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The Official ADOM FAQ File Version 2.20a Last change: 12 July 1997 This document answers some of the most frequenty asked questions about ADOM. If you feel that anything important is missing, please send suggestions to Richard Fowler, who is the official maintainer of the ADOM FAQ. He can be reached at thinker@texas.net. Many thanks to Erwin Mascardo, ADOM FAQ maintainer, retired. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Table of Contents Items marked with a `*' are new additions since the last release. Items marked with a `#' have been edited since the last release. Section 1: General 1.1: What does ADOM stand for? #1.2: What is the current version of ADOM? 1.3: What hardware platforms can run ADOM? 1.4: Where on the Internet can I find support and information about ADOM? 1.5: Where can I get the source code for ADOM? 1.6: What happened to the spoilers that were once in this file? 1.7: I have a suggestion/comment regarding the game. Where do I send it? 1.8: I've discovered a bug in ADOM. How do I report it? 1.9: Where do you draw the line in this file between spoiler-type and non-spoiler-type answers? 1.10: Is ADOM Freeware? Section 2: Burdens of Command 2.1: I've just upgraded to a new version, and the README file says that several new commands and functions have been added. However, I can't seem to use them. What gives? 2.2: How do I light a torch? 2.3: How do I extinguish a torch? 2.4: How do I use lock picks? 2.5: What is Ventriloquism good for? 2.6: Is there a command that allows you to rest safely in order to regain hit points and power points? 2.7: What does `Continuous Search' (keystroke `ws') mean? 2.8: What is the `T'actic command for? 2.9: I can use the `W'eapon command to see my hand weapon damage, but how do I see my kick or missile damage? 2.10: Is there any way to identify monsters at a distance? 2.11: How do I use my Bridge Building skill? 2.12: I can't put points into Bridge Building! Why not? 2.13: How can I open a locked door if I don't have the right key or lockpicks? 2.14: How do I sell something in a shop? 2.15:How do I use my Smithing skill? 2.16: How do I enter a town or dungeon from the main map? 2.17: Why isn't there a way to see most of the relevant information about my character on one page? Section 3: Playing the Game Section 3.0 More Basic than Basic 3.0.1: What's the best race/class combination to play? 3.0.2: What's a good strategy for satrting the game? Section 3.1: The Basics 3.1.1: What is the Drakalor Chain? 3.1.2: Where is the Village Dungeon? It's nowhere on my map! 3.1.3: I can't keep myself fed. How do I avoid dying from starvation? 3.1.4: I'm doing several of the above things already, and I'm still starving. Now what? 3.1.5: How come I don't benefit from eating raw meat? 3.1.6: I ate a stomfillia herb, and instead of feeding me, it caused me to die of starvation! Why? 3.1.7: I've been poisoned! How do I cure it? 3.1.8: How come my Neutralize Poison spell didn't work? 3.1.9: What can I do with colored pools? 3.1.10: What can I do with a waterproof/fireproof blanket? 3.1.11: How do I stop the killer bees from coming out of their hive, or the giant ants from their hole? 3.1.12: How come, no matter what I do, my alignment seems to gravitate inexorably toward Lawful? I wanna become a Champion of Chaos! 3.1.13: Well, now that such is the case, what do I do to become Lawful? It's impossible now! 3.1.14: I've gotten the Poison Hands chaos power, and every food item I touch gets poisoned! Is there a way around this? 3.1.15: I picked up a `strange item'. A few dozen turns later, I notice that I have ten of them! What's going on? 3.1.16: How do I kill a karmic creature without becoming cursed or doomed? 3.1.17: Why is it that I don't always get cursed or doomed when I accidently attack a karmic creature? 3.1.18: I ran into a named Rock Giant Lord on the second level of the Village Dungeon! I thought this place wasn't supposed to be this tough! 3.1.19: Speaking of impossibly hard monsters, I'm in the cave just NW of Terinyo with a 15th level Barbarian, and I've got rats punching through my dragon scale mail! 3.1.20: How do I get logs for Bridge Building or Fletchery? 3.1.21: I can never finish cutting a tree down because I keep getting hungry! How can I avoid this? 3.1.22: I'm trapped on a level with a thousand brown worms, and they keep multiplying faster than I can kill them! Is this fair? #3.1.23: Can I shoot things in the `red' range of my missiles? 3.1.24: Is the `seemingly infinite' dungeon really infinite? 3.1.25: What's with the levels in the Caverns of Chaos that only take up half of the screen? 3.1.26: How are the growth patterns for herb bushes determined? Section 3.2: Player Abilities 3.2.1: How come my Defensive Value keeps shifting up and down by a point or two for no apparent reason? 3.2.2: How do I make myself resistant to special attacks? 3.2.3: How come I'm still getting hurt by fire attacks when I'm wearing a ring of fire resistance? 3.2.4: How do I learn to read, if I started out totally illiterate? 3.2.5: What about the other skills that I don't know? 3.2.6: I'm playing a Mindcrafter, and the game crashes when I attempt to use my Teleport Control power. Why? 3.2.7: How come my combat abilities suffer so much when I wield 2 weapons? #3.2.8: I've gotten myself the `doomed' intrinsic. What does that mean? 3.2.9: How come my attributes didn't go up when I paid the Dwarven trainer? 3.2.10: Is it better to concentrate on mastering a single weapon or to become pretty good at handling several? Section 3: Matters Arcane 3.3.1: What do the different altar colors mean? 3.3.2: How can I tell if an item is cursed? 