Single-file Improved Adom Guidebook

Table of Contents

ADOM Introduction

Guidebook Introduction

Wilderness - Graphical navigation

Caverns of Chaos - graphical navigation

0. Whole-game issues

0.1 Character creation

0.1.1 Day and date effects

0.1.2 Birth

0.1.2.1 Star sign

0.1.2.2 Special birth messages

0.1.3 Sex

0.1.4 Race and class

0.1.4.1 Specific starting trained skills and alignment

0.1.4.2 Class powers

0.1.4.3 Starting attributes

0.1.4.4 Lifespans

0.1.4.5 Special considerations

0.1.4.6 Race-specific starting companions

0.1.4.7 Class-specific starting items

0.1.5 History

0.1.5.1 History messages

0.1.5.2 History messages for Barbarians

0.1.6 Opening question system

0.1.7 Talents

0.1.8 Name

0.1.9 Starting equipment

0.1.9.1 Race starting equipment

0.1.9.2 Class starting equipment

0.2 Religion

0.2.1 Alignment

0.2.1.1 Quests, rewards and alignment restrictions

0.2.1.2 Alignment range

0.2.1.3 Chaotic acts

0.2.1.4 Lawful acts

0.2.1.5 Miscellaneous changes

0.2.2 Piety

0.2.2.1 Miscellaneous piety changes

0.2.2.2 Piety loss

0.2.3 Altars

0.2.3.1 Status identification

0.2.3.2 Water manipulation

0.2.3.3 Sacrificing

0.2.3.3.1 Sacrificing items

0.2.3.3.2 Sacrificing food

0.2.3.3.3 Sacrificing monsters

0.2.3.3.4 Sacrificing gold

0.2.3.3.5 Messages generated when sacrificing on altars

0.2.3.3.6 Other possible sacrificing messages

0.2.3.3.7 Messages when sacrificing in the dark

0.2.3.4 Converting an altar or PC

0.2.3.4.1 Observations

0.2.3.4.2 Possibilities

0.2.3.4.3 Conversion summary

0.2.3.4.4 Recovering from errors

0.2.4 Praying

0.2.4.1 Prices of praying

0.2.4.2 Order of precedence

0.2.5 Crowning, precrowning and postcrowning

0.2.5.1 Requirements

0.2.5.2 Rewards

0.2.5.2.1 Immunity

0.2.5.2.2 Possible crowning gifts for each class

0.2.5.3 Fallen Champions

0.2.6 Tracts

0.3 Food

0.3.1 Preventing starvation

0.3.1.1 Increasing satiation

0.3.2 Satiation levels

0.3.3 Eating corpses

0.3.4 Monsters who never leave a corpse

0.4 Skills

0.4.1 Description and usefulness

0.4.2 Guaranteed ways of acquiring skills

0.4.3 Non-guaranteed ways of acquiring skills

0.4.4 Training skills

0.4.5 Class aptitudes

0.4.6 Skill mechanics

0.5 Magic

0.5.1 Spells

0.5.1.1 Casting

0.5.1.2 Ball spells

0.5.1.3 Wish

0.5.1.4 Other spells

0.5.1.5 Learning spells mechanics

0.5.1.6 Spell list

0.5.2 Writing scrolls

0.5.3 Mindcraft

0.5.3.1 Confusion blast

0.5.3.2 Mindcraft abbreviations

0.6 Attributes

0.6.1 Increasing attributes

0.6.1.1 Training attributes naturally

0.6.1.2 Training with Garth

0.6.1.3 Herbs

0.6.1.4 Eating corpses

0.6.1.5 Potions

0.6.1.6 Crystals of knowledge

0.6.2 Rearranging attributes

0.6.2.1 Potions of exchange

0.6.2.2 Potions of balance

0.6.3 Increasing attributes beyond their usual limits

0.6.4 Luck

0.6.5 Speed

0.7 Attack

0.7.1 Jack of all trades or master of one?

0.7.2 Class considerations - what weapon to specialize in

0.7.3 Achieving Grand Mastery

0.7.4 True Berserker

0.7.5 Melee combat

0.7.6 Missile combat

0.7.7 Critical hit chances

0.8 Defense

0.8.1 DV versus PV

0.8.2 DV bonuses

0.8.3 PV bonuses

0.9 Monsters

0.9.1 Significance of the first kill

0.9.1.1 Courage skill

0.9.1.2 Filk quest

0.9.1.3 Strategy for the first kill: where and what?

0.9.2 Cats - significance of felines

0.9.3 Karmic beings

0.9.4 Monster types

0.9.4.1 Animals

0.9.4.2 Constructs

0.9.4.3 Demons

0.9.4.4 Dragons

0.9.4.5 Giants

0.9.4.6 Humanoids

0.9.4.7 Jellies

0.9.4.8 Plants

0.9.4.9 Undead

0.9.5 Strategies for dealing with particularly annoying monsters

0.9.5.1 Early game

0.9.5.2 Midgame

0.9.5.3 Late game

0.9.5.4 General strategies

0.9.6 Weapon status - blessed, uncursed, cursed

0.9.7 Monsters gain experience level

0.9.8 Gaining experience

0.9.8.1 Shambling mounds

0.9.9 Spellcasting monsters

0.9.9.1 Spell ranges

0.9.9.2 Spell powers

0.9.9.3 Directed spells

0.9.9.3.1 Energy bolt / Death ray

0.9.9.3.2 Stream of energy

0.9.9.3.3 Confusion

0.9.9.3.4 Glowing Balls / Magic Missile

0.9.9.3.5 Cone of cold

0.9.9.3.6 Shock bolt

0.9.9.3.7 Avoiding directed spells

0.9.9.4 Touch attack spells

0.9.9.4.1 Drain attribute

0.9.9.4.2 Curse

0.9.9.4.3 Teleport other

0.9.9.4.4 Avoiding touch attack spells

0.9.9.5 Non-targetted spells

0.9.9.5.1 Invisibility

0.9.9.5.2 Darkness

0.9.9.5.3 Heal

0.9.9.5.4 Greater Heal

0.9.10 Summoners and Breeders

0.9.11 Rage

0.10 Corruptions

0.10.1 What is corruption?

0.10.2 Gaining corruptions

0.10.2.1 Background corruption

0.10.2.2 Corruption traps

0.10.2.3 Corrupting hits from monsters

0.10.2.4 Artifacts which corrupt

0.10.2.4.1 Moon Sickle

0.10.2.4.2 When carried

0.10.2.4.3 When used

0.10.2.5 Potions of raw chaos

0.10.2.6 Tracts of chaos

0.10.2.7 From pools

0.10.2.8 From corpses

0.10.2.9 Riurry - the greater black unicorn quest

0.10.2.10 Being crowned as champion of chaos

0.10.3 Removing corruptions

0.10.3.1 Potions of cure corruption

0.10.3.1.1 Obtaining potions of cure corruption from Guth'Alak

0.10.3.2 Scrolls of chaos resistance

0.10.3.3 Tracts of order

0.10.3.4 Yrruir - the greater white unicorn quest

0.11 Companions

0.11.1 Scrolls of familiar summoning

0.11.2 Figurines of wondrous power

0.11.3 Taming monsters

0.11.4 Hawkslayer

0.11.5 Borys

0.11.6 Slaves

0.12 Powers

0.12.1 Intrinsics

0.12.1.1 Resistances

0.12.1.2 Immunities

0.12.1.3 Dooming and Cursing

0.12.1.4 Lucky and Fate smiles

0.12.1.5 Teleportitis and Teleport Control

0.12.1.6 Invisibility and See Invisible

0.12.1.7 Water breathing

0.12.2 Status conditions

0.12.2.1 Hunger

0.12.2.2 Burden

0.12.2.3 Bleeding

0.12.2.4 Tactics

0.12.2.5 Positive

0.12.2.6 Other

0.12.3 Item powers

0.12.3.1 Regeneration

0.12.3.2 Critical hits

0.12.3.3 Autocursing

0.12.3.4 Slaying

0.12.3.5 Returning

0.12.3.6 Penetration

0.12.3.7 Item statuses

0.13 Dungeon features

0.13.1 Messages

0.13.1.1 Messages which indicate the presence of monsters or monster vaults

0.13.1.2 Messages which indicate the presence of a special dungeon feature

0.13.1.3 Messages which indicate the presence of traps

0.13.1.4 Messages which indicate a unique level

0.13.1.5 Special messages

0.13.2 Traps

0.13.2.1 Trap types

0.13.2.2 Trap pattern

0.13.3 Doors

0.13.3.1 Locked doors

0.13.3.2 Trapped doors

0.13.3.3 Secret doors

0.13.3.4 Special door features

0.13.3.5 Door pattern

0.13.3.6 Monsters who can smash doors

0.13.4 Rooms

0.13.4.1 Dark rooms

0.13.4.2 Tension rooms

0.13.4.3 Threatening rooms

0.13.4.4 Trap rooms

0.13.5 Special rooms and their effects

0.13.5.1 Permanent effects

0.13.5.2 One time effects

0.13.6 Herbs

0.13.6.1 Herbs growth

0.13.6.2 Picking herbs

0.13.6.3 Herbs properties

0.13.7 Shops

0.13.7.1 Guaranteed shops

0.13.7.2 Random shops

0.13.7.3 Shopkeepers' racial prejudices

0.13.7.4 Robbing shops

0.13.8 Rivers

0.13.8.1 Freezing water

0.13.9 Pools

0.13.10 Forges

0.13.11 Hives

0.13.11.1 Ants

0.13.11.2 Bees

0.13.12 Vaults

0.13.12.1 Lesser vaults

0.13.12.2 Greater vaults

0.13.13 Royal treasuries

0.13.14 Altars

0.13.15 Graves

0.13.16 Cavernous levels

0.13.17 Webs

0.13.18 Statues

0.14 Items

0.14.1 Recharging wands

0.14.2 Huge rocks and anvils

0.14.3 Statues

0.14.4 Potions of raw chaos

0.14.5 Potions of exchange

0.14.6 Regeneration of HP and PP

0.14.6.1 HP regeneration

0.14.6.2 PP regeneration

0.14.6.3 Potions of troll blood and raw mana

0.14.6.4 Troll corpses

0.14.7 Seven league boots

0.14.8 Stethoscopes

0.14.9 Safe places to store items

0.14.10 Weight and appearance of objects

0.14.11 Dipping stuff into a potion

0.14.12 Milking

0.14.13 Losing cursed stuff

0.14.14 Item destruction

0.14.15 Monster item drops

0.14.16 Giving stuff to monsters

0.15 Miscellaneous

0.15.1 Dungeon generation

0.15.2 Kicking

0.15.3 Undocumented character abilities

0.15.4 Smithing

0.15.4.1 Smelting ore

0.15.4.2 Removing rust

0.15.4.3 Improving items

0.15.5 Darkness

0.15.6 Death messages

0.15.7 Bugs

0.15.7.1 Bugs causing the game to crash

0.15.7.2 Bugs causing unfair death

0.15.7.3 Bugs used to get unfair advantage

0.15.7.4 Other bugs

0.15.8 Rumors

0.15.8.1 Fortune Cookie messages

0.15.8.2 Yggaz's babblings

0.15.9 Final score

1. Early game locations

1.1 Wilderness

1.1.1 Why start the game in the wilderness?

1.1.2 Strategy and problems in the wilderness

1.1.3 Survival skill

1.1.4 Wilderness encounters

1.1.4.1 Chance for ambush

1.1.4.2 Chance to evade

1.2 Terinyo

1.2.1 Tywat Pare

1.2.1.1 Kranach

1.2.2 Rynt

1.2.3 Guth'Alak

1.2.4 Tiny Girl

1.2.5 Blup

1.2.6 Munxip

1.2.7 Yggaz

1.2.8 Townspeople

1.2.9 Magical island

1.3 Lawenilothehl

1.3.1 Yergius

1.3.2 Barnabas

1.3.3 Kranf Niest

1.3.4 Skriek

1.3.5 Hotzenplotz and his guards

1.3.6 Other inhabitants of Lawenilothehl

1.4 Small Cave and Unremarkable Dungeon

1.4.1 Objectives, strategy for survival and items found in the Small Cave

1.4.2 Should PCs descend through the Unremarkable Dungeon?

1.4.3 Unremarkable Dungeon

1.4.4 High Mountain Village - introduction

1.5 Infinite Dungeon - beginning

1.5.1 Why start the game in the Infinite Dungeon?

1.6 Village Dungeon

1.6.1 Jharod

1.6.2 Yrrigs

1.7 Druid Dungeon

1.7.1 Keethrax

1.8 Puppy Cave

1.8.1 Cute Dog

1.9 Places to avoid in the early game

1.9.1 Whats's next?

2. Other locations

2.1 High Mountain Village - part two

2.1.1 Stone giant lord

2.1.2 Hawkslayer

2.1.3 Ratling guardians

2.1.4 Leggot

2.1.5 Ogre Guardian

2.1.6 Gaab'Baay

2.1.7 Oracle

2.1.8 Malicious Doctor

2.1.9 Ratling traders

2.1.10 Hidden locations

2.2 Infinite Dungeon

2.2.1 Filk

2.2.2 MaLaKaI

2.3 Bug-Infested Temple

2.3.1 Bug Temple rewards

2.4 Darkforge

2.4.1 Kherab

2.4.2 Kherab's quests and their rewards

2.5 Tower of Eternal Flames

2.5.1 Ancient Chaos Wyrm

2.6 Barbarian's glade

2.6.1 Old Barbarian

2.7 Dwarven Graveyard

2.7.1 Surface level

2.7.2 Underground level

2.7.2.1 Griff Bloodax

2.7.2.2 Nonnak

2.8 Mad Minstrel's Clearing

2.8.1 Mad Minstrel

2.8.2 Mad Minstrel's songs

2.9 Pyramid

2.9.1 First Level

2.9.2 Second level

2.9.3 Top level

2.9.2.1 Rehetep

2.10 Gremlin Cave

2.11 Assassins' Guild

2.11.1 DDL

2.11.2 VDDL

2.11.2.1 Hidden stairway and how to descend

2.11.3 Final level

2.11.3.1 Assassin Prince

2.12 Tomb of the High Kings

2.12.1 Skeletal King

2.13 Water Dragon's Lair

2.13.1 Shyssiryxius

2.14 Ruined City

2.14.1 Minotaur Maze

2.14.1.1 How to find out whether the new level is false?

2.14.1.2 Minotaur Emperor

2.15 Rift

2.15.1 Ratling Dealer

2.16 Sinister Library of Niltrias

2.16.1 Ghost Librarian

2.17 Stone Circle

2.17.1 Keriax

2.18 Quickling Tree

2.19 Unicorn Glades

2.19.1 Yrruir

2.19.2 Riurry

2.20 Scintillating Cave

2.20.1 Emperor Moloch

2.21 Ice Queen Domain

2.21.1 The Moat House Area (IC: 1)

2.21.2 The Small Court (IC: 2)

2.21.3 The Dungeon (ICD)

2.21.4 The Training Grounds (IC: 3)

2.21.5 The Grand Hallway (IC: 4)

2.21.6 The Inner Courtyard (IC: 5)

2.21.7 The Frozen Garden (C: 6)

2.21.8 The Prison Section (C: 7)

2.21.9 The Grand Antechamber (C: 8)

2.21.10 The Throne Room (ICT)

2.21.10.1 Ice Queen

2.21.10.1.1 Ice Queen Quests

2.22 Frost Giant Jarl Caves

2.22.1 Haggar

2.23 Random Dungeons

2.23.1 Tome of donors

3. Caverns of Chaos (CoC)

3.1 Early levels

3.2 Arena

3.2.1 20th Arena opponent

3.2.2 Remaining Arena opponents

3.2.3 Dak

3.2.4 Ratling traders

3.2.5 Ratling Rebel

3.2.6 Cats in the Arena

3.3 Big Room

3.4 Si

3.4.1 Si growth

3.5 Dwarftown

3.5.1 Waldenbrook

3.5.2 Ruun

3.5.3 Thrundarr

3.5.3.1 Thrundarr's quests

3.5.3.2 Ogre Cave

3.5.4 Dwarven Mystic

3.5.5 Garth and training

3.5.6 Glod and smithing

3.5.7 Green Griffon Inn

3.5.7.1 Bart

3.5.7.2 Torgall

3.5.8 Demented Ratling

3.5.9 Others

3.6 Animated Forest and Dwarven Halls

3.6.1 Animated Forest

3.6.2 Dwarven Halls

3.6.3 Your choice

3.7 Khelavaster

3.7.1 Saving Khelavaster

3.7.2 Khelavaster's gifts

3.8 CoC Graveyard

3.9 Water Temple

3.9.1 Snake from Beyond

3.10 Banshee

3.11 Wall of flames

3.12 Eternal Guardian

3.13 Casino

3.13.1 Casino winnings

3.13.2 Casino shopkeeper

3.13.3 Big Casino Guard

3.13.4 Strategies for robbing the Casino

3.13.5 Consequences of robbing the Casino

3.14 Shortcut to the surface

3.15 Battle bunnies

3.15.1 Bugs

3.16 Cat Lord

3.17 Air Temple

3.7.1 Yulgash

3.18 Earth Temple

3.18.1 Ancient Stone Beast

3.19 Unreal Caves

3.19.1 Sharad Waador

3.20 Blue Dragon Caves

3.20.1 Srraxxarrakex

3.21 Mana Temple

3.21.1 Nuurag-Vaarn

3.22 D: 48 - Elemental Anomalies

3.22.1 Mana anomaly

3.22.2 Earth anomaly

3.22.3 Water anomaly

3.22.4 Air anomaly

3.22.5 Fire anomaly

3.22.6 Descending

3.23 D: 49 - Frictionless Ice

3.24 D: 50 - Metaplane

3.24.1 Fistanarius

3.24.2 Wands of destruction ending

3.24.3 Wands of door creation / monster creation ending

3.24.4 Paragon of Order

4. Special endings

4.1 Andor Drakon

4.2 Chaos God ending

4.2.1 Requirements

4.2.2 Chaos God ending step by step

4.3 Ultra endings

4.3.1 Trident of the Red Rooster

4.3.1.1 Filk quest

4.3.1.2 Mad Minstrel

4.3.1.3 Crumpled scroll

4.3.1.4 Khelavaster in Terinyo

4.3.2 Avatar of Order ending

4.3.3 Avatar of Balance ending

4.3.4 Ultimate Chaos God ending

4.3.5 Ultra endings step by step

5. Unresolved mysteries

5.1 Kherab's third quest and the reward

5.2 Scroll of Omnipotence

5.3 Red Rooster Inn

5.4 Volcano

5.5 Weird Tome

6. Appendices

Notation for the item Appendices

Appendix A: Wearable items

Appendix B: Weapons

Appendix C: Tools

Appendix D: Wands

Appendix E: Potions

Appendix F: Books and Scrolls

Appendix G: Food

Appendix H: Gems

Appendix I: Unique NPCs

Appendix J: Monsters

Appendix K: Quests

Appendix L: Locations

Appendix M: Artifacts

Appendix N: Wishing

Appendix O: Versions

Appendix P: Abbreviations

Appendix Q: Online resources

Appendix R: Challenge games

Appendix S: Improved keymap

---

Updated March 8th, 2013

Single-file Improved Adom Guidebook

ADOM Introduction

Guidebook Introduction

This guidebook is intended to be a complete (single-file) reference for ADOM and as such contains many spoilers. There is no provision made to protect newer players from spoilers, so if you want to figure out the game for yourself, this guide is not appropriate. Both the original Original Guidebook and the Improved Guidebook were designed so that the content of the ADOM Manual would (mostly) not be repeated. This Single-file Improved Adom Guidebook, however, attempts to bring the manual information together with (much) needed details to help the player enjoy all that suh a complex game as ADOM has to offer.

