ADOM Guides

Guide to Being a Beastfighter by Molach

2009-03-04T01:09:00.003+01:00

Lovers of unarmed fighting already have come to enjoy the Guide to Being a Monk. Considering monks can master all aspects of battle - magic, melee and archery - some consider their weaponless combat rivals, the magically inept beastfighters, to be elementally inferior. As Molach will show you, that truth my not be as clear-cut as they think.

Guide to being a beastfighter - by Molach

List of contents:

I Introduction

II Information - Documentation and features
a - Manual Entry
b - Understanding the Manual
c - Class Powers
d - The Skillset
e - Other Features

III Immertion - Starting a Beastfighter
a - Starsigns
b - Shopping Skills,
c - Races and equipment
d - Talents
e - Corruptions

IV Innovation - Strategy and Tactics
a - Early game guide
b - Midgame Ideas
c - Defeating special opponents
d - Wishing

V Inscription - Parting thoughts

I Introduction
"The simple is often the best" - Rema 1000 commercial

This guide is for those of us who want to be free. Free from picking and choosing and carrying and switching between different weapons and shields. We long for the simple, because there is great beauty in simplicity. Two empty fists - and a world of pain.

For a Beastfighter there are no shortcuts. You are only as powerful as your experience makes you. With great power comes great pain, but it does not come for free. You forsake the effective use of any melee weapon for a steady and sure increase in killing power. The first step to defeating your enemy, is to know yourself.

II Information - Documentation and features
"The highest technique is to have no technique" - Bruce Lee

a - Manual Entry:
BEASTFIGHTER -- Beastfighters are partly mystic, partly primitive warriors who excel at weaponless combat. They are lightly armored but extremely tough and fearsome opponents due to their weaponless fighting style. They are well accustomed to wilderness settings and very resistant to poisons -- especially to animal poisons. The more experienced a beastfighter becomes, the more deadly he is in melee combat. Beastfighters are especially likely to score critical hits when fighting animals in melee combat.

Beastfighters are trained in the following skills: Athletics, Climbing, Dodge, Healing, Herbalism, Listening, Stealth, Swimming, and Survival.

With increasing experience, beastfighters perfect their natural fighting style and their attunement to the wild beasts. At level 6 they become poison resistant and at level 12 their wild fighting style makes them stun resistant. At level 18 movement costs them but 700 energy points. At level 25 they can summon 2d2 cave bears or silver
wolves for the cost of permanently losing one mana point (which eventually regenerates after a lot of time has passed). At level 32 they become able to exchange positions with hostile monsters. At level 40 they can stun opponents on critical hits and at level 50 they gain +6 to both strength and toughness.

Also mentioned in the manual (under 'literacy' skill entry) is the fact that beastfighters (and barbarians) do not receive literacy automatically if learning > 10.

b - Understanding the Manual
The manual should be taken quite literally and beyond when it suggests weaponless combat. You should not use a weapon or a shield. If you do, you will not receive hit or dam-bonuses from tactics or strength, only weapon skill. No hit bonus means that hitting high-level monsters will be painful. For YOU, that is. So trust the manual and use your fists of fury. They will grow on you. On average, Beastfighters gain +2,17 to-Hit, +0,75 damage and +0,67 to maximum hit dice every level. Illustrating table in the next section.

The manual mentions critical against animals. An informal test I just did (hitting animal and non-animal 65 times with a level 14 character) yielded 25% critical hit against the animal and 5% versus the non-animal. Remember that insects are not animals here in ADOM. Animals are rarely dangerous enough. Still, can't hurt.

c - Class Powers
Level 6 - poison resistance. Poor. This is absolutely necessary to have. But it is very easy get, too. Somewhat useful for people who want to go dangerous places early (Puppy cave or Unremarkable dungeon or Cavern of Chaos) and not die to a pack of spiders or pit vipers.

Level 12 - stun resistance. Very bad. Stunning is extremely rare anyway, but when not stunned by a near-fatal monster blow you can at least drink a potion now, instead of praying or using a water orb. IF stunning gives protection against paralyzation which some people say it does, it is pretty decent.

Level 18 - movement costs 700 energy. Excellent. This is very useful. You can outrun anything except some quicklings and cat lord. Also allows you to use tactical withdrawal in combination with missile attacks. And it negates the need for 7lbs (at least as far as combat is concerned) meaning you can wear heavily smithed metal boots or your Diving messenger crowning gift instead.

Level 25 - can summon 2d2 bears. Very bad. Not terrible? Well if you need some pets to do some dirty deed, you don't need waste a SoFS. Skill IS terrible if you have music skill.

Level 32 - can switch places with hostile opponent. Average. Might be a life-saver if you get in a very tight spot. Can be used to take out summoners. Can let you proceed faster through areas. But I've played several Beastfighters who never used the ability. And yes, they were above level 32.

Level 40 - can stun on critical hits. Average. This is highly dependant on fighting style, and which opponent you are fighting. I had one great Beastfighter die because of this ability. He stunned a greater moloch. It did thus not behave in a predictable manner. I was fighting him by hitting and retreating, but after the stun he would just stagger about. So I moved next to him, and got to feel his wrath. On the other hand, when fighting a balor in a corridor you don't mind that he stands moshing around for a few rounds. I also suspect (but cannot verify yet) that a stunned creature might stagger into and hit a fellow monster and start a NPC-brawl. This is bad for people who like an orderly fight, like me.

Level 50 - +6 St and To. Great power. At this point you probably only need more hitting power and hit points. Both of these stats are probably VERY maxed when you reach level 50 (sickness/starvation can take one pretty far, you know), so this is just what you need. +6 extra hit and damage, +3 PV, and 100 hitpoints? I'll take 'em. Compare this with some of the other classes. Not many better.

d - The Skillset
Athletics - A great skill, available to most fighting classes. Conbined with the Beastfighters' levelup speed boost, you will be fast when this is maxed. You will get less exp when you are fast, so one might consider waiting a while before maxing this.

Dodge - Extra DV for a non-shield-using class. Makes sense.

Healing + Herbalism - Gives you total freedom in which terinyo quest to choose. Also gives you the freedom to go somewhere else instead.

Stealth - Available in the game, makes the backstabbing skill actually work once in a while when it is high enough.

Swimming - Helps getting places faster. You will not be trapped in UD early game.

Survival - Marginal use, can't hurt. Drakelings can sometimes get low on food with excessive spitting, so this can be a way to tank up.

e - Other features:
These are from the rec.games.adom group, the forums, the ADOM guidebook or my own experimentation.

Martial arts bonus:
Beastfighters gain +1 speed every other level (2, 4 …)
Beastfighters gain +1 DV every 3 levels (Level 3, 6 …)
Beastfighters gain bonus to hit and to do damage when fighting unarmed. The gain is somewhat irregular, as shown by this table. Notice the sweet spot when you hit level 6. This also happens at levels 12, 18 etc. These also happens to be levels you get talents and class powers. So with divisibility by 6 comes great power.
Level Hit Damage DV Speed
1 +1 1d4+0 +0 100
2 +3 1d4+1 +0 101
3 +6 1d6+1 +1 101
4 +8 1d6+3 +1 102
5 +10 1d6+3 +1 102
6 +12 1d8+4 +2 103
10 +21 1d10+7 +3 105
15 +32 1d12+9 +5 107
20 +42 1d16+15 +6 110
25 +53 1d20+18 +8 112
30 +64 1d24+22 +10 115
35 +75 1d26+25 +11 117
40 +85 1d30+30 +13 120
45 +96 1d34+33 +15 122
50 +106 1d36+37 +16 125

What damage will this mean for a typical game?
At level 5: Aggressive tactic. No other bonuses. You do 6-11 damage.
At level 10: Aggressive tactic. +2 from weapon skill. You deal 12-21 damage.
At level 20: Aggressive, +3 skill, +2 St bonus, +5 eq. You deal 28-43 damage.
At level 35: Ready to finish the game. +30 bonus from tactic/skill/eq. Deal 56-81.

Beastfighters attributes are, as we see, tipped towards "might" rather than magic:
Attribute adjustment: St Le Wi Dx To Ch Ap Ma Pe Total
+4 -1 -1 +4 +4 -2 -1 -2 +2 + 7
Total +7 attribute points, but in reality I'd say +10, since Ch, Ap, Ma and Pe are of little concern for us.

Beastfighters gain extra satiation from "raw meat".

III Immertion - Starting a Beastfighter
"The ladder of success must be set upon something solid before you can start to climb" - Unknown

a - Starsigns
Some that have greater impact on beastfighter are:
Raven - +10 speed will be combined with bonus from athletics and level-up speed boost. You will be really fast. Faster delivery of rune-covered trident can be very powerful for most characters, but not for a poor beastfighter. It is not totally useless, because it is a thrown weapon. Toss it at enemy demons and undead if you need to.

Book - increased chance to learn spells. I'll personally call this useless, and leave it to the very patient to make use of this. There are reports of successful magical Beastfighters, they might in addition want to get good book learner talents and raise their Le stat.

Cup - 10% less experience to advance, 1 extra skill increase every 2 levels, +2 Le. Faster levelling is very good for Beastfighters, and for the stupid races, extra skill increase is pretty good too, as we have many useful skills we want to max fast. Good sign.

Dragon, Sword, Candle - I lump these fighting starsigns together. For an ideal Beastfighter, I'd definitely want one of these.

Falcon - Grants survival skill, which we already will have. That is not very useful.

b - Shopping Skills
I will discuss some skills you might consider adding, and their usefulness for a Beastfighter-to-be. They should have a great impact on which race you should select, and possibly which skills to wish for later on.

Alertness: Normally good for all races for helping to avoid energy- or deathrays. The extra DV it gives is extra good for Beastfighters since they can not tote polearms or shields like every other guy can. Added to Dodge skill (which you will always get) you get quite a bit of extra DV (+14, to be exact). You can get this skill by choosing a Dark elf or a Drakeling, or getting it from a scroll or potion of education. Not from wishing.

Archery: Beastfighters can finish the game without missiles, but training missile weapons will often be a good idea, to better handle various difficulties which may arise. Also, any Beastfighter who wants to fight AnDoR should definitely make the effort to learn the art of missiles. This skill gives the ability to learn a nice talent and some extra hit/dam when using missiles. And it is available if you choose a Hurthling PC.

Find weakness: Another good skill, I would value this highest of all for Beastfighters. Reason being that they can never get criticals from melee weapons. No slaying weapon will be used. In addition it is hard (as in not totally impossible) to use penetrating weapons. Occasional high-damage hits will therefore be important when fighting high-PV opponents. Both in the middle and end game. This skill might well be worth a wish, depending on whether you get bracers of war or ring of the master cat. It is available from dark elven and orcish characters.

Food preservation: Some love this, and spend wishes for it, some couldn't care less about it. Beastfighters start with a big pile of food, so it is not needed for early-game food needs. But on the other hand, it will help with generating a literate corpse (typically a dark sage) for literacy early on. What does a Human, a Hurthling, a Troll and a Drakeling have in common? This skill.

Gemology: Combined with means of digging (ants, pickaxes) this can get you gems. Fire, light, health, darkness and learning are special effects you can get. Learning crystals can give PCs a good enough boost, enough to gain book-reading abilities with enough harvesting. Darkness is frequently used to completely neutralize various difficult monsters (Blup's mom, Vortices, Snake from Beyond)

Literacy: Only High/Gray elves get it at the start of the game. In my opinion, it is not hard to live without this skill until such time as you can attain it by other means.

Mining: With 100 skill you should never break a blessed pickaxe, you also can dig very fast. Might actually be useful for escapes, dig away while in coward mode to escape. This skill makes smithing (q.v.) and gemology (q.v.) much easier to (ab)use.

Smithing: You do not need to smith a weapon, so armor pieces and crossbows are what you may improve. If you can stand the tediousness of it, this is what will make you into the walking tank you always dreamt of. The skill is easy to buy in-game, though.

Tactics: Little reason not to get this skill. The sword is worthless for you except as ratling fodder, and you can safely give him any weapon you come across too.

c - Races and equipment:
New skills listed separately, as this is, in my opinion, most important information. Double training in a skill will give you a higher skill when starting the game, rarely of much difference. In addition the improvement-dice will be less (as if you had increased the skill yourself)

Human
Skills added by race: Food Preservation
Double training in Swimming
Starting gear: Light furs, leather boots. (+1 PV). Torches, flint and tinder.
Attributes: Average
Discussion: Jack-of-all-trades, humans have little problems with this class. No outstanding features, but no real weaknesses. Lifespan is a tad short, so keep in mind a missile a day keeps the ghosts away.

Troll
Skills added by race: Bridge building, Food Preservation, Gemology, Mining
Double training in Athletics.
Starting gear: Thick furs (+2 PV), heavy club.
Attributes: Awesome St and To, other low, Le terrible.
Discussion: Trolls main features are excellent stats for a fighter, but terrible levelling. For a beastfighter this is not good news. Gemology and mining will give you something to do while waiting for your levels to rise…if you like to wield a pickaxe and become a smith. Starting with bridge building is next to useless - you need a hatchet to use the skill, and a manual of bridge building to improve the skill on levelup. Carpenter quest gives you these medium- and extra-rare items anyway, while druid quest gives a wand of cold you can use instead.

High/Grey Elf
Skill added by race: Literacy
Double training in Dodge, Stealth
Starting gear: Leather cap, light furs, leather boots (+1PV)
Attributes: High Dx and Le, low To.
Discussion: Weak races for melee. Low To makes early game hard. The normal elven selling point, the great skill of dodge, is already covered in the Beastfighter skillset. So why play one? Well, this is the only way to have a beastfighter start out literate. Other races must wait for a semi-rare dark sage corpse or first dwarven quest. However, I fail to see why this should be a big problem. Elves also can receive the crowning gift "artefact bow" which is pretty good, especially for a non-melee-weapon using character. No particular reason to play these guys, but they can with care grow to be as powerful as the next race.

Dark Elf
Skills added by race: Alertness, Find weakness
Double training in Stealth
Starting gear: Spider shell armor, leather boots (-1 DV/+5PV)
Attributes: Good Dx and Ma.
Discussion: Two excellent starting skills added. Dark Elves are normally a weak race to begin with, but your starting armor more than makes up for this. Dark elves get little value when selling stuff in dwarf town, so make it a point to open up the shop in HMV. This should not be hard, you can enter SMC at level 1, and diving UD should not be hard. After that dive you should be well-stocked in items and levels to move on with the game. Dark elves have worst healing in the game, so make it a point to raise healing skill.

Dwarf
Skills added by race: Detect traps, Metallurgy, Mining, Smithing
Starting gear: Light furs, heavy boots (-1DV/+2PV)
Attributes: Good To, decent St, rest average.
Discussion: Very strong race, without the short lifespan worries Orcs and Trolls suffer. Skills are not too hot, though. Dwarves special feature is mithril skin talent. If you take "hardy", "tough skin" and "iron skin" you unlock "mithril skin" talent. This set can always be gotten by level 9 at the latest, and give +3 HPs and +5 PV. That should cover the lack of PV from a shield for a long while.

Gnome
Skills added by race: Gemology, Mining, Pick Pockets, Ventriloquism
Starting gear: Light furs, gnomish boots (+2DV/+1PV)
Attributes: Mostly average. Decent Dx and not bad To.
Discussion: Surprisingly good. The skills can be used and misused in various ways, while the fast levelling quickly toughen up these little guys.

Hurthling
Skills added by race: Archery, Cooking, Food preservation, Gardening.
Double training in Stealth.
Starting gear: Light furs, cursed ring, torches, flint and tinder, cooking set. (+1PV)
Attributes: Low St, good Dx.
Discussion: Another great choice. Good skillset. They start out on the weak side, and need to take care until they can take care of themselves. This they can do after they find their first pile of rocks, find a few more points of PV or gain level 6+. They can become masters of missiles, combined with proper selection of talents.

Orc
Skills added by race: Backstabbing, Find Weakness, Metallurgy, Mining
Starting gear: Light furs, heavy boots (-1DV/+2PV)
Attributes: High St and To, average Dx and Le, others lower.
Discussion: One great skill, and great fighting attributes combine to make orcs mighty beastfighters. Lifespan worries means that they should be proficient in missile attacks - to take care of lurking ghosts from a distance

Drakeling
Skills added by race: Alertness, Food preservation, Music.
Double training in Swimming
Starting gear: Light furs (+1PV)
Attributes: Good St and To.
Discussion: Skills are quite good. The main point of drakelings is their acid spit. For a pure combat character, the ability to do "magical" damage is quite nice. Beastfighters start out with so much food that you should be able to spit whenever you want in the early game. The continual metabolism damage in ToEF is generally seen as just a minor annoyance, speed boost makes the tower much easier, helpful when you have to rely on bare non-slaying fists for damage. Music can help you avoid killing cats, which will help you get a ring, which will help with critical hits.

d - Talents
We all have our favourites here, and we probably realize that magical are mostly bad, and fighting talents are good. Some worthy of special Beastfighting-related mention are:

Brawler - +2 to hit when using unarmed combat. This talent is very good in the early game, and something to consider for weaker races and players who want to get in danger early (Puppy cave or UD dive). It becomes less useful later on, but is never made useless.

Missile talents - Beastfighters need missiles if they want slaying or penetrating properties against certain opponents. Missile talents are never a waste, but one could probably wait a while before starting to pick them. Note that only hurthlings or those who can obtain the "archery" skill otherwise can get the "eagle-eyed" +3/+3 and "lightning shot" (-10% energy cost) talents. This make them natural choice for those who want to rely more on distance attacking beastfighters

Treasure Hunter - I'd value this slightly less than other characters, because we do not need to look for a weapon. Other classes can probably look for items the whole game, hoping to find awesome double-ego weapons. Other items are of course useful for beastfighters.

Shield talents - Utterly useless. Using a shield kills beastfighter bonus. You get to keep +hit and dam from weapon skill only.

Weapon talents - Don't even think about it.

Mighty strike talents - Too bad our fists do not weigh over 100s.

Defensive talents (careful, defensive fighter, dodger) - Good. Extra DV, and since we have dodge we can also get the dodger talent. Again, this compensates for the lack-of-shield impact on DV

Protective talents (hardy, tough skin, iron skin, steel skin) - I personally almost always get these. But they have no special relevance to beastfighters

Speed talents - Matter of debate. On the one hand, you don't need them since you will grow faster by levelup and athletics skill, and they make your experience gain lower. On the other hand, they combine to make you fast enough to outrun anything anytime anyhow. Personally I'd avoid these, apart from "quick" which opens up "defensive fighter" and "quick shot" talents

Long stride - A favourite for many players, I'd value this slightly less for beastfighers. They get a class power that makes this almost useless, and they are naturally fast.

Long-lived - Something to consider for the quickly dead races, as this is a very melee oriented class

e Corruptions
Normally trying to stay corruption-free, are we? Consider this little gem:
"You have grown thorns" (3d3 barehanded damage, - 2 Dx and -3 Ap).
For many advanced users, - Dx means another chance to improve it via herb training, and therefore a higher stat if you get rid of the corruption again. This particular corruption is therefore arguably not really harmful, and the extra damage will apply to every melee attack you ever make. Reading SoCR often removes two corruptions, beastfighters might want to make sure they keep this one.
I would also recommend keeping this:
"Your close attunement to corrupted astral space allows teleportation".
Cost-free random teleports to save time and teleport wand charges, so you can save wands for real emergencies. Eating a blink dog comes highly recommended for all characters anyway. Stupid Beastfighters do not want to rely on books.

IV - Innovation
"Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat" - Sun Tzu

a Early game Guide
Your beastfighter actually starts out pretty weak - a mere 1d4 damage, no possibility of going true berserker. This sets the trend for the game - you will only be so powerful as your level makes you. A few kills later you reach level 3-4 and can hold your own, and then the first benchmark, level 6. Poison resistance without having to search for spiders, 5-12 damage, speed boost. Your unarmed combat skill will have raised a bit, too, and from here on everything just keeps getting better.

You can handle any potential starting dungeon, as long as you remember not to dive too fast. You can probably save the little girl's dog, just by bypassing or levelling up before you take the ants. The Small Cave - Unremarkable dungeon - High mountain village route is pretty easy too, as you will gain levels when you need to (2-3 in SMC, then gradually down the UD). This way you can also head into the CoC, and dive down to dwarftown and first quest, if you should desire.

Carpenter or druid quest? You have both healing and herbalism. Carpenter gives bridge building skill, hatchet, rust removing oil and a healer than can be a source of ultra healing potions with some careful planning. Druid gives an Ankh (which I suspect is pretty good to wear, at least if you get lucky/fated from an altar), a corpse which can be traded in for a Cure corruption potion, and a wand and book of frost bolt. For me the druid quest looks most appealing to the regular player.

ID can be used as a training area to increase your level, or a source of solid metal gear to help make you ready for the end.

Keep remembering, any weapon you find is only useful for cash when you sell it. I just had a dark elven beastfighter dive the UD to HMV, and he finds a surge of power with (of course) skullcrusher. +3 St, and slays humanoids. I tried it on a room of kobolds, and it just did not work. Terrible to-hit, no damage bonus. Barehanded attacks dropped them much faster. So keep weapons you know will sell much. Regular swords/axes are good, as are items with lowered weight. Missile weapons are of course good to gather and use.

Equipment to look out for early on are of course armor pieces. Most starting armor is low on PV, so you might switch to some solid armor, even if it might be cursed. You should keep an eye open for "brass knuckles", as they add to punch damage. The very best piece you could hope for are the artefact "bracers of war", especially for characters without "find weakness" skill. But they are sought after by all characters.

I made 3 quick beastfighter to illustrate some starting strategies.
Early game Test char A:
(random) Troll Beastfighter. Month of Raven. Talents: Brawler and Hardy. +14 hit and 1d4+8 dam. Decide to save the puppy. Ants almost kill me, have to pray. Level 3 when I enter last level. 1 day 1 hour has passed. Save the dog, find a ghost, get aged and leave, Quest completed (for maybe my third time ever…). Analysis: I do not like trolls. Slow levelling in the start is not good. They might get better around level 6 or so, but take too long to get there. Apart from ants and ghosts he had no problems in the normally dangerous puppy cave.

Early game Test char B:
(random) Dwarf Beastfighter. Month of Wolf. Talents: Long stride and Quick. Went to SMC, stayed till level 3, then dove into the UD. Got killed when ambushed by ants at char level 5. Analysis: I picked speed talents, I should and could easily have run away. Did not watch my HPs. Very solid race, good fighting stats and gets levels quickly enough. Good candidate for speed-playing early on.

Early game Test char C:
(random) Grey elf Beastfighter. Month of Unicorn. Talents: Hardy. Talk to druid, and visit his dungeon. Stopped on DD:3 by a fire beetle while level 2. Use the standard beastfighter way, go back and gain some levels before slaying it. At level 4 it drops easily. Enter DD:7 at char level 6, but die to acid slug's breath. Analysis: Too weak for me. Low on HPs, and not enough damage dealt. Also pathetic armor. Ability to read will not keep you alive early on. Not enough To to get "iron skin" talent meant he was bound to die in my speed-playing style. This character needs to be played more carefully at the start than I did.

b Midgame Ideas:
This section is for characters who have completed the early game, gained some power but still feel unready for that great hurdle - the Tower of Eternal Flames. You are deep in the middle game when you have completed 4 or 5 dwarven quests, cleared dwarven graveyard, pyramid and obtained the RotHK. These tasks are done on a regular basis as part of most games, and will strengthen your character in many ways. But after them your goal is to grab that fire orb so you can begin finishing the game. Here are some optional areas, and my personal comments about them.

Herb farming: This is for many players a boring but necessary part of the "buffing-up" process. Lately I have started to leave big room in CoC open to monster spawning, and collect herbs while fighting monsters. This slows down farming somewhat, but keeps that precious experience trickling in. Trick is to head towards some stairs if you spot summoners approaching, and kill them and their spawn by going up-down the staircase. Breeders also need to be watched.

Smithing: Boring but very effective. When your armor can withstand the ACW, you will be dealing enough damage to take him out. Nothing else is really needed.

Precrowning: There are to my best knowledge 23 artifacts available as precrown gifts. 7 of these are worn - Robes, Leather armor, Crown, Bracers of war, Preserver, Ring of immunity and Ironfist. 3 are missile related - Whirlwind, Thunderstroke, Farslayer. There is a useless book and a useless shield, along with 11 melee weapons. 2 of these weapons are decent when thrown and 1 is the artifact digger. If we count 10 useful and 13 useless gifts, you have a 43 % percent chance of getting a useful gift. 2 precrowns give a combined 68 % chance of at least one useful object. Decide for yourself if the possible frustration is worth it.

Crowning: When in doubt, get crowned. You will receive either Bracers of war, Nature's companion, Cloak of Oman, Boots of the divine messenger or Preserver. Possibly long bow if you are an elf. These are all solid gifts. Cloak 'grants' teleportitis, boots might be worth less if you have a pair of high-metal ones smithed up. But any of these should increase your power. An immunity and permanent blessing to increase hit and dam a bit is just icing on the crowning cake.

The Infinite dungeon: Staying at ID: 8-9 to avoid corruption sadly is a bit too easy for a regular midgame character. Drop down to ID: 18-19 if you can survive some corruption (I bet you can). Walk around, looking for a fight and some pieces of armor you may be missing.

The Darkforge: Slay the steel golems while breaking in. If you have trouble, do something else meanwhile. You should ID the armor stash, and just ignore the weapons unless you need cash. If you do, sell them unidentified. This saves some agony over finding that one-in-a-million wicked eternuim two-handed sword of devastation you will never be able to use.

The Water Temple: When you pass Khelevaster, there is little reason not to map and clear out the CoC down to the wall of flames. After that the Water temple holds your first orb, arguably the most useful one. Holding it will help against confusion and add a few HPs, and using it will fully heal.

The Bug-infested Temple: With missile skill and some backup wands (fireball is good) you can probably walk around the top level. Attacking bugs in melee means you either are strong enough to finish the game already, or so weak that you just died. Eating corpses of the bugs will raise speed and dexterity pretty high, and wreck your willpower. Willpower is needed in the ToEF to stop getting confused by the wyrm, so you need to invest some time in raising Willpower back up a little.

The Rift: This is actually a decent place to gain experience. You need to be experience level 18, so this will probably be your last place to visit before ToEF. You need little more than your fists, and they will not break even if you do fall down. Some monsters in the library can be too tough, so remember that you can almost always run away. Do not worry about leaving books behind - odds are you will not use them.

The Minotaur Maze: This dangerous place will give you frustration, some fighting experience, a couple of PoCCs, a potion of strength and some cash. In addition you can enter only when level 22 or more - hopefully you should be PAST the ToEF and heading down CoC by then. If you are skilled in missiles and have means to avoid confusion, killing the minotaur mages should go smoothly enough. If not your stats and will to live might get drained away. For the masochistic or the ones who want to do a "clear all areas" kind of game.

The Tower of Eternal Flames: If not quite able to take out the Wyrm, you can start clearing out the tower. Decent experience is gained from fighting in here. If you do not wish to waste fireproof blankets until you do this for "real", you can leave all flammables behind. Eat a blessed stomofillia, and take along the water orb for healing. I have, by the way, had a few characters enter the Tower "just to look" and come out with a cooked dead wyrm in their backpack and a shiny orb in their tool slot.

c Defeating certain opponents
If you are high enough level for whatever you are fighting, you can and will kill it. If you are a bit on the low side, remember that there is nothing proper slaying missiles can't take out. Since you are using the same weapon skill the entire game (unarmed fighting, right?) you will also attack fast, so you should never be overwhelmed by fast counterattacks. You should also be so fast that you can outrun anything, except probably the cat lord.

Still, some opponents are worth mention:
The Ancient Chaos Wyrm: One of the biggest differences between beastfighters and other classes is that if they find the artefact "wyrmlance" they have a totally reliable way to kill that Wyrm. Beastfighters, of course, simply have something to feed to the ratling or sell. To kill the Wyrm at an earliest possible time, here are some ideas. You can use missiles. Take along blessed dragon slaying ammo dipped in poison. Keep it in fireproofed backpack until you have a clear shot on the wyrm. If you have alertness, you might want to do this at a distance, if you have heavy armor, mr Smith, you should stand next to him. Potions of confusion/blindness/poison can be thrown, wands of paralyzation can be zapped, all to gain additional advantages. If you have no dragon slayers, a good set of offensive wands can do the trick. Acid and Frost works fine, if the Wyrm is not too lucky with shrugging them. And lastly, remember that while beastfighters normally can run away, the ACW will often send rays of death upon your back while you run. Prepare for this, by digging a maze into the temple, or by having healing potions. Run away, come back later on and take him down in good, honest melee.

Yulgash, master summoner: You can switch positions with monsters at level 32, and switch your way right next to him. Then show him the fury of the fist.

The Cat Lord: If you have killed your fair share of cats, he can be the single worst monster in the game. This is due to his high speed, on a level without teleport. You can lure him off-level, and then get away from him. But we want to kill him for a nice bit of experience. My advice is to use that blessed wand of fireballs Thundrarr gave you. Head-to-head in melee might work, but cost a pile of healing potions. Just use the wand, it is not too much use after this anyway.

Greater moloch: Too easy, right? Just hit and back up ad nauseam. But when you reach that cursed level 40, you will sometimes critically hit and stun them. This is very annoying, as they will stagger about irratically. Remember to keep your distance and wait it out - they are still every bit as deadly. One attack can still kill the most powerful beastfighter. Trust me on this. I know.

ElDeR cHaOs GoD: I have only faced him with one beastfighter, and that ended up badly. You can NOT use the TotRR or Sceptre of Chaos for dealing damage. Take the weapon off after entry, and either smack him with fists or shoot him with missiles. Standing near to him will drain stats, and this will be somewhat worse for you without a overpowered Trident to whack him with. When he is close to dying, you need to equip the trident/sceptre and shoot him, so keep some humanoid slayers ready for this. Remember to be fast - for this fight your puny beastmaster-bonus will not cut it - get extra speed by wishing or boost potions.

d Wishing
Early game you might wish for an AoLS. This opens up possibility of Ultra, and will give you a pile of SoCRs. You can also wish for a red dragon scale mail, which should see you safe to the mid/late game instead. Late game you can wish for your favourite skills, find weakness and archery are very useful to improve fighting abilities (archery if you also get the unique talent).

V Inscription - Parting thoughts
"What do you wish for?" - ADOM

Thanks. For the input and corrections to the guide, provided by Darren Gray, Maelstrom, gut, Silfir, vogonpoet.
To the player characters Brag the Troll (Winner), ? the hurthling (Chaos Plane loser), ? the Gnome (Greater Moloch respecter), Haoemvee the Dark Elf (Skullcrusher) and A, B, C the Guina pigs for playtesting.

To the combined ADOM groups and forums for various information.

And of course, to the host of these increasingly long guides, Silfir.

And lastly, to you for reading this.

The Sound of Gold (Guide to Merchants by Soirana)

2009-01-28T00:49:00.004+01:00

This guide got delayed for quite a bit due to a combination of overall business and a sound amount of outright stupidity, and I offer my sincere apologies to the author, veteran and ADOM expert Soirana, and to the diligent reader and aspiring merchant for depriving them of much-needed guidance.

The sound of gold

Playing a Merchant is looking for problems, since they are weak and probably are intended to be such. So why to do so? Random generation, boredom or looking for extra challenges are good reasons. They will not be killing machines in regular game (ring dipping engine might get you high, but…). So they provide character, which needs constant care. If you like this, welcome to merchant’s world.

I. Manual information:

MERCHANT -- Merchants are masters of trade and bartering. They almost all are very wealthy, charming and experts in communication. (None of this helps while facing bunch of monsters.)
Each merchant specializes in trading with a certain type of magical items during their apprenticeship. At the beginning of their career, they are equipped with a sample of items to trade with (or use). Merchants are neither well armed nor well armoured and have to be careful in fights. Should they encounter one of the rare dungeon shops, they will probably make some great deals (if money was ever a problem in ADOM…).

Merchants are trained in the following skills: Appraising, Detect Item Status, Gemology, Haggling, Herbalism, Literacy, Metallurgy, Pick Pockets, and Survival.
Nothing what could help in combat. Sure.

Experienced merchants become true masters of their trade -- being able to sell almost anything to anyone and also being able to haggle for the best prices (sniff, if I want to play with economics I’d rather choose another game).
At level 6 shop prices for merchants will be lowered by 20%. Feel the power of gold… I do not like that at all.
At level 12 their carrying capacity is doubled. At least this one is useful.
At level 18 shop prices will be lowered by 40%. Who cares?
At level 25 they no longer are affected by any kind of weather. Another wasted one.
At level 32 shop prices are lowered by 60%. At level 32 you should reach Casino. Money is a non-existent factor after getting access to slot machines.
At level 40 they learn to calm monsters by giving away items. By level 40 you should have met cat lord and I cannot think of any other monsters you really want to calm.
At level 50 their carrying capacity is tripled (due to their enormous talent of organization). Finally at that level they also learn a magic spell that allows them to create new items. “Create item” spell and more carrying power. At level 50? You don’t need that.

FAQ: Merchants and Bards can be quite easy to impossible, depending on the luck of the dice. The random element of Merchant item specialties and Bard skills makes every game with one of these classes unique. All in all, they are very challenging classes to play. Almost any race works here; these classes are a test of the player's ability to adapt.

Item specialties won’t help you very much as being a merchant is more test of your skill and knowledge.

II. Starting up Merchant

1. Starsigns:
You need somehow survive until getting herbs (stat training, healing). Candle with extra healing, extra talent is very good. Since merchants will rely on ranged attacks early on Raven with 10 to speed is decent choice also. Other ones are somewhat harder.

2. General starting equipment:
Gold – merchants start with extra money. This pile should be somewhere in 400-1200gp area. It seems slightly influenced by family history (nobles vs. poor family) and race (gray/high elves gets around 1000gp). I used to believe gold depends on starting charisma or/and appearance but that seems to be misperception.
Specialized items: each merchant has specialization – rings, wands, scrolls or potions. This gives couple things. Some starting “samples” – character has some items of his specialization - random number of random low danger level (less or equal to DL3) stuff. I’ve seen as low as four wands and scrolls being in teens. Usually you get fewer wands than potions and so on. Another one is automatic identification of item class you specialize in. That means if ring merchant sees ring he knows what sort of ring it is. Very good early on.
It is also believed specialization partially affect starting stats (scroll merchants having more Learning and Literacy), but that might be a misperception due to random adjustments and personal history.
Specializing in potions also gives Alchemy skill. This fact puts potion merchants into good position for a long game. Having few offensive wands to start with is nice, but get unimportant later on. Both ring and scroll merchants are somewhat weaker options.

3. Race-specific starting equipment, evaluation

a) Human:
Skills added: Food Preservation, Swimming
Starting equipment: clothes, club (1d6), two rings on hands (even for non-ring merchants), leather boots, fire making equipment.
Cons: Mediocre strength and toughness
Verdict: if that is blessed ring of damage, ring of mental stability and some PV on boots and clothes they might be good. If not… Food Preservation is good skill, having lousy weapon to start is not big problem due to coin throwing.

b) Troll:
Skills added: Athletics, Bridge Building, Food Preservation, Mining
Starting equipment: Thick furs (worse version of leather armour), heavy club, leather boots.
Verdict: I do believe Trolls need they personal guide. Well, you are strong, dumb and have heavy club. What not to like if you can deal with trolish metabolism and slow levelling.

c) High Elf:
Skills added: Dodge, Stealth
Starting equipment: Clothes, short sword, leather boots, one ring – left finger
Pros: Dodge, long lifespan, Dexterity bonus should give you a couple points of extra speed at start.
Cons: Low toughness
Verdict: Dodge is good but starts at 20-25area, which gives +1DV. Low toughness isn’t making your life easier.

d) Gray Elf:
See high elf. Except for alignment I do not see any differences. One of richest starts being at around 1200gold.

e) Dark Elf:
Skills added: Alertness, Find Weakness, Stealth
Starting equipment: Clothes, leather boots, hand crossbow, some dark elven quarrels (below ten), two daggers in back pack.
Pros: Find Weakness is worth wish. Alertness is even unwishable, good chances for extra talent due to high Mana.
Cons: Low strength and toughness, problems with shop prices.
Verdict: As dark elves start with no weapon in hand they start without melee weapon levels. Instead they start with 1lv in crossbows. None of this really matters due to coin throwing, but tiny quarrels are very fragile so do not rely on them. Very nice skill set. Price problems are counteracted with merchant powers. Hard to start but mid and late game is a lot easier than other races.

f) Dwarf:
Skills added: Smithing , Mining, Detect Traps.
Starting equipment: chain mail (-1, -3 [-3, +5]), warhammer (2d3), leather boots.
Pros: reasonable strength and toughness, nice lifespan, chain mail, discount while using gold for (pre)crowning (around 25 percent).
Cons: not really much to mention, some don’t like their skillset, but it is okay for me
Verdict: This is a very good choice. Chain mail alone is life saving. Good toughness helps also.

g) Gnome:
Skills added: Mining, Ventriloquism
Starting equipment: Leather cap, leather armour (+2PV), short sword, gnomish boots (+2DV at least), fire making equipment.
Pros: Ventriloquism, extra talent, reduced need in xp.
Cons: mediocre to low toughness.
Verdict: Well, you have Gemology anyway. Ventriloquism is very good if trained. Gnomes lack a bit in the physical department but have at least some reasonable equipment.

h) Hurthling:
Skills added: Cooking, Food Preservation, Gardening, Archery, Stealth
Starting equipment: Leather cap, clothes, club, cursed ring, firemaking equipment, cooking set.
Pros: higher than average Dexterity, reasonable Toughness, Archery, extra talent, Food Preservation, reduced need in xp.
Cons: problems in strength department.
Verdict: Hurthlings make money incredible fast. Selling loads of crap gives good money for merchant. Lv12 power solves some strength problems. Equipment is very poor.

i) Orc:
Skills added: Metallurgy, Mining, Backstabbing, Find Weakness
Starting equipment: studded leather armour, broadsword right hand, dagger left hand, club and dagger in back pack, leather boots.
Pros: High strength and toughness, nice starting equipment, Find Weakness.
Cons: very short lifespan, iirc smithing costs about 21.000gp in dwarftown.
Verdict: good choice, Toughness helps early on, and Find Weakness can carry you through mid to late game.

j) Drakeling:
Skills added: Alertness, Food Preservation, Music
Starting equipment: clothes, short sword, bracers of defence (+2DV which are in slot you won’t touch for a while).
Pros: Good strength and toughness, Acid Breath , Food Preservation, Alertness.
Cons: Drakelings metabolism (heat-cold problems)
Verdict: Good to mediocre choice. If only bracers were protective ones… Acid Breath is less interesting as Merchants can rely on gold coins in very beginning.

k) Conclusion: Dwarves give good start, Dark Elves provide some nice skills, but my vote should go to Orcs. Toughness, starting PV equipment and Find Weakness gives them an edge.

4. Gender:
Apparently Dexterity gives some bonus to missile combat and probably coins tossing. Appearance is easier to manipulate and leads to faster money. So my advice is – pick a girl.

III. Trade of death

1. Merchants in general
Start is not that impossible because you have gold coin throwing (hurting even doplegangers) and good deal ammo for this. Mid game should be solved by early farming (stats, healing) and smithing (extra DV/PV is very useful, pimping your weapon up doesn’t hurt either). Later merchants usually run into problem with damage output, aka not dealing enough damage in comparison to other chars at lv30+. At least that is my impression. You will need extremely good weapon to cope with that.
Overall in Diablo II terms – this is character build on equipment not skills. So get ready for precrowns, gremlin bomb and milking everything you can.
Warning: throwing a coin is a 1200 points action, so being one square away from vortex might be not safe distance. This cost can be reduced by quick /lightning shot.

2. Starting tips:
I would recommend visiting bandit village immediately. Surely there are outlaw leaders and possibly assassins, which are extremely dangerous for lv1 merchant. If you are not Raven born keep close to border and calculate they speed. If you have torch lit it. Main gain is shop. There is quite a chance to buy something useful like PV granting gauntlets, wooden shield or spear. I suggest you get quests from crime lord also.
For non-Candle born I suggest getting healing as next step. Jharod is not a big problem. Having healing at 60 in exchange for some mental stats is very good deal for your weakling. Usually I would forget about carpenter. You do not need that manual of Bridge Building and VD7 is already in area there vortex is not rarity. Since good toughness for merchants is something like 17 they can instant kill you.
Next probably shot at puppy cave just in case there are herbs there or Infinite dungeon to gain some gear. Next ones are upper level of assassin guild (extra shot on herbs/shops) and caverns of chaos.
Look for weapon guidelines at equipment section.

3. Talent choices:
Early on:
3.1 Heir – gift is Beautiful leather armor of carrying. At cost of three talents? Never.
3.2 Starting with alert and going into early treasure hunter. Overall TH combines well with gremlin bomb and some other methods. Items are good, more items - even better. This might not be very helpful to keep character alive at low levels. Probably best to pick Alert on lv1 to open up path and follow by some immediately useful talents.
3.3 PV line with or without healthy. That has one aim - to help early in game. Surprisingly despite mithril skin this not a perfect option for dwarfs as they have starting PV and some toughness in their bodies.
3.4 Long stride, quick, moving to quick/lightning shot ASAP (possibly picking alert at 1lv). These help early on and are still nice mid to late game. You can skip these if you a Raven born. Quick shot line is nearly must for blingers.
3.5 Orcs and trolls can consider taking Long-lived at start, but it is comparable to one blessed potion of longevity, which might have easy recipe…
3.6 Rich line. Since merchants get something like 5xstarting money getting further 2x, 3x is nice. But money is not a problem in Adom and definitely not for merchant.
Conclusion: depends on playstyle. All variants are possible.
Later:
Depends on playstyle again and so on. Personally I would take anything that gives + to damage. Yet, I am not sold upon Melee master. Reasons – extra lv1 only talent (Strong of will) and some wasted affinities to weapon classes.
I’d rather pick Natural berserker since my merchants tend to spend lots of time in Berserk towards endgame. Basher into Powerful strike is nice if your weapon of choice is heavier than 100stones – heavy artifact for example.
Shield talents and Dodger line might also not be very good options late in game. Spear and shield combo combined with smithing gives ridiculous amount of DV anyway.

Potential variant:
lv1 – Alert, Long stride lv3 - Quick, lv6 – Misser, lv9 – Treasure hunter, lv12 – Good shot, lv15 – Keen shot, lv18 - Quick shot, lv21 – Main melee weapon affinity (if you made your choice, otherwise missile affinities), lv24 - bow affinity (as they do less damage than crossbows anyway), lv27 – crossbow affinity, lv45 – Very Quick, lv48 – Greased Lightning(as these reduce xp gain).
It leaves open five talents – you might want Dodger line for elves, Keen shot- Lightning shot for hurthlings, Basher-Powerful strike variant, melee master or some magic talents if you managed to get concentration.

4. Monsters to watch out for:
Nothing too special or not mentioned in my previous assassin guide.

5. Battle tactics
Late in game I usually find myself spending most time either in very aggressive or berserk. Early on… depends on situation. Two things two remember – true berserking very early on and running away at coward on low hit points. As manual states that gives you discount on run away movement if your hit points are one third or lower.
Also worth to notice – if you press “T” you get melee modifiers. Missile modifiers have smaller improvement from very aggressive to berserk, so if you are involved in ranged duel it is probably better to stick with very aggressive.

6. Merchant skills:

6.1 Free for all skills

6.1.1 Climbing
Good for climbing… actually falling into rift. Grants access to library and potentially some SoCR along with some spellbooks. IMO, this location is potentially too dangerous for merchants.

6.1.2 First Aid
I have mixed feelings upon this one. Early on it is good, but at that time skill is usually low. You are recommended either getting Healing really fast or being Candle born anyway. With good Healing First Aid becomes less interesting. In general very good in case character gets poisoned. Should be used early on.

6.1.3 Haggling
You can apply this skill on a shopkeeper. But don’t blame anyone if prices go up. The only time I would ever use it is early on and being desperate to buy something, which can save my ass. I would give up after first increase. Don’t put your skillpoints here.

6.1.4 Listening
Affects some game messages – from traps triggered by monsters, tension rooms, hearing roars while killing cats and so on… Not useless, but usually doesn’t need rises. Trains itself for good at arena.

6.2 Class skills

6.2.1 Alchemy (potion merchants only):
As manual says: Alchemy allows you to brew magical potions. To use this skill, you need to collect the ingredients required to mix magical potions. It would also be useful to have the recipe for a potion at hand.
You can’t brew anything without recipe except big “boom”. Luckily you get one recipe per 10 points of skill. At 100 you will gain recipe for gain attributes potion. It might be something like “youth and longevity” or “strength and cure corruption”. Still skill is very good and should be developed early on.
Some other recipes should be good. My favorite is potion of blindness denying fair fight than you feel yourself in trouble. But cheap recipe for extrahealing or making booze out of burb roots and carrot juice can ease your life quite a lot.
Notice: recipe for potion of blindness will include two non-repetitive ingredients from these (two herbs per recipe is not possible) – potions of booze, water, carrot juice, burb root, pepper petal, daemon daisy. This one can’t be bad.
Offensive alchemy: if you are wearing ToEF gear (fire immunity/quadruple fire resistance and ring of ice/all vulnerable stuff behind fireproof blanket) explosions from failed mixtures will not harm you and blast surrounding creatures away. Don’t forget you can mix two herbs, giving to you virtually unlimited fireballing power.
Also in my opinion power of fireballs decreases as your Alchemy skill raises and increases as your Willpower goes up.

