Guide to Being a Beastfighter by Molach

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 Guide to Being a Monk by Molach

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.