Keeping an extensive record of all changes made to this guidebook would take just too much time — time that can instead be used to improved and update it. Assume that its information is up to date with the latest version of ADOM, as this is the goal of this version of the guidebook.

Some information still is relative to ADOM versions prior to 1.2. One piece at a time they are being updated, however (e.g. sections about the new classes, such as the Chaos Knight, races, such as Ratling, and locations, such as the Ice Queen Domain or the Random Dungeons).

This project is hosted on github, and aims to become a collaborative effort from the community to keep and update a solid reference to this game that we all love.

• Single-file Improved Adom Guidebook: https://lukems.github.io/Single-file-Improved-Adom-Guidebook
• Github project page: https://github.com/LukeMS/Single-file-Improved-Adom-Guidebook

If you find something in here that is wrong, the github interface should be used to report a bug (and, why not, the correction itself? :)

Single-file Improved Adom Guidebook

0.1 Character creation

There are of course Ancardian day and date effects as well, which are well covered in the ADOM Manual. One Ancardian time effect not mentioned is the fact that the PC's range of sight depends on the time of day on the overworld map and in the wilderness. During the day (which apparently begins around 6h), the PC sees further, and at night (which apparently begins around 20h) the PC's sight is limited to 2 squares on the overworld map, 5 in the wilderness. Terrain, Perception score, whether or not using lit torch(es), necklace of the eye, and the Farsight spell all contribute to the sight range.

Press @ or Ctrl-e to learn Ancardian month, day, and time. You start the game at day 1 of Unicorn, at midnight.

0.1.2 Birth

0.1.2.1 Star sign

1. Raven

   The +10 to Speed is good for all PCs. It can save the life of low level PCs who need to run away from a monster they can't handle. The "messengers will reach you faster" refers to the delivery of the rune-covered trident, which happens faster for those born in this month, at level 16 rather than 36, a nice bonus. The "harder to trick by deceptions" grants resistance to confusion attacks by dopplegangers. The stronger companions characteristic makes this month excellent for Bards. The Raven birthsign gives you a 75% chance to evade a doppleganger's confusion attack.

2. Book

   Lawful tendencies is a weak effect. One free skill increase each level helps all PCs, especially those with low learning. Increased chance to learn spells means borderline casters have a better chance. This is not the ideal month for a Wizard - they are already great at learning spells. More suited to elven fighting classes or a Dwarvish Paladin. The Book birthsign decreases alignment changes towards chaotic by 10%. Book-born characters get an undocumented +3 boost to Learning.

3. Wand

   Here we have the sign for a neutral Wizard. Gray Elven Wizards are ideal with their naturally high Mana and neutral alignment. They are somewhat difficult to keep alive in the early game but become enormously powerful in the mid- and endgame. The Wand birthsign decreases alignment changes towards chaotic by 10%.

4. Unicorn

   Generic sign with resistance to corruption. Pretty attractive for any PC going for an ultra ending, especially an aspiring Avatar of Order. The fact that lawful alignment is difficult to change means such a PC can commit a few chaotic acts and get away with it without becoming a fallen champion. Also nice for an aspiring (ultimate) Chaos God, since crowned chaotics are corrupted more rapidly than others. The Unicorn birthsign reduces corruption by 19% if you are L, by 37% if L+, and increases it by 30% for C-. Due to a bug, it also increases alignment changes towards chaotic by 20%.

5. Salamander

   Very attractive for Elementalists, who rely on a lot of fire magic. Not half bad for a Necromancer who finds some fire-based spellbooks, either. Necromancers need that +3 to Mana.

6. Dragon

   Fighters. The +1 to Toughness is not significant - that is within the variability for the attribute for identical race/class PCs. The -3 to Willpower is significant and makes this unattractive for those who need it in the early game - Wizards, Mindcrafters. Not a bad month for Paladins with both weapon and combat magic costs reduced.

7. Sword

   Learning bonus is insignificant, although it can push a PC from illiterate to literate. The 20% reduction in cost to train melee weapon skills makes this attractive for a PC that really wants to become super-proficient with a weapon. Not a bad choice for Rangers who start the game dual wielding swords.

8. Falcon

   Grants the Survival skill to any character. This skill is generally considered as being of little use (see section 0.4). The Willpower bonus is somewhat useful for spellcasters and Mindcrafters, although better starsigns exist for those classes. The Charisma bonus is of little significance for any character, with the possible exception of Bards, Necromancers and male Merchants. The free talent is good for all PCs, especially for gnomish and hurthling Bards, as it guarantees them both a very useful Heir gift and the possibility to go for the Treasure Hunter talent.

9. Cup

   Another sign for Wizards. Higher Learning to start and the 10% reduction to gain a level means they advance rapidly, which is very helpful in keeping them alive at low level. The 20% effectivity increase in learning spells also helps keep them alive in the early game, while the player has not had time to raise their Learning score.

10. Candle

    This can be an unbelievable sign for Trolls. They heal rapidly anyway, but those born in this month almost don't need the Healing skill! Almost. Get it and they seem to have natural regeneration. Playing a trollish Healer born in this month is almost cheating. ;-) Candle-born characters are guaranteed to heal 2 hitpoints every 12 turns.

11. Wolf

    Significant benefits to Perception and Willpower. The Willpower is good for Wizards and Mindcrafters, of course. Races that start with lower Perception include Dwarves, Orcs and of course Trolls.

12. Tree

    Made for Mindcrafters, who really need that +5 to Willpower in the early game. Not bad for Wizards either. The Tree birthsign reduces all alignment changes by 10%.
    As of v1.2.0, Tree also gets +2 To and +1 PV.

The Candle starsign is by far the best for any character, with Raven being the distant second. The Candle healing effect is great for everyone and it is better than the Healing skill at 100. Raven's speed bonus allows all characters to outrun most opponents. The effects of other starsigns are utterly negligible when compared to Raven and especially Candle.

0.1.2.2 Special birth messages

• The night you were born....
  ...the local undead were seen packing up and moving away.
  It means that your character will gain (or is born with?) the "natural enemy of undead" intrinsic. This makes undead flee from you periodically. This also means you always slay undead in melee - same effect as !Unde weapons.

• ...your long lost brother showed up.
  Greater chance of special locations generated in dungeons (hives, shops, pools, etc).

• ...a two headed calf was born.
  10% less experience points are required for an experience level increase.

• ...a falling star killed the village elder.
  10% less experience points are required for an experience level increase.

0.1.3 Sex

0.1.4 Race and class

The classes and races as described in the ADOM Manual are presented below, covering a bit of background about each (much of which is flavor, with little relevance in terms of gameplay). Skills and class powers are also mentioned. More detailed (and accurate) information concerning racial and class skills, alignment and other aspects is provided after that.

• 0.1.4.1 Specific starting trained skills and alignments
• 0.1.4.1.1 Race-specific starting alignment and trained skills
• 0.1.4.1.2 Class-specific starting trained skills
• 0.1.4.2 Class powers
• 0.1.4.3 Starting attributes
• 0.1.4.3.1 Race starting attributes
• 0.1.4.3.2 Class starting attributes
• 0.1.4.4 Lifespans
• 0.1.4.5 Description and special considerations
• 0.1.4.5.1 The Races
• 0.1.4.5.2 The Classes
• 0.1.4.5.2.1 Bonuses for Beastfighters and Monks
• 0.1.4.5.2.2 Elementalists spell charges
• 0.1.4.6 Race-specific starting companions
• 0.1.4.7 Class-specific starting items

0.1.4.1 Specific starting trained skills and alignment

Each race has unique characteristics including initial alignment, trained skills and modifiers to attributes. Skills in ADOM vary in terms of availability. All PCs are born with Climbing [1dDx + 1d10 + 20], First Aid [1dLe + 1d10 + 15], Haggling [1dCh + 1d10 + 15], and Listening [1dPe + 1d10 + 20].

All PCs other than Beastfighters and Barbarians with a Learning score of 10 or greater are born with Literacy [Le*4]. Many skills can be taught or trained by various NPCs during the game. Other skills are much more difficult to obtain if the PC is not born with them. Skills other than Alertness and Healing can be wished for. Any skill can be obtained from a potion of education, but this is a matter of random chance and cannot be counted on. Skills available only from wishes or potions of education are referred to as "Nonguaranteed Skills" for the sake of the tables below.

The first table shows the starting alignment and trained skills [starting value] that each race is born with. For all starting values, please consider 1dx as 1dx-1, ie generating a random number between 0 and x-1. So 1d5+5 means a value between 5 and 9. Consider ydx (y > 1) normally.

Lawful alignment is +2000, neutral is 0, and chaotic -2000. This is then modified by class: Druids have alignment set to 0, Necromancers get -1500 and Healers get +1000.

A table similar to that above showing the trained skills each class is born with:

[1] Bards never get: Necromancy, Bridge Building, Tactics, Law, Courage. Every other skill (except Music) has 25% chance, with starting value of [1d20 + 15].

[2] If specializing in potions, then Alchemy [1dLe], else if specializing in scrolls then Literacy [1d20 + 30] else (wands or rings) Survival [1d20 + 20].

Falcon birthsign increases Survival by 10, or grants Survival at 10 if there was no Survival by race or class.

The manual also states that Bards get more skills than other classes. Testing does not agree with this. What the manual fails to mention is the two free skill advances per level Bards receive. This is useful for races that have low initial Learning scores, such as Orcs and Trolls.

There are definite effects on gameplay depending on the alignment, skills and birthsign the PC is born with. Note that none of the races is born with the Healing skill; it is entirely class-dependent. Nine classes are born with Healing. It is essential to obtain this skill (except for those born under Candle). This means that those without it must choose Rynt's quest as opposed to Guth'Alak's in Terinyo, whether they intend to actually obtain the skill from Jharod or Kranf Niest. This puts restrictions on the game right away, since the Keethrax quest and thus a guaranteed artifact and potion of cure corruption are forfeited before the game even starts. Further, three races start with chaotic alignment. If the PC wants to receive Healing from Jharod, thus avoiding Kranf Niest's attribute drains, alignment must be changed to neutral (or lawful).

Note also that no race starts with Herbalism, the other skill available through a Terinyo quest. If the player wants maximum flexibility - to do either Rynt's or Guth'Alak's quest, or neither (in the case of a minimalist challenge game) - choose a class that starts with Healing, Herbalism, or ideally both, such as a Beastfighter, Druid, Healer, Priest, Ranger or Wizard.

If there is a skill that is difficult to obtain that you cannot live without, such as Alertness, play a Dark Elf or Drakeling, or choose a class that is born with it - Archers, Healers, Monks, Rangers and Thieves all start with this skill. Many players feel similarly about Detect Item Status - play Priests or a Merchant for a challenge.

A PC that trains a given skill due to both race and class will be especially proficient with that skill. This makes certain combinations especially powerful. Dwarven Weaponsmiths (doubly trained Metallurgy and Smithing), Hurthling Archers (doubly trained Archery), Hurthling Farmers (doubly trained Archery, Cooking, Food Preservation, Gardening, Stealth) and Dark Elven Rangers (doubly trained Alertness and Climbing) are examples.

0.1.4.2 Class powers

The ADOM Manual contains a list of the classes along with their characteristics and class powers. The below well-arranged table is presented here for better comparisons:

[1] Can be ANY skill, and does not have the restrictions imposed on character creation. Bards gain 1d20 + 20 in those skills.

[2] Stolen items must have at least 10 value.

[3] Trains St by (Level*5)-155)*4, Dx by (Level*5)-155), and To by ((Level*3)-93)*10.

[4] Shadow Touch will regain HP first; if maxed, it will regain PP instead. PP Gained is DamageDealt / 2, HP Gained is DamageDealt / 3. There is DamageDealt/1000 chance to get +1 Mana. If 1d10000-1 < damage dealt, you gain 1 Mana.

[5] Also receives only 1/3 of drowning damage.

[6] Melting ability is determined by the weight of what you're melting down as far as how many ingots you'll get. This means for example ultra-heavy armors are especially nice for melting down. Blessed hammer + blessed metal = 9:1000 (9 ingots for 1000 stones); B+U = 8,1:1000; B+C = 6,3:1000; U+U = 7,2:1000; U+C = 5,6:1000; C+C = 4,4:1000. Failing a Smithing roll halves the amount you get.

[7] If monster Level<50 and monster not unique: (50-moblevel)*2 / 1000 chance for instant kill.

[8] If monster not unique, and (monster is humanoid but not undead/construct), and (monster size < 3 or Monk Level >= 40): (50-moblevel)*2 / 1000 chance for instant kill.

0.1.4.3 Starting attributes

Additionally, Hurthlings get a special *0.8 bonus to Xp requirement, Gnomes even better *0.75 bonus, Humans *0.86 bonus. Trolls get a *2.5 penalty.

Higher Xp number means more experience is required to advance a level.

The ADOM Manual gives some hints about race/class combinations. For instance, the manual identifies Trolls as the strongest, toughest and stupidest race in the game and suggests that they make good fighters (because of their Strength and Toughness) and lousy magicians (because of their low Learning and Mana). This is true as far as it goes, but Trollish Wizards can be a viable combination if they are played more as fighters to start and later develop their magical talents. Elves make fantastic Wizards (due to their high Learning and Mana) once they gain some experience, but are difficult to keep alive in the early game because of their low Toughness. Humans are a jack of all trades race and can be used with all classes. Some combinations favored by newsgroup readers:

• Trollish Beastfighters and Barbarians - brute force fighters
• Gnomish Elementalists - magic users with more Toughness than elves
• Elven Archers - natural talent with bows
• Elven Wizards - high Mana and Learning
• Dwarven Weaponsmiths - natural smithing talent
• Hurthling Archers - natural talent with thrown rocks

Classes and combinations that are regarded as difficult:

• Farmers
• Merchants, especially Dark Elven Merchants because of their low Charisma and Toughness
• Necromancers in general are very difficult to keep alive at low levels

Press B to determine your age and age category. You can start the game as either young or grownup. The age category has definite effects on your attribute scores, listed in the effects fields. Generally, you lose Strength, Toughness, Appearance, and Perception with age. On the other hand, you gain Learning, Willpower, and Mana. During normal game, you naturally age very slowly, and this should almost never become any problem. However, undead attacks may unnaturally change your age and age category very quickly, depending on race. Use potions of youth to reverse the effects of unnatural aging. Potions of longevity increase your max age. Beware of cursed potions of youth and longevity though - they may result in an immediate death of old age.

0.1.4.5 Descriptions and special considerations

The following playable races are available in ADOM (since v1.2.0):

• Dark Elf
• Drakeling
• Dwarf
• Gnome
• Gray Elf
• High Elf
• Human
• Hurthling
• Mist Elf
• Orc
• Ratling
• Troll

Dark Elves

Alertness is an often sought after skill that cannot be wished for; players may choose either a dark elf, drakeling or mist elf to get the skill if their chosen class doesn't have it. Similarly, Find weakness is a crucial skill for PCs that rely on missile and/or melee combat a lot; players that want to make use of the skill may choose a dark elf or orc if the PC's class doesn't offer it. Stealth is also somewhat useful, whereas Climbing is guaranteed anyway.

Like all elves, dark elves have excellent Dexterity and Mana. They have average dexterity scores as high as those of high elves, and average mana scores (at least!) as high as those of gray elves.

Most dark elves also have very high Willpower and Perception, and better-than-average Appearance; though they are generally not as intelligent, perceptive or attractive as the other elves.

On the negative side, dark elves typically have below average Strength and Toughness, and terrible Charisma scores. They tend to be slightly weaker, but slightly tougher, than high or gray elves.

Whilst dark elves come well prepared for some professions (particularly combat-orientated ones) with elven chain mail, dark elves of other classes such as Thief or Barbarian start with barely any armor. Dark elven Beastfighters are notably well prepared — wearing Spider shell armor.

A number of classes start with the dark elves' missile weapon of choice, a hand crossbow and dark elven quarrels. Although relatively powerful, dark elven quarrels generally see little use as they get smashed very easily.

Dark elves never carry torches, regardless of profession.

Dark elves start out at 110-160 (100 + 10d6) years old and die at 1210-1300 (1200 + 10d10) years old. Whilst they don't live as long as other elves, they still have extremely long lifespans; thus are generally safe from the aging attacks of undead creatures.

Like other elves, dark elves have high power point regeneration rates and lower-than-average hit point regeneration rates.

The diabolical demeanor of dark elves makes them pariahs amongst some of the other races in ADOM. Dark elven PCs suffer very harsh penalties from dwarven shopkeepers, and are also disliked by human and elven shopkeepers (save for fellow dark elves). This makes buying and selling particularly difficult for dark elves since they will receive terrible deals from Waldenbrook in Dwarftown and even worse than usual prices in the Casino; which generally serve as the main store and the biggest source of valuable items, respectively, in the game.

On the other hand, other races aren't too bothered by dark elves; shopkeepers of chaotic races, i.e trolls, orcs and fellow dark elves, tend to do good deals with dark elven PCs.

