Posted by greqrg, Mar 9, 2011 at 10:07 pm
I'm a proponent of the AoLS. It may raise your danger level, but with my play-style my danger level eventually gets pretty high anyways. High enough that I know I may have a chance of running into some nasties eventually anyways. Through my own experiences, I've certainly had a handful of good games be saved by an AoLS in the past. IVAN can be quite cruel, and for me the AoLS provides a nice buffer.
Posted by greqrg, Mar 6, 2011 at 8:50 pm
I've also recently stopped using rings of infravision. It doesn't seem very useful once you have ESP. Are there many monsters that you can see with infravision but not ESP?
And with lifesaving, I'm pretty sure it restores your limbs when you die.
And with lifesaving, I'm pretty sure it restores your limbs when you die.
Posted by greqrg, Mar 6, 2011 at 8:31 pm
Cool, didn't know about the honor rolls. Added that victory as well as my top death, which was the one in Oree's lair that I described in this thread.
Posted by greqrg, Mar 6, 2011 at 4:13 pm
I found the mage room today. I tried to avoid it but it was basically blocking the stairs. Once I found the stairs and was ready to teleport over to them, someone teleported my +8 valpurium Mjolak out of my hands. This was too prized a possession to give up, so I broke my last wand of teleport and went across the level to safety. All I had left for tele at this point was scrolls, which I wasn't happy about, but had to deal with. I used detect material to find my mojo, and it was dangerously close to the mages, who were beginning to leave the room and walk around. Seeing no other choices, I let my slow wear off and hasted myself, read a scroll to get over to mojo, picked it up, and read another scroll to get to the stairs. Nothing horrible happened while I was in mage range, thankfully.
On the next level I saw Golgor Dhan by the portal to Oree's lair, and while working my way over to them I somehow missed sherry, who I noticed once she was adjacent to me in a hallway, with zombies blocking my backside. This was a bad situation to be in, but I was lucky enough to be able to read another tele scroll before she could hit me. I must've still been hasted. I took the tele to the portal and entered. To my dismay, Golgor Dhan followed me, and I was surrounded by the dark knights and golems, and Golgor Dhan. Another bad situation I thought, my only option was to fight. I managed to chop off Golgor's sapphire scimitar arm in two actions, and he was cake from there. I only had one scroll of tele left, so I wasn't sure how to handle the mages. I used detect material on golden eagle feather to find oree and used the scroll to teleport near him. Oree is such a wimp, I killed him in one attack action. I grabbed the shirt and got out of there before I had any mage trouble. Phew!
On my way back to town I gathered up a bunch of gauntlet/boot pairs to change to valpurium and golden eagle feather so I could become the champion of Valpurus. I figured that being able to change two items at once would get me more bang for my buck, can anyone confirm whether two valpurium gauntlets would give more favor than a valpurium plate mail? I went to town, became the champion, tamed the mystic light frogs, and threw a holy banana at Petrus (I was lucky enough to have one drop on GC1 when I went back down to find gloves/boots). That wasn't enough so I finished him off in melee. I tele'd to the throne (at this point I found another tele wand and cloned it) and sat in it, but I didn't realize attacking Petrus would make Valpurus very angry and strip me of my champion status. No worries, I had plenty of valpurium/golden eagle feather stuff left from before. I sacced a bunch more stuff, along with the justifier, became the champion, and went back to sit on the throne. Beat the game and got the high priest ending. Score.
I think it's time for me to try out one of the ivan variants. LIVAN seems popular here, are any others worth trying or should I check that out first?
On the next level I saw Golgor Dhan by the portal to Oree's lair, and while working my way over to them I somehow missed sherry, who I noticed once she was adjacent to me in a hallway, with zombies blocking my backside. This was a bad situation to be in, but I was lucky enough to be able to read another tele scroll before she could hit me. I must've still been hasted. I took the tele to the portal and entered. To my dismay, Golgor Dhan followed me, and I was surrounded by the dark knights and golems, and Golgor Dhan. Another bad situation I thought, my only option was to fight. I managed to chop off Golgor's sapphire scimitar arm in two actions, and he was cake from there. I only had one scroll of tele left, so I wasn't sure how to handle the mages. I used detect material on golden eagle feather to find oree and used the scroll to teleport near him. Oree is such a wimp, I killed him in one attack action. I grabbed the shirt and got out of there before I had any mage trouble. Phew!
