2133 replies to this topic

[Tom Henrik]

Ouchies. A greater moloch!


But I have to say that why in the name of everything holy did you venture into the DH with an axe that only gave you 1d6+8 in damage? You would've done much better with the Adamantium Spear (as you had 10 weapon marks in Pole Arms).

Otherwise, she looks really cool to me

[A. J. Raffles]

Here we go again.
- DV/PV: Marga's DV is good (it would have been even better if she had been wielding a pole arm), but her PV is a bit low. Definitely not high enough to take on a greater moloch in melee combat.
- Stats: strength and toughness are really good, learning is a bit low (learning determines how many skill increases you get when you advance to a higher level, so it's a good idea to try and get it as high as possible. Charisma, appearance and mana are low, but the first two are negligible anyway and mana isn't all that important for an assassin. Willpower and dexterity are still below 25 although there are morgia roots and moss of mareillon in Marga's inventory, but I suppose that just means she didn't find those herbs until fairly late in the game.
- Combat situation: Hmm. It's not quite as blatantly avoidable as the others, but you really shouldn't have tried to melee a greater moloch. When you saw that you couldn't finish him off with missiles, you should just have turned around and fled. In such a case it's better to face the tedium of the animated forest. Wielding a weapon you had barely trained in before actually made things worse. I suppose you chose that axe because of the suffix, but as you can see its effect isn't strong enough to balance out the disadvantages of wielding a rubbishy weapon against a powerful monster.
- Speed: No complaints there. And there's not too much junk weighing you down, either. But your high speed also means that you shouldn't have had any problems running away from a greater moloch.
- Weapon marks: The worst situation to switch to a new weapon class is a situation like this, really. Switching to a weapon class in which you're still fairly inexperienced makes you more vulnerable, so you need to train in a comparatively safe environment. Tension rooms of rats or goblins and the like are ideal. The marks for pole arms are OK (although you might have had a backup class in case your spear got destroyed), and bows at level 6 is fine as well. You might have tried to train crossbows, but maybe you just never found one so far.
- Talents: You left out treasure hunter.
- General comments: Why did you give away the only non-corrupting artifact weapon you found? Rolf's Companion would have been better to train up axes with than the hand axe you were wielding there.

In terms of playing style, I'd rank this one before Tom the barbarian, actually.
Nice job, greywolf.

[greywolf]

I sacced the Rolf axe because I knew I'd never use it; I always use polearms exclusively because of the awesome DV bonus. As for my situation, that is *very* true - I could have run away very easily and I was using the hand axe because I knew that against the moloch its penetration powers would be most useful (it has better stats than a phase dagger, anyway...). I just figured that since the moloch was so slow, I could easily run away from it if it dealt me a life-threatening blow... which it did. I never expected to be killed in one hit, which was the real problem. Seeing me a whole 4 HP away from staying alive is somewhat frustrating...

I wanted to get my speed up before I got treasure hunter, and when I was getting the speed talents, I hadn't found my *very* nice boots of speed.

I was waiting to find another holy water to bless the morgia roots.

Learning is low because I started with 5. I just spent 5,000 gold in the training place, though, so I would have started to see the benefits of that pretty soon.

I never train crossbows because quarrels are too scarce compared to arrows earlier on, and by the time there's lots lying around, my bows are usually at level 4 or 5 and I figure I might as well use the marks to further increase my bows instead.

In the end, my char died because I accidentally went into the dwarven caves, and I was about to leave, as I just realized I had ventured into one of the more dangerous places in the game, when I see this message: *THUMB*. Knowing, of course, from my previous games, that a titan gives about 30,000 xp to a level 35 hero, I figured that even as a troll, I could go up at least 2 levels if I managed to kill it. Unfortunately, on my over to it, I ran into that *greater* moloch, and was tempted even further... (there's a reason people wish for molochs...)

Ah, well. I'll end my YASD (Yet Another Stupid Death) post...

Edit: I forgot to mention that I figured I could kill the titan with my arrows of construct slaying and beat a hasty exit if they weren't working, because titans are pretty darn slow, too.

2nd Edit ( ): I guess we're just waiting for Havell to finish then....

3rd Edit (       ): Ooops... I guess Havell did finish, then. Congradulations, Tom!

[A. J. Raffles]

greywolforiginal, on Jun 1 2006, 12:32 AM, said:

I sacced the Rolf axe because I knew I'd never use it; I always use polearms exclusively because of the awesome DV bonus.

Fair enough, but it's nevertheless a good idea to keep at least one artifact weapon as a backup, simply because it's indestructible. Much better than ruining your main weapon fighting slimes... About sacrificing artifacts, that almost never pays off. The piety boost you get for it isn't as high as the guidebook seems to suggest. You're better off selling them to Waldenbrook and sacrificing the gold - and if you decide afterwards that you'd like to buy it back, you still can.

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As for my situation, that is *very* true - I could have run away very easily and I was using the hand axe because I knew that against the moloch its penetration powers would be most useful (it has better stats than a phase dagger, anyway...). I just figured that since the moloch was so slow, I could easily run away from it if it dealt me a life-threatening blow... which it did. I never expected to be killed in one hit, which was the real problem. Seeing me a whole 4 HP away from staying alive is somewhat frustrating...

Actually that's what happened to me as well when I encountered my first greater moloch (also in the dwarven halls, I think). You just don't expect them to be that tough, basically.

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I wanted to get my speed up before I got treasure hunter, and when I was getting the speed talents, I hadn't found my *very* nice boots of speed.

Treasure Hunter is most useful early in the game, though. I'd definitely get it before Very Quick, if not before Quick.

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I never train crossbows because quarrels are too scarce compared to arrows earlier on, and by the time there's lots lying around, my bows are usually at level 4 or 5 and I figure I might as well use the marks to further increase my bows instead.