Dark elves have a particularly bizarre relationship with spiders. Although dark elves worship spiders and some dark elven NPCs summon them as familiars, dark elves also love to eat them. Whilst dark elves don't share the eating habits of the other chaotic races, orcs and trolls, they are the only race that can eat spider corpses without vomitting or becoming poisoned. They are also the only race that enjoy eating spider bread (particularly cursed loaves!).

Spiders: Not only do dark elves like to eat spiders, but also if a dark elven PC is caught in a web and covered by "hundreds of tiny spiders", he/she won't be bitten and thus won't get poisoned (instead, the message "You welcome your spidery friends." is generated after the spiders swarm).

Night vision: Unlike most other races, dark elves' line of sight increases in the nighttime and decreases during the daytime.

Daylight penalties: In open areas (wilderness, Terinyo, bandit village, etc) dark elves get -8 penalty to perception and minor penalties to melee and missile to-hit (seems to be dependable on weapon type, in general ~-4 for melee and -8 for missiles). This was implemented in r51.

When choosing a race-class combination, dark elves have a number of points of interest - their skillset, their dexterity and their magical power.

They are natural Archers, making use of Find weakness and their excellent dexterity; however, they may want to practise with another type of missile weapon since dark elven quarrels are hard to keep. They are almost guaranteed to have very good or excellent scores in both mana and dexterity; meaning that many classes - particularly Monks or Paladins - can become effective missile users and at least semi-casters, for greater flexibility in combat. Their guaranteed knowledge of Alertness and Find weakness is very useful for classes that lack one or both of these skills - e.g. Barbarians, Beastfighters, Priests and all casting-orientated classes (though Necromancers have Find weakness, but not Alertness).

Overall, dark elves are generally a good choice for players that are not looking for tank-like melee fighters like trollish or orcish Barbarians, but PCs that perhaps have at least some potential in all three modes of combat, and lack important skills like Find weakness and/or Alertness.

Drakelings

Alertness is a particularly desirable skill, and one unavailable from wishes; the other three skills are quite useful as well.

Drakelings on average begin with above average Strength, Willpower, and Toughness, while being slightly below average at Dexterity, Appearance, and Perception. Their above average toughness helps with early-game survival, although none of their attributes are tilted so strongly in either direction as to make them a poor choice for any class.

Drakelings often start with very poor starting equipment. They rarely start with armor, but occasionally start with bracers of defense/bracers of protection or a ring of protection.

Drakeling lifespan is similar to that of Humans, leaving them without the concerns that some of the extremely short-lived races have at dealing with aging attacks, but also without the protection that the elven races have.

Drakelings have above-average health regeneration (only worse than Troll) and slightly below-average power point regeneration.

Drakelings receive fair prices from shopkeepers from all races, though they suffer a small penalty from High Elves, Grey Elves, Dwarves and Orcs. Curiously, Drakeling shopkeepers do not reciprocate, and offer somewhat poor prices to all non-drakeling races, and significant penalties to the usual suspects, Orcs and Dark Elves.

Drakelings have average eating habits, except for the fact that they are one of the few races that enjoy eating raw meat (as well as Orcs and Trolls). They vomit after eating rats, fat worms and cooked roaches, and refuse to eat doppelgangers unless starving.

The drakeling breath attack is invoked by the m key and is similar to that provided by the sulphuric breath corruption but a bit weaker. It always hits (though is subject to DV and acid resistance: it damages if 1d(Level+10)+Dx > MonstersDV+3), its damage scales with the PC's level (Max(2, Level/3)d6 + (Level/2) damage, ~1.7*Lvl), and has a maximum range equals to Str/4. If the damage dealt is greater than that needed to kill the target, the remaining damage is then applied to any monster behind it, and this continues until the total damage to be dealt has been completely expended.

Messages related to acid spit can be misleading — a monster that is "nearly hit" still takes damage. Only messages about the foe resisting or their defenses not being penetrated mean that no damage has been done. Since tactics have no effect on acid breath, setting tactics to 'Coward' while using it against any dangerous enemy is highly recommended.

It can be very useful, particularly in the early game, to deal with enemies that a new PC may not have any other way of dealing with. Notably, it provides guaranteed damage against vortices (except acid vortices), doppelgangers, and claw bugs, which can otherwise be significant hazards to various classes at various stages of the game.

Spitting depletes satiation (5d10+50, ~80 food points per spit) — which means it retains its utility until the end of the game as a way of allowing PCs to lower their satiation and eat more beneficial corpses without having to worry about carrying stomacemptia. A PC can only starve to death by using acid breath if they are starving when they use the ability. It does not appear to be influenced by effects that reduce food consumption, such as the Monk or Farmer class abilities.

At least one player has won a game using acid spit as their only source of damage.

There are few truly poor classes to play as a Drakeling. Their balanced stats, excellent skills, and racial acid spit ability offer something for nearly every class. They are popular for difficult classes such as Farmers, Mindcrafters, and Thieves, which benefit considerably from having an early projectile attack to deal with early threats as well as high toughness. Drakelings make excellent Fighters, Paladins, and Chaos Knights — since, in addition to their other benefits, Drakelings have excellent starting gear in these classes. For example, Drakeling Paladins start with a respectable scale armor, as well as three random weapons — which may include weapons made of mithril, a crystal dagger, a powerful bloody dagger, a pickaxe, or even (on extraordinarily rare occasions) the scorched spear.

Drakelings are not penalized in Learning, Willpower, or Mana, so they make passable spellcasters as well. Drakelings are notably powerful Monks, as their stats and acid breath are well suited to surviving the otherwise troublesome early game, and their generally poor equipment is meaningless with a class that receives none.

Cold-bloodedness: Drakelings are particularly vulnerable to temperatures; cold temperatures cause their speed to drop precipitously, while warm temperatures increase their speed but eventually at the cost of taking damage.

Drakelings in the Tower of Eternal Flames should prepare to take continual damage even if they are immune to fire; however, they have the advantage (or, for those concerned about XP, the disadvantage) of extremely high speed. Extra healing herbs or potions will be needed unless the PC has equipment conferring regeneration. Characters will also experience great heat if they deal with lots of fire breathing creatures - especially in greater or lesser vaults of red dragons, though entering these areas is optional anyway.

Cold blood can be very useful to characters with Alchemy: protecting themselves with fire resistance and creating a series of alchemical explosions by mixing herbs can boost speed up to around 200. This technique can be used before anticipated difficult engagements, i.e. visiting the Ancient Stone Circle, elemental temples or even fighting Andor Drakon. It should be noted, that the speed boost will have a (big)negative effect on gained experience.

Drakelings subjected to cold temperatures, for instance from white dragons, on Ice Queen Domain or on D: 49, will find that their speed drops so low they are essentially unable to function. Offensive alchemy or the Improved Fireball spell may be used to quickly warm them up and get their speed back to normal. Drastically reduced speed, however, can be used to gain extra experience (if you survive).

As noted, the drakeling acid spit attack depletes satiation. Thus players who intend to use this ability regularly should plan to bring extra food with them, and should err on the side of being satiated rather than hungry.

Dwarves

Detect Traps is of most use to PCs whose class does not offer it — as traps that are detected are much easier to avoid. Mining is also useful for harvesting gems, and reducing risk of pickaxes breaking for such PCs that depend on them for digging. Whilst Dwarves are the only race to practise Smithing, it can be learned by all PCs within the game anyway; many players might not even bother with it due to how difficult the skill is to use.

Dwarves are usually strong and very tough. Their other stats are not tilted heavily in either direction; typically their Learning and Willpower is slightly above average, but their Dexterity is slightly below average. While they aren't excellent at archery or learning spells, they aren't bad either.

Dwarves tend to be well equipped, with many classes starting with a full set of metal and/or leather armor. Dwarven Paladins are notable for being very heavily armored, with their starting armor granting them 10-26 PV depending on the luck of the dice. They favor axes as their starting weapon, and Archers start with an impressive heavy crossbow as their missile weapon of choice.

Dwarves start out at 55-70 (50 + 5d4) years old and die at 410-500 (400 + 10d10) years old. Thus, their long lifespans mean that they have huge deal of protection against unnatural aging.

Dwarves have slightly higher than average HP regeneration rates, but very slow PP regeneration. This poses considerable concern for Dwarves using spells, or particularly mindcraft since at least magic can be cast from HP (which dwarves tend to have quite a lot of) in emergencies.

Dwarves' law-abiding but haughty nature attracts a small number of friends and a lot of enemies in Ancardia. Their friends are fellow Dwarves, Gnomes and Hurthlings — with which races they do great trading deals with. Their nemesis is the Orcish race — Dwarves and Orcs both do very harsh trading deals with each other. High Elven and Grey Elven shopkeepers are prejudiced against Dwarves, whilst Dwarves themselves are extremely prejudiced against Dark Elves.

Dwarves are the fussiest eaters in ADOM. Like most other races, they vomit after eating rats, fat worms and cooked roaches, and refuse to eat doppelgangers unless starving. Being a racial enemy, they may not eat orcs of any kind unless starving (the message "No self-respecting dwarf would do that!" is usually generated when trying to eat an orc). They also refuse to eat fellow dwarves unless they are starving.

Mithril skin: Only Dwarves can get the talent 'Mithril Skin', which permanently adds 3 to their PV score. This is the only talent in the game with a racial requirement.

Dungeon sight: Dwarves tend to find secret doors and tunnels quicker than other races.

Racial crowning gift: Dwarves may be crowned with Hammerhead instead of the usual crowning gifts for their class.

Extra piety from sacrificing gold: Dwarven gods especially prize gold. This, combined with a guaranteed dwarf shopkeeper, means that Dwarves may accumulate piety much faster than other races through selling items and sacrificing gold.

A few other small gameplay effects also apply for Dwarves, such as being able to read the runes on Griff Bloodax's grave. It is rumored that Dwarves also have a better chance than other races of obtaining the artifact Rolf's Saviour.

Dwarves are typically strong and tough and thus are suited to fighting classes such as Fighters, Paladins, Monks and Barbarians. They are a very popular choice for Weaponsmiths, due to their natural smithing talents. While they do not possess great magical talents, their mental and magical stats are much better than those of Orcs and Trolls; together with their good physical stats, this makes Dwarven mages potent at balancing both average magical abilities with (at least) average chances of survival.

Gray Elves

Gray elves train in Dodge, Listening, Literacy and Stealth; thus, they offer identical skillsets to high elves. Racially granted literacy means any PC that doesn't meet the required learning score of 10 (including Barbarians and Beastfighters) will still be able to read and write (probably not very well, though). Dodge and Stealth are somewhat useful to all PCs.

They tend towards excellent Mana scores and very high Learning scores, making them generally very good at learning and casting spells. Gray elves also have stellar Appearance scores and, like other elves, very high Dexterity and Perception. On the downside gray elves usually have very low Toughness scores, and low Charisma scores (although this stat is a lot less important).

Gray elves are typically very well equipped. Most melee-orientated classes start out with elven chain mail, which helps to compensate their low endurance.

They have extremely long lifespans, surpassing even those of dark elves and high elves. They are usually very safe from the effects of unnatural ageing.

Gray elves regenerate power points very quickly, but regenerate hit points slowly compared to most other races.

They are hated by their evil cousins and disliked by trolls and orcs, whilst gray elven shopkeeper display similar prejudices towards those races. Gray elves' only friends in Ancardia are fellow gray elves, and high elves.

Due to their high Mana and Learning scores, gray elves are a popular choice for magic-orientated PCs. They make very powerful Wizards, although gray elven Wizards are not the easiest PCs to keep alive in the early game due to their low HP and Toughness. They are also good Archers, due to their high Dexterity and good starting equipment. Paladin is also a respectable class choice for gray elven PCs, as the class offers good boosts to their physical stats and a typically decent casting potential that gray elves can greatly improve.

High Elves

High Elves have great Dx and Ap; good Pe, Le, and Ma; and tend to suffer somewhat in St, To, Wi, and Ch.

High Elves are very well equipped, often wearing Elven chain mail, with a bow and arrows equipped.

Like all elves, high elves have very long lifespans, the third longest after mist elves and gray elves. High Elves start the game at 160 to 250 (150 + 10d10) and die at 1510 to 1900 (1500 + 10d40), making them effectively immune to aging attacks.

High Elves have above average power regeneration, but are slightly penalized in hit point regeneration. This penalty can be alleviated by eating Troll corpses and drinking potions of troll blood.

High Elves have better relations with the other races than the manual would lead you to believe, but they are penalized when dealing with shopkeepers of chaotic races, namely dark elven, trollish and orcish shopkeepers. They get reasonable deals from Waldenbrook.

Food such as rats, fat worm and cooked roaches make them vomit; but aside from doppelgangers, there is nothing that they refuse to eat.

High Elves are quite versatile, though their low Toughness is not well-suited to a "tank"-type melee fighter. Given their amazing Dx, Archer, Thief, and Assassin are naturals. They also make good spellcasters, especially with semi-caster classes, such as Healer or Paladin. As they always start with the Literacy skill, this is one way to play a Barbarian who can read. High Elves may require a little bit more finesse than other stronger, tougher races when playing a melee class. Use your Dexterity to soften up your enemies with missile, then use hit and run tactics, as your slightly superior Speed should allow. If you have Backstabbing, remember to avoid using a light source — it will nullify your Stealth ability.

Humans

Humans have rather average attributes, but they do usually have a good Learning, meaning that they often start with Literacy. Background, Gender, Star signs and Talents can have a stronger relative effect on Humans' attributes, pushing them into either below average or above average territory. Human attribute potentials tend to be rather generous, though a low starting score often translates to an equally low maximum potential.

Humans are one of the better-equipped races, starting with torches, a complete outfit of leather or metal armor, a shield, and a sword. Of particular note, Human Barbarians start with an amulet of luck.

While they don't have the long lives of some other races, Humans are generally safe from lesser undead, such as ghost bats and ghosts. Care should be taken around more powerful undead, as a single aging attack could advance you to near-death or even death, if you're unlucky. Humans start out at 16-36 (12 + 4d6) years old and have a lifespan of 50-120 (40 + 10d8) years.

Unsurprisingly, Humans are rather average in their hit point and power point regeneration rate, receiving neither bonuses nor penalties to either.

Humans tend to be tolerated by other races and to tolerate other races. This means that Human adventurers will often get good deals from merchants, though they do suffer a slight penalty from Dwarves. Human shopkeepers penalize Dark Elves but suffer few other prejudices.

Surprisingly, even lawful humans don't mind eating other humans. Food such as rats, fat worm and roaches make them vomit; but aside from doppelgangers, there is nothing that they refuse to eat.

Humans are decent at every class. Though their attributes lack of the brute power of trolls or the magical affinity of elves, they suffer none of the disadvantages, like the manual points out. With their rapid leveling, Humans can take advantage of class powers earlier than some other races. Starting equipment is frequently good, though they do lack anything as amazing as Elven chain mail. Unfortunately, humans compare rather unfavourably to drakelings, who have the same skills as well as the very powerful Alertness skill, and a generally more favourable attribute distribution.

Hurthlings

Food preservation is useful for all PCs as it increases chances of corpse drops — which is useful since many corpses have desirable effects, such as those of blink dogs and giant slugs. Cooking is useful for hurthlings since their deities like cooked food as sacrifices. Their other skills are somewhat useful as well; though Gardening's use is restricted by the rarity of herb seeds, and Archery doesn't give a lot of bonuses to non-Archers (but still better than none).

Hurthlings are extremely dexterous, and surprisingly tough. In contrast to their toughness, however, hurthlings tend to have very bad Strength scores; which is somewhat odd seeing as all other classes are either high or low in both strength and toughness. Hurthlings also tend towards poor Mana scores; which can make them tricky to play as some classes, seeing as they typically are neither outstanding fighters nor mages.

Like Gnomes, hurthlings tend to pack light and always bring torches. Hurthlings always pack extra food, and a cooking set. They tend to be lightly armored and generally poorly equipped for combat, with the exception of Paladins. Since hurthlings are more suited to ranged attacks, a number of classes pack missiles — usually a sling and rocks, but sometimes a bow and arrows; notably, assassins start out with a rare boomerang.

Furthermore, all hurthlings have a unique problem — they start with a random cursed ring equipped (yet another reference to J.R.R Tolkien's "The Hobbit"). Hurthlings are the only PCs that can — and always will — start off with a cursed item. This can be particularly problematic if it is a ring of damage.

Hurthlings have similar lifespans to humans; albeit slightly longer. They start out at 26-45 (25 + 2d10) years old and die at 81-120 (80 + 10d4) years old. Whilst not as safe from unnatural aging as elves or gnomes, hurthlings still have a lot more protection against it than orcs and trolls.

Hurthlings have average HP generation rates, and slightly lower than average PP generation rates.

Despite the manual saying that hurthlings shun and mistrust outsiders, they are by far one of the most popular and unassuming races in Ancardia (along with ratlings). Hurthling adventurers are liked by human, elven, dwarven and gnomish shopkeepers. Hurthling shopkeepers appear to have no racial prejudices at all.

Like most other playable races hurthlings vomit after eating rats, fat worms and cooked roaches, and refuse to eat doppelgangers unless starving. Hurthlings also refuse to eat black hurthlings (the message "You wouldn't eat a member of your own race...even if it was evil!" is usually generated).

Champion rock throwers: Hurthlings have a huge advantage over other races in throwing rocks — they start at an incredible level four in the weapons class (five for archers). They are also extremely proficient with slings, and need approximately only 66% of the usually required marks to advance levels in it.

Level advancement: Hurthlings require less experience per level to advance in level than most other races (i.e. all others but gnomes).

Talented: Hurthlings receive an extra starting talent (another trait they share with gnomes).

Dislike for shoes: On the negative side, hurthlings receive a -2 penalty to Dexterity whilst they are wearing anything in the boots slot.

Extra piety from cooked food: Hurthlings receive an extra bonus to their piety while sacrificing cooked food. This is particularly advantageous since all hurthlings start with a cooking set, and that cooked corpses from summoned monsters can be sacrificed, making it very easy for hurthlings to accumulate piety.

Hurthlings' excellent dexterity and natural ability in throwing rocks makes them excellent Archers — particularly in the early game, where they can easily overcome most opponents by throwing rocks at them. Their talents in archery also makes them good Assassins. Also, they can make good monks and somewhat good beastfighters — since what they lack in strength they make up for in fast levelling and toughness.

With low strength and magical abilities, hurthlings are a race that typically aren't jacks of all trades. However, with enough persistence — especially since PCs with extremely low starting scores can quite easily train them — they can become quite respectable fighters as well as missile users.

