Okay, so why the fiddlesticks am I dying? +2 questions.

Too much distilled alcohol more likely. =P Nice to see there are more people than Izzy who post when drunk. If my assumption is correct...

I fixed the post. Once again - sorry guys if it made You facepalm, no need to thank if it gave ya the lulz.

What? It was hilarious! Now the fun's all gone. =(

No it's still there. Just legible.

Oh, great! I should check these things before I go complaining. The psychedelic colours make it even better.

One more thing. I just got a new arm of hardened leather, which is fine and all, but now I met an expensive fabric golem and it's been rendered unusable or something. When I try healing it says "You cannot heal" and even drinking a healing potion cannot restore it. How do I fix my arm now?

It's not flesh, so it can't heal. All other stuff needs to be repaired (Scroll of Repair)

Or smithed/tailored if it's within their range of expertise (e.g. no rare materials like crystal). If you get given a food limb however, get it off ASAP. Food can't heal, only rot.

And if you have the pleasure of chancing upon a scroll of change material, and use it on your limbs, opt for strong but flexible materials such as ommel hair and phoenix feather to get both good Astr/Lstr and DEX/AGI.

Artificial limbs also cannot improve their stats. Scrolls of change/harden material and god favor are all you can make use of to try and get better materials for said limb (you can also lop off the limb in question and drink healing liquid for new human limbs, but depending on how long you had that for it could be rather more drastic and disastrous than you bargained for). This basically means that unless your new limb is considerably more powerful than your old one it may *not* be such a good idea to keep your limb that way (although SOCMs, with enough Int, can fix such material mistakes).

Well, this arises a few more questions.

So is it possible to get off an arm? Without going up against a monster with a nasty limb-oriented attack, anyways?

If I get given a food limb, as it rots it gets more "damaged", right? If it falls off eventually, does anything else bad happen?

Why are expensive fabric golems so powerful? This character of mine has killed several golems so far - leaf, oak, limestone, basalt, obsidian - and none of them stood a chance (if they had stood a chance, an octiron golem would have killed them instead ), but the two exp. fabric golems I met so far ruined my arms. (The first one lopped it off. The second one gave a reason for my previous post to be created.) Both got killed quickly by my golem in turn.

Incidentally, I think I have 1-2 scrolls of harden material (or if not, enough gold to buy some in the library). With them, could I further harden my hard leather arm into troll hide, then ommel hair, phoenix feather and dragon hide?

+2 less relevant ones:

Can you pick up the food and treasure in Attnam? I assume not, but I don't want to try either.

How long can I expect my octiron golem to safely protect me from anything that doesn't come at me from behind?

Hey there, Kamos!

1) playing with acid (that is, uncovering the limb AND torso and taking off any cloaks, which is dangerous, OR stepping on broken bottles while unarmored. It's a quite popular way to get delegged!

2) I don't think it get's 'damaged' as in hit, but yes, it eventually rots away which equals the loss of it. It's cover/equipment falls to the ground, nothing else bad happens.

3) This is because of their high 'dexterity' - they may be not too tough themselves, but their attacks deliver their punch in a targeted manner.

4) Yes, provided You meet certain INT criteria for a given material - e.g. 10 to make ommel hair from troll hide, 20 to make phoenix feather from ommel hair, etc. Changing something into Troll hide doesen't require any intelligence, as far as I recall.

5) You CAN do this, but this will result at the guards, townspeople, Petrus and even the goddamn teddy to become hostile and attack You.

6) As long as You don't stray from him far enough for him to lose track and fail to see You.

Cheers.

Have you forgotten our good friend, the bear trap?
Meteoric steel traps and upwards will make short work of an uncovered limb. Just be sure to have a method of teleportation handy incase the wrong limb gets stuck and you can't escape. Being beheaded by a bear trap isn't pretty either.

Ah yes, the bear trap! Thank Azba!

If You want to lose an arm with a bear trap, step in it (having Your legs armored). While trying to move away (i.e. escape), there is a chance that You'll get "your arm somehow trapped in the process". Then, while trying to free Your arm, it may get severed off, as far as I know.

