Bay 12 Games Forum

I ended up with a slush beverage today. Its flavour? Cinnamon pepsi. The combination of sugar, frozen water and spiciness is very strange, but not unpleasant.

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RE: microchips

I really don't see how this is an improvement on ID cards for most purposes. I don't see them catching on, simply because a lot of people will freak out about them and because they're not better enough to actually get implemented in the face of resistance.

You should be able to use yourself on the statue. Clearly.

Have just been accepted into university[Finally, since diploma marks were pretty late]! Now to wade through oceans of distressingly costly paperwork...

First advice: Don't train Fire Magic high enough to get Fire Storm unless you're planning on Extended. Shatter is quite helpful and simple to get operational for Gargoyles, but Fire Storm is much much harder and should only be considered unless you're intent on beating up Pan/Hells/Zigs.

Training eight skills at once is a terrible idea for mages. Meleers can get away with it once they have their weapon at min-delay because at that point, they don't need any more skills soley for killing things and instead need more HP/AC/EV. Mages need more skills for killing things and can't afford their magic skills taking longer to advance.

Second advice: Turn off Maces and Flails, probably for the whole game. Its high enough that bashing won't take longer then a turn, which is as high as it needs to be for mages. Turn off Evocations, until such time as you 1. find a staff of energy and 2. decide to go do Pan/Hells/Zigs. Evokables are great, but most of them are just as great at skill level 7 as at skill level 10, with a few notable exceptions. Still not a bad place to dump excess exp, in the window between getting Iron Shot and getting Shatter. Turn off Fire Magic, until you actually have Bolt of Fire, which is the sole remaining reason to train it for the foreseeable future. You might also want to memorize Sticky Flame, since that's quite useful for revealing invisible enemies and for doing respectable damage. If you're going for Spellforged Servitor[I've never used it, but I've heard good things about them], I'd make Summoning the ONLY skill you train until you can either cast Spellforged Servitor or your Summoning skill is equal to your Conjurations skill.

Unrelated: Wow, you have a total of +11 Int from rings.

FAKEEDIT:

Don't bother reserving spell slots for Vehumet's gifts. If you forget Stoneblast and Flame Tongue, you should have enough slots on the off chance Vehumet gifts you with Orb of Destruction. The final array of level 8/9 spells Vehumet gives are permanent as long as you worship them, so don't worry about missing LCS/Shatter. LCS is also not terrifically useful because of its tiny range, but its very nice against dangerous foes like Orbs of Fire/Curse Toes.

REALEDIT:

Maybe don't actually memorize Sticky Flame, since its probably not THAT good at your level and Vehumet might decide to gift Orb of Destruction.

The evaporating rock method for applying syndromes doesn't always work. I imagine that gasses are as unreliable as they are so that Forgotten Beasts with deadly vapors aren't completely ridiculous in combat. An alternative method is making it transmitted through a potion instead, which works 100% of the time, but requires more micromanagement and doesn't make as much sense for golems.

Example golem potion:

[PLANT:ELIXIR_GOLEM]
[PREFSTRING:magical properties]
[NAME:golem elixir plant][NAME_PLURAL:golem elixir plants][ADJ:golem elixir plant]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:STRUCTURAL:STRUCTURAL_PLANT_TEMPLATE]
[MATERIAL_VALUE:0]
[BASIC_MAT:LOCAL_PLANT_MAT:STRUCTURAL]
[PICKED_TILE:231][PICKED_COLOR:7:0:0]
[GROWDUR:300][VALUE:0]
[USE_MATERIAL_TEMPLATE:DRINK:PLANT_ALCOHOL_TEMPLATE]
[STATE_NAME_ADJ:ALL_SOLID:frozen golem elixir]
[STATE_NAME_ADJ:LIQUID:golem elixir]
[STATE_NAME_ADJ:GAS:boiling golem elixir]
[MATERIAL_VALUE:10]
[DISPLAY_COLOR:7:0:0]
[EDIBLE_RAW]
[PREFIX:NONE]
[SYNDROME]
   [SYN_CLASS:AUTO_SYNDROME]
   [SYN_CLASS:COMMAND]
   [SYN_CLASS:WORKER_ID]
        [SYN_NAME:golem]
        [SYN_CONTACT]
        [SYN_INHALED]
        [SYN_AFFECTED_CREATURE:DWARF:ALL]
        [CE_BODY_TRANSFORMATION:START:0]
         [CE:CREATURE:GOLEM:GOLEM]
      [CE_PHYS_ATT_CHANGE:STRENGTH:150:0:AGILITY:150:0:TOUGHNESS:150:0:START:0]
      [CE_MATERIAL_FORCE_MULTIPLIER:MAT_MULT:NONE:NONE:1:2]
      [CE_ADD_TAG:NO_AGING:NOT_LIVING:EXTRAVISION:NOPAIN:NOBREATHE:NONAUSEA:NO_DIZZINESS:NO_FEVERS:PARALYZEIMMUNE:NOFEAR:NO_EAT:NO_DRINK:NO_SLEEP:NO_PHYS_ATT_GAIN:NO_PHYS_ATT_RUST:STERILE:TRANCES:LIKESFIGHTING:START:0]
      [CE_REMOVE_TAG:CAN_SPEAK:START:0]
[DISPLAY_COLOR:4:4:1][TILE:'*']
EDIT: ^The above should PROBABLY work, but I haven't tested it out. Its just a very quick modification of one of my own transformation potions.

Also the drugs. _{Romans loved their drugs}

When you recall your orcs, the strongest ones get recalled first. So, if you cancel the recall after one turn, you end up summoning only the best orcs. Or just ditch your entire army and wait until Beogh gives you new recruits, so you can get some good warlords and whatnot.

There's an official varient rule in Unearthed Arcana that gives heavy armour damage reduction. Its not that balanced, since having DR of like a quarter of your health early on is great and then becomes basically irrelevant since physical enemies can just Power Attack for a -4 to-hit/+4 damage bonus and thus ignore the whole thing.