So, I was looking for some challenge games, and decided to try lithium as it is frequently described as "easiest". So far it was surprisingly hard, a lot harder than a normal game. A lot of things taken for granted - guarantied teleportation, mummy artifacts, chaos removal etc. isn't available anymore. Started with candle drake barbarians and lost all of them in forest or DH. First drake farmer managed to get to D:38 only to be killed by mimic hivemind (why did I melee it without para resist? Why did I melee it at all??? oh well...).

Gardening is awesome and so is double carry capacity, but farmers don't have anything useful on higher levels, terrible skill increases and bad crowning gifts. What classes and races have better chances? Drakes look a bit risky without unlimited speenweed. I am trying dwarven monk at this moment. Talents - PV line and immune to pain for ToEF? How much gold do I need for crowning as a dwarf, and does crowning cost depend on level?

In normal games I always go through DH, but without teleportation and magic mapping LF seems the only option. With 60/20 it is more or less safe but getting 20 PV at this stage is problematic. One drake passed through with 11 PV, 2 prayers and PoEH but never made it back. Monks get a nice tunnel by level 13, which is useful on the way back. I might try getting smithing to 100 and make a tunnel with pick axes.

Alignment - N seems to be the only sane option, as mystic reward is the most likely source of chaos resistance. Also N crownings are easier. So dwarven altar needs to be generated neutral and I finally find some use for for all those cockroach traders.


Overall it is a lot of fun. Have to do lot of things I would never do in a regular game, such as giving steel amulet to something in a dark room, because there are no resources to dispel dark or identify amulets. Exiting from mystic room by eating displayer beast. Running away from a titan (not even greater) because resources are at a premium and XP is simply not worth it. Killing chaos wyrm with magic missle wands (surprisingly effective as it turns out). Talking to every square on car lord level because there is no way to see invisible.