Dungeon Master Forum

one diggler stole 2 shields, my delta, my axe and my crossbow...
i hate them they run like wussies as soon as they steal something.

Took me 30 minutes to track him down. all the while i encountered more digglers that stole even more (argh)(but those i was able to track down and kill fast). everytime i would see one i would think hes the one that stole my stuff.. But when i found him... god ol' gothmog got him with a few throwing stars ;p (bout time).

Then while gathering the recovered items got cornered by 2 giant scorpions
(ouch!!!)(1 attacking from the front the other from the side, poor little gothmog didnt make it)..

One question tho, what level should my character be when starting level 10? cause i was having a lot of troubles in level 09 with scorpions (and rats).

also, is it normal to have the loads of most of my characters in the red?
(i got a lot of stuff and like 6, 7 or 8 chests)

Gigglers: Always have a fireball at hand and instantly kill them when you see one, this saves you a lot of trouble.

Level 10: Your Level is not that important if you use the right strategy. There are two ticky places:
a) The room with the red-cross-button (16,33) and all those monsters. It's easy: The monsters are bound to the walls as long as you DON'T press this button. Simply kill them one by one with fireballs or somethin' and retreat for a while when youre party is to exhausted.
b) A while after that, there is an area with some scorpions and Wizard Eyes and some open doors. Proceed straight to the first pair of doors and close them, so you clean the first part of that area without being interrupted by monsters invading form the second part. repeat this process with the second pair of doors.

Load: Avoid having red load: It slowes down the movement of your party severely, you should also avoid to have even yellow load. Most of the stuff you ae carrying around you don't really need. For example 2 melee weapons are sufficient, just discard lesser weapons you found on earlier stages. Use the most heavy armor for your front characters and for your rear characters use armor, that is just not heavy enough to encumber them. Keep only enough food & water for about half a level as emergency reserve, the rest of what you need you can pick during the completion of that level, and if you run out of food or water you can always return to the rats room, kill a few of 'em bastards, eat them and proceed. Keep only those magical items you really need, store all else (i.e. spare magical boxes) in the long staircase connecting level 7 - 13, so you can get them later, when you need them.
Have a white load, move fast, run around the monsters and attack them from their sides and rear, they are slow and no match for a fast party.

Gigglers only take what you have in your hands, so I never carry anything that I don't want stolen in my hands. You kill lots of skeletons in the game, so I just leave a few of their swords at various points in the dungeon and pick them up when I am going through a giggler area, drop them when I am in a none giggler area. I agree they are just a pest.

good lvls are adept-expert. life should be 300 upwards and mana ~100. you can train at the end of the rats-lvl, there is a room with respawning rats.

i prefer poison bolts for gigglers - slightly cheaper, and on level eight you can have it set up to go for poison bolts of kill corporeal with only one symbol short

You want good priests and good fighters for level 10 - you never get cornered by rats on level 9, but for level 10 you can get pinned by scorpions and giggler combos. but as said, good strategy can get you passed everything - having lots of health potions in your caharacter packs hcan be a life saver

Basically, if you can take about 150 - 175 with a fighter damage with a fighter, and heal it up with a potion or two, then you shouldn't have too much trouble

Red is very bad weight , even yellow is not good for scorpions - try leving stuff at the end of level 9 in the 2x2 room with the water, and also you can try not giving the back people armour to increase their carrying capability

drop chests unless you need them, torches, or extra clothes - needless weight. freeze life boxes can be good, but if you think you can do a level without them, then leave alot of them behind to use in the last levels. Even throwing weapons can be dropped, you can get more, and by later levels i find them more trouble than they are worth

I will start level 11 soon.

