Rogue-likes! (not a discussion of the correct use of the term)

Obviously, when I find something really good, it's a bloody staff. Kalmius' Shield. Which is every type of awesome I can think of. It does - easily - five times the damage my Bloody dagger does, it has resistance to death attacks and paralysation, +15 DV, doubles PP regeneration.

I guess I'm learning to wield a staff then. I shall be a Palamage.

Oh, I wanted to ask something, too: Slay the Spire. Yay or nay?

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Originally Posted by Kaptin Keen

Oh, I wanted to ask something, too: Slay the Spire. Yay or nay?

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Somewhere inbetween, it’s good at what it sets out to do, but apprehending the tag “roguelike” makes it somewhat fall between two chairs for me. Quite frankly i’m not sure i’d call a roguelike in the first place (just as i wouldn’t call the adventures in Hearthstone Rougelikes)

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Originally Posted by Kaptin Keen

Oh, I wanted to ask something, too: Slay the Spire. Yay or nay?

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Yay. It's excellent, and it's one of very, very few games where I've put more than 100 hours in it, and possibly more than 200 (which is a category with maybe four other games, and one of them involved counting a whole series together).

Slay the Spire is excellent.

There's one complaint I would make - the Standard game mode sets you up with each of the characters' starter decks every time, and the process of improving from the starter deck eventually begins to feel repetitive and frustrating. This issue disappears in Custom mode, where you get a variety of options that add spice to the experience and are able to completely ditch the starter deck, but the Custom mode doesn't allow you to access the true ending. Right now, I'm in the situation where I do still want to keep trying to get the true ending achievements for two of the three characters, but it doesn't feel like I'm truly in control of whether or not I can make that happen.

The central issue is that the main way you improve your deck is through drops of "Add a card" rewards, provided by monster encounters. But as anyone who's played a TCG or CCG before knows, adding a card to your deck also has a way of making each individual card that's already in your deck less likely to be drawn. So ideally you'd want to replace the bad cards with better cards, but you only ever get to remove a couple of cards during a full run, which is not enough to get rid of all the inferior "Strike" and "Defend" cards in your deck, especially since you often also need to use "Remove a Card" rewards to get rid of Curse cards that are added during events.

From what I can tell, the key is to build your character's game plan in such a way that they can handle drawing a certain percentage of suboptimal cards, such as by using Discard synergies, which are accessible to the Silent for example. I haven't yet figured out what kind of deckbuilding plan would enable the Ironclad or Defect to reliably beat the true final boss. All the characters seem to be highly reliant on finding powerful relics that happen to synergize with the deck in order to accomplish that.

All is that is neither here nor there; these are issues that cropped up for me long after the point that the game justified the investment. It's worth keeping in mind as well that I've yet to install a single mod - mod support was just added.

I hate water traps. With the sort of unreasoning, unrelenting, seeting fury otherwise only found among people wearing bomb belts.

In a world threatened by chaos, inhabited by undead, dragons, hydras, masses of pure chaos, demons, terrors beyond fathom and number - the single most threatening thing you can ever encounter is a bucket of water, sneakily balanced on a door jamb.

Goddamn I hate water traps.

Otherwise, I'm doing surprisingly well in the pyramid.

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Originally Posted by Kaptin Keen

I hate water traps. With the sort of unreasoning, unrelenting, seeting fury otherwise only found among people wearing bomb belts.

In a world threatened by chaos, inhabited by undead, dragons, hydras, masses of pure chaos, demons, terrors beyond fathom and number - the single most threatening thing you can ever encounter is a bucket of water, sneakily balanced on a door jamb.

Goddamn I hate water traps.

Otherwise, I'm doing surprisingly well in the pyramid.

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At least they're not buckets full of slimes...

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Originally Posted by Wookieetank

At least they're not buckets full of slimes...

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Ha! Before coming to the pyramid, I found a level of the ... shadowy dungeon, perhaps? That was basically one great big vault full of slimes, oozes and jellies. I'm fairly sure it took me a bajillion years to clear it. Including running out of food, legging it up, buying new supplies, and returning to finish the gooey things off.

Victory for the Non-Amorphous!

