General Tips?

[Chaine]

Hey,
I've been playing ADoM for a couple-three years with no success.
The farthest I've gotten is doing the Mad Carpenter quest and getting all the way to dwarven city, with the arena beat. I usually use a dark elf or human fighter, preferrably literate but I don't know quite how to make sure they turn out literate during character creation so they usually end up the other way.
I've had quite alot of fun times in ADoM but I think its so darn frustrating when you die, all the time. Once I broke my leg kicking a wall, while looking for a hidden path (I didn't know the search command back then), what's up with that?

Anyhow, I was wondering some good early game tips: mainly in which order to do quests and how to avoid death. The main things that have been bothering me, alot, is how to identify and heal?
You can get the skill healing at the priest (Jhyrrad?), but other than that I've only found "first aid" which only works the very turn after getting hit and almost always fails. I've found no way to identificate or detect curses yet.
What are recommended skills/attributes for human knights by the way?

[Mad Minstrel]

Don't choose class without healing skill if you don't like to die early. I think the best combination for you would be dwarven priest - healing skill, detect item status, herbalism, strong but good in magic too. It's one of the easiest combinations to play with.

Easy play order:

Do first 6 levels of the Black Druid dungeon
Do puppy cave
Finish Black Druid quest
Do serif quest to kill hotzenplotz
Look for a few spell books in Level 2-3 of ID
Go to CoC


Don't rush. You heal with time if you have high healing skill. Besides use speensweed herbs, spells of healing, healing potions. You can identify items with scrolls of identify. It's best to bless the scrolls (with holy water) before using it. You can create holy water by dropping potions of water on a co-aligned altar.

[Worst Player... ever]

You can identify items with scrolls of identify. It's best to bless the scrolls (with holy water) before using it. You can create holy water by dropping potions of water on a co-aligned altar.

A quick addition to this -

You can tell if an item is cursed or not by dropping it on a co-aligned altar. It'll tell you, as long as your god isn't too mad at you.

Holy water is only created in this manner if your God is 'Very Pleased' or above.

Learning how to properly use altars is a big deal. Sacrificing non-aligned monsters on the altar is worth much more than sacrificing gold, but gold is a good standard.

There's a thread here which still might help you, even though you're not really a noob at this point.

[Chaine]

Ok, I'm going to try a run - as soon as I know this:
Is going down levels good or bad? I usually explore entire levels (excluding hidden paths) before I leave for the next floor, usually works well, but is that a bad habit?

[Travis Prue]

I don't see anything wrong with it

[Sradac]

im kinda not sure on that. Iused to explor every corner of a level before i go down to the next, but I found out that actually eats alot of my game time. Lately I've been heading straight for the stairs unless im looking for something specific on the level. Sometimes it helps sometimes it hurts, as i wont have as many levels from killing all the monsters on a floor, but i can get stuff done quicker. Really only worry about how much time has passed once you get a good handle for the game. I actually just started being concerned with passed time about a year ago and i've been playing adom for like 6 or 7 years.

[Mad Minstrel]

IMO with weak characters (mindcrafters etc) early in the game it's better not to open locked door if you don't have too (explosion traps). Also if there are ants/bees on the level and your character is weak you should find the staircase as soon as possible and go down.

And sometimes it's better to leave tension rooms closed, especially if you don't have healing skill yet. Leaving tension rooms closed is also the easiest way to "produce" a dungeon level without / with very small monster generation as a resting place.

Also I think it's generally better not to explore first CoC levels to much before you get the first quest in the dwarf city. It increases your chance of finding the moster you will need to kill to make the quest.

Finally, I think deep in CoC (level 40 and below) it is better not to explore every corner because of high corruption - especially after 90 day.