3.3.3: How do I get rid of a cursed item? 3.3.4: I've learned the spell `divine wrath'. It lets me fire lightning bolts. Am I missing something? 3.3.5: What do all the numbers on the spellcasting menu mean? 3.3.6: What's all this I hear about corruption? 3.3.7: Okay, so corruption is a Bad Thing. How do I get rid of it, then? 3.3.8: What use is a holy symbol? 3.3.9: How come standard Fireball spells don't hurt me, while a so-called Improved Fireball will hurt me if I'm in the blast radius? 3.3.10: What's the difference betweena ring of fire and a ring of fire resistance? 3.3.11: What exactly does a wand of ball lightning do? It sure doesn't shoot lightning balls! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The List Section 1: General 1.1: What does ADOM stand for? ADOM is an acronym for `Ancient Domains Of Mystery'. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- #1.2: What is the current version of ADOM? The current game version is 0.9.9. `Gamma' releases are also available; these are bugfix releases without any major new features. The current one is 0.9.9 gamma 5. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.3: What hardware platforms can run ADOM? A 386 or better PC running DOS, Linux (now available in ELF and a.out format), NT, or OS/2. An Amiga 3000 with a hard disk and minimum 2 MB RAM. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.4: Where on the Internet can I find support and information about ADOM? If you are looking for discussion about ADOM (or would like to start a discussion (: ) you should try the newsgroup rec.games.roguelike.adom although some comments still appear on rec.games.roguelike.misc. Announcements concerning ADOM are posted to rec.games.roguelike.announce. The latest version of ADOM can be found via FTP at adom.dartmouth.edu in the directory /adom. The old AOL ftp site is no longer available due to cost reasons. A little while after the latest version is released you will also be able to find it at the official roguelike games site at ftp.win.tue.nl in the directory /pub/games/adom. (This site will be faster for European users.) Also, several of the web sites below offer downloading options. If you would like to use your Web browser you can find the official official ADOM website at http://members.aol.com/AdomDev/index.html. Clinton Smith has a fine ADOM web page at http://www.iinet.net.au/~festive/adom.html. This site contains searchable copies of this FAQ and Charlie Ball's ADOM Strategy Guide, as well as downloads of the latest game version for all platforms. It also has a section where you can post your heroic deeds and horrible deaths for the world to see. Richard Fowler has an ADOM web page (eternally) under construction at http://lonestar.texas.net/~thinker/adom/index.html This is a full mirror of the official download site. Richard's main feature is a "hint-through", which serves as a walkthrough of the whole game if you choose to activate all of the "spoiler traps". (You need to have JavaScript enabled in your web browser to appreciate it fully.) The majority of the hint-through has not been updated to 0.9.9 yet, but the spoiler section is up to date. Moonlight's ADOM Page http://www.ratol.fi/~etuomain/adom/index.html Erno Tuomainen has a growing collection of spoilers and advice, as well as being a download site. The above link will set you into frames, but the site is also available without frames http://www.ratol.fi/~etuomain/adom/main.html. Shadowfire's Ancient Domain http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Alley/7915/ Chris Allcock also maintains some info, as well as supplying the DOS version for download. Matt Chatterley (http://user.itl.net/~neddy/adom.html) has mostly pointers to other sites, but is the source for the absolutely most current version of the ADOM Strategy Guide, which he maintains. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.5: Where can I get the source code for ADOM? If you can obtain the source, Thomas would be extremely interested in finding out how you cracked his system's security. As long as Thomas is working solo on the pre-1.0.0 release, no source will be available. Thomas has stated that he will release the source once the game has reached version 1.0.0, to facilitate porting to other platforms. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.6: What happened to the spoilers that were once in this file? The official spoilers maintainer is Daniel Quaroni <goat@pelican.cit.cornell.edu>. See also websites listed above (1.4). --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.7: I have a suggestion/comment regarding the game. Where do I send it? Thomas' email address, for ADOM-related material apart from bug reports, is rpg@saranxis.ruhr.de. Please read the rec.games.roguelike.adom newsgroup before sending in a suggestion, as someone else might have already made it. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.8: I've discovered a bug in ADOM. How do I report it? First, be sure that the `bug' isn't actually a feature of the game. (Things that cause the game to crash with a fatal error message qualify, certainly, but not all bugs cause fatal errors...and not all unexpected game behaviours are caused by bugs.) Second, if the game crashed with a fatal error, make a note of the exact wording of the message. Third, if the game successfully saved itself during the fatal error crash, check to see if it restores properly. Lastly, send your report to adom-bugs@saranxis.ruhr.de. Include the version number of the game, the platform being played on (DOS or Linux, and include your Linux version), the fatal error message (if any), and as detailed an explanation as possible of the game state at the time of the bug and the action (or lack thereof) that triggered it. If you have a feeling you know (in programming terms) what caused the bug, by all means include your hypothesis. Please note that even nitpicky things like typographical errors are worthy of bug reporting. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.9: Where do you draw the line in this file between spoiler-type and non-spoiler-type answers? The astute reader will note that I haven't included a number of questions that pop up on the newsgroup fairly frequently. IMHO, a spoiler is information which bypasses the problem-solving process; while a non-spoiler is information which doesn't necessarily solve a game puzzle, but does help you get around a problem of interface, basic survival (as opposed to direct advancement toward victory), or something that is necessary but woefully unobvious. Only non-spoilers, for the most part, are included here. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.10: Is ADOM freeware?<?a> At the moment, ADOM is postcardware, and will likely remain so (although I'm sure Thomas would appreciate food). Thomas' snail-mail address: Thomas Biskup Timmerbrinksweg 37 45896 Gelsenkirchen Germany --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Section 2: Burdens of Command 2.1: I've just upgraded to a new version, and the README file says that several new commands and functions have been added. However, I can't seem to use them. What gives? You have to delete your `ADOM.KBD' and `ADOM.CFG' (DOS version) or `.adom.kbd' and `.adom.cfg' (Linux) files whenever you upgrade. Otherwise, the game will happily use the old set of keybindings and configuration variables, unaware that new functionality has been added. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2.2: How do I light a torch? Wield the torch (either in your right or left hand). Then use it. In order to make this work you also will need to have a tinderbox and flint and steel in your backpack. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2.3: How do I extinguish a torch? When you unwield the torch, you're asked if you want to extinguish it. If you answer `yes', it goes out and is placed in your backpack. If you answer `no', nothing happens. (A lit torch in your backpack? Get real.) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2.4: How do I use lock picks? Instead of trying to use the lock picks, `a'pply your Pick Lock skill. You will automatically use the most effective lock picks that are in your inventory. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2.5: What is Ventriloquism good for? If you manage to use it succesfully on a monster, the monster might be confused for two or more turns. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2.6: Is there a command that allows you to rest safely in order to regain hit points and power points? Yes, actually you can use the walk-mode to do this. Simply press `w' to activate the walk-mode followed by `5' for the direction which makes your character `walk on the spot' and is great for safely recovering. You'll automatically stop waiting if something comes near, if you get shot at, etc. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2.7: What does `Continuous Search' (keystroke `ws') mean? Similar to `walk on the spot', this is equivalent to searching until you find something interesting or a given number of turns (default 50) have passed. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2.8: What is the `T'actic command for? Changing your combat tactics allows you to trade off offensive ability for defensive ability, or vice versa. Note that versions 0.8.0 and above show you the numerical effect of the different tactics on the top line of the screen. It costs you no time to change tactics, so feel free to experiment. Warning: if you fight too defensively, your weapon skills (v0.9.3 and up) won't improve. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2.9: I can use the `W'eapon command to see my hand weapon damage, but how do I see my kick or missile damage? Version 0.8.3 added the `K'ick Damage command, and 0.9.0 added `M'issile Damage. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2.10: Is there any way to identify monsters at a distance? The `l'ook command, as of version 0.9.2, lets you move the cursor onto anything within vision range to identify it. As of version 0.9.9, just aiming a missile weapon will tell you what you're aiming at and whether it's already hostile. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2.11: How do I use my Bridge Building skill? You need to have a log and a hatchet in your inventory. Either put the hatchet into your tool slot and `u'se it, or `U'se it from your backpack. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2.12: I can't put points into Bridge Building! Why not? You need to have Yrrigs' Manual in your inventory, and be literate. There are several skills which require some piece of equipment in order to improve (cooking/cooking set, fletchery/fletchery set). --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2.13: How can I open a locked door if I don't have the right key of lockpicks? Kick the door down. Note that this may prove hazardous to your health, more so depending on where you are standing at the time. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2.14: How do I sell something in a shop? Contrary to intuition, don't give the item to the shopkeeper; just drop it. If he's interested, he'll make an offer. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2.15: How do I use my Smithing skill? Smithing is a complicated task. You need the following ingredients: 1) A one-handed hammer. Warhammers work nicely. 