First Victory

[Olliff]

Level 42 Dark Elf Paladin. Have played for many years, but haven't won without scumming before.

Precrowning artifact was amulet of indomitable life, which helped a lot, and also got a very strong crowning artifact, Justifier. I was set up to do the difficult ending with saving Khelvaster, but wanted to play it safe. There were two near death experience attempting to raid the Merchant Guild at level 35. I did not kill the the gray Wyrm, but I managed to survive with three level ups. Biggest oof moment outside of that was an undead greater vault, which drained me massively. I did get the wanderers boots, but it is a sidegrade compared to blessed Seven League Boots and not worth the draining. Probably 50+ points drained, but I was able to retrain a good chunk, but only won the game with 25 str, which is very low for a Paladin. The D:49 artifact was Devil's bane, which helped a tad, but it was not too impressive. Mostly used slings before that. I generated a lot of redundant artifacts this game, multiple whips, hammer of the gods, arak's guard, soaker, book of alsosophocus, etc, but the first two artifacts, giant strength belt, and early eternium platemail and shield helped me ease through the early to mid game. I also ended with an empowered armor of speed, which was awesome. I usually try Drakeling Paladins, but the much better mana and dex was helpful, but without a To artifacts, the run would have been much harder. I have gotten to the end room before, but I died from the Balors, and I did not have teleportation and teleportation control like I did this time, which made things much easier.

[Sputnik]

Merry Christmas!

Though I expect as a Dark Elf you have been more naughty than nice

[Olliff]

Thanks. I converted to neutral. I think chaotic has a lot of drawbacks, and the Paladin aura class power is pretty worthless as as a chaotic character due to almost no lawful enemies.

[Wiley719]

Congrats on the win. I am currently playing a Roguelike gnome monk and found Devilbane much earlier in my game, worked better once i started to level scurgari. The best part is the self returning to missile slot....usually. This game is crazy hard to not save scum, sometimes I just want to play certain elements of the game I would probably never get to otherwise hehehe. As a fellow player since the late 1990s, kudos for the hard fought win. Respect.

[Olliff]

Thanks. Returning missiles are amazing. I have a current run with a Drakeling Paladin that has thunderstroke, the artifact crossbow missile and it is pretty amazing. The crowning gift was the scarf which is also nice, but probably not in the top 2, Justifier and The Wall for paladin crowning gifts. Not save scumming is hard. It was really tempting to reload after being massively stat drained, and then I lost a bunch of items, but really it is artifacts that matter along with a good way to attack at range when needed. I think if I get an undead greater vault again I might be tempted to skip it since the stat drain is so high.

[vysionier]

Originally posted by Olliff:

Thanks. Returning missiles are amazing. I have a current run with a Drakeling Paladin that has thunderstroke, the artifact crossbow missile and it is pretty amazing. The crowning gift was the scarf which is also nice, but probably not in the top 2, Justifier and The Wall for paladin crowning gifts. Not save scumming is hard. It was really tempting to reload after being massively stat drained, and then I lost a bunch of items, but really it is artifacts that matter along with a good way to attack at range when needed. I think if I get an undead greater vault again I might be tempted to skip it since the stat drain is so high.

Undead vaults kinda suck. There’s quite a few strategies to get through them successfully though. The lesser/greater undead generally don’t matter much. But if they bother you, then retreat plus ranged attacks help. Also wands of far slaying multiple times in a row can help if you are good at judging the bounce.

Save all your slaying ammo. Undead slaying and demon slaying will auto crit. Also, blessed ammo will do an additional 50% damage. That’s the best way to kill those liches.

Confusion. You need high willpower. But multiple sources of confuse resist stack and blessed sources are even better.

Collect staves of dampening. Bless them (recharge faster and last longer) yeah you won’t be able to cast magic, but the liches won’t be able to use some of their magic on you. I think that includes stat drain. They can still summon and heal I think though. But stat drain and death ray I think are stopped.

[dcscott422]

I think it is about time we all admitted that none of us have ever beaten this game without restoring a backed up save game file at least once. Let me start. I admit that over 45 years of playing Adom, Rogue, and Nethack I have never ever completed any of these without backing up the saved game file and restoring it after something bad happened. Quite frankly, I think that the most fun way of playing Adom is by backing up the saved game file and saving yourself to keep going. However, I also like playing Adom without backing up the saved game file and allowing characters to die as they were meant to and seeing how far I can get. I also enjoy having Adom sometimes randomly choose my characters as it forces me to play styles that I normally would not. Basically, I thoroughly enjoy Adom regardless of how I play it, but I do consider myself an expert having played 50,000+ hours and having read every guide, hint, wiki, etc. that is out there ... and I have NEVER completed the game without a backed up saved game restore. I feel better now that I have come clean :).

[Sputnik]

Your sins are forgiven my son

[fulf]

Congrats
I've been playing this game on-and-off since 2017 and have never even made it past the locked portal. Seems like the game has countermeasures in place for any attempt I make to get ahead. Can't decide whether that's clever or unfair... or maybe I'm just not big-brained and patient enough to succeed

[Rat]

Congrats