New Player Advice

This game is awesome.

It is also super hard.

I read up on the wiki, but still have some unanswered questions.

Do weapon types (blunt, slashing) matter? Do armor types (leather, chain etc) do anything besides have different AR?

Also, any helpful tips for a total noob? Thanks!

True, and true.


The weapon type is used in Accuracy and Strength calculations, eg whips and daggers are very accurate. But they have no invsible secondary effect, at least not that I know of.

Same for armor types. They chance the weight, AR and penalty, but no hidden differences afaik.


Depends on how you die most of the time If you're not afraid of spoilers, you might want to check the "anything relating to ivan you're too lazy to create a new topic for" topic, it has a lot of helpfull little things.

Also, welcome to the forum!

Eat perishable food right away. Save the canned stuff for when you're in danger of starving

Thanks for the welcome and the fast response! That thread seems to have a lot of great info. Can't wait to turn some of my friends on to this game!

I found this out the hard way yesterday ><

Not starving in the Tunnels gets easy if you avoid being burdened and stressed - you can stash the stuff and come back for it later!

Also, really lvl1 hints are:
Just don't leave any good weapons too close to monsters.

Play around with the gods sometime to see what effects do prayers have and what are their replacement limbs made of.

I also think that a death of a far-gone character makes you pay attention and teaches you about ten times more details than a death of a young character would. So raise your fist, go forth, and conquer!

Being burdened makes you get hungry a fair bit quicker. Being stressed ramps it up fast. This, along with the high dex and agi penalties, are the main reasons to avoid plate armor. (Doesn't stop me though!)

Using heavy weapons makes you stronger.

Lighter weapons swing faster, and usually more accurately. More accuracy / dexterity causes more limb strikes. This holds true for enemies too -- certain late-game enemies will decapitate you before you can say "Wut" if you aren't careful...

NEVER carry explosives.

Well, on armor types the only real difference between them outside of weight and AV is what they are made out of.
e.g. A chainmail found in a dungeon will always be made of a type of metal.
Therefore the "cloth material" armors (leather, troll hide, ommel hair, dragon skin etc.) are better than a run-of-the-mill chainmail because they are lighter and don't rust should they get liquids (especially acid) on them. (they get "destroyed" instead, but nowhere near as fast as an armor or chainmail of the materials equivalent metal)

Be sure to get a belt of levitation. It is probably one of the most important items in the game.

That, or an at least slightly enchanted cloak of fire resistance or you won't make it far in the Gloomy Cave.

Thanks for all the help guys. Now, if you could clear up a couple things for me:

Limbs. What are all the ways of replacing them? If you are missing one do you just pray to a God that likes you and he takes care of it?

Bones. Is this like the remains of a previous save?

Thanks again!

Bones are the result of a previous game. They come with everything that was on the level right before you died; this means all monsters (including the one that killed you, which might mean you wind up seriously boned), all loot (including the loot you had been carrying when you died), and all terrain is the same.

Limbs can be replaced by: healing fluid, troll blood, Seges, New Attnam priest (who charges gold for that). Also several other gods if you don't care that the limb they give you is not an authentic human limb. This list not guaranteed to be exhaustive, only fairly close. Note - if you lose a limb without something like a mine, beartrap, or rabid hedgehog providing a good reason for it you likely have leprosy and so does your arm; if you become leprosy-free and then get your arm reattached at the NA priest's house you will get leprosy again - instead, refuse leprosy treatment, have your arm reattached and then get cured of leprosy. The surgeon general has noted that limb loss is a leading indicator and cause of early death, don't make it a habit!