6.2.2 Appraising
Some guys don’t trust that, but wield/taste/read identify is sad reality. Which you prefer to drink in case of emergency potion rated as “good” or “fair”? Skill becomes redundant after finding altar and getting some identify scrolls into holy water.

6.2.3 Detect Item Status
Good early on at very least to avoid some cursed stuff and cycle through uncursed one finding some extra PV/DV/to hit and so on. Spares some visits to altars or blessed ID scrolls later on.

6.2.4 Gemmology
Lets to identify gems on pick up, grants some gems if walls are dug up with pickaxe or by monsters.
At high end (100) output of gems is huge. Well, at least enough to cover pickaxe fixing costs for dwarf friendly races, especially if pickaxe is corroded.
Can be exploited to gain a lot - crystals of power, learning, health, fire, light, darkness.
Keep in mind fire crystals act as spells of improved fireball, darkness gives… darkness and a chance making some fights one sided (as certain monsters do not fight in darkness). Crystals of learning can permanently increase characters learning if used in blessed status (easily up to25 and with some work on learning potentials extends to 30).
Mining some stuff for gems, ore and stone giants (as they leave tasty corpses) is one of ways to improve your merchant.

6.2.5 Herbalism
Luckily merchants are born with it.
Herbalism allows you to pick herbs faster, identify them on pick up and to know bush status. All are very nice options.

6.2.6 Literacy
Grants ability to read scrolls, if planning to read some spellbooks put skillpoints here. Trainable with rereading certain scrolls (ratling pamphlets, papyrus scroll).

6.2.7 Metallurgy
Considered to be most useless skill. Can identify ingots on pickup. If you can’t do that by weight… I somehow suspect this skill might increase ore generation while digging. But this needs further tests.

6.2.8 Pick Pockets
Nice skill. Gets extra stuff from their pockets into your pockets. Stuff under 10 stones. Rings, scrolls, potions…
Theoretically it has some problems with monster inventory system. Things you can pick from pockets should appear on dead bodies, right?
Grants entrance to thieves’ guild and some training by master thief.

6.2.9 Survival
Rumored to work with stealth on wilderness ambushes. Can give food in wilderness, but that is incredible waste of time.

6.3 Racial skills

6.3.1 Alertness:
Sell point for dark elves and drakelings. Non wishable. Lets you dodge combat magic (bolts including death ray), makes detect traps more effective.
Provides some DV bonuses (manual states +4 at skill level 100). It is rumored that Alchemy combined with high Alertness gives even higher DV bonus.
Notice: that is one of skills, which is significantly better at 80 and 100, making double or even triple check in your favour.

6.3.2 Archery
Hurthlings skill giving access to two great talents Lightning Shot and Eagle Eyed.

6.3.3 Athletics
Unluckily prerequisite for this perfect skill is being troll. In my opinion trolls need they own guide.

6.3.4 Backstabbing
Orcs skill, which increases chances to hit and your chance to score a critical hit when you attack friendly or neutral monsters (or on hostile monsters if they don't notice you).
Put stress on not noticing part. With invisibility it is very nice. Also 80/100-type skill.

6.3.5 Bridge Building
Unluckily prerequisite for having this is being troll. In my opinion trolls need they own guide.

6.3.6 Cooking
Hurthling’s skill – considered being good. In my opinion skill is pretty useless, unless used to preserve something like displacer beast corpses. First, skill can ruin precious corpses (orb guardians and a like). Secondary if you want cooking it, you can always blast with some fire. Or simply keep corpses blessed via holy water.

6.3.7 Detect Traps
Dwarven skill helping in…detecting traps. There couple of heavily trapped areas in game. Also sometimes kicks in automatically, gets bonus from alertness, helps to avoid known traps (just when you try step over that stone block trap…)

6.3.8 Dodge
Skill of gray/high elves. Direct boost to DV can’t be bad. Dodge is somewhat hard to train in late game so start pumping it early on.

6.3.9 Find weakness
Totally awesome. Boosts up chance of criticals. Self trains at some point as skill give you criticals and criticals train skill. Worth wishing if you are not orc or dark elf.

6.3.10 Food preservation
Drakes, trolls, humans and hurthilings have this skill. Very good. Helps in corpse preservation (also works on raw meat, melons, apples), also at higher levels is rumoured to increase chances of monsters dropping corpse. Since this means more stat increasing, intrinsic giving corpses…
As training goes I suggest keeping low weighted corpses in inventory and buying some apples at Terinyo (these comes for around 5gp a piece).

6.3.11 Gardening
Hurtlings racial skill. Can be used on herb seeds to create herbs. Of course you can use holy water for same effect, but…
If you create herb bush with seed on level which doesn’t support herbs it is… it becomes herb supporting. Any level - Infinite Dungeon (report on google groups), Dwarftown (personal testing). Under certain circumstances this can be very very useful.

6.3.12 Mining
Skill of dwarves, orcs and gnomes. Decreases time of mining, helps to preserve pickaxes. Not a thing I would ever miss.

6.3.13 Music
Skill granted for drakelings. You need to put some work in that skill before it is starts working. If you do so you could tame some animals. Potentially this could be useful early on to deal with cats. Unluckily early on skill is way too low.
And you can always keep a tamed dog (give him some bones) somewhere in dungeon.

6.3.14 Smithing
Dwarven skill. Very good one. Very… boring one. Let’s start. You need hammer (easy), anvil (complicated), forge (depends on random luck) and some ingots/ore.
With all in place you can increase your weapons and armour quality. If you pass skill check…
Let’s start again. Probably easiest to obtain forge is in dwarftown (potentially corruption free area). You need to get stupid dwarven smith out of forgery (which becomes decent storage place). Technically easiest ways are either to teleport him out, or wait until he stands in door way and switch positions (:s) with him. Next take him out of level, cause he will sense you using his forge and claim for money.
Once he is out of level you might kill dwarven smith for anvil. But than you will not get pickaxe fixes. And smithing needs ore. And ore needs mining (you can use a couple of your pets giant racoons tamed by music, but I prefer pickaxe). And no you can’t fix pickaxe via smithing. Glod can. You not - even if being dwarven weaponsmith. You can kill dwarven artificer in Darkforge, but that is very deadly fight. It is wiser first to mine ore, then to kill dwarven smith. This should be done before ToEF.
No you can start melting ore and getting smithing up. (Removing rust also trains skill and is slightly faster in game.). Once you done, you can start smithing up your gear.
Notice: with some patience gear can be smithed seriously up to a point of giving positive DV to … a phase daggers.
Also crossbows can be smithed up (heavy ones seem to be better anyway).

6.3.15 Stealth
Skill of elves and hurthlings. Good with backstabbing, good at library for keeping librarian happy. Rumoured to be neutralised by source of light. According manual: “is extremely helpful in ambushing monsters in the wilderness”. If so should increase chance of avoiding fight on wilderness encounters (uber jackals).

6.3.16 Swimming
Humans and drakelings are good in this. Somewhat useful early on. Don’t forget you may use blessed ring of fish to cross water safely. Unluckily that ring is autocursing, so that means one potion of holy water each time you put it on. There is also guaranteed means of waterbreathing on lowest level of rift.
As far as my understanding goes this skill doesn’t help against water breathing attacks.

6.3.17 Ventriloquism
Gnomish skill. Very useful if trained. Allows to confuse monsters for couple of turns. Confusion duration is stackabale. So 15 passed applies in a row should leave monster confused for 20+ turns. Drawback is obvious you need to be next to monster while applying it.

6.3.18 Acid Breath
Drakelings special racial ability (invoked via “m”). Acid power depends on character level. As physical ability it uses not power points, but satiation. It does allow manipulating characters satiation status, regaining some speed by removing satiated status or abusing induced starvation.
Also might be used as backup attack as it works while being on coward and do not disclose your invisible location.
Obtainable via corruptions.

6.4 Obtainable skills:

6.4.1 Backstabbing
Golden gladius package. For evaluation look above.

6.4.2 Bridge building
Huge manual dropped by carpenter. Good for making bridges, requires hatchet, manual and logs. Most players prefer making ice bridges or teleport traps instead. If you haven’t got any other way to cross chaos piranhas… well, most chars don’t ever build bridges.

6.4.3 Courage
Old barbarian’s quest. Very good. Your merchant is supossed not to be surrounded but if that happens skill helps a lot. Gives minor help in rift climbing, but I’ve told you not to go there.

6.4.4 Detect traps
Thieves’ training package. For evaluation look above.

6.4.5 Disarm traps
Thieves’ training package. Occasionally useful, gives some minor experience, but not really necessary.

6.4.6 Gardening
Don’t say you picked this over healing.

6.4.7 Healing
Unless you are Candle born or Troll go for this (take carpenter’s quest) early on. In many cases I’d recommend getting healing chaotic way. Stat drain won’t hinder much and you get decent skill value.
I wouldn’t try to heal carpenter heavily, but using some of Jharod’s healing first is wise.

6.4.8 Law
Sheriff quests. Pretty useless for advanced users, might give idea that is lawful and that is chaotic to new players. Whatever it says eating humanoids is not chaotic act.

6.4.9 Pick Locks
Thieves’ training package. Sort of usable, especially for locking doors. Keep in mind picking usually triggers in traps. Cursed locked picks are rumored to have nasty effects (trap creation?).

6.4.10 Pick Pockets
Thieves’ training package. For evaluation look above.

6.4.11 Smithing
Dwarftown. For evaluation look above.

6.4.12 Stealth
Golden gladius package. For evaluation look above.

6.4.13 Swimming
Feeding carrot juice to baby water dragon. For evaluation look above.

6.4.14 Tactics
Golden gladius package.Extremely useful. Influences your tactic modifiers. You are more defensive on coward and more brutish on berserk.
As i understand this case the higher your learning the higher received skill will be – having Le above 30 (abusing crystals of learning) might give you skill at 100 right away. And that is huge.

6.4.15 Two weapon combat
This guide heavily advices to use one weapon combat at all cases, leaving twin daggers fir rangers and alike.

7. God gifts on crowning:

Boots of the Divine Messenger - death resist, paralysis resist and teleport control via boot slot. Still I prefer well-enhanced 7lb, but this is close call.

Crown of Leadership – means of see invisible. Other than that… I seen caps smithed to better stats.

Iron Crown of Havlor – comes with some to hit penalties, but still nice thing since to hit is not a real problem and chars can’t have to much DV/PV.

Shezestriakis – merchants are supposed to be fighting class…

Staff of the Wanderer – shock immunity is nice, but quicksilver quarterstaff beats this on any given day.

Trusted One – 5d3 damage? I told you merchants have problems with damage output. This one doesn’t solve them.

Racial gifts:

Elves – Sun’s messenger. Looks good.

Dwarves – Hammerhead. Good for mining as far as bashing goes… Loook up for better stuff.
Not any melee weapons worth to mention, you should hope for boots or racial gifts.

8. Equipment

8.1. Melee weapons
Getting yourself crude spear is one of primary priorities. Even without DV gain it beats merchant’s starting weapon.
Later on as you get DV from Smithing and finding better armour, any decent weapon you find. By DECENT I mostly mean huge damage. Stuff with “of devastation” is very nice.
Decent weapons:
Kickass artifact (emerald dagger, executor, skullcrusher, minotaur axe) > higher metal weapon of penetration (weapon class doesn’t matter)> higher metal weapon with huge damage output (eternium of devastation would be best) > non higher metal of penetration (phase dagers including).
First thing – damage output. Secondary PV bypass, but I would keep penetration/phasing stuff as back up weapon.
Rating weapons “of penetration” and “of devastation” is rather tough. Devastation potentially gives 4d8+6 –average 24 that is comparable to end game monsters PV. But if you take +6 out of equation by smithing your penetrating weapon, it will get better rating.
As slaying artefacts versus weapons of penetration go… Most slayers have nice damage on them, coupled with critical hits… very very nice.

Even after serious Smithing up I probably keep shield. Unless I get eternium two-hander with “of penetration”. Somehow I love oversized phase daggers…

Weapon class evaluation:

a) Unarmed fighting
Rating: no weapon, no shield, not a chance.
Good weapons: none.

b) Daggers and Knives
Rating: Emerald Bite is one real reason to use daggers; orcish knives can be obtained in large quantities by milking orcs.
Good weapons: phase dagger, Emerald Bite, smithed high metal ego dagers and orcish knives (penetration, devastation).

c) Clubs and Hammers
Rating: low, you see artifact listed bellow, you go for this. If no… well no.
Good weapons: Skullcrusher, ego stuff (penetration, devastation), Hammer of Gods (good damage, even better with Basher line)

d) Maces and Flails
Rating: low
Good weapons: ego weapon (penetration, devastation), artefacts like Big Punch or Purifier combined with Basher talents might give good damage, but you should look for better options.

e) Swords
Rating: low
Good weapons: sword of sharpness? (people tend to love it), ego weapons.
Sword of sharpness… you really need better stuff. No intrinsic, no resistance to fire or acid.

f) Axes
Rating: low
Good weapons: Executor, ego weapons
You get Executor or mithril axe of penetration - you go in this class.

g) Whips
Rating: extremely low
Good weapons: whip of the snake, penetration weaponry
Whips of the snake --- let me think. One per wish, no slaying powers, no resistance to fire, acid. Not a huge damage.

h) Pole arms
Rating: awesome
Good weapons: ego weapons (milk down orcish scorchers), Wyrmlance (more backup weapon), rune-covered trident (more missile slot), Trident of the Red Rooster. Scorched spear is passable weapon in midgame, until you find something nice.
You should find some good orcish spear while milking scorchers, hill orcs and alike. Spear traps do not give ego weapons.

i) Two-handed weapons
Rating: powerful, but requires to give away shield
Good weapons: ego weapons, axe of the minotaur emperor,
Okay, Cow Axe is guaranteed. Just if going for two-handed weapons I prefer rune-covered trident.

j) Staves
Rating: questionable
Good weapons: ego weapons, quicksilver quarterstaff
Quicksilver for merchant… damage output - 6d3+5. I still prefer rune-covered trident.

8.2. Missile weapons
You are not trying to bash every mob, are you?
First missile you use will be gold coins. If you have seen shopkeeper killing in one throw forget it. You are not local talent and will start with 1d2+something, which is reasonable, but gain is something like + 1 to damage per 2 experience levels. Some talents like good shot, keen shot helps, but you will want switch to bow and crossbow reasonably fast (as soon as you know they are uncursed).
Don’t forget slaying ammunition. Don’t forget skill level bonuses (+1.5 to damage per level). Don’t forget all these missiles of thunder, darkness, as they might be very useful to stop someone chasing you.
Except of bows and crossbows I wouldn’t waste time on anything else.
I suppose crossbow will be your third missile weapon to train, but it is worth that.
There are rare daemon slaying sling bullets, but I would leave slings away, even if playing hurtling. Bow and crossbow is more than enough. May be a bit of thrown spears.
Oh, and there is that “Fling the bling” challenge – win with merchant using only gold coins as attack. As far as I know that challenge was not completed.

8.3. Armour
Nothing new. Get your PV fixed early and keep working on DV.
Somewhere mid game you should choose which way DV or PV to go. DV is considered to be better, but 100/20 or 20/100 is both good. Believe me even 60/60 does quite well.
Remember Darkforge is famous for armour room and smithing is good way to improve stuff. Alternatively you can keep buying off scroll shop. Normally scrolls should be used on non smithable parts of your inventory (seven league boots being prime example).

a) Rings
As put on and see result tactics go… I would say no at least until you find altar. Skipping rare stuff (like weakness and doom) worst thing is cursed ring of damage. So it is advisable to check rings via left finger if needed.
Early on: anything you can get. Speed, mental stability are nice at least for giving PV, blessed ring of damage (right finger). Ring of protection is also nothing to be ashamed.
Mid to late: ring of the High Kings, probably ring of slaying, keeping in backpack blessed ring of ice, rings of invisibility, regeneration, mental stability/clear mind.
Dream stuff: ring of master cat and ring of immunity.

b) Amulets
This time I would say yes to put identify tactics. The only harmful thing is amulet of hunger and these are AoLS rarity level. Okay, cursed amulet of rapid healing isn’t nice, but iirc this one doesn’t affect Candle or Healing skill effects.
Early on: anything you get, hopefully not cursed one, remember glass amulet gives light.
Mid to late: ankh, but in reality I found myself wearing something to affect my alignment most of time. If you like being chaotic you can throw away that marble piece called amulet of order.
Backpack: petrification, death resistances, free action, balance. Stash away some willpower, mana, appearance boosting amulets, water breathing (if you have one).
Dreams: Preserver. Renereation+luck+paralysis restriction...Blessed amulets of life saving. Good choice if you have doubts of battle outcome. And my merchants usually do…

c) Helmets
Early: metal cap, orcish helmet, bone helmet or anything getting good price in shop before big identify.
Mid to late: Smithed higher metal gear, smithed crowns of lightning, regeneration.
Backpack: helm of mental stability (confusion resistance).
Dreams: Iron Crown of Havlor, very well smithed gear from above.

d) Girdles
Early: metal girdle, girdle of carrying, strength.
Mid to late: Smithed high metal, enhanced girdle of giant strength
Dreams: platinum girdle – not really an option, waterproof girdle of giant strength [+6, +6] {St+15}- requires ring of ice to function proper. At least until you meet bunch of black/blue dragons.
If wishing I’d rather choose ring of weakness not GoGS. Nope I am not on drugs. Ring lowers strength so you can abuse things like ogre armies or mined out stone giants to get lots of natural strength. This doesn’t burn away easily.

e) Cloaks
Early: hooded cloak unless you run in any 30stone or 20stone non-light cloak.
Mid to late: any scroll-enhanced cloak, cloaks of protection, defence.
Backpack: cloak of invisibility (good but refuses to hide behind gauntlets)
Dreams: very enhanced cloak of appearance.

f) Bracers
Early on: anything you find. There are no harmful bracers.
Mid to late: enhanced bone bracers, smithed up bracers of resistance, regeneration, speed.
Dreams: bracers of war.

g) Gauntlets
Do not put on any unidentified gauntlets of 10stones. You’ve been officially warned about gauntlets of peace (well, you can drop gauntlets in front of mob and wait until he equips them… if they don’t glow dark you can try them as well). Playing with gauntlets is not very wise as cursed gloves stop your ability to exchange rings. (As cursed girdle doesn’t allow to exchange armour and so on.)
Start: some coloured gauntlets.
Mid to late: gauntlets of strength, smithed dragon hide gauntlets, enhanced alchemistic gloves (if lacking resistances)
Backpack: elemental gauntlets, thick gauntlets (poisoned hands)
Dreams: Ironfist, but rustproof [+6, +6] {St+5} gauntlets of strength are also very good.

h) Boots
Start: anything with good price at shop, heavy boots.
Mid to late: smithed high metal, seven league boots, boots of speed
Dreams: well enhanced seven league boots.

i) Shields:
DV is main thing as higher DV allows higher DV bonus from skill, still PV doesn’t hurt.
Early to mid game: best shield you get. Somewhere midgame final choice in shield or no shield has to be made.
Dreams: Protector, if not well smithed tower eternium shield.

j) Body armor
Early: anything useful with PV.
Mid to late: high metal smithed, preferably with suffixes, prefixes (of life, coloured)
Backpack: AMW- death resistance, see invisble, cold immunity.
Dreams: Nature’s Companion, smithed moloch’s armour (if going for PV), well smithed dragon scale mails.
Well, there are things like chaos knight entourage in wilderness. Dealing with this usually provide some eternium plate armour. So in theory they can be abused to gain something like eternium plate armour of health. In practice personally I haven’t seen them dropping ego stuff.

9. Items to wish for

- "Amulet of life saving" opens ultra, gives six blessed scrolls of chaos resistance, blessed spellbook of teleportation.
- "scrolls of chaos resistance" I regularly find enough chaos removal in the game, but that’s me. And make sure you used wish for sage.
- "Concentration" clever choice. Another good - "scrolls of education", if you want to get lots of new random skills and play self educational games.
- "magical writing sets" – obviously needed for self education.
- ultra ending stuff
- “rings of weaknes” – strength is good
- “phase daggers” – bypassing PV is good
- “pairs of seven league boots” – decent thing.

10. Killing big guys
Once again I cannot ad much to my thoughts in Assassin guide.
General tips:
As merchants are screwed a lot, you better… make fights one-sided.
Common methods:
a) Absolute immobilization – there two ways either abusing darkness as some monsters (including Snake from Beyound) do not fight without light, or using wand of paralysation. Paralysed monsters do not fight back or cast spells and so on. Natural regeneration stays on.
Bright side is there are no resistant to paralysis monsters all nasties from mimics to emperor lich might be paralysed.
b) Partial immobilization – monster remains capable of walking (and attacking) in random direction, stops casting, is unable to perform ranged attacks. There a few of ways to do so: potions of confusion, blindness (obtainable via Alchemy), cursed potions of invisibility (cheap option), wand/spell of stunning.
It is possible to throw potion with sling. Putting potion in missile slot and WHEN putting sling in missile weapon slot. That doesn’t give extra range, unless… you have knowledge in slings. Lv3 in skills giving extra range is applied to potions on top once this is happening other bonuses like archery suddenly are applicable too. Slings of long shot do not seem to have any advantages in such case.
c) Webbing – similar to a) except monster can break webs and that moment is not possible to prognose. It is possibly better not to shoot wands directly at monster but lead it into webbed area. Webs are susceptible to fire and acid.
d) Entrance denial – using locked doors, walls and area spells/offensive alchemy. Alternatively if you are fighting emperor lich and way is blocked by fire lizards you can use offensive alchemy while fire lizards serve as living wall.
Using poison on bosses usually is clever idea. Although I doubt that you can cause acute blood poisoning (severe loss of hit points due to multiple poisoning hits) it is still helpful. You can try potions of sickness, as they should lower opponents hitpoints in general. That might not work on high level stuff.
Particular monsters: Kranach – no unless you are a wand merchant with good offensive wands. For others look in Assassin guide.

11. Merchant and magic
If you haven’t concentration once again try looking at assassin’s guide. If you got try wizard’s one – just be warned learning things like Death Ray and Acid Ball might be problematic even after installing Concentration on your Merchant.
Game manual has great section on spells, so check it.

12. Getting nice stuff (aka scumming tactics)
As I said merchants are very dependant on gear, so you should try to get nice things.

12.1 Milking mobs
Usually considered being “OK” tactics. Mainly means intentional running around some monster in order to force them throw/shoot extra stuff. Thrown stuff is usually one per mob while missiles are nearly unlimited.
Milkable stuff:
-orcish spears – orc scorchers, hill orcs (encounters on wilderness hill squares if you not worried about 90 day limit)
-orcish knives – regular orcs (I’m somehow unsure about large orcs, iirc, they are not throwers, but I might be wrong),
-battleaxes – gnolls,
-rocks – goblin rockthrowers, out of interest since gold coins are better,
-arrows – kobolds, raiders, barbarians (possible wilderness abuse again),
-quarrels – ratling archers, Hawkslayer, titans.
I would emphasize crude spears and non-rock missiles.

12.2 Gremlin bomb
Somewhat controversial, but considered to be game feature. IMO until you start copy-pasting it is good one.
Basics – gremlin+water= more gremlins. Usual way is water trap and either live gremlin or fluff balls. Fluff balls can be easily obtained in Gremlin cave.
Water trap can be created either by zapping wand of trap creation or diging hole and covering ("U"sing blanket while over the pit) it with blanket at proper square. Notice: wands do not work on grassy squares so in wilderness/ Dwarven graveyard you need pickaxe+blankets,
Usually gremlins are first pickpocketed and after that killed maximizing chances of nice stuff.
Placing bomb. Tough question. If you are searching for particular thing, it is best to use exact danger level of item cutting higher end stuff. If not, higher end stuff tends to be powerful, right?
Two basic approaches:
-Dwarven halls (first level as second is to corrupting). Pros you can use walls to control gremlins, stops monster generation on level, if things get out of hand you can leave level and use Animated forest path instead. Cons: corrupting area, but that means 1-2 corruptions per few thousands gremlins.
-Dwarven graveyard. Pros: high danger level non-corupting area. Cons: It is somewhat harder to control. The only walls are the ones surrounding stairs. Probably it is best to create trap near wall (I’d say out of LOS), stand inside building and keep chopping gremlins in doorway. If you have done grave digging esacape is simple – pick stuff, teleport near border, kill anything around you (Willpower boost +light should do) and exit.

12.3 Extensive dig out
More or less “OK” tactics which are nice since merchants have Gemology. Provides with gems, crystals (quasi spells), ore for smithing and some stone giants. Problem – need for pickaxe. Pickaxe can be repaired either via scroll of repair or via dwarven smith. Getting your pickaxe corroded by jellies to lower repair costs is very smart idea. IMO, merchants learning should be improved with crystals of learning to 25-30.

12.4 Shop restock
Never heard anyone complaining about, although forcing Casino shop for multiple restocks via Casino gold is somewhat nasty. (I’m still unsure if Casino restocks might give artefacts, personally I haven’t seen reports confirming this)
Idea simple you buy off stuff they get more after some time. You can do it forever. Alternatively just put stuff in one pile to trick shopkeeper.
Problems: prices seem to go up after few full restocks. Casino restocks generate lot of junk, so I would dump it in wilderness to keep my save files in reasonable area.
Notice: merchants have better chances for extra shops. I’ve heard of ¼ chance but I do not feel merchants to find shops that often.

12.5 Dragon hunt
Classically used in blue dragon caves, as there is endless stream of them. You need to be strong to go for them, but rewards are nice.

12.6 Wilderness abuse:
Chaos knights entourages can be used to gain some eternium gear (although I haven’t seen that being suffixed/prefixed).
Hill orcs to gain some spears, gnoll warbands to get some axes, barbarians for arrows.
Hunting lonely dragons in wilderness is pretty useless as they drop only danger level one stuff.
Also giant bands, ogre armies might provide corpses to raise strength, quickling corpses from raiding parties acts as permanent speed boost and black unicorns (if they drop corpses) can be exchanged for potions of cure corruption.

12.7 ID stair walkk
Not very nice method, but gets job done. Basics: keep going up/down in reasonably deep ID and check loot. With some patience provides all things you need. Considered to be at very least morally questionable tactic.

13. Fling the Bling challenge:
Seriously I do believe it is possible.
Some advices: starting month – Raven, gold coin is hindered by being set on 1200 energy points so you need to counteract it, specialization – not really important, potions of Blindness can be replaced by cursed invisibility and you can’t use offensive Alchemy so potion merchants loose their edge. Talent choices – Alert gives access to both TH and Missile weapon master so is almost autopick at start. Purchasing Good and keen Shot erarly on is clever, later on you have choice between getting early Treasure hunter or start going for missile weapon master. I felt TH being better, but that is me. Getting Quick shot at some point is also nice as it is only way to lower attack energy.

Equipment – anything giving bonuses to coin throwing. Even metal cap can have +2 to hit with missiles. Rings of slaying are enormous boost and rings of damage totally useless.

Precrowns – geting gifts like executor or farslayer are frustrating but there is still a bunch of good ones – Protector, bracers of war, Preserver, Nature’s companion.

Skills/race:
Find weakness is totally must have skill for this challenge as doubling your damage output (or is it even better with missiles?) is the only way to deal with high PV monsters.
Orcs and dark elves come with this skill other races need to get it somehow. Wishing or scumming shops for potions/scrolls of education are ways to obtain Find Weakness skill.
Dark elves might be very hard to get started, so you might consider using water barier to kill some powerful stuff like (old barbarian, some NPC from bandit village) to get fast level ups.

Still I would not put hurthlings out of contention. Archery (lightning shot, eagle eyed), Food preservation, faster leveling (and levels are transformed into some damage output) give them a nice bonus. Still they do need Find weakness skills.

Important skills which are hard to train with this challenge:
Archery – pumping to 60 is reality, but getting to 80 for Eagle Eyed can be quite hard to reach.
Tactics – drink some potions of boost learning before trading in gladius.

ToEF – well, reality is you probably will not want to use ring slots for RoTHK and ring of ice. Intrinsic+elemental gauntlets give triple resistance and remaining loses can be counteracted with some blessed spenseweed. Item destruction is also not that problematic. In test I took char with Crown of science and 100K gold in missile slot. I still was losing only 2gp for one melting. So this is not a problem. Regarding wyrm and other bosses – best way is to paralyze them, at very least not allowing them to heal.

Summoners: these are worst thing for blinger. Early on it is probably best to step back and lead summoner into corridor there his powers are less impressive, later on using on demand invisibility allows to sneak past summons and eliminate target.
Worst things
– high end lichs – suummoning+self heal+see invisible
– chaos wizards – most of their summons see invisible so you cannot bypass them.

Mana teple is probably one of worst places ever, I can only suggest waking up Archmage ASAP. On D50 I would advocate wand of door creation ending. It is somewhat unstylish but is easier to achieve and doesn’t do damage to surrounding monsters as Wand of destruction does.

Have a good coin throwing.

Mindcrafter Guide by Lich

2009-01-24T14:12:00.005+01:00

Mindcrafters are an incredibly cool class. And for this reason, I am proud to announce that fellow ADOM forum member Lich has put together a guide for it. Without further ado, here it is!

Mindcrafters is one of my favorite classes. They are very good melee fighters who are also able to use their power points to its full potential. Playing a mindcrafter presents a challenge that is (much) greater than a wizard or archer, but not as masochistic an endeavor an adventuring merchant or farmer. The most important thing to remember when playing a mindcrafter is to take things slow; your time will come, but only if you can stay alive.

This guide is completely based on my experience playing mindcrafters, so I may have gotten a few details wrong. In addition, the tactics mentioned have all worked for me. If you have a better way to do things, then good for you. I have also made some effort to make this guide not too spoily, so anyone concerned about that should be able to read on without any worries.

The first thing one should notice about mindcrafters is that they advance in weapon skills normally, like a fighter rather than a wizard. This gives a hint as to how they should be played. Second, mindcrafters cannot learn spells. It is a feature of the class. Therefore, if you ever find a spellbook, throw it around, carry it, burn it, just don't read it, as failed attempts can bring very bad consequences. The manual is correct in saying that mindcraft is very different from magic. Unfortunately, mindcraft is not as universally applicable as magic because many monsters are immune to it and the very useful powers do not come until high levels. This means that mindcrafters cannot depend on mindcraft the way wizards depend on spells. Their powers have a much more specialized use.

Confusion Blast (1) - A linear blast which disturbs the minds of your opponents and confuses them.

It is a very good idea to confuse your enemies if you plan to attack them in melee. This power works on everything that can be affected by mindcraft. In my experience, the only monster I would want to confuse but can't is the chaos archmage.

Confusion Wave (3) - Similar to Confusion Blast, but affects all beings within a certain range.

Not as useful as confusion blast because a mindcrafter would not want to be surrounded by monsters, but if you find yourself in such a situation in a cavernous level or the Big Room, this power would serve as a convenience.

Mind Blast (6) - A mental attack trying to destroy the brain cells of the victims. Damage: [{(W + L) / 6} + 1]d5.

A level 6 mindcrafter who has just gotten this power would do around 5d5 or 6d5 damage per blast for 18 power points. The damage is very poor and inefficient, so try to line up several enemies when using this power. Take advantage of the fact that mind blasts go through walls and doors when dealing with troublesome monsters. Against bosses, this power is simply too weak; don't bother using it.

Mental Shield (9) - A mental defense, which affects both defensive and protection values of the character. DV: + [(L + W) / 5], PV: + [(L +W) / 8]. Continuous power.

Useful for dealing with slightly out-of-depth monsters; costs too much PP to keep on all the time, and probably won't make a difference against really tough enemies. However, if you feel that it would make a difference, turn this power on

Mind Wave (12) - A mental attack similar to Mind Blast, with the difference that it affects all beings within a certain range.

Again, a mindcrafter should not get himself into a situation where this power would be useful, stick with mind blast.

Telekinetic Blast (15) - A projected force which might shatter doors and is able to damage beings physically. Damage: [(W / 5) + L]d3

About 20d3 damage for a mindcrafter who has just gotten this power. This is even more expensive and inefficient than mind blast. In addition, the damage dealt is affected by the target's PV. This power can be treated as a melee attack that never misses.

Eyes of the Mind (18) - A hypersense which allows the character to sense creatures and beings within a certain range.

This is essentially unlimited scrolls of monster detection. Use it on every new dungeon level as soon as you arrive, and nothing will catch you by surprise (except for undead and constructs, but they're usually not fatally dangerous). This power saves lives considering that the vast majority of deaths in ADOM occur because the PC got caught by surprise.

Greater Mental Blast (25) - A more advanced form of Mind Blast. Damage: [{(W + L) / 8} + 1]d9.

Mind blast with the numbers (including PP cost) scaled up by a factor of about 2. Still not powerful enough to deal with anything significant. Line up your enemies when using.

Greater Telekinetic Blast (30) - A powerful force ball causing a lot of physical damage to beings. It might even be powerful enough to shatter stone. Damage: [(W / 5) + L]d6

This power is actually not a force ball in the sense of ice and lightning balls, but a targeted attack on any single square within the PC's line of sight. This is the mindcrafter's best power; no other ability in the game can deal this much damage without costing extra energy points to use. The PP cost may be a bit too much when the PC first get it, but becomes better very quickly after a few more levels. Good for sniping off very annoying monsters (e.g. summoners) or dueling ones that are very powerful. You can also mine with the power if you have PP to spare.

Regeneration (35) - A defensive power which allows the Mindcrafter to heal his wounds. Continuous power.

Essentially converts PP into HP, but by that time the PC could probably equip an amulet and/or crown and/or bracer and/or artifact of regeneration to recover for free. However, if not, use this to regenerate, and then switch to a less PP-dependent style of fighting so you can keep your HP full.

Teleport Self (40) - A power allowing the travel to remote places within the blink of an eye.

Teleport is always useful; this power comes a bit late, but be glad that it's there.

Teleport Other (45) - Similar to teleport self, but can be used on other beings.

Imagine that you are a level 45 wizard, how often do you cast teleport on monsters? This gives an idea of how useful this power is.

Greater Mental Wave (50) - Similar to Greater Mental Blast, but affects all creatures within a certain range.

The damage is not outstanding, but not bad either. However, the radius is huge. If you can confidently stand in a big crowd of monsters, this power can be very useful. Also looks good on the list as sort of a token of achievement for reaching level 50.

Many monsters are immune to mindcraft. Insects (all insects, not just i's), grues, jellies, undead, constructs, vortexes, elementals, and rabid dogs are not affected by mind blasts or confusion blasts. Ghosts, in addition, are immune to telekinesis. Monsters that can pass through stone (e.g. stone snakes) are also unaffected by that power (probably a bug). Spellcasting enemies (e.g. black wizards) and magical eyes are very good at resisting "mental incursions" which is like the mindcraft equivalent of shrugging off bolts. Dark elves (lower case u's) have semi-immunity because they resist mental blasts very often. It is preferred that the PC has some other means of dealing with them. There are exceptions to the above when it comes to mindcraft immunity, but it's always better to assume that a monster is immune, and find out empirically that it isn't than the other way around.

Since mindcrafters are capable in so many areas, they really have no preference in terms of starsigns. All of them confer useful bonuses that will make life easier in certain areas:

Willpower starsigns

Tree

It's generally hard to change alignment, +5 to initial willpower.

The power of mindcraft is directly dependent on willpower, and +5 is certainly a good boost. However, it usually only translates into 1 extra damage die. On the other hand, mindcrafters need willpower for more than just mindcraft. If the PC is initially chaotic though, forget about learning Healing from Jharod.

Wolf

+3 to initial Perception, +3 to initial Willpower, food is more nutritious for you (by +10%).

The willpower bonus is not as large as tree, but the perception bonus can increase the PC's line of sight. Also, considering that a PC has to keep constantly satiated, 10% more nutritious food does add up over the course of the game.

Falcon

Very good at surviving in the wilderness, +2 to initial Willpower, +1 to initial Charisma, one free talent.

Still smaller willpower bonus, but with a very nice free talent on the side. This starsign also grants the PC with the Survival skill.

Learning/spellcasting starsigns

Cup

Requires 10% less experience points to advance in level, receives one free skill advance every two levels, learns spells more effectively (20% better than others), +2 to initial Learning.

PC's need on the order of 100 million experience points to get to level 50; and 10% of that would be millions of xp. +2 learning can result in even more skill increases on top of the skill increases this starsign already gives.

Wand

Lawful tendencies (it's harder to change), spells for neutral casters are 10% cheaper in power points, +2 to initial Charisma, starts out with lawful tendencies but gets +2 to Mana and 10% more power points if neutral initially.

More power points for neutral PCs is nice for mindcrafters. Lawful tendencies help initially chaotic PCs to change their alignment towards N to get Healing. Lawful PCs do not benefit much from this starsign.

Book

Lawful tendencies (it's harder to change), one free skill increase per level, increased chance to learn spells.

Since mindcrafters don't usually start out with good Le, the extra skill increase is very significant. The lawful tendency helps chaotic PCs more than lawful ones. The increased chance to learn spells means nothing because mindcrafters cannot learn spells.

Salamander

Fire magic is 20% cheaper in power points, +1 to initial Charisma, +3 to initial Mana, +20% to power points (always).

+20% to power points will be very helpful especially with the mindcrafter class power at level 18 and 40. The spellcasting bonuses are irrelevant.

Combat starsigns

Dragon

10% increased effects from Tactics settings, -3 to initial Willpower, +2 to initial Strength, +1 to initial Toughness, costs to increase weapon skills are reduced by 10%, combat magic is 10% cheaper in power points.

The extra St and To help immensely with early game survival, and I think it's worth the -3 to Wi. 10% increased effects from tactics settings work well with the Tactics skill.

Sword

Positive modifiers from Tactics settings are increased by 10%, costs to increase melee weapon skills are reduced by 20%, +1 to the initial Learning score.

The tactics bonus is better than Dragon because only positive ones are increased. Since mindcrafters rely on melee weapons quite a bit, this starsign can save the PC thousands of weapons skill marks.

Miscellaneous starsigns

Candle

Heals faster, the gods are more forgiving when asked for favors, one free talent.

Mindcrafters born under this starsign will not need the Healing skill; therefore they can choose either of the Terinyo quests. This can make life a lot easier later on. A free talent is also nice.

Unicorn

Harder to corrupt by Chaos effects, hard to change to a different alignment once lawful, +2 to initial Appearance.

Corruption resistance will give mindcrafters more time to build up their strength, and they may very well need it.

Raven

Harder to trick by deceptions, messengers will reach you faster, you are faster (+10 to speed), companions are more powerful, +2 to initial Perception.

+10 speed allows the PC to outrun pretty much all monsters early on, and as a mindcrafter, the need to run away from monsters will arise. +2 Pe is nice to have but is not likely to make any difference.

With regards to race, a mindcrafter's capabilities make any race workable, but there are preferences. The best race to pick in my experience is drakeling. It is possible to complete the game with acid spit alone. For mindcrafters, this fact is very often not a luxury but a necessity. Other than that, drakelings come with the Alertness and Food Preservation skills, which come in very useful. In addition, this race is quite tough. The only problem for them is overheating in the Tower of Eternal Flames; however, once the PC finds the means of hp recovery to overcome the problem, having near 300 speed is actually a very nice bonus.

All other races I find them equally preferable (more or less). They all come with certain strengths and weaknesses.

Orc, Dwarf

These two races are very well built and have very good early game survivability. Their good St will also make them effective melee fighters, orcs especially with the Find Weakness skill. Both races get the Mining skill and mindcrafters always have gemology. Therefore, orcs and dwarves can make very good use of gems. Dwarves, in addition, get Smithing, which can be very nice. On the downside, these two races have poor Dx, so training missile weapon skills is much more difficult. Low Ma and Wi of orcs will often mean a level 1 mindcrafter of that race does not have enough total PP to cast confusion blast. Dwarves don't suffer PP problems (as much), but this area is hardly their strength.

Hurthling, Gnome

Not as tough as orcs and dwarves, and not as dexterous as elves. What they have going for them is their nice skill sets and starting missile weapon skills. Hurthlings is the choice I would go with because they have Archery, Food Preservation, and Gardening. Gnomes start with crossbow training while hurthlings get proficiency with thrown rocks. Hurthlings win out here as well because rocks are much easier to come by than quarrels, not to mention the crossbow (however, crossbows have much greater potential in the long run). Their PP is not good, but not bad either; they should be well endowed enough to use some mindcraft once in a while.

High elf, Gray elf

These two races have good Dx, Le, and Ma. High Ma simply won't make a big enough difference until fairly late in the game. High Le is also quite useless because what will they be learning? Definitely not spells, and their only noteworthy skill is Dodge. Low St and To will make early game very awkward at best, and utterly unplayable at worst. The danger of getting killed instantly will be with these two races longer than any other. When playing a high elven or gray elven mindcrafter, you will have to be an archer a lot of the time.

Dark elf

Same, or rather more, problems with St and To than high and gray elves. I tend to keep re-rolling dark elven mindcrafters until I get one whose starting St will not incur melee weapon damage penalties (at least 9). They are also different from their elven cousins in many ways. They have good Wi rather than Le, and the Find Weakness skill, which is deadly combined with missile weapons due to their high Dx. The Alertness skill will also be very useful in the mid to late game. A mindcrafter of this race can be very powerful once he has gotten off the ground. The one thing he will want during mid game is hp, hp, and more hp. Once that's dealt with, everything else will fall into place.

Troll

A surprisingly good race for mindcrafters. Trolls have horrible Wi and Ma, but mindcrafters don't really need that early game or even mid game. They need to survive so they can develop their mindcraft powers, and trolls are perfect for that purpose. Trolls get Mining and Gemology, which is good for exploiting gems that will take care of their low Le. On the downside, increased food consumption is a universal drawback with trolls, but trollish mindcrafters get hit especially hard by their slow leveling, which much of their mindcraft powers depend on.

Human

In my experience, humans need a bit of luck. Their stats are evenly distributed, so they suffer no disadvantages in any area, or they suffer disadvantages in every area. They can whack a monster in melee and shoot them with arrows equally well. In terms of mindcraft (PP), humans are also decent. Food Preservation is the sole noteworthy skill of the human skill set. I find humans to be very item-dependent in the early game, so it is a good idea to keep spares rather than becoming drastically weaker if a key piece of equipment is destroyed.

Now our mindcrafter stands at the entrance of the Drakalor Chain. My first priorities would be equipment and the Healing skill. Mindcrafters start with very poor equipment. Regardless of race, they start with a quarterstaff, a [+0 +1] robe, a pair of sandals (usually [+0 +0]), a couple of scrolls, and a couple of wands. You would be lucky if the worn items are of slightly higher quality that gives an extra point of DV or PV.

For those races with high Dx, they should find some missile weapons ASAP. Rocks serve as a good quick fix before a more permanent replacement is found. If none turn up, let goblin rockthrowers throw them at you. At this stage, I would aim for leather armor, medium or wooden shield (small is not worth it), metal cap, metal girdle, and a pair of gauntlets. You would be able to scrape together at least 6 PV from these, which is decent protection in the early game. While in Terinyo, a mindcrafter simply has to open up VD so he can get Healing, as you definitely do not want to spend 30 minutes recovering from a battle with a goblin. I suggest gathering the equipment mentioned above on or around VD4. Just wander around a bit and kill monsters. If anything bad happens, you can still retreat to the healer. If the situation is really dire, berserking may be a good option since the PC will probably get hit anyways, so might as well increase the chances of killing the monster before it kills you.

Choosing a melee weapon

Mindcrafters need melee weapons to deal damage, because it is very inefficient to use mindcraft against everything, not to mention impossible. Practicing with one weapon category from the beginning is a very good thing to do because it will allow the PC to accumulate some very nice weapon skill bonuses when the serious fighting starts in the mid to late game. Spears are my melee weapon of choice, because they are one-handed and give good DV bonuses. If you want to switch to something that packs more punch later on, halberds remain an option. Flails are also good for their above average base damage and a guaranteed artifact mace later on. Swords are viable in that many good artifact ones exist, and swords of sharpness are also very nice. The Sword of Nonnak, while having good bonuses, simply doesn't cut it for fighting. In the two handed weapon category there is the eternium two-handed sword, whose damage output put many artifacts to shame. However, before the PC finds one of those, there aren't any good two handed weapons to practice with. Practicing with other weapon categories is somewhat of a gamble, because no outstanding weapons of those categories are guaranteed to appear.

Choosing missile weapons

Mindcrafters receive positive modifiers to their missile attacks essentially from three sources: weapon skills, Dx bonus, and the bonuses on the weapon itself. From this fact, it is obvious that means of ranged attack not requiring a weapon (thrown rocks, thrown daggers, scurgari, etc) are not worth using, because the bonus from weapons is always limited to 0. Therefore, never throw a rock if you find a sling, or just ditch rocks altogether as soon as you find a bow or crossbow. The most important thing with missile weapons is remembering to practice. Don't empty tension rooms in melee, step back and shoot arrows at the monsters. Hurthlings have a very nice advantage here: they have the Archery skill, which also allows them to choose the Eagle Eye talent. This means that they can get an extra (+11 +8) with the skill maxed out and the appropriate talents. One note about hand crossbows: I have always found them to be a joke. Tiny quarrels are very difficult to find, and they break more than any other missile weapon, so never use them.

Mindcrafters usually don't start out with good Le, so they don't have a lot of skill increases to work with during the early levels. Concentration is obviously a skill that should be improved. In the case where the PC gets 3 increases, I would put the remaining two into First Aid and Herbalism, even though it may not raise the skill values by a lot. First Aid, make no mistake about it, save lives. You certainly don't want to wait until you get poisoned by several pit vipers to realize that a skill value of 20 is not quite enough. Herbalism will allow the PC to identify herbs upon picking (chance improves with skill value) and pick more herbs from a single bush. Herbs will play a very important for mindcrafters, especially drakeling ones.

