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I won with my first character in 063 after never getting past floor 5
in 062.
There are a lot of spoilers further down, so be warned.
21 armor 183/23 health 105/12 magic $6459 t: 21235
Killed 943 creatures
was fast, fire resistant, position fixed (of course), telport control,
regen, life saved, had all skills, magic missle, spark, lightning bolt,
all heal spells, all divination spells.
Finished the game as an adventurer.
Klaskov 2478
Belweir 302
Pax 66
XOM 53
Hrulth about 0
The others about -300
The game had a very early scare when I saw a lich on level 1 (I'd never
even seen one before). But a closed door dealt with him. Early on, I
didn't wind up with much cursed equpment except for one helm of
draining. I found speed boots, a ring of regeneration, and a wand of
polymorph pretty early. It wasn't too long before I had speed boots
either, although I didn't know it for sure. Also, Belweir gave me heal
as my first spell, which I abused to become a cleric early on. I also
went for identify very early, and identified nearly everything (even
statuses on potions) until eventually I realized it costs XP when it
wouldn't let me do it anymore.
I IDed my wand of polymorph by using it on myself. I turned into a
lizardman. At first, I was pretty freaked out when I noticed all my
skills were gone. I polymorphed my book into a manual of weapons and
loaded up. The polymorph lasted for a really long time and I was
starting to think it was permanent. But eventually it wore off, and to
my delight I had all my old skills as well as the new ones I learned as
a lizard. I'm not even sure I should have had enough skill points for
all of them. Cool feature, although I'm not really sure how you
intended it.
Paralysis was usually one of the scarier things. I got paralysed a
lot. I think the ring of regen really saved me there. There were a
lot of fights where I just couldn't lose many hitpoints thanks to it.
I had to heal immediately during battle just to keep Pax happy with me.
I think the ring of regen may be just a tad overpowered.
I found a ton of defensive wands (like sleep, speed, teleport) early
on, which were very helpful, especially telport with control. But it
was a long time before I found any damaging wands, and I didn't get any
damaging spells for a long time either. That made gel cubes and
cockatrices interesting. Thankfully, the first time a cockatrice
stoned me, I guessed acid potions might help. But I was full, and very
annoyed to discover then for the first time that I couldn't drink
potions while full. But I managed to get to a wall and smash the
potion there. Almost took out the trice in the process. I don't know
if my amulet of life saving would have helped, or if any of the gods
might have intervened.
I found two amulets of life saving, and one against poison. I wore
life saving most of the time. Never actually used it. There were two
times when I got semi-near death, but Pax healed me both times. I also
saw 3 monsters use them.
Poison worked out to be one of the more dreaded things in the game.
Not because it was dangerous. Cure poison and heal prevented that. I
never even used slow poison. But the gods were too quick to heal it.
As I understand it, that wasted valuable opportunities to have them
enchant my stuff.
Am I understanding the god numbers correctly? The first one is how
much they like you? The second is how ready they are to give a a favor
or penalty? That's how it seemed. I got a number of enchantments from
them, and some holy water IDed (or created, I don't know). T'loth and
the undead guy weren't too scary. I had one really cool sounding boon,
I think from Quizar. "Knowlege is power. You already have knowlege,
now recieve power." Which gave me a bit of experience. Just liked
that message. Later on in the game though, it became a lot harder to
keep the gods happy (except Klaskov). I'm guessing this is because it
took more hits per kill. Quizar was cursing my equipment left and
right. Eventually I decided to go adventurer just to put a stop to
that. (But not before he took my artifact warhammer down to +0.)
I thought ghosts were about the hardest monster for their deapth.
Thankfully, I was using warning, or I might not even have seen them.
But slowing, paralysis, and immunity to normal weapons was a deadly
combo. Regen really saved me there. Eventually I got lightning bolt
which creamed them, but that was a lot later.
Water elementals were ultimately the hardest. Earth elementals are
easy because they are slow. Fire and Air were easy because I could
swap in a resist ring. But my only source of breathless was an
artifact wand I could wield. Before I thought of using that, there
were a few fights where I wasn't sure my healing would keep me going
until it wore off.
