stairscumming

[gut]

What exactly is the shame again? If a player is going after a no-scum victory,
then yeah, don't do it. In regular games though, if you find yourself lacking
books or TP control, that's kinda what the ID is there for, in my opinion. The
strategy part comes from the games I used to play, where I would enter the
ID, and not leave until exp. level 50. In that challenge, aquiring many potions
of water is important, because the holy kind is pretty rare. Mithril items are
needed, to give you somewhere safe to use your scrolls of defense/protection.

If one wants to make the game harder, give up praying, or smithing (or to a
lesser extent, gremlin bombing). Those are the really overpowered things. As far
as stairhopping being boring, well, I think it's pretty exciting to get some useful
spellbooks, myself. Properly done, it only takes ~15 minutes to get what your
looking for, and I'd say that's not too boring.

Our first winning lawful PC 'Tiny', never set foot in the ID, he never prayed,
smithed, gremlin bombed, or used gold exploits. But we herb scummed like there
was no tommorow : ) It just goes to show that there will almost always be some
form of scumming, unless you have a thing for extremely anemic PC's, for some
reason.

[Silfir]

Poppycock. My way of playing ADOM is the only true way.

[B_C_]

never heard of herb scumming before

[Silfir]

It's when you make yourself four-square herb patches and keep on picking until you have enormous loads of them. With the right methods, herbs alone can get you to 30 Wi, Dx and To, and 200 blessed stomafillia are generally enough for precrowning (You can pick even more for subsequent precrownings).

[LFk]

Herb scumming, (i prefer calling it "farming"), is something that I generally don't regard as abuse.

I guess from some viewpoints, though... for example, you can moss your dex to ~25, take a heap of morgia to the bug temple, raise your dex greatly esp. with Food Pres, and then morgia your Wi back to 25.

These sorts of things will always exist in games, though.

[gut]

I actually meant to say sickness/starvation scumming. Using this plus
herbs, De can easily go to the 50's, and Wi and To can easily go to
the 30's.

[mdrew93]

Please tell me exactly how to stairscum and herbscum. i have never herd of either of them before.

[gut]

Stairscum - Climb a staircase in the ID to generate a new level. Pick up any valuable items that
appear in the room with you. Climb the stairs again, and repeat, until you have all the items
(mainly books) that you like.

Herb scum - Use morgia and moss to get stats to ~25. Gain the 'starving' or 'sickness' status
that makes you stats drop a bit. When your stats are below 25, use herbs again, then lose the
detrimental status. Just continue your game as normal, and when your stats rise, repeat the
process.

[gut]

Stairscum - Climb a staircase in the ID to generate a new level. Pick up any valuable items that
appear in the room with you. Climb the stairs again, and repeat, until you have all the items
(mainly books) that you like.

Herb scum - Use morgia and moss to get stats to ~25. Gain the 'starving' or 'sickness' status
to make your stats temporarily drop below 25. Use herbs, then lose the status. Just continue
your game as normal, and when your stats rise, repeat the process.

[Elone]

Now YOU are posting scumming strategies! SHAME ON YOU!! But like it has been said, there will always be a way to scum. About herb scumming, it's not scumming - it's outright FARMING. You pick herbs, wait for them to regrow, you pick them again. Sounds like everyday RL farming to me. =/

Back to the topic, ID != scumming (scumming-wise, you can scum anywhere. ID is by no means a guiltier place than any other). I love ID! After each NE (normal ending), I go to ID to play. I mean, I've been playing a character for so long, building her up... now I wanna go play, explore, and overall use the character and equipment to their fullest. ID is perfect for that, because I had 100 characters going thru same quests and problems in every single game... But only ID always offers fresh and endless exploration, in the end.

Oh, were you talking about ID in early game? Yeah, it's when most people scum it. Personally, I like to explore every level fully rather than hop. I dont know about others... I guess that items are simply too inviting, so you say, "I'll hop just a bit more, there will be a teleport spellbook behind the next corner" and stuff. Enjoy it.