Gnomes

Gnomes are the only race that are guaranteed Pick pockets and Ventriloquism; Pick pockets can easily be obtained by PCs that are neither lawful nor aspiring Paragons of Order, though. Gemology and mining can be put to good use to generate a source of both income and Learning (through blessed gems of knowledge), provided the PC has a pickaxe. Ventriloquism is a somewhat rare skill that can be sometimes put to good use; however, the skill is generally hard to advance, even for gnomish PCs that also practise it in their profession.

Whilst most gnomes have roughly average stats, gnomes typically have very impressive Mana scores and good Dexterity. Whilst gnomes are not as nimble and often not quite as magically adept as elves, they tend to be considerably tougher — making gnomes a popular choice for magic-orientated PCs.

Gnomes tend to incur minor penalties to Strength and Willpower, and tend to be slightly less intelligent than humans; otherwise, their stats are typically well balanced and they tend to have surprisingly good Charisma scores.

Like humans and hurthlings, all gnomes come prepared with some torches and an adequate supply of fuel. Gnomes otherwise tend to pack light — typically starting out with leather armor (although gnomish Paladins start out wearing chain mail) and a light weapon. Some gnomes — such as Fighters and Priests — also start out with a small shield to compliment their defensive fighting styles.

Gnomes start out at 85-135 (75+10d6) years old and die at 610-800 (600+10d20) years old. They have the longest lifespan of the non-elven races, and thus have a large degree of resistance against unnatural ageing.

Gnomes have somewhat high power point regeneration rates, and average hit point regeneration rates.

Despite their dark sense of humor, gnomes appear to be relatively popular in the world of Ancardia. Gnomish shopkeepers seem to unassuming, and don't generally do very mean deals with any race. Gnomish PCs are equally treated well by shopkeepers; they receive excellent deals from gnomish shopkeepers (obviously), and they also receive relatively good deals from dwarves.

Gnomes start off Neutral, though Class and Star sign can affect this.

Level advancement: Gnomes require less experience to increase in level than other races — receiving roughly a 25% discount on required experience per level for their profession.

Whilst being able to raise levels quickly is almost always a good thing, it may be of some concern to PCs that are trying to get through the Small Cave safely. Also, the PC might reach level 16 perhaps more quickly than desired, i.e before clearing the Pyramid — meaning they may have to attempt to defeat Rehetep without adequate time to prepare, or just abandon the Pyramid completely.

Gnomes require roughly 25% less marks per skill level to raise their skill with Crossbows than the other races.

Gnomes start with one extra Talent. They share this racial ability with hurthlings.

Food such as rats, fat worm and cooked roaches make them vomit; but aside from doppelgangers, there is nothing that they refuse to eat.

When choosing a race-class combination, gnomes have a number of points of interest — their fast level advancement, their high Mana scores and their relatively good Toughness (particularly for a magically adept race).

Gnomes are natural Elementalists — due to their magical abilities and fast level advancement (meaning they gain more spells quickly). Their ability to quickly gain levels also makes them notable Beastfighters and Monks. Their high Mana combined with one guaranteed extra talent means that gnomes are often eligible for a Heir gift - which is particularly beneficial for Thieves, Healers, Bards and Mindcrafters (their typically mediocre Willpower limits their ability at mindcraft, though; but their ability to quickly gain levels somewhat makes up for this).

Gnomes can do well at any class centred around casting. Alternatively, players may chose gnomes to be Archers due to their racial affinity with crossbows and their semi-casting potential.

Mist Elves

Mist elves train in Alertness, Concentration, Dodge, Literacy, Necromancy and Stealth. They will practise White necromancy if lawful or neutral, or usual (black) necromancy otherwise.

For those who are interested in using white necromancy, mist elven PCs are the only ones that have this skill. Alertness is a very desirable skill for many players that can't be wished for, so they might choose either a mist elf, drakeling or dark elf if the PC's class doesn't offer it. Guaranteed Concentration and Literacy combined with their magical talents means that almost any mist elf — with the exception of mindcrafters — can have some potential to learn and cast spells. Stealth and Dodge are also useful skills to have.

Mist elves are in spirit what trolls are in body. They have unbelievably high Appearance, stellar Mana, and excellent Learning scores. Their magical powers greatly surpass those of gray and dark elves, which were the most magically orientated races up to v. 1.1.1. Like their distant elven relatives, they also have very high Dexterity and Perception scores.

On the downside, mist elves have by far the lowest racial HP gains per level; the player would be lucky to play a mist elf that has over 40 HP at level 10. This makes traps and vortices (if lacking the right elemental resistances) potentially fatal for a long part of the early game. Mist elves tend towards terrible Strength and Toughness scores. Like other elves, they also tend towards low Charisma scores.

Due to their allergy to iron and steel, mist elves often start out with mithril items — making them often better equipped than other races. Many classes focused on melee are excellently equipped, with elven chain mail, mithril boots and mithril weapons. Classes that usually wear robes or clothes anyway don't get any special advantages, though, as mist elves have no objection to starting work wearing these.

Mist Elves start at an average of 7,000 years of age. Testing with wishes for 'death' reveal an average of 63800 for regular Mist Elves, and closer to 70,000 for those who are 'long lived'.

As might be expected, mist elves regenerate power points extremely quickly but regenerate hit points very slowly. A potion of insight reveals the rates to be about 80 turns for hit points and about 15 turns for power points.

Mist elves are outsiders in Ancardia, and they appear to be hated by all shopkeepers. Mist elven shopkeeper likewise make terrible deals with adventurers of all races.

Mist elves have a unique problem — 'impure metal' causes their skin to burn, meaning they will lose hit points at each turn for each impure metal item they have equipped. The amount of damage depends on the type of item: one hit point for amulets, bracers or gloves; two hit points for boots, headgear or weapon; five for body armor. Impure metal refers to any item made of iron (ironically, since iron is a naturally occurring element) or steel. Since mist elves are an extremely frail race, it is definitely not a good idea to have iron-based items equipped for too long or at all; the PC should certainly have some means of uncursing handy when equip-IDing items.

Mist elves can wield weapons and shields made of iron without being harmed, provided they are wearing gauntlets. Of course wearing iron-made gauntlets will cause damage themselves. Likewise the damage from iron girdles is prevented by body armor. Mist elves can also wear one ring made of iron without taking damage.

It is worth noting that with the Immune to Pain talent, the damage from wearing only one amulet, or a pair of gloves or bracers is completely negated; this allows the mist elf to wear an iron-made item like an amulet of life saving, which would otherwise end up taking the elf's life as well as saving it, for example. Unfortunately there is no way for a mist elf to wear iron headgear or body armor without taking any damage.

Mist armor: Mist elves seem to take half the usual damage from melee attacks.

Racial crowning gift: Mist elves can be crowned with the Staff of Creation instead of the usual crowning gifts for their class.

Having only a very slight physical form, mist elves appear to deplete satiation more slowly than other races.

The manual mentions that they have special powers against undead; it is not yet known if this has any actual in-game effects or is just flavor text, though.

Not only do mist elves have outstanding magical abilities, due to their ability to greatly reduce damage they take in melee combat they also perform reasonably well in melee-orientated classes. Their power as pure spellcaster classes like Wizards is unsurpassed, and they are also very good as semi-casters such as Paladins. They are not terrible choices for Barbarians either, guaranteeing Literacy as well as Concentration for some chance to learn spells.

The main problem that any mist elf will face is their low HP; whilst this not a problem in melee since mist elves take reduced damage from physical attacks anyway, many mist elves will face significant danger from traps and magical attacks such as vortex explosions, especially frail classes like Wizards. Thus, when considering an easy race-class combination for a mist elf, the player should maybe consider a class that can survive against traps and similar hazards. Barbarians or Chaos Knights are good choices for their high endurance, as are Weaponsmiths as they train in detect traps and start with a source of fire resistance. Thieves are experts at dealing with traps, though the class is arguably not a good fit for a mist elf since it does not do much to help their poor physical stats.

Orcs

Find weakness is a crucial skill for PCs that rely on missile and/or melee combat a lot; players that want to make use of the skill may choose an Orc or Dark Elf if the PC's class doesn't offer it. Backstabbing can be learned from Bart in Dwarftown anyway, and Metallurgy is more or less useless.

Orcs have a similar stat distribution to Trolls, except without as many extremes either way. Orcs are hugely strong, and very tough, but not as strong or tough as Trolls. On the other hand, Orcs tend to have terrible Mana scores and suffer slight penalties to Learning, Charisma, Appearance and Perception.

Orcs often start out very well equipped for combat, with most classes starting out with studded leather or metal armor and a decent weapon. Some classes also start out with metal gauntlets and boots. Orcish Paladins and Priests are notable for starting out with a quite rare and valuable everburning torch — which both increases the Orcish PC's (usually low) line of sight and makes a useful weapon in the early game.

Orcs start out at 11-18 (10 + 2d4) years old and die at 36-47 (35 + 3d4) years old. Their lifespans are thus extremely short, so the biggest threat that Orcish PCs usually face in the game is being aged to death by strong undead monsters such as the mass onslaught of ghost lords on D:50.

Orcs have slightly higher than average HP generation rates, and slightly lower than average PP generation rates.

Orcs start off Chaotic, though Class can affect this. Orcish monsters are chaotic, too.

Orcs are one of the least fussy eaters of the playable races, just behind Trolls. Orcs don't vomit after eating rats, fat worms or cooked roaches, and enjoy eating raw meat (though not as much as Trolls). They do not mind engaging in cannibalism, either. Like other non-trollish races, though, they still refuse to eat doppelgangers unless starving.

Night vision: Unlike most other races, Orcs' line of sight increases in the nighttime and decreases during the daytime.

Daylight penalties: In open areas (wilderness, Terinyo, bandit village, etc) orcs get -4 penalty to perception and minor penalties to melee and missile to-hit (seems to be dependable on weapon type, in general ~-2 for melee and -4 for missiles). This was implemented in r51.

With their heightened physical stats and talent at landing critical hits (via the Find Weakness skill), Orcs are well suited to melee and missile combat. They make excellent Paladins, Barbarians, Beastfighters and Monks. The latter two classes are particularly noteworthy, as orcs are the strongest race not to suffer very slow level advancements. They are also very potent Archers, due to the Find Weakness skill and tough (but still somewhat nimble) frame.

On the other hand, Orcs are perhaps not recommendable as spellcasters — as they tend to have low Learning and terrible Mana, and generally not quite enough strength to balance this out (compared to Trollish spellcasters). Although the manual suggests that orcs make very powerful Priests, Orcs are perhaps not recommendable for players that want to make the most of Priests' excellent magic-wielding potentials.

Ratlings

Swimming is a quite useful skill to have, especially if the PC is (otherwise) unfortunate enough to need to cross a river in the CoC early in the game. Detect item status and Appraising are quite interesting skills that were previously only available to few classes. Detect item status especially is quite useful, though it is hard to advance in for most classes.

Ratlings tend towards very high Dexterity, Toughness and Perception scores. Their other stats appear to be about average, except for very low scores in Appearance and, surprisingly, Charisma.

Ratlings tend to be quite lightly armored, with ratlings of many melee classes starting with leather armor and only upgrading to studded leather armor if they are Paladins or Barbarians. They tend to use light weapons, particularly small swords. Notably, even Ratling Healers start out with a short sword.

Though Ratlings enter adulthood at a younger age than Humans do, they actually have slightly longer lifespans. Thus, while they are still quite vulnerable to aging attacks especially from ghost lords or ghost kings, they are not at as much risk as Trolls or Orcs would be.

A potion of insight reveals Ratlings' regeneration rates to be roughly one HP per 35 turns, and one PP per 55 turns. They thus recover HP quite quickly, whilst having a slightly slower than average PP regenerate rate.

As the manual and the ingame presence of ratling traders suggest, Ratlings are sociable creatures that love to trade with other races. Both Ratling adventurers and ratling shopkeepers seem to do good deals with most races; Ratling adventurers seem to be hated by Mist Elves and Drakelings, though, and like all Ancardian races ratling shopkeepers are extremely prejudiced against Mist Elves.

Like most other races, Ratlings refuse to eat doppelgangers unless starving and they vomit after eating rat(ling)s or spiders. Unlike most other races, they can digest the less appealing snacks that ratling traders sell — fat worms, rat tails and cooked roaches; they do not get much satiation from these, though.

The preferred sacrifice of Ratling deities is artifacts; Ratlings get a bonus multiplier on the huge amount of piety they would receive for sacrificing artifacts, making these sacrifices especially valuable. This applies to sis, though sacrificing these does not increase piety by much anyway.

With respectable starting stats and a few useful racial skills, Ratlings are quite well suited to any class. Their (starting) stat distribution makes them quite good as Archers or Thieves. They make decent fighters, especially as Monks or Beastfighters since at least they seem to gain levels more quickly than the stronger races. While their abilities to learn and cast magic are generally not spectacular, their typically high Toughness and potential toughness can give them greater survivability than the more magically adept races.

Trolls

Trolls have stellar St and To, but most of their other attributes are atrocious. If you're looking for early game survival, you just can't beat trolls. Since they start with Athletics, Trolls will easily train their physical attributes, and Gemology will help them quickly raise their Learning, once a pickaxe is found, thanks to Gems of knowledge. It'd be a miracle to start a Troll with Literacy, but since so many of them are going to be Barbarians, that's probably not an issue.

All Trolls start with a Heavy club — even Beastfighters, who are advised to drop it as soon as possible. Besides this, most Trolls don't have very good equipment, although they typically have enough food to survive for a while without buying supplies from Munxip.

The biggest disadvantage Trolls face is their brief lifespan. Great care needs to be taken around any monster with an aging attack, until you can stock up on Potions of youth. Even better yet, learn Alchemy and create Potions of longevity. Trolls start the game between the ages of 9 and 18 (8 + 1d10) and die between the ages of 47 and 83 (35 + 12d4).

The regenerative powers of Trolls are legendary. A Troll Healer born in the star sign of Candle is almost cheating. Unfortunately, Trolls suffer great penalties to their power point regeneration time, making them a poor choice for spell-casters. On the other hand, a Troll Wizard could probably win the game without casting a single spell, if he really wanted.

Due to their tendency to eat first and talk later, Trolls suffer some rather hefty penalties when dealing with Dwarves, Elves, and Gnomes, though not nearly as much as Dark Elves.

Trolls eat almost anything, with some of the only exceptions being spiders and carrion crawlers. Trolls are the only race that can eat doppelgangers at any time, or that enjoy eating cursed hurthling cakes, or that (strangely) enjoy eating trolls. They love raw meat; and, like orcs, don't mind eating rats, fat worms or cooked roaches either.

Due to their tremendous St and To, amazing HP regen, and stunning stupidity, Trolls are best suited to classes that depend on brute power, such as Barbarians. Due to their food requirements and massive XP penalty (see below), Farmer isn't such a horrible choice, either.

Their very low Le and Ma attributes make them the worst race at casting spells; however, as trollish spellcasters are still much stronger and tougher than other spellcasters, they can effectively use both brute strength and a small bit of magic to survive fights [some considerations for spellcasters who may not usually be able to survive fights against strong enemies that resist magic; and for melee-orientated fighters who may need ranged attacks to get the edge over foes].

Trolls need lots of food to survive (about double the amount of food compared to other races); in fact, keeping Trolls well-fed may require quite a lot of effort for newer players. Although this is somewhat alleviated by starting with Food preservation, some players may find Falcon and Wolf star signs to be helpful, due to their food-related bonuses.

Levels come very slowly for Trolls; most probably won't come anywhere near level 50, even at the endgame. Choosing a class that peaks early is a good idea, since you may never even see some of the later class powers.

Trolls start the game with the Twohanded Weapons melee skill at level two. Do not pay any attention to this if you are playing a trollish Beastfighter. Drop that club and fight unarmed.

The following classes can be chosen in ADOM (since v1.2.0):

• Archer
• Assassin
• Barbarian
• Bard
• Beastfighter
• Chaos Knight
• Druids
• Duelist
• Elementalist
• Farmer
• Fighter
• Healer
• Merchant
• Mindcrafter
• Monk
• Necromancer
• Paladin
• Priest
• Ranger
• Thief
• Weaponsmith
• Wizard

Archers

Archers are a class that specializes almost exclusively in missile weapons. As such, they are without peer in terms of damage, accuracy, and range with any sort of missile, and as they advance in level, become one of the more powerful classes in ADOM. Their stats and skillset are heavily tilted towards their missile abilities, boasting high dexterity and perception, and the skills Archery, Fletchery, and Concentration. Many races make excellent Archers, notably Orcs and Dark Elves which add Find Weakness to the skillset, Hurthlings for their exceptional starting rock throwing ability, or Gray/High Elves or even Humans for higher dexterity and excellent starting equipment.

• Archers receive a bonus of +1 to-hit for every 10 points of Archery and +1 to-damage for every 20 points of Archery, giving them a net result of +10 to-hit and +5 to-damage, compared to the usual +5 to-hit and +2 to-damage.
• Archers seem to find ammunition more easily than other classes.
• Archers always start with at least 1 skill level in their starting missile weapon.
• Archers have an uncanny ability to dodge missiles. These missiles often fly past the archer.

Assassin

Assassins are branded by the manual as masters of stealth and guile, skilled at killing in shadows or with deadly poison. In reality, Assassins have a very flexible skillset that can lend itself to a variety of playing styles, including an enviable skillset for any melee fighter that includes Dodge, Find Weakness, Backstabbing and Alertness. Their abilities with missile weapons are notable thanks to the Archery and Find Weakness skills. They are also the only combat-oriented class trained in Alchemy, a skill that can be made excellent use of. Nearly any race can make an effective Assassin, depending on playing style: Drakelings, Gnomes, Humans, Hurthlings, and Dwarves all offer some nice advantages; for players who enjoy Trolls, Assassin is one of the best (if not the best) skillsets for a Troll.

• Dagger expertise: Assassins start with extra skill levels in the dagger categories compared with other classes — Assassins of all races start at level 4 with Thrown Daggers, with Trolls, Elves, Dwarves and Orcs starting at level 4 in Daggers & Knives and other races at level 5.
• First Alchemy recipe is always for potion of poison.
• Assassins can receive the Filk quest as soon as level 30.

