Tips for Transitioning from Early to Mid Game

[JellySlayer]

Hello again,

After a day of struggling with the Elven Archer thing (basically all of my games ended before level 10) I have decided to transition to something that I've read is a little bit easier. I'm playing with a Drakeling Healer right now. However, there is so much that I don't know about these damn herbs growing in the dungeons. Do I just pick all of them every time I come upon them? That's what I've been doing up to this point. I feel like I'm supposed to pick all of them from what I've read and then later on plant them in some farming fashion in order to grow the good stuff?

I have taken the DD quest in order to receive gardening from the druid since I already know Herbalism. Basically, I haven't been able to find a great resource for information on all these herbs and things. The Wiki helps some but doesn't really give advice on the best thing that I should be doing with all of these things. I'm only on UD:1 and I have a TON of herbs already. I use my Herbalism skill on each plant before I pick any of them because I think that's what I'm supposed to do.

Basically I'm really lost on the whole herb thing and could just use some general advice...

Okay, simplest explanation... herbs will regrow over time if you don't pick all of them, so it's best not to just pick everything. Herb generations range from about 10 turns minimum to about 500 turns maximum, so it can be a bit of a wait.

Ideally, you want to pick herbs so that they end up in a 2x2 square configuration

""
""

This configuration is very useful. If you pick any one of the four bushes away completely, but don't touch the others, it will regrow in the same position.

That is:

". 
""

grows into

""
""

Alternately, if you have the herbalism skill, you can look each plant and see if it is "withered" "strong" or "blossoming" (if you're playing with tiles, you can see this visually as well). If you pick a plant that is blossoming, you will get a herb of that type, and it will either stay as it is or go to strong. If you pick a strong one, it will either stay as it is or go to withered. If you pick a withered, it will stay as it is or die. So if you have the 2x2 square above and all four plants are blossoming, you can pick at minimum 2 herbs from each bush without actually losing any of the bushes. If you wait around awhile, they'll regrow to strong, and then to blossom (this is more time-efficient than just picking one bush completely to death and waiting for it to regrow).

Each row going across gives a different type of herb. So it's not just getting a 2x2 square, but getting one on the rows that are most useful to you. There are tricks you can do to move things around before you set the 2x2 square. The other option is to use gardening. If you Apply the Gardening skill (the same way you'd use First Aid, say) on a blossoming bush, then there's a chance you will pick some seeds. Or you destroy the bush. If you plant a seed on an empty tile, then there's a chance to get a new bush. This way you can build new squares. Helps to have Gardening above 60 to make this work. There's seven types of plants. You can figure out which row is which this way: Press L. Move the cursor to the top of the map. This row is 3. Count down 4, 5, 6. The first row you can normally get to on a dungeon level without digging is always 5 as is the bottom row you can access without digging. After row 6, go back to 0 and start again. So it goes 3,4,5,6,0,1,2,3,4,5,6, etc. Cross check with this table:

3 Stomafilla/stomacepta herbs
4 Pepper petals/Burb root
5 Morgia root
6 Moss of marelion
0 Spenseweed
1 Curaria mancox/devil rose
2 Alurina antidote/devil daisy

All herbs except 0 and 6 have an effect while eaten. Burb/stomacepta/devil have bad effects. Stomafilla is food. Pepper petals give healing (about 25 HP when blessed). Eating 4 morgia roots at a time will increase Toughness and Willpower stats (after some time), up to potential max or 25, whichever comes first. Mancox will cure sickness. Antidote will cure poison. Generally, effects are better when blessed. Moss of marelion can be put in the tool slot and used. Using 3 or so of these will increase Dx up to potential max or 25, whichever comes first, as long as they aren't cursed. Cursed ones will abuse Dx. Spenseweed gives healing when used as a tool.

[twsanders]

Wow.... Thanks for all that info. Seems incredibly complex and something I'll have to figure out as I try to train the skills. My first run with the healer ended in the UD, I got bombarded by ghosts and they aged me to death..... incredibly disappointing. Haha. I'll come back later on once I get some practice with the gardening and things of that sort.

Thanks again for all your help, you've been rather beneficial.

[Sian]

I would suggest taking a very beefy race, when you're still in the learning process, Trolls, Orcs and Dwarves are strong picks, Drakelings slightly less so due to poor starting item quality and knowing how to manage acid spit, but still a valid consideration ... Gnome is somewhat of a corner case which is viable if you want to sniff around the magical side of things since they're highly competent in that regard while still being much beefier than any of the other magical-inclined races.