I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE

Choose your gods wisely. The gods you pray to make a huge difference in your playing style and abilities. It is possible to pray to a range of gods two allignment levels around your central god. As you get more wisdom this can be increased. For example. I choose Silva (Neutral +) as a central god and then I can pray to Mellis (N-) Loricatus (N), Silva, Sophos (Lawful -), Dulcis (L) and Seges (L) this allows me to do the following:
Mellis: 1) fill 5 empty cans/bottles/broken bottles/banana peels with random contents (except peels which always fill with banana) this generates food, Ommel fluids, potions, acid, booze, school food (gives a good endurance boost eat cans the pray to Seges) 2) Get gifts of expensives stones, copies of Petrus' left nut 3) get limbs
Loricatus 1) harden iron series items (weapons, armour etc.) sometimes to adamantine - a meteoric steel pick axe lets you mine crystals in UT4, hardened bear traps destroy powerful enemies. 2) get metal limbs
Silva 1) generate wolf packs for food or pets 2) earthquakes to reveal gems in GC levels, spring traps, explode mines, kill enemies, find hidden rooms, move Genetrix
3) get limbs some are kick ass eg. phoenix feather, ommel hair is god early
Sophos 1) last ditch escape random teleport (most not be missing a limb), 2) Gift of vermis, wand teleport, 3) best limbs ever - ommel cerumen
Dulcis 1) tame monsters for fun and profit, useful for Science talking to raise intelligence, tame guards and sell their equipment and or use as pets, 2) angel hair limbs, 3) best gift is lyre of charm, awesome for scitalking, taming kamikaze dwarves, giant dark frogs, mages
Seges 1) human limbs, 2) get filled with food, 3) cure poison or leprosy 4) gift of armour of great health, stethoscope

if i find valpurus or atavus early game i will often pray to them, atavus give an awesome gift of arcanite platemail and valpurus give valpurium shield or sword (I prefer the shield because there are better weapons int he game than the sword). you can then carefully drop these gods and add more neutral ones.

Hello!

I have a few questions about game. Its my first roguelike game, so dont be strict=)

There is some sort of crafting in the game? Can my character produce wands, weapons or scrolls?

When I use harden material scroll how it works? It automatically harden item to next possible step or it determined by Int of character?

How density and flexiblity of material affects to item?

There is a command for run?

Articifal limbs is better than "default" ones?

ps. sorry for my english

Hi! I'll answer them as best I can.


No. It'd be pretty sweet if there was, though.


Success or failure is entirely determined by your character's intelligence, and there are higher intelligence breakpoints for success depending on what you're trying to turn an item's material into. Harden material scrolls have a hard-coded progression of materials, but their intelligence breakpoints are five points lower than those of change material scrolls (which are free of restriction in that way). As far as reading the wiki goes, if you are, say, trying to determine how much intelligence you need to harden ommel hair, you have to note that it hardens into phoenix feather, then look up the intelligence requirement number for that material (it's not terribly intuitive IMO, but I don't think there's much in the way of a better solution). The materials you can't get with scrolls of harden material have their scroll of change material requirements listed instead.


General info: For armor, high density equals more weight, and more weight equals higher agility and dexterity penalties; lower density equals lower weight and lower penalties; flexibility is the opposite, but both are big factors in whether you'll have penalties and how bad they'll be. Strength is the factor of choice if you only care about AC, but you won't last long with low agility in the dungeon. As for weapons that aren't a whip, strength is clearly linked to damage, while density probably is as well to a lesser degree, but it does make the weapon heavier and thus have higher AStr requirements to use effectively. Whips, on the other hand, are best with low density and high flexibility materials that are also strong.


Press g to 'go'. Very peculiar key choice for a roguelike, but it could be worse.


Artificial limbs let you run like the wind and wield weapons heavier than the dungeon itself*, since you're taking those strength, density, and flex modifiers and applying them straight to your stats. They do not naturally heal and their stats do not grow over time like natural limbs, though. Generally speaking, they are good for making up natural stat deficiencies and making you more awesome than you ever could be with 'normal' dungeon experience.

*certain materials may be more equal than others for these purposes

Well answered BDR, but you left out one thing.

You can indeed r"u"n in IVAN. It works as a toggle. You'll get tired much quicker, but you'll also move a lot faster.

