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

24? wouldn't 4 be enough?

Wands of Polymorph have the range of five squares: a stack of five items for each square.

So much to learn, I still have.
Thanks for the info.

I remember when I thought wands of polymorph were enemy-only (too used to Crawl's wand of polymorph other); finding out they were much better for utility purposes was something else.

But still, it's a cheap way to get rid of the valpurium golem!

Provided he doesen't turn into something worse by the time.

When ever i use a polymorph wand on a creature, the creature becomes four folds stronger than before.

As I recall the math you should have a roughly 75% chance of polymorphing a monster into something weaker, and a 25% chance of creating something stronger. Which is really bad in the case of high end monsters.

nice work Eagle.. I had always assumed it would transform the contents of the chest as well

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure about that, but I always got fairly high-value items using this technique, so I assume it's safe.

You can be sure about from this point onwards then. The contents are not affected.

Heh heh. This was about to become my next question - how to train those damn stats. I recently took a dislike to metal arms because they're clumsy and artificial limbs in general because they have to be repaired, although ommel hair works rather decently at least. However, with natural limbs, assuming they don't get cut off in a matter of seconds, there are other problems: training them...

Something relatively heavy means what? A steel shield, an iron plate mail, a carnivorous plant corpse? Leg strength can be trained by carrying loads apparently, but it doesn't seem to work for me (quite the contrary, my limbs seem to get weaker and slower for no reason). Agility by running/flying around (then when I stop, it goes down, down, down - and running for free in the world map makes me hungry quick, which results in starvation because bananas are junk and pineapples cost a fortune). Dexterity - how? Endurance - just by healing or school food? Perception - how? (Carrots don't grow on trees and I'm not sure if that helmet of piercing perception +3 really needs any more scrolls into it).

As for sci-talking, there is just a small problem, I don't know how to do it efficiently (i.e. no starvation, and my legs don't degrade back to single-digits Agility before I get a single point). I tried reading the wiki, but my dog is dead (discarded him while flying over the water - yay for levitation), mistresses seem to give no points at all, banana growers barely grow my Int and Cha and then I starve. Well, not always, but it just takes so long.

Are low stats the reason why I have so much problems proceeding? I'm struggling to find a Cruentus altar now 'cause I am going through healing pots so fast. I have a Vermis and an ommel tooth mace +1 in my hands, and until recently I couldn't kill a werewolf in wolf form. A lucky wish from an oil lamp (the 2nd) was used for a broken armor of great health, repaired, hardened to ommel hair and enchanted to +5 with my loads and loads of enchant armor scrolls. I also got a steel arm on the way along (should I change this into ommel hair too? I have a SoCM for this, though I have to change into troll hide and then harden it to do so because my Int is too low). So now I got strong enough to kill the Enner but... last time I got so far, two angels of Loricatus cleaned house for me, but when the level 7 dark frog mage of lots of pain in the ass and disenchanting and teleporting +10 found me, my angels were suddenly gone, I fled up to lv6 where a zombie of Guugzamesh or something executed me. It turned out that without those angels I was just crap. How good do I need to be to go further? What stats do I need to train, and do I need any specific equipment?

Training:
Astr - Halberds or your trusty chest filled with valuables. Ommel Urine.
Lstr - Metal boots. Kick in doors more often. Ommel Urine.
Agi - Stock canned food (lots) and run everywhere and anywhere. Wear soft material boots. Ommel Sweat.
Dex - Whips, scrolls & banana peels. Soft gauntlets. Ommel Sweat.
Per - Teleporting a lot seems to raise this. Otherwise you're stuck with carrots and ommel tears.
End - Avoid armors of great health. Rest to heal and eat school food. Ommel Snot.
Int & Wis - Read books and scrolls until you can sci talk to the village elder. Work from there. Ommel Cerumen.
Cha - Not sure about this one. You have a slim chance of it increasing when you sell things to a shop. Otherwise, it's a helmet of attractivity +10 for you. Ommel tears work too.

Mystic frogs are bitches. Not as much as Ischaldirh (not you Izzy, ingame Ischaldirh) but still pains in the arse. You're going to want to be prepared for them. Your best bet is to get a ring of telecontrol (or better yet, telecontrol from eating blink dogs as it isn't dependent on equipment) and either ESP or Infravision (preferably non-equipment again). Then when they attempt to teleport you, you teleport right next to their bitch asses and slaughter the lot of them. If you're lucky and your equipment hasn't been teleported away. That's why you want to train your unarmed skill. Also, consider dropping your chest of valuables on the stairs to the level before going down them. It's a pain in the arse having to find it again. I would also consider bringing junk items for the frogs to teleport, in the hope that they leave your equipment alone.
Also, have wands of teleport ready on just about any level in case you need to run away.

For progressing in the game, a Astr of any amount will serve you well, as long as you have high Dex. Same goes for Lstr and Agi. I myself have managed to most of the mini boss characters with only 10 Astr (started with 7. Ouch).

There's more than that 4zb4. Almost every action will go towards training some stat. Using any hefty weapons and digging will train AStr. Easiest way to train LStr is to carry lots of stuff. Dodging will improve Agi. Dex is the easiest by far; opening doors, setting traps, picking up items and using light weapons come to mind. Per can be raised by dodging as well, and zapping wands. Cha you don't need to worry about, it has little use so far.

Oh yes, and Dex by missing.
I just listed the methods I use the most.

If you are currently, say, Cruentus' little bitch, but you want to improve Int/Wis, does it hurt your relationship a lot when reading books of good gods?

Yes. And it doesn't help build up relations with good gods that much either.

Hmm, thanks for the replies. I got Int to 15 then went to NA, only to find Kaethos' corpse lying there for no reason at all. Nobody was hostile, and I didn't do anything since last time I went there and the elder was there. Fuck it! So I just replaced a severed-then-replaced-with-light-crystal left arm with ommel hair, then went down to GC6...

Fuck it again. A kamikaze dwarf exploded on me from some 3-4 squares away while I was peacefully killing zombies and bears. No wands exploded on me and I had a hardened leather cloak of FIRE GODDAMN RESISTANCE +2 and I still got instakilled (after being teleported away, though I had control). Along with the "walk around then die from some random ass mine" deaths, I've had enough. I don't want to know the 10 million other ways I would die before I would win if I tried to win. This game's a goner.

That's EXACTLY what the game does. If you win IVAN, you are practically a god of roguelikes.

Anyways, just having a cloak of fire resistance isn't enough to stop you from being kamikaze'd. Having stronger-than-an-ommel's-ass armor is almost essential for this. As far as mines go, you should be fine with just the cloak. Unless it's a BIG mine.

I personally wear a cloak & ring of fire resistance usually. It gets the job done. But even when wearing arcanite chainmail, mithril limb stuff, a kamikaze can kill

Yea that is true, when i first started out playing Ivan, i didn't understand why the tunnels were black until i figured out how to pick up lanterns. Then i would try to tank my way out. I still do that but I'm more tactical now...

I always carried the lantern in my left hand... untill I accidentally didn't equip it and noticed that it's still a light source when it's in your inventory.

I call that the "tonberry syndrome".

And kamos, the way to win the game is to learn from your mistakes. Not only does it help you win the game, it also forces an unwanted yet important moral lesson on you. Games are sneaky like that.

The exact word order is "Games like that are sneaky."

No, Azba's form works fine.

I am a fluent english speaker after all, Eagle V.

And I am not.

Note to self: don't be such an ass that thinks he knows everything

Sorry 4zb4