Ultra nOOb alignment questions

[vogonpoet]

I have an lawful DElven Archer who just left the ToEF with her second orb, who would quite like to be my first Ultra winnar.

(ToEF absolutely ridiculous, thrown rocks for everything, then a little bit of frostify for fun, then two blessed dragon slayers, one miss, one hit, W goes down.... what??? Never had archer reach Tower before, due to overconfidence - they really are unbelievable)

I saved K courtesy of Darkforge (first wish there in ages, yay), and am intending to head on down to Casino now to see if there are any junk artifacts there (no precrown, no torc).

My question is this: After feeding ratling, how long do I have to stay chaotic? Do I have to satisfy the crone before turning back to N/L? I seem to remember someone saying you just have to be C flavour to receive first crone quest, and not afterwards - can anyone confirm that?

Also - I can delay Keriax to whatever multiple of 30 I feel like, and enter at any alignment, correct?

[Elone]

I can confirm that. After you've done crone's quests and got the medal, you can go back to neutral and lawful once more. I will also give you this hint! Alignment is best changed with amulets of order/balance/chaos, BUT they become less and less effective, and once you're level 47, amulets dont affect you at all anymore. Do whatever you have to before that time comes.

By the way, finishing her quests can get you deeper C... Dont let it happen. Always keep yourself just about CN (or was it NC which was a chotic flavour? there are both CN and NC, and one of them counts as chaotic and the other counts as neutral)

P.S. Never call your questions 'noob questions' or 'expert questions'. It's in human nature that we know some things, and dont know others. I'm a human too (or at least i look like one). We ask things that we dont know. BY THE WAY, you're not a noob if you progressed THIS far.

P.P.S Yeah, you can enter anytime, day 30, day 60, day 90. Day 30 is WAY early for any normal game. Day 90 is late, because corruption speeds up then. 60 is optimal. Dont miss it.

[vogonpoet]

90 day time limit? Meh, am taking my time, will be 90, 120, or 150, whatever.

As for n00b, no ultra win ever = ultra n00b. My self esteem can cope with admitting I have no experience of doing something when I have no experience of doing something.

[Elone]

Take your time, but there will be a moment when you just wont be able to handle all your corruptions anymore. Saying "ultra noob" can be very misleading. There are many beginners out there who dont know how to sell items in a shop or find the scroll of omnipotence. Keep it on mind.

[vogonpoet]

Ambiguity? In my posts? Its more likely than you think.

The way I see it, if my PC turns into a WMoPC on day 91 then fair enough, next time I try an Ultra, I will worry more about speeding through the early game. Until then, meh. I shall just do my best to avoid getting pwnEd by corrupting monsters. I will likely die to stupidity long before corruption becomes a problem.

Besides, death by WMoPC-hood is a death I secretly aspire to.

[Silfir]

The 90 day limit isn't so bad if you manage to save Khelly and speed through the more corrupting places. Then again, I really don't know for sure how big of a problem corruption tends to be for ultra aspirers.

The first letter counts. CN is chaotic, while NC is neutral.

As far as I know, after you've fed the ratling and gotten the medal of chaos, you're free to become neutral and lawful again. Neither of these tasks requires a particularly powerful PC. There's really not much of an excuse not to finish them by level 25, or 30 at the latest, so blessed amulets of order should work even with the Tree starsign. According to the guidebook the amulet of balance doesn't influence alignment, but lessens the amount by which your alignment is changed by performing chaotic or lawful acts - so they are useless if you want to *become* neutral.

Also, vogonpoet, in my eyes, the moment you won the game for the first time you lost all "n00b" privileges...

[Grey]

My question is this: After feeding ratling, how long do I have to stay chaotic? Do I have to satisfy the crone before turning back to N/L? I seem to remember someone saying you just have to be C flavour to receive first crone quest, and not afterwards - can anyone confirm that?

Also - I can delay Keriax to whatever multiple of 30 I feel like, and enter at any alignment, correct?

I have heard tell that you only need to be C to feed the ratling and accept the old crone's first quest, and seen evidence of it too. I have no experience of that myself though - I usually turn C temporarily when I have all the ingredients, do everything, then switch back quickly after.

You can be any alignment to enter the stone circle and kill Keriax. Same for Malakai. You can only enter the stone circle on the last hour of Darknight, so on day 30 just stand on the square and repeatedly press '>' till it lets you in. On the last game I played I got there at level 30 with a gnomish bard (the first bard I've played since writing my guide for them in fact - wanted to try for quickest ultra ever) but found out I couldn't harm him and he couldn't harm me - ended up quitting in exasperation. Make sure you're well prepared - plenty of dragon slaying ammo and very strong confusion resistance.

[Soirana]

so on day 30 just stand on the square and repeatedly press '>' till it lets you in.

i managed to miss entering time this way once. Char had stiff muscles corruption on, but... I somehow prefer to run around in 7lb to make my timing.

on other hand entering on day 150 or 180 makes little difference.

[vogonpoet]

I did visit Keriax once before, with a totally ill-prepared orcish barbarian, just to have a look around.... did indeed get the shit kicked out of him.... shall be interesting to see how my DElf does.... no boar skull at the moment, which is a tad annoying, or indeed scroll of danger, but we'll see how Casino goes...

[rmcin329]

I've seen the outlaw town generate a scroll of danger before. It was a cursed one though. I didn't buy out the shop or anything, it was there in the shops initial supply of items