The Minotaur was very cool. I found that thrown potions work
especially well on him. I like thrown potions anyway. Usually had my
inventory nearly full with potions and wands, mostly harmful potions.
I think they're about the most effective weapon in the game. Didn't
notice if improvised weaponse helped or not though. But once I dealt
with him, I found the artifact morningstar with speed and acid damage
that I used for most of the game.
I think I understand speed now, but I'm not sure. It looks like you
can have two levels of increased speed. At first I was getting them
from boots and a wand. Later, I was getting them from two items.
Zapping speed at myself no longer did anything. It seems like slowing
is completely separate from speed. When I got slowed with two speed
items, I still couldn't zap myself. It doesn't seem like speed cancels
slow. On the plus side, slow doesn't cancel speed either, so if you
have two sources, that bad guys can still only slow you once.
Bealzebub was easy. I think he was described as a winsheild kill. I
didn't actually try to level excessively. I was casting ID like crazy.
I just couldn't help it. He started right next to the ladder, so I
didn't explore his level. He started over water, which was a bit of a
concern to me. But he eventually followed me onto what I thought was
dry land. But when he went down, I realized one of his squares was
over water, and that's where his corpse and heart went. I used up both
of my wands of ice freezing all the nearby water. A bit of fire earned
me a pit with the heart. Thankfully, the ice worked like I expected to
hold back the water. I took the heart and the corpse. Later it
occured to me to try to ressurect him, but he had rotted away by then.
If you're ever thinking about tweaking the difficulty, I think the
beggining of the game is very hard, but the end is pretty easy. (After
all, I won the first time I got past level 5, and died about 15 times
before passing level 5.) So evening that a bit would probably be the
way to go.
The top floor reminds me of the end of Toe Jam and Earl. Kind of a
cool feeling. I magic mapped the top floor, but couldn't find any
secrets. So if they're there, they're well hidden.
I won with my first character in 063 after never getting past floor 5
in 062.
There are a lot of spoilers further down, so be warned.
21 armor 183/23 health 105/12 magic $6459 t: 21235
Killed 943 creatures
was fast, fire resistant, position fixed (of course), telport control,
regen, life saved, had all skills, magic missle, spark, lightning bolt,
all heal spells, all divination spells.
Finished the game as an adventurer.
Klaskov 2478
Belweir 302
Pax 66
XOM 53
Hrulth about 0
The others about -300
The game had a very early scare when I saw a lich on level 1 (I'd never
even seen one before). But a closed door dealt with him. Early on, I
didn't wind up with much cursed equpment except for one helm of
draining. I found speed boots, a ring of regeneration, and a wand of
polymorph pretty early. It wasn't too long before I had speed boots
either, although I didn't know it for sure. Also, Belweir gave me heal
as my first spell, which I abused to become a cleric early on. I also
went for identify very early, and identified nearly everything (even
statuses on potions) until eventually I realized it costs XP when it
wouldn't let me do it anymore.
I IDed my wand of polymorph by using it on myself. I turned into a
lizardman. At first, I was pretty freaked out when I noticed all my
skills were gone. I polymorphed my book into a manual of weapons and
loaded up. The polymorph lasted for a really long time and I was
starting to think it was permanent. But eventually it wore off, and to
my delight I had all my old skills as well as the new ones I learned as
a lizard. I'm not even sure I should have had enough skill points for
all of them. Cool feature, although I'm not really sure how you
intended it.
Paralysis was usually one of the scarier things. I got paralysed a
lot. I think the ring of regen really saved me there. There were a
lot of fights where I just couldn't lose many hitpoints thanks to it.
I had to heal immediately during battle just to keep Pax happy with me.
I think the ring of regen may be just a tad overpowered.
