General Strategy

This page is for general strategy applicable to any character or class. Usually surrounding items and item combinations.

Various Tips

• • Proceed slowly and with caution. Think. Go slowly. When in trouble, pause, think, check your inventory, etc.
    • When all else fails or seems hopeless, remember that prayer is an option. (results vary by belief).
    • This is a game about learning and discovery. If you do die, reflect on what went wrong and learn.
  • Pets are essential companions and will help you greatly especially in the early game.
    • Some pets (canines and felines) can detect the Blessed/Uncursed/Cursed status of items. Have your pet pick up everything first then "take" it from them once in a while from the pet menu.
    • Make your life easier, program Pet actions "Fetch" on a hotkey, along with "Attack". Note: you can assign multiple pets to a single hotkey.
    • You can tame (adopt) a dog you encounter in the dungeon by feeding him food. This will turn him into a pet.
  • Identifying items is key to surviving, and eventually winning.
    • Scroll of Identify and Spellbook of Identify (if you have the light skill level and can afford the mana) are great;
    • Some Talents can help: Commerce, Literacy and Weapon knowledge;
    • Identifications services provided by Traders;
    • Throwing a wand at a creature may identify it (for some types only) without using any charges;
    • Wands have a different "beam" appearance when zapped. They are always the same;
    • but are you using Price Identification?
  • On food for sustenance and getting intrinsics:
    • Consider healing a fallen creature when harvesting (think Bit of Hill Giant Innards or Blob of Floating Eye Goo). You may get multiple bits per creature this way;
    • You can "cook" food with Wand of Fire, increasing its calories;
    • You can "freeze" food with Wand of Cold making it last longer before going bad;
    • You can sell old and smelly food to the shopkeeper and buy them back as fresh;
    • Food is better in your stomach then in inventory (where it goes bad over time) BUT do not overeat as to prevent you from drinking potions without choking.
    • Quaffing from a drain can help the player avoid choking from overeating. This can be useful when trying to eat high nutrition foods or quaff potions that give useful properties, such as hill giant innards to gain +1 strength or bottles of holy wine to increase max HP.
  • Do not let mana go to waste, if you have spellcasting abilities. When mana is almost full, cast spells (even if they are useless) to increase proficiency in a certain skill (Life/Light/Death/Dark).
  • Sanctuary key locations in the game as their altar identifies the BUC status of items and the Friar can set the Blessed attribute on items.
  • Tub of Lard and Tub of Grease can be used to remove Cursed weapons.
  • Apply Tub of Lard or Tub of Grease your headgear to prevent Mindflayer and Master Mindflayer from brainsucking you.
  • Traps will eventually run out of charges if continuously triggered. The invisibility trap should be walked over repeatedly to prevent invisible creatures..
  • If a Pickaxe does not spawn in the Gnome Mines, you can use a Firestone to explode the rocks are the end of every tunnel. You can also wish for a -9 pickaxe from fountains.
  • The Magic Whistle can be made into a mighty weapon and passively equipped on the wearer's back. This is in addition to any primary mighty weapon you may have.
  • Drop 20+ Blue Mushroom to spawn a Pixie pet that will heal you and attack with lightning.
  • If you play on a computer, consider running the game in windowed mode instead of having the game filling out the whole screen. This allows you to have a considerably longer width than height. This allows to see much farther on the screen and the Player will therefore be less startled by enemies and can prepare better.
  • In dark room, aim a range weapon or spell and scan the room with your pointer to reveal items and creatures that are hidden.
  • Be sure to read the article on fountain. In addition to being very useful to create blank scroll they might just grant you a wish!
  • Some uses for potions:
    • Pouring a basic (or better) potion of healing on a weapon/armour will remove harmful statuses.
    • Pouring potion of sickness on arrows and weapons causes poison/sickness upon hitting an opponent!
    • Make sure you bless your potion of enlightenment and gain ability before using them to get additional ability points.
  • Being burdened is NOT good and can be deadly!
    • Setup a stash location ideally in a sanctuary and network it with gems portals.
    • You are hauling stuff to sell it to a nearby trader, carry the extra weight in a sack and drop it at the first sight of an enemy. Pick it up after the fight.
  • Orange Portal Stone and Blue Portal Stone are extremely useful to move around the dungeon.
    • When close to the portal, use the "turn" option of the portals to avoid having Pets or Creature using your portals. Your portal will now offer a menu to choose which opposite color portal to go to.
    • Sanctuary with their Friar are great hub and stash locations.
    • If you have enough portal stones, consider dropping stones next to: Top of dungeon, Blacksmith, Shopkeeper, Baker.
  • Some items, spells and/or abilities combinations are great:
    • Spellbook of teleport away and teleport control: will let you navigate the dungeon and pick up items;
    • Ring of levitation and a range weapon; Rise in the air and just shoot your hapless ground based opponents;
    • Consider your options belief and spellbook of restore ability as a chaotic player; This is effectively infinite mana and healing.
  • Beware of small door when you are low level and/or have no way to deal a lot of range damage.
    • They spawn groups of (Large kobold, Kobold shaman, Dwarf, Dwarf Lord, Leprechaun). Death can follow very quickly.
    • Consider avoidance methods: levitation, stealth, or simply jumping over them.
  • The Gnome mines, a special dungeon branch, are important to increase your overall health.
    • The Gnomish walkers (all variants) are dangerous and will cause gnomes to come of of the small doors.
      • Kill them quickly (or use them to farm gnomes for wands)
      • Lightning (either via spell or wand) is ideal to kill the gnomes riding the walkers.
    • The wine cellar, at the bottom of the mine, has lots of bottles of wine.
      • Get the key from the Gnome King.
      • Get the potions blessed. Finally, make sure you at full HP before you drink them to received permanent health.
  • The Strange Crystal Caves, a special dungeon branch, require a source of light to navigate;
    • They can help level up your character in the early game as the creature there are relatively low level;
    • Provide a nice opportunity to level up your low-level weapon skills against the small crystal that do not fight back;
    • Provide a nice source of gems and blue and orange portal stone;
    • Have a strange contraption at the bottom that allow to make a very strong weapon;
    • Note: You do not need to run the cave in one go. The larger crystal create an additional risk. Consider turning around when reaching them and coming back later.
  • Fort Ludious is entirely optional. It can be pretty though, especially the Roman Archer - one of the few missile firing creature in the game.