I also beat the pyramid. I won't try and fool anyone into thinking I did it without save scumming, but ... just because of the god damned water traps.

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Originally Posted by Kaptin Keen

Ha! Before coming to the pyramid, I found a level of the ... shadowy dungeon, perhaps? That was basically one great big vault full of slimes, oozes and jellies. I'm fairly sure it took me a bajillion years to clear it. Including running out of food, legging it up, buying new supplies, and returning to finish the gooey things off.

Victory for the Non-Amorphous!

I also beat the pyramid. I won't try and fool anyone into thinking I did it without save scumming, but ... just because of the god damned water traps.

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There's a branch in DCSS like that. At the bottom is a King Slime which is sentient enough to worship the god of slimes, and is its only worshiper. If you don't convert to that believe and kill the king slime, the deity perishes along with its last follower. The first time I saw that, I kinda freaked out... holy crap, I just killed a deity!

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Originally Posted by Silfir

Slay the Spire is excellent.

...

From what I can tell, the key is to build your character's game plan in such a way that they can handle drawing a certain percentage of suboptimal cards, such as by using Discard synergies, which are accessible to the Silent for example. I haven't yet figured out what kind of deckbuilding plan would enable the Ironclad or Defect to reliably beat the true final boss. All the characters seem to be highly reliant on finding powerful relics that happen to synergize with the deck in order to accomplish that.

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For the Ironclad, you have to use Exhaust synergies to achieve the same effect. They're slower to get done than the Discard/draw options that the Silent has (unless you take a card like Sever Soul or Fiend Fire that just nukes just about everything in your hand), but they're also permanent for the rest of your fight. Exhaust cards make each subsequent draw more powerful. There's also cards like Warcry and Headbutt that allow you to control (to a limited degree) your next turn's draw.

You could also cheese everything in the game with Corruption+Dead Branch, but that's only fun if you're messing around.

I will agree that the default game mode gets a bit boring after a while, but the game is ultimately balanced around it. Picking the one option in Custom that allows you to draft cards before you start makes Act I really easy - and can even trivialize the entire game if you're lucky. I wish they'd give you the option of themed starter decks that are slightly more useful than the default Strike/Defend decks, without being as broken as drafting 15 cards.

I can't really comment on beating the true final boss with Defect, since I haven't done it, but I imagine using Recursion with Dark Orbs and turtling with Frost Orbs is your best bet.

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Originally Posted by OutOfThyme

For the Ironclad, you have to use Exhaust synergies to achieve the same effect. They're slower to get done than the Discard/draw options that the Silent has (unless you take a card like Sever Soul or Fiend Fire that just nukes just about everything in your hand), but they're also permanent for the rest of your fight. Exhaust cards make each subsequent draw more powerful. There's also cards like Warcry and Headbutt that allow you to control (to a limited degree) your next turn's draw.

You could also cheese everything in the game with Corruption+Dead Branch, but that's only fun if you're messing around.

I will agree that the default game mode gets a bit boring after a while, but the game is ultimately balanced around it. Picking the one option in Custom that allows you to draft cards before you start makes Act I really easy - and can even trivialize the entire game if you're lucky. I wish they'd give you the option of themed starter decks that are slightly more useful than the default Strike/Defend decks, without being as broken as drafting 15 cards.

I can't really comment on beating the true final boss with Defect, since I haven't done it, but I imagine using Recursion with Dark Orbs and turtling with Frost Orbs is your best bet.

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Quill18 is doing a Slay the Spire series at the moment, just took his first attempt at the final boss as Ironclad. Went for a strength multiplier build. Lost because he had no way to mitigate damage and the elite before the boss really did a number on him because he didn't math right and took a ton of damage he didn't need to.

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Originally Posted by OutOfThyme

I can't really comment on beating the true final boss with Defect, since I haven't done it, but I imagine using Recursion with Dark Orbs and turtling with Frost Orbs is your best bet.

