Getting an Alchemist Started

[mrrstark]

I've been playing around with Tome2 since the current competition started, I've had some success with Demonologists, and other warrior type classes.

But how do you get an alchemist off the ground?

You start with a few essences to make 1 potion, that'll blow up one thing.

How do you kill the other stuff at the start before you get essences for blowing things up? Your melee / archery skills are garbage, I can't even kill stuff in town, I don't have Manathrust or similar level 1 spell....

So how do you get started?


Also, since I'm posting, what do I need to increase to get my mage's spell failure rates down? I invested into Mana and Magic, but at like level 8ish my Manathrust spell failure rate is still 25%

[Derakon]

Sell the potion, buy stuff from the stores, extract essences from them, turn them into more valuable stuff, sell it back to the stores. Alchemists spend like the first 30 character levels townscumming, generally.

As for spellcasters, you need to invest in the skill associated with the spell you want to cast. I forget what skill Manathrust uses, but e.g. Stone Prison uses the Earth skill. Of course, if your casting stats are poor then you'll still have a bad failure rate.

[Estie]

Errm theres a better way in this case. Use the potion to kill either a 3 headed hydra in the swamp south of bree, or, if you are more adventurous, a young dragon in the wilderness at the Angband entrance. Youll level up to ~20.

Increase alchemy and prayer. The latter gives you access to (among other things) mana school. Buy a beginner cantrip book, which has some useful spells and most importantly mana thrust. From here, you can kill stuff yourself and the first house quest in Bree is very doable.

To get the money rolling, buy a few scrolls of light, extract their essences and empower your initial torches; sell the ego torches for ~2k apiece.

Edit: Spell failure is determined by your level and intelligence. Also, you worship Eru who dislikes his followers wielding non-blunt weapons; your 25% is, I suspect, a consequence of you wielding the dagger.

More edit: do NOT invest in magic schools directly; alchemists get access to them all, but at a ridiculously low rate of 0.1 per point. It would take you 100 points to get the school up to a measly 10 that way. Eru prayer gives access to mana, divination and mind.

[PowerWyrm]

My setup for the current competition:
- create the potion of detonations
- wait for day time, go north of bree to one of the mountain tiles
- move up/down to the neighboring plain until you generate a mature dragon + a friendly eagle (Thorondor, Meneldor...)
- let the eagle do the fightning, once the dragon is below half health, dismiss the eagle and throw your potion -- you should be level 25/26 now
- go back to bree, max out Alchemy and Prayer, buy a book of Beginner Cantrips for Manathrust/Sense Monsters/Sense Hidden, a book of See the Music for mapping and a book of Identify
- do the early quests (maggot/thieves) and Barrow Downs
- go to gondolin
- scum bree/gondolin shops forever until you can actually play: as mentioned, buy crap, make good things, sell them for money, buy useful stuff with it

Then probably die of boredom...

[Estie]

Instead of a boredom death, only do the shop scumming till you get a rod of disarming. Once equipped with such, it is faster and more profitable to carefully poke around the sandworm lair.

My method was to to read a detect object scroll on the stair and if something promising showed up close, cast detect traps/mapping etc and go grab it, otherwise leave the level and try the next.

Depending on your boredom tolerance, it is possible to do this even without disarming tool; just dont try to disarm traps manually, they will kill you in ToME.

[Yottle]

My strategy branches off after throwing the !oD at a dragon (I just kill a young one, so I don't need an eagle).

Then I get some cash by making torches of fearlessness. I also always check for exploding ammo in the weapon, supply, and black market. These can be enchanted with the poison flag and then sell for 20K or more each. A big batch can bring in 500K in gold.

I do the Bree home quest so I have someplace to store essences. Then I go to the mushroom patch, kill the dogs, and scum a big pile of 'rooms. I bring these back, extract them, and store 99 of each. I may need more of poison and confusion so I make a wand of each and recharge it with all those. I also save extra darkness (for genocide/MG) and magic.