Yes, but on the other hand, the really good slaying quarrels do a lot more damage than the good slaying arrows. It's quite a significant difference, actually. If you pick up all the normal quarrels you find and keep firing them at weakish monsters until you've got none left, you'll get enough training to benefit from the good ammunition once you need it. Thrown daggers, on the other hand, I've always found fairly useless, since there's no daggers of dragon or undead or demon slaying.
Later in the game, you'll probably mainly be using slaying missiles, because they give you a significant advantage. But it's very annoying to be facing the ancient chaos wyrm and to find that you've got 8 marks in bows, but all your dragon slaying ammunition consists of quarrels.

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In the end, my char died because I accidentally went into the dwarven caves, and I was about to leave, as I just realized I had ventured into one of the more dangerous places in the game, when I see this message: *THUMB*. Knowing, of course, from my previous games, that a titan gives about 30,000 xp to a level 35 hero, I figured that even as a troll, I could go up at least 2 levels if I managed to kill it. Unfortunately, on my over to it, I ran into that *greater* moloch, and was tempted even further... (there's a reason people wish for molochs...)

Titans aren't the only ADOM creatures that go *THUMB*. Molochs and greater molochs do as well, so there probably never was a titan in the first place. On the other hand, though, if you had managed to kill him with blessed missiles of demon slaying (a bit unlikely at level 11, though), you'd have jumped up several levels.

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Edit: I forgot to mention that I figured I could kill the titan with my arrows of construct slaying and beat a hasty exit if they weren't working, because titans are pretty darn slow, too.

Titans are giants, so that's the only type of slaying ammunition that works against them.

[greywolf]

Ah, well... One more character to learn from.

Edit: I'd like to present another challenge! I think it would be interesting to see how someone can get in the Infinite Dungeon. I've tried it before, and gotten to level 16ish before succumbing to the waves of monsters. The rules (subject to debate ):

1. You must go directly to the ID after generating your character. You may not scum character creation, but you can create a custom character to maximize your chances of survival. You may play a total of 3 characters and post the best score.

2. No priests - the Detect Item Status skill for priests is probably the best skill for a challenge like this, and thus unbalances all the other classes. You're gonna hafta take your chances with items on this one.

3. You may not ascend once you have descended (although you can stay on aparticular level as long as you like). For example, if I was on I:5 and wanted to escape a tension room of gnolls, I couldn't go back up to I:4, although I could escape down to I:6.

4. You may not get the family heirloom talent.

I can't think of anything else that might unbalance anything... Just post if you're interested. The winner will get a special sig that I will make for them (although I can't promise how good it's gonna be! )

Edited by greywolforiginal, 05 June 2006 - 10:21 PM.

[Tom Henrik]

Alright, I'll bite.

[A. J. Raffles]

Leve 16. Oh well.

Attached Files

•  test_sub.txt   13.25K   21 downloads

[greywolf]

Argh! Accursed level 16! I still have 2 more chars to play, but I think that's as good as it's gonna get... How did you get to I:16 at level 6? Did you just dive through the dungeons?

My character was doing pretty well until I hit a chaos plague bearer tension room that just happened to have a greater mimic hanging around in it... The plague bearers themselves weren't the problem; the mimic kept paralyzing me and I thought I was done for. I managed to kill the mimic and waited till I had full health to take on the rest of the tension room. After that, I had a few easy dungeon levels until I hit a berzerker prince tension room... That had a few scary moments as well. None of it compared until I hit level 16, though - those werewolf lords are *very* tough... I don't think it's possible to deal with them until level 18ish at least.

Attached Files

•  horgoth.txt   13.03K   15 downloads

[A. J. Raffles]

I got bored after level 6 or so, so I started going down the stairs as soon as I saw them.

[Tom Henrik]

Well, your characters are sofar better than my first attempt

A poison resistant Drakeling killed by poison, how ironic

I only got to be an 8th level character, and died on level 7.

Attached Files

•  ID_ME.txt   11.3K   15 downloads

[Fruit Pie Jones]

My first character made it as far as level 13 before getting roasted.  I may try again...

Attached Files

•  test.txt   12.33K   14 downloads

[Havell]

First guy down; a dwarvern barbarian.  He didn't get very far, I suggest this may be because he didn't have healing (and no way of getting it in the ID).

EDIT: Second one down.  Shame as he was doing really well too.

Attached Files

•  geffrey.txt   10.55K   18 downloads
•  srizz.txt   12.64K   18 downloads

[A. J. Raffles]

Swimming is probably also a useful skill to have for this challenge, because of the rivers generated in the ID. Come to think of it, swimming and healing are perhaps even more useful to have than detect item status...

[Fruit Pie Jones]

My second character didn't do so well.  Stupid ice vortices.

Attached Files

•  herostra.txt   10.85K   16 downloads

[greywolf]

I think the most useful classes for this kind of challenge are beastfighters, monks, healers, elementalists, paladins, rangers, and perhaps even wizards. (All born with healing, and a few with Literacy). If you get lucky though, sometimes you start with Literacy if your intelligence is high enough - I think it has to be at least 9 (although beastfighters and barbarians never start with it).

The fighter classes are good for long endurance things, but once you start running into baddies like werewolf lords, it gets tough. I guess elementalists born in the month of the Salamander would be pretty good; Burning Hands would become invaluable if it were conserved until later on when doppleganger lords and baddies of the like start showing up.

I think I'm gonna have another go at it and try for a monk this time.

Edit: I forgot to mention that it looks like AJ and I are tied at I:16. Unfortunately, I didn't plan for this sort of thing... I'll think of something. In the meantime, I'll try to beat my score (and the rest of you guys should, too!).