Early-Game Survival Crash Course

Basic tips and tricks for making it through the early game. Minimal spoilers.

Surviving damage

By default, HP regenerates rather slowly in ADOM. The main key to survival is not taking damage.

Surviving damage in melee

PV
PV is your resistance to physical damage; it is a flat number that will be subtracted from most attacks that hit you. In the early-game every point of PV matters greatly. For armor with stats indicated by [+x, +y], the +y applies to your PV. You can also increase your PV by taking the Hardy/Tough Skin/Iron Skin/Steel Skin line of talents.

PV penetration
All monsters have a small chance to penetrate PV on a successful hit. Certain monsters will always penetrate PV; claw bugs are one such early-game monster - be wary of them.

Tactics
You can adjust how aggressively you fight with the "T" command. Generally, killing things faster (i.e. fighting with aggressive/very aggressive tactics) is the most effective defense. If you are running away, however, there is no reason to not be in coward-mode.

Coward speed boost
If you are very low on HP and fighting with coward tactics, the cost of movement is decreased. Potentially life-saving if you are fighting something that is normally faster than you.

True berserk
If you are fighting with berserk tactics, a weapon, and no other equipment apart from a shield, bracers, rings, and amulets, you receive a massive boost to accuracy and damage. Although this is risky, it is often the best technique for surviving with classes that get bad starting equipment. Note that monks do not receive this bonus.

Shields
Generally, it is safest to fight with a one-handed weapon and a shield.

Especially risky monsters to melee

• Paralysis - ghuls, gelatinous cubes, floating eyes (good DV/PV are needed to survive)
  
• Cursing/Dooming - karmic lizards (avoid attacking them in melee at all)

Using ranged attacks

Most monsters in ADOM do not have access to ranged attacks, so attacking at range is far less risky than melee.

Missile attacks
Every character will eventually have access to decent missiles weapons (rocks, arrows, quarrels, slings, bows, crossbows). You can increase your effectiveness with missiles with the Good Shot/Keen Shot/Quick Shot line of talents. Watch out for doppelgangers, as they are immune to normal missile attacks (merchant's thrown gold will still work). If you are not in melee range with a monster you should be using berserk tactics.

Acid spit
Drakelings have access to a ranged acid spit attack, activated by "m". This costs a small amount of food, but can be very useful. Unlike melee and missiles, its accuracy does not depend on tactics.

Spells
Another powerful and safe option, if you have access to them. Spells will always hit, so there is no disadvantage to using them in coward tactics. Certain monsters have a high chance of resisting bolt spells (referred to as "shrugs off" in-game), and certain monsters are immune to particular elements (indicated by "resists" in-game).

Recovering health

Natural regeneration in ADOM tends to be painfully slow, but there are a number of ways to remedy this.

Healing skill

The healing skill greatly increases the speed of your natural regeneration. If you don't start the game with the healing skill you should talk to the village elder in Terinyo, to get a quest which opens up the possibility of learning it. If your character is weak or chaotic, you might also want to consider talking to Hotzenplotz.

First aid skill

Using 'a' to apply the first aid skill has a chance to recover some HP you lost recently. If you have taken damage recently, and there are no monsters in melee range of you, you should use this skill.

Candle star sign

Being born in the month of the Candle significantly increases your HP regeneration.

Healthy talent

Taking the Healthy talent significantly increases your HP regeneration.

Prayer

Praying with "_" while at low health will heal you to full. You start out with enough piety with your god to get 2-3 heals.

Jharod

Jharod, the healer, is an NPC you will have access to if you take the village elder's quest. If chatted with he will be able to restore you to full health (and remove negative status effects).

Feeding yourself

The shop in Terinyo is a source of some guaranteed food. You can also eat the corpses of slain monsters. High levels in food preservation increase the amount of corpses found, and their shelf-life.

Corpses to avoid

• All kobolds
  
• Rabid dogs
  
• All varieties of demons

Burden

The first status effect you are likely to notice is some form of burden. Although walking around burdened can help increase your strength, it has some disadvantages. Being burdened or strained makes it easier for monsters to hit you, and reduces your speed. If you are running away from a monster, you may need to drop some equipment to be fast enough. Being encumbered also increases how quickly you get hungry. Be careful of going down stairs while you are "strained!", as you have a chance to fall down the stairs and take some damage.

Surviving negative status effects

Poison

Being poisoned will deal damage to you periodically. The first aid skill can be used to recover some health each time this happens. Gaining poison resistance (usually by eating the corpse of a poisonous monster), greatly reduces the duration and damage of this effect. Jharod is able to cure it. The gods can also cure it, although this is generally ineffective, as they prioritize healing you.

Sickness

Being sick will deal damage to you until you are at half health, and reduce your stats. It is a long-lasting effect. Jharod is able to cure it. The gods can also cure it, although this again requires you to be at nearly full health. Drinking potions of healing can also cure disease. If none of these options are available to you, consider spending some time in the wilderness to the north-east of Terinyo, as wilderness travel ticks down effect duration faster.

Miscellaneous things to avoid

Feel free to experiment with these things, but they are not conducive to your survival.

• The small cave, if you are above level 4
  
• Talking to the sheriff with a weak starting character
  
• Drinking from pools

[F.Y.I, I suck at spy]

I may be a bit crazy, but I prefer to drink pools if it's the early game because there's a chance that your character gets some massive bonuses. If you get too many negative ones it's not like it's that big a deal to just reroll.

[Sputnik]

Nice guide, and well written.

Maybe this is a good place to warn new players against equipping with unidentified equipment.

[Null]

Maybe. I might be biased, lots of bad experiances with cursed items.

[Yulgash]

Not a bad list, but I would disagree with point #2 in most cases. If you're not true berserking and you find a piece of equipment that is on average better than what you are using, you should usually equip it immediately. To get punished for this the item needs to be both below average and cursed, which is not very likely. In the worst case you still have the option of getting rid of the item with divine wrath.

[Null]

Things also not conducive to your survival but can be fun to experiment with:
Kicking stairs
Equiping better equipment as soon as it's found.
Walking on alters while in combat.
Sacrificing to any alter you find.
Not taking notes.
Eating the corpse of an exotic creature you know nothing about.
Cooking, then eating corpses that are normally diseased.

[[zOT] Sels McWillar]

Thanks, that's very good information!

[Yulgash]

Healthy got buffed quite a bit. In addition to reducing the natural regen interval, it increases the amount of health recovered per regeneration tick by +1. So for non-Candle, non-healer characters the talent more than doubles the speed of HP regeneration.

[[zOT] Sels McWillar]

Hmm, does the Healthy talent really 'significantly' boost regen? I was under the assumption that it only boosts the the natural regen rate by the displayed percent, which is kinda pitiful.

[Dying pancake]

Drinking pools is definitely the fastest way to be doomed in early game

[Yulgash]

Due to the ants, I don't consider puppy cave to be one of the easier starting dungeons.