Blog » ADOM playthrough: Vicious, a human assassin
ADOM playthrough: Vicious, a human assassin
(originally posted on Reddit)
This is a story of Vicious, a human assassin who managed to save the world.
As he enters the Drakalor Chain, he has no name yet… He will have to earn it.
Starting equipment. Not bad, I think. We'll start with daggers - both in melee and thrown.
Ogre mage - has invisibility and frost bolt. I was certain the death is close. Fortunately he turned out to be friendly…
Somehow I managed to reach Dwarftown. As you can see, dwarf grandpa's first quest is a rather easy one.
This is me having some trouble with the animated trees. I seriously thought I'm out of luck when they suddenly refused to let me pass. Fortunately when I calmed down, the solution turned out to be simple - potion of invisibility.
Rehetep, the mummy lord, was quickly dealt with. Assassins are very good at shooting.
The character has been quite successful, I think he deserves a name. Meet… Vicious.
Trying my luck with steel golems in Darkforge. As you can see, a bad idea. I could damage them only with arrows of construct slaying and they quickly run out.
One of the golems refused to let me go. Fortunately…
Most of the time "True Aim" and "Thunderstroke" are useless shit. Come on… artifact ARROW? But somehow this time, being the weapon with best damage I had, it proved quite useful - shoot the golem, run around, pick up the arrow, shoot it again…
Digging some graves on the dwarven graveyard. No good loot, only a troublesome master lich sleeping in one of them.
My visit to Gremlin Cave was more fruitful - I managed to find seven league boots. A very useful item - doubles your movement speed.
–
And now…
You slip...
You fall...
*BLAMMMM!!!*
You have reached the bottom.
This is how you usually enter the Rift - Climbing at 100, and still the landing is quite hard.
Having in mind the sad story of Tesuji the drake assassin (destroyed his only climbing set in this jump, then spent rest of his miserable life trapped beyond the mountains trying to find a new one - and finally petrified by a gorgon) this time I took two climbing sets. Both survived the fall.
And that's why you enter the rift. Awesome library filled with useful scrolls and books. And, sometimes, artifacts - here I found the sapphire amulet "Preserver".
Drinking from pools can get you a free wish. Or a dooming curse. They say the probability is the same. Somehow, I don't believe it.
This was scary. Never fall asleep at the wheel. I started playing "on autopilot" and suddenly found myself face to face with a gorgon. One more turn and I would turn into a statue.
The Casino. Lots of gambling machines and a huge shop. There is a way to get practically unlimited money playing on the machines - just find the best one, put something on your Enter key and wait some time… I consider it terrible, anticlimatic farming bordering on cheating.
Cat Lord was generated when I had 18 cat souls on my conscience. I was afraid direct confrontation would be my end - so I Acidballed him through a wall :)
Acid Ball rocks. Did you know you can kill even the Elder Chaos God with it?
A room full of Ghost Kings… If I started to fight them, the poor human would die of old age in no time… Fortunately I managed to escape without being noticed.
You feel truly excited.
And for a good reason - these greater vaults often contain artifacts and much good loot. Not to mention lots of exp.
Here we see a vault of fire creatures - dragons, fire elementals and such.
This is me remembering that fire burns. That was my best bow…
One more extremely annoying location - the blue dragon caves. Full of lightning-breathing dragons ready to destroy every burnable item you have.
But for killing this fellow I get a certain rune-covered dagger called "Needle". And once I obtain another one called "Sting"… Neither of them is very powerful on its own. But when I wield both of them:
Right hand: +230 bonus to hit, 3d4+116 damage
Left hand: +228 bonus to hit, 3d4+116 damage
Sting & Needle - the deadliest combo in the game.
Emperor moloch in his castle. In all his armor he's like a walking tank. I guess assassin's arrows are better than anti-tank missiles.
Time to save the world!
First time a balor has ever surrendered to me. I had to kill him anyway - he kept opening the Chaos Gate and I couldn't leave the level with him around.
This time I wiped out the whole level. For a moloch-armor-covered (81 PV!), Sting-and-Needle-wielding walking tank it was very easy.
THE END
Photos, full recording (in DOS Recorder) and final savegame
I think this was the strongest PC I ever played. High-level assassin is easier than a barbarian. And because of Backstabbing and other class skills he doesn't even need an artifact/slayer weapon - he manages to score critical hits with everyting. Most of the game, Vicious used a plain sword of sharpness.
Hope you liked it!