2133 replies to this topic

[A. J. Raffles]

Great idea. There is a special spoiler colour, I think, but I can't remember the number...

[Havell]

I just tried my first magical character, a dark-elf mindcrafter, I started off adventuring in the Infinite Dungeon as I didn't fancy my chances of getting a quest in Terrinyo (what with being evil and all).  I reached level six with 3 mindcrafting powers (confusion blast, confusion wave, and mind blast), it was tough to start with and I had to be careful but I got the feeling that I could become very much more powerful if I managed to level up some more (this was after beating a tension room with about 3 mind blasts ).  Unfortunatly, I bumped in to an orc scorcher in the thin passsage, confused him, but he managed to hit me a couple of times, which was disappointing.

Can anyone give me any advice on playing magical characters, or good class/race combinations for magical characters?

[A. J. Raffles]

Druids are fairly easy to start with; they can do pretty much anything a wizard can, plus no animals will attack them. (Their class benefits are pretty worthless, though.) Dark elves are a bit of a challenge. If you haven't really played spellcasters before, it'll be easier to try something tougher at first, like a dwarf or a gnome. Or a human, if you don't mind that it's boring. Hurthlings aren't bad either; depending on what kind of ring the cursed ring is it may not be such a disadvantage after all. Grey elves make excellent spellcasters, but they're a bit on the wimpy side; just slightly less so than dark elves. But if a grey elven wizard lives to level 30 and you don't make too many mistakes, you should be able to win the game with that character. At any rate you'll have to be careful at first and TRAIN MELEE WEAPONS AND MISSILES. If you don't, you're bound to run into a situation in which you'll be wishing you had trained them.

[Havell]

Thanks for the advice.  I've carried on with a game I started a few days ago, a Gnomish Elementalist.  I'm level 13 right now and I can kill monsters with both fire bolts and my mithril longsword.  I'm on the level of the CoC just below the Arena.

I've managed to get my alignment to L+ and I'd quite like to be crowned.  I've found a couple of altars, one made of gray granite, another a black obsidian.  How do I tell the alignment of the altars?  I'm guessing the granite one is neutral and the obsidian one chaotic.  What does a lawful one look like?  And can anyone give any advice on finding altars and sacrifices in general?

EDIT: And I've just passed the open level that others have ahd problems with, it was easy (I had a cloak of invisibility ).

[A. J. Raffles]

A lawful altar is made of white marble. You can convert altars, but you have to be a bit careful when you do so or you might end up upsetting your current deity instead. If you have a large amount of gold, you might try sacrificing it on the neutral altar.
Altars are generated randomly (not in the ID, though), but there are a few guaranteed ones, the safest one being the one in Dwarftown, which you'll soon come across. The altar in Dwarftown is always of your alignment if you're lawful or neutral. If you're playing a chaotic, it'll be lawful or neutral and you'll have to convert before you can sacrifice. If you convert the altar by mistake, you'll make the priest hostile - not good.

Edit: Try to train bows as well if at all possible. Poisoned arrows fired from a distance are very effective against the Ancient Chaos Wyrm in the Tower of Flames.

[DakaSha]

well i started playing again and noticed that it IS the best roguelike...

well gotta get back into it

and i agree with mdag... spoilers and roguelikes are fine... its a highscore game so you should know everything so that you can create a strategy

edit: yay! my second char got:

Gray Elven Wizard born in that Neutral Magic Month
St: 11
Le: 20
Wi: 15
Dx: 18
To: 10
Ch: 11
Ap: 22
Ma: 25
Pe: 20

heh... and the first pool gave me the invisiblity intrinsic
so much for the arena but oh well.. im happy

[DakaSha]

Can somebody PLEASE fill me in with armor and mages/elememtalists? does armor matter? can i wear metal? does Mana decrease? its been so long and ive forgotten it all

[Havell]

I'm still wearing the blessed robe I got at the start of the game with my level 14 gnomish elementalist, I have used one of the scrolls that improves DV on it though.  I don't know wearing armour abuses mana but I learnt the hard way that exhausting yourself with spells does (I have about 12 mana, I started off with around 25 )

[A. J. Raffles]

As far as I know simply wearing armour shouldn't affect your spellcasting abilities. It definitely doesn't abuse mana, but if you're playing a monk you'll forfeit the damage bonus monks get by wearing heavy armour.