In a similar vein, I'd also suggest a beefy class, Barbarian, Healer and Paladin being the most obvious, with Duelist being an option when you fairly consistently gets to CoC (as they really start rolling at 12th) ... Archer while strong, needs a certain amount of resource management, and a good sense of when to range and when its acceptable to melee, conserving ammunition.

For the first long while, you should at most consider targeting ToEF, which mean ignoring saving Khelly (unless you just happen to land an AoLS anyways), ignoring aiming at certain first-kills, not treating cats with a silk glove etc...

[Highway25]

I would suggest taking a very beefy race, when you're still in the learning process

My first win was with dwarven barbarian, so I think this is very much true.

[blunk]

After quite a few playthroughs I've come to enjoy humans for a smooth early game.
Dwarves are slightly stronger and get a bit more TO but less dex and a lack of swimming while easily solved in the Long run can be a bummer in the early game.

[Hoponpop]

Hey, I definitely know what you mean about the beginning to mid game challenges. Honestly, I usually start my characters and go straight to the village dungeon and finish the healing quest. Healing is a must have for any PC, candle-born or not. The herbalism quest can be difficult, because you face Keethrax with a bunch of animals, sometimes with Giant Slugs... o-o I'm surprised no one mentioned it, but if I'm not feeling too confident going into the CoC, I usually go to the Infinity Dungeon for a few days and just gain 1 or 2 levels. This way you get experience, weapon marks, shield marks, and items like useful scrolls, wands, potions, etc. You can get lots of potions of water to bless, and if you're lucky, you can get potions of gain attributes along with other stat boosting potions! I usually just stay around I:6 - I:9, because there is no background corruption and the danger level is still low.

[sweetnothing]

I'm surprised no one mentioned it, but if I'm not feeling too confident going into the CoC, I usually go to the Infinity Dungeon for a few days and just gain 1 or 2 levels.

There's some reasoning to *start* the game in CoC. I did not do this in past but after my attempts at Lithium man challenge I think this is a quite safe and conservative approach. The danger level increases uniformly in CoC. If you start in CoC, you reach the Big Room at lower character level and therefore less chance dangerous monsters would be generated; you reach Dwarftown and its services earlier.

VD has lower danger levels than corresponding CoC levels and thus it gives worse drops in theory. The last VD level may be too dangerous sometimes and in these cases you skip it anyway. The puppy cave has ants, small cave is stupidly risky, ID has reduced item quality for its danger levels.

So unless you are aiming at some specific objective (like getting water-proof blanket/collecting books/getting tp control/detect traps), going to CoC at earliest opportunity seems beneficial.

[Gref]

Considering ADOM's non-linear nature combined with the likelihood of dying, the early game starts to feel like an extension of character creation as you die repeatedly. That is, in my experience, the game doesn't really start unless you've made it out of the early game. I tend to just dive through the SMC/UD, which is admittedly high risk, but making it out alive usually results in a deep run.

One thing I've only recently started doing is equipping any rings or amulets immediately I find immediately. The collective pool of rings/amulets with crippling effects is quite small and jewelry still functions regardless of ID status. Thus it's usually to your benefit to do so.

In my current game I was lucky enough to equip and amulet of protection +5 found in the SMC and that alone is enough to carry most PCs through the UD.

[Hoponpop]

VD has lower danger levels than corresponding CoC levels and thus it gives worse drops in theory. The last VD level may be too dangerous sometimes and in these cases you skip it anyway. The puppy cave has ants, small cave is stupidly risky, ID has reduced item quality for its danger levels.

So unless you are aiming at some specific objective (like getting water-proof blanket/collecting books/getting tp control/detect traps), going to CoC at earliest opportunity seems beneficial.

The lower danger level equaling lower item quality doesn't matter for why I suggested to go to the ID. The danger level of the ID is the floor divided by 3 if I remember correctly, so most useful wands, potions, and scrolls drop by ID:9 where I mentioned. You can get very useful potion of stats and water to bless them as well, along with offensive wands which can save you throughout the game, especially if you are not a magic user!

[Soirana]

The lower danger level equaling lower item quality doesn't matter for why I ssuggested to go to the ID. The danger level of the ID is the floor divided by 3 if I remember correctly, so most useful wands, potions, and scrolls drop by ID:9 where I mentioned. You can get very useful potion of stats and water to bless them as well, along with offensive wands which can save you throughout the game, especially if you are not a magic user!

You propose fight DL9 monsters for DL3 stuff.... which seems bad.

Big room i something like d6-7, so if you stick around down stairs, you can drag and controllably kill d6-7
for d7-8 items, which include mithril armor and other worthy stuff, which is way more progress than few pots.