2) An anvil. There are two guaranteed in the game, but they also rarely appear in dungeons. 3) Something to smith! You need to know what kind of metal it's made of. 4) An ingot of the appropriate metal. A lump of ore won't cut it, but can be converted into ingots by applying the Smithing skill to them first. 5) A forge. You can't carry these around with you, but you can hope to find one in your travels. There are a couple of guaranteed forges. Stand on the forge, wield the hammer, and apply your Smithing skill to your metal item. (This will also serve to make metal ingots out of ore lumps.) Your Metallurgy skill seems to affect your chance of success; I've also heard whispers that wearing a leather apron helps in some mysterious way. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2.16: How do I enter a town or dungeon from the main map? Use the '>' command. (Yes, it seems basic, but it seems to come up.) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2.17: Why isn't there a way to see most of the relevant information about my character on one page? As of version 0.9.9, there is! During gameplay, just use the '@' key, and learn all kinds of things about your current (and future) abilities. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Section 3: Playing the Game Section 3.0: More Basic than Basic 3.0.1: What's the best race/class combination to play? While this is indeed a Frequently Asked Question, it's one without a single correct answer. It depends heavily on your style of play, your accumulated experience in playing, and how seriously you want to be challenged. Matt Chatterley's strategy guide goes into some detail on how to go about picking a race/class to play, but here's a condensed guide (colored fairly heavily by my own preferences and experience): Warrior-types (Fighters, Paladins, Rangers, Monks, Archers, Barbarians, Beastfighters, Farmers, Weaponsmiths) tend to survive better at the lower levels, but they'll start having problems near the middle of the game unless they can keep themselves well-stocked in magic items or pick up a few spells along the way. (Brute force isn't the answer to *everything*!) Weaponsmiths actually have a fairly tough early going, since they're lugging around that anvil, but once they get a chance to use it, watch out! Archers are deadly with their missiles, but don't forget to practice with your melee weapons, especially if you can't make ammunition for your race's preferred missile weapon. Monks and Beastfighters have the following additional problem: they fight best unarmed, but some of the artifact weapons grant important resistances or immunities, and there are some monsters that you really shouldn't attack with hands and feet. Trolls, Dwarves, Orcs, and Drakelings make excellent fighters, with the exception of Archer -- Elves (any kind) and Hobbits do well there. (High Elven Archers are one of my favorite classes to play.) Spellcasters (Priests, Wizards, Druids, Mindcrafters, Elementalists, Necromancers) have the opposite problem from warriors: the early going is very tough, but they can roll on fairly easily once they've gained a dozen levels or so. Mindcrafters and Elementalists do particularly well because they gain additional powers with experience, instead of having to hope for spellbooks -- be warned, though, that mental powers are useless against undead. Elves and Gnomes make good spellcasters, although almost any race can make a good Priest (Orcs are nice!). Thieves and Assassins are a little frail to be hack-and-slash fighters, but they start out with some nice skills, including the all-important Detect Traps. They're rather like Archers in this regard, though they don't start with a huge pile of missiles. Try an Elf here, or a Hobbit if you want a challenge. Healers can absorb damage pretty well, though they have a hard time dishing it out. Top priority is getting a fairly decent weapon -- even a hand axe or mace will do better than that scalpel. Since they're not really spell-casters, pick a race with some backbone like Human, Dwarf, or Drakeling. Or, if you want an absurd mental image, take a Troll -- as a bonus, you start with the standard-issue Trollish heavy club as well as that dinky little scalpel. (Don't throw the scalpel away, though...with our luck, Thomas has an obscure little use for it.) Merchants and Bards can be easy to impossible, depending on the luck of the dice. The random element of Merchant item specialties and Bard skills makes every game with one of these classes unique. With Bards, there's the additional consideration of the starting pet, as different races get different pets. Almost any race works here; these classes are a test of the player's ability to adapt. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.0.2: What's a good strategy for starting the game? Aero, longtime FAQ maintainer said, "This has to be one of *the* most Frequently Asked Questions on the newsgroup, yet I've been reluctant to include an answer up till now because I've felt it would be too much of a spoiler." He added a long informative section, which Thomas promptly made inappropriate by adding new options at the very beginning. So I offer you this amended version. Head for the little village right at the end of the first road. Stop there for a moment and evaluate your character. Put on useful rings, drink useful potions, read useful scrolls that have permanent effects, and, if you've got them, read spellbooks a time or two. Buy a ration or two at the store if you're feeling paranoid. Advice for buying food: you get what you pay for. You should talk to the sheriff, and either the druid or the village elder to get some minor quests; the choice between elder or druid is important, as their quests are mutually exclusive. If you feel up to it, leave town and head NW. The small cave there has a useful item, and it's a good place to gain a few experience levels and practice weapon skills, but be warned! At least 50% of my own premature deaths come from staying in this dungeon too long. The monsters are tougher than normal, and they only get much worse. Find the down staircase. You might want to pop out and finish the sheriff's quest, or check out the town SW of the first village to learn a few things. I then dive back into the small cave and go down until I find the bottom and come out the other side. Then return to the village and complete any remaining quests. Then set out south, around the river toward the center of the screen, past the pyramid into a cave (*its description is *not* "a non-descript tunnel"!). Try to stay alive. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Section 3.1: The Basics 3.1.1: What is the Drakalor Chain? The Drakalor Chain is the mountain range which is represented by the `world' map. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.1.2: Where is the Village Dungeon? It's nowhere on my map! The Village Dungeon doesn't appear until you speak to Village Elder Rynt for the first time about Yrrigs. Starting with version 0.9.9, it won't appear at all if you speak to Guth'Alak, the Druid before talking to Rynt. The entrance for the Druid's quest will appear instead. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.1.3: I can't keep myself fed. How do I avoid dying from starvation? There are several ways to solve the food problem. A high Food Preservation skill will both increase the likelihood of a monster leaving a corpse when it dies and allow you to keep a monster corpse in your inventory longer. (If you're playing version 0.9.0 or higher, cooking corpses will keep them preserved even longer.) A high Herbalism skill will help you identify a particular herb that can feed you very well (experimentation with herbs isn't a good idea, since the bad ones are very dangerous). A few hundred gold pieces and some patience can buy you a good amount of food on the arena level from the ratling traders (although their wares aren't particularly filling, so you will need a lot of them). In an emergency, you can pray to your god if you're in reasonably good standing (you have to be at `Hungry!' status for this to work reliably). Finally, if you hang around on a level where monsters come at you hard, fast, and continuously, at least a few of them are going to drop rations or other non-perishable food. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.1.4: I'm doing several of the above things already, and I'm still starving. Now what? Take off any items that make you invisible. Invisibility drastically increases your food consumption rate. The same is true of artifacts and things that make you regenerate more quickly than usual. If that doesn't work, stop playing Trolls until you have better luck with obtaining food, as Trolls have a high inherent rate of food consumption. (However, this is counterbalanced somewhat by the fact that Trolls can eat almost anything.) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.1.5: How come I don't benefit from eating raw meat? Different races have different ideas of which foods are appetizing, and which foods go down okay but don't sit too well in the stomach, and which foods do nothing except induce vomiting, and which foods are too revolting even to think about eating. Starting with version 0.9.0, you can try cooking it, if you know how to cook. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.1.6: I ate a stomfillia herb, and instead of feeding me, it caused me to die of starvation! Why? As the name makes fairly obvious, stomfillia herbs fill your stomach -- if they're not cursed. Cursed herbs have a nasty habit of doing the opposite of what they're supposed to do, or (in the case of herbs which are bad for you to begin with) having worse-than-normal effects on you. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.1.7: I've been poisoned! How do I cure it? Certain potions, herbs, and spells are effective in this regard. If you're tough enough or know the right spell, you can weather the poison's ravaging effect on your body. The gods can also cure poison if you're in good standing with them. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.1.8: How come my Neutralize Poison spell didn't work? The effects of poisons are cumulative, and the Neutralize Poison spell only eliminates a certain amount of poison from your system with each casting. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.1.9: What can I do with colored pools? You can drink from a pool. The effects aren't always beneficial. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.1.10: What can I do with a waterproof/fireproof blanket? If you have one of these in your backpack, it'll protect anything in the pack from water/fire. It doesn't help with the items that you have equipped, however. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.1.11: How do I stop the killer bees from coming out of their hive, or the giant ants from their hole? Insect colonies have finite populations. With bees, you can speed up the process by disturbing the hive. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.1.12: How come, no matter what I do, my alignment seems to gravitate inexorably toward Lawful? I wanna become a Champion of Chaos! Upgrade your game version. As of version 0.9.4, it takes much more conscious effort on your part to change your alignment -- simply sitting around and killing chaotic monsters won't cause your alignment to slide toward Lawful. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.1.13: Well, now that such is the case, what do I do to become Lawful? It's impossible now! As in real life, it takes a lot of time and trouble to prove that you're a good person, while it takes only a few quick actions to demonstrate that you're a Bad Guy. Be generous, fair-minded, noble, and above all else, patient. You'll get that L+ eventually. You'll notice that there are a number of things that help your character a great deal, but are considered chaotic acts. This is intentional. These acts are often the easy route to power, and (to misquote Yoda) "take not the easy path, to the Dark Side it leads!" Nobody said that being a paragon of Law would be easy... --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.1.14: I've gotten the Poison Hands chaos power, and every food item I touch gets poisoned! Is there a way around this? You need to wear thick gauntlets (that is, the pair of gauntlets whose description is `thick gauntlets'). --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.1.15: I picked up a `strange item'. A few dozen turns later, I notice that I have ten of them! What's going on? You've discovered one of the more interesting artifacts in the game: the Si. Its value lies not in its use, but in the manner in which you dispose of it. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.1.16: How do I kill a karmic creature without becoming cursed or doomed? Ranged attacks and spells don't affect your karma, as it were. Kicking it to death is no longer a safe option, as of version 0.9.4. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.1.17: Why is it that I don't always become cursed or doomed when I accidently attack a karmic creature? The cursing/dooming is a special defensive attack, like the acid splash of a gray ooze or the paralysis of a floating eye, and like all attacks, it doesn't always hit...unless of course you were already cursed and doomed, and so didn't notice. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.1.18: I ran into a named Rock Giant Lord on the second level of the Village Dungeon! I thought this place wasn't supposed to be this tough! When you run into a tough monster that has a name, there is an artifact somewhere on the level (the exception here is the Si, which has no guardian). Artifact guardians are scaled to be more appropriate to the object they guard. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.1.19: Speaking of impossibly hard monsters, I'm in the cave just NW of Terinyo with a 15th level Barbarian, and I've got rats punching through my dragon scale mail! The fact that you're 15th level is the reason. The small cave to the NW of Terinyo is meant to be a launching pad for 1st-level characters. Its difficulty level deliberately increases tremendously as your experience level goes up. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.1.20: How do I get logs for Bridge Building or Fletchery? Cut down a tree. Note that the wilderness is not the only place where you can find trees to cut down, and as far as Fletchery is concerned, sticks are merely small logs. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.1.21: I can never finish cutting a tree down because I keep getting hungry! How can I avoid this? If you want to play at being a lumberjack, you'd better eat a lumberjack-sized breakfast before you go out! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.1.22: I'm trapped on a level with a thousand brown worms, and they keep multiplying faster than I can kill them! Is this fair? While I won't address the discussion of `fairness' in the code which handles breeding monsters, I can supply a few pointers on how to get through this situation. Wielding two weapons will help you kill them faster. Offensive spells (particularly area effect ones) work nicely. Closing and locking room doors can help hem them in. If you're dealing with gremlins and a water trap, hack your way to the trap and sit on it till all the gremlins are dead. Note that there is one level where this is meant to happen, and it was placed as a tactical exercise. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- #3.1.23: Can I shoot things in the `red' range of my missiles? Maybe. The `red' range is anything that is beyond the `base' range of your missiles (which you can see with the `M' command, although this command doesn't seem to account for range bonuses due to weapon and Archery skill). This isn't always the same as the weapon's maximum range, however -- thrown weapons do tend to max out right at the `base' range, while bows and slings can reach quite a bit further, albeit with greatly reduced hit probability. From my experience, an Archer can hit anything within vision range, and a non-Archer can make it out to 1 or 2 squares of red on a good roll. If the missile doesn't travel beyond the base range (as in 0.9.9 g4+), then you probably won't hit anything. In some rare game situations, there is also a `gray' range, which comes between yellow and red. This indicates a square which is within your weapon's base range, but is outside of your field of vision. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.1.24: Is the `seemingly infinite' dungeon really infinite? Seek out the madman who speaks in verse, for he can answer better than I... --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.1.25: What's with the levels in the Caverns of Chaos that only take up half of the screen? Every dungeon (except the pyramid) level fills the entire screen, more or less. The trick is finding a way over to the `dark' section. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.1.26: How are the growth patterns for herb bushes determined? This is a bit of a spoiler, but the majority of the work is left as an exercise to the reader, so here goes... Consider a given herb bush. Count up the number of bushes in the surrounding 8 squares. 1) If the bush has 0 or 1 neighbors, it will die. 2) If the bush has 2 or 3 neighbors, it will live. 3) If the bush has 4 or more neighbors, it will die. 4) If a given empty square has exactly 3 neighboring bushes, a new bush will grow there. 5) All births and deaths are simultaneous. If you haven't figured it out already, these are the rules to the classic mathematical game called Life, invented by John Conway. I haven't yet figured out what time interval the game uses to calculate generations, or how it handles map boundaries. Based on these rules, you should be able to figure out bush patterns that will allow you to harvest infinite herbs without ever running out of bushes (with suitable delays for successive generations, of course). --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Section 3.2: Player Abilities 3.2.1: How come my Defensive Value keeps shifting up and down by a point or two for no apparent reason? There's a reason for everything in ADOM, even if the reason isn't obvious to the eye. The most common reasons for having your DV shift is having your hunger status shift from `Satiated' to normal, or vice versa, and having your encumbrance status go to `Burdened' or worse, or vice versa. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.2.2: How do I make myself resistant to special attacks? Besides the use of suitable items, the gods have been known to grant certain invulnerabilities to their most loyal servants. It is also said that `you are what you eat'. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.2.3: How come I'm still getting hurt by fire attacks when I'm wearing a ring of fire resistance? Unlike certain other Rogue-alikes, resistance isn't the same as immunity. Resistance only protects against a given amount of damage. However, you can combine sources of resistance to improve your level of protection. It is possible to acquire total immunity to certain special attacks, but this is much more difficult than gaining resistance. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.2.4: How do I learn to read, if I started out totally illiterate? Again, `you are what you eat'. You need to find the corpse of an extremely well-read monster. Solving a certain minor quest can also help. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.2.5: What about the other skills that I don't know? A potion of education always has a chance of giving you a skill you don't have. There are a few people scattered around who can teach you skills, although they all have different ideas of payment. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.2.6: I'm playing a Mindcrafter, and the game crashes when I attempt to use my Teleport Control power. Why? Upgrade your game version. This problem has been fixed as of version 0.9.3. Teleport control never has implied the ability to teleport. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.2.7: How come my combat abilities suffer so much when I wield 2 weapons? Actually, this depends on exactly which 2 weapons you're wielding. According to Thomas, many factors are considered when calculating the To-Hit penalties for using 2 weapons. Use a little common sense here; it makes more sense to wield (say) a long sword and a dagger than a long sword and a battle axe. Starting with version 0.9.0, developing your Two Weapon Combat skill will help matters greatly. Starting with version 0.9.2, developing your weapon skills will also help. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.2.8: I've gotten myself the `doomed' intrinsic. What does that mean? Just as being `lucky' or having `Fate smile upon you' causes the game to fudge some internal calculations in your favor, `cursed' and `doomed' cause the game to add a fudge factor in the opposite direction. Being doomed is worse than being cursed, and the two can combine, just as `lucky' and `Fate smiles upon you' are cumulative. Note well that the negative effect of being doomed is worse than the positive effect of being very lucky, so they don't simply cancel. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.2.9: How come my attributes didn't go up when I paid the Dwarven trainer? Assuming you paid enough gold, the effects of training are not immediately visible. The game makes periodic checks to see if your attributes have increased or decreased due to your actions, and the effects of training are applied at the next check point. This is also why training with Yrrigs does not show immediate improvement in Bridge Building, or why training with Jharod (if you already know Healing) does not show immediate improvement in Healing. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.2.10: Is it better to concentrate on mastering a single weapon ro to become pretty good at handling several? There's no single good answer for this one. Before you get an artifact weapon, it certainly helps to have some proficiency in multiple weapon classes in case you lose your favorite weapon to an exploding door or rust monster. If you go this route, practice when you're in relatively little danger -- you certainly shouldn't wait till you find a greater vault full of gelatinous cubes and green slimes to figure out which end of a spear is for business. Once you've gotten your artifact weapon, it still might help to work on other weapon classes a bit, because there's usually a better artifact out there to be found (unless you're lucky enough to get crowned with Justifier in the Village Dungeon, or some such). Of course, very high weapon skills do grant some nice benefits, and if you're spending your time practicing many weapons, you won't get extremely good with any of them... --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Section 3: Matters Arcane 3.3.1: What do the different altar colors mean? White corresponds to the lawful deity, gray to the neutral, and black to the chaotic. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.3.2: How can I tell if an item is cursed? Drop it on an altar (starting with version 0.8.3, the altar's alignment must match yours); if nothing happens, try making your god more aware of the importance of helping you. Starting with version 0.9.0, you can develop your Detect Item Status skill. Be warned, however, that some particularly diabolical items become cursed when you attempt to use them, even if they're not cursed to begin with... --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.3.3: How do I get rid of a cursed item? There are again several approaches. Dipping the item in holy water will remove the curse, as will reading a scroll of uncursing. A scroll of item destruction will remove both the curse and the item. If you don't mind getting roughed up a little, find a suitable trap or monster that has the ability to destroy the item in question, and go a few rounds with it...however, this method also puts your other equipment in danger. If the cursed item is a weapon, pick a fight with a monster that has the ability to disarm you, and unless you have an ungodly Dexterity or incredible weapon skill, you'll be rid of it before you know it. If you're desperate, kick an altar (preferably not a co-aligned one) until it falls over, which will offend its patron god enough that he'll zap you with a bolt that destroys everything you're carrying. Note that artifacts are immune to destruction, so you'll have to go with holy water, scrolls of uncursing, or (for the nasty artifact weapons) getting forcibly disarmed. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.3.4: I've learned the spell `divine wrath'. It lets me fire lightning bolts. Am I missing something? No, you've just learned the lightning bolt spell under a different name. For atmosphere, several spells have different names depending on whether they're the `wizard' or `priest' version. There's no difference between them other than the name. A few other correspondences (far from a comprehensive list): magic missile <=> minor punishment strength of Atlas <=> lordly might teleport <=> ethereal bridge --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.3.5: What do all the numbers on the spellcasting menu mean? The number to the right of the spell name is its cost in power points. The row of stars is merely a pictorial depiction of the casting cost. The leftmost number is the most important. This is a representation of how many times you can cast the spell. It's not a straight indicator of the number of zaps a spell has left, because this number usually goes down by more than 1 per casting. This is dependent upon (as far as I can tell) your Concentration skill and your Mana attribute. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.3.6: What's all this I hear about corruption? Corruption is a warping of your body caused by your proximity to the Chaos Gate. This effect can be accelerated by corruption traps and attacks from Chaos beings. When you've absorbed a sufficient amount of Chaos energy, it manifests itself in a Chaos power. Chaos powers are often helpful, although some of them have nasty side effects (like Poison Hands). However, if you become too badly corrupted, you mutate into a bubbling mass of primal Chaos. Game over. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.3.7: Okay, so corruption is a Bad Thing. How do I get rid of it, then? Scrolls of chaos resistance help greatly here, and potions of cure corruption don't hurt, either. Completing a certain quest will net you the reward of having all of your corruption removed -- once. Contrary to popular belief, the gods cannot (or will not) remove corruption. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.3.8: What use is a holy symbol? Every time you use one, you become a tiny little bit closer to your god. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.3.9: How come standard Fireball spells don't hurt me, while a so-called Improved Fireball will hurt me if I'm in the blast radius? Well, I hear that the extra incantations required to launch fireballs at a distance took up so much space in the spellbook that something had to go, so they decided to eliminate the incantation which shielded the caster from the fireball's effect... Seriously, though, the `improvement' with an Improved Fireball is that you can indeed launch it away from yourself, and it does more damage. It was designed for distance work, not close-up work -- that's what the *regular* Fireball is for. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.3.10: What's the difference between a ring of fire and a ring of fire resistance? Rings of fire and cold resistance protect you. Rings of ice and fire protect your gear. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.3.11: What exactly does a wand of ball lightening do? It sure doesn't shoot lightening balls! This fires a standard lightening bolt in a random direction. Dangerous indoors. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 1996, 1997 by Thomas Biskup, Erwin Mascardo, and Richard Fowler. This FAQ may be freely distributed as long as these two copyright messages are distributed with it. Karmic creatures are exempted from this restriction. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ADOM ⌐ Copyright 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997 by Thomas Biskup. All rights reserved.