On my way back to town I gathered up a bunch of gauntlet/boot pairs to change to valpurium and golden eagle feather so I could become the champion of Valpurus. I figured that being able to change two items at once would get me more bang for my buck, can anyone confirm whether two valpurium gauntlets would give more favor than a valpurium plate mail? I went to town, became the champion, tamed the mystic light frogs, and threw a holy banana at Petrus (I was lucky enough to have one drop on GC1 when I went back down to find gloves/boots). That wasn't enough so I finished him off in melee. I tele'd to the throne (at this point I found another tele wand and cloned it) and sat in it, but I didn't realize attacking Petrus would make Valpurus very angry and strip me of my champion status. No worries, I had plenty of valpurium/golden eagle feather stuff left from before. I sacced a bunch more stuff, along with the justifier, became the champion, and went back to sit on the throne. Beat the game and got the high priest ending. Score.
I think it's time for me to try out one of the ivan variants. LIVAN seems popular here, are any others worth trying or should I check that out first?
Posted by greqrg, Mar 5, 2011 at 9:47 am
By the sounds of it, I'm glad I missed the party. Is it on one of the level made of crystal, or the arcanite one?
Posted by greqrg, Mar 5, 2011 at 12:21 am
I definitely skipped the mage/golem room. I'm not sure where/what that is, but I did see a room with a few mages on the level above Oree. I had already found the portal to Oree's lair and I figured I had nothing to gain from exploring the entire level so I just left when I saw the mages (there were two mages and two necros in a room).
On Oree's level, I dealt with all of the mages that I could see by teleporting adjacent to them and quickly slaying them in melee. I killed a handful of them before I spotted Oree and he started chasing me. At this point I was a safe distance from any remaining mages, and I wasn't aware of any others. I wasn't bother by any mages while fighting Oree and wasting time by the portals.
The problem was that when I entered Oree's lair I had brought my stash, a huge pile of items, mostly scrolls and wands. I dropped it all on the floor and teleported myself out of the entrance room, over to the first mage I saw. In doing this I had accidentally scattered my loot all over the level. After killing Oree, I wanted to take on Petrus, so I started gathering the useful parts of my stash from around the level. I must've had a lot of wands on me when the first mage blasted me because I was asked where I wanted to teleport about 15 times, and the offensive wands blowing up did enough damage to kill me once (thank you AoLS), and also blow off my arm, which was wielding Saal'Thul. This happened while my inventory was still being destroyed, and later on the same turn another wand of teleport blew up and sent Saal'Thul across the level. I used a scroll of detect material to find it, teleported over to it, but another mage was in range and blasted me before I could grab it, setting off another chain reaction with the few remaining wands in my inventory, killing me for good.
From now on I'll be keeping my spare items stash stowed away in a chest. I was actually already planning on doing that after that game anyways just for convenience of moving it, but now I have a better reason.
On Oree's level, I dealt with all of the mages that I could see by teleporting adjacent to them and quickly slaying them in melee. I killed a handful of them before I spotted Oree and he started chasing me. At this point I was a safe distance from any remaining mages, and I wasn't aware of any others. I wasn't bother by any mages while fighting Oree and wasting time by the portals.
The problem was that when I entered Oree's lair I had brought my stash, a huge pile of items, mostly scrolls and wands. I dropped it all on the floor and teleported myself out of the entrance room, over to the first mage I saw. In doing this I had accidentally scattered my loot all over the level. After killing Oree, I wanted to take on Petrus, so I started gathering the useful parts of my stash from around the level. I must've had a lot of wands on me when the first mage blasted me because I was asked where I wanted to teleport about 15 times, and the offensive wands blowing up did enough damage to kill me once (thank you AoLS), and also blow off my arm, which was wielding Saal'Thul. This happened while my inventory was still being destroyed, and later on the same turn another wand of teleport blew up and sent Saal'Thul across the level. I used a scroll of detect material to find it, teleported over to it, but another mage was in range and blasted me before I could grab it, setting off another chain reaction with the few remaining wands in my inventory, killing me for good.
From now on I'll be keeping my spare items stash stowed away in a chest. I was actually already planning on doing that after that game anyways just for convenience of moving it, but now I have a better reason.
Posted by greqrg, Mar 4, 2011 at 3:32 pm
Oh right, I hadn't considered the intelligence requirements. Controlled polymorphing is something I've only done a handful of times.
I've got a fresh question for you guys.
Today I was playing and I made it down to Oree's lair. Oree was surprisingly easy to defeat. I laid out a few bear traps for him, and while he was working his way through those I blasted him with wands. It only took two lightning blasts and three or four zaps of striking to finish him off. Unfortunately I died shortly after (i had a lot of wands in my inventory and a mage blew them to pieces, inflicting a TON of damage to me), but not before noticing that there were two portals, one silver, one gold.
Now I assume that they are both one-way, like the other portals, so my question is, where does each one take you and what are the options from there? All of the endings that I know of involve items that I already had, and returning to Attnam.
I've got a fresh question for you guys.