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I've done it a couple of times - once with a One For All deck, where I was very lucky to have.... Kunai? The one where you get 1 Dex every time you play three attacks in a turn - it meant Steam Barrier could keep up with the damage output.
The other time I had 4 or 5 static discharges up, so every time it hit me it took 40 damage. It killed itself with its multi hits. A few ways to apply weak and I was sorted.
I can see either of those working too - personally I think the defect has the most varied route at heartbreaker

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Originally Posted by Kaptin Keen

Ha! Before coming to the pyramid, I found a level of the ... shadowy dungeon, perhaps? That was basically one great big vault full of slimes, oozes and jellies. I'm fairly sure it took me a bajillion years to clear it. Including running out of food, legging it up, buying new supplies, and returning to finish the gooey things off.

Victory for the Non-Amorphous!

I also beat the pyramid. I won't try and fool anyone into thinking I did it without save scumming, but ... just because of the god damned water traps.

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The water traps deal more damage to the player rather than the character, in my opinion. One way to deal them without Detect Traps is just to dump your scrolls and books somewhere safe and proceed like that.

Also, these might seem obvious, but a quick checklist for the Pyramid's top floor include:

-Highest level possible (was it 16?)
-Confusion resistance
-Some good DV because you'll get rushed in the top floor
-Fire
-If possible, invisibility

Also, the layout, (including trap position) is predetermined in the pyramid

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Originally Posted by Cespenar

-Highest level possible (was it 16?)

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Maybe unless you're a troll; I once genuinely tried to uphold this rule for so long that I descended through AF and completed TotHK before I did the pyramid and I was still legible. Otherwise, yeah, good post. Pyramid is really pretty easy, like a first real test of mettle. Rehetep in particular can be one-shot with a fire spell.
Detect Traps is really useful in there, though, and in the old versions it was another great reason to roll Dwarf or a Neutral/Chaotic race so that you can do the Pick pockets quest and learn Detect Traps from Yergius.

Although now the thieves guild has been entirely revamped, Yergius is a kill quest from Tywat, and I have no idea how to even maneuver inside the new thieves guild, so now I don't know what to do. Good thing I roll almost exclusively Dwarves anyway. :smalltongue:

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Originally Posted by Cespenar

The water traps deal more damage to the player rather than the character, in my opinion. One way to deal them without Detect Traps is just to dump your scrolls and books somewhere safe and proceed like that.

Also, these might seem obvious, but a quick checklist for the Pyramid's top floor include:

-Highest level possible (was it 16?)
-Confusion resistance
-Some good DV because you'll get rushed in the top floor
-Fire
-If possible, invisibility

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-Highest level possible (was it 16?) ✔️
-Confusion resistance ✔️
-Some good DV because you'll get rushed in the top floor ✔️
-Fire ✔️
-If possible, invisibility ✔️

I thought about dropping all my scrolls, but then I felt I'd need them in the fight. Then I didn't need them.

But it's not just scroll and books - it's also rust to every goddamn metal item (possibly not mithril and adamantium?). But yes, I agree: The game could potentially go on, even so.

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Originally Posted by Sian

Also, the layout, (including trap position) is predetermined in the pyramid

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Yea, but I don't cheat - in that particular way.

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Originally Posted by Maethirion

I've done it a couple of times - once with a One For All deck, where I was very lucky to have.... Kunai? The one where you get 1 Dex every time you play three attacks in a turn - it meant Steam Barrier could keep up with the damage output.
The other time I had 4 or 5 static discharges up, so every time it hit me it took 40 damage. It killed itself with its multi hits. A few ways to apply weak and I was sorted.
I can see either of those working too - personally I think the defect has the most varied route at heartbreaker

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I've had very bad luck with Static Discharge on A15, so I basically never pick it up. It just doesn't seem to be all that useful, considering that you've only got limited opportunities to heal yourself (via Self-Repair, unless you have Creative AI).

But One For All with Steam Barrier does make a lot of sense. It's kind of like Shuriken + Glass Knife on the Silent, except it's defensive. That, coupled with Hologram+ would give you a very solid offense.

So ... tell me about spells in ADOM.

I've found the first spellbook shop I've ever seen - so clearly, I'm playing a non-caster troll. But what should I buy? He'll never do massive damage with spells, but there's Cure Poison, Web, Light, Bless, Darkness. Also some bolt spells, fire and ice, burning hands, invisibility, teleportation. It's like a candy shop - only obviously, it's more like a spellbook shop. Since they sell no candy, but lots of books.