I found a ton of defensive wands (like sleep, speed, teleport) early
on, which were very helpful, especially telport with control. But it
was a long time before I found any damaging wands, and I didn't get any
damaging spells for a long time either. That made gel cubes and
cockatrices interesting. Thankfully, the first time a cockatrice
stoned me, I guessed acid potions might help. But I was full, and very
annoyed to discover then for the first time that I couldn't drink
potions while full. But I managed to get to a wall and smash the
potion there. Almost took out the trice in the process. I don't know
if my amulet of life saving would have helped, or if any of the gods
might have intervened.
I found two amulets of life saving, and one against poison. I wore
life saving most of the time. Never actually used it. There were two
times when I got semi-near death, but Pax healed me both times. I also
saw 3 monsters use them.
Poison worked out to be one of the more dreaded things in the game.
Not because it was dangerous. Cure poison and heal prevented that. I
never even used slow poison. But the gods were too quick to heal it.
As I understand it, that wasted valuable opportunities to have them
enchant my stuff.
Am I understanding the god numbers correctly? The first one is how
much they like you? The second is how ready they are to give a a favor
or penalty? That's how it seemed. I got a number of enchantments from
them, and some holy water IDed (or created, I don't know). T'loth and
the undead guy weren't too scary. I had one really cool sounding boon,
I think from Quizar. "Knowlege is power. You already have knowlege,
now recieve power." Which gave me a bit of experience. Just liked
that message. Later on in the game though, it became a lot harder to
keep the gods happy (except Klaskov). I'm guessing this is because it
took more hits per kill. Quizar was cursing my equipment left and
right. Eventually I decided to go adventurer just to put a stop to
that. (But not before he took my artifact warhammer down to +0.)
I thought ghosts were about the hardest monster for their deapth.
Thankfully, I was using warning, or I might not even have seen them.
But slowing, paralysis, and immunity to normal weapons was a deadly
combo. Regen really saved me there. Eventually I got lightning bolt
which creamed them, but that was a lot later.
Water elementals were ultimately the hardest. Earth elementals are
easy because they are slow. Fire and Air were easy because I could
swap in a resist ring. But my only source of breathless was an
artifact wand I could wield. Before I thought of using that, there
were a few fights where I wasn't sure my healing would keep me going
until it wore off.
The Minotaur was very cool. I found that thrown potions work
especially well on him. I like thrown potions anyway. Usually had my
inventory nearly full with potions and wands, mostly harmful potions.
I think they're about the most effective weapon in the game. Didn't
notice if improvised weaponse helped or not though. But once I dealt
with him, I found the artifact morningstar with speed and acid damage
that I used for most of the game.
I think I understand speed now, but I'm not sure. It looks like you
can have two levels of increased speed. At first I was getting them
from boots and a wand. Later, I was getting them from two items.
Zapping speed at myself no longer did anything. It seems like slowing
is completely separate from speed. When I got slowed with two speed
items, I still couldn't zap myself. It doesn't seem like speed cancels
slow. On the plus side, slow doesn't cancel speed either, so if you
have two sources, that bad guys can still only slow you once.
Bealzebub was easy. I think he was described as a winsheild kill. I
didn't actually try to level excessively. I was casting ID like crazy.
I just couldn't help it. He started right next to the ladder, so I
didn't explore his level. He started over water, which was a bit of a
concern to me. But he eventually followed me onto what I thought was
dry land. But when he went down, I realized one of his squares was
over water, and that's where his corpse and heart went. I used up both
of my wands of ice freezing all the nearby water. A bit of fire earned
me a pit with the heart. Thankfully, the ice worked like I expected to
hold back the water. I took the heart and the corpse. Later it
occured to me to try to ressurect him, but he had rotted away by then.
If you're ever thinking about tweaking the difficulty, I think the
beggining of the game is very hard, but the end is pretty easy. (After
all, I won the first time I got past level 5, and died about 15 times
before passing level 5.) So evening that a bit would probably be the
way to go.
The top floor reminds me of the end of Toe Jam and Earl. Kind of a
cool feeling. I magic mapped the top floor, but couldn't find any
secrets. So if they're there, they're well hidden.
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