice and Bilbo it up. That's just the path of pain. Also, instead of guidebook ask more questions here. See how nice this worked out .

[Tyrnyx]

I fought the corpse fiend through 2 prayers to full health and I didn't really hit it at all.

Do you know about changing tactics? Putting yourself up to berserk to do enough damage is sometimes the only method. Other times you realize your outclassed (this comes with time) and then you run away. 'L'ooking at a monster can tell you how damaged it is (if you're playing ASCII and don't have health bars). Pressing 'm'ore or looking it up in your monster memory '&' can sometimes tell you stats about it - especially after hitting it a bunch or killing it. It can help you see why if your not making much progress.

Emptying a stack of daggers into something, moving so they step off of them, picking them up and reequiping can sometimes be a valid if annoying method.

Change your tactics with capital 'T' or the F# buttons. Seeing how much damage you output with both melee and missiles is most easily seen with the character screen 'ctrl-w' I believe and ':t' changes where it normally shows speed to show other things the most important of which is LE which is the energy cost of your last action. It's the hidden variable that imroves with weapon marks, talents (like long-stride and quick shot) and SLB.

PV is the most important early game (IMHO) then damage. The daggers you start with don't really cut the mustard. Getting the assassin heir gift can help here. Mostly it's luck. I equip most things that are of higher metal before I have access to an alter. Then I check.

Crowning for assassin's is pretty sweet so if you see an opportunity to do that early (vault + altar, cavernous level + alter, alter near the stairs to the big room or a cavernous level) get it. Playing hurthlings means that corpses of the right alignment also work very well for saccing and gaining piety. Learning to maximize my status with my god was a turning point in ADOM for me. Saccing stoma was how I did it but that no longer works.

Good luck.

[Long Sting]

Do you know about changing tactics? Putting yourself up to berserk to do enough damage is sometimes the only method. Other times you realize your outclassed (this comes with time) and then you run away. 'L'ooking at a monster can tell you how damaged it is (if you're playing ASCII and don't have health bars). Pressing 'm'ore or looking it up in your monster memory '&' can sometimes tell you stats about it - especially after hitting it a bunch or killing it. It can help you see why if your not making much progress.

Emptying a stack of daggers into something, moving so they step off of them, picking them up and reequiping can sometimes be a valid if annoying method.

Change your tactics with capital 'T' or the F# buttons. Seeing how much damage you output with both melee and missiles is most easily seen with the character screen 'ctrl-w' I believe and ':t' changes where it normally shows speed to show other things the most important of which is LE which is the energy cost of your last action. It's the hidden variable that imroves with weapon marks, talents (like long-stride and quick shot) and SLB.

PV is the most important early game (IMHO) then damage. The daggers you start with don't really cut the mustard. Getting the assassin heir gift can help here. Mostly it's luck. I equip most things that are of higher metal before I have access to an alter. Then I check.

Crowning for assassin's is pretty sweet so if you see an opportunity to do that early (vault + altar, cavernous level + alter, alter near the stairs to the big room or a cavernous level) get it. Playing hurthlings means that corpses of the right alignment also work very well for saccing and gaining piety. Learning to maximize my status with my god was a turning point in ADOM for me. Saccing stoma was how I did it but that no longer works.

Good luck.

Oh yeah I use tactics whenever I can. Yeah I was thinking of starting Candle so I can get Heir. Yeah I would love an early crowning, especially cause the gifts are so good. So Hurthling gods like corpses?

[Long Sting]

I feel like your spoiled enough to get yourself in trouble but not enough to get too crazy - this is a good thing. I would suggest 1) not looking at the guidebook anymore - it gives pretty arbitrary values to certain things. Shows you everything you can do not everything you should do i.e. twin daggers 2) I also strongly suggest you don't try to role play yourself to a win (especially since Bilbo was hired as a thief). Play stronger classes and strong combinations with race. There are people who get there first win on a mist elf mindcrafter ultra but that is DEFINITELY the path of pain. Assassin's are mid-line. They have some nice skills but notably lack healing and don't excel on magic. Magic is strong and so are missiles. I suggest a dwarven priest or orc monk/archer for powerhouse characters.

Feel free to ignore this advice and Bilbo it up. That's just the path of pain. Also, instead of guidebook ask more questions here. See how nice this worked out .

Thanks for the kind words man. I've been playing on and off for years but really getting into it the last few months. I usually do better race class combos so I'll keep at that for the first win

[Long Sting]

Thanks for the kind words man. I've been playing on and off for years but really getting into it the last few months. I usually do better race class combos so I'll keep at that for the first win

addendum: the only reason I'm even trying to play a character besides the elven wizards and drakeling/dwarf paladins is because the idea of Needle and Sting is very appealing to me. But I've dumped like 30 characters in a day cause it's so hard lol xD

[Tyrnyx]

You don't have too quote everything. It's all right there.

Honestly I'm more frustrated when I lose 1 very developed character compared to 30 newer ones. But I certainly feel you.

[Long Sting]

Sorry, force of habit lol. I definitely agree with you but I've never actually gotten far so that pain hasn't been fully realized, but I can imagine it's quite rough, especially if it's because of a dumb mistake

[Soirana]

But I've dumped like 30 characters in a day cause it's so hard lol xD

At this point you need.. well, check reasons behind deaths. Some logs/screenshots would not hurt either.

[Blank4u47]

Oh yeah I use tactics whenever I can. Yeah I was thinking of starting Candle so I can get Heir. Yeah I would love an early crowning, especially cause the gifts are so good. So Hurthling gods like corpses?

Hurthling gods like their meals cooked thankfully though you start with cooking skill, food pres and a cooking set

[Long Sting]

I've been carrying around cooked corpses to train strength anyway so I'll sac those for sure. I die because I get overzealous in the SMC is the main reason. Or I get poison stacked by a bunch of spiders/pit vipers in the CoC and I don't have 2 prayers to cure it by that point usually. I just have to run away more I think