Heres my champion's levels:

Zed: Expert Fighter
Craftman Ninja
Artisan Priest
Craftman Wizard
Load = 56.9/50
Life = 312
Mana = 66

Halk: Expert Fighter
Craftman Ninja
Craftman Priest
Journeyman Wizard
Load = 66.8/61
Life = 294
Mana = 45

Syra: Craftman Fighter
Artisan Ninja
Craftman Priest
Craftman Wizard
Load = 44/48
Life = 243
Mana = 48

Gothmog: Craftman Fighter
Artisan Ninja
Journeyman Priest
Adept Wizard (with Pendant Feral +1 wiz level)
Load = 52.3/53
Life = 242
Mana= 59

Its worse then i thought, i have 10 chests.. lol
And about 6.5 of them filled with food..
26 bottles
i have the following weapons:
- Delta
- Vorpal Blade (2)
- Bow
- Hardcleave
- Staff of Claws
- Toewand
- SpeedBow (3 slayers and 4 arrows)
- Rapier
- Staff of manar
- 6 throwing star, 3 daggers, 3 poison darts
- Mace of order
- Yew Staff
- tons of green and red potions
- 5 or 6 green box (had to throw away the blue ones)

What should i drop and such?
i want to keep the start, daggers and darts (usefull to gothmog)
Also the speedbow, slayers and arrows
Also the hardcleave ( i like it does nice damage)
Delta also does nice damage

- forgot all the blue gems and the tons of coin i got ( a chest full)
- 2 mirror of dawn

i keep everything because i dont know what i will need later on. I never made it this far. Back in the days i would rent the game for snes and everytime i would rent it again my save would be gone (GRRRR)
anyway i made it to level 5 or 5 before on snes for the later parts i never saw thats why i keep everything..

WHat should i do?
And where is the darn rat room located at?? (cant find it)

I will start level 11 soon.

Heres my champion's levels:

Zed: Expert Fighter
Craftman Ninja
Artisan Priest
Craftman Wizard
Load = 56.9/50
Life = 312
Mana = 66

Halk: Expert Fighter
Craftman Ninja
Craftman Priest
Journeyman Wizard
Load = 66.8/61
Life = 294
Mana = 45

Syra: Craftman Fighter
Artisan Ninja
Craftman Priest
Craftman Wizard
Load = 44/48
Life = 243
Mana = 48

Gothmog: Craftman Fighter
Artisan Ninja
Journeyman Priest
Adept Wizard (with Pendant Feral +1 wiz level)
Load = 52.3/53
Life = 242
Mana= 59

1. drop the chests with the food ALL in the room at the end of the rat lvl where you found the ra-key next to the fountain.
you will need about 3-4 drumsticks per person for the scorpion lvl and for the following one each.
2. i personally never use any wands and stuff next to vorpal blades, drop them, too, if you like. same counts for all weapons next to the 2 mainwpns you use. so you can keep all goodies and questitems.
3. you decided to specialise your characters, which isnt a too bad choice (since i never do this). this is how i would equip them items in their hands:
halk: delta/shield
zed: rapier/shield
syra: vorpal blade/bottle
gothmog: vorpal blade/bottle
drop all weapons you have left after this, including ranged ones.
replace rapier for hardcleave and delta for inquisitor, once you find them.
if you dont like shields, replace them for bottles.
4. the rat room (as far as i rememer): go up the stairs to scorp lvl, cross them room, and always keep left from there. its 2 connected rooms (about 2*10 and 4*4 in space), which can be closed by an iron grate, which is open, when you first arrive there. the pad which activates the rat generator is somewhere on the way between the stairs and the room.
5. your lvls are quite ok, though your chars are a bit weak in their "secondary expertise", i always train all up to artisan/adept ninjas, only to get more life out of this.
if you dont want to encounter greater problems later, train all 4 characters to expert/expert/expert/expert. the rats give food and there is a fountain near, so no problem to do this, will you take an hour or two, but should be worth it.
especially train magic, with ya-ir shields or neta/dain-potions for priests and fireballs (4-4-4 is too easy :)) for wizard. you will need at least 1 expert priest and wizard each, better have 4 each :)

personally i'd have flasks rather than the shields, and double flasks for the back people, all with vi potions
you won't need vorpal blades ready to hand, you can put them into sheathed slot of the fighters equipment

personally i hate training, as why do boring rote practise to make the dungeon easier, why not just have fun out-matched and earn your experience from trying to tackle the areas instead? there's no harm in running away with your levels intact to rest and returning : )

vorpal blades increase mana, and i dont know anything else which your secondary ppl could use more :)
2 flasks ready are enough for me, maybe because my party is always well-trained ;)
btw: come to irc ;)

I think the rat room is in level 08 next to item 13 and a fountain and a door.
(based on what amber said)(me thinks)

Anyway i started level 11 with the animated armor (ouch!!) and the god damn Materializer (the group with 4 of em near the darc peice of armor killed me about 8 times)
The Oitu were a peice of cake tho.
And i gained a few level in there especially priest and wizard.

i used a lot of shield (party) and fire shield (party) spells compined with level 4 and 5 fireballs. This helped a lot i tell u that.