As the PC levels up relatively quickly in the beginning, they get a good number of talents. I am not very fond of climbing talent trees, because it's just not worth the effort to get some completely useless talents in order to get another one that is slightly less useless. For mindcrafters, I would go with the archery (especially with hurthlings) and speed talents, because these have tangible, immediate effects, and they don't become obsolete in the long run. Mindcrafters will need missile weapons, but the class doesn't come with any features to help in that area. The various bonuses scraped together from sources such as talents may very well push a mindcrafter's missile damage output from marginal to significant. With regards to speed, +9 from the talents is a lot. In the later game, some monsters have very nasty attacks, and the last thing you want to do when fighting them is to give them free turns by not being fast enough.

After obtaining Healing, I would go to the ID to further train up the PC. This is desirable (or even necessary) because mindcrafter is not exactly a class that soars off the ground after a few levels. The Puppy Cave is probably still off limits at this time. The ID provides a safe environment to practice melee weapon, missile weapon, and shield skills. If the PC wanders the ID for a while, a lot of useful magical items can be generated. The Treasure Hunter talent will be helpful here. Will a mindcrafter need these items later on? Absolutely. Since it is impossible for mindcrafters to learn spells, scrolls and wands are the only means of using magic for them.

Many people find stair-hopping in the ID to be a questionable tactic and give it the not-so-flattering name of "scumming". I don't find it so, mainly because if a PC doesn't take the time to equip himself early on, he will have to rely more on luck later to overcome the various challenges he will face. If that luck doesn't come, it could lead to some very awkward situations.

Once the PC has some experience under his belt, he can start exploring a bit to finish off the Terinyo quests and visit other places of interest in the northeast section of the map. At this point in time, herbs become a priority, especially the stat-increasing ones. When you discover any level to contain herbs, explore it quickly and get any useful herbs into stable formations, or in the case of that being impossible, pick as many herbs as possible before the bush disappears. Equip invisibility items (ring, cloak) or drink a potion to avoid monster harassment when that is an issue.

At some point in time, the PC will have to deal with boss monsters. Mindcrafters have quite a bit of difficulty doing that during the earlier levels. It does get easier at higher levels, but never let your guard down. There are many ways to kill powerful monsters, but it is usually a good idea to throw everything you have at the enemy. If that doesn't work, run away and come back later.

There are some tactics that are beneficial regardless of the situation. For example, confusing the enemy before engaging them is always a good idea, and a mindcrafter is better than any other class in doing that. Paralyzing, blinding, and stunning are other means of disabling your opponent. Darkness may be helpful depending on whether or not the monster in question sees in the dark. Keep in mind that some monsters are VERY resistant to certain forms of attacks, and disabling bosses in general takes a good number of tries.

The most reliable way I know of to kill bosses is the drakeling acid spit. I don't think any monster that the PC needs to kill to finish the game has acid resistance. This means of offense is also as guaranteed as they come: simply press "j" when choosing your race. As good as it is, I would not recommend purposefully corrupting a non-drakeling PC to gain the acid spit. On the downside, the acid attack is reduced by PV, so if your opponent has very high PV, it won't work.

The best way to deal with bosses is, of course, missile weapons. If the PC manages to find the right slaying ammo, then the battle is as good as won. However, if you don't, as it is most often the case, use normal ammunition. Unless the monster has ridiculous DV or PV, it will work, provided that the PC's Dx and missile weapons skills are at a reasonable level. Even so, killing a boss this way will take quite a number of hits, so be sure to have enough ammunition and the means of hp recovery to survive a possibly very drawn-out battle.

Melee is obviously another way of fighting bosses if the PC has enough weapon skills and a decent weapon. However, with the really tough enemies, a way to cut through the opponent's PV becomes necessary. This can be done with weapons of penetration, items that enhances the PC's chance to get critical hits, or just brute force. For critical hits, the Cat Lord can certainly help out here. For that reason, don't kill any cats. With confusion blast and eyes of the mind, a mindcrafter really has no excuse.

When fighting anything that may pose a threat, the benefits of confusion blast cannot be overemphasized. In many cases grasping at the minds of bosses will corrupt the PC, but it's well worth it. However, monsters that can teleport will start doing so haphazardly when confused, and monsters that can pass through stone will take quite a while to dig out again if it wanders into the wrong places. This is not to say don't confuse these kinds of monsters, but be prepared for complications.

Tough enemies can also be taken down with wands, but it would require a lot of wands/charges to rely purely on them. What I usually do is use wands as a finisher. Fireballs are particularly good since they cannot be shrugged off. Get a monster to critically wounded, then a couple of blasts from wands should finish it off. This will help avert situations where a monster panics to the opposite side of the dungeon level (usually into a swarm of their minions too) and fully regenerates before appearing again.

Whenever you face a seemingly insurmountable obstacle with a mindcrafter, remember that it is natural for this class to encounter many challenges that are too tough for the PC's level. If at all possible, simply bypass it. The most important thing to remember is to never be discouraged, and have faith in your PC, as the mind has the power to triumph over anything.

The Guide to Being a Monk by Molach

2008-05-28T15:42:00.004+02:00

Though I fear the sudden burst of activity will shock the less bold-hearted of our readers, I am happy to present to you yet another guide. Molach is another regular poster on both the ADOM Hall of Fame forums and now the official adom.de forums as well. His guide provides a welcome relief from the wordiness I have displayed in three guides I wrote before!

THE GUIDE to Being a Monk by Molach

List of contents:
I. Introduction

II. Manual Information
a. The manual
b. Undocumented features
c. Understanding the manual
Part 1 - The monk’s special martial powers
Part 2 - The skillset
Part 3 - The class powers

III.Starting up the monk
a. Starting equipment
b. Starsigns
c. Races
d. Talents
e. Getting equipped

IV. How to play the monk
a. Playing styles
Part 1 - The mean machine
Part 2 - The Ninja
Part 3 - The Martial artist
Part 4 - The Hermit
b. 2 sample walkthroughs
c. Defeating special opponents

I. Introduction
”a martial artist, an almost inhuman fighting machine trained to fight without weapons or armor. The monk can use them, but, at higher levels particularly, often does better without.” (Bards' tale manual)

“Thirst for existence, O monks, has a specific condition, it is nourished by something, it also does not go without support. And what is that nourishment? It is ignorance experience levels!” (Buddha, with author’s twist at the end)

II. Manual Information.
a. The manual.
Monks are able martial artists striving to achieve perfect mastery of body, mind and spirit. They are experts at fighting unarmed, very good at dodging attacks and strong of will. Monks need to be unencumbered to be able to use their special martial art powers. Monks take vows of poverty at their initiation to prevent distraction by worldly means.

Monks are trained in the following skills: Alertness, athletics, concentration, dodge, find weakness, healing, literacy, and stealth.

The further monks advance, the more they hone their movement skills and unarmed combat powers. At level 6 monks learn to use a circular kick with which they can hit every opponent in the vicinity (but also all friends, so be careful). Using this kick costs 2500 energy points. At level 12 a normal move costs them but 800 energy points, at level 18 but 600 energy points. At level 25 monks become able to change positions with hostile opponents. At level 32 they can score instant kills in melee combat against up to human-sized creatures. At level 40 they can do so against humanoids of any size. At level 50 they have become so attached to the flow of the universe that they actually are able to resist Chaos to a certain limit - Chaos effects are lowered by 10%.

b. Undocumented features.
* The monk can kick down walls to at level 13. This ability will produce rocks as well as ore and gems if you have gemology skill.
* The monk does not receive true-berserking bonus when fighting barehanded.

c. Understanding the manual.
Part 1 - The monks special martial power:
Monks gain a bonus to barehanded combat. At the start they have a barehanded attack doing 1d9 damage, compared to 1d3 for other classes except beastfighter. Each level the max damage will increase with one, and each 4 levels you will get a +1 bonus to damage. First +1 bonus happens at level 4. There is a + to hit bonus too, it comes out to roughly +2 each level. In addition to there is the usual bonus from equipment, strength and weapon skill (unarmed combat)
Here are some typical values you might expect from a monk character at certain key levels in the game. The estimates put below are very conservative, it should not be hard to beat these values and do more damage. Also you will hit criticals from time to time leading over time to a higher average (AVG) damage. But this is also not considered.

Level 1. No bonus:
1d9 damage, AVG damage will be 5.

Level 10. No equipment bonus, +3 from skill (level 8-9), +2 from strength.
1d18 + 7 damage, AVG damage will be 16,5.

Level 20. +6 from equipment, +6 from skill (level 11-12), +4 from strength.
1d28 +21 damage, AVG damage will be 35,5.

Level 50. +12 from equipment, +10 from skill (level 14), +20 from strength.
1d58 +54 damage, AVG damage will be 83,5.

Monks also receive a bonus to DV equal to 2/3 per level, for an increase of +33 to DV at level 50.

Burdened status will eliminate both of these boni, as will wearing a shield.
Wearing «heavy» armor will remove the DV bonus. To be precise, the allowed armors are: Robe, Black robe, Shirt of the Saints, Robes of Resistance, Elven Chain Mail, Clean Robe, Clothes.
Notice the absence of «Ancient mummy wrappings» in the list even though it weighs the same as a robe. Also, strangely, “ugly clothes” are not tolerated. For those who dabble in smithing, note that the only smithable armor is the elven chain mail, made from mithril.

Note that weapons will NOT take away the DV bonus. Monks, unlike beastfighters, receive no penalties from using weapons. In fact, this means that using two-handed weapons actually can be very worthwhile, as the DV-bonus will negate the penalty of not using a shield.

Finally, as a light fighter, the monk receives +1 speed per two levels gained. This bonus will stay even if character wields weapons, wears armor, or becomes burdened.

Part 2 - The skillset
In my opinion, the monks have the best skillset of all classes in ADOM. Great for melee and magic, and containing 3 skills I have used a wish on with other characters. For detailed information about skills, see the ADOM guidebook. I will only comment on what makes these good for monks.

Alertness - Avoiding damage is good for low-armored charcters. DV bonus helps along with other means to making the character unhittable at higher levels.
Athletics - Extra speed along with class powers means that all monsters can be outrun. Also good for melee charaters attack speed, and for getting the crucial STR-increases on initially-weak monks faster.
Concentration - Allows magic to be a serious playing-style for any monk, even at low levels.
Dodge - Good for all characters, and like alertness helps the monk evade hits due to the extra DV bonus.
Find weakness - Lacking in the slaying department, unarmed monks have use for the double-damage hits to damage certain tough opponents.
Healing - self explanatory, if monks did not have this it would have made the early game a bit harder
Literacy - available in the game, having this at start allows monks to start training to become a spellcaster right away.
Stealth - available in the game, helps avoiding too-tough-to-handle early-game monsters.

Part 3 - The class powers.

Level 6 - circular kick. For 2500 energy points, attack all NPC around you with a kick attack.
Rating: Very Bad.
Discussion: This should almost never be used.
Firstly, the best way to play ADOM is not getting surrounded. Fight monsters one at a time, if you become surrounded you should move towards a hallway, or a corridor. While this attack may seem to have merit in clearing the area around you, it really is dangerous to use. Any monsters not killed in the attack will have 1-2 free rounds in which to hit you afterwards. In this time other monsters will have time to close in and mabye even attack. Summoners will have time to summon.
Secondly, while waiting out the time of your action you may not heal yourself like you could have if you had performed a low-cost attack instead.
Thirdly, your kick attack is a bit weaker than barehanded hit. Monks receive a bonus to kicking, but a typical 8th level character of mine had 1d16+9 on unarmed melee attack, but 1d14+7 on kick. It appears that boni from unarmed weapon combat skill is not factored in. This may well be a bug, since you gain melee marks from using the ability.
Fourth point is that normal attacks are pretty fast. 2500 energy equals 2,5 attacks at weapon skill 0. If you have unarmed combat skill level 8 or higher, this means you can take 3 attacks instead of the kick, at weapons skill 15 4 attacks. So normally you have to be surrounded by more than 3 creatures for the ability to be cost-effective at all. This is not a position one should find oneself in.
This really is a novelty skill, used if you are surrounded by harmless creatures. But I would rather be heading towards a corridor still, to mow down the enemies in one direction.
One possible positive use for the ability would be standing in the middle of low-level summons like spiders, in order to gain weapon skill marks. But again, why not just attack them normally....

Level 12/18 - normal movement costs 800/600 energy points.
Rating: Excellent.
Discussion: There is no argument that fast movement is very powerful and always useful for any character. For a monk, this ability is useful because it makes wearing seven league boots less important, as you will outrun anything anyway. Instead wear heavily smithed boots for DV/PV (remember you have body-armor restriction) or even boots of speed (in order to attack faster).

Level 25 - can switch places with hostile monsters.
Rating: Very good.
A potential life-saver, this ability can let you escape difficult situations, and also shuffle your way to take out a nasty summoner in the middle of a monster pack. On the other side, when you are level 25 your monks should be pretty tough (even naked) so you could easily go a whole game without ever using this ability.

Level 32/40 - can score instant kills against humanoids, man-sized and then every sized.
Rating: Mediocre.
Discussion: One of the coolest skills in the game, it is, sadly, nothing one can rely on. A little informal testing indicated that it would activate in about 1 in 30 hits against man-sized humanoids. At character level 32, there are few man-sized humanoids that can survive a hit anyway. At level 40 the power extends giants and demons, but again informal testing against balors made the activation about 1 in 100. Not something to rely on. It does give a nice way to off Emperor Moloch, and if it can work against AnRoR DrAkOn that would be fun.

Level 50 - chaos effects are reduced 10%
Rating: Poor.
Discussion: Avoiding corruption is very important in this game, but the reason for the low grade is firstly that at level 50 game is almost over anyway, and secondly that 10% is not a whole lot at all. It will help against corrupting hits from monsters, and from using elemental orbs, but it may have no effect on background corrution at all, as this occurs gradually over time and the 10% reduction gets lost when rounding. Unless mabye you are on Emperor moloch level or ChAoS plane.

III. Starting up the monk.

a. Starting equipment
A monk always starts out with a robe. Trollish have extra food and start with a heavy club equipped, the other races have a quarterstaff in inventory. Many races have sandals. Some may have tools. Robe and sandals can have +DV or +PV modifiers, but base is [0,+1] robe and [0,0] sandals. One lucky character I had started with [+3,+2]robe and [0,+2] sandals.

b. Starsigns
As monks are passable magicians in addition to being great fighters, both «brain» and «brawn» type starsigns are fine. Some starsigns that work particularly well with monk class:
Dragon: +strength is good for avoiding burden status.
Cup: Enhances the monk's already decent magic ability, also makes levelling faster which makes the level-related abilities come sooner.
Candle: Speedy healing combined with monk's bonus to movement equals being hard to kill.

c. Races
Races have effect on starting equipment, starting attributes, starting skillset, experience table and certain other factors. Skills listed are those not covered by monk class, doubly-trained skills are not listed. Lifespan I consider to be generic to any class and is not discussed. I will also not discuss Ap and Ch stats as I consider them mostly useless, and not connected to the monk class in any way.

Human:
Race skills: swimming and food preservation.
Starting attributes: Very average.
Level up: Fast

Discussion: Food preservation is good for all races, mabye somewhat less since monks have less food consumption. Swimming means that you could go for an early dive into the unremarkable dungeon without having to turn back when faced with a river. Fast levelup is extra good as a monk character.

Troll:
Skills: Gemology, mining, food preservation and bridge building.
Starting attributes: High strength and toughness. Low everything else, especially learning and mana.
Level up: Slowest by far.

Discussion: Starting attributes leads itself to playing the monk as a melee fighter. Highest strength means burden levels will be little problem, and high toughness will give some +PV to make the easy game easy. Mining skill is useless as you can kick walls, but gemology means that you can kick walls for unlimited gems once you reach level 13, for example in the ID. This will take care of any money problem as well as giving gems like health, fire and of knowledge. These crystals of knowledge will likewise take care of problems with low learning. Food preservation is somewhat better for trolls as they have higher food consumption. A troll monk is about as hungry as a regular adventurer.
The big drawback is the terrible experience tables, bad for a monk who wants to be as high level as possible.

High Elf/Grey Elf
Skills: None
Starting attributes: Lower St and To, higher Ma and Le.
Level up: Normal

Discussion: Potentially a mighty character, elves start out weak and must be careful in the beginning game. If you find spellbooks you can probably read them and cast spells from the moment you find them.

Dark Elf
Skills: None
Starting attributes: Like other elves
Level up: Normal

Discussion: Pretty much same as high/grey elves. Dark elves are liked for their excellent skillset, but this is wasted on monks who cover the skills already. Bad shop prices in dwarftown is about as bad for monks as anyone else - you are not able to sell SI for as much money, which means slower precrowns and less gold to buy stats from Garth. Buying items is never much of a problem.

Dwarf
Skills: Metallurgy, Mining, Smithing, Detect traps.
Starting attributes: Higher St and To, lower Le and Ma.
Level up: Slow

Discussion: Smithing and detect traps are available in the game, but will save the character the gold to buy them. Detect traps is one of the most important skills in the game and helps with early-game survival. Metallurgy is useless as you can test most items by attempting to smith on them if you do not know what they are made of. Mining is useless for a monk. Dwarves can get the mithril skin talent, which will make up for lack of PV that can come from not using shield and heavy armor.

Gnome
Skills: Gemology, Mining, Pick pockets, Ventriloquism
Starting attributes: Lower St, Higher mana.
Level up: Fast

Discussion: Gemology means that you can kick walls for unlimited gems once you reach level 13, for example in the ID. This will take care of any money problem as well as giving important gems of health, power, fire and knowledge. Knowledge in particular are good, as they allow Gnomes to become excellent magic-users once they find some books. Ventriloquism combined with high running speed will also make the gnome monk safer. Fast level up is nice, and the free talent will give some flexibility to the early game, making it easier. A very solid choice for monk, if only a little weak in the very early game.

d. Talents
Everyone has certain favourite talents. I will discuss some that relate directly to the monk class. In my opinion, of course.

”Carrying talents”: Porter - Master Packager - Beast of Burden
These are excellent talents for monks, because of burdened status giving penalties. 72% extra carrying capacity is simply very useful, and I have yet to play a monk who did not get these talents at one point.

PV talents: (Hardy) - Tough skin - Iron skin - Steel skin - (Mithril skin)
These are good for monks, as they make up for not having PV from shield and heavy armor. They will make early game manageable, especially for the frail races.

Money-giving talents:
Useless, as you have no starting gold.

Shield talents:
Not necessarily useless, as Monks can be played with weapons. Shields will eliminate the nifty martial arts damage bonus, so you have to be wielding a one-handed weapon to use shields. You will of course also lose the DV-bonus, but the shield bonus should more than compensate for this. If you plan on fighting like any regular character, these talents are as strong as usually.

Heir:
Terrible. The heir gift is Padded clean robe of defense. That means a [+4,+1] (ap+2) robe which grants stun resistance. This is not something anyone should waste 3 talents on, especially as it is susceptible to destruction from burning and exploding runes.

e. Getting equipped

Beginning game (level 1-12):
As a fresh monk you will face an important question: To fight barehanded or use a weapon. Remember that Monks are not penalized for weapon use like Beastfighters are. Deciding to use a weapon actually has several advantages: All weapon skills give better bonuses than barehanded fighting, and you can use a shield for DV and PV if you picked a one-handed weapon like you should. More importantly, you can become burdened without severe penalty to your attack and damage. This is important for instance if you decide to dive down through the UD to HMV, as you can carry that bag of loot to sell at the shop. At the very start your martial art bonus is not too high, as your level will be too low. However, by using a weapon you lose training in barehanded combat. Also, if you happen to wield a cursed weapon it may not be trivial to remove it in the very beginning.

My advice to the starting monk is to pick up at least some weapons for emergency use. If you suddenly get burdened, this will allow you to deal decent damage even if your unarmed fighting suddenly dropped to a pathetic level. And if you find a decent shield early on, you would probably want to wield a weapon and wear the shield. This will really help you survive the harsh early game. You will only lose some unarmed melee marks, as you can throw off the weapon and the shield anytime you want.

As for armor, your special DV bonus from light armor will be very low, and you will probably be better off with the typical PV armor most characters seek. When you get to higher levels, factor in the hidden DV bonus when comparing armor. If you are, for example, level 9, compare a robe [0,+1] to a studded leather armor [-1,+3]. If you put on the robe you get an additional 2/3*9=6 DV. Which would you then rather have, a [+6,+1] or a [-1,+3] armor? That would probably depend on your other equipment, if your "basic" PV is covered through other equipment then high DV is probably better. Again, burdened status will remove the bonus, so maybe you should hang on to the PV one…just in case.

In the beginning game, as usual, hoard any scrolls and potions till you can identify them. Be on the lookout for girdles, footwear, headwear and gauntlets, as you can wear these freely and still have all monkish benefits. Girdles of carrying (thick girdle) are also very useful to you, just be wary of putting on a cursed one. Any books you find should be saved until you have 100 literacy and concentration, and personally I would probably save them until I had over 20 learning, which should be in the mid-game.

Mid-Late game (level 13-50).
Having survived the harsh early years, this is where the monk starts to shine. You will gather several artifacts, and will enjoy watching your damage output rise every level. DV from light armor is almost always too good to pass up, unless you found something really nice like eternium plate or some dragon scale armor. The mid-game is where you have plenty of time to gather equipment which will help you win. There is no clear distinction between mid and late game, because after you have all the stuff, you can just knock off the Ancient Chaos Wyrm, and then complete the game in what you wear, letting levelups increase your damage and DV.

I strongly advise that you employ smithing. As a monk you have access to unlimited ore, just by kicking in walls. Getting a hammer is trivial, getting an anvil can be done by cutting a deal with the greater demon, having it slay the dwarven smith. Just remember to buy the smithing skill first.

Some items to be on the watch for:
Body armor: If you find or get crowned with any of the monk artifact armors (shirt of the saints, robes of resistance) they will probably serve you well enough. For the not-so-lucky monks there exists a very decent alternative: Elven chain mail. This armor starts out at [0,+5], but is fully smithable and made from mithril. Added to this, it only weighs 10s. Perfect for any monk. You might find one in darkforge if none drop randomly for you. Eternium plate mails or dragon scale armor have a big enough PV bonus that they are desirable for all but very high-leveled monks.

Handwear: Elemental gauntlets are not very hard to get, and good hand wear for the +3 PV and resistances. If you have resistances covered elsewhere, some smithed-up gauntlets (of strength, preferably) could be better.

Neckwear: The Ankh adds [+2,+2], and luck too. Carry other amulets for use in certain situations, as always. Artifact amulet is of course your dream.

Girdle, Boots, Helmet: Get high-metal versions of these. If you smith like you should, is it a good idea to get different types of metal for each. Eternium girdle, adamantium cap and mithril boots, for example. It doesn't matter much, they all resist fire and they can be smithed up as high as you want them to be. You may of course have some seven league boots, but they might not be the best choice in the tower of fire where you are going. Also, monks already get good movement speed from class powers, and the boots do not add attack speed. Boots of speed, however, do.

Bracers: My recent favorite is bracers of speed. They add a nice little speed boost, and they are made of iron and can be smithed up. As a monk, you hit hard, and they might help you use hit and run tactics, or get in two quick fight-finishing strikes before your opponent can react. Waterproofing them with blessed oil of rust removal is useful. Bracers of toughness add that important attribute, and they can be improved with scrolls of defense/protection. Bracers of War is every monk's wet dream.

Rings: A blessed ring of damage on your right finger is, indeed, a blessing. Monks have just one damage die, which can lead to low minimum damage even at high levels. Weapon skill, strength bonus and rings of damage all push this lower limit upwards. For other ring finger good choices are really what is good for any class. With the monks' low food consumption they might get away with wearing a ring of invisibility all the time. Ultimate rings are of course ring of immunity and the ring of the master cat.

Cloak: You can wear them all without penalty. Invisibility might be easier to sustain than with other classes, and PV might be better than DV since you already get so much DV, but that is depending on your level and your other equipment.

Missile weapons: Bows might be better, if only for the high weight of crossbows. But I would still at least keep and stash away both kinds of missiles and launchers, hoping for rare slaying ammo. Humanoid and dragon slaying are your most important kinds of ammo. However after level 13 you have a source of unlimited sling ammo or thrown rocks, so it might not be too bad an idea to train with that either, for the early middle game.

Tool: The first orb you find goes here, and most melee monks will put the fire orb as soon as possible, unless they already have Herculean strength. Before or after you have access to orbs, a lit torch will improve your sight-radius.

IV How to play the monk
a. Playing style
Part 1. - The Mean Machine
“mean is the "standard" average”
-wikipedia

The Mean Machine - mean as in “average”, is my name for playing your monk without using his special abilities, like you would any other class. This is done by picking up a weapon, and then using a shield. Staying in burdened status will also do the job.

This is a perfectly reasonable playing style. You get the fine monk skills, the reduced food consumption, and the reduced movement at level 12 and 18, the critical hit class-powers and the increase in speed. Every monk might use this style from time to time, in the early game, when suddenly becoming burdened or when finding a great one-handed weapon. If I find executor I *will* become the Mean Machine unless sworn to play as a true hand-to-hand monk.

Part 2. - The Ninja
"Sword and mind must be united. Technique by itself is insufficient, and spirit alone is not enough."
- Yamada Jirokichi

This playing style is a cross between regular weapon-using character and the martial artist. By not using a shield or heavy armor, you retain your great boost to DV. At the same time you can use any weapon or combination of weapons with deadly efficiency. Other characters will usually have a very low DV when wielding a two-handed weapon, but the Ninja does not. Carry with you a wide array of weapons, to dispose of your various foes with maximum efficiency. Two-handed wielding is generally not recommended, but you can do it just fine playing as a ninja. Avoid getting burdened by having great strength or using the strength of atlas spell. Or both. Again, advantages are your skillset, class-powers and increased speed.

Part 3. - The Martial Artist
"A one sided martial artist is a blind martial artist."
-unknown

The Martial Artist is probably the most traditional fighting style for a monk. Unarmed attacks will be used throughout the game. You may use light armor for DV boost or heavy for protection and other benefits. Your focus on barehanded attacks only means that you quickly gain weapon marks. This is a character for people who do not trust the RNG (random number generator) as they are not relying on lucky equipment finds. You can fight barehanded and naked and still be king.

There are some opponents that may cause grievance to a pure weaponless fighter. Ancient stone beast is a tough nut to crack, with its heavy armor. You can still rely on raw damage to bring him down, or use construct slaying ammo. Emperor moloch is another juggernaut, demon or humanoid slaying ammo will do the job. Another way to bring him down comes if you are over level 40. You can keep hitting him in melee until you get an insta-killing hit. Not something to rely on as you could wait a long time, but extremely satisfying when it finally happens. The ElDeR ChAoS god can be melee'd, but when he dies you must be wielding a certain trident, otherwise something bad might happen. Use slaying ammo to finish him off if you for some reason choose not to ever use a weapon in melee. Easier solution to all these examples are of course to use a penetrating weapon (phase dagger or other) when attacking high-PV monsters, and of course to wield the certain trident once you get it.

Part 4. - The Hermit
“The universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.”
- Eden Phillpott

While all monks can use magic for adventuring support or even as a backup attack, the hermit will attempt to use magic as a wizard does. This is not to mean as main attack, but rather as the preferred way to take down problematic encounters. Even wizards kill most of their enemies in melee, but when faced with a greater undead vault, they will certainly use their high-powered magical abilities. This is what the hermit is about, when the going gets tough, the magic starts flying.

To become a successful hermit, one must realize one’s limitations. I will point these out by comparing to the wizard class.
A wizard will start the game with an offensive spellbook. Hermit will not.
A wizard has 100 starting literacy, hermits do not. A wizard learns spells easier than an otherwise identical hermit. Literacy skill, learning score, concentration skill as well as class matters. A wizard gets reductions on spell cost with level. Wizards gain spell marks quicker than any hermit.
Also, wizards find a lot more spellbooks than a hermit.

So you will never be as good as a wizard. But there are ways to become mighty in the arts. First, choose a race with decent magic potential. Any elf will do, or try a gnome. There is also some starsigns that are more magical than others. Then, realize that you will not be using magic for a while. Thirdly, while fighting as any other monk through your early levels, build up your literacy and concentration skill. Literacy can be trained by getting the scrolls from SMC. One will vanish if you use it outside that area, but the scribbled scroll you can read over and over. It will seem to be empty, but you will train your skill. Concentration is not that easy, you pick it up as you level up. Zapping wands of wonder will take away PP, making it easier to train the skill. Next, get good magical talents. Book learner talents, charged talent, maybe strong magic/healing. If you are fortunate enough to find an early book, resist the temptation to read it too soon. 100 literacy, good concentration and high learning are all essential. You have a limited supply of books, so take care of the ones you find. It is best to ID the books before you read them, and save the tough books for later. You may want to start reading and casting non-vital non-offensive spells right away, to build up concentration skill and mana stat. Bless important books to maximize yield. Elves have good learning, and if you started playing a gnome, then you of course build learning by kicking walls after level 13. Your gemology skill will sometimes let you find gems in the walls, higher skill means more gems. Bless and use crystals of knowledge and your learning will rise above 20 fast enough. If you are not shy about using sickness/starvation to train stats, it is not hard to get it to 40.

The main problem is finding enough spellbooks. If you do not care to spend long hours scumming for items (walking around the ID, killing endless gremlins) then you should plan on visiting the Rift and entering the hidden library. This can not be done before you reach level 20, but that may be the time it takes to prepare for your spell-casting days. The library usually has dangerous monsters, so having emergency teleportation and/or healing is recommended.

b. Sample walkthroughs
A traditional start:
Started up a random race monk. Grey elf. Potentially great, but slow at start, so I decide to take it pretty slow. Start with 3 talents, but unable to select “hardy” for defense. Go with long stride, porter and alert. Go to the village and get quests, then village dungeon. Quicly get level 2, but have to retreat and heal up from time to time. At level 4 I have to use a prayer. Still, I can run whenever I want, due to long stride and + speed from levelup. Not much, but enough. I have to be very careful in combat, with 7 To. I try not to become satiated, as that kills my speed advantage. I do pretty good damage now, but am very weak in return.

A look at the character: Level 5 now. 1d13+3 damage dealt. At normal tactics, no DV from eq I have 16 DV. Speed is +3, but I stupidly got satiated, and due to monks low metabolism I have waited a long while for it to drop back to normal. I have picked up some rocks and am busy trying to improve that skill.

Finding a studded leather armor [-1,+3] gives us a choice. To wear or not. This very weak character will wear it, giving up +3 DV for +2PV, but it is close to a draw. If it is cursed we might not be able to remove it for a while, even if we would like to because our level-up DV is better. Also, it is heavy at 250 s, taking up precious carrying capacity.

No wonder, I quickly am faced with the question whether to become burdened or not. I decide to go ahead, because I just lost the DV bonus anyway (the armor was, of course, cursed), and with 13 strength I would like to train it by walking around carrying a heavy load. Also, a nice orc scorcher donated a crude spear I want to start using. My barehanded attack skill is only 2, no extra damage, so I would end up doing 1d3+0 if I attack barehanded while burdened. Guess I can do it against weak enemies to train barehanded, but on the other hand I see many uses of training polearms too. If the spear had been cursed I would be stuck with it, but that would not be a crisis. Holy water will become available, and the spear will be good enough for a fair while.

I enter D:7. And my advice at this point is to just enter the level to generate the druid, and come back after you have a few more levels. Level 6, 4PV, still weak attack. Come back at level 9-10 and everything will be better, weapons skill, speed, martial damage. I therefore decide to set out to destroy the evil druid and (hopefully) die, proving my point.

And true to plan - “Trad. L7 gray elven monk (M). 5766 xps. 4157 turns. He was killed by a cave bear in a sinister dungeon on level 7.” Don’t make this mistake, enter D:7, leave and grow a little stronger. I would recommend CoC, actually. Go down to arena, maybe a bit further, pick up lightweight food (you only need half as much) and pray for some early herbs. If so, stabilize the herbs, go back and finish the druid, and use your new-gained herbalism to reap the rewards.

Next try - fast & furious approach.
Started up a drakeling monk. 18 St and 17 To, a bit disappointing. Only one talent so I take long stride. Went immediately to SMC. Got to level 3, found downstairs. I got hurt a fair bit, but had prayers in reserve. Decided not to use spit, to prove that this can be done with any (somewhat strong) race.

I then have to bite back those words - a herd of blink dogs appear. They fall to acid spit, drop a corpse. I think a troll monk could have taken them, but this guy would have died horribly without the spit.

At level 5, I see that I can train athletics to 72. I go for it even if it wastes some training, knowing that it will give +1 speed now. Remember the breakpoints, 70, 75, 80, 85 etc gives +1 each, 100 gives +2.

Okay, the character died too. I got him sick by carelessness, and then he swam a river to encounter summoned spiders. Might have fought his way out, but I have a guide to write here! Monks have excellent survival skills for this kind of early rush, especially the drakeling. A trip through the UD will typically yield vaults, shops and herbs. Speed-playing the monk is a viable tactic, and killing high-risk monsters quickly will boost your level giving you more killing power.

c. Defeating special opponents
Monsters not mentioned here are not worth mentioning, either because they are too easy, or they are killed with stock-tactics and no special monk skills apply, or I forgot them.

Keriax, the Black Druid, is often the first special enemy encountered. The problem with him is that his monster level will be connected to your character’s level. Monks have no special attacks at the start, and their ability comes very much from character level. If you wait to be powerful, he will be more powerful too. So, either be a strong fighter race, or have luck finding stuff you can use against him (wands, spells) or use the simple but effective tactic of entering his level early, leave, and come back when you are stronger. Then you can laugh at his puny skills before dispatching him “mit eleganz”. The artifact is not generated when you enter the level, just when you kill him.

Yulgash, the Master Summoner, gets a spot here, too. If you wait till you are above character level 25, you can use your switch places with hostile opponents-ability to get close and personal to him, and end his summoning capers right there and then.

The Emperor Moloch is armored like a tank (200 PV). He will take a lot of critical hits with barehanded to croak. I suggest alternative tactics on him. Blessed demon/humanoid slaying ammo if you play a pure martial artist, otherwise penetrating or a big demon slayer. Rune-covered trident could work fine against him, and you’d have high DV if you were smart enough to be unburdened for the fight.

Elder Chaos God. You have to be wielding the trident while killing him. Humanoid slaying for style, otherwise bash him with the trident. Or scepter, if you took that route.

Final thoughts.
During the process of writing this guide, I have grown more fond of the monk class. Versatile, and with many unique abilities, they can easily become mighty, and are at least fun to play. I wish all potential monks out there luck with their attempts!

Credits:
Silfir, for starting up the guides thus leading to this coming into being.
Soirana, for making a guide from which I borrowed some headings and general ideas.
F50 for making the direct request for this guide.
J. for providing the info about martial attack bonus
Kevin O’Connor for making the list on martial art bonus.
Hilter, Darren Grey, Silfir, Soirana, Nightmare, gut, J., for various input about the guide.

Guide to Being a Druid

2008-05-02T17:29:00.008+02:00

2008 has been rather slow up until now, but we are not actively pursuing a stable update schedule or something like that. Updates will come when I have been given something to update with or, as the case may be, when I have produced something myself yet again.

I apologize for some of the fifth and last section. As I wrote most of it between one and three in the morning, it may have turned out rather silly.

We are slowly making our way to completing a collection of guides for every one of the twenty classes. For this, it is necessary that some of us tackle guides of classes that neither sound too hot nor are, quite frankly, any remarkable. That said, these classes tend to become a delightful experience for their mediocricy, simply because you're not as much under pressure while playing them. If you manage to lose with a high elven archer, or with an orcish barbarian, people (okay, some people) will ridicule you, because it is OH SO EASY to play with them. But if you try to play a dwarven druid and succeed, the same people will nod appreciatively in recognition of your skill! Which is what we all aim for, right?

And that is why I wrote this

GUIDE TO PLAYING A DRUID IN ADOM

I. Manual Information - The part which takes the least effort.
II. Starting up the Druid - Anything that should be considered before even the first step.
III. Playing style - What's your druid going to do a priest can't do better?
IV. Equipment - What you should use, what you should get
V. Monster Bash - Hints on how to seriously kick asses even as a Druid

I. Manual Information

DRUIDS -- Druids are nature priests. They worship the Old Gods and regard all nature as a holy thing to worship and protect. Their specialty are spells of nature and protection. It is said that no animal will willingly harm a druid.

Druids are trained in the following skills: Climbing, Concentration, First Aid, Gardening, Healing, Herbalism, Listening, Literacy, Survival, Swimming, and Woodcraft.

At higher levels, druids become extremely attuned to nature itself. At level 6 they learn to evade wilderness encounters whenever they choose to do so. At level 12 they regenerate power points twice as fast as usual while in the wilderness. At level 18 they become immune to all weather effects. At level 25 they are able to summon 1d3 major animals as servants at the cost of 1d3 mana points (an almost permanent loss, as it only regenerates after a very long period of time). At level 32 they regenerate hit points twice as fast as usual while in the wilderness. At level 40 they become immune to lightning. Finally, they suffer 10% less corruption from all such attacks at level 50 due to their close connection to nature.

II. Starting up the Druid.

1. Starsigns
First of all, an obvious vote for Candle. Why Candle? Because its effect is greater than that of maxed out HP regeneration. Because it is greater than the effect of a maxed Healing skill. And because all of this added makes you near invincible, even if you decide to play a Druid. Raven is good for the extra speed and for the possibility to get a very powerful artifact quite early. Since Druids are spellcasters, and always start out neutral, the Wand starsign is an obvious benefit, as is Cup (less so, because going up in levels quickly won't help a Druid that much). Salamander helps with its extra mana and its bonus to fire spells; to a limited extent, as Druids almost never start out with fire spells. The benefit of the Unicorn starsign, like that of Candle, is independent from the class chosen, and useful if you are especially paranoid about corruption. Extra willpower offered by the Tree starsign and the Wolf starsign is mildly helpful for spellcasters, but great willpower becomes really important only later on, after the acquirement of ball spells, and regardless of the starsign willpower is unlikely to start at values so high that the ever-popular morgia roots can't replicate the effect and add even more willpower. Dragon and Sword can be useful depending on your playing style. A Druid who casts only spells all the time will make less use of these starsigns than a Druid using mostly melee and missile weapons, casting spells as support. Falcon is pretty bad, as it adds a skill Druids already have, and the extra talent is provided by Candle as well, in addition to the most overpowered starsign effect of all. Lastly, the Book starsign is probably not that bad a deal, especially early on when Druids struggle a bit with their relatively (for a spellcaster) low Literacy skill.

So, to recap:

Horrible: Falcon
Bad: Wolf, Tree
Okay: Book, Dragon, Sword, Unicorn
Good: Wand, Cup, Raven, Salamander
Almost cheating: Candle

2. The Races of ADOM trying to be Druids
There are more consistencies among Druids of the different races than there are usually among the classes. Druids all have four things in common at least: A wooden shield and a spellbook of Divine Wrath, the clerical version of Lightning Bolt, as well as exactly two random potions. Apart from that, they are similar in a preference for blunt weapons (elves posing the exception) and light armor, in contrast to priests, who oftentimes wear heavy armor.

a) Human
Skills added: Food Preservation
Starting equipment: Leather armor, light cloak, cudgel OR quarterstaff, sandals, wooden shield, fire-making stuff, two random potions, spellbook of Divine Wrath, some other spellbook, some food

Pros: Extra spellbook, decent Learning
Cons: Only one skill added, low Mana

Verdict: Humans are the epitome of mediocricy. They neither make exceptionally good fighters nor are they remarkable spellcasters. Ironically, that fits with the Druid, who also doesn't exactly excel at either early on. The one advantage of the human race is their Learning bonus. This actually benefits a Druid well, as it increases his ability to learn spells. Don't rely on them too much; your mana is average at best. All in all, the human is not the worst choice, but not a terribly good one either, especially because of their lousy skillset. The extra book can help tremendously on occasion, though, especially if it's a spellbook of Cure Light Wounds.

b) Troll
Skills added: Athletics, Bridge Building, Food Preservation, Gemology, Mining
Starting equipment: Hood, thick furs, light cloak, heavy club, wooden shield, some random potions, spellbook of Divine Wrath, some more food

Pros: Extremely strong and tough, nice array of skills
Cons: Troll leveling requirements and troll metabolism, horrible spellcasting abilities, short lifespan

Verdict: Hugely dependant on playing style and personal preferences. Generally, all trolls are united in the disadvantage of their slow, slow leveling. When you reach level 2, another character would have reached level 4 or 5, and when another character would be at level 50, you're still struggling with the thirties. This isn't as bad as it sounds, as you get unbelievable strength and toughness stats in exchange, meaning you'll be at least as sturdy in battle as a non-troll with the same experience. Especially in the beginning you will pretty much crush everything in your path, leading to easy survival. You do gain access to Druid class powers a lot later - you can ignore that since Druid class powers are craptastic. Bad is the fact that you'll learn much slower, especially skills and spells. Your Literacy skill will start terribly low, and will take a long time to increase with only three skill advances per level. The Gemology skill is thus of terrible importance. Why? Check its skill description to find out! Also note that all the skills (with the exception of Bridge Building) are very useful. Trolls are reasonable Druids, if you can handle their obvious disadvantages (not helping matters is the increased food consumption).

c) High Elf:
Skills added: Dodge, Stealth
Starting equipment: Hood, leather armor, light cloak, scimitar, leather boots, wooden shield, some random potions, spellbook of Divine Wrath, some food

Pros: Good spellcasting abilities including good Learning, nice skills, long lifespan
Cons: Rather low toughness

Verdict: This is definitely not a bad choice. High Elves don't get many skills, but this time they do fill some holes in the Druid repertoire: Dodge adds some staying power in melee, and the Stealth skill is a minor, but all-time help to any adventurer, and required to receive a very valuable, though unreadable, artifact book. Thus, even though strength is average and toughness is low, with your scimitar, leather armor and wooden shield you should be able to use melee to some extent. The Learning score is equalled only by the Gray Elf, and your Mana score will be high enough to kick some ass.

d) Gray Elf:
Skills added: Dodge, Stealth
Starting equipment: Hood, leather armor, light cloak, scimitar, leather boots, wooden shield, some random potions, spellbook of Divine Wrath, some food

Pros: Excellent spellcasting abilities thanks to good Learning and Mana, nice skills, long lifespan
Cons: Very low toughness, low health regeneration

Verdict: Compared to the high elf, playing a gray elf increases the tradeoff of toughness and HP regeneration in exchange for spellcasting abilities (Learning's the same, though). Whether this is to your liking or not is up to you (it's to mine), there is not much in the way of differences between the two races.

e) Dark Elf:
Skills added: Alertness, Find Weakness, Stealth
Starting equipment: Hood, leather armor, light cloak, scimitar, leather boots, wooden shield, some random potions, spellbook of Divine Wrath, some food

Pros: Excellent skills, decent spellcasting abilities, high Mana, long lifespan
Cons: Low toughness, low PV, low health regeneration, average Learning

Verdict: Let's make no mistake about it - the skills you would get as a dark elf are very, very tempting. Getting Alertness and Find Weakness is definitely the better deal compared to getting Dodge. However, Dark elves have the disadvantage of starting with a low Learning score compared to the other elves. This puts a limit on their early spellcasting, when Literacy is yet low and you don't get many castings from your few early-found spellbooks. Besides, the Find Weakness skill only kicks in if you're using weapons, while the Druid is pretty much a primary spellcaster later on. However, everybody has to fight in melee at some point, and Find Weakness can help a lot. I'd call this one of the best choices for Druid overall.

f) Dwarf
Skills added: Detect Traps, Metallurgy, Mining, Smithing
Starting equipment: Studded leather armor, hooded cloak, heavy cudgel, heavy boots, wooden shield, some random potions, spellbook of Divine Wrath, some food

Pros: Decent strength and toughness
Cons: Low Mana

Verdict: The humble dwarf makes for a decent druid, though not a terribly powerful one. His high strength and toughness and his rather sturdy starting equipment will make the early game rather easy. Dwarves have an okay Learning score, making them halfway decent spell learners, but rather low Mana, meaning they won't be able to cast as many spells in a given tough situation. Still, worth considering.

g) Gnome
Skills added: Gemology, Mining, Pick Pockets, Ventriloquism
Starting equipment: Leather armor, hooded cloak, club, wooden shield, fire-making equipment, some random potions, spellbook of divine wrath, some food

Pros: Good mana, nice skills
Cons: Low strength, a club

Verdict: There's not really much negative to say about the gnomish Druid. However, unless you want the skills, there's also not much of a reason to play one. True, they're tougher than elves while possessing a fair degree of magical talent, on the other hand, toughness isn't that much of an issue with relatively high starting PV and the Healing skill, considering the existence of morgia roots. The fact you gain experience faster isn't really an issue, considering the overall suckiness of the class powers you would get quicker. Still, his skills, especially Gemology, are very nice to have.

h) Hurthling
Skills added: Archery, Cooking, Food Preservation, Stealth
Starting equipment: leather cap, leather armor, leather girdle, hooded cloak, club, cursed ring, wooden shield, fire-making equipment, cooking set, some potions, spellbook of divine wrath, some food

Pros: Nice skills, good dexterity, good at throwing rocks
Cons: Horrible strength AND horrible mana, a club

Verdict: Hm. Well. An adventurer who hits like a tiny girl and can't spellcast his way out of a paper bag. Why would anyone in their right mind consider playing a hurthling Druid? Well, they have an interesting array of skills, including the Archery skill, which opens up the way for some excellent Archery talents. They also have Food Preservation and Stealth, and are even the only race with that particular combination. Depending on your skill preferences, you might play a hurthling Druid. If it's not for the skills or the awesome rock-throwing, stay away from this race.

i) Orc
Skills added: Backstabbing, Find Weakness, Metallurgy, Mining
Starting equipment: Studded leather armor, leather girdle, hooded cloak, quarterstaff, heavy boots, wooden shield, some potions, spellbook of Divine Wrath, some food

Pros: Nice strength, toughness and starting PV, Find Weakness
Cons: Short lifespan, sucky spellcaster

Verdict: Okay. Studded leather armor, wooden shield and heavy boots combined with the high strength and toughness expand on your capability of surviving the early game. On the other hand, you should avoid learning spells for some time until you have successfully worked on your Learning and Literacy. Sadly, you don't have the Gemology skill to support you in that regard. Choose this race if you want some melee prowess and the Find Weakness skill, though all in all, a dwarf will probably turn out to be the better choice, because he doesn't suck so much at spellcasting and has the same equipment and stat advantages, lacking only Find Weakness - again, druids are pretty much spellcasters later on.

j) Drakeling
Skills added: Alertness, Food Preservation, Music
Starting equipment: Robe, leather girdle, hooded cloak, quarterstaff, bracers of defense, wooden shield, some potions, spellbook of Divine Wrath, some food

Pros: Nice strength and toughness, good skills and racial ability
Cons: Low PV, mediocre spellcasting abilities

Verdict: Another interesting choice. This is the only race starting without some sort of leather armor, though; you'll even start with the lowest PV of all. Drakelings are used to being treated this way, and can counter this well through their racial ability. Seeing as you don't have much Mana to work with, this will add to your early game survival chances. Nice skills to tempt you, that's for sure.

k) Conclusion
As you may have seen, there is no definite right and wrong regarding choice of Druid race. In fact, regardless of what you choose, there will always be some tradeoff skillwise or statwise. There are a lot of skills Druids don't usually have which are offered by races. Surviving the early game is always doable with a Druid thanks to their relatively sturdy starting equipment - most Druids begin the game with at least 3 points of PV including the shield -, the Healing skill and the Divine Wrath spell. If pressed for an answer, I'd probably vote for a gray elven Druid. This is because that gives you the best spellcasting abilities you can get, enabling you to make full use of your spellcasting all the earlier. A dark elven Druid is good if you want a challenge, it will pay off later thanks to their skills. If I were to play a Druid concentrating on melee early on, I'd probably go with a dwarf, though.

