I was impressed with what the Reddit weekly challenge was all about, and it got me thinking of other interesting ways of playing through the game...and trying to overcome less than ideal builds and skill restrictions. So here's a few for you to try at your leisure! If you kill Dred or come close-ish with any of them, feel free to post your build you used here for which challenge and brag about it. The general rules (similar to what Reddit uses): Play on GR/PD. RotDG is to be turned off (10 floors only). NttG is allowed, but not required. You MAY use Wizardlands codes, but ONLY those you find on the current playthrough. Challenge One: Vampirism Sucks! Spoiler Your build MUST include Vampirism. After that, take what you like...WITH the following restrictions: 1.) If it has a heal, you can't take that skill (No Emo, Psionics, Fleshsmithing, Communism, or Necro) 2.) If it has a summon, you can't take that skill (No Pyro, no Golem, no Fungal, no Tourism, no Demonology, no Big Game Hunter). No "free" feeding off friendlies! 3.) If it has a charm, you can't take that skill (No Vegan or Bankster) Same reason as above. 4.) If it can craft a healing item, you can't take that skill (No Alch, no Rogue Sci, no Wandcrafting) 5.) If it provides mana, you can't take that skill (No Magical Training, Blood Magic, or Ley Walker) No easy pure mage builds, essentially. 6.) No Magical Law (I don't want Dred getting silenced easily) Hints/suggestions/clarifications: If you don't take Archeology for the early game trap help, you are a braver person than I. Or perhaps foolish. Or maybe you like playing very, very carefully. Just because going full mage isn't viable doesn't mean you have to ignore magic! Gish it up a bit if you like. I said no crafting healing items, didn't say you can't transform things into them. Paranormal Investigator, /wink. Battle Geology is legal if you desparately want a silence. Challenge Two: The Emo Archer! Spoiler Your build MUST include Emomancy, Tinkerer, and Archery. Choose the rest, with the following restrictions: 1.) No weapon skills other than Archery, EXCEPT Throwing (if you want it). 2.) No Dual Wield. 3.) No Unarmed or Vegan (No free Atherial/Divine boosts to ranged damage for you!) 4.) No other magic capable trees other than Emomancy, and no Magical Law. Blood Magic, Ley Walker, and Magic Training ARE ALLOWED. 5.) No crafting skills other than Tinkering (no Clockwork Knight, Rogue Sci, Wandcrafting, Smithing, or Alch) 6.) No Fungal Arts. Just 'cuz. It's too good. Challenge Three: Need More Booze! Spoiler In this challenge, you'll be playing a heavy magical character.....without ANY mana support skills whatsoever. Ugh! You MUST NOT CHOOSE: Alchemy, Rogue Scientist, Magic Training, Ley Walker, Blood Magic, or Fungal Arts! You MUST NOT CHOOSE: Any armor or weapons skills. That includes Thrown, Archery, Unarmed, Dual Wield, Master of Arms, and Shield Bearer! You MUST NOT CHOOSE: Tinkerer, or Clockwork Knight (we're making bolts hard to come by)! You *also* MUST NOT CHOOSE: Vegan, Communism (no starting weapons), Necroeconomics (no gishing with the life steal) or Demonology (no gishing with circle)! You MUST CHOOSE at least FOUR pure wizard casting trees. Astrology, Mathemagics, Emomancy, Fleshsmithing, Egyptian Magic, Viking Wizardry, Promethian, Golemancy, Psionics, Warlockery, Magical Law are all fine. Necro is NOT, remember. For your other three skills, take what you like as long as it isn't restricted.
All you need for 90% safe vampirism is piracy , master of arms and polearms. Werediggle also adds to vampirism efficiency , but is balanced out by being so awkward. While emomancy's damage is generally poor , pacifying monsters allows the caster to wear them down over a longer period of time , with no pressure. This may also synergize very effectively with aoe bolts for zoo clearing. The Booze challenge might not be so hard if you pick bankster , it'll allow you to buy off every single booze dispenser on all dungeon levels. Wether or not it's enough depends on the player's mana management. Smithing might be useful to craft mana regen rings (especially saphire) and archaeology can cycle artifact stats until you get some magic bonus. With the extra kronging , you may have mana regen items for every slot.