[DakaSha]

ok... nother thing that the guidebook describes in a really stupid way: (pre/post) crowning.

now to be crowned i have to be extremly close to my god then pray right? plus there are other things like bieng a certain level for precrownings and all that. the guidebook says all that. but do i have to be precrowned then crowned then postcrowned? or can i skip the precrowning and go straight for crowning? BLEH

[A. J. Raffles]

Precrownings and postcrownings are optional; you have to be a certain level (depending on how many artifacts have been generated up to now) and you must NOT be of extreme alignment (i.e. L+, N= or C-) if you want to be pre- or postcrowned. That's basically just to make sure you can't get an unlimited number of artifacts through that, since you'll have access to unlimited amounts of money eventually.
Crowning is a much simpler affair: it doesn't have any level requirements. Theoretically you could get crowned at level 1 (but achieving this would involve a lot of tedious scumming).
In a nutshell:

If you want to get crowned:
- Make sure you're of extreme alignment
- Find an altar and sacrifice away. Make sure your piety is as high as possible (I think the message should be "absolutely close" for crownings).
- Check whether you're wearing any artifacts which give you the cursed and/or doomed intrinsic. If so, take them off.
- Pray.

If you want to get pre- or postcrowned:
- Keep track of how many artifacts have been generated relative to your character level. (The formula you've probably got already through the guidebook).
- If you're the right level, make sure you're NOT of extreme alignment. (You might want to do this after getting your piety up, depending on which alignment you are)
- Sacrifice away until your piety is as high as possible (you should get the "extremely close" message).
- Make sure your sacrificing hasn't got you back to extreme alignment (very important for neutral characters). If necessary adjust the aligment.
- Check whether you're wearing any artifacts which give you the cursed and/or doomed intrinsic. If so, take them off.
- Pray.

[DakaSha]

thanks.

im running my best char ever right now... i guess the long break was good.

level 17 (almost 18) gray elven wizard. not impressive but well i guess i suck
by the time i hit the arena i had found 3(!) pairs of seven leage boots... pretty nice.
i did the PC then keethrax. killed hotzenplotz and became leader of the thieves guild then went through the SC and UD (with help of invisibility spell). journeyd to the CoC did 19 arena fights went to dwarftown(sadly D:11 ) and have to kill a green hag.... guess thats ok. then i finished the griff bloodax quest and the pyramid. got the pickax in the pyramid now im about to go back to the graveyard to get that sword... and try my luck with the other graves.

but all the damn altars are in the first couple of dungeons and my piety is sinking. i also cant find a dang girdle of greed.... my gold is getting heavy as hell and im pretty much always strained.

the graveyard and the pyramid were very easy considering i have no means of detecting traps. just made the mistake of walking by Griff on coward thinking he wont hurt me... heh brought me down to 12 HP in one round... good thing i had teleport. i also found me a nice blue dragon scale male [-1 +12] on the surface level of the graveyard.

[A. J. Raffles]

DakaSha, on Oct 13 2005, 05:31 PM, said:

but all the damn altars are in the first couple of dungeons and my piety is sinking. i also cant find a dang girdle of greed.... my gold is getting heavy as hell and im pretty much always strained.

Erm, maybe this is a stupid suggestion, but why don't you just head back to Dwarftown and sacrifice the gold to get your piety back up? You'll find lots more later on anyway...

[DakaSha]

i just did that but i tend to get much quicker and better results from sacrificing monsters... heh... i just tried to convert a lawful altar and my equipment was turned to dust

i think ill take a break now

[Eagle of Fire]

The best use for gold I've found yet, apart from buying stuff and using it for sacrifice at an altar, is to go train in Dwarftown. When paying huge amount of gold the stat goes higher faster.