Let's Play ADOM
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Chapter 2: Village Dungeon I
So last time, I had acquired two quests:
-Find out what happened to the carpenter who disappeared into the caves to the southeast.
-Find the puppy that wandered into the dark hole near the pass.
The order of these quests is important! On one hand, the puppy quest has a time limit - if I don't find the puppy by the beginning of day 4, it will die of starvation. However, that cave is very dangerous for a level 1 adventurer.
Plan: Complete the carpenter quest and then hit the puppy quest, all within a time limit of four days!
TO THE CAVES
Village Dungeon
Ancient caves
Threat level: 1/5
The * there is a heap of rocks - would be useful if I had chosen the hurthling archer, but just trash for a dwarven priest.
+ is a closed door, / is an open one. Doors are potentially risky, as they can be locked and/or trapped! I'm sure we will see the reprecussions of this later.
< is an upward staircase and > is a downward staircase. Every dungeon floor is randomly generated, so I just happened to find the stairway down to the second floor by chance!
I'm not taking it, though. To rush ahead is to die painfully in ADOM.
$ indicates gold. And the other thing I see here is my very first real monster!
k
Kobold
Threat Level: 1/10
Special: Shoots arrows
Kobolds are astoundingly weak! With my strength and skills, I hit for 5-9 damage. Kobolds have, on average, about 1 hitpoint. They are only any danger in groups.
It dropped an item, but I can't rest yet!
B
Large bat
Threat Level: 1/10
Special: Flies
Because of my defense-crazy starting equipment, most lesser monsters can't even hurt me at this point. It's great!
r
Giant rat
Threat Level: 1/10
Special: Swims, can cause sickness (very rare)
All monsters in the room cleared out! I'm over halfway to level 2.
Now, time to talk about survival.
For novice players, starvation is one of the greatest dangers in the Drakalor Chain. The secret to avoiding this: Monster corpses!
I just killed a giant rat that I found in a dungeon. Do I need to cook it? Is it unhealthy to eat?
NOPE
Nearly everything is edible, for a certain value of edible. I'll be adding corpse analysis to my monster profiles from now on.
Eating both corpses in the room (the kobold didn't generate one - it's random) leaves me Satiated, meaning that I can go for a long time before my next meal, but my speed is reduced by 5.
This is the item the kobold dropped! A lucky find for me on the first floor. Even if I'm not an archer, having a missile weapon on hand is amazingly useful.
I don't have any arrows at the moment, though, so into the pack it goes.
What a small dungeon floor!
LIKE HELL
There is no such thing as a small dungeon floor.
Some quick searching reveals a hidden door!
Except in the most extreme cases, every dungeon floor will take up most of the window. If it doesn't seem to, there must be a secret passage somewhere.
More rat!
The farther I get into the game, the more I'll gloss over minor encounters.
g
Goblin Rockthrower
Threat Level: 1/10
Special: Throws rocks
Corpse: Edible, no effect
Yes, I can even identify the status of items that are being thrown at me. I'm just that awesome.
Rockthrower killed! And there's an item over there.
A ring!
Almost all rings are magical in nature. I can't tell what kind of ring it is until I can find a way to identify it, though, so I'm going to keep it in the bag.
LEVEL UP
These are skills!
Every level, you get to improve a few skills. Average is around three - I'm a caster class, my learning is high, and my birth month grants bonus skills, so I get five.
Skill rundown:
Climbing: Useful for climbing mountains, which is nearly necessary to complete the game. However, just a little is fine, unless I want to attempt a certain extremely dangerous area in the late game.
Concentration: Increases rate of power point regeneration. Essential for casters.
Detect Item Status: This is how I know if items are blessed or cursed! Only Merchants and Priests start with this skill.
Detect Traps: This super useful skill means that I can find traps by searching, without setting them off! This will be indispensable in certain dungeons.
First Aid: Can be used immediately after taking damage for a chance to recover a handful of HP. Very useful when poisoned.
Haggling: Affects prices at shops! Not great, but not awful.
Healing: Affects hitpoint regeneration rate. Most important skill in the game, some would say.
Herbalism: Affects ability to identify and harvest herbs! Herbs are incredibly useful, so this is important.
Listening: Affects chance to hear things happening around the dungeon. Useful, but it trains itself naturally, so I'm not wasting advances on it.
Literacy: Affects chance to successfully read spellbooks! Important, I'll want to get this up to 100 pretty soon.
Metallurgy: Ability to identify different kinds of ore! Basically only useful for weaponsmiths, I get it for free because I'm a dwarf.
Mining: Used to dig through walls with pickaxes without breaking them! Fairly useful, but I have it pretty high already and its growth rate for me (+1) is extremely low, so it's a poor usage of points.
Music: Useful if you want to try and tame animals using an instrument. I'm gonna skip it.
Smithing: I can forge items with metal to make them stronger! This requires finding and lugging around an anvil, though, so I generally don't bother.
For my improvements, I drop two points into Healing to bring it up to 67, two into Concentration to bring it up to 50, and one into Detect Traps to bring it up to 29.
Other notable gains are 1 max hitpoint and 4 max power points. Next level at 414 experience.
Critical hits! These ignore PV completely, which is how this rat was able to hurt me.
This is usually rare, though, so not to worry.
A new item! This is a scroll - one labeled FROTZ, specifically. Scroll labels are randomized, though, so that's little more than a vague hint as to its function.
There's a bit of danger in reading unidentified scrolls, but not too much, so let's give it a try!
It was a scroll of light!
However, I remembered something when I went to read that.
I have a scroll of identify!
LET'S IDENTIFY THAT RING
A ring of damage! Increases attack damage. I'll equip that shit. Melee damage is now up to 8-12.
Note the long bow - Detect Item Status isn't foolproof, so I don't always know an item's uncursed/blessed/cursed status.
g
Goblin
Threat Level: 1/10
Special: N/A
Corpse: Edible, no effect
Like a goblin rockthrower, but with no missile attack!
Locked! I guess I'd better give up on this door....
...LIKE HELL
DESTROYED
Note that this is pretty dangerous behavior! Locked doors are often trapped. However, this is only dungeon floor 1, and I'm sturdy, so I took the risk. I would not have done this with a wizard.
Finished exploration, so on the way back!
o
Orc
Threat Level: 1/10
Special: N/A
Corpse: Dwarves refuse to eat
LEVEL UP AGAIN
Only got 4 skill advances this level - my birth sign gives me an extra skill increase on even levels.
Note that skill maximums increase slowly over time, especially if trained. The highest any skill can ever get is 100.
And I get a new Talent!
I choose Tough Skin, continuing in the theme of being impossible to hurt. Next level at 785 experience.
z
Skeleton
Threat Level: 1/10
Special: Undead, drops bones when killed
Corpse: N/A
Undead will be notable later, once I gain certain priestly abilities. Until then, though, it dies in one hit.
And that's the first dungeon floor of the game! I have 75 hours to finish this quest and reach the lost puppy.
Next time: Hopefully more than one dungeon floor, now that I've introduced the major mechanics of the early game!
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