Not as such. The closest you can get is wishing for them with a scroll of wishing, or zapping a wand of polymorph on a pile of miscellaneous items.


What BDR said above. So to harden a material to the next level you would require the amount of intelligence needed to change to that material -5. For example, Ommel Hair requires and INT of 15 to change an item to it, meaning you could harden something made of Troll Hide to Ommel Hair with an INT of only 10.
Material list and their INT requirements can be found here.
That list displays the INT required to harden a lesser material to that material, so to find out how much INT you'd need to use a Scroll of Change Material to change an item to a certain material, add 5 to its intelligence requirement on that sheet.


Also what BDR said. Generally speaking, the higher the density, the heavier and stronger the weapon will be. Flexibility reduces the AGI and DEX penalties iirc, but I can't be certain. A flexible two-handed sword is pretty useless.


The "u" key is what makes your character run (i.e. take more turns in less time) but it'll make your character exhausted pretty quickly, which can be very dangerous if you suddenly need to start fighting things.


They're bittersweet. Whilst they are generally much more powerful than normal limbs, they do not heal naturally and as such you'll need a scroll of repair or one of the smiths/tailors around the world to help repair any damage they take. Of course if your artificial limbs do get broken/cut off, you can always drink a bottle of healing liquid or troll blood to get some natural limbs back, or pray to a god to see if they'll give you another artificial limb of a material they control.
If you're going to be using artificial limbs, I would highly recommend changing your limbs to a material in the Cloth family (Troll Hide, Ommel Hair, Phoenix Feather etc.) as they have high AGI or DEX which is much more important than the lower boosts you get to your ASTR or LSTR.

When you have a INT of 35, Angel Hair is a nice material available to you by hardening something made of ordinary Cloth.
Kevlar has identical stats to Angel Hair, but is ruled over by Loricatus instead of Dulcis, and is only available through a Scroll of Change Material at level 40 INT.

Thanks for answers, its help me a lot=)


If character have INT40 can I with just one scroll harden copper to adamant? Or I need 6 scrolls anyway?


And for what gold and silver stones? What I can do with them?

No, it is a step by step, scroll by scroll process.



Sell them, really.

Well, yes you could sell them but here are some other uses (some more questionable than others):

1) Use them with a Scroll of Golem Creation to make a decent companion.
2) Throw them at fleeing magpies.
3) Throw them at just about anything before it gets to you.
4) Remotely break open doors.
5) Stack them up in piles of 5 in a 5 tile line and zap with a wand of polymorph.
6) Harden them to a better material and then sell them/make a better golem.
7) Use them to keep magpies away (they'll steal them and flee).

Hi everyone, I just discovered this gem in a roguelike thread on a forum and I've been enjoying it for hours already.

I've finally made it past Geneatrix (the first 8 tries or so it didn't occur to me to use the wands and scrolls in my backpack when I fought her) and into Attnam.

I've now gone into that next dungeon south of Attnam, and on my fiirst trip back up to sell some stuff I suddenly started losing stats. First my arm strength went down, then my leg strength, and then I realized my hp had dropped from 44 to 36.

Can anybody tell me what the causes might be?
Also, I'd been poisoned some time before and gone hungry for some time as a result because I was low on food. However, at the time I lost the stats, I was not suffering from any negative effects.

Hmm, whilst I've never experienced a loss of endurance, arm and leg strength can be reduced through lack of practice with those limbs. It could be that wandering about the map for so long resulted in you losing your levels. Hunger and vomiting also abuses those stats, and it's possible that it reduced their values by just enough to not have resulted in a level drop but enough to result in a drop on your trip back to Attnam.

My suspicion is that you contracted leprosy, and your limbs started dropping off. That would result in both lost HP and lost strength (as well as dexterity/agility). Were the stat losses dramatic, or was it just a point or two.

If it's not leprosy, it has to be school food.