After getting the last Ra key and finishing level 11 i went back to the screamer room for food and water supplies (i dropped all my food chests and keept one before starting level 10)

I tried my hand at level 6 with the golems and well hmmph, took me 10 minutes to kill the first golem..

But i did get a few nice levels from the deeper dungeons. They are now as follow:

Zed: LoMaster : Craftman : Adept : Expert [life=385 : Mana=112]
Halk: LoMaster : Craftman : Adept : Adept [life=390 : Mana=99]
Syra: Craftman : Artisan : Artisan : Adept [life=274 : Mana=81]
Gothmog: Craftman : Artisan : Artisan : LoMaster [life=286 : Mana=103]

I dropped most of my older weapons but i kept all my arrows and throwing stuff since i find them most usefull for the back characters.
I have about 6 health potion for the front characters and 2 for the back ones. they all have 1 cure poison potion. both front have each 1 shield and strenght potion. Back ones have each a wisdom potion.

When i find myself facing an animated armor or materializer my 2 back dudes cast shield and fireshield and i cast tons of fireball or weaken non material things with all of them. This method seems to work fine.

About the weapons.
- Diamond edge doesnt seem very good to me although it works nicely on animated armors.
- Rapier i dropped when i found delta and fury
- Delta isnt all that good
- Fury isnt that good either(cept for the fireballs wich i exhausted fast)
- Hardcleave to date is my fav weapon (seems to go good in all situations)
- Mace of order never really used it.
- Vorpal i still have both of them ( i keep em in my front characters ammo slots.

About the golems. i do average 5 damage to them wich is very low and these golems do a lot of damage.
my axe seems to do better then any of my swords including diamond edge wich i assumed would be good against them ebcause of the name mainly)
i will try mace of order since it is a blunt weapon and may do more damage to the darn golems.

In level 6, there are 4 locks that require a Tourquoise Key and only 1 Tourquoise Key. Will i be able to open all the locks with that 1 key or do i have to choose wich items i need and open that one????!

Nvm the golems i killed em with doors, green boxes, diamond edge and my wonderfull hardcleave ;p ( and a lot of shield spells) then inquisitor when i got it.

I got the Firestaff (gothmog is really happy with it lol)
and went down the stairs all the way to level 13 where the red dragon blew me up in about hmmph 20 seconds :( (after the third fireball i lost 3 characters).

now just need to find a way to kill that dragon...(gonna be hard)

freeze life, poison, good old fasioned moving around and hitting it alot : )
you an do some tactics too if you just want to neutralise it

you will not find any more tourquoise keys. i recommend the flamebain, though i choose randomly the most time.
killing the dragon and the demons and fuse chaos afterwards shouldnt be such a problem.
hit the draon in the back and throw all potions at him you got left, for the demons simply use the upgraded firestaff.
good luck and enjoy the ending :)

What the Hell are you going back to the screamer room for supplies? Go to the rat's room, the drumsticks you gain there are fare more nourishing than the screamer sclices and therefor do not weight you down as much.

The Diamond edge IS very useful, but not for chopping or cleaving, that can be done with other weapons also, but for jabbing. Jab does a bit damage, but has a very high frenquency to hit, so many times that bit o'damage will add up to a severe amount very quickly, and, Jab will add to your Ninja experience, which is not possible with any other true melee weapon. The only melee weapons I keep therefor are Diamond Edge, Hardcleave, Inquisitor and both Vorpal blades. For rear characters I prefer Staffs with huge Mana boni, or, if I want to do missile shooting, the speedbow + slayers. Most throwing weapons aren't worth there weight in comparison to that, except at the beginning of the game, although I keep the poison darts in some spare quiver.