Barbarian

Barbarians are a class of warriors known for their incredible prowess in melee combat. Their strength and toughness are nearly peerless, and they are capable of delivering immensely powerful attacks that can kill even the most powerful opponents in a single attack. Their skillset is fairly modest, adding only Athletics and Dodge to supplement their combat abilities, as well as Herbalism to increase their general flexibility. Orcs and dark elves make excellent Barbarians, adding the excellent Find Weakness skill to this powerful melee class. Troll Barbarians are powerhouses starting out, with strength and toughness that can easily exceed 30 to start. Unless the Barbarian is grey or high elf, they will be illiterate regardless of their learning score.

• With the exception of grey elves, high elves, and mist elves, all Barbarians are illiterate.
• Barbarians face huge difficulties learning spells. Even with a wished for Concentration skill and massive learning score, Barbarians will be unable to learn all but the simplest of spells.

Bard

Bards are a companion-oriented class with no particular focus on one of the three major offensive approaches (melee combat, ranged combat and magic). Rather, they gain various powers that benefit all three fields and focus on making the best of the current situation. Additional class-exclusive feature — random starting skills — further cement the unpredictable nature of the class.

Bards are poorly equipped and suffer from a difficult early game (which can be somewhat offset by smart companion use), but pick up the pace towards mid- and late game getting extremely proficient in multiple areas. Their powerful class powers favor fast-leveling races, while potentially high number of starting skills and good skill modifiers synergize with high-Learning races.

Bards get minor bonuses for all stats and a medium boost to Charisma and Appearance. They get an additional starting talent, which increases the chances to successfully pursue the Heir line; taking the necessary talents is a widely accepted approach as Bards receive a pair of blessed seven league boots — widely regarded as the best Heir gift of all classes.

Bards start the game with an animal (for all races except Grey Elves who start with an intelligent fairy dragon) companion to cover for their lack of defense and offense in the early game.

Unlike any other class, Bards do not have a fixed starting skill set. They are guaranteed to start with Music and the usual common and racial skills. For every other skill (except Necromancy, Tactics, Bridge building, Law and Courage) there is a 25% chance to appear on the starting list. There are no lower and upper limits for random skills — it is possible to start with no extra skills and all extra skills; however, both these outcomes are incredibly rare.

On average, every random skill will start at proficiency level 25, while Music will be trained to level 80.

• Bard's luck: As stated in the in-game manual, Bards possess the "knack to stumble upon strange items". In practice, Bards will find more variation in item modifiers: to-hit/to-damage bonuses in weapons/missiles and DV/PV bonuses in armor.
• Bard's charm: Pets/companions are less likely to turn on Bard PCs upon triggering fireball traps.
• Bards have an advantage when using Music; their chances for taming/calming down monsters is higher than other classes.

Beastfighter

Beastfighters are melee-orientated fighters that specialise in Unarmed fighting. As they gain levels, Beastfighters' to-hit and damage ratings rise greatly whilst fighting unarmed. While they share this trait with Monks, the to-hit and damage penalties that Beastfighters receive when fighting with weapons are far more severe; thus, unlike Monks, Beastfighters pretty much need to fight unarmed. Also, while Monks get more increases on the number of faces on the damage die when fighting unarmed, Beastfighters get more generous increases to final damage scores.

The life of a Beastfighter is generally a simple one — sell all weapons and shields found, don't bother with magic, and just punch most enemies encountered. While Beastfighters might have some difficulties in the early game, once they have advanced many levels their performance in melee combat becomes awesome; by level 20-25, they should have little trouble tearing apart even steel golems with their bare hands. While they are generally inept with magic (unless they acquire Concentration as well as Literacy), Beastfighters can take advantage of their typically high Dexterity scores to use missiles to soften up more hazardous foes.

As far as race-class combinations go, Orcs tend to make outstanding Beastfighters as they have the Find weakness skill — critical for Beastfighters, especially since they have trouble fighting with slaying weapons — and superior physical attributes. Dark Elves also make surprisingly good Beastfighters due to their knowledge of the skill. Gnomes and Humans advance levels quickly, so these can also become surprisingly good Beastfighters. As for Trolls, though their stellar starting attributes give them the best prospects in the early game, their very slow leveling means they may not fare as well in the late game.

• Unarmed fighting: Beastfighters get significant bonuses to to-hit and damage in unarmed combat each time they level up. Unlike with Monks, becoming burdened or worse does not negate these bonuses.
• Additionally, Beastfighters get an increased critical hit rate when fighting animals in unarmed combat. This bonus has been estimated to be around 20%.
• Ineptness with weapons: Beastfighters do not get to-hit or damages bonuses from Strength or tactics whilst using weapons or shields.
• Martial arts bonuses: Beastfighters get increases in speed and DV upon raising certain numbers of levels.
• Illiteracy: Like Barbarians, Beastfighters always start out illiterate regardless of starting Learning score. The only exceptions are those who are educated in Literacy as part of their race — i.e. High, Gray and Mist Elves. They also face huge difficulties learning spells.
• Beastfighters increase their Speed, DV, to-hit and damage with level (lost if using weapons), as described below (section 0.1.4.5.2.1 Bonuses for Beastfighters and Monks also presents this in a table):
  • The Speed bonus is lvl/2;
  • Beastfighters get +1 DV every third level;
  • To-hit bonus is lvl*2 + lvl/3 - (lvl-1)/5 - 1;
  • Beastfighter's damage is 1d(4+lvl/3*2) + lvl/2+lvl/4.

Chaos knight

Chaos Knight is a class in ADOM that first appeared in v. 1.2.0. Chaos Knights are the sturdiest and perhaps strongest of all classes, and deadly in melee combat from the onset. The problem is, unlike the other adventurers that come to Ancardia to find fame as heroes, Chaos Knights arrive as villains... meaning that they won't be welcomed by many NPCs in the game.

Chaos Knights begin the game very chaotic, regardless of starting race. Most NPCs will refuse to talk to the PC whilst they are chaotic, meaning that some quests will be unavailable and some obstacles harder to overcome. Lawful acts adds only 10% of its value. Chaos Knights can find redemption from their ways, though, by converting to another alignment; this requires a lot of lawful acts and/or small sacrifices. Most NPCs will interact with the PC as normal if (s)he is not chaotic, though Chaos Knights that have deserted their cause will suffer from other penalties. See Class Abilities for more details.

On the positive side Chaos Knights start out with extremely high PV, are very strong and tough, and are eligible for some extremely powerful crowning gifts. Other than that, life is far from easy for Chaos Knights.

There is a special ending that is only available to Chaos Knights.

• Whilst chaotic, NPCs will not interact with the PC in the usual way. This includes the following effects:
  • Neither Thrundarr nor anybody in Terinyo will give quests. This includes the portal quest -- meaning that the PC must pull the portal lever themself by taking Thrundarr away from it. Note that Blup will still teach Swimming to Chaos Knights that give him the required number of potions of carrot juice, regardless of alignment.
  • Skriek will refuse to sell any keys.
  • Jharod will not offer any healing services and, if the Village Dungeon is unlocked via the Kill Jharod quest, will be generated hostile.
  • Nobody in Dwarftown will offer their services except Waldenbrook's shop.
  • Hawkslayer will actually become hostile if chatted to.
  • The eternal guardian will refuse to let the PC past.
  • The mad minstrel won't talk to the PC.
  • The old barbarian won't talk to the PC.
  • Dak won't let the PC enter the arena.
  • Ratling traders won't sell anything.
  • Sharad-Waador won't talk to the PC.
  • Andor Drakon's dialogues before the ultra ending battle will be slightly different.
• Whilst neutral, Chaos Knights that have abandoned their cause will receive the following penalties:
  • Some fire damage every 5 turns ("You feel fiery pains in your stomach!" if you are taking damage, or "Aching pains wreck your bowels!" if fire resistant and taking no damage). Note that this fire damage does not provide a speed boost for drakelings or other cold-blooded characters.
  • Inability to benefit from any class powers ("You have lost all your chaos powers!").
  • -2 to every stat.
• Whilst lawful, you get further penalties on top of those incurred by neutrals:
  • A further -2 to every stat.
  • Even more fire damage: "Smouldering flames consume your flesh!" if not immune to fire (resistance is not enough) / "You burn with fever!" if fire immune and taking no damage. Note that this fire damage does not provide a speed boost for drakelings or other cold-blooded characters.
• Garth and Tywat Pare will never offer training or quests to any chaos knight irrespective of alignment; a lawful Chaos Knight who leads Tywat Pare to Lawenilothehl or any bandit/outlaw encounter will still receive the amulet of order as normal, though.
• Chaos Knights begin the game with three random corruptions.

Druid

Druids are quite powerful clerical casters that usually start out in better physical shape than Wizards or Priests, but tend not to be as proficient with magic as either.

As beings that are one with nature, animals that are naturally generated during the game will not be hostile to Druids. Druids also have a very varied skillset as nature priests, including useful skills like Herbalism and Swimming, and quite rare skills like Woodcraft and Gardening. Concentration and Literacy of course are must-have skills for them; they tend to advance in these skills slowly compared to other casting classes, though, which can make them somewhat frustrating to play in the early game.

• All Druids start at neutral zero alignment;
• Druids start with a spellbook of Lightning Bolt;
• Animals will generally be generated non-hostile if the PC is a Druid. Exceptions are those that are summoned, those that appear in tension rooms, or all animals in Keethrax's level. Bugs in the bug-infested temple are not included.
• Druids will get a different reward for completing Guth'Alak's quest. This will be instead of the "knowledge or power" choice.
• Druids need 50% more marks to increase a weaponskill (for all weapon categories).

Duelist

Duelists are fighters that practise melee combat as an artform, putting emphasis on precise strikes with their weapons that can even punch through the armor of humanoid opponents. However, they must not be burdened by equipment or armor nor wielding a two-handed weapon or shield for their penetrating attacks to work. Any of these conditions will also stop them from using their class powers.

Duelists have a very desirable melee skillset that includes Alertness, Find weakness, Dodge and Athletics. Amongst the other classes, Duelists perhaps stand out as the specialists of melee combat. Their class powers allow them to become extremely powerful, particularly in the mid-to-late game. Even if they don't follow the restraints of fighting one-handed and not being burdened, they will not get any particular penalties (just denied bonuses), and are still respectable fighters. On the other hand, they have a considerable disadvantage with ranged weapons since they require an enormous amount of marks to increase their skill level with them, and despite starting with Concentration most Duelists are not very good magic users. They also have difficulties increasing skill levels with shields, polearms and two-handed weapons.

Regarding race/class combos, obviously a physically strong race would be preferred for the amount of melee combat duelists tend to engage in (as well as allowing them to carry more equipment without becoming burdened); Drakelings, Dwarves and Orcs usually make good choices. Whilst their melee prospects aren't as good, Elven Duelists at least stand some sort of chance of channeling magic and (except for Dark Elves) have superior starting equipment. Of course, Trolls would be the best class for fighting and carrying a heavy inventory with... though due to slow experience gains they might lose out on some good class powers. For a less intuitive combination, Hurthling Duelists get an amazing skill spread, and a reliable way to mix (non-slaying) missile combat into a duelist's repertoire with their high starting skill with thrown rocks.

• Duelists cannot activate or benefit from any class powers if wearing a shield, dualwielding, wielding a two-handed weapon, wearing heavy armor (250s seems to be the limit), or if burdened or worse.
• If the conditions for allowing their class powers are met, Duelists get bonuses of +1 to hit and +1 to damage per two skill levels for their wielded weapon. Additionally, they have a chance to bypass the PV of humanoid opponents on successful strikes. This doesn't occur against some opponents that are considered humanoid for slaying purposes but are not 'true' humanoids (e.g.: golems and certain undead creatures).
• Weapon specialities: The amount of marks required for Duelists to advance weapon skill levels are 20% less for one-handed weapons except for polearms 2.4 times the usual amount for shields, unarmed fighting, polearms, two-handed weapons and staves Over 10 times the usual amount for missile weapons.

Elementalist

Elementalists are arcane casters with a few notable differences between themselves and the other arcane magicians, Wizards and necromancers. Elementalists are able to learn spells naturally, meaning that as well as starting the game with existing knowledge of two spells they can learn new spells at certain levels, and their knowledge of all spells they naturally learned increases each time they level up. They can also learn spells from spellbooks, though they have a bit more difficulty doing so than Wizards or necromancers. Moreover, Elementalists find a lot less spellbooks than either of those classes -- making their spell base perhaps more limited in the long run.

As well as having average book finding abilities -- generally on par with fighting classes -- Elementalists get frustratingly slow level advances on all their skills including Concentration and Literacy. The skills that they do have are quite useful, such as Healing and Swimming. Like other classes relying mainly on magic they have quite poor starting equipment, though they always start with a useful ring of fire resistance. They have a couple of interesting class powers, but no exceptionally useful ones.

As far as race/class combos go, gnomes are obviously a popular choice for Elementalists since they gain levels (and thus spells) quickly and have high Mana scores. Elves make good Elementalists too, with dark elves adding two useful skills. Since playing an Elementalist is one way of getting a PC of a physically strong race to easily learn offensive spells, drakelings and dwarves are not bad choices either. Playing a trollish Elementalist is perhaps not a good idea due to their difficulties with gaining levels or learning spells from books... though one could probably still win without any magic.

• Elementalists automatically learn new spells at certain levels:
  • Level 1: Burning Hands;
  • Level 1: Frost Bolt;
  • Level 5: Fire Bolt;
  • Level 5: Fireball;
  • Level 10: Earthquake;
  • Level 15: Improved Fireball;
  • Level 20: Lightning Ball;
  • Level 25: Ice Ball;
• Additionally, Elementalists' knowledge of all spells they have naturally learned increases as they gain levels. The increases are quite large for bolt spells and Burning Hands, but very slight for other spells. See section 0.1.4.5.2.2 Elementalists spell charges for more details.
• On the negative side, Elementalists require twice as many weapon marks to advance weapon skill levels as most other classes.

Farmer

Farmers are an interesting class. While they are unspecialised and start out with no combat skill, they have the potential to be good to excellent fighters, with a slew of practical and useful skills and bonuses. Their starting equipment reflects their practical bent.

• Farmers start the game with a large dog pet.
• Takes 20% less weapon marks to train Polearms.
• They also start the game with level two in Polearms weapon skill.

Fighter

Fighters are a rather unassuming class geared heavily toward defensive fighting with heavy missile support. Their class powers are not nearly so impressive as, for example, Barbarians in terms of damage or maneuverability, but do provide significant long-term defensive bonuses that, combined with a strong skill set featuring Find Weakness, Archery, Dodge, and Athletics and generally excellent starting gear makes Fighters a safe, if somewhat boring, choice. Conventional pairings for a Fighter are drakelings or dwarves since both start with excellent starting gear, Toughness and Strength, and complement the Fighter's skill set well. Players wishing to take advantage of the strong archery abilities of Fighters may wish to try more agile races (elves or hurthlings).

• Fighters gain defensive bonuses over time applied to their armor PV. This is counted towards helmets, girdles, body armor, shields, gauntlets, cloaks, and boots.

Healer

Healers are generally a melee-orientated class, with an excellent potential for semi-casting. They have a very good skillset that includes Find weakness to greatly compensate their mediocre strength scores, Concentration and Literacy to allow them to learn spells, and Alertness and Herbalism for general flexibility. Of course, they tend to advance their Healing and First aid scores more quickly than other classes as well.

No matter what mode of combat they choose, Healers have the advantage of possessing a much greater survivability over the other classes due to their typically high Toughness scores and class powers. Although the manual says they do not make great fighters, their high proficiency in the Find weakness skill actually makes them generally better fighters than classes that lack it (as long as they have a good melee weapon, anyway). They are surprisingly good at learning spells for greater flexibility in combat; although they do lack the casting powers (and book finding abilities) of Wizards, Priests or Necromancers.

Whilst Healers can be very formidable around the mid game, their biggest weakness is early game survival — as most healers start off with terrible weapons and barely any armor. Humans, Gnomes and Hurthlings might find themselves better off fighting with their torches than their scalpels (unless true berserking), whereas Trolls are fine on the weapons front as they are guaranteed a heavy club anyway. Their healing abilities make any damage sustained during a fight essentially non-consequential, as long as they don't get surrounded; the trouble is winning the fight in the first place. For this reason, Healers should definitely consider taking off what little armor they get and boosting their paltry damage using true berserk tactics.

Almost any race can make a good Healer. Orcs, Drakelings and Dwarves in particular generally make excellent fighters. Elves and Gnomes can make great fighters and great casters; Gnomes in particular are a good choice as they have a good chance of receiving the Heir gift for early game survival. As for Trolls, they are not just good healers but trollish healers are perhaps one of the most formidable race-class combinations in the game. They have excellent survival prospects in the early game and can become true powerhouses in the late game, capable of both inflicting and surviving massive amounts of damage. Since Healers advance most of their skills quickly and one of their best class powers comes at level 12, Trolls' slow experience gain isn't a huge issue either.

• Fast recovery: The number of turns usually required for natural regeneration of HP is halved for Healers. Healers also receive one additional HP whenever they gain health from natural regeneration, the Healing skill, or the month of the Candle.
• Lawful tendencies: Healers start with their alignment tipped towards lawful. This means that Human, Gray Elven, Gnomish, Drakish, Mist Elven and Ratling Healers usually start out at LN; Trollish, Orcish and Dark Elven Healers start out at NC or N-.
• Stethoscope expertise: Healers do not spend any turns whilst using a stethoscope.

Merchant

Merchants are considered to be one of the weakest classes and therefore one of the hardest to play. This is due to the fact that shop transactions (which the class specializes in) are of relatively low importance in the game compared to combat or magic prowess. Merchants start with high amounts of gold but normally very poor equipment. This, combined with a shallow skill set, makes them hard to play in the early game, while their trading-related class powers typically provide little to no advantage in the mid- and late game. However, merchants do feature several interesting features which may satisfy a demand for a challenge or simply a change of gameplay.

• Every merchant specializes in one of the four types of items (potions, wands, rings or scrolls) which allows him/her to automatically identify items of the corresponding type. A number of specialty items is added to the starting equipment:
  • Potion specialization — 3/10 chance, 10-13 starting potions; base knowledge in Alchemy;
  • Wand specialization — 2/10 chance, 4-6 starting wands;
  • Ring specialization — 2/10 chance, 6-8 starting rings;
  • Scroll specialization — 3/10 chance, 10-15 starting scrolls; extra knowledge in Literacy.
• Merchants are allowed to pick an extra talent during character creation. Merchants seem to find more shops. Restocking a shop seemingly does not cause prices to go up if the PC is a Merchant.
• Merchants are able to use gold pieces as missiles. As with any item used for improvised throwing, this attack uses 1200 energy points. Doppelgangers are not able to deflect thrown coins unlike any other missile weapon.
• Merchants also receive better shop prices, the exception is Terinyo shop.
• They also find more shops.