Why write "non-caster" instead of the actual class? Non-caster trolls don't typically have any success reading spellbooks, but I have no idea what you mean by "non-caster". A troll healer or paladin has a chance, a troll barbarian doesn't.

I suppose you could buy a spellbook of Light first, since it's one of the easiest spells to learn, and see if you can get anywhere with that. If it works unexpectedly well, move on to more useful spells, like Teleportation, Burning Hands or the bolt spells. The other spells you mention have more or less situational use. I suppose Bless deserves the nod since the buff it provides is not replicable by items, but there are wands of webbing, scrolls of darkness etc, potions of cure poison and invisibility and so on.

Spell damage is not the problem in ADOM for non-casters, actually learning the spell is.

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Originally Posted by Kaptin Keen

So ... tell me about spells in ADOM.

I've found the first spellbook shop I've ever seen - so clearly, I'm playing a non-caster troll. But what should I buy? He'll never do massive damage with spells, but there's Cure Poison, Web, Light, Bless, Darkness. Also some bolt spells, fire and ice, burning hands, invisibility, teleportation. It's like a candy shop - only obviously, it's more like a spellbook shop. Since they sell no candy, but lots of books.

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What class are you? Are you even literate at this point? You might be unable to cast at all with a non-caster troll (since they are, racially, awful at spell learning), so this might not be a consideration for now.

Generally, I seem to recall that out of all the elements, Acid is the most expensive but also most effective (hence end-game Wizards primarily abusing Spellbooks of Acid Ball), Fire and Lightning are solid but more resistable, Frost Bolt is great bridge-building utility, and Magic Missile is the weakest but also the least resistable. As for meleers (like a Paladin or Monk, but probably not a Barbarian), you're more likely to use spells like Darkness (renders a good chunk of monsters blind and useless), Light (to not plaster a cat by accident), Strength of Atlas (for carrying weights) and so on. But you're more likely to get spell charges from wands of wonder than anything else.

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Originally Posted by Silfir

Why write "non-caster" instead of the actual class? Non-caster trolls don't typically have any success reading spellbooks, but I have no idea what you mean by "non-caster". A troll healer or paladin has a chance, a troll barbarian doesn't.

I suppose you could buy a spellbook of Light first, since it's one of the easiest spells to learn, and see if you can get anywhere with that. If it works unexpectedly well, move on to more useful spells, like Teleportation, Burning Hands or the bolt spells. The other spells you mention have more or less situational use. I suppose Bless deserves the nod since the buff it provides is not replicable by items, but there are wands of webbing, scrolls of darkness etc, potions of cure poison and invisibility and so on.

Spell damage is not the problem in ADOM for non-casters, actually learning the spell is.

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Originally Posted by Winthur

What class are you? Are you even literate at this point? You might be unable to cast at all with a non-caster troll (since they are, racially, awful at spell learning), so this might not be a consideration for now.

Generally, I seem to recall that out of all the elements, Acid is the most expensive but also most effective (hence end-game Wizards primarily abusing Spellbooks of Acid Ball), Fire and Lightning are solid but more resistable, Frost Bolt is great bridge-building utility, and Magic Missile is the weakest but also the least resistable. As for meleers (like a Paladin or Monk, but probably not a Barbarian), you're more likely to use spells like Darkness (renders a good chunk of monsters blind and useless), Light (to not plaster a cat by accident), Strength of Atlas (for carrying weights) and so on. But you're more likely to get spell charges from wands of wonder than anything else.

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Troll healer. Though I did teach a troll barbarian some basic magic once upon a time. I mentioned that character before - he tested the waters in the abandoned dwarf halls, and met a ghost. Trolls and ghosts don't mix well.

But this is a troll healer. Learning of 11, current literacy of 71. He has 45 PP, meaning stuff like teleportation had better work the first time, because it'll will drain him completely.

The question is what's meaningful with low stats for casting. Light, Darkness, Bless, Web - all seem obvious choices, because they provide utility. I'd have loved to see an actual healing spell, but being a healer, obviously there isn't one. Damage seems iffy. He can dish out incredible damage with a 2-hander, and does so. Low dexterity means he's way less reliable with thrown rocks, sadly. Obviously a source of ranged damage is nice, but he'll never be world class nuker.