3. Choosing a gender
You will probably wonder why the hell this should be important. Did you think you could make a decision in startup that wouldn't have consequences? Yes you can, but that one is the decision on your name. Your gender choice is a decision with minor consequences, but consequences nonetheless. These are the criteria:

a) The stat bonus
Choosing a gender will yield a certain stat bonus. Male characters start out with an extra point of strength, while female characters gain an extra point of dexterity. Which of these do you want? Considering that strength directly influences carrying capacity and every ADOM character is likely to walk around with lots of stuff, it could be called the more important stat of the two. On the other hand, dexterity has an influence on DV and speed, which is very handy, and melee damage granted by strength isn't as important for a spellcaster as it would be for a melee class. However, strength is harder to increase in general, and more strength means you can carry more stuff without advancing to the next burdening status, which would impose penalties on the same DV and speed! Walking around in Strained! mode will increase it to 18 or 19 eventually, regardless of the potential maximum; but higher than that you get only with arduous and expensive training or potions of strength. Dexterity, on the other hand, is very easy to increase to values of at least 25 with herbs, and employing several tricks you can increase it to 30 with the same method. However, until you HAVE found herbs, dexterity is likely to stay where it is in the beginning. So which one of the two is preferable? There is no single right answer. The limit of 19, as has been stated, can be reached with a simple form of training available to anyone right from the start. Trolls will start out higher than that usually, so the extra point of strength granted by playing a male trollish Druid is not easy to gain otherwise. On the other hand, trolls are so strong they are unlikely to have problems with carrying capacity. Wouldn't they be better served by a minor improvement on their subpar dexterity stat then? On yet another hand, a single point of dexterity makes a lot less difference than a single point of strength, doesn't it? Then again, dexterity cannot be trained early on until the right kind of herb is found, while you can start training strength right away, if you so desire!
If you ask me, that one stat point isn't really that important. It's well within the range of the randomness every character has concerning his stats. Whether you prefer the extra point of strength or dexterity certainly is a question of playing style, but you should rather choose your Druid's gender according to the other criteria available.

b) Shopping
All shopkeepers in the game are males. All shopkeepers in the game are pretty lonely males. If you have a shop in the darkest corners of a dungeon wondering whether you should have interpreted the claims of a "lively business environment" or "hordes of customers who would kill to obtain your high quality merchandise" differently, you don't see a lot of, well, booty. We all can understand and appreciate the shopkeeper's plight, can't we? Considering ADOM playing geeks are male in majority and themselves don't see a lot of... Ahem. Understandably, the shopkeepers' brains all shut down once they pick up hints that the adventurer who entered their shop is, under all those layers of armor, dust, dirt and blood, in fact female. This leads to the fortunate effect that once they catch a glimpse of your well-endowed rack and the amazing curves of your slender body, your long, luscious hair, and this fascinating smile that would shame the clearest, sunniest and bluest skies, they will immediately do anything to make your shopping experience as delightful as possible, including and fortunately limited to low prices. It also leads to the unfortunate effect that if they see you and think you're ugly (your troll teeth with the pieces of rotten human flesh inbetween or the orcish stench of foul eggs ticking them off), they will be hasty to get rid of you. How dare you destroy their fantasies of gorgeous women they might be able to meet once they have made a fortune in their secluded dungeon shop! That's why you will get ridiculous prices if you're playing an ugly female. (Even Waldenbrook and Munxip, who don't live in forlorn dungeons, but civilized settlements, seem to be desperate to see some hot stuff. Apparently, dwarves really don't have any women and human goodwives aren't such a lovely sight...)
Male characters don't get prices calculated on that basis. Instead, the more winning the attitude of the male, the lower the prices they get. The more unpleasant and rude, the higher the prices get. Yeah, it's pretty shocking. Considering how people nowadays generally behave in shops, you wonder why they don't have to pay tons of gp more for every insult they throw at the poor shopkeeping slaves. Oh well.
The short version of all this: While shop prices are calculated on your appearance stat if you're female, they are calculated on the basis of charisma if you're male.
Druids gain neither a penalty nor a bonus to their charisma and appearance stats. The races, however, do. This means that the choice of gender based on this criterium is made on the basis of your race. If you're a race with higher appearance than charisma, go female. If you're a race with higher charisma than appearance, go male. If your race has approximately equal stats in both, let yourself be guided by other criteria. Here is a list of the races' basic stats:

Human: 10 App versus 10 Cha = Doesn't matter
Troll: 6 Cha versus 5 App = Doesn't matter much
High Elf: 10 Cha versus 14 App = Go female
Gray Elf: 8 Cha versus 18 App = Go female under any circumstance
Dark Elf: 7 Cha versus 12 App = Go female
Dwarf: 9 Cha versus 9 App = Doesn't matter
Gnome: 12 Cha versus 10 App = Go male
Hurthling: 12 Cha versus 10 App = Go male
Orc: 8 Cha versus 7 App = Doesn't matter much
Drakeling: 10 Cha versus 8 App = Go male

Now, this looks very easy, but there is more to consider.

First of all, Appearance is very likely to take a very serious drop once the endgame is approached. The majority of corruptions affect Appearance, and all of these affect Appearance negatively. This means that female characters will get very bad prices once they gather sufficient corruptions. On the other hand, there are only two corruptions that affect Charisma negatively, meaning males will have a higher chance of getting good shop prices in the endgame. That said, prices generally don't matter in the endgame, as the casino provides any player with an essentially endless supply of money. Even without casino money, you're likely to find more than enough of it later on through adventuring.
On the other hand, Appearance is easier to manipulate than Charisma. There are clean robes, diadems of beauty, cloaks of adornment, pendants of beauty - all rather common items that improve the Appearance stat considerably. On the other hand, Charisma can be improved only by the rather rare helm of leadership and the grantedly common necklace of the silver tongue. The Appearance stat wins that particular round. The items that improve Appearance are easier to recognize (cloaks of adornment always are the one kind of cloak that isn't hooded or leather but weighs 40 stones, clean robes are identified as such on sight and silver diadems are always diadems of beauty) and stacked together even surpass the bonus of the helm of leadership.
My advice: In case of elven characters, take advantage of the high Appearance score by choosing female. Hurthlings, gnomes and drakelings should probably choose males, but at least for all the others shopping isn't that important a criterion. Be aware of the implications of choosing either gender already discussed, and remember that it's most important to adhere to the third criterion, which is, incidentally, also the master criterion for anything discussed in the whole section II:

c) Duh
Play whatever you want to play.

III. Playing style

1. Divine spellcaster trouble: Why play a Druid when you can play a Priest?
It's a good question. These are the only primary divine spellcasters in the game (The Paladin casts divine spells, too, but is a primary melee fighter). Both of them share the tendency to find lots of books, with a lower probability of finding offensive spells. Druids and Priests alike are more likely going to be stuck with those eight copies of the spellbook of Know Alignment, one of the most pointless products of Ancardian literature known to man, just as an example. Anyway, if you look at Priests and Druids, you will notice the following:

- Priests have (usually) better armor and melee weapons
- Priests have nice stats
- Priests get spell cost discounts as class powers that even outclass the Wizard's
- Priests get Detect Item Status
- Priests are a lot more literate
- Did I mention those badass spell cost discounts? Look at them, they're frikkin' huge!

What does the Druid have to offer?

- Sucky class powers (The ability to evade wilderness encounters is probably the best of the lot - that's saying much)
- Average armor and melee weapons
- Average stats (No penalties, remarkably)
- No spell cost discounts whatsoever
- Animals won't attack you (oooh, big deal)

So, why play a Druid instead of a Priest?

- "Animals won't attack you" is actually a bigger deal than you might think. Animals are one of the most prominent, and more dangerous types of monsters in the early game - most of the poisonous foes early on are animals. Druids will usually have more neutral monsters in a given level than any other class. Neutral monsters are useful. You can bypass them with the ":s" command, but hostile monsters will mostly bump against these like a wall, meaning you can use neutral monsters as buffers to help you escape. Sure, you won't get XP for the animals you don't kill, but what do you want XP for? The craptastic class powers or that tiny bit of extra HP and PP you get? You're not in a hurry to increase in level!
- Some priests have lower than average equipment. Yay for being average all across the board!
- You can piss off your deity without losing your glorious class powers. Okay, they're not worth having in the first place, but even so.
- You are guaranteed an offensive spell in the beginning of the game. Priests oftentimes start out with only defensive spells.
- Actually, that's pretty much it.

Yeah, I can't coat it into more sugar than I already did. Priests are better than Druids. A lot.

Still, that doesn't mean playing a Druid can't be fun. They are primary spellcasters, after all. Even though they are divine spellcasters and thus not as good at casting exclusively arcane spells (like ball spells), they still get just as mighty in the endgame once enough spells and suitable mana and willpower are acquired. So what if you have to pay the full power point cost for your spells? You'll still kick ass!

Druids are also useful as therapy after you've encountered far too many cats for your taste in the last few games. Those damn cats you must not kill in order to receive that enormously powerful artifact! A Druid has considerably fewer problems. With very few exceptions, all cats are created neutral.

2. Playing Druids
Druids are spellcasters. This means you'll find a lot of books, and you'll have to put some thought into using them. Books should either be read until they disappear, read some times and then kept, or sold. The best of these procedures, in my opinion, is the first. Reading books trains your Learning stat, which helps you reading more powerful books you may find later or already possess. So even if you have more castings of Know Alignment than you'll ever need (read: any at all), read those five books you've just found! If you get a point of Learning out of it, it was definitely worth it. Keeping a book serves two purposes: Waiting until your Learning, Literacy and Concentration is higher so you get more learnt castings out of it, or bookcasting. A primary spellcaster should have no need for bookcasting, usually. Early on, some especially complex spells may refuse to provide you with decent castings, granting 20 castings per read or so (by "castings", I refer to the number that appears first in every spell's description, which will go down by a random, usually single-digit number every time you cast that particular spell - it's not the number of castings left, because that number is indeterminable). If this is the case, you should keep the book until you get better at Learning and Literacy, and if you have a desperate need for that spell, bookcast it. Selling books may be useful, too, in case you really need the money, but reading them instead is usually worthwhile at least for the training of Learning.
From books we switch the focus to spells. There are several types of spells that damage the enemy: Bolt spells, ball spells and "touch" spells. Bolt spells have the farthest reach of all the spells, but they can only be cast in a single line. Luckily, foes have the habit of lining up in a hallway, which makes casting the bolt spell a very fun thing to do indeed. Some bolt spells have the property that they bounce off walls, meaning that very skilled users of these spells can bounce them around corners to hit even more foes there. Very nifty, but also dangerous, since these spells bounce straight back if you accidentally shoot them at a wall or corner (The longer your spell range, the more dangerous it gets, especially if there is a wall behind you as well!). Many a promising spellcaster died casting a bouncing spell the wrong way. Divine Wrath, your starting spell and a very important tool for early game survival as a Druid, is such a bouncing spell.
Ball spells create a blast originating from the square you're standing on, hitting all surrounding enemies. This blast is greater if you meet or exceed certain levels of willpower, and the blast ignores walls or doors, meaning that enemies standing behind walls or doors, but inside the blast radius, will still get hit. Very sneaky; in fact I now instruct you to laugh maniacally every time you pull this off. These spells are the most damaging of all, and also the most expensive in mana cost.
Touch spells are few and far between - except for Baptism of Fire, or Burning Hands as arcane spellcasters would call it, there are only a few. These spells affect only one square next to you, and are good for cases where there is only one monster you want to kill.
Remember, as a spellcaster, you have many ways of making your life easier, once you've accumulated the proper repertoire. A key spell is Ethereal Bridge (or Teleportation). Not only allows it for quick escaping in a pinch, it can also shorten travel times by a large margin. However, you need teleport control to maximize the usefulness of this spell. Teleport control can be gained from the corpse of a blink dog. Should you ever stumble across a blink dog and it summons its blink dog cronies, hope for the best! Though you will have to attack the blink dog for it to summon its cronies. Or tame it with the help of bones, so it attacks other monsters and summons its cronies against them. Whatever way you choose, make it so that lots of blink dogs die so you get one of their corpses! Protector of nature my ass!
Another make-your-life-easy spell is Knowledge of the Ancients (Magic Map), which provides you with partial knowledge of the dungeon map. This is good to find places in dungeon parts you haven't explored before but can't seem to find any way leading to, or locations to teleport to. Especially in the Minotaur Maze this spell is the key to success over failure.
It also should be mentioned that as a divine spellcaster, your healing spells will improve a lot more by use than those of arcane spellcasters, meaning you can rely on them a lot more to survive tough situations. The longer you live, the longer you can bash your opponent with your weapon!
There's a whole load of other spells of varying usefulness, the last advice I will give here is: Be creative! Especially early on, when you may have to make do with what you get, you may find spells useful you wouldn't even think about using otherwise. Maybe there is a spell suitable or even designed to solve your current predicament?
Being a Druid, spellcasting doesn't come easy to you, as you start with low Literacy and Concentration scores, meaning you don't get many castings out of spellbooks. Thus, you will spend some time fighting melee. The first thing you should do once you start up the game is hit "i" end equip your wooden shield. If your character starts out with a two-handed weapon of some sort, the first thing you should do is find a one-handed weapon and equip that and your wooden shield (you can delay this until you stop finding only daggers, but if you find a broadsword or especially a spear, switch). Shields are important for spellcasters, because they help you defend. Your main way of attacking in the hard battles is using spells, which don't use your to-hit and damage formulas, meaning you can do everything you can to maximize DV. This means switching to coward before casting a spell while an enemy is near, and wearing the best shield you can get your hands on. You can fight in melee, too, of course - but you're not that good at it without a decent melee weapon, and seeing that you don't have class powers, skills or exceptional stats to back up your measly melee prowess, you shouldn't risk going all-out - you'll be hit more than it's worth. Of course, this is different for trolls or orcs in the beginning, but once you've developed your magic skills, you'll want to benefit from a high shield skill.
Anyway, after you've started battling evil monsters with a bit of knowledge in the Divine Wrath spell and your combination of low-end melee weapon and wooden shield, the game is a game of "kill killable monsters" and "run away from unkillable monsters" and "avoid to die in the process". Be not afraid to run away and use your spells in doing it. Likewise, remember that you have spells! It's a good strategy to try and take out all the monsters early on with your melee weapon and resort to a Divine Wrath once you notice you have encountered a particularly hard nut to crack.
Later on, as you find more spellbooks and become more skilled at magic, your Druid will become a lot more easy and fun to play. More spells, more castings and more PP are the main reasons for that! Just remember that later on, the powerful monsters will have a lot more resistances and will not be easily affected by most spells. A rule of thumb: Minor Punishment (or Magic Missile, as the heathen dabblers in the spellcasting arts will call it) works against everything... Eventually.
Druids love to have high DV and PV, and they love to be speedy because it enables them go get more ground in a battle, thus letting them cast more spells and regenerate more PPs to cast even more spells. Druids love the Learning, Willpower and Mana stats. Learning enables them to read books more effectively, granting more castings. Willpower increases the power of spells, and certain values of Willpower increase the radius of ball spells, making them even more effective at fighting huge crowds of monsters. Mana increases the number of PPs you can have, and thus the number of spells you can cast before you effectively run out of PP, especially when coupled with PP regeneration - which is another important attribute for Druids. PP regeneration can be increased with a better Concentration skill and potions of raw mana, as well as a certain talent. Strength, Toughness and Dexterity are still important, because they enable you to carry more stuff and deal more damage, take more punishment, and give you more DV and speed, in order. Perception is of minor importance as it only enables you to look farther and has a minor influence on the success of trap evasion. Appearance and Charisma are of very tangential influence. Appearance is nigh useless unless you're female (see II.3), charisma at least has an influence on success 'o'rdering pets around.

3. Druid class powers
Now comes the part of the guide where I will whine a lot, so be prepared. We will talk about Druid class powers. Druid class powers are a perfect example for one of the main features of ADOM: Imbalanced classes. Some classes are simply better than others, in some cases a lot. This is fully intentional, of course, as it provides players with opportunities to challenge themselves (and guide writers with opportunities to whine). After all, this isn't World of Warcraft, where players think they have reason to whine on message boards because their favorite character has one skill that is slightly less powerful than a similar skill of another class, or because there is one item available for anyone that makes their entire build slightly less insanely powerful than other builds and therefore completely obsolete.

Anyway, let's go through those class powers step by step, but first discuss the class feature which is not a class power as such: The fact that animals won't attack you. This is a boon and a curse. A boon it is because peaceful animals can be quite helpful early on. You can use them to block the way for a pursuing monster by bypassing them in a hallway using the ":s" command. Sometimes, they fight other monsters hostile to you and help you take them out. You also don't have to worry about killing cats anymore (Killing a cat denies you access to a very powerful artifact), as you will be warned before you attack them, and they won't attack you, leading to peaceful coexistence. A curse (or annoyance) it is mainly because of breeders. Non-hostile breeders will quickly swarm whole parts of dungeon levels with more non-hostile breeders, leading to wailing, gnashing of teeth, and ":s"-clickfests. The other annoyance (A minor one) is that all those neutral animals created mean less XP for you, since you cannot kill them without taking alignment damage or exploiting a bug. You make up for that by killing the other monsters, though, and you're not in a hurry to gain levels. You'll see why after I've finished whining. One point of caution: Not all animals are non-hostile. Animals summoned by enemies such as black wizards, wererats or werewolves will be hostile. Keethrax' animals are likewise hostile, including his goddamned cats. A good reason not to pick that particular quest.

At level 6, Druids gain the ability to automatically evade wilderness encounters. This is actually not bad. In fact, it's the best class power the Druid will get, at least in my opinion. This ability means that you won't be killed by overly powerful wilderness encounters in the early game, for instance, on the way to the Caverns of Chaos, or even in the small eastern part of the wilderness where the early game dungeons are located. No swamp hydra deaths, no hill orc raiding party rapes... Of course, this class power leaves a bitter aftertaste as it effectively obsoletes the main use of one of your skills - Survival. It would have helped to evade wilderness encounters; now it only enables you to get food in the wilderness. Which you won't need to do if you're any smart and buy lots of large rations.

Level 12 grants you... The awesome power to regenerate power points twice as fast in the wilderness. Now, what do you need this for, after you got a class power six levels before that enabled you to avoid all wilderness encounters, cutting down the fighting you need to do in the wilderness to pretty much zero? The only use I could imagine is that you will be able to leave a dungeon and regenerate power points quicker before getting inside again. Only that even without this class power, this would still work fast enough. And if you were able to leave a dungeon specifically to do this, you're probably not far deep down, meaning you probably aren't level 12 in the first place, or you would be severely underpowered for your level. If there was more need for fighting to be done while in the wilderness (I have to check whether the quicker regeneration still works while you're engaged in battle in locations such as the dwarven graveyard or any wilderness level itself), this would be nice, but as approximately 95 percent of the game, and 99.9 percent of the fighting, will take place in some sort of dungeon... Bah.

Level 18 grants you an immunity to weather effects. This means that... Well... If it rains, your equipment and inventory won't get all drenched, soaked or rusty. You could wear a hooded cloak and carry a waterproof blanket to replicate this effect; both are items you are bound to find a lot until level 18. You're going to have, like, several spare hooded cloaks since cloaks get destroyed frequently and it's good to carry around a lot of them, and you're going to have about as many waterproof blankets. Also, only about 5 percent of your game will (should) take part in the wilderness, and heavy rain is rare. This class power is pathetically weak, especially for a level 18 class power. It's up there in the uselessness Hall of Shame together with the level 25 class power of the farmer, the ability to make mighty iron rations out of corpses.

The next class power up for evaluation, level 25, is the ability to summon animals at the cost of Mana stat points. You're level 25. At this point in the game, the animals you will be able to summon wouldn't even be able to scratch you were they fighting you. Likewise, against opponents you would need support against, they would fall like there is some sort of prize for falling most quickly. Also, they would win that prize. The only real use of these extra animals is to create them as cannon fodder or moving obstacles. For instance, you fight the Ancient Chaos Wyrm and don't like to be hit by his shock attack, so you summon an animal to let it stand between you and the Ancient Chaos Wyrm. Now the Wyrm won't be able to hit you until he has dispatched your furry friend! Apart from not seeming like the kind of thing a Druid who takes roleplaying seriously would do, it doesn't work too well as a strategy, as you still have to kill the thing the animals shields you from, and if this requires a bolt spell it will kill the animal as well. It's not the most useless class power ever, I suppose, but considering you have to sacrifice Mana stat points to fuel it and you can summon friends to help you using other means (most notably a scroll of familiar summoning) that do not require that sacrifice, not really anything to yearn for, either.

Level 32 gets you the likewise useless twin brother of the level 12 class power: It enables you to regenerate HP twice as fast in the wilderness. Right. Imagine a level 31 Druid, by that point probably equipped with several variants of healing spells, a Healing skill at level 100, maybe even an item of regeneration or two, and with lots of potions of extra and ultra healing or lots of blessed spenseweed herbs, fights a heated battle deep in the main dungeon, a dozen of levels away from the nearest exit into the wilderness. What will that Druid think once he has acquired the next level and therefore this class power? I'd wager it'd be something along the lines of "The FUCK?" or "Dammit" or "I really should've listened to my job counselor when she told me that Druid wasn't really a promising career option". Or he'd simply shrug and go on with his business. Which you should do, too. Another class power to forget about.

Probably the second best of the class powers will become available at level 40: The immunity to shock. It does sound pretty awesome the first time you read it. My major problem with this: It comes much too late to be of use. A level 40 Druid is usually in the process of wrapping up a game, and at this point, he should have either acquired shock immunity in some other way (by eating a blessed lightning lizard corpse, getting crowned with it or possessing corresponding items, like a crown of lightning or the artifact armor Nature's Companion) or sufficient resistance (double should be enough, triple is very easy to achieve: intrinsic from any blue dragon corpse, elemental gauntlets and Ring of the High Kings is a nice combination) thanks to artifacts or rings to survive anything made of lightning opponents may throw at him. Should a level 40 Druid not have any source of shock immunity, this is a nice class power, but not likely to improve a lot on the success you've already been having if you made it this far. Might be nice for the Blue Dragon Caves, though.

Lastly, at level 50, another one of those powers that would've been awesome had they come earlier. Less corruption from corrupting attacks, employed by balors for instance, might help you a bit on D:50, where you're likely to be at this point. 10 percent, however, is pretty low. It essentially means that on average, for every ten corrupting hits, you can absorb one for free getting the same corruption a normal character would get. It might save your ass should you have come to D:50 ill-prepared, though, so it's far from a useless class power. In general, I consider the level 50 class power to be always a pretty unimportant one, regardless of its power, simply because if you've reached level 50 without it, it's fair to assume you don't need it for anything.

Let me say this at the end of this part of the guide: Druids are tailored to be better in the wilderness than in a dungeon. If you decide to play your game in a way that is wilderness-heavy, like a challenge game that requires you to only play in the wilderness until you reach character level 50, Druids are a lot more useful than they are in a standard "close the game and win" game. This guide assumes you want to do the latter; that's why I heap so much abuse and laughter on the Druid class powers. They're not all that bad, only specialized in a way that makes them almost useless for normal needs.

Lastly, a nice effect of the Druid class powers being so useless is that you don't need to concentrate all that much on gaining levels. It's still good to be higher level for the skill advances, extra PP and HP and such, but it's not critical.

Why are you still here? Don't you want to read the next section? What, you want to hear about the bug? The bug that allows you to attack neutral monsters without alignment damage? But why? Surely you can play this game the way it was intended, without exploiting minor errors made by The Creator that allow you to do things you shouldn't be able to do? Sigh. Fine. If you attack a neutral monster by hitting "y" in the dialog "Do you really want to attack whoever?", you get an alignment hit. This holds true if you shoot spells, missiles or thrown weapons AT them (In case of the spell, you aren't even asked, but still get the drop). What you can do, however, is aim your missile or throwing weapon anywhere you want. Not only is this a useful trick if you want your missile to fly a slightly different course so that it can hit an enemy when direct aiming at him would hit an obstacle, it also means that if you aim at nowhere on particular (an empty square), and were to hit a neutral monster purely by accident (yeah, right), that monster would turn hostile, but your alignment wouldn't go towards chaotic. Because you obviously wouldn't have intended (ha ha) to hit the monster, therefore it wouldn't have been right to give you a penalty on your alignment! Congratulations, you just tricked the moral code of a computer program! I'm so proud of you! (I mean, would have tricked, because such low methods are obviously beneath your ADOM playing standards, are they not? Right? Yeah, right.)

4. Battle tactics
Your tactics stance (the thing you can set with the keys from F1 to F7) should be on Coward every time you cast a spell in battle. If it is not, at least in hard fights (no one cares about your tactics stance if you off a goblin with Greater Divine Touch just for kicks), you're not doing yourself a favor. Remember: You can change your tactics stance at any time without it costing you anything. You can freely change between Coward and Berserk for every turn of a battle if you so desire, regardless of how unrealistic this may be: "HARRRR I SMASH YOU *click* oh no, don't hurt me, please, have mercy *click* GRRRR I WILL FEED YOU YOUR GENITALS *click* aaaah mummy help me". The Tactics skill should be high priority because it increases the DV you gain if you switch to Coward. If you are not casting spells, choosing the right tactic isn't as straightforward; generally, the more PV the opponent has, the more damage you should aim to deal, and against opponents with special attacks you don't want to be hit by (like strength or toughness drain), too offensive tactics aren't wise. One thing you should remember: If you have the Tactics skill on a reasonable level, 60 or something, then don't fight with normal tactics. Fight either in aggressive or defensive mode. Why? Because you sacrifice a minor amount of DV or to-hit/damage to get a great amount of the other in both cases. Defensive mode is usually my favorite for battle.

5. L33t Dr00d 5k111z

a) Climbing
You climb mountains or out of pits with this. For pits, the skill score affects your success climbing out; for mountains, it lowers the time you spend climbing. The game can be finished without even climbing once in the mountains, and to visit all locations available in the game it's theoretically necessary to climb exactly six mountain squares, four of which you have to climb solely to reach the Sinister Library of Niltrias and go back again. Of course, you will climb more mountain squares if you don't visit the dungeons in the upper left corner of the Drakalor Chain in one go, but still, there is no need to fool around in the mountains. In other words, climbing these squares faster with the help of a higher Climbing skill is in no way important. Having a higher chance to climb out of pits helps in a situation where you are currently in a pit with a dangerous monster closing in on you; however, these situations are very, very rare. Climbing must be at 100 if you want to enter the Rift, though, so if you plan to enter it at some point, you have to pay attention to this skill, as it will probably not reach 100 if you don't invest some skill advances or training from Yergius.

b) Concentration
Increases PP regeneration and has a positive influence on learning from books. You are a spellcaster. This is your unrivaled favorite numero uno Überskill. You want it at 100 as soon as feasible. It needs some training to get there, though. You train this skill by depleting your PP supply so you have to regenerate it. In other words, you train this skill by doing what you're going to do all the time anyway - cast spells! If that isn't handy, nothing is. If you don't cast spells, you obviously don't need this skill, but it's a great help once you get your spellcasting started. A high level in this spell achieved by training isn't worth wasting your precious early Divine Wraths on, though - use Divine Wrath when it is needed to save your life. If your human druid started with a useless extra spell, use it more often early on so you can at least train up Concentration with it, though.

c) First Aid
Can be 'a'pplied to heal recently sustained damage, and has a small chance of fighting (or healing) poison or sickness. A useful, and often underused, skill. You have the Healing skill, meaning HP regeneration isn't that much of an issue, but still - don't deny yourself the advantage of using this skill. Of course, if you're engaged in battle against a powerful monster beating the crap out of you, you won't have time for First Aid. After the battle is over, however, you will, and those few HP you may still be able to regain are nothing to scoff at, at least in the early game. Because the amount of damage healed by First Aid is a percentage of the amount of damage recently sustained, this skill will heal more damage if your enemy hit you harder - meaning that even late in the game, when a fire elemental has dealt a critical blow for, say, 100 damage (they do that occasionally), using First Aid will benefit you by a quite large margin. Still, as long as the monster who deals even larger margins of damage is near, it's probably wiser to use the more powerful means of Healing available to you later on in the form of blessed potions of extra and ultra healing. Every character has First Aid, but at the levels you start out usually (Druids have a higher level compared to most other classes, granted), it's unreliable. The more points you invest in it, the more likely it is to help. And in the early period of the game when you lack the Slow Poison and Neutralize Poison spells (humans *may* start out with one of those), alraunia antidotes, potions of cure poison (It's *possible* for every Druid to start out with one or even two) and most importantly poison resistance, this is potentially the last thing that can save you from death to poisoning. Being poisoned, you may have to wait out the poisoning period, and without using First Aid to replenish most of the HP lost to poison, you will most probably run out of HP faster than your Healing skill and your natural regeneration will be able to compensate for. There also is, as mentioned, a minor chance to fight sickness; sickness is a lot rarer than poison, but can be contracted by any rat that attacks you and is usually eventually fatal for an early game PC. Again, you can use First Aid everytime you lose HP due to sickness. The chance to get rid of it entirely is pretty low, though. At the very least, First Aid will keep you alive a few more steps until you can see a professional Healer. Since you have Healing, First Aid isn't of as high importance as I may have made it out to be, and it certainly will become obsolete once Healing spells or herbs are obtained. Nevertheless, it probably isn't a waste to spend some of your early skill advances on it, when you will need them most.

d) Gardening
Can be 'a'pplied to plant seeds. Plant seeds may turn into a tree (or so it is rumored), though I don't seem to have much success with that usually - which doesn't matter, as there are trees aplenty in the wilderness, even if you happen to have need for them. Herb seeds you plant on dungeon levels successfully will turn into herbs. Remember that a single bush of herbs will die out very quickly. For your herbs to survive, you have to make sure at least three herbs are planted in an L-shaped group. You can produce herbs by pouring holy water on the ground; however, unless the level in question has or has had herbs at some point which were either there initially or planted with the help of Gardening, these will not be able to sustain themselves regardless of how many neighbouring herbs they have. Herb seeds are very, very rare. This means that just with herb seeds and Gardening, you won't be able to get into some serious herb farming; you need a good base of herbs for that, as it will be found in so-called herb levels (One of these is guaranteed), or lots and lots of holy water. If you want to create a herb patch in a dungeon level of your choice that didn't have herbs originally, use a herb seed to make the whole level herb-fertile, and holy water to make the wondrous L-shape. Low levels of Gardening lead to low levels of success, and since herb seeds are so rare you don't want that. If you plan to use Gardening at all, which you certainly won't exactly need to, make sure it is on a high level. It can probably be trained by planting some of the otherwise highly useless plant seeds. Be careful, however: 'A'pplying Gardening means your PC will try to plant a herb seed if one is available in the pack. If you want to plant plant seeds in stead, drop the herb seeds first.

e) Haggling
Can be 'a'pplied on a shopkeeper to haggle over shop prices. Has (according to my experience) a very low chance to actually work out in *your* favor (high Charisma probably helps), and small improvements on price are entirely not worth the investment of skill advances you'd need to get them. Money can be a problem early on, but it's more worthwhile to just kill more monsters to get more treasure, equipment and XP in addition to the cash. Pass.

f) Healing
Heals HP at random intervals. The higher the skill, the more HP will be healed over a given time period. A very valuable skill, especially until you find other, plentiful means of healing such as books containing healing spells or special kinds of herbs. A major early game helper, so even though this trains naturally (read: by you taking damage, which is near impossible to avoid) and will reach 100 at some point in the future, you may want to give it an extra boost to help your character survive early on.

g) Herbalism
Allows to pick herbs that aren't cursed. Gives a chance to identify herbs upon picking. The higher the skill, the more blessed and uncursed and the less cursed herbs will be found: at 100, the ratio is usually similar to 60% blessed, 25% uncursed, 15% cursed. Also higher is the probability that you will identify a given herb on picking: at 100, every herb picked is instantly identified. You will also be able to pick more herbs before the bush withers: about 3 from a fully blossomed bush without Herbalism, 10 with Herbalism at 100. You can also 'a'pply the skill to give you a higher chance to know which herbs grow in a particular bush, and what state the bush is in (whether it is full of blossoms or already nearly withered or anything in between). In short, this skill makes you a l33t herb expert. There are two herbs that heal your HP (pepper petal, spenseweed), there is a herb that heals poison (alraunia antidote) and one that heals sickness (curaria mancox), there are two herbs that can increase your stats (morgia roots and mosses of mareilon) and there is one herb that, at least in its blessed state, is the most filling food in the entire game (stomafillia). There are also herbs that damage your HP (burb root), poison you (demon daisy), sicken you (devil's rose) or completely empty your stomach (stomacemptia), and even those CAN be useful, if one is careful with them and knows what he or she is doing. Herbs provide one of the best ways to pimp your character. Be glad that you have this skill, invest in it and start farming herbs! Note that in their cycles of growth and withering, herbs follow the rules of Conway's game of Life. Check out wikipedia for those rules, or the guidebook if you want a more detailed guide to ADOM herb farming! Long live herbalism!

h) Listening
Allows to hear things. The higher the skill, the fewer sounds will elude you. For example, if you hear a thunderous explosion, some monster somewhere on the dungeon stepped on a fireball trap - useful information? Well... This skill isn't among the most, or even particularly helpful. In any case, since it is trained all the time without your influence, it doesn't need any skill advances spent on it. It will reach 100 some time after level 15, and until that, the values you have are high enough. You'll be fine (and best off) not paying any attention to this skill.

i) Literacy
Enables you to read scrolls, books and all other writings. Higher values increase the chance to successfully read a spellbook in order to learn the spell included, and have an influence on success reading grave messages or the scroll of literacy check. A Literacy value of 100 will enable you to read anything, anywhere, anytime, with one notable exception. Also, success reading spellbooks is dependant on other factors as well, like the Learning stat or character class (Mindcrafters, Beastfighters or Barbarians for instance are pretty bad at it, but Druids are primary spellcasters and thus very good). This skill is of crucial importance to a spellcaster. Druids start in the forties; this needs heavy improvement. Without a decent skill, you will fail reading spellbooks often, and failing to read spellbooks can have harsh consequences, including and not restricted to the loss of the spellbook. Get this to 100 as soon as possible. It will require some training. That's where spellbooks of Shitty Spell No One Cares About come in handy, or one of the scrolls that can be read repeatedly without it disappearing - the ratling pamphlet the ratling rebel at the arena hands out is the most useful of these, as it doesn't trigger a message that you have to press a key several times to end.

j) Survival
Can be 'a'pplied to search for food in the wilderness. Improves battle conditions against wilderness encounters: You will be ambushed less often, and you will be able to spring an ambush yourself more often. Also, it is easier to evade encounters altogether. This skill is of restricted use, and once you've reached level 6 you're able to evade all wilderness encounters without fail, obsoleting a large part of that already restricted use. The ability to find food in the wilderness is pretty pointless, as there are other ways to get food that don't waste as much game time, and Survival only can save you from starvation if you are in the wilderness - did I already mention that about 95% of the game takes part very far away from the wilderness? Do not invest in this skill unless you plan to fool around in the wilderness a lot, for example as part of a Wilderness Level 50 challenge game, where you admittedly will need it for the food, lacking other sources.

k) Swimming
Lessens or prevents damage from drowning while swimming in water. Improves your speed while moving underwater. The higher the skill, the greater the chance that you will "easily swim the water" instead of drown. Weight is also a factor in that, though. Not a bad skill, in unforeseen situations it may save your life. The probability that you have to cross a river at some point is high, and depending on your luck finding spells (Nether Bolt can be used to cross rivers, too) you may not have other means at your disposal (except Bridge Building, but Swimming is infinitely preferablte to wasting time for that). Since this skill may save you from death in an emergency situation, spending skill advances on it can hardly be called a waste, though it is by no means essential, either.

l) Woodcraft
Lowers the time spent on chopping trees. This skill sucks monkey balls. Because you don't have Fletchery, you can use logs only for bridges. Because you have Swimming, you can cross rivers without bridges. Because you are a spellcaster, you are extremely unlikely to need a wooden bridge at any point in the game - ice bridges are easily available to you. And remember that this skill only helps CHOPPING trees - on the off chance that you ever need to build wooden bridges, you will be better served improving your ability to build said bridges so you don't have to chop as many trees - which saves a lot more time than improving Woodcraft ever will.