Also you could pick up some armor you don't mind losing, equip it apart from a piece on the limb you want to remove and then break a bottle of sulphuric acid (or 2) on a wall whilst you stand next to it.

Hi again guys,

I just discovered how great levitation (first from a wished-for belt, secondly from a fountain, permanently) is. Flying over the dwarven minefields and avoiding nasty chain reactions for the win! So now I got to a room with meteoric steel walls locking away something, and when using a door creation wand to create doors, opening one with a key, it turned out the something is actually a meteoric steel chest. With an octagonal lock. So, does anyone know whether the octagonal key is something random or guaranteed - and does that chest hide anything of value anyways?

The octagonal key, along with another oddly shaped key, are carried by high-end grudge monsters -- as I recall, my namesake has one of them. If you can kill him then you more than deserve the contents of the chest. However it's much easier to simply blast the chest with a wand of striking, or using a SoCM to change the box into something softer then kicking (or eating) it open. You may break any bottles that might be inside, but that (and the other, much more well hidden) chest generally contain items made of high-end materials anyways, and potions are a bit rare.

Nice! Two methods I would never have thought about. Changing the material of the chest... this is why I love this game. BTW, what exactly are plain "chest"-s made of - balsa? Also, if I have a scroll of taming, could I, for example, meet the orcish named monster (with the halberd, I don't remember his name), tame him then take his Ommel Urine from him? Just while we're on the subject of bosses. Of course, I'd probably want to tame one of those anyways so I'm just curious.

EDIT: Arcanite chain mail (AV 11, 1600 g) - *grins*. I'm now a proud owner of 5 enchant armor scrolls and a want of cloning. Which would be the best idea?

-Clone those scrolls and use 10 scrolls to get an armor of around 18-19 AV?
-Clone or not clone those scrolls, but only use 5 to get a guaranteed 16 AV?
-Or just leave the armor alone since there will be better armors later?

I have discovered plain chests are made of fir.

You are talking about ol' Urky. Can't tame named monsters, unfortunately. If you ommel fluids off orc leaders I recommend bear traps or lightning.

Beyond 10 there's no guarantee that an enchant scroll will work. I doubt you'll get 16. Save 'em for better equipment. Helmets, gloves and boots that give stats, cloaks of fire/lightning resistance, for instance, as they give you more than just AV.

The armor you have is decent but you'll find much better later. Or, you could enchant it now, and then harden it to a better material later. If you have any harden / change material scrolls, I would clone 3 of the enchant armors + 2 of the other type.

On the topic of meteoric quests, a wand of polymorph is less valuable than a SoCM or a wand of striking, and it changes the chest into a random item, leaving it's contents behind without breaking anything.

I would recommend saving the wand of cloning for SoCMs. That armor is good, but don't use enchant scrolls on it just yet. If you gain enough INT to change it to mithril or octiron or adamant etc, then go and enchant the hell out of it. SoCMs are great for improving INT, hence saving the wand of cloning for this.

I never thought of this. I was a bit skeptical (I thought the contents would end up polymorphed) so I just tested it in wizard mode, and Eagle is correct -- polymorphing chests is a valid technique for safely opening them. Plus you have a chance to get something nice from the chest itself.

Doesn'tpaydoesn'tpaydoesn'tpay.

Really, afaik it takes just about 18 LStr and ordinary unenchanted iron boots of kicking to break the lock open. Or some 20+ AStr to throw the chest on one of the meteoric steel walls for the same effect.

If You can get polycontrol and polymorphitis, for example, from a staff of wondrous smells or a magical mushroom (careful!), I think a veteran or even rookie guard is enough to do it, so don't waste charges on wands of striking, or even worse, socms and wishes. Really! You can get 20 AStr just by blocking a carnivorous plant's attacks with something relatively heavy.

But the chest-polymorphing idea is sum good shit, yo.

I was just recommending alternatives.

I forgot about pilymorphing the chest. Make sure you have 24 other junk items so the charge isn't wasted though.