Mindcrafter

Mindcrafters are the psion Class that specializes in confusing and killing their enemies with their brain. The catch is that the target has to possess a mind for it to work - thus, Mind Blast, Confusion Blast and their upgrades do not work on mindless beings. Worse, linking to undead damages the caster. Until they reach lvl 15 and unlock Telekinetic Blast, the player will have to find alternative means of dealing with both.

Other drawbacks exist. They cannot learn spells from books, though they can bookcast very well if they get lucky with a Potion of wonder or Wand of wonder. Wands are thus very important - though Mindcrafters all receive a wand at the start, a Wand of fire or similar can mean the difference between living through their first battle and getting killed by an outlaw. Linking with corrupted minds corrupts the mindcrafter. Their powers cannot be used without sufficient PP - running out is at best annoying and at worst deadly. The starting equipment is reminiscent of the Wizard. They always start with a random ring, a Ring of stun resistance, 1 or 2 random wands, 2-3 potions and 1-2 scrolls. If the PC is very weak, the starting equipment may be slightly better. Mindcrafters have poor melee prospects compared to other classes, but yet they may find themselves having to engage in physical combat to win most battles until they learn Mind Blast (or Telekinetic Blast when dealing with mindless or corrupted creatures); this is perhaps the main reason they are considered to be a challenging (but still interesting) class to play as. They do gain weapon skill levels more quickly than pure casters and semi-casters (the latter being Priests and druids). Their prospects of surviving the early game are also somewhat challenged by the fact that they do not start with the Healing skill.

There are a few upsides. Their mindcraft goes through walls (helpful for tension rooms) and cannot be shrugged off, though strong-willed characters can resist it. It cannot miss, which increases the usefulness of Telekinetic Blast massively, and Mind Blast ignores both PV and DV. Confusion is a very powerful status effect, as confused enemies cannot fire missiles, cast spells or even attack consistently. There is also some evidence that confusion prevents humanoid enemies from summoning. They deal better than any other non-Wizard with unwanted wilderness hordes or enemies—one Confusion Wave or Blast can let the PC (and it) escape unscathed. As such, they are a choice for the expert player who wants to think through every fight. Focus on confusing enemies first, then peppering them with missiles, fleeing or engaging in melee before confusion wears off.

Their stats and skillset are tilted towards avoiding strong enemies, raising their willpower and regenerating their PP, and the skills Concentration, Herbalism, Music and Stealth reflect this. They also learn Gemology, which may produce an occasional Crystal of knowledge or Crystal of fire. Haggling is nigh-on useless.

Depending on playing style, when considering a race-class combination for a mindcrafter it might be a good idea to pick the stronger races to play as fighters who leave mindcrafting until later. Gnomes don't lose too much strength, level up fast, have great PP regeneration and have the toughness to survive as purer mindcrafters—Ventriloquism can be handy when you're in need of confusion; Gemology is trained too. Dark elves add Alertness and Find Weakness to the skillset at the cost of strength and toughness. Drakelings level up more slowly but have Alertness, added strength and endurance, and the life-saving acid spit.

• Mindcrafters possess really unique Mindcraft abilities no other class can ever obtain. The Ctrl-i command is used to invoke Mindcraft. More on the Mindcraft abilities in section 0.5.3.
• It is impossible for mindcrafters to learn spells from books; seemingly, their learning chance is set to zero (regardless of other factors) which results in immediate failure.

Monk

Monk is a class in ADOM. Monks are skilled fighters that specialise in hand to hand combat, kicking, and agility. Whilst their unarmed melee and kicking skills can grow tremendously powerful over time, the PC must not be burdened or worse or else they will revert to their default damage values (i.e. 1d3 base damage for unarmed melee and 1d4 base damage for kicking). Note that unlike Beastfighters, Monks do not receive any penalties if they choose to fight with weapons.

Monks generally have difficulty surviving the early game due to poor starting equipment; however, they can become very powerful as the game progresses. They have excellent class powers and skill sets — including Find weakness, Alertness, Healing and Dodge. They can also train Literacy and Concentration quickly, giving them some promise as semi-casters; in practice, however, it is often tricky for Monks to learn spells without the appropriate starsign.

As for race-class combinations, generally no race is a poor choice for a Monk. Gnomes and Elves make particularly good Monks, as due to their stat distributions they usually have decent archery and casting prospects as well as melee potential. Gnomes are particularly notable for to their fast levelling. Orcs, Drakelings and Dwarves make good Monks as well, for their fighting abilities. Hurthlings can make use of find weakness and the agility of Monks to greatly enhance their missile combat styles. Whilst Trolls' unarmed fighting skills develop a lot more slowly than those of other classes (due to slow levelling), their starting Strength usually makes up for this in the early game. Even in the later game, Trollish Monks armed with weapons can still make excellent fighters.

• Unarmed fighting: Monks start out with a base damage of 1d9 on unarmed combat, and get increases on this for every level they gain. However, if a Monk is burdened or worse, unarmed fighting damage resets to 1d3.
• Kicking: Monks start off with a base damage of 1d10 to kicking, which increases as they gain levels. The bonus is lost if they become burdened OR wield any weapon(s). Monks also can't injure themselves by kicking walls or the air. The messages for kicking walls are replaced with "You practise your kata." for destructible walls and "The wall does not seem impressed." for undiggable or secret walls.
• Martial arts bonuses: Monks get increases in speed and DV upon raising certain numbers of levels. The DV bonus is negated if the PC is wearing armor weighing more than 60s, is burdened or worse, or has a shield equipped. In ADOM versions prior to 1.2.0, some other types of armor weighing 60s or less can also nullify the bonus. known armors that do not result in penalties are: robe, black robe, clean robe, clothes, elven chain mail, Shirt of the Saints, Robes of Resistance.
• Smashing kicks: Starting at level 13 Monks can sometimes smash through a wall by kicking it, essentially giving them access to infinite digging abilities. Unlike walls mined with a pickaxe, those smashed by kicks will never contain Stone Giants.
• Slow digestion: Monks' satiation levels deplete at about half the rate of other classes (except for level 12+ farmers). The special message that orcs and trolls get after eating rat corpses — "What a tiny...erm, wonderful snack!" — may imply that they may also get some extra satiation from food; this has not yet been tested.
• Expert scribes: Monks cannot lose Mana points from using a magical writing set.
• Inner calm: Monks cannot true berserk under any circumstances.
• Vow of poverty: Monks never start with any gold. Though starting money usually isn't that important, it does mean that less food is available to Monks at the start (from Munxip). Picking the 'Wealthy' talent gives a Monk 100 gold — not (0*3=) 0.
• Monks increase their Speed, DV, to-hit and damage with level (lost if Burdened or worse, wearing a shield, or armors not listed above), as described below (section 0.1.4.5.2.1 Bonuses for Beastfighters and Monks also presents this in a table):
  • The Speed bonus is lvl/2;
  • Monks get +1 DV in two levels out of three.
  • to-hit bonus is lvl*2 + lvl/3 - (lvl-1)/5 - 1;
  • Monk's damage is 1d(8+lvl) + lvl/4.

Necromancer

Necromancer is a class in ADOM. Necromancers are evil sorcerers that have almost exclusive access to the necromancy skill, which allows them to raise the corpses of humanoids to serve as their undead slaves. Whilst any PC can potentially learn the skill by magical means, since necromancers are the masters of it they get additional benefits when using the skill (see Class Abilities). Their talent for learning and casting arcane magic is also very good; they are second only to wizards in channeling arcane magic, though they have a bit more difficulty with clerical spells (particularly those focused on healing).

Necromancers practise in an interesting variety of skills related to the areas of necromancy, magic and indeed killing in general. Food preservation greatly helps with their dark arts, as at certain levels it increases the chances of corpse drops. Find weakness and Stealth help them to assassinate monsters, spawning more potential slaves for their undead armies. Concentration and Literacy, of course, help them learn and use magic. Alchemy and Appraising are also useful skills. Necromancers also have some interesting class powers — such as the ability to drain foes' health at level 25, and the ability to potentially cheat death herself at level 50 (for a price).

Necromancers are physically weak, but tend to be considerably tougher than other magic-orientated classes. They are still considered difficult classes in the early game, though, since on top of the poor starting gear associated with mages they also start without the Healing skill. They get frustratingly slow skill advances across the board, such as in quite important skills like food preservation, find weakness and literacy. Their chances of survival certainly increase at level 6, though, when they can raise ghuls to paralyze nasty attackers.

As far as race/class combos go, gnomes certainly offer some nice advantages as they have high Mana and gain levels quickly (allowing them to raise different types of undead more quickly, and to raise some of their skill levels more quickly). Elves also make good necromancers, though mist elves will use white necromancy if their alignment moves from chaotic. Since high Mana is important for necromancers, trolls, orcs and hurthlings might not be well suited to the job. With the find weakness skill and the chance to be crowned with Vanquisher or Kinslayer, a troll could still win without any magic or slaves, though.

• As well as being the only class that can perform necromancy very effectively, necromancers get special benefits when using the skill:
  • Necromancers are able to issue commands to their slaves without fail. (This is a power that is invoked from the Class Powers list — via Ctrl+x).
  • As they gain levels, necromancers can choose what type of slave to raise — each with its own Mana cost. Note that their level 40 class power will not affect the mana cost of any slave they learn to create after reaching such level:

    Level required	Monster type	Mana cost
    6	Skeleton	1
    6	Zombie	1
    6	Ghul	1
    10	Shadow	2
    13	Corpse fiend	2
    16	Wight	2
    19	Wraith	2
    25	Mummy	3
    29	Skeletal warrior	3
    33	Ghost	3
    37	Spectre	4
    41	Vampire	4
    45	Shadow lord	5
    50	Lich	8

• Necromancers start off with chaotic tendencies — meaning that dwarven, high elven and hurthling necromancers tend to start off neutral; whilst human, gray elven, gnomish, drakish, mist elven and ratling necromancers tend to start off chaotic.
• Necromancers need 100% more marks to increase a weaponskill (for all weapon categories).
• Necromancers also get all spells (including Wish) in the library of Nitrias.
• The manual states that level 50 Necromancers can return from the dead if their Toughness is greater than 10. It goes on to say that they lose one-half of their Toughness when this happens. It does not mention that if their equipment keeps their Toughness at 10 or more, they can do this indefinitely.
• Necromancers suffer from low dice modifiers on their skills, finding difficulties to advance Concentration, limited by a 1d3 or 1d5 modifier. Of equal importance for Necromancers is Food Preservation, similarly limited. In contrast, Rangers, Bards and Beastfighters can expect very high 4d5 modifiers on most of their skills.

Paladin

Paladins are a melee-oriented class with an exceptional talent for Divine Magic. They have an excellent skillset featuring healing, concentration, athletics, dodge, literacy, and stealth; superior starting equipment (typically blessed); and have a variety of special powers linked to a favourable standing with their god. Paladins can be played well by almost any race. Drakelings, dark elves, orcs, and dwarves are notably good choices.

• Paladins do double damage while wielding Justifier. All other classes deal half damage wielding it.
• Paladins appear to generate spellbooks more commonly than most other classes.
• Paladins are considered a clerical caster, and receive bonuses for casting clerical spells compared to other classes.
• Paladin class powers are linked to their piety — i.e. they are unable to invoke or benefit from any acquired class powers unless their deity is "very pleased" or happier.

Priest

Priests are masters of clerical and divine magic. They are the most effective class at casting clerical spells and are overall very good magic users; though not quite as effective at arcane magic as Wizards or Necromancers. They are also notable for being the most proficient class with the Detect item status skill (and one of only two classes that start with it at all) — meaning that in little time, Priests can easily spot the danger of cursed items. This ability can range from saving the player from frustration by spotting cursed equipment before the PC equips it, to possibly saving the PC's life in the case of girdles of carrying.

Priests are not only very good magic users and can easily identify the B/U/C status of any item, but Priests are also very proficient at both curative skills (Healing and First aid) and Priests of many races start off very well equipped. These qualities make Priests one of the easiest classes to play as... though not necessarily the easiest to win with. Priests will need to practise melee combat as well as spells to take down some stubborn foes, but at least they are not as at much of a disadvantage with it as Wizards.

Most races can make good Priests. Elves in particular make excellent Priests, due to their magical talents and superior starting equipment. Dark Elves are particularly noteworthy as they add two important skills — Alertness and Find weakness — to the Priest's skill pool. Dwarves and Drakelings also make very respectable Priests. Trolls and Orcs, whilst lacking in ascribed magical talents, can fare quite well as the talents they achieve as Priests can allow them to become great fighters with a reasonable knowledge of spells. Hurthlings, on the other hand, are probably not well suited to the job due to their lack of fighting or casting talents.

• Like Paladins, Priests can only invoke or benefit from their class powers whilst their deity is very pleased or happier with them.
• In earlier versions of ADOM, only Priests could automatically determine the B/U/C status of any item. This was made into a skill instead, which Priests are very proficient with.
• Priests need 50% more marks to increase weapon skills.

Ranger

Rangers are wilderness adventurers who specialize in two-weapon and ranged combat, and they feature among the largest number of starting skills of any class. Unfortunately, wilderness abilities are of limited use in regular play since the majority of the game is spent in dungeons, and many players dislike two-weapon combat because of its inherent penalties; nonetheless, Rangers are still a relatively popular class because their skillset and excellent modifiers offers the ultimate in flexibility in playstyle. Obviously, for players who wish to use two-weapon combat for extended periods of time, Rangers are an ideal class. Orcs and Dark Elves are among the most popular choices since one of the important skills Rangers do lack is Find Weakness, and both races have excellent starting gear. Because of the relatively unimpressive nature of Ranger class powers, Trolls are also a perfectly respectable choice, since leveling is less important.

• All classes receive a base penalty of -6 to-hit on each weapon while fighting with two weapons. This penalty is waived for Rangers.

Thief

Thieves are one of the more challenging classes in ADOM, particularly in the early game. Their starting equipment, stats, and skills are decidedly mediocre — generally comparable with those of Merchants, for example — with the exception of a rather impressive Heir gift. A thief's skillset is geared heavily toward skullduggery and stealth, featuring the desirable Alertness and Detect Traps, as well as Appraising, Disarm traps, Pick locks, and Pick Pockets. As they advance, thieves become much more competent, gaining a number of handy class powers such as automatic searching, stunning criticals, and an impressive speed boost. Gnomes and Hurthlings are normally recommended for Thieves to better ensure the availability of the Heir gift, but Orcs, Dwarves, Drakelings, Trolls or Ratlings are all possibilities for players wishing for a more durable start.

• Beyond level 6, Thieves become essentially immune to traps.
• Along with Dark Elves, Orcs, and Dwarves, Thieves have easier time finding secret doors.

Weaponsmith

Weaponsmiths are a melee-oriented class specializing, as the name suggests, in Smithing. They have a decent skillset, including the highly desired Find weakness, as well as Concentration for spellcasting. Athletics gives a great speed boost if maxed, as well as extra attribute increases. Although most Weaponsmiths are strong and sturdy enough to be played as a pure melee class, the class seems to have a considerable semi-casting potential... though like with archers, the fact that they do not practise literacy as part of their profession makes book reading difficult until around the mid game.

As expected, Weaponsmiths' class powers and starting items allow easy access to smithing. Moreover, Weaponsmiths are significantly more effective at improving item quality than other classes. Performing extensive smithing can lead to incredible DV and PV modifiers.

As far as race-class combinations, perhaps any race can do well as a Weaponsmith. Orcs, Dwarves, Gnomes and maybe Trolls are good choices since they add the Mining skill to the Weaponsmith's skillset. Drakelings and Hurthlings make good choices too, the latter greatly benefiting from the high minimum Strength score of smiths (see below). Elven smiths make good semi-casters around the mid-game, as well as having perhaps better survival prospects than other elves in the early game (particularly for Mist Elves) due to the Detect traps skill and starting fire resistance.

• Weaponsmiths are more likely to succeed at Smithing tasks than PCs of other classes.
• Weaponsmiths start the game with an anvil in their inventory allowing immediate access to Smithing as soon as a forge is found.
• Your PC can never start out burdened — Strength will be raised enough so that the PC can handle the weight. Weaponsmiths start with a very heavy 1000s anvil; this can give weaker races, like Hurthlings, a large, free Strength boost.

Wizard

Wizards are the masters of arcane magic, and very powerful magic users overall. They are the most effective class at learning and casting arcane spells, and seem to get more PP and find more spellbooks than other classes. Due to their talents in magic — which can deal with most enemies relatively risk free (with enough persistence) — they seem to be considered by common consensus as one of the easiest classes to win the game with. They have good class powers that especially help them with their spellcasting, and start with good skills like Healing, Herbalism and Alchemy.

Whilst Wizards are potentially one of the most powerful classes in the game, they might be difficult for (new) players to keep alive during the early parts of the game. They are one of the physically weakest and most frail classes in the game (along with mindcrafters), and start with little armor to protect them early in the game. They are guaranteed to start with at least one offensive spellbook and a few magical items to compensate for this, though. They are weaker in melee than other classes — not only do they usually have poor strength scores compared to other classes, but they require twice as many marks as most other classes to advance in skill levels for all types of weapons (and shields). Of course, their problems with melee combat are irrelevant for those wishing to play Wizards that will only use spells and not physical force to win battles.

When considering race-class combinations, there are two general ways to play a Wizard — either as pure casters that are extremely powerful with magic, or as average melee fighters that can tap into the natural arcane abilities of Wizards to learn a bit of magic to survive some difficult fights. Elves have great magical talents and thus can make extremely powerful Wizards, though elven Wizards are considerably frail and at particular risk of traps etc. in the early game. Drakelings, dwarves and ratlings can be sturdy Wizards with a decent chance of learning spells, whilst trollish and orcish Wizards are decent fighters which at least have more hope of learning and using spells than other classes. Gnomes stand out as a 'happy medium' due to their great magical talents and decent Toughness, and in 1.2.0 are one of the race-class combinations suggested by the game for new players.

