Solo, no bank, no dying (split from The Money Challenge) Options

[Nudibranch]

(Thread split from The Money Challenge)

What are your guild levels at? Thats quite a bit of life..

Right now, Nomad 30, Warrior 36, Seeker 31, Thief 39, Sorcerer 42. I'll keep doing Sorcerer until I run out of steam, then probably add Healer, then back to Warrior for A/D, then Thief again for cheaper CoO.

[npsuber]

What race did you choose?

[Kingkirki_49]

everyone has the challenge fever now eh?

[Danjen]

I'm going to guess he's a Dwarf.

(also, why was this thread split??)

[Nudibranch]

(also, why was this thread split??)

I split the thread because Crashland had very specific ideas about how people were supposed to post to his challenge thread, so I moved over here to get out of his hair. Anyhow, here's my current charstat.txt:

VERSION: 1.1
CHARACTER: "Odysseus" (Neutral Dwarf)

ITEM INFO
1. War Hammer
2. Iron Shield (n)
3. Iron Chain Mail (n)
4. Iron Helmet (n)
* 5. Robe of Insight (n)
* 6. Shimmering Ring (n)
* 7. White Sash (n) [21] (cursed)
* 8. Amulet of Ultravision
9. Iron Gauntlets (n)
* 10. Girdle of Strength (n)
* 11. Twisted Bracers (n) [2]
* 12. Boots of Swiftness (n)
* 13. Gloves of Strength (n)
* 14. Silver Cross
* 15. Unicorn Horn
* 16. Suede Leather Armor (n)
* 17. Lodestone
18. Steel Dagger
19. Wicked Blade (e)
20. Dust of Healing
21. Dust of Healing
22. Scroll of Spells (g) [10]
23. Scroll of Spells (e) [4]
24. Scroll of Spells (n) [6]
25. Ring of Protection (g)

BANK ITEM INFO

Kills:
16,758
Died:
0
Comp:
0
Mon Quests:
15
Item Quests:
3
Item A/D:
20/41
Guild A/D:
55/55
Stats A/D:
71/71
Total A/D:
146/ 167
Time:
16:14:40
Date:
11/1/2009
Play Time:
27.82 Hrs
Created on:
10/28/2009


Stats Nat(Mod)
Str 23 (2)
Int 23 (0)
Wis 24 (2)
Con 24 (0)
Cha 22 (2)
Dex 23 (1)

GUILD INFO
Nomad (30) 45/45
Warrior (36) 29.7/32.4
Seeker (31) 28.8/35.1
Thief (39) 26.4/32.40001
Sorcerer (50) 14.4/30

Abilities (Lead Guild)
Thieving (Thief)
Backstabbing (Thief)
Critical Hit (Warrior)
Multiple Swings (Warrior)
Fighting (Warrior)
Perception (Seeker)

Total Exp.
1,617,806
Total Gold
160,280,524

[Danjen]

Given the amounts of time, gold and experience you have, but judging by your gear, you must have been farming the upper levels for quite some time, huh?

[Nudibranch]

Given the amounts of time, gold and experience you have, but judging by your gear, you must have been farming the upper levels for quite some time, huh?

Yep. Tons of runs through level 1 to get the right tomes, and I've only now started to brave level 5. The "play time" statistic is unfortunately not accurate: I think it gets confused if you play past midnight (I've seen it go negative), and it includes time spent with the program loaded but idle.

There's a lot of gear I can't yet equip owing to my guild levels being too low. And since I keep switching guilds, I'm not too motivated to get all the best equipment, because I can't put any of it in the bank.

[grobblewobble]

Oh my, a competent player has taken over. Nice job. I am very curious how far you will get with him without dying, and what will kill him in the end. I would be extremely wary of level 5 at this point, because of the off chance of medusa randomly spawning on a stud.

[Danjen]

Oh my, a competent player has taken over. Nice job. I am very curious how far you will get with him without dying, and what will kill him in the end. I would be extremely wary of level 5 at this point, because of the off chance of medusa randomly spawning on a stud.

I find it interesting that Medusa appears randomly on a stud, despite being laired on 6. Does that mean that every laired monster can appear rarely outside its own lair?

[Nudibranch]

I find it interesting that Medusa appears randomly on a stud, despite being laired on 6. Does that mean that every laired monster can appear rarely outside its own lair?

No. Monsters with a 0% chance of spawning will never appear outside a lair. This includes the Goblin and Dwarven Lord, Aboleth, Giant King, Flame Dragon, etc. Medusa, a level 6 creature, has a 1% chance of spawning in the dungeon at large, and thus will be seen occasionally on Reptile squares on level 6 or Reptile stud squares on level 5.

[Danjen]

Okay, that's what I thought, but wasn't 100% sure on it.

[Nudibranch]

I haven't had a character stoned in years. I had long assumed that it was a function of the monster's stoning ability and your current hits, like Flesh to Stone works. However, looking through the formulas/code, I see no mention of hits. The big factors are getting initiative so as to kill the monster before it can counterattack; stoning resistance (naturally); high Con (30 is enough to reduce the odds by another factor of 20), and high Defense so that you are hard to hit in the first place. I estimate only 1 in 10,000 encounters with even a high-level Stoning creature will result in a stoning for my level 800 party.

Needless to say, Odysseus does not have that degree of immunity yet. His odds are probably closer to 1 in 200 encounters.

Edit: And, no sooner than we discuss this, Odysseus gets killed by a mere Nastrum on level 3.

This is, to say the least, a very challenging way to play the game. Almost turns it into Nethack, ADOM, or your favorite unforgiving Roguelike.