I'm actually trying the vamp challenge myself atm, and the vamp heal seems incredibly buggy. I too saw the value of Maser of Arms for the regen boosts to help the vamp heal, but the vamp heal seems to not trigger like....60% of the time? It's odd. I'm still surviving, but it's early on.
Hm. It only triggers off animals, demons, and others - IE, stuff "with blood", sorta. Also I think it can be resisted with magic resist, since it's technically a spell, and if your target has necro resist the drain (which is necro) won't deal any damage. Otherwise, I can't think of what might be wrong.
Yeah, I think I was unaware that you can only drain some targets. I'm on floor 6 atm, going fairly well. Wish I had gone Polearms instead of Unarmed, but I think Unarmed will be good enough to see me through even without Vegan boosting it.
I'm playing a Vegan Tourist Vamp. Good fun! I can eat anything EXCEPT food! My favorite are crappy bolts - which give about 9HP each.
Interesting! I had always assumed that a vamp couldn't eat *anything*, including via Tourism. That's a pretty clever way to bypass the food restriction, nice!
Well, technically speaking vampires can't "eat food". It is just that before the third expansion, there wasn't anything we could eat that would not be food.
Just finished Vampirism Sucks! I overestimated how hard it would be....the regen bonuses from Shield Bearer/Master of Arms make vamp healing pretty strong. I used: Master of Arms Shield Bearer Unarmed Archeology (free XP, early trap help) Vampirism Mathemagics (just for the teleports) Astrology (Radiant Aura is just amazing for gishing, other buffs come later, Solar Inscription owns elites) Elites that hit for stupid hard were dealt with via teleporting away and stunning with Solar Inscriptions, then teleporting back in and kicking them to death. I've really come to prefer Mathemagics over Burglary as a teleport providing skill...Burg gives a lot of other benefits but having a teleport with no cooldown is just amazing and the random tele you start with is still useful until you can afford to invest skill points in the targetable one. The only downside is the fact that you can't use it while silenced or out of mana, and that can be a problem (but rarely). Found a nice +acid damage tome late, along with a mirror shield. Dredmor died, eventually, to a bazillion thrown weapons.
I got some challenge builds for you. All one category Can only use skill tree from one category either warrior, rogue, or wizard A Little slow Must use Wand lore, Tourist, Thrown, and Archery Walking Contradiction Must use Shield Bearer, Dual Wield, Big Game Hunter, Killer Vegan, Communism, and Banker. What is a mana bar? Cannot use any skill that cost mana to use (doesn't matter if it remove your mana after you use it like Thaumecha-kinetic Damper) Blood Thirsty Must use Blood Magic, Berserker Rage, Big Game Hunter, and Assassin Loyal Comrade Must use Dual Wield, Communism, Mace, and Swords Must always be dual wield a hammer and a sword Cannot take the Bankster skill tree. Dark Side Must use Vampirism, Necronomiconomics, Bankster, and Fleshsmithing And now time for something completely different Must use Golemancy, Battle Geology, Wand Lore, Fleshsmith, Viking Magic, and Lay Lines
Some interesting themes there, thanks for posting those. Some of those I've already done, and Walking Contradiction sounds worse than it is (Shield Bearer bonuses work with no shield equipped, Magical Law as your 7th skill takes care of debuff issues from Comm/Veg/Bank).
"All One Category" tends to be how I try to usually play. I lose out on some utility, but it does help me get some stats to absurdly high levels. Especially fun with stats that become far better the closer you are to100, like dodge, counter, sneakiness... actually I think I'll say this is mostly useful for rogues, in my opinion.
Having played some rogue-heavy builds, I agree. Getting dodge/counter capped or close to it lets you really just fly through the game.
In other news, The Emo Archer challenge is making me want to cut myself...which I guess is supposed to be the idea. It's just so bad early game, there's no real early game carry. You're kind of, sort of ok once you get My Chemical Explosion...but I'm still yet to survive the floor 2 zoo. Might try to work in Commie and/or Piracy in my next attempt....those should stabilize the early game somewhat.
Yeah, Warriors and Wizards usually want to dabble in rogue skills for TSR, Trap Affinity, and free experience from Burglary and Archeology, but Rogues don't usually need to dabble in wizard or warrior skills as much.