[Chaine]

Ok, a dwarven priest named Dragen - quite a failure.
First of all; I did get the Miser talent, but could never get Treasure Hunter, it's not avaible for priests?
I did the first six levels of the Mad Carpenter/Black Druid(?) dungeon, then went to the puppy cave. Once there I got to the sixth level quite quickly but once there I opened one of those lots-of-monster doors, was cornered and finally killed by an invisible stalker. Does a high perception help you hit theese guys, because I was wearing a helmet that gave me (+1,+1) [+1,+1] but -1 or -2 to perception.
The skills I upgraded the most was item detection (I love that skill), healing, literacy, listening and first aid (Pah, that didn't help me).
Oh, how do you know if an item is magical? I found a brass amulet (amulets found usually are magical to me) and identified it - it was just a plain brass amulet. Ouch.
By the way, it's been a while since last: (+1,+1) [+1,+1] means +1 to hit/+1 to damage, +1 to armor/+1 to dodge or something like that? What's the difference between the first two, really?

EDIT: Any easy human/grey elf/dark elf combination? I hate being a dwarf so much, especially a dwarven priest. Any other classes with the item detection skill aswell? I think it's the only one I really need, as you learn healing just a tad into the game and I don't have the faintest clue how to use herbalism.

[Mad Minstrel]

You need Alert and Miser to get Treasure Hunter. There is no point in upgrading listening, it trains itself and is not as valuable as healing or herbalism. If you like elves maybe try High Elf archer. Or maybe human priest? Only Priests and Merchants have guaranteed item detection, but merchants are much harder to play.

[spectre]

"First of all; I did get the Miser talent, but could never get Treasure Hunter, it's not avaible for priests?"

Actually, the prerequisite for TH is Alert and Miser. Hence, If you want them be sure to get alert at level 1.

"Does a high perception help you hit theese guys, because I was wearing a helmet that gave me (+1,+1) [+1,+1] but -1 or -2 to perception."

Not sure abut that, but I wouldn't overestimate it. Seems it was more due to your being cornered (as fighting wih more than one enemy reduces your to hit chance.) As a priest, I think you should rely more on your spells in such sticky situations (Bolt Spells, or Darkness when all else fails).


"Oh, how do you know if an item is magical? I found a brass amulet (amulets found usually are magical to me) and identified it - it was just a plain brass amulet. Ouch."

Brass rings and amulets are always plain brass. Other jewelery always does 'something'. As far as otheritems are concerned, you just have to put on and try.

"By the way, it's been a while since last: (+1,+1) [+1,+1] means +1 to hit/+1 to damage, +1 to armor/+1 to dodge or something like that? What's the difference between the first two, really?"

Read the full manual, as they say (-: These figures are modifiers to your to hit with melee and missle. That's true for all armor pieces. For shields you only get the melee modifier.

"EDIT: Any easy human/grey elf/dark elf combination? I hate being a dwarf so much, especially a dwarven priest. Any other classes with the item detection skill aswell? I think it's the only one I really need, as you learn healing just a tad into the game and I don't have the faintest clue how to use herbalism."

I'll start from the end. Herbalism is only used when you find patches of herbs in dungeons. It allows you to:
1)Identify herbs.
2)Pick more herbs from a bush.
3)Without it you only get cursed herbs.
As you can see, it mostly saves time and resources (you don't have to read scrolls of ID, use of holy water, and get more out of a single bush). It's nice but not critical.

Other classes with DIS, again the manual holds all the answers. Apart from priests, these are Merchants and Bards can also be generated with the skill. These classes, however are a lot harder than Priests, and dont have Concentration (well, for bards it depends on the rolls)

As for other races you can try, Dwarves are nice for their Detect Traps ability, I, however, dislike their starting L alignment.
Humans don't offer too much, save for the Food Preservation skill, Orcs have interesting starting equipment (and start with Find Weakness, which is a great skill), Elves start with great armor, and have high Mana to boot (Dark Elves can eat Spiders and also start with the useful Find Weakness and Alertness skills), Drakelings come with their Acid Spit and Alertness, Hurtlings have pathetic strength, and low Mana, but come with the Cooking/Food Preservation combo and thrown rocks weapon skill at 4. They are also Lawful at start.

Seems you don't have problems with starvation, so you may safely skip hurtlings. I'd say, watch your hooscope and try to adjust to it. If you get Wand, for instance, go for a Neutral race.

If you are not Lawful, be sure to join the thieves guild for a bunch of nice skills. Especially the Detect Traps, as others are not that crucial. You'll miss it as a non-dwarf.