• Wizards are more likely to find spellbooks as loot than (most) other classes.
• The Library has particular benefits for Wizards: a Wizard may find a spellbook of every type there, including Wish.
• Wizards require twice as many weapon marks to advance weapon skill levels as most other classes.
• Wizards born under the Salamander birthsign always start with spellbook of Fire Bolt.
• Wizards have easier time writing scrolls.

0.1.4.5.2.1 Bonuses for Beastfighters and Monks

0.1.4.5.2.2 Elementalists spell charges

0.1.4.6 Race-specific starting companions

0.1.4.7 Class-specific starting items

0.1.5 History

0.1.6 Opening question system

0.1.7 Talents

The following table provides reference based on player's experience.

[1] If a killed monster would drop nothing, then there is another check with 12.5% chance that it will drop something.

[2] Gives 16.7% chance to avoid traps.

[3] Predominately useful as a prerequisite for Treasure Hunter. There is 20% chance for Gold=Gold+(Gold/100*(1d20+100)).

[4] Note that talents are applied after skills are set, so this will not help starting with Literacy.

[5] If you aren't already gaining PP from another source (like Concentration), you have a 3% chance of gaining 1 PP.

0.1.8 Name

0.1.9 Starting equipment

[1] Gnomes except Barbarians, Monks and Druids get no other boots, even if there should be some boots generated for class (Monks get sandals, Barbarians get light boots, Druids get no boots).

[1] The Necromancer's book can be spellbook or tract of chaos or confucious book; in case of spellbook it will be Frost Bolt.

[2] Humans, Gnomes and Hurthlings get torches, flint and steel and tinderbox only once.

[3] All PCs except Monks also get some gold.

Single-file Improved Adom Guidebook

0.2 Religion

0.2.1 Alignment

A general and quite complete description of alignment can be found in the ADOM Manual. It is assumed that the reader is familiar with that description. The effects alignment have on gameplay are discussed here. The effects are mostly evident to the player in terms of the quests and rewards that are available.

0.2.1.2 Alignment range

• C-: -10000 to -5000
• C : -4999 to -1251
• CN: -1250 to -1000
• NC: -999 to -750
• N-: -749 to -126
• N=: -125 to +125
• N+: +126 to +749
• NL: +750 to +999
• LN: +1000 to +1250
• L : +1251 to +4999
• L+: +5000 to +6000

0.2.1.3 Chaotic acts

Repeatable chaotic acts

• attacking non-hostile monsters, especially innocent ones (children, the Cute Dog)
• killing lawful monsters, such as blink dogs or white unicorns, even when hostile
• killing a white unicorn: -2000
• wearing an amulet of chaos, available from Hotzenplotz
• pickpocketing: -50 if N- or higher
• robbing shops: worst in Lawenilothehl
• permanently pissing off a town
• digging graves: -100
• eating undead corpses
• creating undead slaves: -300
• attacking monsters with a weapon of vampirism: -1 every time HP is drained
• wearing armor of chaos
• reading tract of chaos
• causing an explosion that injures/kills friendly/tame creatures: -500 or -750
• attacking with the Scythe of Corruption: -Damage Dealt
• chopping trees in Terinyo: -10
• giving meat to animals: -10
• sacrificing friendly monsters
• using Ventriloquism: -10
• destroying lawful altar: -1500, other altars: -200
• using Necromancer's lvl 25 Shadow Touch: -Damage dealt (sometimes)

One time chaotic acts

• learning Pick Pockets skill: -100
• telling the Tiny Girl you killed her dog: -600
• killing the Sheriff: -50
• killing the Healer: -200
• sacrificing the Healer: -2000
• using Ventriloquism on Thrundarr: -1000
• digging Griff's grave: -250
• telling Blup you killed his mom: -1000
• completing Ratling Rebel's request to kill the Arena Master: -500
• killing the Greater White Unicorn (Yrruir): -4000
• completing Gaab'Bay quest: -1000
• completing Greater Black Unicorn quest: -2000

0.2.1.4 Lawful acts

Repeatable lawful acts

• killing certain chaotic monsters, notably most dragons, demons, grues, some giants, steel golems and most chaos monsters
• killing a black unicorn: +100
• wearing an amulet of order, available from Tywat Pare
• giving food or gold to beggars: +1 for every 20 gp, max +50 (1000 gp)
• giving seeds to farmers, or trading tools for rations with them: +1-10
• giving healing potions or stethoscope to village elder: +50-250
• giving outlaw type of corpses to sheriff: +5-1000
• giving candy to children or Blup: +2 or +10
• healing the PC's pet (only when actually injured)
• self-flagellation, using a whip in the tool slot
• wearing armor of order
• reading tract of order
• offering peace: +50-200
• blessing a monster: +5
• let monster flee in wilderness: +100 (lawful only)
• hearing the chants of the holy chorus in Dwarftown: +1
• successfully using Gardening to plant a herb seed: +5
• spending time with lonely NPC: +20
• giving gold to monsters: +1-50
• sacrificing CHAOS, +Curs, or +Doom items: +5*item base value

One time lawful acts

• bringing live Cute Dog to Terinyo: +800
• telling the Tiny Girl her dog died: +600
• saving the Carpenter: +1000
• killing the Mad Carpenter: +50
• killing the Black Druid: +250 if lawful (moves towards neutral if neutral already)
• completing Druid quest: +400 if lawful (move towards neutral if already neutral)
• completing Village Elder quest: +500
• completing Raider Lord quest: +250 if lawful already; towards balance otherwise
• killing the Crime Lord: +200-250
• killing Kranf Niest: +270
• completing slay random monster quest: +250
• completing Ogre Cave quest: +250
• saving the Dying Sage: +5000
• telling Blup where mom is: +1000
• killing the Greater Black Unicorn (Riurry): +1000

0.2.1.5 Miscellaneous changes

• * 1.2 if negative and Unicorn
• * 0.9 if Tree
• * 0.9 if negative and Book or Wand
• * (51 - PCLevel) * 0.02 if change is positive
• / 2/4/8 if wearing a C/U/B amulet of balance and neutral

All of the above changing alignment are gradual methods which take some time to accomplish an alignment change. Without question, the fastest and easiest way to change alignment is by making sacrifices on an altar. See the section below about altars for more alignment change strategy.

0.2.2 Piety

For the usual ways of altering piety (see later sections 0.2.4 Praying and 0.2.3.3 Sacrificing) the two rival deities gain or lose 1/30th the amount of piety (rounded down) that the aligned deity loses or gains. So pissing off one God makes the others happy. That doesn't apply to crownings or to any of the miscellaneous changes above.

0.2.2.2 Piety loss

0.2.3 Altars _

0.2.3.1 Status identification

0.2.3.2 Water manipulation !

0.2.3.3 Sacrificing O

Priests recieve +50% to all sacrifice values; Paladins +20%. At high levels, sacrifice values are reduced.

0.2.3.3.1 Sacrificing items

Other observations:

• Artifacts can be sacrificed and are valuable.
• Sacrificing an item or artifact which grants +Curs, +Doom, or CHAOS, gains alignment; +5 stones per gp of the item's base value. Beware of this if the PC is close to (pre)crowning.
• Chaos Orbs cannot be sacrificed. Attempting to do so will cause them to reappear on the altar.
• Sacrificing a god gift on the altar of the god who gave it causes -Fate -Luck +Curs +Doom, and the PC loses piety equal to twice what it would have gained.

0.2.3.3.2 Sacrificing food %

Sacrificing food uses a different set of rules from eating it. Start with the base satiation value, then:

• blessed: +25%
• cursed: -50%
• cooked: +100%
• Wolf birthsign: +10%
• savegame cheating: -95%

Stomafilia herb gives 300/240/120 piety depending on B/U/C status. Other herbs score is negligible: only 5.92/4.8/2.4 per herb, rounded down. Stomacemptia herbs score the least, a mere 0.32 piety per herb, regardless of status. Sacrificing ratling food (you will not be prompted for an amount) will destroy the entire stack and give -200 piety.

0.2.3.3.3 Sacrificing monsters

• Lawful and neutral gods don't like it when you sac "their beings", i.e. neutral beings to a neutral god or lawfuls to a lawful god. Chaotics don't care. This makes the situation simplest for chaotic PCs. They can sacrifice anything on chaotic altars with no fear of alignment change. This also means the situation is at a dead end: chaotic PC + chaotic altar means no alignment change is possible.
• Sacrifices of pets, and sacrifices of Druid's animals are always treated as chaotic.
• Bred, summoned, undead, unlife beings and animated trees can not be sacrificed.
• Dwarves (other than small dwarf and dwarven chaos knight) cannot be sacrificed in Dwarftown, regardless of the altar's alignment.
• Priests (Ruun) cannot be sacrificed on any altar anywhere. Merely attempting will make them hostile.
• No monster can be sacrificed on an elemental temple altars which is still chaotic. Orb guardians cannot be sacrificed on elemental temple altars even after conversion.
• Sacrificing a monster puts it on the kill list and has all the normal effects of killing it. The experience gain from doing this is just 1/20.
• Sacrificed monsters drop all carried items, but no fixed drops.

0.2.3.3.4 Sacrificing gold $

0.2.3.3.5 Messages generated when sacrificing on altars

These messages are generated regardless of piety. The piety messages follow these. Note that creatures cannot be sacrificed in the dark.

0.2.3.4 Converting an altar or PC

Sacrificing items, food, gold or monsters on an altar can change the alignment of the PC or the alignment of the altar. In general, small sacrifices move the alignment of the PC towards the alignment of the altar. Note, however, that sacrificing at a lawful altar will not move a PCs alignment all the way to L+. Likewise, sacrificing at a chaotic altar will not move a PCs alignment all the way to C-. To achieve these alignments, the PC has to commit other lawful or chaotic acts, respectively (or wear an amulet corresponding to the desired alignment, preferably blessed). Large sacrifices move the alignment of the altar towards that of the PC. Live sacrifices can fall into either category depending on the experience level of the PC and the level of the monster being sacrificed. Converting the alignment of a PC or an altar with live sacrifices is a somewhat tricky and complicated business and can have dire consequences if the sacrificing is done incorrectly. Using gold is much more straightforward. To move a PC's alignment towards that of an altar, sacrifice small amounts of gold, 10 or 20 pieces, repeatedly. This will eventually result in a message: "*WELCOME BELIEVER*" when the PC's alignment changes to that of the altar. An additional message, "You feel your morals changing." occurs when changing from lawful to neutral on a chaotic altar or from chaotic to neutral on a lawful altar. The exception to this easy alignment conversion is the case of highly experienced chaotic PCs. More about that special case is found in section 4, ultra endings. To change the alignment of an altar to match the PC's, sacrifice at least 3000 gold at one time. The 3000 figure is a minimum; more may be required depending on the PC's experience level.

0.2.3.4.1 Observations

• Druids should be very careful to avoid sacrificing animals at any time. Sacrificing pets or, for a non-chaotic Druid, animals, is an extremely chaotic act; -100 alignment for every xp the monster would ordinarily have given on death. Sacrificing an animal as a non-chaotic Druid will set piety to -2000 if it was positive, or substract 2000 otherwise.
• If sacrificing on an elemental temple altar and not crowned, all alignment changes to the altar are forced to be in the C direction.
• Any time a PC sacrifices at a nonaligned altar, two gods are involved: the PC's god, who may accept a large enough sacrifice and fight the nonaligned god for control of the altar, and the nonaligned god, who may accept small sacrifices from the PC and move the PCs alignment towards that of the altar. This also means there are two gods who may object to live sacrifices. It is always unwise to sacrifice creatures of the PC's alignment or the altar's alignment. The exception is chaotic PCs sacrificing at chaotic altars as described above.
• The fact that two deities are involved when sacrificing on a nonaligned altar means a puzzling phenomenon may occur when sacrificing your race's god's preferred items on a nonaligned altar. The PC's deity may be able to accept the sacrifice and "deeply appreciate" it while simutaneously the nonaligned deity is angered by the fact that a nonaligned PC used the altar. Depending on the PC's piety relationship with the nonaligned god (it is possible to have a piety relationship with more than one god), this may result in a "deeply appreciates" message as well as a negative effect such as inventory cursing or destruction.
• A live sacrifice at a nonaligned altar behaves similarly to non-live sacrifices in that small sacrifices move the PC toward the alignment of the altar while large ones move the altar to the PC's alignment, but it is much more difficult to predict exactly what will happen. There are many factors involved: the PC's experience level, crowned vs uncrowned status, piety relationship with both the PC's god and the nonaligned god as well as the experience level of the monster being sacrificed. A goblin is considered a large sacrifice for a level one PC but small for a level ten PC. It is very difficult to predict exactly what will happen in borderline cases. After reaching experience level five or so, it becomes very risky to attempt an altar conversion using a low level live sacrifice such as an orc or goblin. The god's standards are higher than that by this point.
• If the PC angers a god by sacrificing one of his creatures, several negative consequences may result. For example, if a PC sacrifices a creature of his own alignment his god responds with: "*BE WARNED! SACRIFICING MY OWN CREATURES IS NOT SOMETHING I WELCOME WITH JOY!*" Repeating this act results in: "*YOU DARE TO SACRIFICE ONE OF MY CREATURES?* *DEFILER*" This may be followed by: "-deity- luckily seems unconcerned." depending on the PC's piety level. Repeating again results in the same two messages followed by conversion of a neutral altar to chaotic. This example was done with a neutral PC, exp lvl 5, sacrificing neutrals on a neutral altar which became chaotic. The PC did not gain the cursed or doomed intrinsics, nor did his alignment change.
• A second example: a chaotic PC sacrificing neutral creatures on a neutral altar: First: "*YOU DARE TO SACRIFICE ONE OF MY CREATURES?* *DEFILER* You suddenly hear a thundering voice. *I* hereby punish thee, puny mortal. Your equipment turns to dust." Next: "*I* hereby punish thee, puny mortal! You barely notice some thoughts: I can't believe it!" The second message here is because the PC was wearing artifacts and artifacts only. The PC did not gain the cursed or doomed intrinsics. If the PC had been wearing any non-artifact equipment, it would have been destroyed. If the PC wore nothing, he gained the doomed, and not the cursed, intrinsic.
• The implication of the above paragraph should be obvious: Wear artifacts and artifacts only when attempting to convert an altar. Wield a si if necessary. This completely avoids the equipment destruction and dooming penalties.

0.2.3.4.2 Possibilities

How the PC's alignment or piety level changes when converting altars is not proven for all cases. Note the case of a neutral sacrificing neutrals on a neutral altar. It is correct as written. The altar moves to chaotic with no (or a very, very small) alignment change or other negative consequences to the PC. Also note the remarkable case of neutral PCs sacrificing neutral monsters on a chaotic altar. This converts the altar to neutral with no noticeable alignment change. Lawfuls sacrificing lawfuls on a lawful altar may convert the altar to neutral, but not always. The PC always receives a noticeable alignment drop.

This chart will be updated as research progresses.

Note that only champions of Balance or Order can convert the altars in the elemental temples.

If all of this has confused more than it has helped, here are some rules of thumb:

1. DO NOT sacrifice a creature whose alignment is the same as the PC's or the altar's. If you need to take advantage of live sacrifices to increase piety, only sacrifice nonaligned monsters on an aligned altar.
2. If you must convert an altar, do it with gold. It is much, much safer.

0.2.3.4.3 Conversion summary

If the sacrifice alignment is the same as the altar alignment, PC gains piety. The altar's alignment is proportionally drawn towards neutrality or the extremes. If the altar is neutral, PC's alignment will be proportionally drawn towards neutrality, otherwise no effect on alignment. If the altar does not match PC's alignment (this is only possible for forced chaotic sacrifices), alignment will be pulled slightly towards the altar.

Effects are applied for PC's piety with the altar's god. If piety with the current god is negative, there is a check preventing more than one of the same punishment in a row.

0.2.3.4.4 Recovering from errors

When converting an altar, remove all gear except for artifacts. Also, remember that the bigger your sacrifice, the more likely it is that the altar converts - but remember, this sacrifice probably has minimal effect on piety, so don't make it ridiculously huge.

Dropping items on a nonaligned altar will make the deity that owns the altar angry. This causes some warning messages along the lines of "GET YOUR JUNK OFF MY ALTAR." Ordinarily this should be enough warning. If an extended drop command is used, however, there seems to be a bug present that allows the dropping to continue until the angry deity curses the inventory of the PC. Watch out for this.

If things go wrong:

1. Inventory cursed

   By the time you have enough valuable stuff to sacrifice, you should be able to uncurse a cursed inventory with little trouble. Get to an aligned altar immediately. Bless your potions of water by dropping them on the altar if you are in sufficient standing with your deity. If not, sacrifice gold until you are. Dip a scroll of uncursing into your new holy water, read it, and voila, all of your stuff is back to uncursed status. Obviously, previously blessed status of inventory items has been lost.

2. Equipment turned to dust

   This is why it's always recommended to remove non-artifacts before converting altars - you don't want to lose those seven league boots or that nifty sword of sharpness, do you? However, the equipment turned to dust penalty can be useful as a last resort for getting rid of a stubborn item. Repeatedly praying will anger a deity to this point.

3. Doomed

   If the PC had no equipment, dooming rather than equipment turned to dust will occur. This is why the PC should have some equipment worn, even a si. It will be necessary to sacrifice enough to get your piety all the way up to very close, at which time the dooming will be removed. It is handy to know how to remove dooming and cursing in any case, since these intrinsics can be caused by things other than mistakes with altars - robbing shops with lawfuls, attacking karmics in melee and pools spring to mind.

4. The worst two - bolt and summoning

   Ordinarily these never occur when mistakes with altars are made. It takes dooming then repeated additional prayers for a deity to get this mad. However, there are two situations where this will happen immediately - falling from champion status and sacrificing a gift from your deity. The deity casts an energy bolt at the PC, which, strangely enough, the PC seems to be immune to more often than not. The deity is further incensed by this and says "DAMN, YOU'LL SUFFER FOR THIS HUMILIATION TOO!" and summons creatures dependent on the deity: lawful deity - solars, neutral deity - holy slayers, chaotic diety - greater daemons. The exact sequence of events is dependent upon what the PC is doing, praying repeatedly while doomed or falling from champion status. In the former case there may be additional monsters summoned prior to those listed above.

Another case which causes summoning is to get as far as possible from a particular god then sacrifice on that god's altar. For instance, if an initially chaotic PC sacrifices repeatedly on a neutral altar to achieve very good standing with the neutral god then sacrifices on a lawful altar, creatures may be summoned.