6. Skills obtainable through race choice
Note: All skills can be obtained by scrolls or potions of education. However, these grant random skills and sometimes only skill increases to existing skills, meaning they are nowhere near reliable if your goal is a certain skill. All skills with two exceptions (Alertness and Healing) can be gotten by wishing for them - 100% reliable, but wishes are very valuable and rare. Still, some skills *are* worth a wish. Some skills cannot be obtained in a way other than these two, but there is a certain number of race-specific skills that can be obtained in the game by fulfilling various requirements of equally varying difficulty. It's important to know, if you evaluate a skill for race choice, whether and how soon and easily you can obtain this skill otherwise. If there is no specific way to get the skill mentioned, it is only available through wishing and scroll/potion of education.

a) Alertness
Dark elves and drakelings have finely tuned reflexes. Passive skill that increases your chances to evade traps and spells. On high levels, DV points are added. Alertness prolongs your life especially against powerful enemy spellcasters throughout the entire game. It's somewhat hard to increase, though, probably because it is trained by successfully evading spells, and spellcasters are rather rare. If you have finished increasing the skills more critical to early game survival, increase this to the maximum amount possible. Note that this skill cannot be wished for - Wishing for "Alertness" yields an increase of the Perception stat. This skill is probably one of the best you can get by choosing a certain race. To top it off, both dark elves and drakelings get other nice skills as well, most notably Find Weakness and Stealth for the dark elf, Food Preservation and Music for the drakeling.

b) Archery
Hurthlings are extremely skilled at throwing rocks for some unfathomable reason. Not only start they with this skill as a result, they also get a weapon skill of 4 in thrown rocks and only need two thirds the marks to increase the thrown rocks and sling weapon skills. Archery increases your to-hit and damage with missile attacks, giving +5 to-hit and +2 to damage at level 100. Certain levels in this skill are a prerequisite for the Lightning Shot and Eagle Eye talents. This skill is kind of useful. It depends on how much you want to use missile weapons. Since you are a spellcaster, you have other means of killing enemies from a distance at your disposal. Nevertheless, ammo equipped with slaying powers is a lot more common than slaying power artifact melee weapons, and there are opponents in the game that are a major pain in the ass to subdue in melee or with spells, but easily dispatched with the right kind of slaying ammunition, especially if you're halfway competent at archery in general, i. e. you chose the right talents. The talents you need the Archery skill for are very powerful. Eagle Eye nets you boost to to-hit and damage equal to Good Shot and Keen Shot combined, and Lightning Shot builds on Quick Shot to make you some sort of bow and arrow machinegun! Druids benefit well from this skill, but being skilled in missile weapons isn't as important for them as it is for, say, a next-to-no-spellcasting melee class like Fighter or Barbarian. If your ADOM playing style is archery-heavy, a Hurthling is worth your consideration, though. They also offer Food Preservation, Cooking and Stealth, all not bad.

c) Athletics
Trolls have incredibly muscular builds. This passive skill increases speed, giving a maximum boost of 8 points of speed at skill level 100. It also increases the chance of getting increases in the physical attributes Strength, Dexterity, Toughness and Appearance. This is quite an awesome skill, especially if maxed. Trolls also get Food Preservation, Gemology and Mining!

d) Backstabbing
Orcs are as dirty as their fighting tactics! Gives you the opportunity to "backstab" unsuspecting opponents, dealing additional damage. Backstab damage is not always dealt. For neutral opponents, the message "Do you really want to backstab the -foo-?" has to be generated if you want to get backstab damage. For hostile opponents which simply haven't yet seen you thanks to Darkness, the Stealth skill or invisibility, there is no such message, and whether you get backstab damage is a matter of skill level-influenced luck. Backstabbing can be obtained later on in the game, so it's not worthwhile to play an orc for it, since they don't get Stealth and need Invisibility or Darkness spells to get any use out of it. Orcs do get Find Weakness and Mining as well.

e) Bridge Building
Trolls are renowned for being crafty engineers... Actually, no, they aren't, but they still start with this skill - a mystery of the ages. You can build bridges with it. The higher the level, the higher is the chance to succeed when building a bridge segment by 'u'sing a hatchet on a log. This skill is almost absolutely useless. You start with the Swimming skill, so don't be a wuss and jump in. With a decent swimming skill and full health, every river can be crossed. If you don't have the time to regenerate yourself to full health or didn't think to get a decent swimming skill, you're screwed, and knowing how to build a bridge doesn't help you shit when there's a monster right behind you! When Swimming is otherwise out of the question, either because the body of water is too wide for you to swim through even at full health or because it's full of predator fish, you're going to have to use other means of crossing the river. And even if teleporting won't work because of the dungeon level preventing it, there is still one method left which is superior to Bridge Building: Ice bridges. You can make them with wands of cold or the Nether Bolt and Freezing Fury spells. Ice bridges can break if you carry more than 2000 stones of weight, but they don't require logs to be built, and the spells that produce them produce with every casting - Bridge Building has a high chance of failure on low level, and you don't get to a high level without wasting way too many skill advances on it and, God may have mercy on your soul, awful shitloads of practice. 2000 stones aren't enough for you? What kind of lazy idiot are you? Take several trips! Even if you wanted this skill - God knows why - it's pointless to play a troll for it. Trolls get the skill at a single digit value. To increase it, you need a manual of bridge building. You have to choose Rynt's quest to get it from Yrrigs. And guess what - ANY character who gets the manual can read it and get Bridge Building themselves. If you choose the Keethrax quest, trollish Druids will be the only ones with Bridge Building - completely and utterly stuck at a level at which you have to calculate fifteen logs per bridge segment, unless you wish for a manual of bridge building - a move so addlebrainedly idiotic you should delete ADOM in an instant if you actually find yourself even contemplating it. Choose trolls for Athletics, Food Preservation, Gemology, and Mining, if you do - all good reasons.

f) Cooking
Hurthlings love to devour their slain foes' corpses well done and deliciously seasoned. This skill can be 'a'pplied on a corpse to try and cook it with the help of a cooking set. If successful, the corpse is cooked, if not, it is wasted. Higher levels mean lower chance of failure. Cooking corpses increases their nutrition value by 50 percent and slows down their decomposition rate considerably. This skill is helpful to keep corpses around that you can't or don't want to eat right now, but want to save for later. Here is a list of uses for it:

- Cook every corpse in the early game before eating to get more nutrition out of it
- Cook the corpses of highly powerful chaos beings (black druids, orb guardians, black unicorns) to be able to deliver them to Guth'Alak in time, who rewards you with a potion of cure corruption for them
- Cook corpses that grant rare intrinsics that you can't eat right now due to being bloated
- Cook corpses that grant rare intrinsics that you already have, to keep them healthy (well, healthy for you) until you can sell them to Munxip or any shopkeeper who runs a "general store", from whom you can buy them back any time in case you lose the intrinsic they give
- Cook displacer beast corpses to provide a means of emergency teleportation
- Cook karmic lizard or karmic dragon corpses to carry around in case you need them to remove dooming or cursing

This skill belongs in the "convenient, but of low importance" category. Hurthlings get Archery, Food Preservation and Stealth, too, so consider it a bonus.

g) Detect Traps
Dwarves are l33t experts when it comes to sensing discrepancies in the dungeon around them. With this skill, they can find traps if they 's'earch for them. Without this skill, a character can find hidden doors with the 's'earch command, but never traps - he just doesn't know what to look for. A higher skill level increases the probability to find a trap in a search attempt, meaning you'll find traps quicker. A skill level of 100 doesn't guarantee the finding of a trap in a single attempt, but practically does so if you spend several turns searching. Detect Traps works with a ring of searching, enabling you to find traps without actively searching for them, but a high skill level is needed before this is of any help, and not every trap will be found without spending several turns searching. Traps hurt throughout the game: Early on, you live in fear of any kind of trap, especially the stone block one, because they can kill your Druid. Later on, you live in fear of traps because they can destroy your valuable magic items. Of course, nobody expects you to use Detect traps on every single dungeon square, but it's common sense to use it in heavily trapped areas such as the Pyramid or the Dwarven tomb or the air and mana temple. Also, you should check every door before trying to open it, because a door trap can - it's unlikely, but it can - trigger upon a failed attempt to merely open the door. Very nasty. This is a very useful skill, some feel it is essential; that depends on how well you can cope with the occasionally lost items and the damage. There is a wand of trap detection, so the effect of this skill isn't unique, and if you know the trap layout of the more dangerous places, you can use these and forget about Detect traps rather comfortably. Still, get it if you can. Detect Traps can be taught by Yergius if you gain entry into the Thieves Guild, so it's only worthwhile to choose a dwarf if you want Detect Traps right from the start, which may be a tad bit paranoid, but not a bad decision otherwise. Even if you're a dwarf, you want to gain entry into the Thieves Guild anyway to get the Stealth skill as well as skill training in Climbing and Stealth. Dwarves also get Mining and Smithing.

h) Dodge
High and gray elves are gay elegant and graceful. Dodge adds DV. At skill level 100, 10 points of DV are gained. Nice skill, though the bonus isn't that overwhelming; especially considering you'll probably have serious trouble to get Dodge that high. Take every opportunity to increase it as long as it is possible. A nice addition to the gray and high elven skillset nevertheless, which otherwise isn't remarkable except for Stealth.

i) Find Weakness
Dark elves and orcs know where it hurts the most! This skill increases the probability that a critical hit is scored. Critical hits cause double damage, but do not ignore PV. Still, since PV is substracted from your damage roll result, if your damage is doubled, you will gain more than only double the damage if your opponent's PV is higher than zero: If your opponent's PV is 20, and you deal 40 damage, only 20 get through; but if you deal a critical hit, 60 of the 80 resulting damage will be substracted from your opponent's HP, triple the amount you would have normally managed! Critical hits are awesome. Thus, Find Weakness is equally awesome. It doesn't affect spell damage, though, and you can probably live well without it, especially if you find artifacts with badass slaying powers. Still, playing a dark elf or an orc for this skill is a good decision. Dark elves offer Alertness and Stealth, orcs mainly offer Mining (you can ignore Metallurgy and Backstabbing pretty much).

j) Food Preservation
Humans, trolls, hurthlings and drakelings... actually, I don't have any clue why they know how to preserve food, but the others don't. Perhaps they just love good food this much? Possession of this skill slows the rate at which food rots, and increases the likelihood of monsters leaving behind usable corpses. (Apparently, knowing how to not let food rot makes it more likely for you to carefully kill your enemy so the body isn't transformed to dust or whatever the hell happens with the body if you can't pick it up... This skill is pretty mysterious.) The higher the skill, the slower the rotting and the more corpses you get. All in all, a very useful skill. In the early game, it alleviates food problems somewhat by giving you more corpses. Throughout the game, it increases your chance at getting very nice corpses, such as the ones of quicklings, blink dogs or giant slugs, or ogres and giants... in short, 100 points in Food Preservation = maximum amount of stat-gaining corpses and rare instrinsics! It's not crucial to success, but helpful. Humans have only this skill going for them, while trolls, hurthlings and drakelings gain other skills too.

k) Gemology
Trolls and gnomes know what's what with shiny things. This skill allows for identification of gems. A skill level of 100 identifies almost any gem on the spot. Also it makes it possible for gems to appear amongst the rubble that is created when walls are dug either with a pickaxe or by a creature that possesses that ability, such as giant raccoons, ankhegs, giant ant workers and warriors or dwarves. This is also the prime appeal of this skill, especially for a spellcaster, because it means you can mine for crystals of knowledge, which increase the Learning score if blessed, to a max that is somewhere between the twenties and thirties. For Druids, who get a measly Learning bonus for being Druids, this is tremendously helpful. Of course, mining for gems requires a lot of pickaxes, or a lot of money to let Glod repair said pickaxes after breaking. It also has the inherent threat of waking powerful and pissed stone giants, meaning it's a very dangerous endeavour for an early game Druid and thus not as helpful as it could be - UNLESS YOU LET SOMEONE ELSE DO IT. Druids are the master of gem mining simply because they can have others do it for them. Go to the second level of the Puppy Cave - the one that opens after you talk to the tiny girl - and watch the neutral ants dig up all the walls. Search through the rubble and rake in the jewelry! Whoever said that being a tree-hugging lover of nature doesn't pay? Gnomes and trolls not only offer this great skill - making good use of it is ESSENTIAL for trolls, because they get levels a lot slower and a higher Learning score at least offers more skill advances per level (apart from the desperately needed support in learning from books!). Both races get even more good skills! (Are you seeing why I have such a hard time deciding on a race? All of them except humans offer some unique benefit thanks to their skillset!) While not only both trolls and gnomes get Mining to assist their gemology, gnomes also get Ventriloquism and trolls get Food Preservation and Athletics.

l) Metallurgy
Orcs and dwarves know their metal. Grants a chance to identify pieces of ore and ingots on sight. Can be "a"pplied to determine whether a certain item is made of metal, and if it is, which kind. Higher levels improve success in identifying. Possible uses? Finding out which kind of ingot you have to use to improve certain items that don't automatically tell you which metal they're made of. Finding out which pieces of ore and ingots are of which metal so you can choose which to carry around with you. Except, you know, there is such a thing as trial and error for the items, and regarding ore and ingots, you'd be hard pressed to find any group of items that is easier to identify by weight than these. Iron is the heaviest item, mithril is a bit lighter, adamantium is a bit lighter than mithril, and eternium is yet another bit lighter than adamantium and about half the weight of iron (a little bit less, if you look at ingots and remember that they are pretty much the only examples of "pure" metal - Iron ingots weigh 20 stones, eternium ingots weigh 9 stones). Long story short, this skill sucks like a goddamned vacuum! Don't bother getting it! Play dwarves or orcs for their other merits: Find Weakness for the orc, and Detect traps and Mining for the dwarf.

m) Mining
Trolls, orcs, gnomes and dwarves have uncanny knowledge of digging out tunnels and stuff. Decreases the time that passes while digging through stone using a pickaxe, and lessens the chance of a pickaxe breaking. At skill level 100, digging through a square takes only about five turns, and if the pickaxe is blessed, it should hold out for fifty diggings on average before you may have to fix it or get another one. This skill is convenient, but far from essential. There are means of digging besides using the Mining skill and a pickaxe which are far safer and quicker; most notably the fairly common wand of digging. Using a pickaxe for mining is what you must do if you want to mine for ore and gems, however. To mine for gems, you must have the Gemology skill. To mine for ore, no particular skill is needed, but with Mining both it and mining for gems will take a LOT less time. The third thing you can mine out of the dungeon walls is stone giants. If you're an early game PC, your reaction to a stone giant awoken and made hostile is going to be "OH MY GOD RUUUUUN", if you're reasonably powered up, it's going to be "Mhmmm tasty stone giant corpse extra strength point yum yum". A powerful gnomish or trollish Druid that has learned Smithing thus will be able to kill three birds with one stone if he decides to mine. This skill is convenient in general, and extra convenient if you're playing a gnome or a troll. Reasonable skill levels only add to its usefulness, and are a good thing to aim for once you find yourself with spare skill advances you don't really know what to use on.

n) Music
Drakelings got Rock'n Roll in their blood or something. This skill allows you to play musical instruments by 'u'sing them - at least with any chance of success. At level 100, you will always succeed playing the instrument. Levels inbetween directly govern your success. Playing music will tame nearby animal monsters - the same type of monsters that usually is already at least neutral to you. The emphasis is on "usually" - there are exceptions, and Music is good to remedy that. It's the cheapest method to get animal companions, once you've raised it to a decent skill level and found an instrument to use it with. Because of its low starting level and the fact that drakelings don't get any instrument, it is immediately disqualified as an early game helper - but the early game help it would have provided is mostly made up for by the Druid class feature. In conclusion, not the greatest skill out there, but useful. And since you can tame killer bugs, probably the most powerful animal out there bar none, even suitable for helping you in dangerous battles. Drakelings also get Food Preservation.

o) Pick Pockets
Gnomes seem to be sneaky little greedy bastards. This skill allows you to pick pockets (duh). Higher skill levels improve success doing so. Unsuccessful picking of pockets is likely to turn the victim hostile. Use of this skill in general is a chaotic act unless you use it on a hostile opponent. Yeah, why would you use it on a hostile opponent? It's not like this skill magically generates an item in the pocket mere split-seconds before you pick it, leading to huge loads of additional items gained from a great number of enemies that possibly include artifacts or other hugely valuable items of weight 10 stones and lower. I mean, how crazy would that be? Don't be silly! Ha ha... Ha. Sigh. Can't fool you, can I? If you want to exploit the potential for cheap play that this skill offers, go right ahead. Note that you have to successfully pick the pockets of about twenty-five people to get access to the Thieves Guild. Also note that you can learn the Pick Pockets skill from Yergius right from the start without any requirement aside that of having to be non-lawful. It's thus highly unnecessary for you to be a gnome to get this skill, as ALL Druids start out neutral.

p) Smithing
Did you think that this would be an RPG where dwarves wouldn't adhere to their stereotypes? Allows to remove rust from weapons. Also allows to improve weapons, shields and armor that are made of any of the four metals. To use it, 'a'pply the skill while standing over a forge with a hammer in your hand and an anvil in your backpack. You can then choose an item to work on. If you choose a rusty item, you will attempt to remove the rust. If you choose any other item that is smithable (made of iron, mithril, adamantium or eternium), you will also be asked to choose an appropriate ingot to use in improving it. If you choose the ingot, you'll be able to do the same the other way around. If you choose a piece of ore, you will attempt to melt down the ore. For all of these actions, the Smithing level improves whether you will be successful and to what extent. This is especially important for improving items, as the higher the Smithing skill, the higher is the improvement you can achieve. Improving a weapon will increase to-hit and damage first, at the very last add a point of DV. Improving shields and armor will improve DV and PV. The skill is very powerful, which is alleviated by the difficulty you will have finding the tools to use it.
Hammers are common - except for the two-handed huge iron hammers, you'll be able to use any kind of warhammer or large hammer.
Anvils are rare. You can't rely on finding one, so it might be good to know that there are people who have anvils: Kherab, the dwarven artificer of Darkforge, and Glod, the dwarven smith in Dwarftown. Of course, if you try to kill Kherab, you'll notice he will prove to be a lot more vicious than you might be able to stomach. He is not invincible, but he has a hard-hitting poison melee attack. Kill him with humanoid slaying ammo, acid bolts or minor punishments. Glod is a pushover compared to him, but unfortunately attacking him outright will mean angering the whole Dwarftown - not good. But still, he is the best source of an anvil. The best way to get it is to either confuse him using the Ventriloquism skill - after which he will attack you and the whole of Dwarftown will rush to YOUR help thinking you were the one being attacked first - or to teleport him out of his smithy and try to lure him to another level. He will follow you if you go down or up stairs while he is in an adjacent square. Since he walks around randomly and you can't control where you teleport him, this is both a matter of luck and patience. Remember that you can switch places with him using ":s", and that this will push him slightly into the direction you want... But it remains a matter of luck and patience.
The last thing you need is a forge. Forges can be randomly found in dungeons a good deal more commonly than anvils. However, since you will spend a lot of time whenever you smith, it's good to have a forge in a non-corrupting area. That might not always be possible - sometimes you are just that unlucky - but it's worth exploring every one of the non-corrupting dungeons in search of a forge. Both the Village Dungeon and the Druid Dungeon are non-corrupting all the way through, just like the Puppy Cave. The Unremarkable Dungeon is not only corruption-free, but has a higher chance to generate random dungeon features including forges - in nine cases out of ten, you'll find a forge there. Exploring the Unremarkable Dungeon, however, means getting through the Small Cave at least once. Either you do that early on in the game, where the place isn't as dangerous, or you do it later with invisibility and teleports. The Caverns of Chaos also offer seven or eight non-corrupting levels (Counting all the levels till D:9 including the shortcut level, but substracting the Big Room and the Arena) where a forge might be created. Most notably, if Dwarftown is on D:9, it will be non-corrupting, and so will be Glod's forge! If Glod is still on the Dwarftown level, he will charge you for using the forge, though. You have to lure him to another level (or kill him) to use his forge for free. If you already did that to get his anvil, less hassle for you.
Before happily going off to kill poor Glod, remember that he is the only person in the game who will repair your broken items. Should he be dead, only scrolls of repair will be able to do that, and they're only available in restricted numbers. So before you kill him, mine all the ore you need, having him repair your pickaxes, THEN get his anvil. A good ADOM player knows well how to abuse and exploit the innocent while staying technically lawful...
If you combine the holy trinity of anvil, hammer and forge, and add to that assloads of ore to make into ingots to improve items with, you have in your hands one of the best ways to really buff up your equipment. See that crown of regeneration [+0, +0]? Want to make it [+9, +9]? Thought so! Want your phase dagger to bypass your opponent's PV as usual AND have (+12, 1d4+9) [+1, 0]? Thought so! Have fun smithing!
Note that the Smithing skill can be bought from Glod for a price. That price can be quite high, but is always affordable. Characters that obtain Smithing this way instead of by being a dwarf won't miss much, as the tools to use Smithing are hardly ever found before Dwarftown and Glod are reached. Dwarves also get Detect traps and Mining, though, the latter useful to mine the ore that is needed to get in some serious Smithing.
(If you killed Glod for his anvil without having obtained Smithing beforehand, allow me to say this to you: BRUHAHAHAHAHAAAA! SERVES YOU RIGHT, YOU IDIOT!)

q) Stealth
High, gray, dark elves and hurthlings are nimble and adept at moving silently or being simply too small to be seen. This skill will add a chance that a monster might not see you in the dim light of the dungeon. The higher the skill, the better the chance, but 100 will not make you invisible. Also, all Stealth bonuses are lost if you attack an opponent. The skill does not have an impressive effect - which is fine, because its job is to avoid making an impression. With the help of stealth, you might be able to position yourself better before you attack, or retreat without being noticed, or make backstabbing attacks with the help of the Backstabbing skill. This is actually one of the two main uses of Stealth: A chance to backstab without being invisible or making your surroundings dark. The other main use is simply possessing the Stealth skill at 100, because if you get it this high, you will be able to move quietly enough so that the Ghost Librarian in the Sinister Library of Niltrias will be grateful to you. If you move 2000 turns or something along those lines in his Library without 'C'hatting (spells can reportedly still be cast), he will even ask you to deliver something for him. The reward for this delivery is very valuable indeed, so going through all the hassle necessary - Increasing Climbing and Stealth to 100 - is very much worth it. Stealth can be taught by Yergius by gaining entry into his guild as described in the skill description of Pick Pockets, so it's not that crucial to play an elf or a Hurthling for it. Because it is one of the few skills that can assist you in early game survival, it might be beneficial to choose one of them anyway. High and gray elves also offer Dodge, dark elves also offer Alertness and Find Weakness, and hurthlings Archery, Cooking and Food Preservation.

r) Ventriloquism
Gnomes have some strange abilities. What are they, circus people? Anyway, this skill can be 'a'pplied to try and confuse people or monsters. Confused people and monsters will stagger around for a while, come to their senses, and turn hostile to you if they weren't hostile before. This can be exploited to kill people "in self-defence" without getting any repercussions for it. Also, having monsters confused in battle makes them unable to use any action besides stumbling around and attacking you in melee. Very nice if you're confronted with monsters that have powerful spells. The weakness of Ventriloquism in this regard is that it has to be high level to be reliable, and that you have to stand adjacent to the target you use it on. Getting so close might prove hazardous to your health, especially if the skill check fails. If you want to use this skill, play a gnome, train it and spend skill advances on it to get it high (We're talking at least 80, preferably 100 here - training against small fry helps). Gnomes also have Gemology and Mining and so are a good choice in any case.

s) Acid Breath
Drakelings have some serious case of bad breath. Special ability (used with "m") that spits a blob of acid in a certain direction. The blob has a range limited to a couple of squares. Once it hits an enemy, it deals damage to it. The amount of damage depends on the level of the drakeling. If the damage dealt is greater than the remaining HP of the enemy, the blob completely dissolves him and hits the next monster in range with the remaining damage. This isn't a skill per se, but like the skills mentioned in this section it's something you'll get if you play a certain race, and should be evaluated here as well. An important thing to know about the Acid Breath is that while it deals elemental acid damage and is unhindered by PV like a spell, it doesn't consume PP to use: Rather, it uses up nutrition. Food serves as fuel for the Acid Breath. This means that using it often means you'll need a lot more food. It also means that if you're bloated, you can use the Acid Breath to get yourself down to satiated again. This is handy in case you have a corpse in danger of rotting that you want to eat as quickly as possible.
Also consider that the Acid Breath gains power solely by level; you can't train it by use or spend skill advances to make it any stronger, while spells and weapons can improve in spell effectivity or weapon skill. That's why you shouldn't use the Acid Breath except when it's necessary, you should rather train up melee and missile weapons or spells. Still, it's a major asset to have especially in the early game, when the Acid Breath provides a means to kill opponents with a "sort-of" spell even with zero PP. Spend all your money on large rations if you start the game as a drakeling Druid and want to use the Acid Breath.
Note that being a racial ability, you can't get the Acid Breath from a wish or any kind of potion or scroll... Well, not directly. There is a corruption, the Sulfur Breath, which provides you with pretty much the same power, and cursed potions of cure corruption, potions of raw chaos and cursed scrolls of chaos resistance could corrupt you to the point where you get it. Needless to say, that would be a fairly idiotic method... The normal case is that you develop it by chance at some point and start to use it then. It's one of the corruptions I'd not be in a hurry to get rid of.

7. Other skills you can get

a) Courage
Improves your fighting prowess while being surrounded by removing the penalties you suffer to your to-hit for every enemy except the first standing on one of the eight squares around you. It also reduces the to-hit boni of said enemies. At 100, even being surrounded by eight enemies at once will incur rather low penalties. This skill cannot be gained by choosing any of the races or classes; it's one of the two skills that can only be gotten in-game. To get Courage, you need to complete the quest of the old barbarian living in the clearing near the entrance to Darkforge in Southern Central Drakalor. The first step is to be actually given the quest: To qualify, you need to have killed 500 monsters. That should be doable. If you've done the early game quests and travel westwards to the Caverns of Chaos for the first time, you most certainly will get the Courage quest. A bit harsher are the requirements of the quest itself: You have to kill twenty more of the kind of monster you killed first. The hardest part for most players is probably remembering what the hell that first kill was. Smart players have written it down somewhere or even named themselves after it (extra-smart players type in the name in the "&" monster memory and let the game remember it there). Needless to say, if the monster you need to kill is rare, you'll have a hard time finding twenty of it to complete this quest. It really depends. Should you not know your first kill, the best thing you can do is get the quest, go on about your business crawling through the dungeons and occasionally check back on the old barbarian. Once you have killed enough monsters, he'll teach you sum'thin 'bout Courage. Note that you must not be chaotic if you want to either receive his quest or receive his evaluation - he won't talk to chaotics at all. The Courage skill is not essential - a smart player knows not to be surrounded, and your best action if you are is not to start fighting the monsters around you, but to whip out an Ethereal Bridge spell and get the hell out of there! At least that's the theory. On the other hand, there are levels where you might not have it that easy, so getting the skill is most certainly not a bad idea, but other players happily kill the old barbarian for XP and forget about Courage entirely without being worse off for it (Yes, I'm looking at you, the-one-who-breaks-his-lines-himself-while-typing). Note that the first kill is relevant for another reason - check the Guidebook for that. Courage trains naturally to a good extent, as you often find yourself fighting more than one opponent at a time. You don't need to spend skill advances on it, but Courage always has pretty good dice and can usually quickly be freely trained till 100, so it's certainly a good alternative to having to spend perfectly good skill advances on, say, Haggling.

b) Disarm traps
Can be 'a'pplied to disarm door or floor traps. You have to stand adjacent to the square containing the trap. Higher levels improve the chance of success. This skill requires thieves picks to use, which are either found in the pyramid or very rarely from random drops. It costs 3000 to 5000 gold pieces to be taught Disarm traps by Yergius once you enter the Thieves Guild. You have to be level 13 to get the thieves picks from the pyramid as well. Also, you're a spellcaster, and there is a spell called Disarm Traps that sports a 100 percent success rate and trains mana if used. In short, this skill is not worth the money you have to spend on it at all. The only good it does sitting there in your skill list is that it increases the likelihood of your scrolls and potions of education giving you other, more useful skills. That alone might be enough for some, and gold isn't hard to come by, so if you like, get it.

c) Law
Will tell you when you've committed a chaotic or lawful act. Only at level 100 will you be told all the time, at lower levels you will not recognize all the acts. This skill can only be obtained if you complete both the Kranach and the Hotzenplotz quests from Tywat Pare. The Kranach quest requires you to kill Kranach, the raider lord (he can be met in a random wilderness encounter as long as you haven't reached level 6) and the Hotzenplotz quest requires you to kill the crime lord of Lawenilothehl and will only be given to you once you reach level 10. If you have managed to kill both of these criminals, Tywat will teach you the law skill in addition to the reward he gives you for killing Hotzenplotz. Killing Hotzenplotz is rather easy as long as you use spells and keep him the hell away from you, but finding Kranach can take an awful shitload of time and killing him and surviving his raiding party isn't trivial for an early game PC (though with smart use of Divine Wrath, it should be doable). All this and the fact that the skill is almost as useless as Haggling, Metallurgy or Disarm traps mean that at least I will lose no sleep not getting this skill. Knowing what constitutes a chaotic act is a no-brainer (hint: killing non-hostiles, robbing graves and wearing amulets of chaos are among the more obvious ones). The same can be said for the few lawful acts the game provides (killing criminals like Hotzenplotz, completing quests, healing injured companions or neutrals, wearing amulets of order). In short, this skill is useless, and unless you want it for the same reason as Disarm traps (though you'd have to want it badly), don't bother getting it.

d) Pick locks
'A'pply to open locked doors or lock unlocked closed doors. Thieves picks are required. Will bypass traps if successful, but might trigger them if unsuccessful. Can be taught by Yergius if you pay him 3000 to 5000 gold pieces. As has been mentioned under b), you pretty much have to be level 13 to get thieves picks. Like for Disarm Traps, there is a spell that opens locked doors: Divine Key. It's just as common as Disarm traps and even costs a little less PP, on top of that wands of knocking can open doors for you as well. There are also keys to open any door in the game (also disarming all the traps in the process). To top it all off, you can just 'k'ick the door often enough to destroy it, though that will trigger the trap contained. Even if you want to lock a closed door to keep monsters out, there is the Seal of the Spheres spell to do it for you. Pick locks might be more useful if you could get the thieves picks for it more easily, but as it stands, it's just as useless as Disarm traps. Get it to fill up your skill list with useless junk so you get better stuff with potions and scrolls of education.

e) Tactis
Increases the benefits and lowers the penalties for fighting with special tactics other than "Normal". The higher the level, the greater the boni provided, eventually making the Normal stance the least desirable for fighting. This skill is taught by Bart, the grizzled gladiator already mentioned under the skill description for Backstabbing, after you give him the golden gladius. Combine the words "awe" and "some" to get a slight idea of the value of this skill. If there is any skill worth getting in this section, it most certainly is this one. As a spellcaster, you will (in crucial situations at least) cast all your spells in coward mode, and having Tactics at a decent level will increase your DV in that mode by far more than the Dodge skill can get you. On the other hand, if brute force is required, switching to berserk coupled with a good Tactics skill will make you able to rip your opponent to even more shreds. Did I already mention that you should get this skill under any circumstances? Win the arena, trade in your golden gladius with a happy smile and receive two (for orcs one) extra skills to go with it!

f) Two weapon combat
Lowers the to-hit and attacking speed penalties received for fighting with two weapons. The higher the level, the better your dual-wielding. This is yet another skill you get if you give the golden gladius to Bart. As for its value... Needless to say, if you don't plan on using two weapons, every skill point spent on this skill is a waste; if you do consider fighting with two weapons, get this as high as ever possible, as without a very high Two weapon combat skill dual-wielding is tremendously inferior to the weapon and shield or the two-handed weapon route. Even with the skill at 100, at least for a Druid such as yourself, dual-wielding is still a bad choice. You might be able to attack more often in the same time, but you will always attack twice and thus take more time in each turn, meaning you are less able to react. On top of that, you forgo using a shield, which will deal a hefty blow to your possible DV. Also, having two reasonably powerful attacks compared to having one insanely powerful attack (such as that of an eternium two-handed sword) means you have to overcome the PV twice and might end up with less damage than with the one two-handed weapon. As long as you don't use Needle & Sting (which get such great bonuses if used together in Two weapon combat that they're almost always worth it) or some other insanely powerful melee weapons (like eternium weapons of penetration, which bypass PV, and may be worth attacking with twice if you can avoid getting hit too much), don't fight with two weapons unless you really want to because you think it's cooler or whatever. If you don't dual-wield - as has been said, don't increase the skill. Sooner or later the time will come where you have skill advances you don't know how to spend, and Two weapon combat will probably still be a better choice than Haggling.

8. Talents
Check the guidebook for complete and detailed information. The ADOM manual itself will also tell you about the prerequisites of the talents, so go there if you want to avoid the temptation of perusing spoily sections of the guidebook. I will offer my opinion on the talents available nonetheless.

As a Druid, you will usually start with two or three starting talents, sometimes one, sometimes four. The theoretical maximum is five. This means at least 17 talents. There are combinations of talents that provide quite a significant bonus. You won't be able to get all the potentially useful talents, though, so you have to make decisions. These decisions should be based on the playing style of your Druid.

Anyway, here's the talents I would consider taking. If a talent has been mentioned several times, that means it's a part of different "talent chains". You only have to get it once.

Alert, Miser, Treasure Hunter (because I love treasure), Potent Aura, Charged (extra PP regeneration), Long Stride (It helps escaping by improving your movement speed), Quick, Very Quick, Greased Lightning (speed is very important), Careful, Defensive Fighter, Very Careful, Dodger, Shield Specialist, Shield Expert, Shield Master (extra DV is very helpful, take as many of these as you want), Porter, Master Packager, Beast of Burden (so you can carry lots of helpful equipment without getting burdened as much), Good Shot, Keen Shot, Eagle Eye (Extra missile damage, slaying missiles will become even more effective with these, you need Archery for Eagle Eye, though), Good Shot, Keen Shot, Quick, Quick Shot, Lightning Shot (the last two increase your missile attacking speed; these talents are very powerful, though Lightning Shot also requires Archery), Basher, Powerful Strike, Mighty Strike (if and only if you find yourself using a weapon that weighs 100 stones or more primarily - if you do, very much recommended), Potent Aura, Strong Healer (if you find healing spells early, this might save your life), Hardy, Tough Skin, Iron Skin, Steel Skin, Mithril Skin (can be very helpful if you get them early on, later in the game probably a waste. Only dwarves can get Mithril Skin, so it's a bit more worthwhile for them).

Good stand-alone talents include Long-Lived, which can only be chosen in the beginning and increases your lifespan by 30 percent. For orcs and trolls especially, this might safe you from death at the hands of ghost aging attacks. Also potentially life-saving is Healthy, which can be chosen anytime and increases HP regeneration, though only slightly.

Of the talents that can only be gotten when you start out with your character, only Alert and Long-Lived are mentioned in the list above. In my opinion, the others aren't worth considering; Strong might be the best of the lot. The Heir talent, which requires three starting talents (Charming, Boon to the Family, and Heir itself) grants you a yellow leather armor of balance, which is essentially the same as the leather armor you're likely to start out with anyway (dwarves and orcs even get studded leather armor, which is superior). It gives shock resistance and draws your alignment towards neutral over time - two effects that may be useful in certain circumstances, but lumped together on a shitty armor are hardly of any use. The armor isn't worth wearing, and you can't even equip it in case you meet a lightning vortex because changing body armor takes so much time! For three talents, you can get Hardy, Tough Skin and Iron Skin instead, netting you two points of PV added to your starting armor AND three max HP! Much better, and there are talents even more useful than that! If you get Heir as a Druid, don't ever tell me about it. I'm losing too much hair as it is; I don't want to tear out more in despair over how stupid the people on this world can be.

The bottom line of all this? Well, since there is only one dedicated starting talent you need for the talent chains recommended above, there's no reason to worry about the number of starting talents at all. Trolls and orcs might be faced with the dilemma of choosing between Alert and Long-Lived. I'd take Alert anyway, but it's best to secure an extra talent by playing a Druid born in Candle or Falcon. Note that Long Stride and Quick are prime candidates for the very early game, because a speed of over 100 or higher movement speed will enable you to run from most monsters. You might think running is against your principles and something only cowards do. I'm not saying that running isn't cowardly, but I'll say this: Running means you don't die. The key to winning ADOM is to learn not to die. Running is a valuable method of achieving just that, and you'll do yourself a big favour if you remember this. As mentioned, Hardy and the extra PV talents are also something you should choose early on, because PV is quite a bit more valuable in the early to mid game than DV. The other talents tend to be useful well into the late game, and thus can be chosen anytime, maybe with the exception of Strong Healer, which isn't really worth much if you have potions of extra or ultra healing or the Heal spell for emergency healing purposes later in the game.

9. Spells
Seeing as this is the only spellcaster guide I'll likely ever write, I will try and give you my opinion on all the spells in the game. If that's too much detail for you, just scroll down! The spells will be divided into groups, and discussed in comparison to other spells in the group, if applicable. Spells that are considered "clerical" are noted with a (C). Since your Druid is a divine spellcaster, he will be able to increase in effectivity in these spells twice as fast as in the purely arcane spells.

a) Healing spells

Cure Light Wounds (C): The most basic of all the healing spells, and also the cheapest to cast. There are voices that say, quite reasonably so, that this is the most valuable healing spell you can have. This is due to the fact that it is the most common, the easiest to learn, and thus the one you can cast most often - which leads to higher effectivity ratings. Higher effectivity means a cheaper Cure Light Wounds healing more damage. Very high effectivity Cure Light Wounds oftentimes heals just as much damage as Cure Serious or even Critical Wounds, costing a third less PP! The effectiveness of this spell even at low levels is very respectable with the help of Strong Healer.

Cure Serious Wounds (C): More powerful than Cure Light Wounds. A bit rarer and harder to learn and more costly in PP. However, it's entirely possible, thanks to the randomness of ADOM, that you find lots of books of Cure Serious Wounds and no Cure Light Wounds - making Cure Serious Wounds the preferable spell. In the end, any healing spell will do wonders if you need it.

Cure Critical Wounds (C): More powerful than Cure Serious Wounds. Only marginally rarer than Cure Serious Wounds and more costly in PP. As has been said already, every one of the Healing spells is wonderful to have, all you need is one of them, the earlier the better.

Heal (C): The most powerful of all the healing spells. The rarest, and most expensive, and hardest to learn. This is a spell reserved for emergencies. For everyday healing, the other spells will do fine - you don't need to heal 150 HP in one go instead of 30 HP in five goes if there is no especially hard-hitting opponent near. For emergency healing, blessed potions of extra or ultra healing are more reliable, though, leaving this spell with hardly a job to do. Still, it's good to cover emergencies doubly or triply - you might contract poison hands in an untimely moment!

Cure Disease (C): The effect should be rather obvious. This is one of the many ways to cure diseases, and laughably easy to use. Pay the low spell cost, and your problems are solved. If you find this spell early, it can save your life. Other ways to cure diseases include the curaria mancox herb, preferably blessed potions of healing, extremely lucky First Aid rolls and divine favors (though you should be warned not to rely on that to work - the gods tend to heal HP instead of sickness if they can, and being sick takes away HP at the beginning of every round if you're not at 50% HP or below. They might heal your sickness, or they might heal your HP instead, which are brought down again, leaving you with no choice but to pray again... and again...). Having a high number of castings in this spell (or a respectable stash of curaria mancox) is one of the prerequisites for sickness stat training (which is an exploit I shall not explain here - down that path the dark side lurks).

Neutralize Poison (C): Neutralizes a certain amount of poison dependant on your spell effectivity. This spell has a weakness: If you're poisoned a lot, it won't heal you all the way, but usually (hopefully) enough to make you survive to the next round, where you can cast the spell again. In most situations, this spell will be able to deal with the poison, but personally I feel the next spell in this section is a bit more reliable.

Slow Poison (C): Heavily weakens *all* the poison in your body. After casting this spell, you usually take one point or two of poison damage, tops, and a few turns later you've gotten rid of the rest through natural healing. My experience tells me that this is the best way to get rid of poison. Blessed alraunia antidote or blessed potions of cure poison come close, but Slow Poison, especially if cast twice, removes any danger even the most potent poison may poise, er, pose.

b) Touch damage spells

Baptism of Fire (C): The only elemental touch damage spell. Affects everyone except those resistant or immune to fire. The damage is respectable, especially once this spell has been trained a lot. Which is easy, since it is among the cheapest spells in the Druid's arsenal, and very common and easy to learn. The fact that it only affects one opponent - the one standing right next to you - makes it the spell of choice if there's only one enemy to kill, or when you don't want to risk bolt spells bouncing around. Another advantage of Baptism of Fire is that it can't be shrugged off. Yet another advantage is that it destroys no items, not even those on the square that's hit. Sadly, there are no non-fire equivalents of this spell, meaning against fire resistant or immune enemies, you have to default back to bolt or ball spells.

Bless (C): This spell only hurts undead. If you hit anyone not undead, including yourself, with it, they will be blessed instead, which adds a bit of to-hit, damage, DV and PV (making Bless an enchantment as well). The guideline is simple. Use this on undead, yourself or companions. Barring an undead slaying weapon or another kind of powerful melee weapon, this is among the best ways to deal with undead. It has the advantage, compared to melee weapons, that you can cast it to full effect in coward mode. It has the disadvantage that it can be shrugged off, just like melee weapons can miss. High effectivity is a must if you want to use Bless on dangerous opponents. Thankfully, there is no shortage of standard issue undead to practice on, and you can - and there's no reason why you shouldn't - keep blessing yourself.

Dispel Undead (C): Closely related to Bless, of course, only that it doesn't double as a buff. I might be fooled, but I think it's a bit harder to learn than Bless, yet the damage is higher. All in all, both are about equal in the destroying undead department. It might be wise to specialize in either of them so you have maximum effectivity, because Destroy Undead can be shrugged off just like Bless.

Petrification (C): Strictly speaking, this is a touch spell that doesn't do damage, but turns enemies into stone. Which is essentially an instadeath, so it deserves to be listed here. This spell is hard to learn, and costs a shitload of PP to cast. As a rule of thumb, the more powerful the foe, the lower the chance of success. There are some dangerous opponents against which it has a very high chance of success, though. Generally, if it doesn't shrug off bolt spells, it won't be able to resist petrification. Killer bugs are a prime example of an opponent this spell works wonders against, as are all the small fry that you could kill by blowing your nose at them. A minor side bonus of successfully using this spell is the resulting statue, which you can kick down, sometimes yielding a magical wand, or wield as a melee weapon if you feel like adding a bit more badass to the Druid way of life. In the end, this spell is generally too unreliable for the PP it costs, so you won't use it much, if at all.

c) Enchantments (spells that affect people without causing damage to them)

Calm Monster (C): This spell only really comes into play in the early game. Usually, the best course of action if you encounter a hostile monster is to kill it for XP. You only might want to calm a hostile monster if you either can't or don't want to kill it. This mostly applies to cats or monsters that are too powerful for you to kill. For cats Calm Monster works wonders, though it might take some uses to calm the cat down, enabling you to make a run for it. Powerful monsters tend to laugh in your face and kill you anyway. Because cats are rarely hostile anyway to your Druid, this spell easily makes the top ten of being useless. It doesn't cost much PP, though, is rather common and easy to learn.

Holy Awe (C): May make the targetted monster panic and run away. As has been explained in the description for Calm Monster, you will want to kill monsters except for the two exceptions of cats and powerful monsters. Likewise, against cats this spell works well, against powerful monsters it has slim chances of success. At about the same level of uselessness as Calm Monster, and similarly easy to find, learn and cast.

Slow Monster: The first purely arcane spell in my list. It also happens to be one of the most useful of all the spells available to you. You can cast it on monsters to slow them to half their usual speed, meaning they will only act half the time in a battle, essentially halving their power. It has a chance of failure, though. You can also cast Slow Monster on yourself. This sounds like it is something only a retarded chimp would even consider doing. And it is - except if one knows that the experience a character receives in battle is dependent on his speed. The faster a character is, the less XP will he gain from killing his enemies. Why that is so is mysterious - I think it's related to the fact that if you move faster, you have more difficulties perceiving your surroundings or something like that. What matters is that this actually works the other way around - if you slow yourself using Slow Monster, and kill someone, you will get a great deal more XP. If you do this right before dealing the finishing blow on an enemy that would yield loads of XP, you will get awesome motherfucking assloads of XP. Is this an exploit? Possibly. Personally I'd say a trollish Druid would have every right to use this method; the others don't exactly need it. Popular monsters to kill while being slowed include the water dragon, Nuurag-Vaarn, greater molochs, or anything powerful you can deal with slowed. A bit rarer than Calm Monster or Holy Awe and a bit harder to learn, but still not a very demanding spell.

Veil of the Gods: Makes the target invisible. Works on you, works on enemies. Why you would use it on enemies is beyond me, so we're probably talking about you here. If you're invisible, you will not be found and hit by enemies you haven't attacked yourself, except if your enemies can see invisible. Which ones these are is something you might find out too late, but mostly you're safe. Killer bugs and greater claw bugs see invisible - beware. Enemies you haven't attacked that can't see you might try to move on your square, but instead of hitting you they will seem to search for someone or something, utterly incapable of finding you ever. However, if you attack them, they will instantly know how to find you - forever. Bottom line: If relying on invisibility in a dangerous place, choose your enemies carefully! About the same level of rarity as Slow Monster.

Farsight (C): Cannot be targeted: You will instantly receive the benefits of this enchantment. Basically, it drastically enhances your line of sight. This is a very valuable spell in the right situations especially later on, when bolt spells and missile weapons have very far range that'd otherwise go virtually unused. Usually, you won't find enough Farsight books to cast it again and again to make it a "permanent" effect for the rest of the game, but you don't need to do that. Popular places to be farsighted include most greater vaults, elemental temples, and long corridors with powerful monsters at the other end, and especially the Mana Temple; firstly because longer sight range means a greater area of effect for your wands of trap detection, secondly so you can see the Archmage from the entrance. About as common as Veil of the Gods, and rather cheap for the late game, when it is worth the most.

Lordly Might: Like with Farsight, you are automatically the target of this spell. There are two approaches to this spell. The first one is to cast it and constantly recast it so you can carry around obscene amounts of equipment with you. Very effective, powerful, and convenient - as long as you take care to recast it once you're warned of the ending of the spell's duration. Which brings us to the second approach: Only to cast it when you need to, and in all other cases go without it. I'm a follower of the second approach, simply because I want to avoid the very embarassing death the PC dies if you forget to recast the spell while carrying around said obscene amounts of equipment. I use Lordly Might if I want to carry a whole lot of loot to sell to the next shop, or for all other temporary uses that could be imagined, with the emphasis on temporary. Carrying around useless junk is not something a smart adventurer should engage in, and the effect of Lordly Might easily creates the temptation to be sloppy. Which in turn can cost the lives of otherwise nigh-invincible characters. If you are a careful player, use Lordly Might however you want, but it should be clear that you need a respectable stock of castings of Lordly Might for it to last throughout your game. The book is a bit rarer than the ones mentioned above, and you need to be a pretty good learner to get good castings out of one book, but the spell isn't expensive to cast - if push comes to shove, the HP hit of casting it without any PP left is easily absorbed. Note that the durations of Lordly Might stack - you can cast it several times in a row to make it last longer. Of course, this makes it easier for you to accidentally hit away the warnings since it's less likely that you will be expecting them after such a long time...

d) Divinations (Spells that grant you information)

Know Alignment (C): Cast this spell on anyone you like to find out his, her or its alignment. You only need to know the alignment of a monster if you want to sacrifice it on a neutral or lawful altar; deities of both alignments hate it if you sacrifice coaligned creatures on their altars. Know Alignment helps you find out which monster you can sacrifice and which you can't. Apart from that, it's completely and utterly useless, especially since the alignment is dependant on creature type - know the alignment of one, and you know the alignment of all the others, for the rest of all your games. If you are fairly new to ADOM and still want to engage in hardcore monster sacrificing (which, let me advise you, really should be mutually exclusive), you probably need Know Alignment, but apart from that, no. At least it's one of the easiest spells to learn and costs almost nothing in PP.

Enlightenment (C): Identifies an item, revealing its basic statistics (like its name and the boni it gives to DV, PV, to-hit, damage, or stats), and enabling you to recognize this item if you stumble across it again later (most of the times, necklaces tend to be hard to recognize for some reason). This spell costs a lot to cast and is fairly hard to learn and hard to find, and it has only the effect of a cursed scroll of identify. If you have gathered a big bunch o' loot that needs to be identified, you're better off just using one of your blessed scrolls of identify instead of casting this spell over and over. If it's only a few items that need identifying, and using a scroll feels like a waste, cast Enlightenment.

Greater Enlightenment (C): Does not identify several items, it greater identifies *one* item. Greater identifying reveals all there is to know about one item, most importantly intrinsics like the various resistances and immunities, or whether the item dooms you or makes Fate smile upon you, and explanations of a magical effect that go beyond its name. You should greater identify all artifacts that you haven't seen before to learn their properties. I'm not sure whether Greater Enlightenment really does work as reliable as a blessed scroll of greater identify and reveal any magical property without fail; you might need to cast it several times on an item to really know all the properties. A very useful spell, especially once you've run out of the rare scroll of greater identify. You can also decide on simply looking up all the artifact statistics on the intarweb (*cough* Guidebook *cough*), in which case you need neither the scroll nor the spell, but that's a bit cheap, isn't it? Greater Identify is even more expensive to cast than Enlightenment, and very rare and quite hard to learn.

Revelation (C): Similar to Greater Enlightenment, but it doesn't reveal intrinsics of an item. Rather, it reveals all the magical intrinsics you possess, along with your HP and PP regeneration rates. In the early game, this isn't a very useful effect - you start out with zero intrinsics usually. The longer you play the game, however, and devour corpses and drink from pools and so on, the harder it is to keep track of the intrinsics you have gained at some point. Sure, you could write them all down on some sheet of paper, but it's always more reliable to just cast Revelation periodically, especially since there are corpses that give you an intrinsic only part of the time, like fire beetle corpses. Want to gamble on whether you actually got fire resistance from it or not when you meet a fire vortex? There you are. It isn't hard to learn or find, but expensive to cast, and it takes AGES to learn it. The time you spend reading a book of Revelation once is similar to the time you spend on reading ball spells or Greater Divine Touch or something along those lines!

Knowledge of the Ancients (C): Reveals part of the dungeon map. How much of the map is revealed is heavily influenced by the spell effectivity. The usefulness of this effect cannot be overstated, especially late in the game, and most especially in the Minotaur Maze. It's a bit hard to learn, expensive to cast and rare to find, which is a shame, as practice really helps a lot with this spell. If you must know the exact layout of a level instantly, use a blessed scroll of magic mapping instead. Scrolls of magic mapping should always be used blessed, especially if you have this spell.

e) Alterations (Spells that somehow manipulate objects)

Divine Key: Opens doors. Whether they are locked or trapped doesn't matter, they only need to be closed so they can be opened. Locks are unlocked, traps defused (thankfully). Very cheap to cast, very easy to find and learn. One of the most basic spells ever. Its usefulness is hindered by the fact that doors can be kicked down or opened with keys or wands of knocking. Especially later on, you may have more charges of wands of knocking than you will need. Not useless, but very unimportant.

Seal of the Spheres: Locks doors. This is a tad bit more useful than Divine Key. The only other ways to lock a closed door are either with the appropriate key or with the Pick Locks skill (which you probably won't bother to get). You will want to lock doors to keep whatever is behind them behind them. Many of the more brute monsters can smash doors, but the others will be utterly incapable to get through that door if it is locked. The Seal of the Spheres spell is the most reliable way to lock any door - you can run out of keys or just don't have the right key for the door, and Pick Locks has a chance of failure. One-hundred percent reliability is very important because you might want this spell to save your life one day! It's only slightly rarer and harder to learn than Divine Key.