Class Strategies

Refer to the strategy section of individual pages for each class.

Spell Strategies

[This section should be updated/perfected]

Light Spells

If you can cast "lightning" from either a book or a staff you can zap enemies through walls and doors. This is particularly useful when you are faced with a locked door that some enemies can not open. When combined with an amulet of ESP, you can basically get free damage off on enemies whenever there is a locked door with enemies behind it. Combine with wizard lock for some particular nasty surprises.

Life Spells

Magic missile is a very handy starter spell. Again, some caution needs to be exercised since you can hit pets and vendors with this spell, however, it doesn't 'jump' and moves in a straight line. What is special about this spell is the 'bounce' and 'piercing' features, which is present in it and a few other offensive spells. You can use this on opponents on ladders to score multiple hits (4-5 if done right). A 'good' caster with this spell and lightning has most of the damage she/he will need and may opt to avoid death/dark spells, though they have some strategic spells which are helpful in and of their own right.

Retreat Type spells

Dark Spells

Teleport Away

If you need to get away from a tough opponent this can be helpful in teleporting them out of the room, or you can use it on yourself, though you might end up in more danger than before. You can also use this, to limited effect, to break up hordes of opponents.

Combined with a ring of teleport control you can use this spell to scout whole floors in advance, teleport into locked rooms, and safely teleport out of danger. You can also create a 'safe' room on by locking the doors to an enclosed area and teleporting in if your health gets low. If you have decent mana, and/or a good mana regeneration rate, you can scout the entire dungeon scooping item on almost all levels.

Combine with wizard lock (or a skeleton key), a ring of teleport control, and lightning for some insane potential. Lock a door, teleport onto the other side of it, and let your opponents 'chase' you to the door. Stand on other side and zap until they are all dead.

Sleep

Sleep will, unsurprisingly put your opponents to sleep. It will guarantee you at least one critical hit. or let you slip away. It pairs really well with range weapons.

Wizard Lock

Wizard lock paralyzes opponents long enough for an unburdened staff user to get in 3-4 strikes before having to deal with any retaliation. This can be helpful both offensively and in a retreat situation. Especially useful if you just need to create some distance, but don't need to really get away (or if you don't have anything else).

Death Spells

Knock

This knocks back opponents and does a small bit of damage. A good retreat spell if you have nothing else, but it can also be used offensively to some extent. It will also open (almost) any lock, such as locks on doors and chests, saving you time.