But generally, spellbooks tend to explode - pretty much unless you're an elf, and a full caster class to boot. No helping that though, except find one of those rooms, and hope it helps =)

I’d say it would be unlikely to consistly not blow up in your face. as healer you’re a semi-caster (just as Paladin) so if you boost your learning and max out literacy, it might be worthwhile, (although keep it at bookcastinf, paired witth troll you’re unlikely ever to get to the point where it’ll be worth it to read them out and try and selfcast any valuable number of times) otherwise my concern would be that it would be an expensive way of injuring yourself

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Originally Posted by Sian

an expensive way of injuring yourself

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Thing is, I don't buy anything else except food - and injury is irrelevant unless it kills me. Cause I'm a troll healer. I don't know how fast I regen, but it feels like 10 turns, I'm maxed out again. I've 140+ HP, and I'm sure I don't regen 14 points every round ... but it feels like it =)

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Originally Posted by Kaptin Keen

Thing is, I don't buy anything else except food - and injury is irrelevant unless it kills me. Cause I'm a troll healer. I don't know how fast I regen, but it feels like 10 turns, I'm maxed out again. I've 140+ HP, and I'm sure I don't regen 14 points every round ... but it feels like it =)

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Candle-born Troll Healers with the Healthy talent are a well-known Konami Code for ADOM.

Well, except for the Ultimate endings where Trolls are absolutely screwed.

It would surprise me if anyone was on the edge of their seats, waiting for me to report my findings on turning my level 10 troll healer into a caster of legend. Here are my findings:

Spells learned:
Bless
Farsight
Knock
Slow Poison
Strength of Atlas
Web

Spells patently unable to learn at this point:
Teleportation
Magic Missile

Despite my troll strength (it's only 20, actually), I'm burdened pretty much all the time. Is there a place one might stash 2 spellbooks relatively safely?

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Originally Posted by Kaptin Keen

Is there a place one might stash 2 spellbooks relatively safely?

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the Orge Cave after you've cleared it is a decent stash

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Originally Posted by Sian

the Orge Cave after you've cleared it is a decent stash

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Ogre cave, you say. Right.

Where is this, again? =)

Don't answer that, I'll just google it. Thanks!

I don't know if it's still doable in the latest version, but my method for stashing stuff has always been the "Dwarftown Condo" method, which is:

You go to the one square thick alleyway behind the Dwarftown shop, you go to the very end with just one square of stashing place, you use your wand of door creation and kick down those doors until you chance upon one with a lock that you have the fitting key for. Then you stash, lock it up, and leave.

That's your home alright.

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Originally Posted by Cespenar

I don't know if it's still doable in the latest version, but my method for stashing stuff has always been the "Dwarftown Condo" method, which is:

You go to the one square thick alleyway behind the Dwarftown shop, you go to the very end with just one square of stashing place, you use your wand of door creation and kick down those doors until you chance upon one with a lock that you have the fitting key for. Then you stash, lock it up, and leave.

That's your home alright.

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Ahhh ... how clever. Might take a good long while to get the door right, seeing as how I have only one key. But it's a remarkably solid plan. Or maybe you could luck out on a wand of trap creation, and get teleportation.

Edit: So I took your advice, I spawn a door - magically, I have the key. For whatever reason, the door spawns locked, and the key breaks the first time I use it. So now I can open the door, but not lock it again. Jeezus!! =)

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Originally Posted by Kaptin Keen

Ahhh ... how clever. Might take a good long while to get the door right, seeing as how I have only one key. But it's a remarkably solid plan. Or maybe you could luck out on a wand of trap creation, and get teleportation.

Edit: So I took your advice, I spawn a door - magically, I have the key. For whatever reason, the door spawns locked, and the key breaks the first time I use it. So now I can open the door, but not lock it again. Jeezus!! =)

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Yeah, like most things in ADOM, you have to bless the thing for it to not do the things you don't want it to do.

I know how my healer is going to die now. He'll starve to death. Simple as that. There is still food in my inventory, but less than I burn walking to Terinyo - the only reliable source of food - and even with strength 24, I can only carry less than it takes to walk back. So since the game provides me with less than sustainable food supply - that's how this one dies.