Remove Curse (C): Uncurses a single item. It has the effect of an uncursed scroll of uncursing, which is okay, but of course inferior to the awesome power of the blessed scroll of uncursing. Still very nice to have if you really only want to uncurse a single item, and don't want to waste your scrolls of uncursing. It's about as hard to learn and find and expensive to cast as Enlightenment. This spell cannot remove a curse from yourself - you need divine support, a karmic creature corpse or a scroll of luck for that.

Ethereal Bridge: Teleports the target to somewhere on the dungeon level. It can only teleport living beings, though, whyever that is. One of the most important spells in the game, and a must in any spellcaster's repertoire. If you cast it on yourself, you are randomly teleported like any other target, except if you possess the teleport control intrinsic. This intrinsic can be gotten from a pool, by eating a blink dog corpse, or by wearing an amulet or ring of teleport control (certain artifacts might help, too). If you have teleport control, this spell becomes five times more useful, since you will be able to use it as a dedicated method of travel, not just an emergency measure. There are many uses to "on-demand" teleportation, especially if you know your way around the dungeons. There are secret locations that can only ever be visited by teleporting. Having learnt Ethereal Bridge provides one with the greatest stash of teleport spells, but you can also teleport (only yourself) with the help of scrolls of teleportation, or teleport yourself and others with the wand of teleportation (which is rare, but guaranteed to be found in one place), or generate a teleport trap with a wand of trap creation. You can recharge wands, so the Ethereal Bridge spell isn't a must - but is most certainly a should, especially if you happen to catch the nasty mana battery corruption. This spell is in the medium range of rarity and difficulty to learn and cast - you should keep the book for reading to the end later if you find it early. Read it nonetheless - an early-found Ethereal Bridge can save your ass so hard it's not even funny.

Divine Digger (C): Digs a tunnel through stone in one of the eight directions, or digs a pit or up a grave if you press 5. Its effect is the same as the wand of digging, only that the range of effect of the wand of digging is governed by its blessed/uncursed/cursed status, not your willpower. There aren't many cases where you need or would like to be able to dig, but in these cases, using Divine Digger is as good a method as any. It's useless for mining, just like the wand - mining has to be done with a pickaxe. This spell takes some time and is pretty hard to learn, and at about the rarity of Remove Curse or Enlightenment.

Earthquake (C): A spell of great effect, but restricted use. Earthquaking a level, apart from putting yourself in danger, mainly creates an assload of rocks and makes the dungeon level an open field. It also damages all the monsters that were hit by rocks by the earthquake, but rarely enough to kill them. Earthquake isn't really good for anything, especially if you don't need the rocks, which is the case for 99% of Druids worldwide. The only thing it has going for it is the fact that it usually enables you to get anywhere in the dungeon. If you lack other, less destructive sources of digging, Earthquake is an alternative - if the level isn't immune to earthquakes, of course. It's very hard to learn and expensive to cast, however, and I advise you not to be careless using it, if you use it at all.

Disarm Trap (C): Disarms a trap, making it vanish out of existence. You don't even need to see it - if you suspect there might be a trap in the square next to you, but have no way of finding out save stepping on it, you can cast Disarm Traps on the square and it will be disarmed (without yielding any message at all - if you use it on a non-trapped square, you get a message along the lines of "Nothing happens, the spell is wasted", so you will know when you were successful in disarming a trap by the lack of any response. Tricky, huh?). A useful spell in heavily-trapped areas, and very helpful in everyday adventuring especially when coupled with the Detect Traps skill. For door traps Divine Key works fine, though. This spell is one-hundred percent reliable and thus hugely superior to the Disarm Traps skill. On top of that, it's cheap, easy to learn, and not that hard to find.

f) Summonings (Spells that summon things into existence out of nowhere)

Light (C): Conjures bright light in a certain radius around the caster. This light removes darkness, be it from the source of a spell or natural, and damages gremlins. This is the cheapest spell in existence, and after a bit of effectivity costs maybe three or two points of PP. Apart from being the most efficient way to deal with gremlin infestations, it's simply useful if you want your dungeons non-dark. There are scrolls, wands and even an artifact to duplicate the effect, and constant light sources like torches or an amulet of light will be more useful against opponents that regularly cast Darkness in battle. So, all in all, very basic and not very important.

Darkness: Often underestimated and underused, many players call this the most useful non-damaging spell in the game. This is due to the fact that many opponents fight very poorly in the darkness - or not at all. Vortices, most importantly, will not explode in the darkness in most of the cases, even if you attack them they might stay calm until you kill them. Monsters will not be able to follow you out of the darkness easily, so you can cast Darkness, run out and hopefully leave behind the monster that is on your toes. Apart from enemies not being able to attack you, enemies also rarely will use spells or elemental attacks on you. In general, fighting in darkness has a lot of advantages that outweigh the disadvantage of not being able to see in most cases, at least if fighting in a confined, previously explored space. It's a cheap spell to cast, and very common. Dangerous opponents that Darkness effectively cripples include doppleganger kings, doppleganger kings and doppleganger kings.

Summon Monsters (C): Summons a number of monsters dependant on spell effectivity. This sounds cool until you realize that these monsters all behave like normal monsters - they want to beat the crap out of you, rob you or eat you. That also explains why it's rather cheap to cast and easy to learn. This spell may be useful very late in the game, when you want to have some meat shields so you aren't surrounded by as many of the really dangerous monsters, or at any point if you want to kill some monsters for XP without having to walk around to look for them.

Divine Favour (C): Creates an item. What kind of item? That depends on where you are. If you are deep down in a dangerous dungeon, it may create a very powerful item. It also may create a hat or brass bracers or something similarly useless, regardless of where you cast it. The PP cost is hefty, and the spell is rare and hard to learn. In the end, this spell does nothing what killing some more monsters wouldn't do as well - and you don't get XP for casting it! Good if you just want to cast some spells to train your mana, though.

Wish: This spell is not documented in the manual. Very suspicious, isn't it? What does it do? Simple - it grants you a wish. You'll be able to wish for almost any item you want, except for artifacts. You can also wish for stats, skills and even monsters. Wishes are the most awesome and helpful thing in the ADOM universe. Where's the catch? you may ask. Well, as you can imagine, the spellbook of Wish is very rare, but not impossible to find. Sadly, finding it is a lot easier than successfully reading it, which in turn is a lot easier than casting it without dying. Once you've found a spellbook, stuff yourself full of food and/or find a dungeon room of which the air is filled with a very rich flavor. Learn the spell. Then look at the PP cost and recollect your dropped jaw. How can anyone even survive casting Wish? Be assured that it takes a lot of effort to gather the HP and PP needed. You should also be aware that even if you do manage to cast wish without dying, doing so will take away 10 points from one of your stats. Bottom line? As long as you don't plan on creating an archmage, only ever consider going through the trouble of successfully casting wish if you need a certain item and absolutely fail to find it.

g) Straight line bolt spells (Bolt spells that fizzle if they hit a wall or door)

Hellish Flames (C): Casts a bolt of fire. This spell will burn enemies that aren't resistant or immune to fire or shrug off the bolt, cook corpses, destroy already cooked corpses and items vulnerable to fire (which are a lot). It is a solid and easy to learn bolt spell capable of dealing with most opponents, but the item destruction is considerable. It won't damage items that are still in the possession of a living monster, though, even if the monster is killed by it, so if there are no items you care about lying around, it's safe to use. Of course, Hellish Flames really shines if you meet a tension room or vault chock full of white dragons or frost giants. However, foes resistant to fire in turn are rather common. For any of the bolt spells, spell effectivity is very important, as they can all be shrugged off.

Nether Bolt (C): Casts a cone of ice. Marginally less damaging than Hellish Flames, but quite a bit more vital in my opinion, for several reasons: First, it has a much lower rate of item destruction - in fact, it only drenches scrolls and spellbooks and shatters potions, leaving all other items intact. Second, it can create an ice bridge if you cast it over a square of water next to you. Ice bridges can be destroyed by fire spells, and they break if you carry more than 2000 stones of weight with you, but they are a lot less of a hassle to create than bridges made of wood with the Bridge Building skill. Third, it is enormously helpful in the Tower of Eternal Flames, which is a dangerous place for any character. There are fewer monsters resistant to cold than to fire as well. Train it so it doesn't get shrugged off as often if you intend to use it as a major source of damage.

Acid Bolt (C): Does considerably more damage than Hellish Flames or Nether Bolt, but is also more expensive to cast. There are few opponents resistant to acid. For some opponents, acid is the only one of the four elemental spell types that can hurt them. This includes Nuurag-Vaarn and Yulgash, though they tend to shrug off Acid Bolts a lot anyway. This spell is rarer than the other elemental bolts and harder to learn, so it tends to become used less, and once Hellish Flames, Nether Bolt or Divine Wrath have been trained a bit, they deal as much damage while having a lower chance of being shrugged off. That's why Acid Bolt, despite its theoretical superiority over the other elemental bolts, gets fewer use. It destroys items just as much as Hellish Flames.

Web: Flies until the range ends or a wall is hit, like the other spells in this section. Instead of doing damage, it creates webs whereever it flew. If it hits an enemy, he has a high chance of shrugging off the web, but if he doesn't, he will instantly be entangled. The webs created with this spell cannot be shrugged off, however - they will stop anyone stepping in them for a random couple of rounds, giving you time to shoot at it with other spells. Just don't make it Hellish Flames, as that spell burns away webs. It's cheap to cast and rather common, and thanks to its popularity among adventurers dealing with dangerous adversaries that hit like a ton of bricks in melee, but carry no distance attack, it comes in a wand version, too.

h) Bouncing bolt spells (Bolt spells that bounce off walls)

All of these spells are tricky to use, and require a good eye and practice. They will fly as far as their Range is, and continue even after hitting a wall (the distance that remains to be crossed is reduced by one for every time the spell bounces off a wall). The best way to kill oneself is to let one of these spells fly straight against a wall. You should be aware of the range of your spells, and keep that much divided by two spaces distance to a wall if you want to cast the spell at it. Bouncing bolts can also hit enemies more than one time, so their volatile nature has its benefits!

Divine Wrath (C): Your starting spell as a Druid. It casts a bolt of lightning. Enemies resistant or immune to lightning are very rare, especially in the early game, and the spell packs enough punch to mess up all your opposition early on. It remains useful as a standard bolt spell on the level of Hellish Flames or Nether Bolt later in the game. There aren't many enemies especially vulnerable to Divine Wrath - but there is a very notable example: Steel golems. These can seriously lay waste to PCs below level 20 if you don't have means of effectively killing them, and Lightning Bolt is one of the best ways if you have trained it to decent effectivity. It destroys about the same items as Hellish Flames and Acid Bolt.

Minor Punishment: The best bolt spell there is, period. It does the least amount of damage, granted, but it also costs the least amount of PP, is the easiest to learn, causes zero destruction of items (!), and hurts any creature in the game with full power (!!). The latter two effects, as you may have deduced from the exclamation marks attributed to them, are made of win and awesome. It's a real shame this is an arcane spell; it makes it harder for the Druid to get it to high effectivity, where it can lay waste to greater molochs, ancient karmic dragons, simply everything. If there are no items around and the enemy can be hurt by one of the elemental spells, save your Minor Punishments for later. Just keep in mind that one thing: Minor Punishment kills everything - eventually.

Lesser Divine Touch (C): Shoots a ray that stuns enemies in its wake that don't shrug off the ray. Being stunned makes an enemy stagger around aimlessly, making them unable to use spells, missile attacks, or anything else that's not staggering and hitting people by accident. Very cool effect. Sadly, Lesser Divine Touch is next to useless in a pinch if it hasn't been trained. It isn't hard to train it - the books are rather common, and it's cheap to cast - but you have to invest some time in it.

Greater Divine Touch (C): Shoots a ray that instantly kills all that it hits, unless they shrug it off or are in some way resistant to it. It's very hard to hit powerful enemies with this, which is as it should be. It's also very hard to learn and costs an assload of PP to cast, which also is as it should be. This spell truly works wonders against killer bugs, though. Above all else, be enormously careful when using this spell. It bounces, so it can in theory hit you, and unless you are resistant do death rays, that means, well, death.

i) Ball spells

Major Punishment: A fire ball spell. The cheapest of the ball spells, and a nice thing to have. All the ball spells, sadly, are arcane, meaning you have a harder time training them to higher efficiency. The good news is that these spells cannot be shrugged off, so effectivity doesn't matter as much. While Baptism of Flame is for single opponents, and fire bolt for those who have lined up, Major Punishment is the spell when you are right in the middle of the action. It affects all the eight squares around you at least, and if you surpass certain Willpower thresholds, the area of effect increases! The first of these thresholds occurs at a willpower score of 32. You can definitely get there if you use the right tactics and equipment. To increase the area of effect further, much higher scores are required, necessitating pretty specialized and extreme tactics. For everyday purposes, the plain ball spell is pretty good, and the 32 willpower one is brutal. As has been mentioned, Major Punishment is fire. There are quite a number of fire resistant enemies especially further down in the dungeons. All undead and of course white dragons and wyrms, of course, make excellent targets. Beware of the item destruction, however - all squares in your area of effect will be affected. This is true for squares behind a wall or a door as well!

Freezing Fury: The ice ball spell. It's a bit more expensive than Major Punishment and a bit less brutal in damage, but still very impressive, and the perfect way to deal with fire creatures of all kinds. Having the Freezing Fury spell upon entrance into the Tower of Eternal Flames will help you tremendously, and every fire creature greater vault will succumb to your awesome power. This spell has less item destruction than other ball spells due to being an ice effect. Mostly, only scrolls, potions and books are affected by ice - valuable items, but at least it leaves the wands, girdles of giant strength and seven league boots alone.

Heavenly Fury: The lightning ball spell. More powerful than Major Punishment, costing more in PP, and very decent. Lightning resistant enemies are rarer than fire resistant ones. It does have the same level of item destruction. There are few noteworthy enemies especially vulnerable to lightning, though - the spell totally wastes steel golems, but apart from that it is of medium impact for a ball spell.

Rain of Sorrow: The acid ball spell. Damage wise, this is the most powerful spell in the game. And on top of that, acid is the rarest resistance, and most importantly, almost none of the really hard opponents resist it despite resisting the other three elements. There is also no one especially vulnerable to acid, but that is irrelevant due to its inherently extreme damage. It destroys items just like Major Punishment, but you shouldn't use it to clear masses of monsters like the other ball spells - keep your Rain of Sorrow castings for the likes of Yulgash, Nuurag-Vaarn or pretty much everything that proves a bit stroppy. It is said that not even an ElDeR cHaOs GoD can resist the sheer destructiveness of this spell.

Invoked Devastation: Another kind of fire ball spell. Instead of a standard Major Punishment, which affects the squares around you, it is hurled at the target of your choice, detonating upon reaching the goal or upon impact. This has the very cool effect that you can use it at a distance - emperor liches in particular are good opponents to have this spell to deal with. It has the slightly less cool effect that you can hit yourself with it. The other ball spells ignore the square you are standing on, but if you are in the radius of an Invoked Devastation hurled by you, you will take damage and item destruction. If you are resistant or even immune to fire and possess proper equipment to prevent your stuff from being damaged, you can ignore that and happily hurl your Invoked Devastations whereever you want. A special note for drakeling druids: This is the only way to hit yourself with a fire spell. You might want to keep this in mind should you be exposed to extreme cold. Apart from the Invoked Devastation spell, only alchemical blunders and fire crystals hurled by a sling to the square directly next to you are viable methods, at least if you don't want to rely on finding fire-based monsters to be attacked by. This spell does not come in versions for the other elements - you have to fall back on standard ball spells and bolt spells against the fire resistant.

This closes the section on spells. Is there still advice to give? Well, the bleeding obvious: Be economical with your castings, especially of the ball spells. As a Druid, you are not the best book learner around - you are very good, but you pale in comparison to the wizard. So keep your Rain of Sorrows around for the really critical cases. If you find especially many books of Rain of Sorrow, or wish for them (a smart move), you can afford to use some of your castings for training, but the highest efficiency ratings won't help much if you run out of your spells.

On a similar note, do not sell bolt spellbooks unless you positively swim in them. Read them all to death, and use them all to death (more specifically, to the death of your opposition). High effectivity, especially for bolt spells, helps so much it's not even funny. You can go the melee or missile route halfway effectively, but at your very heart, you're a spellcaster, even if your spellcasting related class powers suck donkey dick.

IV. Equipment

1. Melee weapons
Does a Druid need a good melee weapon? In the most cases, the answer is yes. The problem with Druids is that they have to pay rather high PP costs for their spells, especially compared to priests and wizards, and that they start with very low Literacy for a spellcaster. In the early game, you simply can't spellcast your way through your opposition like a wizard can pull it off.
Even later on, a good melee weapon is still important. It should always but in very few cases be a one-handed one so you can wear a shield with it. A good choice to specialize in is the spear, because they are one-handed members of the polearm weapon class, which gives the second highest DV bonus for weapon skill levels, second only to staves - and these don't allow shields to be worn. You can find good spears very early if you let orc scorchers throw theirs at you (don't worry - they aim like idiots). The orcish spear deals two more damage than the standard spear trap spear and will be the best spear you will likely have until you find higher metal spears. The trouble with spears is their low damage especially later on - if you don't find something like an eternium spear of devastation, you'll be at the low end of the spectrum compared to stuff like maces of destruction or swords of sharpness. The spear/shield combo is still the prime numero uno choice for pure spellcasters, as they can make excellent use of DV, but do not care one iota about melee damage. This is worth considering if your plans for your Druid in the later game go that way.
Quite obviously, there is another route you can take: damage-dealing. However, lacking one-handed melee weapons worth anything as crowning gift artifacts, you will have to find your damage-dealing capabilities in-game. The only really hefty weapon guaranteed to be found is the lead-filled mace "Big Punch", an artifact you will receive as reward if you defeat the greater daemon in Dwarftown for the last Thrundarr quest. It does weigh an awful lot, but it deals loads of damage - and its high weight makes it compatible with the Basher talents. Apart from Big Punch, you pretty much have to rely on randomly finding (or getting precrowned with) the more powerful one-handed artifact weapons, like Executor, Skullcrusher or Serpent's Bite. A mace of destruction, being the most damaging non-artifact weapon and Basher-compatible, works surprisingly well with a high weapon skill, though.
There are two-handed weapons out there so powerful you might even consider sacrificing the shield. Purifier, one of your crowning gifts, may be such a one. It slays demons and undead, making it very useful against many opponents you will meet, but you should keep Big Punch because it deals higher damage than Purifier against the enemies it doesn't slay while being one-handed. The rune-covered trident, a two-handed polearm you will be rewarded with if you tell Blup where his mommy is, slays demons and undead as well, has high damage dealing capacities as well as polearm DV and good intrinsics, and especially if you're born in Raven is worth a look. Even for non-Ravens it's definitely not a bad idea to just use spear/shield until level 36 is reached, then switch to the newly arrived rune-covered trident and waste demons and undead with it. A randomly found eternium two-handed sword of penetration or devastation is also definitely worth a try - many dream of finding such a gem.
Anyway, for the most part, this can be summarized as follows: Wear the best damn shield you can find, and either concentrate on damage or having the best spear - unless you find a really, really kickass two-handed weapon.
There's one thing you should be careful of: Cursed melee weapons. These have several severe disadvantages. Firstly, they only deal half damage to undead and demons. Secondly, you can't unequip them, which means you can't unequip gauntlets, which in turn means you can't unequip rings. That's four slots of equipment blocked off from change right there. It gets real bad if your melee weapon gets rusted, broken or corroded, however. In the worst case, you might get stuck essentially unable to do any significant damage in melee, having to resort to kicking! If that happens, it might be best to look for a way of removing the curse as soon as possible.

2. Missile weapons
Missile weapons are there to fill the very few gaps your spells or melee weapons leave open... at least that's one way of looking at it. The approach I've adopted early in my ADOM career, which I've never strayed from ever since, is to pick up every bundle of arrows and quarrels I can find, and regularly use bows and crossbows to become trained in both. The reason for that is slaying ammo. Bows and crossbows have the greatest amount of slaying ammunition availabe for them period. Supported by a decent weapon skill, the right slaying ammo oftentimes turns out to be one of the, if not the most efficient way to deal with many of the most powerful opponents - even more efficient than almost any spell that is not Rain of Sorrow. The presence of a bundle of 10 arrows of humanoid slaying and a sufficient weapon skill and a bow can make the difference between life and death if you venture into areas you aren't quite ready for. I can only implore you: Do not miss out on the power of the bow and crossbow. The other missile weapon classes you can easily do without - they have their merits and with high weapon skills can also do loads of damage, but ultimately bows and crossbows are the best choice.
About using missile weapons: Their obvious advantage is that you can use them at a distance. Usually, there are no opponents next to you when you shoot a missile, and very few shoot missiles themselves. You can really improve on your success using missile attacks by switching to berserk every time you fire, but can't be hit by anyone, or at least anyone noteworthy. Extra to-hit, extra damage, quicker demise to your foe.

3. Armor
Well, this should be obvious. Wear the goddamn best armor you can get your hands on. If you think it's worth it (it probably is), use Smithing to make your armor awemor, as in "awesome armor" (Yesss, groaaaaan at the hideous pun, har har har).
What is the best armor? Well, that's the more difficult question. There are two armor ratings: DV and PV. DV influences how easy you are to hit; the higher, the less you will be hit. PV, on the other hand, does not help you getting hit less, but it lessens the damage you take if you are hit. In the early game, you have low HP scores and rather low healing capabalities, and you most probably lack means of effective healing. This means getting hurt frequently will endanger your life over time. To avoid that, PV is very important. Early on, monsters deal relatively low damage, and PV reduces that damage significantly. A PV of zero in the early game necessitates very careful play. A PV of three or four, which most Druids start out with, is okay. PV of five is the threshold where I consider myself rather safe in the upper levels of the early game dungeons. A PV of 10 is pretty safe, and should be more than enough to complete the Yrrigs quest successfully. A PV of 12 or 13 is what I want to have at least before I enter the Caverns of Chaos dungeon. A PV of 15 keeps you alive till Dwarftown and probably further along. A PV of 20 is where you can consider yourself reasonably protected for the midgame. From then on, PV slowly starts to become less important - Monsters tend to overcome that value seldomly, but those who do overcome it tend to have the capability to deal critical hits. Critical hits deal double damage, which means the higher the base damage of the monster, the more dangerous their critical hits become, because the extra damage granted by the critical gets greater. A PV of 4 in the early game had no trouble absorbing a rat critical hit of four damage instead of 2, but with PV 25, a monster with 30 base damage will deal hefty 35 damage to you with a critical. Add the fact that many dangerous monsters also have multiple attacks, corrupting or poisonous hits, and you might notice that not getting hit would be preferable to having your armor absorb only half the damage in total. That's where your DV comes in. With high DV, you are hit much less often, and you are much more able to tolerate the few criticals you have to sustain since you will get the chance to heal up again.
Most armor parts primarily grant PV. Body armor tends to sacrifice DV for PV. In the beginning of the game, a few points of DV are worth sacrificing if it means having more PV. Later on, that's not going to be as true anymore. Thankfully, higher metal body armor comes with higher PV *and* lower DV penalties.
Very important for your DV, as probably has been mentioned before, is the shield. Not only do shields have pretty high DV rates, topping at 20 for the artifact shield Protector, with 16 being the value of a very well-made eternium or crystal tower shield, the shield weapon skill grants additional DV for consistent training, two per level! Your ability to train the shield skill is dependant on your shield DV value, by the way; for every point of DV on the shield, you can train one level in the shield skill. A small shield [+2, +0] will let you train your shield skill to level 2, while a shield with 15 DV is needed if you are to reach Grand Mastery eventually. Being a grandmaster doesn't offer special perks, though, aside from the ludicrous DV bonus. Note that even if your shield skill is higher than two, you can still only get four extra DV if you wear only the aforementioned small shield - yes, even if you are a grandmaster!
An interesting path to take is the wearing of two shields. This can be worth it if you have collected enough spell knowledge to last you through the game, and if you keep some missile weapons in your backhand should you run out of PP. You should, however, remember that you will only get the shield skill bonus once if you wear two shields, which means that the second, the one with the lower DV, will only add that DV and its PV to your armor ratings. The best second shield you can wear, even if your primary shield is Protector, is the aforementioned exceptionally well made 16 DV eternium or crystal tower shield. This is equal to the DV bonus level 12 of the polearm weapon skill would get you, meaning that level 13 in polearms is better than any kind of second shield (except maybe a very persistingly smithed eternium tower shield). Level 11 of the polearm weapon skill gives 14 DV, which is more than even a normal eternium or crystal tower shield would get you. True, polearms do not offer PV, but it's worth remembering that the highest DV values are achieved by being exceptionally skilled in polearms while wearing a spear and an excellent shield.

4. The best of the best
There is an awful lot of equipment, magical or not, in the game. Some of it is crap, some of it is harmful, some of it is useful, and some of it is absolutely awesome. I will tell you about some things to look for in the game, and give you information for each slot how you should proceed in the game to improve it.
One thing you should always keep in mind is the fact that everything you find can be either blessed, uncursed or cursed. Cursed equipment, as you probably have already found out, cannot be directly or willfully unequipped. That means that you should handle things you don't know the status of with great care. The general rule is: Only equip items if you consider the potential benefit (Never wear anything of unknown status if the probability that it is better than what you had is very low) worth the risk of it being cursed, and remove the risk of it being cursed by determining whether it is beforehand.
You can find out the status of an item in several ways. The most simple one is dropping the item, or several items, on an altar of your alignment. The second most simple one is reading a blessed scroll of identify - it will not only identify all your items, be they equipped or not, but also reveal the status of all these items. Apart from these two methods, you can only do two things: Learn Detect Item Status, be it from a potion or scroll of education or through a wish (not recommended), or ensure that an item has a certain status by dipping it in holy or unholy water, or reading a scroll of uncursing over it. Remember that after reading a blessed scroll of uncursing, all the items you wore at the time of reading are guaranteed to be non-cursed.
Of course, that leaves the auto-cursing (autos, aute, auton = greek for "self") items inside the equation... There's a limited amount of these, and I will be careful to warn you of them.
I will not mention any of the artifacts that contain the essence of chaos and corruption, simply because while they can be very powerful, the fact that merely carrying them corrupts you makes them highly undesirable in my eyes. If you're willing to take the corruption, they are usually among the best choices available.

a) Rings
There is a wide assortment of rings to choose from, and you would do well to keep a collection of rings in your pack so you can change the ones you wear according to the situation at hand. Arguably the best two rings in the game are artifact rings: The Ring of the Master Cat and the Ring of Immunity. The former grants exceptional dexterity, armor and speed boni along with very useful intrinsics, the latter makes you immune to all elements. There are cases where you might ditch the Ring of Immunity for something else because you already have all or most of the immunities or sufficient resistance, though. In any case, your choice of rings depends on your playing style. Rings of slaying are a prime choice if you plan on using melee or missile weapons and don't mind giving them some extra punch. Rings of regeneration are excellent tools for your average dungeon crawl, since they heal you up wonderfully while you go looking for more trouble. Rings of mental stability serve a double purpose: Granting confusion resistance against some opponents, and increasing your Learning score for reading books. You can consider yourself very lucky if you find a ring of mental stability with a Learning score of +4. Rings of speed are nice, obviously, for the five extra speed and the armor bonus. The Ring of the High Kings, despite being critical (or at least very, very helpful) to passing the eternal guardian, grant resistance to every one of the four elements, and can be considered a "light" version of the ring of immunity that is much more readily available. Lacking it, you can fall back to rings of (element) resistance in case you meet a vortex of the corresponding type. Rings of teleport control are useful if you have neither teleport control nor "teleporting" as an intrinsic, and they are useless if you have teleport control - but they are extremely useful, almost critical, in case you have the "teleporting" intrinsic, but not teleport control; a state known as "teleportitis". There are artifacts that grant teleport control, and there is also an amulet of teleport control - but if you have teleportitis, you need to get control, and the ring is one way to achieve that. A ring of invisibility makes you invisible, a rather useful effect especially when fighting masses of monsters, but there are other ways to get it that do not require a ring slot, or an equipment slot at all for that matter. A blessed ring of ice protects your worn equipment from burning most of the time. This can be helpful, even critical in the Tower of Eternal Flames, but as a spellcaster, you do not depend on them as much as, for instance, an archer would, and you might need a ring slot free for the Ring of the High Kings, and another to obtain confusion resistance. As a spellcaster, I certainly wouldn't wish for rings of ice - I'd make do with higher metal equipment.
Other rings you should take a look at are the ring of damage (blessed, and always on the right hand, gives as much bonus to melee damage as the ring of slaying, but none to missile damage), the ring of the clear mind (confusion resistance without Learning bonus), the ring of searching (okay as a dungeon crawling tool in combination with a very high Detect Traps skill) and the ring of see invisible (the only item besides certain artifacts, including one that is rather easy to get, that grants this particular ability) and rings of the fish (one blessed or two of any status grant immunity to drowning damage).
When handling unidentified rings, watch out for rings of the fish (to a lesser extent), for rings of weakness and rings of doom. Rings of the fish autocurse, rings of doom curse you, doom you, actually have high negative DV and PV and autocurse, and rings of weakness autocurse and reduce your strength to 1. The ring of weakness is the most dangerous if accidentally equipped because it will kill you unless you carry pretty few equipment. All of these rings require the use of Remove Curse, holy water, a scroll of uncursing or divine help to get rid of. This is not to say they are useless - rings of the fish have already been mentioned, being doomed attracts more monsters to kill or sacrifice, and rings of weakness actually help you get stronger, because while you are wearing one, your current strength stays very low, even if your unmodified strength increases. This means that you can use giant corpses, which can be farmed in the wilderness and work very well for weak characters even if their weakness is only magically induced, to continually increase your strength - until it reaches 99, if you like. Then you can unequip the ring of weakness and suddenly you're Heracles. If you like it especially cheap, you can then drink a potion of exchange so you can train on strength even more, rinse and repeat, until all stats are at 99. Congratulations, you've broken the game!

b) Amulets
This has to come right after the rings section because it bears similarities to it.
The most useful, and potentially crucially important, amulets are the amulet of free action, the amulet of death ray resistance, the amulet of petrification resistance and, to some extent, the amulet of life saving. The former three because they are the only items safe for some artifacts (and for death rays, apparently the bracers of resistance) that grant the rare to obtain resistances to paralyzation, death rays and petrification, all very deadly effects. You can be lucky and survive being paralyzed, but both death rays and petrification gas are lethal if they hit you. Petrification might be perceived less important than the other two because the only monster that can petrify you - the gorgon - appears very rarely and its breath hits you very rarely if you have decent DV, yet I ask of you: Would you really want to risk the chance - even if it is 1 to 1000 - of an instadeath every time you meet one? You need an amulet of petrification resistance at least for your pack, right next to your amulet of free action, to be equipped when fighting against the more numerous paralyzing monsters, and the amulet of death ray resistance, to be equipped against powerful spellcasters wielding the mighty Death Ray spell.
So much for the resistance trio. The amulet of life saving really has the effect it advertises with its name (except if it is cursed - it does revive you, but with only 1 HP left, which will seldom be enough to really save your life), not only on you, but also on certain dying sages. Of course, a normal RPG player would never waste his powerful amulet of life saving on some creepy old dude lying about blocking an entire stairway with his frail stature. That's why the Creator just gave him six of the most powerful and desirable scroll ever, the scroll of chaos resistance, only to be given to you if you save his life (apparently, if you don't save him, he doesn't give you the scrolls just to be a jerk). "Okay", you might think, "but getting one's life saved has got to be better than getting any number or kind of scroll, right?" Well, no. To gain the benefit of an amulet of life saving, it has to be worn. Not only does it occupy that slot all the time, it can be destroyed far more easily than you'd feel comfortable with. And it doesn't save you from all kinds of death - for instance, not from being turned into a writhing mass of primal chaos. And even if your blessed amulet of life-saving revives you with full health, it places you right where you've been a second before, getting killed.
It must be pointed out that there is an amulet towering above the first four. I leave it out of all these considerations because it pwns the other artifacts so hard it's not even funny, and because it is a rare to find artifact: Preserver. It grants paralyzation and poison resistance, grants luck, adds 4 PV and DV, seven points of willpower and REGENERATION. You might have to ditch it in rare occasions for the amulet of death ray resistance, but for all purposes, this is the subject of your wet amulet dreams.
Another item worthy of consideration is the amulet of rapid healing, if it is blessed, because it grants a near equivalent of the regeneration ability of Preserver, and the amulet of teleport control for the same reasons as the ring mentioned above.
The rest of the amulets do not have rather impressive effects. The black torc has some neat properties, but they are not worth being cursed (as in bad luck, not cursing of item) by it. The ankh increases your luck, makes you lucky and Fate smile upon you, but is otherwise weak. The Aylas Holy Scarf has excellent armor boni, but is exceptionally rare. The amulet of light deserves a special mention because it is very useful against enemies that use Darkness as part of their strategy. The amulet of order is a useful tool to manipulate your alignment to the lawful direction, giving you full control over it if you have enough patience (to modify your alignment in the other direction, simply lure innocent townsfolk out of Terinyo and brutally murder them in some lonely forest, or just go kill some beggars in the outlaw village). All the other amulets offer some benefit as well you might find superior to the ones above.
When handling unidentified rings, you should be aware of the existence of the amulet of hunger, an autocursing amulet that increases your food consumption; if you can't get rid of it and are short on food, this might spell your doom. Also keep in mind that the useful amulet of light is always a glass amulet.

c) Helmets
There are helmets made of any of the standard four metals and a couple of "special" helmets with special effects. Generally, you should simply wear the helmet with the highest armor rating. The magical effects are few and far between, but can help a lot in the right situations. The helm of mental stability adds Learning stat points (four at the most) and confusion resistance - it's basically a ring of mental stability you can wear on the head. Since it grants confusion resistance just like the ring, it's very useful against enemies using confusion, because confusion resistance can stack, and the more slots you have it available for the better. The helm of water breathing will make every body of water completely harmless if worn. The helmet of teleportation will make you randomly teleport - it is the only magical item that can do that (apart from an artifact cloak you are extremely unlikely, as in literally one in a billion, to get as a Druid), and you can unequip it if you want to read books, making it infinitely preferable to having the intrinsic naturally or through a corruption. The helm of leadership is mainly useless, as is the diadem of beauty, but you can at least wear them when shopping to increase the respective shopping attribute. The artifact crown of leadership has nice armor, but the extra Charisma is not an issue. In the end, the best choice for headgear is probably one of the various crowns. There are three that grant immunities to the elements of fire, ice and lightning, respectively, and there is one that grants the awesome regeneration attribute. If you find they lack armor value, invest some time in smithing sessions - the helm of mental stability can't be smithed, though. An eternium cap is still a good choice, even unsmithed.
Artifact helms you may find include the crown of leadership, yielding an enormous, but in the end useless, boost to charisma, and granting an okay DV and PV for the endgame, and the crown of science, which gives a very nice Learning bonus. Because it dooms and autocurses, use it sparingly - I find it useful when I want to read books, or shortly before leveling up in case I need more skill advances, but I don't use it for the Tower of Eternal Flames because of the dooming.
When handling unidentified helmets, simply keep in mind that any helmet may be cursed. In the early game, still wear any kind of helmet that will give you extra PV (anything but hoods, hats, silver helmets, iron crowns or leather caps), because that's what's important early on. Even if the thing is cursed, you have the extra PV, helping you survive at least until you can uncurse the helmet and exchange it for a better one.

d) Body armor
Let's begin with the available artifacts. There are two that can be randomly found, one of which you can also be crowned with, making it worth a closer look. Nature's Companion offers okay, but not overwhelming armor stats, but has several powerful effects: Two elemental immunities, the valuable fire immunity and shock immunity, which is nice until level 40, obsolete after that, as well as fifteen points of extra speed. This is an excellent armor, to be sure, and in my opinion, there is only one artifact armor that can compete with it: The robes of resistance. Instead of two immunities, it grants three resistances, to fire, shock and acid, but it has better armor ratings and grants a toughness bonus. Personally, I'd say the three resistances aren't much worse than the immunities, but 15 speed is better than the extra PV and toughness offered by the robes, so I'd go with Nature's Companion in any case.
Should neither of these two become available to you, there is still the ancient mummy wrapping, the artifact armor you can obtain by killing Rehetep. Its main appeal is the assortment of useful intrinsics, including see invisible and death ray resistance as well as immunity to ice attacks. Its armor rating is pretty mediocre, however, so while you should always keep it in your pack in case you need one of its magical effects, it shouldn't be your main armor for the rest of the game.
The wet dream of every seeker of good armor is to get the magical suffix "of life" on a halfway decent armor. An additional 20% of HP is enormous. Failing that, the armor of choice usually is either an eternium plate mail or one of the four kinds of dragon scale mail. An early found red one will help a lot in the Tower of Eternal Flames.
Until you get there, you will of course go through various suits of armor, with the tendency going towards steady improvement. Starting from your leather armor with usually 2 PV, you will probably soon upgrade to studded leather, and then maybe find chain mail, after that mails of higher metals, and then the ancient mummy wrapping. If you have high effectivity Lightning Bolt(optional), not too shabby HP, some means of item detection or map revealing, and the teleport spell, you can risk a visit to Darkforge, taking a look at the suits of armor stashed there in one of the treasure rooms. More often than not, you will find your first dragon scale mail there.

e) Girdles
The best girdle in the game is the platinum girdle True Strength. Now that you've heard of it, you might as well forget it, as it is near impossible to obtain. You must enter D:50, crowned lawful, without ever having committed a chaotic act, regardless of how minor. Only then will you be granted this most badass girdle evar (and it kills you if you have committed a chaotic act if you wear it).
Now let's get serious, because there is no way in hell you will get this girdle, unless you are such a badass player that you don't need to read this guide anyway. The best girdle you can actually get is the girdle of giant strength, because it adds twelve or more points of strength. A buttload of extra damage, a buttload of extra carrying capacity - both are tremendously useful. If you can't get the girdle of giant strength, or you prefer to wear fireproof items that still assist you in battle, go for an eternium girdle, or any kind of the metal girdles, which are excellent pieces of armor to use Smithing with.
The girdle of carrying, in its blessed state, is also very useful especially found early to alleviate the problems with carrying capacity you will usually encounter. The girdle of greed, in its blessed state, will be of tremendous usefulness in the casino, to carry your obscene amounts of golds so you can buy items with them in the gift shoppe. It can be abused in connection with the Porter talents and billions of gold to increase your carrying capacity far beyond anything you could muster even with 99 strength. All the carrying capacity-increasing girdles, including the girdle of giant strength, have one prime weakness: They can be easily destroyed, or in the case of the girdles of carrying and greed, cursed by hags, making you die a death of being crushed by tons of luggage. I usually refuse to rely on the latter two for this reason, and I even am careful with girdles of giant strength so having one destroyed won't kill me. Most of the times, I stick with one of the metal girdles, which can be smithed up to your liking.
Handle unidentified girdles, especially the magical ones, with great care. A cursed girdle of weight is annoying as hell, a cursed girdle of carrying can be deadly! On top of that, all cursed girdles will make it impossible to change your body armor, so don't even try to equip unidentified leather girdles.

f) Gauntlets
Ironfist, if found, are probably the best choice: Indestructible gauntlets granting quasi-permanent seven extra points of strength! Apart from that, the elemental gauntlets are very useful for their resistances, and because they are an artifact as well. Being an artifact is a good property for gauntlets because not only the gauntlets themselves are protected from destruction this way, the rings under it cannot be destroyed by anything but the wrath of a deity. The only things I'd prefer to the elemental gauntlets unmsmithed are gauntlets of strength with an especially high strength bonus, or extremely obscene gloves of smiting. Smithed gauntlets (gauntlets of strength, normal gauntlets and dragon-hide gauntlets can be smithed) can of be course be so much more powerful than the elemental gauntlets that the resistances the latter offer pale in comparison.
Be on the lookout for gauntlets of peace, autocursing gauntlets that heavily penalize your melee and missile to-hit, in exchange for 3 DV and PV. They autocurse, are indistinguishable from normal gauntlets unidentified, and their bonus is generally not worth it. Cursed gauntlets also make you unable to equip or unequip rings.

g) Bracers
The best bracers are the bracers of war, bar none. Lacking those, you have to make do with what you can get, of course. The best bracers, at least in my opinion, are the bracers of regeneration, which do exactly what they say they do. The next best bracers are probably either the bracers of toughness or the bracers of resistance. The latter are a potential source of death ray resistance, leaving your amulet slot free to include some of the better amulets against enemies using death rays. Bracers of speed offer a minor bonus, but are probably still superiour to bracers of protection or defense (in the early game, the bracers of protection might be a bit better). All bracers except brass bracers, bracers of toughness and the bracers of war can be smithed.

h) Boots
Blessed seven league boots halve your movement speed, enabling you to outrun almost anything except quicklings, and are extremely valuable assets in the game of strategy that is ADOM. Use scrolls of defense and protection on them. You can do that by equipping only the boots to make sure they are affected instead of other pieces of armor (Just ignore how ridiculous you must look to the passers-by). If you are so much faster than your opponents, you can, provided the space, fire missiles and spells indefinitely without getting hit once. If you don't have the seven leagues, or don't want to wear them for some unfathomable reason, the next best thing are probably boots of speed - unless you are an awesome smith and want to wear [+9, +9] eternium, adamantium, mithril or iron boots. Be wary of cursed seven league boots - only equip boots weighing 30 stones if you have holy water or at least means of removing the curse. Also, do not equip boots weighing 40 stones without a way of curse removal, because they are bound to be the boots of the slow shuffle, autocursing boots with a 20 speed penalty. They CAN be useful if you want to reduce your speed so you can get more XP, but you don't want to get stuck with them.

i) Cloaks
Cloaks of invisibility are useful, but you might prefer the spell because it doesn't increase your food consumption as much. Cloaks of defense or protection are good for all the other cases. Cloaks in general are so easily destroyed that I don't usually pay much attention to them. If you feel like it, you can use scrolls of defense and protection to improve your favorite cloak, but then you're really asking for it.

j) Tools
Keep in mind that many of the items that can be worn in the tool slot will give you the benefits of the item. For instance, the chaos orbs can be worn in the tool slot to give you ten extra stat points depending on their type. The most interesting are the water orb and the fire orb. The water orb gives 10 willpower, which is great to help push you over the 32 willpower threshold that increases the AoE of your ball spells. It's also great to help you achieve even higher thresholds, and thus even more enormous ball spells. By the time you have to use it to open up the way to the chaos gate, you should be able to achieve 32 willpower without it. The fire orb gives 10 extra points of strength, which will help you carry a lot more without Lordly Might - you should prepare yourself for having to give it up on D:48, though. In contrast to the other three orbs, these two can be found early enough to really help. The mana orb, which gives ten extra mana (yeah, I love pointing out the obvious - how else would I be able to write this much inane drivel?) is cool as well, but that late in the game you usually have enough PP or means of PP replenishment, and you don't get much opportunity to enjoy the bonus before you have to get rid of the orb anyway on D:48.
Other items that can be worn in the tool slot include Hammerhead, which gives some extra toughness this way (less than the earth orb, though) and is in general an excellent tool. Off the top of my head, I'd say there are no other items that can be worn in the tool slot which give extra boni. But you can wear Whirlwind, the artifact sling you can be crowned with, in the missile weapon slot to get fire resistance.