I fool around in Bree and the hills east of town until I have some passable equipment. Then I dive the Orc Cave and/or Old Forest looking for markets (this one had two in the OC). My #1 priority is a potion store to raise my stats, especially DEX. Next is a jewelry store. I do the Orc Cave quest to get the guaranteed boost to DEX, and if I am lucky I am now over 32 and can steal light items with impunity. I loot a potion store, quaffing gain stat potions until I am maxed out. I also learn all the potion recipes. I also quaff experience and store extra healing essences to make more. That will usually get me to the low 30s.

Then I buy a stack of ? of summon unmoving pet and tp to Paths of the Dead 69. I find a safe spot and then read the scrolls and arrange it so that I can safely kill each pet. Druj are great for this. This will get me into the 40s without much trouble.

If I am *sure* that I am safe, I will use any greater Qs to summon pets and then have them drop their loot. That will get me a collection of artifacts and useful recipes.

Then it is time to hit the dungeons and quests. I ignore most of them- I kill the Neromancer, tp to the various dungeon bosses and kill them, then do Mt Doom and Angband. I tp'ed to each of the princess quests, but normally I would have unusual rooms on for an alchemist and not have any.

[Estie]

My strategy branches off after throwing the !oD at a dragon (I just kill a young one, so I don't need an eagle).

Then I get some cash by making torches of fearlessness. I also always check for exploding ammo in the weapon, supply, and black market. These can be enchanted with the poison flag and then sell for 20K or more each. A big batch can bring in 500K in gold.

I do the Bree home quest so I have someplace to store essences. Then I go to the mushroom patch, kill the dogs, and scum a big pile of 'rooms. I bring these back, extract them, and store 99 of each. I may need more of poison and confusion so I make a wand of each and recharge it with all those. I also save extra darkness (for genocide/MG) and magic.

I fool around in Bree and the hills east of town until I have some passable equipment. Then I dive the Orc Cave and/or Old Forest looking for markets (this one had two in the OC). My #1 priority is a potion store to raise my stats, especially DEX. Next is a jewelry store. I do the Orc Cave quest to get the guaranteed boost to DEX, and if I am lucky I am now over 32 and can steal light items with impunity. I loot a potion store, quaffing gain stat potions until I am maxed out. I also learn all the potion recipes. I also quaff experience and store extra healing essences to make more. That will usually get me to the low 30s.

Then I buy a stack of ? of summon unmoving pet and tp to Paths of the Dead 69. I find a safe spot and then read the scrolls and arrange it so that I can safely kill each pet. Druj are great for this. This will get me into the 40s without much trouble.

If I am *sure* that I am safe, I will use any greater Qs to summon pets and then have them drop their loot. That will get me a collection of artifacts and useful recipes.

Then it is time to hit the dungeons and quests. I ignore most of them- I kill the Neromancer, tp to the various dungeon bosses and kill them, then do Mt Doom and Angband. I tp'ed to each of the princess quests, but normally I would have unusual rooms on for an alchemist and not have any.

It is certainly possible to play the alchemist with zero risk like that (and kudos, killing nevermoving pets for XP hadnt occured to me). The issue here is turncounts; when starting the competition, I was under the impression that those mattered, but it seems ToME doesnt have the option to count, or otherwise I wouldnt know why they arent listed.

[Yottle]

It isn't reducing the risk that I am after, it is reducing the mind-numbing boredom of level and shop scumming. It took me less than three days to win with the character I posted in the competition (as acockbur@gmail.com).

As a result I take more risks with high level characters than I would if I had weeks of time invested. Teleporting to PotD 69 with a level 30 character is not a low-risk strategy, but for me it is a lot more fun.

Also, note that I didn't add any life bonuses. Alchemists can truly be risk-free if they have 5000 hp or more. That is really boring, IMHO. I prefer the yeek hermit sorcerer meme- insanely powerful offense but one error away from death at all times.