Today I was playing and I made it down to Oree's lair. Oree was surprisingly easy to defeat. I laid out a few bear traps for him, and while he was working his way through those I blasted him with wands. It only took two lightning blasts and three or four zaps of striking to finish him off. Unfortunately I died shortly after (i had a lot of wands in my inventory and a mage blew them to pieces, inflicting a TON of damage to me), but not before noticing that there were two portals, one silver, one gold.
Now I assume that they are both one-way, like the other portals, so my question is, where does each one take you and what are the options from there? All of the endings that I know of involve items that I already had, and returning to Attnam.
Posted by greqrg, Mar 4, 2011 at 9:54 am
Do flaming swords or thunder hammers add more damage from their magical effects? Of course flaming swords have the advantage of always doing fire damage, while thunder hammers just have a chance of shooting lightning. I was playing a game earlier where I was wielding two +5 adamantine thunder hammers, with two rings and a +5 cloak of electricity resistance to err on the safe side, and it was quite deadly. The hammers did 10-18 damage each before lightning is taken into account. I came across a Mjolak and actually had to think about it before swapping one of the hammers out for mojo (I have a phoenix feather arm that can wield mojo by itself). I''m sure mojo is much better once enchanted though. I was never a big fan of thunder hammers but now I've seen the light(ning).
Posted by greqrg, Mar 4, 2011 at 12:04 am
He can't cast on invisible mindless cold/no-blooded creatures at all.
Posted by greqrg, Mar 3, 2011 at 6:10 pm
I'm mostly interested in your preferred weapon/shield combinations, but I'll go all the way and ask for the full monty. If you could choose all of your equipment with no limitations, what would you choose and why? I'll start. I'm open to criticism, any and all advice is welcomed.
Helmet-wise I'd go with a helm of perception. I'd really just take whatever has the best AV, but the helm of perception has good AV to begin with, and the perception bonus is a nice perk. I'd probably consider a helm of brilliance but I've never came across one in the game. Although if this works, I'd probably just take out the helm of brilliance when changing/hardening materials and sci-talking.
For weapons I've come to enjoy Saal'Thul very much. I always two-weapon instead of using a shield, which I've been convinced, from reading the forum, is nearly always worthwhile. My favorite weapon pairing so far has been Mjolak and Saal'Thul, but, as I mentioned earlier, I'm yet to try a lot of the artifact weapons, so I'd like to hear your opinions. I think if I had another source of invisibility, Saal'Thul would be easily replaceable.
Belt of levitation, no questions there. Rings and cloaks I choose to balance my weaknesses. Cloak of fire resistance is often a lifesaver early on when mines are deadly, but I think invisibility is probably nicer later on if you can't get it from another source. Rings I'd ideally equip infravision and polycontrol, but the latter is quite scarce. Boots and gauntlets I prefer agi/dex, but I usually accommodate these stats with artificial limbs so I take whatever offers me the most AV. Speaking of which, with limbs I usually opt for the phoenix feather line of materials, since it's the only one I know that offers great str and dex/agi.
I do the same with body armor, taking whatever has the most AV without being too heavy or restrictive on dex/agi. I've never found the armor of great health to be very useful, since usually you don't die from having your HP reach zero, or does it also allow your torso to take more damage? I've been under the impression that it just needlessly raises your danger level.
What are your equipment preferences?
Helmet-wise I'd go with a helm of perception. I'd really just take whatever has the best AV, but the helm of perception has good AV to begin with, and the perception bonus is a nice perk. I'd probably consider a helm of brilliance but I've never came across one in the game. Although if this works, I'd probably just take out the helm of brilliance when changing/hardening materials and sci-talking.
For weapons I've come to enjoy Saal'Thul very much. I always two-weapon instead of using a shield, which I've been convinced, from reading the forum, is nearly always worthwhile. My favorite weapon pairing so far has been Mjolak and Saal'Thul, but, as I mentioned earlier, I'm yet to try a lot of the artifact weapons, so I'd like to hear your opinions. I think if I had another source of invisibility, Saal'Thul would be easily replaceable.
Belt of levitation, no questions there. Rings and cloaks I choose to balance my weaknesses. Cloak of fire resistance is often a lifesaver early on when mines are deadly, but I think invisibility is probably nicer later on if you can't get it from another source. Rings I'd ideally equip infravision and polycontrol, but the latter is quite scarce. Boots and gauntlets I prefer agi/dex, but I usually accommodate these stats with artificial limbs so I take whatever offers me the most AV. Speaking of which, with limbs I usually opt for the phoenix feather line of materials, since it's the only one I know that offers great str and dex/agi.
I do the same with body armor, taking whatever has the most AV without being too heavy or restrictive on dex/agi. I've never found the armor of great health to be very useful, since usually you don't die from having your HP reach zero, or does it also allow your torso to take more damage? I've been under the impression that it just needlessly raises your danger level.
What are your equipment preferences?