5. Crowning gifts

a) Black Thumb
1 in 7 for high and gray elves and dwarves, 1 in 6 for everyone else
"heavy cudgel" weighing 50 stones, Clubs and hammers, one-handed
+1 to hit, 5d3+4 damage, -2 DV, +3 Toughness
Slays plants and grants sleep resistance

The heavy cudgel Black Thumb is not at all heavy for the purposes of Basher, and is arguably one of the shittiest artifacts in the game. Damage-wise, it is better than the hammers made of adamantium, but loses hard to eternium hammers. And the few magical properties it has do nothing to alleviate that. Three extra toughness is merely okay, but sleep resistance is as good as completely useless, and the ability to slay plants comes to effect so ridiculously rarely you can just as well ignore it.

b) Nature's Companion
1 in 7 for high and gray elves and dwarves, 1 in 6 for everyone else
"fine leather armor" weighing 120 stones
+2 DV, +8 PV, +15 speed, +2 to hit
Grants immunity to fire and shock

You might recognize this armor from my section on body armor above, where I concluded that this is arguably the best artifact body armor you can get. The reasons for that are the exceptional speed bonus and the useful immunities contained within. Unless you find something along the lines of empowered red dragon scale mail of life, you'll love this crowning gift. It can be frustrating to get crowned with one of the immunities it would give anyway, however, and starting from level 40, you will get immunity to shock anyway.

c) Nature's Friend
1 in 7 for high and gray elves and dwarves, 1 in 6 for everyone else
"intricate wooden shield" weighing 80 stones
+6 DV, +3 PV
Grants resistance to fire, poison, cold, acid, shock

This artifact sounds okay, except that it fails in the most crucial aspect for a shield: DV rating. 6 is shamefully low compared to the awesome shields you can get even rather early. Shields serve the prime purpose of providing DV support for your Druid, and you need good DV on your shield so the shield skill can get you even more. The rest is decoration. Sure, the resistances are nice to have, but can be gotten through other means easily enough. Depending on how early you do get crowned, you might use this for a while, but I'd ditch it for a shield with 9 or even 8 DV anytime. Keep it in case you want to wear two shields and can use the resistances.

d) Purifier
1 in 7 for high and gray elves and dwarves, 1 in 6 for everyone else
"rune-covered heavy mace" weighing 200 stones, Maces and flails, two-handed
+5 to hit, 4d5+5 damage, -4 DV, +1 PV, +3 Willpower
Slays undead, constructs and demons, grants luck

An interesting artifact because of its slaying powers. Its two-handedness is a weakness, though. Also, against anyone not undead, a construct or a demon it deals less damage than the one-handed mace of destruction, not to mention Big Punch, which can be easily gotten in the last Thrundarr quest! It's also highly inferior to the rune-covered trident, so Raven-born Druids will probably flip it the bird if they get crowned with it. You should really only use this against the opponents it slays, and stick to one-handed maces and flails plus shield against anyone else to train the skill. The willpower bonus and the granted luck are only a minor bonus.

e) Staff of the Wanderer
1 in 7 for high and gray elves and dwarves, 1 in 6 for everyone else
weighs 40 stones, Staves, two-handed
+2 to hit, 3d8+2 damage, +6 DV, +3 PV, +6 Toughness
Grants immunity to shock and resistance to fire and sleep

What can I say? Staves in general are an unsatisfying weapon class because they are neither powerful nor allow you to wear a shield. It tries, oh it tries to make up for it with its weapon skill bonus to DV, but it utterly fails in that regard because the combination of polearm and shield totally kicks the crap out of it. And so we have the staff of the Wanderer, the typical staff. It's mediocre in damage, it's mediocre in defense, and even the immunity to shock and the extra toughness hardly make up for that. I can't imagine a case where you would ditch a spear and shield for this unless if for roleplaying.

f) Whirlwind
1 in 7 for high and gray elves and dwarves, 1 in 6 for everyone else
"rune-covered sling" weighing 3 stones, Slings
+12 to hit, +12 to damage
Grants resistance to fire

One of the less impressive artifacts. If you are well versed in using slings, it will come in handy, because high weapon skill plus Whirlwind will let you do great damage even with simple rocks. However, you're a spellcaster, your weapon skill will not get as great so fast if you're not a hurthling, and you should train for the slaying ammunition you will get for the bow and crossbow instead. For hurthlings, it's still an interesting option because of their bonus in training slings.

g) Sun's Messenger
1 in 7 for high and gray elves
"elven long bow" weighing 30 stones, Bows
+15 to hit, +15 to damage
Slays undead

An excellent crowning gift. With this and halfway decent weapon skill, you can lay waste on powerful undead, and with the right slaying ammo you can devastate all enemies in the game. The damage bonus is unrivalled by any bow that is not an artifact. High and gray elves should train in bows under any circumstance just in case they luck out and get crowned with this!

h) Hammerhead
1 in 7 for dwarves
"pick axe" weighing 90 stones, Axes, one-handed
+2 to hit, 2d10+4 damage, +2 DV, +2 PV, +3 Toughness
Grants resistance to fire and stunning

As a melee weapon, this is okay, better than an eternium battle axe even, but it doesn't provide the ludicrous armor boni of the polearm weapon class, for instance, and all in all is simply not something to get excited about. It really shines in its use as a tool, because it is indestructible, enabling you to mine as much as you want without worrying about replacing or repairing your pickaxes.

5. Things to wish for
Well, I already mentioned a lot of very desirable items to have, but here are the items I generally consider if I find myself in the lucky situation of actually having a wish to spare. In general, you should keep in mind that you are rarely restricted to wish for single items. Instead, always wish for them in plural. You might end up with four incarnations of the item you desired! If I use the singular in the following phrases, that means that you will only get one item no matter what because it's considered too powerful.

- "amulet of life saving", the item with which you can save Khelavaster and receive six scrolls of chaos resistance as a reward
- "scrolls of chaos resistance", which gets you usually three
- "pairs of seven league boots", which give you excellent mobility, the extra boots should be kept as spares - you'll probably need them
- "girdle of giant strength", for its unrivalled strength bonus, but can be destroyed rather easily
- "spellbooks of Rain of Sorrow", because it is the most powerful spell you can get and several books will last you through all the dangerous enemies plus excessive practice
- "[color of choice] dragon scale mails", to get excellent armor plus an immunity of your choice
- "Find Weakness", to get a useful melee fighting skill
- "Alchemy", if you can train it to 100 and check out the recipe for potions of gain attributes
- "wands of destruction", to make D:50 easier
- "potions of quickling blood", yummy yummy speed
- "potions of youth", if you play a race with a short lifespan and don't want to rely on Alchemy to give you a workable recipe
- "scrolls of education", to get some random extra skills
- "magical writing sets", if you have already seen scrolls of education and really want to get as many skills as possible, plus you might succeed in scribing a scroll of chaos resistance with it

Needless to say, if you are aiming for an ultra ending, you might have to wish for some of the rare items you need to collect. But if that were the case, you wouldn't need to read some shitty guide aimed at semi-beginners, right?

V. Monster Bash

1. The early times: Monsters to watch out for
Well, the usual suspects? There are some early game monsters that always pose a danger, regardless of the class you play. Mimics are certainly among them. They can paralyze you for a long time, usually enough for them or other monsters nearby to kill you unless you are well armored. Ghuls have the same ability, but it kicks in rather rarely since they have to successfully hurt you and with halfway decent PV that doesn't happen often. Still, don't let yourself get surrounded by ghuls. When trapped by a necromancer early on, it's important for your chance of survival that you kill the ghuls first if possible, and let yourself be surrounded by zombies and skeletons instead. Also, be careful when fighting floating eyes and gelatinous cubes. They can paralyze you if you hit or kill them with a melee weapon or in unarmed combat. You should use a missile weapon or (if missile weapon not present) a spell to kill them, especially if there are other monsters nearby. Be extremely careful of "Hurumph!"s and Dorn Beasts, as attacking them even once paralyzes you for such a long time you can usually only watch your character get mauled. Fuck paralyzation. (Love it when it's in a wand and you can shoot people with it, though!)
Other monsters that are a pain in the ass... Gray oozes and ochre jellys are pretty hard for a very early game PC, and they corrode your melee weapon, making them prime targets for your Divine Wrath spell. Spiders and other poisonous monsters (though spiders will only be hostile if summoned - which will happen a lot) are dangerous until you manage to get a spider (any'll do) corpse or giant centipede corpse. Eat it to get poison resistance, probably the most important early game resistance if you want to survive. Of course, the Slow Poison or Neutralize Poison spells also help a lot in that regard.
Some monsters, for instance corpse fiends or rats, may make you sick upon touch. If that happens, don't panic. First think. Do you have some means of Curing Disease? Like, for example, a spell of that name? No? Um, ever found herbs? Perchance, some curaria mancox, because these just happen to be helpful in such an unfortunate case? No? Well... You did choose the Yrrigs quest, right? So you could try to stumble and crawl your way through the dungeons so you can let yourself be healed by Jharod? No? And you're sure you can't find some herbs in time? The Unremarkable Dungeon below the Small Cave or the Big Room in the Caverns of Chaos could be a possibility... No? Um, maybe you have some sort of healing potion in your pack? Tried to drink it? Did it work? No? Hm. Tried praying to your gods? You did, and the ground keeps rumbling without it ever working even once? Okay... Well, at least you have the healing skill and somewhat okay HP, so you will be able to outlive the sickness, right? Unless some of the more dangerous monsters catch you, that is... Best of luck, this or next time!
Dangerous monsters that may catch you by surprise early on include vortices and ogre magi. Vortices are the capital Vs floating about in dungeon levels whose only means of attack is to explode. Needless to say, that explosion does damage. Lots of it. Vortices exist in the four main elements of the game. Fire vortices are the first ones to appear usually. They deal about 40 to 50 points of fire damage (I'm calculating from memory, so don't rely on the numbers, though recent estimations seem to indicate I'm erring on the side of caution. Beware of experienced vortices, however, because they can deal quite a pile of more damage - the issue of how vortices can even BECOME experienced is one for another time), usually killing most PCs with low to medium hitpoints. Trolls that have reached level four or five are on the safe side. Any PC that has managed to obtain a source of fire resistance will be able to take the attack, too. But what to do if you have neither the HP or the resistance to survive a fire vortex? Destroy it! The best solution for that: Use a frost bolt on it. Frost Bolts are provided by the Nether Bolt spell or by a wand of cold. Fire vortices don't have a lot of hit points and are vulnerable to ice, meaning one hit with a frost bolt will destroy them without them going off. The same method can be employed against ice vortices, only you require some sort of fire spell. Hellish Flames (Fire Bolt) is pretty common. If you're feeling especially adventurous, Baptism of Fire works too, but you better be sure it does the trick (It will - in about 99% of the cases)! If you don't have spells that counter the vortices' element, any other spell works too, but you'll probably have to hit them successfully two or three times. If you notice the vortex early enough, that's fine. Note that lightning and acid vortices, which appear a lot later and are also a lot more dangerous damage-wise, cannot be as easily dispatched because they have no elemental weakness; prepare to use several bolt spells on them, and try to be resistant to those elements! If you meet a vortex, lack the resistance or HP to survive it and any spell to defeat it in time, cast Darkness. If you don't have Darkness, or any kind of darkness source, switch to berserk, shoot missiles at it until it is next to you, then hit him with your melee attack (or your missile attack, whichever is more damaging) and hope for the best...
Ogre magi sport a combination which can be outright deadly for an early game PC: Invisibility and frost bolt spells. Ogre magi will usually cast invisibility instantly, meaning you may not notice them until they start hitting you with frost bolts. The frost bolts will hit you for about 15 damage if you aren't resistant to cold, meaning one won't kill you, but three or four of them, depending on your HP count, could. The trouble is making them stop, because you have to find them first. If you don't have the ability to see invisible, you will have to guess where they are. Be grateful to whatever god you worship if you encounter an ogre magus in a hallway, because that makes hitting the bastard easy. If you're in a room, it gets infinitely more difficult. The only clue you have are the frost bolts. Check carefully from where they come, and approach that place. Once you're certain you can land a hit on the ogre magus, go all-out berserk and hit him with anything you've got. Since ogre magi are ogres, they aren't pushovers in melee, so you need to show them no mercy! Alternatively, if you noticed the frost bolt flew a straight line before hitting you, you can reverse the roles by shooting off a bolt spell yourself! Just be careful of bouncing spells like Divine Wrath. You don't want them to bounce straight back and hit you. You do want them to bounce back and hit the ogre magus twice without hitting you, if that's possible.
Dark sages are in the same category as ogre magi because of their pretty dangerous shock spell attack, and they arrive a lot earlier. Don't waste time running up to them if you can help it - blast the motherfucker with your spells before he does the same to you!
Let's see, what more advice is there to give... Bah, you'll figure out most of the stuff yourself. In the end, you must figure out a lot yourself. Be careful of monsters that corrupt you or drain your stats. Be careful of monsters with special attacks, like Dorn Beasts (near permanent paralysis unless wearing a source of paralyzation resistance if you attack them in melee) or gorgons (whose breath can turn you to stone unless you have a source of petrification resistance! Always switch to coward mode around these, as DV seems to increase your chance to evade the petrification breath!). Remember that orb guardians and other special enemies tend to be more on the "dangerous" side of the spectrum. Remember that if all else fails, you can always try to run away, or ask people on the ADOM forum for help (if your pride allows you to do that, of course!).

2. Denying monsters a fair fight: Special Strategies, Or: Cheap Little Tricks (tm)

a) Lurking within the dark, the brave hero strikes the unsuspecting foe from behind...

The Darkness spell is one that I tend to under-use, though I hope that I have ceased to underestimate it. (You should take solace in the thought that even I regularly fail to follow quite some of the hints I've given, and despite that managed to win this game ten times as of today.) As has been mentioned in the skill description for it, there are many opponents that are unable to fight in the dark. The best teacher for the correct use of the Darkness spell, at least if you want to stay on ADOM Guides, is gut. In his Wizard's Guide you will be able to read closer instructions on using the spell to your advantage. Darkness works extra awesomely once you have the Backstabbing skill, so much is obvious. Remember the minstrel's song? "Brave Sir Robin backstabbed him, bravely bravely backstabbed him... When it looked like he would lose the fight, he valiantly turned off the light, when danger showed its ugly neck, he bravely stabbed it in the back... Bravely bravely, bravely bravely, bravely bravely, bravely brave, bravely bravely braaaaave Sir Robin..."

b) Woe is me, for I have been stripped of my eyesight! Oh woe oh woe oh woe...

The potion of blindness can turn the tide of the most crucial battles in the game. Regardless of how vicious your foe is, how much he is positively brimming of arcane power, or rocks the earth with every step of his towering clawed hooves, absolutely no one in ADOM is immune to the awesome power of this little flask. All you have to do is throw it in the face of your enemy. He will then start crying like a little girl, screaming "Not the face, not the face", and will be unable to do anything but stagger and flail aimlessly at anything nearby. This is an excellent method to incapacitate any enemies that cast spells or use any kind of annoying special attacks. I can't spell out in words how tremendously valuable this effect is against the likes of Nuurag-Vaarn or the Ancient Chaos Wyrm. It does make them a little bit tricky to aim at with bolt spells, but you can't have everything, eh?
Note that a cursed potion of invisibility has the same effect as a potion of blindness, even if you throw it! You can find them randomly or use unholy water to produce one, if need be.

c) Who am I again, and what's up with those two strange guys wearing the spear and the shield?

The potion of confusion is yet another excellent tool, on the same level of importance as the potion of blindness... because it has the same effect. Confusing AND blinding an opponent has no effect other than if he stops being blind, he's still confused and the other way around. Might be helpful, too.

d) By all that is unholy and chaotic, where are all these fucking spider webs coming from?!

Any enemy, regardless of power, is unable to get through spider webs easily. Whether that enemy is a rat or a greater moloch makes no difference in how many turns are wasted going through the web (in fact, the greater moloch is slower, so he will take longer). Making them go through some webs before they can reach you will buy lots of valuable time spent on missile attacks and spells that do not burn webs, like Nether Bolt or Minor Punishment.

e) Huh... That green ray he keeps shooting at me looks sort of stran-

The wand of paralyzation is one of the best wands in the game, as it is the only way to paralyze an enemy. Paralyzed enemies are absolutely helpless for as long as they are paralyzed. Especially for enemies that are otherwise dangerous or undesirable to melee, this can be very useful in case you have to actually melee them (as a spellcaster, you might think you shouldn't have to resort to that usually, but for the purposes of special monster strategy, ball spells ARE melee). The awesomeness of this strategy is somewhat diminished by the fact that the paralyzation ray can be shrugged off rather easily. Still, no enemy shrugs off bolts all the time, and all you have to do to use the wand effectively is to put yourself in a position where you can waste a couple of turns trying to hit your enemy successfully with it. Since the bolt is not stopped by other monsters inbetween you and the enemy to be paralyzed, this is easy to do - you can use your druid class power to create an animal meat shield, or a scroll of familiar summoning, or the Summon Monsters spell, or a wand of monster creation, or any kind of figurine, or simply one of the already existing enemies, cunningly lured in front of you, flailing at you with a laughable attack while blocking up the way for the dangerous monstrosity patiently waiting for its turn (monsters can be so DUMB in ADOM). Once you succeed at paralyzing your monster of choice, simply get rid of the meat shield and start smacking the helpless foe with your awesome melee weapon.

f) Ugh... I don't feel so good...

Your enemies, just like you, don't react well to poison and sickness. The good news is, there are means to afflict them with both. To sicken an enemy, throw a potion of sickness at him (what, you didn't think you were supposed to drink it, did you?). Reportedly, that lowers his max HP, so it's best to do that in the beginning of a fight. To poison him, you can either throw a potion of poison, zap a wand of poison (the poison ray can be shrugged off, though), or hurt him with a weapon or missile that is poisoned, either thanks to being the emerald dagger Serpent's Bite, having the magical prefix "poisonous", being wielded by someone with the poisoned hands corruption, or having been dipped in a potion of poison. Poison will slowly whittle away at the HP of your enemy. If you poison him enough, it will help tremendously in killing him, leading to the satisfying phenomenon of "off-screen XP" that tells you you succeeded even as your opponent employed the old run away tactic.

3. A section on bosses?
Okay, I was considering leaving this out because what the hell I did this two times already, but I managed to enlist the help of Killmaster, the high elven fighteress, who apparently even slaughtered her own parents for giving her that name. Quite spooky, but she knows her thing. Before you read on - do you really, really, really want to? I mean, isn't it much more satisfying to have figured out the way to kill the most dangerous foes in the game yourself? What? Yeah, I guess you're right, Killmaster... It IS quite a bit more satisfying to not have your character's... ass raped... at the hands of these... motherfucking... bastards. Ahem. Well then, read on, but don't say I didn't warn you! Killmaster, they're all yours...

a) Yrrigs
What? You're asking me about ways to kill Yrrigs? Have you gone bonkers? First of all, he is easy to kill with any sort of your fancy Druid spellcasting. Second, are you unable to muster the brainpower required to grasp there is some sort of healer and some sort of rather sick person in the same dungeon? Don't you think that maybe it would be a sort of good idea to somehow get these people together instead of just killing one of them off?

b) Keethrax
So, you chose the Keethrax quest. Quite bold of you! The black druid has quite a variety of attacks for an enemy appearing this early. Many dive down to the bottom of the Druid Dungeon to create him, then leave him be until much later in the game. Ha! I say. Pussies, the lot of them. He isn't even that dangerous. Okay, I guess it might not be that bad an idea to be resistant to fire if you want to fight him. He uses those fancy-pants special fire attacks that're so all the rage among liches and skeletal kings. He also casts darkness. Makes him a bit harder to find, but if he's in a hallway, don't give a shit. And he can shoot sling bullets. Ooh, do you see me shaking in my boots? Thought so. And stop checking out my legs, you perverted bastard. Anyway, your wussy Druid magic won't faze him, unless you use Minor Punishment or Acid Bolt. How I know this? Hey, you think you can gather experience enough to reach level 50 of the fighter class and not know all kinds of useless garbage? In any case, be about level 9 when you fight him, and you should have passed the 10 PV threshold just to be sure.

c) Hotzenplotz
Well, if you're not poison resistant, you better not mess with this guy mano a mano. Even if you are, count yourself lucky you're one of those spellcasting pussies who can sling spells from afar without letting their opponent reach them, because he is so much more of a pussy he uses extremely potent poisons even resistance won't help much against. His two henchmen are a lot less of a trouble. Just blast them too, for good measure. Important here, aside from the efficient means of dealing distance damage, is at least okay speed. Try to be unburdenened and non-satiated, or have the Quick talents, so you can keep a distance from Hotzenplotz in any case.

d) Rehetep
Oh gods, that creepy old geezer... Man, did I ever beat the shit out of him. He does not have any special attacks. In fact, he's so much of a wuss I really wonder how so many people apparently got robbed of their skin by him. But like every giant pussy, he has a bunch of henchmen at his side. Just don't let your guard down, and be prepared for everything. Being invisible is something you spellcasting types are good at, so why not? Say what you will about the guy, but he does have a talent for nasty surprises. Not a bad idea to be level 16 or even 17 when you meet him, and have decent equipment. (Editor's note: The wand of fireballs you can get in one of the Thrundarr quests should ideally be gotten before you get to the Pyramid. Mummies are vulnerable to fire.).

e) Griff
Hey, respect for the guy, all I can say. Those rockhuggers built that hugeass tomb just for him, after all! And now that he has been raised from the dead, he continues to beat the living shit out of the living, or the living out of the living shit so only the shit remains - depends on how you want to look at it. Well, you better get pumped and be just as extreme in melee as him. He doesn't have special attacks or something - just good and honest brute force. But since you're not an awesome fighter like me, you can whip out your teleport wand or cast an Ethereal Bridge spell, teleport your cowardly ass behind him and pour holy water on his grave. You still get the XP, so why not?

f) Nonnak
So, you know how the word necromancer begins the same as the word necrophiliac? Think about it. Heh heh. Made you throw up a little there, right? This creepy old dude loves to cast frost bolts. If you are immune thanks to wearing the other creepy old dude's ancient mummy wrapping (let me just say: EWWWW), you can let him do this, grin at him and attack him with missiles or spells or whatever you want. Watch out if he decides to beat you with his walking stick instead - he knows where it hurts. If you've got any kind of muscle and some grasp of melee, however, you should be able to kick his ass into next week (Editor's note: If a level 50 fighter talks about "some grasp of melee", you should know that you need to be pretty good. 40 DV/ 18 PV or something along those lines is a good idea.). Or, you know, use spells like a giant pussy. Might be smart to deduce that if he is immune to any element, it's probably ice.

g) Snake from Beyond
Now we're getting where the money is. That fiend is a real pain. Okay, it poisons and corrupts you in melee - bad. It shrugs off spells a lot - worse. It's not immune to fire, so Invoked Devastation is effective, and neither is it to other ball spells except for Freezing Fury, at least I believe so. But without the water orb your willpower is maybe not yet 32, so ball spells would have to be cast in melee range. Not good. There are no slaying arrows compatible with the thing. Remember the cheap little tricks Silfir, that absolute drooling idiot dream of a man (Editor's note: There, much better!), taught you in the last section, especially the one about webs. You have to be fast to use it to your advantage though - you can only web so many squares as are still between you and the Snake. A wand of paralyzation is excellent here. Something above 20 PV, but most importantly good DV, like above 50 on normal, really helps not to get your ass kicked too much.

h) Skeletal King
How that guy managed to lock himself in a lonely room in the middle of a pond full of bloodthirsty chaos piranhas is really beyond me. Anyway, after you've made your bridge to his small chamber, be it made of ice or wood, just let him out and get away from that lake as quickly as possible. Be resistant to fire. If you go into melee, I will respect the fact that you apparently grew some balls (or the equivalent of that in case you're one of the members of the superior gender), but don't think it's going to be easy. He can hit pretty hard and is hard to kill himself. Undead slaying ammo is how the smart guys do it. Spells don't work too well, but I guess Rain of Sorrow will still waste him good enough. Oh, and should he confuse you with his mind tricks (be resistant to confusion to avoid that), just clean your ears. Trust me, it's a lot better than staggering around and taking a little swim.

i) Ancient Chaos Wyrm
Hoo boy. That's going to be exciting. First, reread the section on the awesome little tricks. I called them cheap before, but isn't it a lot more cheap to hide your bastard orb guardian ass at the top of an entire Tower on goddamned FIRE? And to shoot energy bolts that take away 120 HP with one hit and cannot be resisted ALL THE FUCKING TIME? And to try and confuse your enemy ALL THE SAME FUCKING TIME? Potions of blindness, wands of paralyzation and all that - they're self-defense, I say! Nether Bolts and Acid Bolts are pretty effective on him if you have some degree of effectivity, and so are Rain of Sorrow and Freezing Fury. The spells are perfect to use AFTER you got rid of those pesky special attacks with the aforementioned little tricks. It's a good idea to be high on HP, 200 or more, preferably at least 250, when fighting him, so you don't get utterly slaughtered the second it gets a clear shot at you. Why it breathes fire sometimes is completely beyond me - if you're still alive after walking through an entire Tower full of fire, it should be obvious that you're immune or highly resistant. I should mention the bastard is vulnerable to dragon slaying ammo, but unless you're using a blessed ring of ice, that's not going to help you much.

j) Cat Lord
Well, just talk to him and get the awesome ring. What do you mean, he is beating the crap out of you and you can't even see him? You're a Druid, right? What? You managed to kill a cat? AS A DRUID?! Well, then just die. Seriously. If you're this incompetent, I don't want you near any kind of chaos gate. Let the adventurers with some brain cells left handle this.
Okay, okay, so you could do nothing about it and it was an accident. Get up already, and for Corellius' sake, stop slobbering all over my boots. Now, listen up. The bastard is a bit over-sensitive about his beloved cat brethren, but he is one hell of a fighter. I'd not want to fight him with at least some blessed extra healing potions, and that's saying something. He's also invisible usually if he fights, which is easily countered by the appropriate ring or the all-purpose mummy wrapping of the creepy old geezer. Again, little tricks help. Confusion, blindness, especially webbing hallways and paralyzing. Get him on a level that allows teleportation so you have more freedom in setting up your webbed deathtraps. He shrugs off spells and paralyzation like he doesn't even give a shit, but keep trying, it will work eventually. He gets more dangerous the more cats you have killed, but since you only accidentally killed one, that shouldn't be - what? You accidentally killed EIGHTY-THREE? Okay, then damn WELL make sure he doesn't get into melee range unless you have lots of blessed extra healing and emergency teleportation. Or better yet, DIE IN A FIRE. I mean, if you're this stupid, you can't even be sentient.

k) Yulgash
He's a pussy. I mean, a real pussy. His spells only tickle you, and his melee attack doesn't deserve even being called an attack; it's more like spastic movement that appears to hit you. Just go in there, keep the important items out of the electrical item destruction inside the temple, clear out the right outside, open the thing up, and get to him someway. I wouldn't let him survive long, because as much of a pussy he is, he's good at summoning monsters, and sometimes he summons monsters that are not pussies.

l) Ancient Stone Beast
How can an enemy that is essentially nothing but a bunch of rock hit so light? I mean, compared to your powers at this stage in the game, this is the equivalent of what? A goblin slavemaster very early on? Anyway, for all the monsters in that temple one thing's for sure: High PV is a bitch to get through. Unless you have a penetrating weapon or a phase dagger, your best bet is probably spells. Acid works, not sure about the rest. Same's true for the Ancient Stone Beast in any case, only more so, because it has the highest PV and assloads of HP. Rain of Sorrow it, if you can. Fighting it with a non-penetrating weapon takes fucking forever, so try other ways. If you have good missile weapon skills, construct slaying ammunition is effective.

m) Nuurag-Vaarn
The last of the orb guardians, and the biggest pain in the ass of them all. He casts all sorts of annoying and dangerous spells (including death rays, time to whip out that amulet you've hopefully been saving, or those bracers of resistance, or the Mummy Wrapping of the Creepy Old Geezer). He confuses you just like the wyrm, so confusion resistance is likewise in order. He also casts Darkness, so a torch might be nice. He is surrounded by magebane and magedoom eyes, which I don't care one iota about, but for you it's either no spellcasting or casting spells out of HP until you've taken out the eyes. That can take a whole lot of time because the chaos wizards keep spamming you with chaos creatures once you even set one foot inside the temple. Use every single cheap trick you have at your disposal on the archmage once you reach him (it's more likely he reaches you, though). Blinding or confusing is important so you can go into melee range without getting your stats sucked out of you, and stay out of melee range without getting your ass shock attacked like there is no tomorrow. Kill him with humanoid slaying ammo, an awesome humanoid slaying or otherwise damaging melee weapon, or with Rain of Sorrow, once he is incapacitated. I should mention that despite being the most powerful chaos being this side of the chaos gate, he has a strange mental illness: If faced with a simple door made out of fucking WOOD, all he can do is go "Hurrh durrh durrh" and stand in front of it scratching his head even as you Rain of Sorrow him to death from behind the door, which, in the end, makes him a giant pussy after all.

n) D:50
The final challenge. This room is chock full of chaos creatures, but the most dangerous ones are probably the balors (trolls and orcs should keep clear of the ghost lords as well, though). The bad thing is, to close the chaos gate permanently, you have get rid of either the balors or the levers once you activated them. With wands of destruction, the latter can be achieved, making the whole endeavour much easier. In any case, the best thing to do is to dig corridors along the upper and lower boundary of the level until you reach the rooms containing the levers. If your way is blocked, you have managed to be the unlucky guy who gets stuck with an undiggable left half of D:50, which can randomly happen in any game. That essentially means nothing except you have to batter and splash your way through the room full of writhing masses of primal chaos before you can reach the lever rooms. That's the point where even I would rather be a spellcaster, what with bolt and ball spells taking them out by the dozens. Being able to on-demand teleport and possessing wands of destruction is the least messy method: Clear both lever rooms, turn a lever, destroy it, teleport the FUCK away to the next lever room, turn the lever, destroy it, teleport to the stairs, go up. Now, that was the pussy method. Real heroes, like me, want to beat the shit out of those balor bastards, and the best way to fight them one after another is to handle both levers, teleport away, hit away the annoying message, teleport back. Kick ass, rinse and repeat. Balor asses are easily kicked with Rain of Sorrow, and I think Freezing Fury might work too. Minor Punishment will work in any case, especially if there are some balors lining up in a hallway. Who says bloodthirsty demons can't be courteous? Okay, they're probably just really, really dumb. Demon-slaying melee weapons are an excellent asset on D:50, because the balors really are pretty much the only really dangerous things on there. Everything I've said about balors is true for Fistanarius, the greater balor, as well. Just be a bit more careful around him, because he hits harder. It might be prudent to minimize the balor-fighting if your corruption status is bad and you've run out of scrolls of chaos resistance. Well, hope that helped. Now, Silfir, you lazy bum, where's the drink you promised me? Hey, where'd he go? Aaaargh... I'm going to fucking rip out his SPINE and stick it up where the sun doesn't shine!

VI. Closing words

Pant, pant, wheeze... Did I lose her? Ahem. Thanks to you for reading what is probably my last guide for quite some time! Thanks and apologies to Killmaster for her invaluable assistance, though in hindsight I should have paid more attention to the prices in that tavern beforehand. I mean, don't these people realize that even one gold coin is actually a fortune for real worlders like me? Sigh. Special thanks go to gut, because after hearing I was working on a Guide to Being a Druid, he sent me the stuff he already had collected for such a guide. Even though I didn't end up quoting any of it, it certainly was food for thought, and some ideas probably found their way into this document after I unscrupulously made them my own. Apart from that, well, thanks go to all the guys, male or female, in the ADOM Hall of Fame forum or the official adom.de forum who somehow influenced what I accomplished, even if I can't tell for the life of me how now. Oh, and thanks to Monty Python, for without their movies I would not have been able to make up that crappy song you may have noticed...

Wizard's guide (by gut)

2007-12-09T15:07:00.000+01:00

gut is a regular poster in the ADOM Hall of Fame Forum, a great place should you have any questions about the game. With his Wizard's guide, playing a wizard is a walk in the park. Well, not exactly a walk. More like a run from a ferocious tiger called RNG... Anyway, reading this will go a long way to help you win the game!

(EDIT: Now it shouldn't look as hideous anymore...)

(EDIT2: SWEET MERCIFUL JESUS, FORMATING, WORK!!!)

------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
01. Introduction
02. Spells
03. Choosing Playing Style
04. Skills
05. Race Differences
06. Birth Month Considerations
07. The Talent System
08. Wizard Crowning Gifts
09. Equipment
10. Pesky Monsters
11. Wishing
12. Wizard Orientation
13. Limited Walk-through
------------------------------------------------------------------------
01. INTRODUCTION
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A wizard's guide for adom 1.1.1

I had some questions about writing a guide for wizards. I think the only players that would benefit from a guide, are the very new or unspoiled players. In my opinion, these are the exact players that should *not* play as wizards, but instead try maybe a trollish or drakish healer. At the very least play a character that has a high toughness stat, you will live much longer that way.

So why am I typing this guide? Because lot of new players *want* to play as wizard's! If you download a game with dragons, elves, dwarves, quests, and magic, of course you are going to want to go blasting your way through Ancardia with reckless abandon! It's just that, this particular game has a way of killing you, if you do that. Then players get frustrated because they keep croaking so fast, and having to do the same stuff over and over again, without getting any farther in the game.

I will focus on using magic effectively, and what kind of tactics to use, to keep your wizard alive longer. I will also mention good places to get books, as they are the main things that will make you powerful as a wizard. I will cover only that which is necessary to win a game. That means I will leave a lot out, I know, but some must be left to the player. If you want to get really spoiled, then read the official guidebook.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
02. SPELLS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Before anything else, you must be aware of what spells are available to you, and what is their usefulness to you. Yes, even before race/class considerations, you must know what your arsenal will be. I will write a brief list of the most useful ones. Only the ones that will have a big impact on your survival chances, because a full list (of all the uses of all available spells) would be waaay to long.

[Offensive]
You will start every game with at least one of these, so know them well. I wanted to include approximate PP cost for each spell, and even for each race, but PP cost fluctuates so much, (based on cycle of the moon along with many other factors) that I have given approximations for all races in general.

Acid Bolt
This is very powerful, and therefore, quite expensive in terms of PP used per casting. It does not cause 'special damage' to any monster, but few monsters are resistant to it.

Lightning Bolt
This is powerful, and therefore, a bit expensive in terms of PP used per casting. It does cause 'special damage' to a few monsters, and few monsters are resistant to it. This spell has the ability to bounce off of walls, this means you can attack your enemies in creative ways, even around corners. It also means, you can accidentally kill yourself with it :)

Frost Bolt
This is somewhat powerful and is therefore reasonable in terms of power points. This spell does cause 'special damage' to fire monsters, this is balanced by the fact that more monsters have resistance to it. Frost bolt, when used over a water square, will create an ice bridge, capable of holding 2000 stones of weight.

Fire Bolt
This is also powerful, but not usually expensive in terms of power points. This spell does cause 'special damage' to ice and water monsters, this is balanced by the fact that more monsters have resistance to it. Fire bolt, when used over a corpse has a chance to cook the corpse.

Magic Missile
All by it's self. It is least powerful of all the bolt spells, also not expensive, usually about 8-10 PP to start out. This spell does not cause 'special damage' to any monsters. This is balanced by two things. First, no items laying on the ground will ever be destroyed by a passing magic missile. All other bolt spells will destroy items on the ground, though I think frost bolt only destroys books and scrolls and potions. Second, *NO* monster in the game is resistant to magic missile. This means that magic missile will be your only damaging bolt spell against a few monsters, so train it. This spell also has the ability to bounce off of walls, this means you can attack your enemies in creative ways (even around corners). It also means, you can accidentally kill yourself with it :)

Ball spells
These are also acid/lightning/fire/ice, and so follow the same damage and cost patterns of their bolt spell equivalents. They have three main advantages over bolt spells. First, if you're surrounded, they can attack all of the monsters surrounding you, bolt spells only attack in a straight line. Second, NO monsters can shrug them off, ever. Third, bolt spells can't go through doors or walls, ball spells can. You have to have a high Willpower stat to increase the radius of your ball spells to take advantage of that though.

Burning Hands
Much like ball spells, though a FEW monsters can shrug it off. It's fire though, so many creatures are resistant to it. You can consider it as a wizard's substitute for melee against most monsters . It will help you save your bolt spells, so it is nice to have it.

[Advantage Spells]
We're skinny little wizards, we need all the advantages we can get! These spells tend to even the playing field for wizards, when it comes to combat.

Darkness
One of the best, and most under-used spells in the wizard's arsenal. It gives %100 protection from some of the nastiest monsters in the early (and middle, and late) game. These monsters can not fight in the dark and will stupidly stand in one spot, and happily take punishment from you, until they die, or panic and run away. If a monster panics though, and they have no way to escape you they may then attack you, so be careful when dealing with panicking monsters. Also darkness doesn't work on monsters when they stand in doorways, even if the doorway registers as being in the dark, this may be a bug. Here is a partial list, (I know I will leave some out) of some monsters it can save your life from. Early game: Vortexes, mimics, ogres(lords, magus) and spiders. Middle game: animated trees, Snake from Beyond, berserkers (kings, emperors), Late game: doppleganger kings, titans (greater). For the most part humanoids, giants, and animals won't fight back in the dark.

Invisibility
Most of the monsters that can or can't see in the dark, behave the same with regard to invisibility, A notable exception is undead monsters (vampires, ghuls, etc...). Unlike darkness, you can not engage your enemy in melee with impunity, by using invisibility. They will hit you back if you melee, cast ball spells or burning hands. However you can use bolt spells or attack them with missiles without causing them to see you. Plus, you can shoot missiles while invisible, but not in the darkness.

Farsight
Normally monsters will see you before you see them. This is unfortunate because some monsters are very fast, strike from a distance or summon other monsters. With a limited field of vision these monsters can hit you or even have you surrounded, and darkness might not always be able to save you. Farsight allows you to see enemies before they see you. It can save your life, by lowering the chance that some monster (especially black wizards) will sneak up on you and start summoning monsters that can surround you. It's not necessary but nice to have.

Web
Your enemies get stuck in webs for a few turns, unless they are very powerful. Enemies can't attack you or use special powers, like summoning, when they are stuck in webs. It is a very useful spell against even some of the toughest monsters in the game.

Stun Ray
It inflicts no damage on enemies and so is not an offensive spell. It will most likely be shrugged off by most of the monsters you would LIKE to use it on. Other spells (and other means) usually work better to achieve the same end. So why am I listing it? You might find it early! If this is the first advantage spell you get, use it. It will affect most low level monsters, and so help protect your hit points. Stun ray is effective against some higher level monsters later in the game (most notably minotaur mages), but you can use a wand of stunning to the same end and save your PP's for offense.

Bless
Another under-used spell. Casting the bless spell, upon yourself, gives you the 'Blessed' status. This is the same status you get after being 'crowned' as the champion of your deity. Therefore this status is usually available to spellcasters much sooner than non-spellcasters. Specifically, it means that you have some extra luck, and lower food consumption, both very nice effects. After finding this book, your PC should not walk around unblessed in any dungeon afterward, the rewards are just too nice to miss. The more you cast it, the longer each casting will last. The castings also 'stack', like if one casting yields 100 gameturns of blessing, then two castings will yield 200, and three = 300 and so on. This is a good way of training your Mana stat, at least in the early and middle game. The 'blessed' status can be taken away (pretty rare though), if you enter a room that is "particularly unholy". These rooms are generated randomly, and it is a one-time effect, so all you have to do is re-cast the spell. If you are running out of castings though, save them for an important time in the game. Bless can also be used as an offensive spell to inflict damage on undead monsters. Once trained to high effectivity, it can inflict a lot of damage.

[Utility spells]
They are incredibly useful, and there are no real substitutes for them.

Strength of atlas
Does nothing more than increase your carrying capacity. But it does increase it! Your Mana stat times 1000 worth of capacity you'll get! This means you can carry a very large inventory of useful items, and make use of a few very heavy items. Non-spellcasters simply can't do the same. If you don't have the SoA spell, carrying a large inventory means having the 'burdened', or 'strained' status. These reduce your DV, 'to hit', and increase your food consumption rate, all bad. Strength of Atlas spells also 'stack', even more so than the Bless spell, because there are no room effects that will take it away from you. Once it is cast, it is cast. If you only cast a few spells, or walk in the wilderness for extended periods, your carrying capacity may fail you. This effect may crush you if you are carrying a very heavy inventory. The game gives you several warning messages before it fails though, so pay attention to those messages, and don't take chances.

Teleport
Maybe the most useful spell in the game. Even if you don't have TP control, gained by eating a blink dog corpse (it allows you to TP to whatever square you want to), it will allow you to escape dangerous situations that could kill you. Some levels, like boss levels, do not allow TP because it is so powerful. If a level allows TP, the only way a monster can kill you is if it can do so with one hit. You can use TP to create distance between yourself and your enemy, and continually use bolt spells to kill them. Creative use of TP will allow you to gain access to otherwise inaccessible places, and also some early access to some very good equipment.

[Healing Spells]
Self-explaining.

Cure Light Wounds
The most useful healing spell you will get. It's not the most powerful, but it will most probably be available much sooner than the others. It is cheap on PP's and therefore easily trained. Once trained it can yield 20-30 HP's per 2-3 PP's for casting.

Cure Serious/Critical wounds and Heal
If you train them, they can be useful, but potions will probably serve better. They are more costly in terms of PP's and you would be lucky to´find them early.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
03. CHOOSING A PLAYING STYLE
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now that we understand a bit about our spells we need to think about gameplay. The most important thing about choosing a wizard is this, how many spell castings do you get from reading a book. This is primarily determined by your Learning stat. A troll wizard that starts with a book of fire bolt, may wind up with a castings score as low as 100 (note: this does not mean 100 castings. With each casting, your casting score decrements by more than 1.) A grey elven wizard may start with that same book and obtain over 1000. This means you have to decide.

What kind of style do you want to play in? There are two choices, a pure wizard, and a fighting wizard. A pure wizard would start with high Learning, Willpower and Mana stats and so rely on magic to kill nearly every monster in the game, only using melee and missiles as a fallback. Fighting wizards would prefer better physical stats to start and thus rely on non-magical means of combat, only using magic in tight spots, or when it's advantageous.

Reasons to play a pure wizard style:
High Mana means lots of PP, so you can depend on your spells heavily, and train spells quickly. High Learning stat means lots of castings available, this is VERY important, as you do NOT want to run out. Also you will be capable of learning very powerful spells right away. If you can find a way to increase your stats in the game, especially Strength, Toughness, and Dexterity, you will become a respectable fighter. Also finding (or smithing) good equipment will make you a very respectable fighter, regardless of class.

Reasons not to play a pure wizard style:
A low starting Toughness stat means you can die at any time in the early game, if you are unlucky enough to step on a stone block trap. There is not much to be done about it unfortunately. After you get a few levels up, it won't be such a problem. But at the beginning, every step could be your last! There are also a few monsters that are difficult to kill with magic, they are either resistant to elemental magic, or just really good at 'shrugging off' your bolts. For this reason you should train missile skills and also some melee.

Reasons to play a fighting wizard style:
You will likely have enough toughness to survive most trap accidents, though this is not guaranteed. You will still have ACCESS to spells, which other classes would not. Limited castings aren't a big problem if you're careful with them. Getting few castings per book isn't such a big deal if you have lots of books, and you will find many in the game. If you can find a way to increase your stats in the game, especially Learning, Willpower, and Mana, you can become a powerful wizard later.

Reasons not to play a fighting wizard style:
The Learning stat is one of the more difficult stats to train, if you start with a low one, you will be stuck with it for a while. The Mana stat is easier to train, just cast lots of spells, this will cause your PP's to constantly regenerate and thus train Mana. The problem with this is that if your Learning stat is low you won't have many spellcastings to work with. Also as far as fighting characters go, wizards are pretty lousy. The wizard class yields low HP, low healing rate, and a miserable fighting skillset.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
04. SKILLS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Starting skillsets for all wizards consists of these skills.

Alchemy = Allows you get recipes to mix magical potions. Most are useful for all races, but longevity potion is very useful for short-lived races.
Concentration = Helps regenerate PP more quickly. Get this to 100 as soon as possible. This is the most important skill you have.
Healing = Helps regenerate HP more quickly. A high priority definitely.
Herbalism = Without it you only pick cursed herbs. A high score helps you pick more (and more blessed) herbs from each bush. Another high priority.
Literacy = Usually starts at 100 for wizards.
Stealth = Enemies won't always notice you as soon as your in their line of sight. Also at 100 helps you get the weird tome from the ghost librarian. Nice.
Ventriloquism = Maybe confuse your enemy for a turn or two.

Also all PC's get:
Climbing - At 100 you can enter the Rift.
Haggling - Worthless.
First Aid - Sometimes useful to fight poison in the very beginning of the game.

Skills that can be acquired in-game.

From Bart:
Backstabbing = Not as useful for wizards as other classes. Combine it with invisibility if you want to use it.
Tactics = Better modifiers from the tactics setting is good for dodging. This is a high priority once you get it.
Two Weapon Combat = Useless, as a wizard you need a shield.

From Yergius (he teaches and trains):
Climbing = His training in this is convenient.
Detect Traps = Press the 's' command to search for traps. Most players love it, but if you are familiar with the heavily trapped areas of the game you can do without it. You can use wands to the same end.
Disarm Traps = You have a spellbook to do this for you, if you can find one, and the spell works a lot better.
Pick Locks = Useless. Keys and the Knock spell work better.
Pick Pockets = Generates more items, so it's nice. Successfully using it about 20 times allows entry into the thieves guild.
Stealth = At 100 helps you get the weird tome from the ghost librarian.

From Guth'Alak
Herbalism = You already have this.
Gardening = You don't need this.

From Tywat Pare
Law = Worthless

From Yrrigs
Bridge Building = Frost bolt works better.

From the Old Barbarian
Courage = Helps out if your surrounded. Verdict...don't get surrounded and you won't need it.

From Glod
Smithing, it can be useful if you get the equipment: Hammer, anvil, and ore. To get the anvil you probably have to kill Glod or Kherab, and you have to dig the ore from walls using a pickaxe. If Glod is alive he will fix your broken pickaxes for a price. To use Glod's forge you should lead him off the level first by means of (':s') swapping places with him and leading him down the stairs. If Dwarftown is on D:11 use a couple scrolls of blessed scrolls of peace if you have them, it will eliminate background corruption. Some players love smithing but I never use it. Digging, plus repairing pickaxes, plus creating ingots from ore, plus the actual smithing process, is boooring. It takes a lot of real life time, a lot of game time, and a lot of game turns. Of these, the game turn length is the most important game effect. More game turns = lower score (which you probably shouldn't care about yet), and also corruption, if you don't have scrolls of peace. If you want the extra DV and PV and are willing to tough out the boredom, smithing can really give your PC an edge.

From Blup
Swimming, not too useful. Wizards usually have other ways of dealing with water.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
05. RACE DIFFERENCES
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Starting equipment for all wizards consists of these items unless otherwise noted. Armor = robe [+0, +1], sandals [+0, +0]. Weapon = dagger (1d4) or quarterstaff (1d10). Some torches, two rings, about 3 potions, about 2 scrolls, about 2 books, an offensive wand, about 150 gp, and an iron ration

Yes that's one, count it ONE point of PV for an average non-troll wizard. Trolls get more because of inherent Strength and Toughness, usually 3 or 4. If you get more than two points of starting PV, the RNG (random number generator) was good to you. Watch out, it can make up for that later :)

So what does each race bring to the table.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Humans have standard equipment, except leather boots [+0, +0] instead of sandals
Their stats are:
I actually won't bother listing average stats.
For humans all stats are average, so I won't list any for humans.