0.2.4 Praying _

You pray to Istaria.
Your cursed broadsword (+1, 1d7+3) glows in a silvery light.
You suddenly hear a thundering voice.
"*I* hereby punish thee, puny mortal!"
Your equipment turns to dust.

A second safeguard is that if your prayer is NOT answered and you had at least "Unconcerned" then, if you drop to one of the low levels, you will NOT receive a penalty due to low piety (or a warning message) until the next time you pray.

0.2.4.1 Prices for praying

For example the first unanswered prayer costs 20 piety. The second will cost 60, then 120, 200, 300, 420 and so on. The formula for the total piety cost of n prayers of the same kind is n(n+1)(2n+1)/6 multiplied by the base cost.

After all that there is a final deduction to the cost of 50% if you are a champion and Paladins seem to get prayer at 2/3rds cost (not Priests though), or 1/3rd if crowned. Those do NOT apply to the cost of pre-post crownings.

In the table below, if not mentioned otherwise, at least 50 piety is required in addition to the requirement mentioned. In elemental temples, this requirement is 2 levels higher (3000 piety for standard rewards).

[1] The base cost of divine mana is between 450 and about 520 depending upon how starved you are. The cost of 450 is if you have just become hungry, the cost of 500 is for when you are just about to start reducing ability levels. Remember to multiply by the triangular n penalty.

Praying cost is further modified:

• Pious, Very Pious, and Saint talents *0.95 each
• in a room with altar /2
• lvl32+ Priest and good standing /2
• Candle birthsign *2/3
• benevolent room *3/4
• malevolent room *2

0.2.4.2 Order of precedence

1. urgent heal (health < 25%)
2. remove sickness
3. urgent food (satiation < 100 ("Hungry!"))
4. remove cursed / doomed
5. cure blindness
6. heal (health < 75%)
7. remove confused
8. remove slowed
9. cure poison
10. remove mute
11. remove stunned
12. food (satiation < 200 ("Hungry"))
13. gain mana (even if you are just 1 pt below max)
14. remove darkness (diameter = 9)
15. uncurse an equipped item

Note that heal and food have two levels of precedence which cost the same and count as the same prayer. Also I couldn't seem to get cursed or doomed removed using prayer if I had both of them at the same time (by prayer that is - you can do it by sacrificing), so effectively they have the same precedence. Remove stunning may be 2 places higher in the list... needs a little more testing. Didn't attempt to find the precedence of preventing breeding on a level by prayer. Crowning seems to have the highest precedence, but then it also seems to heal you.

0.2.5 Crowning, precrowning and postcrowning

0.2.5.1 Requirements

Pre- and postcrowning gives the PC a random artifact, which will be one of the non-guaranteed artifacts. The requirements for pre- and postcrowning are:

• precrowning occurs only if the PC is not of extreme alignment (not L+, N= or C-)
• extremely close
• character level >= 8 + 3 * artifacts generated

Crowning can occur at any experience level.

Postcrowning doesn't include the non-extreme alignment restriction.

Note that PCs who achieve precrowning or crowning may never again see the "extremely close" status message. In this case, determining whether the PC has sufficient piety for further precrownings, crowning or postcrowning is a matter of trial and error. This is not as bad as it might seem, since praying uses up very little piety if prayers "remain unheard" - that is, the deity does nothing.

These seem to be the most important requirements in 1.0.0 - for instance, the PC may be wearing cursed items and the pre- or postcrowning will still occur.

For crowning, the PC must be at extreme alignment and extremely close (or have enough piety at very close). The PC must not be intrinsically Cursed or Doomed for any type of crowning. Ordinarily, this will never be a problem, since achieving very close status removes these intrinsics. However, if the PC is wearing or wielding an item that causes Cursing or Dooming (the Crown of Science, Executor, etc.), crowning will not occur.

Getting pre- or post-crowned increases the piety required for further pre- or post-crownings.

As an example to show how this works quantitatively, Malte Helmert did research using gold as the sole sacrificial item.

0.2.5.2 Rewards

0.2.5.2.1 Immunity

The immunity the PC receives can be figured out by the message that it gives:

Note that Dwarves of most classes can receive Hammerhead as a crowning gift (except Dwarven Beastfighters and Monks). Likewise, High Elves and Gray Elves can receive Sun's Messenger as a crowning gift (except Beastfighters). If appropriate, chance for receiving race-based gift is 12.5%. In general, there are six possible gifts. There are exceptions: see Barbarian, Beastfighter, Mindcrafter, Paladin, Thief and Wizard.

Andrew Skalski provided the explanation for this. By examining the g16p2 executable, he determined that there are indeed less than six possible crowning gifts for these classes. However, the blank spots are filled in with a duplicate of one of the possibilities. This means that these classes are twice as likely to receive one of the doubled possibilities. The updated table above now reflects these observations. The order the artifacts are listed in is alphabetical and has no significance.

0.2.5.3 Fallen Champions

• Removal of permanent blessing, reduced prayer cost, ability to convert elemental altars and decreased food consumption per equipped artifact (the elemental immunity and items granted by the deity will not be taken away).
• Removal of any further (post)crowning possibility, not even by a different deity.
• Cursing and Dooming.
• Being hit by a bolt of black energy, which the PC is sometimes immune to.
• Summoning of monsters to avenge the deity (either this or the bolt, not both) - lawful deities summon solars, neutral deities summon spectres, and chaotic deities summon greater daemons.
• Losing the possibility of a special ending if the player is not in the Chaos Plane - fallen champions will not survive passage through the Chaos Gate.

0.2.6 Tracts "

• move PC's alignment to the tract alignment
• increase piety for the god of tract, and decrease piety for other two gods (except tract of balance)
• tracts of order remove corruption, tracts of chaos grant corruption

Tracts have finite uses, measured in turns of reading. This is initially set to 1d1000 for a brand new tract. Each time you attempt to read a tract, you will spend 20d10 turns reading it, or the remaining time, whichever is smaller. While you are reading a tract, your body armor cannot be damaged, and teleportitis is disabled, in addition to the normal effects of a long action. If you are interrupted, no further effect will occur.

In the formulae below, T is the number of turns spent on reading. Piety effects from reading tracts are "raw" piety changes; they do not result in the typical -1/30 other god effect. If your piety with some god is reduced to or below -500 by a tract, you will suffer negative piety effects (inventory cursing, etc.), unless your god deflects them. Your god will never deflect his own penalties, and will deflect the penalties of other gods if and only if your piety with your current god is greater than 1/8 of the absolute value of the punishing god. Deflection does not cost piety.

Note there is a typo: "You feel the anger of Order brewing." should sometimes read "You feel the anger of Balance brewing." The B/U/C status of the tract does not seem to have any effect.

Single-file Improved Adom Guidebook

0.3 Food

0.3.1 Preventing starvation

Once the PC finishes the area around Terinyo, he will have to cross a large area of wilderness to reach the Caverns of Chaos, the main dungeon in the game. The same warning about food requirements in the wilderness applies. After reaching the Caverns of Chaos, a short descent to the Arena level will provide a very good food source. Ratling traders are found on this level, selling various comestibles. The best are cooked lizards. These are light at 3 stones each, fairly inexpensive and nutritious. Food problems are generally solved at this point.

Most of the corpses that monsters leave are edible. Some are to be avoided. Kobolds of any type cause sickness. Rats (simple rats, not giant rats) will make any race other than Trolls or Orcs vomit (no satiation). Eating humanoid corpses, such as goblins, causes the message "This meal does not sit well with you." or "You feel uneasy." to be displayed. Several players have tested eating a variety of humanoid corpses while wearing the Platinum Girdle, which kills if a chaotic act is committed. It never killed the PCs.

Having said that, PCs who have trained the Law skill will receive the message "You feel as if transgressing some law." when eating a humanoid corpse, even a lowly goblin. However, there is no effect on alignment. This seems to imply that there is a bug somewhere in the humanoid corpse-eating code. Bear in mind that Thomas himself has stated that eating humanoid corpses is not a chaotic act.

• Dwarves refuse to eat dwarven corpses. They also refuse to eat orc corpses unless they are starving.
• Hurthlings refuse to eat black hurthling corpses.
• Races other than Trolls refuse to eat doppleganger corpses unless starving.

Be aware that some food items are susceptible to rotting. These include corpses of all types, apples and pieces of raw meat. Eating rotten food does not cause sickness or other negative effects. Food that starts to rot has actually become cursed and will soon disappear. Eat it quickly if possible. In the case of corpses, especially strategically important ones such as chaos creatures or quicklings, rotting may be indefinitely stopped by repeatedly dipping the corpse in holy water when necessary, thus blessing it. Cooked corpses decay more slowly than uncooked corpses. Cooked corpses can be created with the Cooking skill or by blasting them with fire, from the fire bolt spell, for instance. Blessed cooked corpses carried by PCs with Food Preservation at 100 decay at the slowest rate. This is very handy for preserving the corpses of Chaos Orb guardians (section 0.10.3.1.1).

Wearing certain items causes a need for increased food consumption. This includes all items that grant invisibility, artifacts (especially for PCs that are not crowned) and worst of all (since they grant no positive effect) amulets of hunger. Interestingly, intrinsics, including intrinsic invisibility, do not have any effect on food consumption. Likewise, the Fate smiles / Lucky / Cursed / Doomed intrinsics have no effect.

The level of satiation is displayed on the screen. High levels of satiation (satiated or bloated) will cause a speed decrease.

One type of herb, stomafillia, is extremely filling. Blessed stomafillia will cause a PC to be bloated immediately.

The satiation value of food items is increased by 25% for blessed items and decreased by 50% for cursed items.

• Trolls have food consumption doubled.
  
• Monks have food consumption halved.
  
• Farmers have food consumption halved starting from level 12.

0.3.1.1 Increasing satiation

• eating one of the plentiful types of corpses and food (especially blessed stomafillia herbs)
• Drinking any potion except poison (some are more effective than others)
• reading a non-cursed scroll of satiation
• successfully applying the Survival skill in the wilderness
• praying_ when Hungry or worse
• wishing for "satiation" or "food"

Satiation decreases naturally over time (see next chapter), or you can decrease it artificially by eating stomacemptia herbs.

0.3.2 Satiation levels

Most "base" PCs use one unit of nutrition each turn. The units of nutrition for the various food items are listed below. None of the following applies to food consumption in the big wilderness map, where different rules apply (maybe just a multiplier). Apart from equipment, the formula for a PC's food consumption per turn is as follows:

The formula for moving is a bit different (+1 for Trolls still applies):

The total value after those modifiers is halved for Farmers of Level 12+ and Monks of any level. So, for example, an overburdened Human Fighter would consume 3 units per turn, and a Strained! Troll Monk would consume 1.5 units per turn. In this case, fractions are not rounded away: The character will alternate between consuming 1 and 2 units.

After that, additional modifiers apply, which are not halved for Monks or Farmers:

Food consumption in the wilderness is independent of movement speed, including seven league boots, and terrain type.

So, for example, a strained Troll Barbarian, crowned chaotic, wearing 7 artifacts and one item granting Invisibility will consume 7 units per turn (1 standard, 1 troll, 1 strained, 7/4 rounded down = 1 for the artifacts, 3 for the invisibility).

From all experiments conducted with WADOMF and g16pre2, there was no influence caused by:

• alignment (some suggested that only champions of law get the artifact discount, but it is identical for chaotics and presumably neutrals)
• being a fallen champion (that is, there is no special penalty - it's just like not being crowned)
• any corruption (the suspicious mana battery and corrupted tissue corruptions were tested)
• any intrinsic (particularly, intrinsic invisibility does not increase food consumption - this was very surprising; likewise, the Doomed/Cursed/Lucky/Fate Smile makes no difference)
• the Invisibility spell
• being a Healer or being born in the month of Candle
• HP or PP regeneration rate, having eaten Troll corpses, having drunk potions of troll blood or raw mana, wielding regenerating items - the last is very surprising

The different satiation categories are:

A character with satiation level 0 can die because of starvation each turn. Apparently no food consumption takes place while eating, so it should be impossible to starve to death while eating.

Note also that starvation does not kill until Strength has dropped to half of what it was when the Starving message is shown. There is a -4 drop on getting to Starving status. From there Strength and other attributes will continue to drop until Strength reaches 50% of its value when Starving status was reached.

The exact turn of death seems to be -(Toughness*8)+2, with minor variations at some levels. In short, this means that for every point of Toughness the character has, their satiation can go 8 points lower below zero. Thus higher Toughness equals more time to find food to reduce starvation.

Satiation value can flip over 32 bit integer (about 2.1 billion), similarly to piety level, gold amount, xp amount, etc. It can be achieved for example by reading 1.07 million blessed scrolls of satiation. At this point, the PC will die.

Some other observations:

• Wishing for "satiation" or "food" sets the satiation level to 5000 if it was below this value. It does nothing otherwise.
• Scrolls of satiation add 2000/1000/0 to the satiation level if blessed/uncursed/cursed.
• Apart from corpses, the only food items that can be cooked are raw meat and fish meat, as noted in the table. Unlike corpses, they can only be cooked with the cooking skill; fire destroys them.
• From preliminary testing, it seems that apples and pieces of raw meat rot at approximately the same rate.
• Stomafillia herbs are different in that their B/U/C status is more influential than for other food items: They yield 6250/2000/550 points of satiation depending on whether they are blessed, uncursed or cursed.
• Stomacemptia herbs are the only non-corpse food items that lower the satiation level. Even bad ratling food, despite yielding the "you vomit" message, satiates slightly. Stomacemptia herbs do not apply a fixed modifier but behave a bit differently:
  If the character is not yet starving, the new satiation level is set to a fixed value depending on the B/U/C status of the herb (rows) and the old satiation value (columns):

  Status	0-	1..20	21..49	50..99	100..199	200..1500	1501+
  Blessed	no effect	0	-20	49	99	199	1500
  Uncursed					49	99	199
  Cursed						49	49

  Put in words, blessed herbs always set the satiation level to the highest possible value of the next lower category (from satiated to normal, from normal to hungry, from hungry to very hungry, from very hungry to starving), uncursed herbs go two such steps, and cursed herbs always go down to starving. If the character is already starving (satiation value below 50), then the satiation value is decreased by 20, but not below 0, irrespective of B/U/C status of the herb.

0.3.3 Eating corpses %

How to read the list

• Only corpses with effects are listed.
• Colons (:) symbolize conditions; basically read as 'if (thing before the colon) is true, then (do stuff after colon). This is often a percentage chance, but it can be other things as well. Conditions can stack (meaning multiple things have to be true).
• Attribute increases (or decreases) listed by themselves (Such as '+1 Pe') without parentheses mean you ALWAYS gain that attribute when eating the corpse (provided any conditions are true).
• Attribute increases listed in parentheses (like '(+1 St)') have a chance to gain that attribute, depending on your current amount in that attribute. There is a chart that shows your chance to gain.
• Speed increases are all done the same way. I listed them in parentheses because they are also harder to gain the higher it is. (There is a speed chart as well).
• Commas (,) seperate gains/checks. You gain (or have a chance to gain if there are conditions) everything in the list that's seperated with a comma.
• Semicolons (;) denote mutually exclusive checks. This means you can only get 1 possibility out of the series... I try to use square brackets to make it more obvious what is in a series.
• Poison effects have 2 numbers (unlike other status effects) - the first is how much (Da)mage the poison does and the second is how often ((Fr)equency) that it happens.
• Most bad effects will stack on top of others. If you're confused already, and you eat something which confuses you, that amount is added to how many turns you'll stay confused.
• 'Trains' means that it trains the attribute, so that you have a chance to gain it over time (like being burdened trains Strength).
• Exclamation points (!) simply mean 'not'.
• Curly brackets at the end of some of the checks are to make it plain and obvious what is the highest level of the attribute that can be reached by eating the corpse in question. This should make it a little easier to understand for anyone who doesn't understand the 'code-like' parts.
• "Spellcasting monster" means "[Cursed: 5%: +2d3PP; Uncursed: 25%: +2d3PP; Blessed: 50%: +2d3PP], 16.7%: +1 Ma".
• "Bad luck" means lose Lucky and Fate smiles intrinsics if present, and gain Cursed and Doomed intrinsics.
• "Karmic" means it will get the PC somewhat more Luck: if Doomed, then lose Doomed, if not then lose Cursed, if neither Doomed nor Cursed then gain Lucky, if already have Lucky then gain Fate smiles.
• The PC is not sickened eating a rabid dog corpse if wearing necklace of rabies resistance.
• MaxAge is never reduced below CurrentAge.
• Level 40+ Assassins cannot be poisoned.

Examples

• Kobold Shaman: +1 Ma, [Cursed: 5%: +2d3PP; Uncursed: 25%: +2d3PP; Blessed: 50%: +2d3PP], Sickens 20d8

  Kobold Shamans always give you +1 Mana when eaten, then there is a 5/25/50 percent chance (depending on the C/U/B status) of gaining 2d3 (average 4) Power points. Then you become sick; you basically lose 1 sickness point every 20 turns so 20d8 * 20 is how many turns you'll be sick for unassisted.

• Chaos Viper: (+1 Dx), -Pois, (+1 Sp), Poisons 8d5Da_3d3Fr, Corrupts 10d200

  First, you have a chance to gain 1 Dx depending on what your Dx is already at. Second, you always gain poison resistance. After that you have a chance to gain 1 speed, then you're heavily poisoned (on average it will start out dealing 24 damage every 6 turns, though the fact that it gives poison resistance may weaken the effect instantly). Finally, it corrupts you for an average of 1005 CP which is about 1 corruption worth.

• Ghul: ![-Para]: Paralyzes 2d8

  This one is pretty simple. If you are paralyzation resistant, nothing special happens. Otherwise, you're paralyzed for 2d8 turns.

• Ettin: [St < 8]: 62.5%: (+1 St); [St < 16]: 60%: (+1 St); [St < 20]: 58.3%: (+1 St); [St < 24]: 16.7%: (+1 St); [St = 24]: 14.3%: (+1 St)] {St up to 25}

  Whooo boy. Thomas sure made the giant-folk complicated, didn't he? The code doesn't actually look like this, but this was the simplest (believe it or not) way I found to display the effect. Notice that the curly brackets at the end give you the big picture: They can raise your strength up to 25, no higher. Every check has a chance to raise your Strength depending on what it already is, and the higher it is the less chance you have to raise it. Note also that the attribute increases are in parentheses so the actual chance to raise from 24 to 25 is a mere 8%.