Final stats:

VERSION: 1.1
CHARACTER: "Odysseus" (Neutral Dwarf)

ITEM INFO
1. War Hammer
2. Iron Shield (n)
3. Iron Chain Mail (n)
4. Iron Helmet (n)
* 5. Robe of Insight (n)
* 6. Ring of Protection (n)
7. White Sash (n) [18] (cursed)
* 8. Amulet of Ultravision
9. Iron Gauntlets (n)
10. Girdle of Strength (n)
11. Twisted Bracers (n) [2]
* 12. Boots of Swiftness (n)
13. Gloves of Strength (n)
* 14. Silver Cross
* 15. Unicorn Horn
16. Suede Leather Armor (n)
* 17. Lodestone
18. Wicked Blade (e)
19. Dust of Healing
20. Scroll of Spells (n) [3]
21. White Sash (n) [18] (cursed)
22. Glowing Rock
23. Steel Gauntlets
24. Potion of Movement
25. Steel Helmet

BANK ITEM INFO

Kills:
20,976
Died:
1
Comp:
0
Mon Quests:
21
Item Quests:
3
Item A/D:
6/21
Guild A/D:
55/55
Stats A/D:
67/67
Total A/D:
128/ 143
Time:
23:35:43
Date:
11/2/2009
Play Time:
33.96 Hrs
Created on:
10/28/2009


Stats Nat(Mod)
Str 23 (0)
Int 23 (0)
Wis 24 (2)
Con 24 (0)
Cha 22 (0)
Dex 23 (1)

GUILD INFO
Nomad (30) 45/45
Warrior (36) 29.7/32.4
Seeker (31) 28.8/35.1
Thief (55) 35.2/43.20001
Sorcerer (56) 15.6/32.5
Healer (23) 7.5/12.5

Abilities (Lead Guild)
Thieving (Thief)
Backstabbing (Thief)
Critical Hit (Warrior)
Multiple Swings (Warrior)
Fighting (Warrior)
Perception (Seeker)

Total Exp.
2,300,034
Total Gold
222,934,617



Needed more cowbell.

This post has been edited by Nudibranch: Nov 3 2009, 04:56 AM

[Mordechái]

Nudibranch, is English your first language?

[Nudibranch]

Nudibranch, is English your first language?

First and only, excepting some French in high school. Why do you ask?

[Nudibranch]

I started a new character for the challenge a week ago. Gold up to 256 mil. Hitting level 5 regularly, may brave 6 soon. Got a Ring of Entrapment off the Elf! But my only worthwhile companion so far was a Giant Slug that got Feared off almost immediately.

[Danjen]

How do you keep getting so much money? My mage has 140m, and he's farming through level 7-8, but just... wow.

[Nudibranch]

How do you keep getting so much money? My mage has 140m, and he's farming through level 7-8, but just... wow.

I'm not sure. It may partly be from farming the Goblin/Dwarf/Elf lairs -- lots of cash there. I'm also being really frugal where possible -- not IDing or realigning stuff unless it's absolutely awesome. (I can't bank good stuff anyway, so I sell anything I can't use immediately... with a few exceptions, like an OoLD I found.)

Anyhow, an update: 351m gold, Thief 85, Sorcerer 59. Now that I've charmed a Champion, I feel safer about going down to 6, where Sistrums lurk in both stairwells...

[Grog]

It also helps if you are starting with a clean load (are you still doing that Nudibranch?)

With a new load, you may find a "Parchment" worth $133,549; It turns out to be a Scroll of Norgus, which in a legacy load and a full General Store would be worth a fraction of this amount (about $67,139).

[Nudibranch]

It also helps if you are starting with a clean load (are you still doing that Nudibranch?)

With a new load, you may find a "Parchment" worth $133,549; It turns out to be a Scroll of Norgus, which in a legacy load and a full General Store would be worth a fraction of this amount (about $67,139).

Yes, that is surely a factor, and an even bigger one than you describe: a "Tome of X (alignment unknown)" is worth almost a million when there are none in the store, but less than 100,000 when the store is full.

Danjen, have you run other characters much deeper than your Mage in your current installation? If not, it may just be that lairs are where the big money is. Any time I don't manage to hit a lair, I'm lucky to get back to town with even a million worth of swag.

On a separate note, the money you get from a "clean store" is heavily counterbalanced by how much harder the game is without those tomes available for purchase: you miss out on a lot of bonus HP due to Con not being maxed; it takes forever to get your stats high enough to join new guilds; and without max Int/Wis, it takes until level 30+ to be able to ID stuff as more than <item type>, which greatly reduces the amount of gold you get from the store for it.

For the current character I'm running, I took the strategy of starting out as a Sorcerer so as to be able to kill monsters despite being pinned at a low level (Nomad 7/Sorcerer 7) while gathering the necessary tomes to max out Con and switch to Warrior. That was bloody time-consuming. And I had to re-start the character a few times before I got one that survived the first few encounters due to a starting Sorcerer's crappy A/D. But I did get lots of HP for my troubles in the end.

Update: 421m gold, Sorcerer 75, Warrior 44. My Champion companion spontaneously left after about a dozen trips.

[Danjen]

Danjen, have you run other characters much deeper than your Mage in your current installation? If not, it may just be that lairs are where the big money is. Any time I don't manage to hit a lair, I'm lucky to get back to town with even a million worth of swag.

No, he's my best character currently (though I rolled a legacy character who now has more life, I find him boring to play as). In any case, it's probably because I'm not going deep enough to find new items, and just keep finding old ones that stagnate the store. I did notice a fair influx of cash whenever I started farming new monsters, such as the butcher or twisted elf, however, so I should keep that up.