They bring the following noteworthy skills:
Food Preservation = More monster corpses generated. Very nice.
Swimming = Not much. (Spellcasters usually have other ways of dealing with water.)

Pros = Humans are capable of playing either style, magic or fighting dependent. If you start with high Learning, the RNG was good to you, you can really take advantage of magic. Food Preservation is one of the nicer skills.

Cons = If you start out as dumb as a brick, you will run out of spells quickly and have to use melee or missiles. Trying to find some missiles and a decent melee weapons will be imperative. There is not really much about humans to make them stand out. Their lifespan is a bit short.

Summary = Just an average wizard with Food Preservation. If you like having a luck of the draw factor, choose humans.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Trolls have standard equipment, except leather boots [+0, +0] instead of sandals.

Trollish stats are:
Strength very high
Learning very low
Willpower low
Dexterity low
Toughness very high
Mana very low
Perception low

They bring the following noteworthy skills:
Athletics = Help your physical stats increase a bit.
Food Preservation = More monster corpses generated. Very nice.
Gemology = More gems/crystals generated. Gemology could help you find Crystals of Learning that, when blessed and 'u'sed, raise your Learning stat. Nice.
Mining = Mines faster, and pick axes break less often.

Pros = Trolls make good fighting wizards. They are the easiest race to keep alive in the beginning. If you are willing to wait a long time to enjoy full use of your magic, you will have a strong character. Trolls level slowly, this can be a good thing. There are places in the game that have experience level restrictions, like perhaps a level 16 PC can enter a place, but a level 17 couldn't. This is good for trolls because they will be stronger at a given level than other classes would be, by comparison. Their skillset is really nice. Trolls heal very quickly.

Cons = Their Learning stat is abysmal. You won't get many castings from reading your books at the beginning of the game. You might consider book casting from them or storing them to read later. They have a very short life span, and should protect themselves from ghost bats/kings by all means. Switching tactics to coward and casting spells on them will help you destroy them without being aged. Trolls level up slowly, this can be a bad thing too. You will need ridiculous amounts of experience points to get your level up after a while. Trolls regenerate PP's slowly.

Summary = Trolls give you a good fighter that has ACCESS to lots of spells. Wizards and necromancers as classes, find waaay more spellbooks than any other classes. This means that even if you are a miserable wizard, you will still have many spells at your disposal, that can definitely save your life.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
High Elves have standard equipment.
High Elven stats are:
Learning high
Dexterity very high
Toughness low
Mana very high
Perception very high

They bring the following noteworthy skills:
Dodge = Enemies miss you more often. Very nice.

Pros = High Elves are great pure wizards. They have the ability to learn some of the most powerful spells in the game from the very beginning. They have a very long life span, you won't worry about ever being aged to death by anything. They get an extra bit of Dexterity that helps them be effective with missiles. Their dodging skill is very nice. High Elves regenerate PP's quickly.

Cons = Low Toughness on the other hand means that you have to be very careful with their HP. You must find ammunition for missile attacks, because wizards don't start out with any. High Elves heal very slowly.

Summary = A slight advantage in Dexterity and Toughness means they might be a bit easier to keep alive than grey elves. You might consider trying a high elf if your grey elves keep dying.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Grey Elves have standard equipment, except a loaf of elven bread, which is very nourishing, and so nice to have.
Grey Elves stats are:
Learning very high
Dexterity high
Toughness very low
Mana very high
Perception very high

They bring the following skills:
Dodge = Very nice.

Pros = In my opinion, they are the most powerful wizards in the game. They will rarely encounter a book they cannot read successfully, even right from the start. They have the longest lifespan of any race in the game. Some talent with missiles, and good dodging abilities helps protect your HP. Grey Elves regenerate PP's very quickly.

Cons = Very low Toughness. Low HP means possible death around every corner, and therefore new players might have a hard time keeping them alive. Grey Elves heal very slowly.

Summary = If you think you can rely on magic to carry the day for you. This is the choice.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dark Elves have standard equipment except, leather boots [+0, +0] instead of sandals, spider bread instead of an iron ration and no torches at all.
Dark Elves stats are:
Willpower high
Dexterity very high
Mana very high
Perception high

They bring the following noteworthy skills:
Alertness = Helps you to evade traps and offensive magic. Very nice.
Find Weakness = Helps you to get critical hits on your enemies. Very nice.

Pros = The dark elven skillset makes them good at scoring damage on enemies in melee. A very high Dexterity stat gives them decent missile abilities, and nice Willpower and Mana stats make them effective in the (somewhat limited) magic castings they do get from reading books. Once they get some PV from decent armor they are quite powerful. They have very long life spans. Dark Elves regenerate PP's quickly.

Cons = Not really a lot of drawbacks here. I hate to count an average Learning stat against a race, but when it comes to wizards it really is that important. They will suffer from limited spellcastings scores. They suffer racial prejudice from dwarves, and thus get bad prices in the most important shop in the game, Waldenbrooks. Dark elves heal slowly.

Summary = If you don't want to put up with the drawbacks of The other races, and don't mind bad shop prices, dark elves are a good choice.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dwarves have standard equipment.
Dwarven noteworthy stats are:
Strength high
Toughness high

They bring the following noteworthy skills:
Detect Traps = It allows you to discover traps by using the 's' command. Nice.
Smithing = Nice if you have the equipment, but you can get this skill in game.
Mining = Pretty nice.

Pros = You have a good chance of staying alive do to good Toughness, and Strength. The Detect Traps skill is very nice in the beginning, before you find other means of detecting traps, and disarming them. This skill can save your life at the start. They have long life spans. Dwarves heal fast.

Cons = Their Learning stat is average , which can be time consuming to increase to high levels. That means limited castings and the most powerful spells will be off limits to you at the beginning. The skillset is nice, because of Detect Traps, but I'd rather have Food Preservation.

Summary = You get high Strength, Toughness, and heal fast. In exchange you don't have to give up much. If your a player that doesn't mind spending some time to beef your character up, and really dislike restarting, dwarves are a good choice.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gnomes have standard equipment, except gnomish boots(+1, +0) [+2, +0] instead of sandals.
Gnomish noteworthy stats are:
Dexterity high
Mana very high

They bring the following noteworthy skills:
Gemology = More gems/crystals generated. Very nice.
Mining = Nice.
Ventriloquism = A skill I have seldom used. Nice if it is successful though.

Pros = Gnomes lean more toward pure wizards. They have quite long life spans. Gemology is nice, if you know how to exploit it. They level up a bit faster than other races. They also get an extra starting talent, using it for, say, 'long stride' could give your PC an early edge. Gnomes regenerate PP's quickly.

Cons = They don't really stand out, elves are more magical. If you don't use the Gemology to help your Learning stat, the skillset isn't that great.

Summary = The main reason for a beginner to play as a gnome is if their elven PCs keep dying, or if they really want to exploit Gemology.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hurthlings have standard equipment, except no shoes and a cursed ring.
Hurthlings noteworthy stats are:
Strength very low
Dexterity very high
Toughness high
Mana low

Hurthlings bring the following noteworthy skills:
Archery = Gives a bonus to all your missile shooting endeavors. Nice.
Cooking = Almost useless to a wizard, the fire bolt spell will cook any corpse. Food Preservation = More corpses. Very nice.

Pros = High Dexterity plus the archery skill will help you stay alive. Your archery skill actually trains faster than weapon skills. So you will have something quite powerful in addition to your magic. They have longer life spans than humans, but not by much. They also get an extra starting talent, using it for, say, 'long stride' could give your PC an early edge. The Food Preservation is always nice.

Cons = They make lousy fighters until they find a good weapon, and increase their very low Strength stat. Training the Strength stat isn't too hard, just time consuming. You have to walk around at 'burdened' or ''strained' status, which reduces DV a bit. You have to find your missiles, wizards don't start with them.

Summary = Training Strength isn't fun, but if you have a healthy respect for archery they do have enough Toughness to make them a worthwhile choice. The cursed ring usually isn't too much of a problem.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Orcs have standard equipment except leather boots [+0, +0] instead of sandals.
Orcish noteworthy stats are:
Strength very high
Learning low
Toughness high
Mana very low
Perception low

Orcs bring the following noteworthy skills:
Backstabbing = I don't backstab often, but it might be nice if you like it.
Find Weakness = Very nice.
Mining = Faster digging. Kind of nice.

Pros = Good physical stats and Find Weakness means better melee results. They're ok if you play them as fighting wizards, relying on magic only in tight spots. They have a lot of the advantages of trolls, but without the leveling difficulties. Orcs heal fast.

Cons = They have short life spans, beware ghosts. Low Learning and Mana stats hinder wizards, and orcs don't have the Gemology skill to help out.

Summary = You would consider them as an alternative to trolls. If troll leveling issues bother you choose 'troll lite'. And they do seem to regenerate PP much faster than trolls.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Drakelings have standard equipment.
Drakelings noteworthy stats are:
Strength high
Willpower high
Toughness high

Drakelings bring the following noteworthy skills:
Swimming = Not too useful to wizards.
Alertness = Dodging spells and traps. Very nice.
Food Preservation = Yummy, more dead bodies.
Music = Use an instrument and tame those cats. Nice.

Pros = Both Alertness and Food Preservation. They make this a great skillset for wizards. They don't suffer from any major drawback in stats. All drakelings have acid breath, which can damage enemies. Acid breath also reduces your satiation level, and so allows you to eat as many corpses as you want, without becoming bloated for a long period of time. (This is nice because many corpses have stat increasing effects). They also enjoy increased speed if they become heated by way of environment or attack. Drakelings heal fast.

Cons = They suffer decreased speed if they become cold. They have lifespans about as short as humans. They suffer fire damage in the Tower of Eternal Flames, (after a certain amount of turns) no matter how fire resistant you are. Again, average Learning means average wizard, at least in the beginning. You'll need lots of books, missiles and luck in finding a good weapon.

Summary = Pretty good skills and stats. The drawbacks aren't bad if you're careful. I'd say chose drakelings if you think the stats you gain from corpse munching will offset your rather average magic abilities.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
06. BIRTH-MONTH CONSIDERATIONS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Raven - notable effects for wizards:
+10 to speed makes it powerful. The rune covered trident being available earlier is nice, but it is a two handed weapon. That means if you use it you have no shield, which is bad for wizards. +2 Perception is nice.

Book - notable effects:
Not as powerful as you might think considering it gives "Increased chance to learn spells". That's basically all it gives. Still nice though.

Wand - notable effects for wizards:
This month is all about neutrality, 10% more PP and +2 Mana if you start out neutral. That means Humans, Grey Elves, Gnomes, and Drakelings can give it a look, but not the rest.

Unicorn - notable effects for wizards:
I love it for the +2 Appearance. Seriously, less corruption is worth thinking about. I would prefer other months though.

Salamander - notable effects for wizards:
Very powerful for wizards. If you are born in this month you are almost guaranteed of starting with a spellbook of firebolt. That makes the "20% cheaper PP cost for all fire magic" effect very nice! Once you find a fireball spellbook this effect is even nicer. The +3 Mana helps a little, but the '20% more PP always' effect is very desirable.

Dragon - notable effects for wizards:
I might be differing with popular opinion here, but I think this one is yet another excellent sign for wizards. This sign drains the Willpower stat and puts it into Strength and Toughness. This may seem like a very bad thing for wizards at first, but the Willpower stat doesn't have to be high to have powerful magic. Training your spells will net a much better increase in the power of your magic than 3 points of Willpower. The Willpower stat can be trained later, to make up what was lost, and you'll never know the difference. But the extra Strength and Toughness means your more likely to live. More dramatic tactics modifiers is good, if you don't want more extreme tactics then just don't bother switching them. It really just means better dodging as far as cowardly wizards are concerned. And combat magic is 10% cheaper in PP's. Nice.

Sword - notable effects for wizards:
+1 Learning, tempting but other signs are nicer. The tactics and melee skill marks bonuses are nice, they could help your character get a few more DV points from their shield/spear combo.

Falcon - notable effects for wizards:
Survival skill shmurvival skill. +2 Willpower, blah. The free talent...put it into 'strong legs'. Worthless.

Cup - notable effects for wizards:
Faster leveling = good. More spellcastings per book = good.
More skill advances = good. +2 Learning = really good.
Cup = One of the best star signs for wizards.
If you plan to play a PC that has exremely high Learning to start, and don't care much for increased spellcastings, this may not be for you.

Candle - notable effects for wizards:
Faster healing is not that good for wizards for these reasons: Wizards start with the healing skill, this give adequate healing. Once a wizard finds a healing spellbook, it renders Candle obsolete. Faster intrinsic healing can lead a wizard to carelessness with their HP's. More prayers might be nice for some. 1 free talent, could be used for +1 Learning, or whatever. Nice. This sign could be a help until you find your first healing spellbook, after that it's worthless.

Wolf - notable effects for wizards:
+3 Willpower, nice but not a difference maker.
+3 Perception, see +3 Willpower.
Food is more nutritious. Nice...I guess.
There are better months.

Tree - notable effects for wizards:
+5 Willpower, reminds me of Wolf but with less variety. If Willpower is important to you, then consider it. Otherwise no.

Summary:
Cup and Salamander appear to be the best for wizards. Book is worth a look too. Normally I don't care what star sign I get, I'll even take Falcon if I roll it. A funny thing about that is, that I have more game winning wizards born in the month of the raven, than any other birthmonth. So I'm ranking Raven near the top too.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
07. THE TALENT SYSTEM
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm not going to go into a lot of detail here. The strategy for what to invest in is entirely dependent on what playstyle you want. In general a pure wizard would invest in quickness early, then magic, then defense. A fighting wizard though, would value the missile talents, and maybe even melee, over magic. The talents are self-explanatory. I think that if the talent complements the way you want to play then it's worth getting.

The heir gift for a wizard is a wand of fire with 30 charges. Not worth it because you will have spells instead.

Treasure hunter. It's probably the best talent. You need Alert and Miser to get it, so pick Alert as your first talent. It's good to get it early but consider choosing a quickness talent before Miser.

Quickness talents = These mean being able to outrun most difficult monsters early on. Consider getting the Quick talent early. If you want more than one that's fine, but one should be enough. I consider Quick to edge out Long stride only because Quick opens up the quick shot missile talents.

DV talents = Good for every wizard early or late game. They won't make a big difference though, as the tactics setting, along with a lot of other means, will give you decent DV. Choose these if you just want every defense edge you can get.

PV talents = Nice for the beginning. Not so great for the later game, compared with the talents you could chose. Wizards should invest most of their talents elsewhere.

Magic talents = Potent, Strong, and Mighty Aura aren't so impressive, but they open up the rest. I highly recommend all the magic talents, especially Charged and Strong Magic. I don't recommend the Bookcasting talents though,they are just not that useful to wizards. That leaves ten worthwhile magic talents all together, that eats up 30 levels of increases if you get them all!

Missiles talents = If you plan to depend on missiles give them a look. The quickshot talents are really nice, but it takes a lot to get to Missile Weapons Master. Alert + Good Shot + Keen Shot + and 3 missile weapon affinities.

Melee talents = Most are useless to wizards, but the Basher talents yield impressive results, needing no pre-requisites. There are two weapons in the game that wizards can take great advantage of, if they have the Strength of Atlas spell. Big Punch = 800 stones and is a one-handed weapon, meaning you get great melee damage without losing much DV. Also the Axe of the Minotaur Emperor = 1200 stones, it's a two-hander but fantastic in damage and critical hits. Basher+Powerful Strike+Mighty Strike=(+6, +6) on any +100 stone weapon. They are worth considering after you get Big Punch.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
08. WIZARD CROWNING GIFTS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Listed in no particular order.

Brannalbin's Cloak of Defense [+3, +3] Weight: 30 stones
It grants resistance to fire.
It grants resistance to cold.
It grants resistance to acid.
It grants invisibility.
It grants resistance to shock attacks.
A nice gift to get because using it doesn't take up a valuable item slot.

Ring of Immunity [+5, +5] Weight: 1 stone
It grants immunity to fire.
It grants immunity to acid.
It grants immunity to cold attacks.
It grants immunity to shock attacks.
Very nice gift because it is one of the nicest rings in the game.

Robes of Resistance (-4, -4) [+3, +12] {To+5} Weight: 60 stones
It grants resistance to fire.
It grants resistance to acid.
It grants resistance to shock attacks.
For those of us that don't care for smithing, this is great armor.

Staff of the Archmagi (+5, 5d2+2) [+9, +0] {Ma+10} Weight: 40 stones
It modifies your mana attribute by +10.
It grants resistance to acid.
It grants resistance to sleep attacks.
It grants resistance to confusion attacks.
Resistance to sleep attacks! Woo-hoo! When you reach exp. level 50, and enter the Small Cave and start hunting Jackelwares, make sure you have this equipped!

Staff of the Wanderer (+2, 3d8+2) [+6,+3] {To+6} Weight: 40 stones
It modifies your toughness attribute by +6.
It grants immunity to shock attacks.
It grants resistance to fire.
It grants resistance to sleep attacks.
Some features are nice, but it's a two-handed weapon. Not good.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
09. EQUIPMENT
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think, for a wizard's early game, you should set your sights for good uncursed equipment, rather than trying on every thing that comes your way, in hopes of getting an extra PV point.

Head- In the early game do 'equip-identify' a helmet, a +1 metal helmet works fine. Later you will exchange this for a higher metal cap.

Neck- Marble amulet probably, if not try 'equip-identifying' amulets. Willpower +3 work nice. Later you will exchange this for an amulet of rapid healing, free action, or the ankh.

Body- Find some leather armor and probably stick with that for a while, unless it gets damaged. The studded variety is nice, but weighs 100 stones more. The heavier armors are only worth it if they offer really nice PV. Later you will exchange this for higher metal armor or the Ancient Mummy Wrapping.

Girdle- You should be careful about 'equip-identifying' these. A cursed girdle prevents changing armor. Later you will exchange this for a girdle of carrying or a higher metal girdle.

Cloak- A [+1, +0] cloak is realistic, but 'equip-identifying' cloaks isn't so bad. Cloaks get destroyed pretty easily. Later you will exchange this for cloaks of protection/defense.

Right Hand- An orcish spear is easy to find, just tease one out of an orc scorcher/chieftain or hill orc. Keep running away from them while they're next to you, or maybe one step away from you, they'll throw eventually. If you get a cursed weapon it will prevent you from changing your gauntlets and rings. Later you will exchange this for a higher metal weapon or an artifact.

Left Hand- I find wooden shields preferable to medium shields due to rust. Later you will exchange this for a higher metal shield.

Right ring- Don't 'equip-identify' in this slot, as the effects for the ring you wear will be magnified on the right hand. Rings of damage if available. Later you will exchange this for a ring of slaying.

Left ring- Do it here instead. Rings of cold and fire resistance are nice, unless you find an uncursed ring of damage. Any good ring should be a righty.

Bracers- Do 'equip-identify' any bracers you find until your happy. Later you'll be doing the same.

Gauntlets- Do not 'equip-identify' these because you can't change rings if they are cursed. Later you will exchange this for the Elemental Gauntlets, or thick gauntlets if you have poison hands.

Boots- It's unlikely to find good leather or light boots. If you find iron, heavy, or spiked boots, give them a try. Later you will exchange this for blessed seven league boots, protect these at all cost.

Missile weapon- I say 'equip-identify' one. If it's not cursed, stick with it until it's destroyed. Later you will exchange this for a bow of accuracy.

Missile- Cursed missiles aren't a bother.

Tool- Torches are useful for extending your field of vision. Use torches before moments like entering the Big Room in the caverns of chaos. Later you will exchange this for the Elemental Orb of Water/Fire.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
10. PESKY MONSTERS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I know I won't get them all. I list mostly the ones that are pesky considering the experience level you will be at when you are likely to meet them.

Stone Golems: Resistant to acid and frost bolt and they see in the dark.
Greater Daemon: Sees in the dark, fire resistant, shoots fire bolts, drains your stats and to top it all off, he teleports. Geez!
Karmic baby (or not baby) dragons-Resists fire/ice/lightning/acid and you can't melee them without getting cursed or worse.
Ogre Magus: Shoots ice bolts, they can be deadly if you don't have darkness.
Mage Bane/Doom eyes: They drain your PP's. Only really bad in a group.
Mimics: If they get that first paralyzing hit on you it could be over.
Revenant: They regenerate, and are good at shrugging off bolts. Very pesky if you meet one early.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
11. WISHING
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Amulet of life saving, if Khelevaster is not saved yet. Maybe red dragon scale mail if desperate for fire resistance in the Tower of Eternal Flames. Possibly rings of ice for the tower. Seven league boots are a great choice. If there is a skill you like, Find Weakness, Food Preservation, or any other except Alertness. One more possibility is wishing for a chaos wizard. Chaos wizards summon writhing masses of primal chaos, and chaos warriors, that, when killed, give large amounts of experience points, allowing you to gain possibly several levels. The writhing masses and especially the chaos warriors drop really great items (eternium plate mails, boots, helmets, long swords, shields, and so on) thus ensuring some nice prefixes or suffixes on some of them. Unfortunately, they also summon chaos servants and greater chaos servants. If you kill too many of these they become super powerful. This is bad because you have to kill many of these later in the temple levels. If you try this, do so in a dungeon level that you won't need to visit again, later in the game. That way if the wizard summons servants, you can just lead him to a higher dungeon level, and leave the others behind. Some of the Tomb of the High KIngs levels work nice.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
12. WIZARD ORIENTATION
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wizards are powerful enough to defeat some very powerful monsters early in the game because of their strong magic attacks. Gaining experience levels is a very good thing for wizards because Spellcasting gets cheaper by 10% at level 6, 20% at level 12 and 40% at level 18. At exp. level 32 they can recharge wands (once per wand). At level 40 they get a useless uncursing talent. And at level 50, they get knowledge in all known spells (except wish).

Sometime in the game you will run out of PP's, it happens. Then you decide if you want to cast out of your HP's. If you do this your Mana stat will probably be drained by a point. Only do this if there is no reasonable alternative. At some point you'll have to cast spells from your HP's. When your HP's get low you can heal yourself by casting healing spells from your HP's. I know this sounds too good to be true, but it's true. Cure Light Wounds costs little and gives lots.

Economy with your spells is important. Don't fire a bolt at every monster that comes your way, this is a waste, and will cause you to run out of castings. Before bolting monsters you should first run from them. If you are lucky, they will stop chasing you, allowing you to progress in the game, and use your spells on more powerful (and therefore experience point rich) monsters. If those pesky monsters don't give up, you will have to bolt them. But at least try to get the monsters chasing you to line up in a row, (just run away from them in a straight line) that way you can blast several monsters with one shot.

If your HP's ever drop below 1/3, movement energy points decrease, but only if you're tactics are set to coward. This is very useful for outrunning monsters. Sometimes you will want to run away from some hard hitting monsters. If your speed isn't good enough by it's self, try using a 'monster shield' tactic. Run from a powerful monster until you find a weak one, now run from both, towards a narrow tunnel. Only one monster can follow right next to you, there is a chance that it will be the weak one. If it is you can safely heal or find the stairs.

Teleportation is very good for wizards, spells are best. If you have no spell you can make do with a wand. There is a gauranteed wand in the Very Dusty Dungeon level. To get it, you need a scroll of magic mapping, or a wand of item detection to let you know where to teleport to. You also need teleport control. Just activate a teleport trap, teleport to the wand, pick it up, teleport back by means of the stairs, and you're done. Use booze to recharge it as needed.

Corruption is a factor for every class, but not such a big factor for a wizard. With a high spellcasting score on the teleport spell, you don't have to worry about running out. When you are in deep (therefore highly corrupting) dungeons, use teleportation heavily, to reduce the number of game turns spent in them. If you run out of PP's in a highly corrupting area, don't recover them there, find a less corrupting place to recover, then return. A wizard can use magic to fight monsters that have a corrupting touch, this means they can keep their tactics on coward the whole time, thus reducing the number of corrupting hits they take. Clearing tension rooms and vaults in deep dungeon levels can corrupt non-spellcasters severely. Think about it, if you have hundreds of monsters, even if you kill most of them with two or three hits, you'll still be spending a lot of game turns on a highly corrupting level. Wizards on the other hand can clear any room very quickly with spells, further reducing corruption. It is possible for a wizard to win the game without ever generating a scroll or potion of chaos resistance, and still leave the game with NO corruption.

When corruptions do kick in, use morgia and moss to help your stats. Thick gauntlets are the work around for the 'poison hands' corruption. If you find some means of chaos resistance, save it to undo the 'stiff muscles' or 'mana battery' corruptions.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
13. LIMITED WALK-THROUGH
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I will go through a good option of how to start out, quite in depth. (Maybe a little too in depth, after re-reading it). It's just one option (tried to optimize for benefits vs. risk) but as a wizard all starting scenarios are available to you.

Upon entering the Drakalor Chain you should enter Terinyo. Now read all your spellbooks until they disappear.(I know some opinions differ, but this is one workable option, and it's what I do). If your PC is an idiot, maybe read them a couple times, and then stash or carry them for a while, you can finish them off later. Drink all beneficial potions (except a potion of gain attribute, which should be blessed before drinking for dramatically better results), equip your rings (except ring of the fish, because it is auto-cursing) and equip your weapon (surely you didn't think your wizard would know how to hold a dagger, without being told, did you?).

While in Terinyo, buy some large rations from the shop. You can also talk to the villagers to open some quests. The village elder's quest and the druid's quest are mutually exclusive. As a wizard, you will most likely benefit more from the druid's quest, which can yield a spellbook of frost bolt. This quest is kind of hard, so you might want to leave it until later. Talking to the tiny girl opens the puppy quest, again it's kind of hard, maybe leave it until later too. Talking to the sheriff opens a quest to kill a Raider Lord in the wilderness, with your bolt spells he's no problem, but it's sometimes a pain to find him.

So what should you do now? Kill the crime boss in the neighboring town. This is a safe way to get 1000's of gp, about five experience levels, and after talking to the sheriff, an amulet of law. But before killing him, you should make a few other kills in Lawenilothehl first, and note your first kill specifically. If you run out of PP's at any time, exit the town and recover PP's in the wilderness, then re-enter. A smart player would lead a cloaked ratling named Skriek out of this unlawful town before attacking the crime lord. If Skriek is in this town when you attack Hotzenplotz, he becomes hostile. This is bad, because he sells keys, that can save a wizards life from trapped doors. Lead Skriek to Terinyo, there he will sell keys to you for the rest of the game, if you have the gold.

Killing the crime lord, and bodyguards is simple. Just repeat the process of: bolt, exit town, re-enter, and bolt again until he dies. An important thing to remember though, acid/fire/lightning bolts can destroy the gp's that he and his body guards leave, so don't destroy your gold. While in the crime town, talk with the master thief and consider becoming a member of the thieves guild. Check out the black market, there might be a good book to buy. Return to Terinyo, get your law amulet from the sheriff, get some food and leave, your done here for now.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
So what's next. Three words: The Infinite Dungeon
Hereafter referred to as 'the ID' cause it sounds cool.

The ID is such a powerful feature in the game that some think that using it is like setting yourself up for an easy win. I think that as long as you don't use it until your fingers start to bleed, it's a fine way to start out.

It might be controversial to recommend item scumming in the Id, but it is an effective way of getting books. The process involves going up and down the ID staircases, to generate an unlimited supply of new rooms, and therefore an unlimited supply of items laying in those rooms. If you do this for a while on say levels 1-2 to start out, then 3-4, and up to 8-9, you will have a good supply of books and items. Note that you can still die in the ID, it's just a bit safer than most other dungeons.

On levels 3 and deeper of the ID it is possible for Blink Dogs to appear. Blink dog corpses, when eaten, give you teleport control, which is extremely valuable. If a Blink Dog appears, make it hostile by attacking it as lightly as you can, you don't want to kill it. In fact name it using the 'n' command, this will help you keep up with it. Just run from him until he summons, kill the spares and repeat, until you get your corpse.

You should consider staying in the ID long enough to get one or two bolt spells, Darkness spell, and a few points of DV and PV. You don't HAVE to stay until you get the Darkness spell, (The ID can get boooring) but I highly recommend it. When you find equipment that looks like it might give some PV, consider 'equip identifying' it. It might be cursed of coarse, making it un-removable, so you don't want to try this with girdles or gauntlets, you might get stuck with them for a while. In most cases cursed items aren't too bothersome, even gauntlets of peace (auto cursing and (-15, -15) [+3, +3]) aren't too bad if you are relying on mainly magic. Potions of water appear on ID level 6 and below, these can be dropped on a co-alligned alter later for blessing (if your deity is 'very pleased' with you), this and scrolls of uncursing solves cursed inventory problems.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cavern of Chaos
I will not recommend visiting the BUGWIL first, because it requires careful tactics. You can die from one hit there. However, a wizard is capable of killing VERY powerful monsters there, thus gaining up to level 13. If you want to try the Bug Temple before the Caverns of Chaos, you can read the section on the Bug Temple and give it a try. But like I said, I recommend not.

Noteworthy dungeon levels:
Arena - I say fight many fights in the arena, to get lots of gold. Just don't become champion just yet.

Big Room - HERBS! Yay! Have full HP's and PP's before entering. Walk along the top first, running away from any enemies you see. Don't fight enemies right away, it slows you down, and more will just take their place (believe me). Remember where the stairs are, you can flee back down them if things get rough, this will get you away from the high monster generation rate of the Big Room. Your goal is to make 2x2 squares of herbs. Even if the 2x2 square is missing one herb, that's ok, it will regenerate. The most important herbs for wizards are morgia root (eating 2 trains Toughness and 4 trains Willpower = 25) and moss of morrelian ('u'sing 2 uncursed or blessed trains Dexterity = 25). You have to double all herb amounts to train stats beyond their potential maximums. Most other herbs are useful too, so try to stabilize as many 2x2 bush patterns as you can, but morgia and moss are the highest priority. You will probably wind up picking well over 100 morgia, to use all through the game. But you don't have to pick them all at once though. To find out what bush has what herbs, either apply the herbalism skill or pick from the bush.

Dwarftowm
There will be an alter generated on this level, either neutral or lawful, depending on your alignment upon entering the level. This is a very important alter in the game, so if you want it lawful, don't enter until your law amulet has done it's work. Upon entering the town first talk to Thrundarr about 'gate' and 'quest'. Your quests are as follows:

Kill a specific monster - Can be easy or very frustrating. Try to find it in the Big Room, as this will help you gather herbs, while generating lots of monsters. Make trips to Dwarftown to sell junk you may collect in big room. Spend the money however you like, training, shop items, piety, whatever.

Cross the animated forest - Easy because trees can't see in the dark.

Kill some ogres - They also can't see in the dark.

Become champion in the arena - Did I mention that ogres can't see in darkness.

Kill a greater demon - To kill him is hard, to sacrifice him is easy.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Free the spirit of Griff Bloodaxe - You have to travel back east, find the little grey plus sign in the lower right hand corner. Kill all the enemies, on the outside with bolt spells being careful not to toast your items. Before descending the staircase, you might want to drop your inventory on the stairs. This will prevent item destruction due to the fact that the tomb is a heavily trapped area. If you have the Detect Traps skill, then you don't have to drop your items. First do an exploring trip through the dungeon, but don't try to beat it. This exploring trip lets you discover all the traps without risking your inventory. Now ascend the staircase, pick up your inventory, and re-equip whatever you took off. Now return to beat the level, your chances of setting off traps are greatly reduced because you've already discovered them. Utilize invisibility (probably potions), not darkness once you get to Griff and the necromancer. This will keep the ghuls and friends off of you, long enough for you to 'u'se holy water on the grave. That destroys Griff. The necromancer can't see in the dark, so use that to neutralize him, and invisibility to neutralize the others. Dig the grave to get a good sword, kill a bone golem to get good gauntlets.

Next job is to get the Ancient Mummy Wrapping from the pyramid. Enter before you reach exp. level 17. The pyramid is heavily trapped also, so consider using the 'stash your inventory' trick if you don't have the Detect Traps skill. Rehetep isn't difficult for a wizard to beat. If there is a karmic baby dragon, or some other annoying monster on Rehetep's level, try to avoid it if possible. Remember, you don't have to beat every monster. Before leaving the pyramid, search the first level and find a pickaxe and a climbing set.

Next is the Tomb of the High Kings to get the Ring of the High Kings. You need the frost bolt spell first (obtainable by way of the druid's quest). You might find some herbs in this dungeon, that's good because you might not have gotten all the bush types you needed in the Big Room. Eventually you will come to a red lake. Drop your inventory (because ice bridges only hold 2000 stones), make an ice bridge to the door, open the door and return to pick up your inventory. The Skeletal King will try to confuse you, if he does, DON'T keep trying to walk. You might fall into the lake and instantly die. Just attempt spells instead, even when confused you have about a 30%-50% chance of success. You can easily dispatch the Skeletal King with magic, but make sure you have some way of healing. Don't forget this next step or you will die, DROP your inventory again before crossing the ice bridge again to collect the ring.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Caverns of Chaos Part 2
Get more herbs Finish whatever dwarf quests you wish, give bart the Golden Gladius, and dive deep into the caverns. First we talk to Khelevaster, thus killing him. Unless you have an amulet of life saving, or can wish for one. If you do, give it to him. If not, collect the wand of digging and stuff, and go on. If you wish very much to save Khelevaster, it might be worth it. The rewards are VERY nice, including a book of teleport and scrolls of chaos resistance. So if your PC is tough, or has the lightning ball spell, consider clearing darkforge before letting Khelavaster die. There are pools in Darkforge that MIGHT yield a wish.

Next is the graveyard, kill the undead and eat the wight and wraith corpses. This will draw your alignment toward chaotic though, so if you have high piety try not to convert. Dig through the far wall into the center room and descend.

The Water Temple
Ok now it's water temple time, this is ridiculously easy. No monsters in the water temple can see in the darkness. Not the water snakes/grues/demons/elementals, chaos servants or even the Snake from Beyond. You can even step on the alter in the darkness to collect the water orb, and not worry about being sacrificed. A note though, in the darkness you will not receive the message "do you want to enter the water?", you just enter it. So be careful and don't drown yourself ok. Also beware of monsters panicing in the dark.

Go a bit deeper, all the while using morgia and moss to continually train Your stats. You will come to a staircase you can't pass, that means you need The fire orb. So back to the surface again.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Darkforge
Before tackling the tower clear darkforge. The steel golems are highly vulnerable to lightning, but they shrug off a lot of bolts. If you have the lightning ball spell, it's a breeze though, and you should consider clearing darkforge earlier, as the rewards are nice. You can use Big Punch to kill them in melee, just keep a VERY close eye on your HP's and don't take chances. Don't wear any thing that isn't fireproof while fighting them, it will get destroyed. Loot the weapons and armor room, and get the Steel Crown, and consider selling all the junk in Dwarftown. You can drink from the pools in darkforge if you wish, but you might get doomed. So if you drink, make sure you have a way of getting excellent piety fast, for doom removal.

The Tower of Eternal Flames
Before entering the tower you need: A blessed fireproof blanket, some means of fire resistance, a means of digging, food, some blessed potions of extra healing, some other means of healing (spells or spensweed), the frost bolt spell, some cursed potions of invisibility (curse them yourself with some unholy water), potions of blindness and confusion work to if you have them, some uncursed potions of invisibility (if you don't have the spell), some wands of door creation, about 200 HP's and the teleport spell (you can do it without teleport, but it's much safer with it).

It is imperative to limit your inventory! The more items you carry with you the faster your blanket will fail. You may take some items that you like, but do limit them. Wear only fireproof items, the rest will burn up. If you have a ring of ice, that's nice, but you really need to wear two blessed rings of ice to guarantee item safety. Kill the fire enemies with frost bolt, yes they will shrug a lot off, but keep blasting and you'll get them. When you run out of PP's exit the tower and recover in the wilderness, this is what the food is for.
The Ancient Chaos Wyrm is one of the toughest enemies you will face, considering your level, and equipment restrictions. Have Willpower, Dexterity, and Toughness all at least 25 before fighting him. You can equip the water orb and Sword of Nonnak for an additional 15 points of Willpower. First tunnel in and frost bolt the demons, grues and elementals. The only monsters that see invisible are the Ancient Chaos Wyrm and the chaos servants. The only monsters that can see in the dark are the Ancient Chaos Wyrm and fire demons.
Make sure that you 'wake up' the Ancient Chaos Wyrm before you run out of PP's, you will know he is awake when you get the message 'you feel some force attacking your mind', so you will exit the tower and recover PP's. When you resume the fight, your goal is to lead the Ancient Chaos Wyrm to the stairs. The temple level doesn't allow teleportation, but the level just below it does. Utilize 'monster shields' (fire grues and such) to prevent getting hit by the Wyrm's energy bolts on the way back to the stairs. Use your wands of door creation (it's a good idea to have created these doors in strategic locations before luring The Wyrm, and just close them as you pass) to keep The Ancient Chaos Wyrm from getting you in his line of sight. This prevents his confusion attack attempts. When your on the stairs, he won't immediately come to stand next to you. So you will trade bolts with him for a while, when you get hit, descend the stairs and heal. Ascend the stairs and repeat. If he confuses you, don't stumble around, just use the stairs. He will eventually stand next to you. Lead him down and teleport to get some distance. Equip your potions of blindness in your missile slot and teleport back. Blind him and unequip your potions (this keeps them from destruction). Use your bolt spells, and if you have them, ball spells now. If he recovers his vision and hits you, teleport away and heal, don't take chances. If he confuses you attempt to teleport a few times, but drink a potion of extra healing if you get hit. He'll panic soon and then you've got him.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Caverns of Chaos part 3
Remember that wall of unpassable flames...now pass it. Also pass the Eternal Guardian by wearing the Ring of the High Kings.

The Casino
Upon entering the casino make a habit of equipping an amulet of free action. This gives protection from the guaranteed master mimic in the gift shop. If you have none then use darkness, but that means the mimic might get one free hit on you (it could be the death of you). Try invisibility plus the highest DV you can get. Gather all the items and identify them. Pick out what you like and notice how much it costs all together. Gamble at the slot machine that has a 24 gp price on it, get the gold you need, Also get an extra amount to ensure enough piety for crowning. When you get stunned at your winnings, don't stumble around, clean your 'E'ars instead. Get your shopping done, and travel to a desired alter, probably Dwarftown. You'll find the shortcut just a few levels down from the casino. Read all the spellbooks that you got from the casino on a non corrupting level. Then return.

Bunny Level
Message ="intense tension" = Dig Kill Leave

The Cat Lord
You will get a message "this level somehow seems to be removed from the rest of the world" upon entering his dungeon level. If you have killed no cats you talk to the Cat Lord and get a ring, otherwise you get a fight. You need to: see invisible (Ancient Mummy Wrapping), have potions of confusion or blindness (cursed potions of invisibility) equipped in your missile slot, and wands of paralyzation and poison are nice too. Lead off with the potions, they are 100% effective. Next utilize the wands if you have them. Then use magic spells to finish. There is no teleporting allowed on this level but you shouldn't need it.

The Air Temple
Another item restriction level. This time it's lightning that destroys items. Whatever. No regular monsters can see in the dark here. Not vapor rats, air grues/demons/elementals, or the chaos servants. In fact, only the chaos servants can even see invisible. Yulgash the Master Summoner can see invisible and in the dark. He is easily killed by standing outside of the door to his room and shooting magic missile bouncing around inside the room. Very easy.

The Earth Temple
This one is a bit harder. Most enemies here can see invisible and in the dark. Ball spells are useful but expensive in PP's because you really don't want to get surrounded by these guys (they hit hard!). Acid and lightning bolts are effective against the grues, but the elementals are really good at shrugging them off. You'll have to use acid or lightning ball spells like crazy, to kill the elementals and the Ancient Stone Beast. It might be worth considering, at this point, to sacrifice one or two points of Mana and cast ball spells out of your HP's. If you don't like that idea that's ok too, but it's a long way back to the surface, and your Mana points should regenerate soon anyway.

The Mana Temple
You should have a few wands of trap detection by now, so the traps won't be a problem. You should also have the Disarm Traps spell which is also useful. Once you navigate to the mana temple big room, just cast darkness and stand in the doorway shooting bolt spells into the room while in the dark. None of the monsters in here see in the dark, not the chaos wizards/warriors/servants/greater servants or the eyes. The wizards can summon writhing masses of primal chaos however, and they do see in the dark. The Archmage himself sees in the dark and in fact casts darkness himself. Every now and then cast light to see where every one is. Try to target your bolt spells to take out the wizards first to limit the summoning. The eyes will drain your PP's to 0. You will have to cast out of your HP's, goodbye two or three Mana points. Soon the Archmage will begin confusion attempts upon you. Now it's Archmage time.

The Archmage
If you have the acid ball spell: You need to have death ray resistance (Ancient Mummy Wrapping or amulet), confusion resistance, and a wand of door creation to battle the Archmage. Retreat into the corridor. When you kill all the monsters between yourself and Nuurag-Vaarn you can utilize a created door to keep his bolt spells from hitting you. Lock the door and use 'Willpower boosted' acid ball spells to kill the Archmage, while he stands on the other side of the door.

If you don't have acid ball: You need death ray resistance, human slaying ammunition, confusion resistance and potions of confusion or blindness/cursed potions of invisibility. Wands of poison and paralyzation are nice too. Retreat into the corridor. When you kill all the monsters between yourself and the Archmage you can utilize a potion to confuse or blind him, these are 100% effective. You can now exploit missiles or other weapons to dispatch him. Acid bolt is effective and magic missile, but he shrugs off a lot. If you use bolt spells just don't melt your humanoid slaying ammo if you can help it.

The Ice Level
Use a potion of uselessness in the missile slot to make yourself slide a space on the ice. This gets you a free artifact.

D:50
Goodbye to more Mana points, you won't have many PP's at this stage, and hanging around such a corrupting area to regenerate them, is a bad idea. Cast darkness and bolt most of the writhing masses of primal chaos to death first, because they see in the dark. Now angle some bouncing bolts up and downward to kill the chaos warriors. Cast light pick up any items you like and finish off the remaining writhing masses. Search for the hidden openings in the walls of the writhing masses room. Enter the tunnels and bolt the monsters to death in the dark. Try to kill the wizards first to limit their summoning. Do not handle the levers yet, and be careful to stay away from the wall that is near the center room. There is another secret door near the lever, that opens if you are near it, thus awakening the center room. Clear both secret tunnels this way. Now it's time to 'h'andle the levers, and stop the incursions of chaos into Ancardia.

Now if you have some wands of destruction you can handle a lever, destroy the lever with your wand, teleport, handle the other level, destroy it, teleport to the staircase and leave. You win. Some find this a bit cheap though. So if you don't have the wand, or if you just want some extra satisfaction, finish the game the thorough way. It is not dangerous, to kill all the monsters on the level, it just takes a bit of time.

Just 'h'andle the levers to stop the chaos. Some balors here won't like that so they will teleport to the levers and open them. Kill the balors by bolting them to death. Do the same for the greater balor. If they get close to you, just teleport away and resume bolting them. Yes this takes a while, but so what. If you have ball spells, and don't mind healing yourself more often, you can use those for possibly quicker results. Finally all the balors will be dead and you can tackle the center room.

The only monsters left that can see in the dark are the ghosts and some writhing masses that may be summoned by the chaos wizards. So you should once again employ some darkness usage. Awaken the center room by finding the hidden opening near one of the levers. This gives you a good bolt spell shot at most of the chaos wizards all at once, thus limiting summoned monsters. If the ghosts surround you use ball spells. Eventually you will prevail.

The White Unicorn Quest
Before leaving the Drakalor Chain, talk to the druid in Terinyo once more. This opens the unicorn quest. Near the Old Barbarian's glade, you will find him. Talk to him then go kill the greater black unicorn. Return and get all corruptions healed. Now leave the Drakalor Chain.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bug Temple
This is in no way necessary to win the game. So I will cover it only briefly, and partially. I use it for quick experience levels in the early game. So that is what I will describe, the rest I will leave up to you. You might try this with some newly generated characters before trying it with a character that is important to you.

No claw bugs can shrug off bolt spells, not greater or killer. Two bolt spells (acid/lightning/fire/frost) always kills greater bugs, and 3 bolt spells will kill killer bugs. Both types of bugs can sometimes travel 2 spaces in 1 turn, if your speed is about 100. Or they can travel 1 space and then hit you. For this reason, you don't want to bolt a bug that is just one space away from you. He might survive one bolt, move one space, and then hit you, thus killing a low level PC. If a greater claw bug is two spaces from you, and in line with a bolt spell, you can always kill it. It takes three to kill Killer claw bugs though. The Killer claw bug must be at LEAST 3 spaces away to safely bolt it once, and then leave the BUGWIL. Or five spaces away to bolt it to death. If more than one claw bug awakens on you at one time, simply leave and re-enter. Carefully make your way back to where you left, and you will see them again, only this time you will approach them one at a time.

Before entering the BUGWIL, light a torch. This extends your field of vision by a couple of squares. Now enter the BUGWIL, move down one space, now shoot a bolt spell north-westward, this should hit a greater claw bug. One more kills it. Move all the way to the top of the screen along the right hand side of the level, no bugs should awaken on you. Now move left until you get to the tree, and bolt a bug. Probably you will have to exit. When you re-enter just carefully move upward till you see it, if it doesn't line up with a bolt spell just exit and re-enter 1 more time, then it will.

The rest is pretty much the same, just carefully move left along the top of the map, exiting when you need to. When you start awakening the killer claw bugs, you might consider leaving. But if you decide to try the killer bugs you might get a couple more experience levels.

End