In levels were there are non-material beings, don't use fireball much, prepare Des instead, casting DesVen when meeting corporeal foes, and casting DesEw when meeting non-corporeal ones.
In Level 11 (counting from 0 on) monsters can't pass beyond (x44/y45), so simply lure the faders there and attack them again and again there with the vorpal blades and retreat back past the corner again. With 'em blades you can hit them always, even when the are not in a manifested state.

And I disagree with Amber 'bout the turquoise key: I recommend the speedboots, for if you get all 4 pairs of speedboots in the game and equip every character of your party with them, you get something no other spell or item can do: You become faster in your movement, and if no one of youre party has a yellow or red load, you can move even faster, than it is possible normally.

The dragon is defeated easily: Lure him to the pilar at (x33/y41) and start walking backwards round the pillar, so the dragon will follow you. Every time he comes round the corner hit or blast him and retreat then quickly around the pillar.

All you have left to do then is to kill Chaos legion and banish Him.
Before you take the powergem, you may want to see something funny: Store some spare food and go up to the entrance of the dungeon at the beginning of the Hall of Champions (z0/x01/y03) with the uncharged firestaff in the hand of one of your characters, and see..but be warned, it will kill your party.

>>And I disagree with Amber 'bout the turquoise key: I recommend the speedboots, for if you get all 4 pairs of speedboots in the game and equip every character of your party with them, you get something no other spell or item can do: You become faster in your movement, and if no one of youre party has a yellow or red load, you can move even faster, than it is possible normally

i normally play with 2 characters so i dont need the boots of speed anymore. arent they even behind the same door as the flamebain is?
oh, i also love the crown of nerra, it helps training up for csb (+wisdom) :)

No, the are not in the same room with the flamebain.
And Jack repeated more than once, that he is playing with 4 chars, so that's why I recommend him the boots.

Please explain "oh, i also love the crown of nerra, it helps training up for csb (+wisdom) :)". What is the benefit of high Wisdom, do they gain levels faster?

No, but if you have some dimwit in your party like Halk he can cast higher level spells sooner with more wis, higher level spells = more xp = faster levels = more mana = more casting = faster levels...

not to forget: higher wisdom->higher mana regenaration.

yup
stamm/halk etcon their own will take quite a while to build up mana for initial spellcasting, so every little helps

Are you sure higher level spells give more XP than low level ones? Does high refer to the first syllable (power) or to the complexity (number and kind of the following syllables)?

both
more symbols usually denote a spell that requires more levels to cast successfully
higher powered spells (first smbol) also require higher levels - both give more xp

symbols are funny - for example vi is an easier spell for non-experienced to cast than ya potions, yet vi requires more mana...

Dragon is down!!!! ;p

Completed the firestaff!! ;p

2 demons and chaos cornered me in the hallway ;(

Gotta find a way to get out... *sigh*

Weeeee finished the game ;p

Had to fluxcage half of level 12 but eh i did it lol ;p

Now to start all over again ;p

Thx to everyone for very helpfull tips! ;p

more symbols usually denote a spell that requires more levels to cast successfully
higher powered spells (first smbol) also require higher levels - both give more xp

So what's best for Priest training? I usually have them create Mana Potions to recycle some of the invested mana, but one could also just do tons of Stamina Potions cause they are so cheap the charas regenerate the mana almost instantly... what's most effective?

cast simple potions like ya and vi at the limits of your ability, especially during combat which gives you nice experience bonuses.
when you have spare mana try more complex potions such as strength, etc - you can cast mana potions, but i forget how good they are for learning

fireshields will last you right through to = master before you fully master them, so casting them to the limits when you have spare mana later in the game will be useful

for training my priests, i usually practise:
until expert, mainly vi-pots and ya-ir shields
lateron, mainly manapots, neta-pots, fireshields or ku-pots.
quite nice to have 2 frontfighters with about 200 strenght each :)


>>stamm/halk etc on their own will take quite a while to build up mana for initial spellcasting, so every little helps

the nerra-crown is more than little :)

I found the vorpal blade was the fastest way to train wizard levels....

I tend to leave chests, filled with food, at the beginning of levels. When you have located the continuous staircases, leave them on those.
Gigglers? - fireball it's the only language they understand (or rather don't, what with being incinerated)