You have been kidnapped by a dangerous cult

[Lujo]

Might be possible, but since you're not allowed to kill anything (well, if you'r looking fr bonus) there's no bloodpools, and your glyphs are large and stuff. Wizard can bring in all the glyphs, which comes in right handy (I would've won had I used Endiswal properly, and Getindare + Byceps and deffinitely Apheelsick helped a ton). I think this used to be doable even back when wizard had it's -25% attack and way fewer perks.

In my honest opinion, they kinda ovebuffed the guy. I remember doing a huge rampage with the old wizard and the old crystal ball right before they nerfed edit: the CB and being surprised how underrated he was oposed to underpowered (we were comparing him to the still kinda dodgy Sorcerer and the old no-downside-whatsoever Bloodmage, though). I did kinda lean on the old, very silly CB during the course of said rampage, but it turns out that things' still pretty busted, and the Wizard got buffed, and NC got, well, nerfed and there you have it.

The challenge still isn't a walk in the park, but it's most likely highly doable. Biggest deal is managing your money for altar desecrations and all that, I think, and it does stop the CB for being even more of a complete menace, but I only did this on a lark, it wasn't a particularly serious attempt and I was about one major refill away from doing it without touching the popcorn.

It's likely that a Binlor magic res farmer could do it consistently with a bit of shop luck for mana items and Apheelsick. Swap into Mystera right away, take magic 2 times, consensus for refreshment, take Alchemist Pact and that ought to be that.

EDIT: Like this:



I had a sort of good subdungeon and the money secret sub - but no CB, which means I was, oh, let's say... half as powerful if were still trying to keep up the pretense that it isn't as busted as it actually is?

Anyway, so the challenge is - descend at lvl 1 with a Gnome and only kill the bossess. If you're using CB (I wasn't), then no shops down below for bonus points (shouldn't be a problem, really).

Anyone does it VT I'd be impressed, shops, popcorn and all. Even chea... I mean Crystal Ball.

[Tinker]

Was this supposed to be difficult?



Sorry to say, but you left the challenge *wide open*, and I do mean wide, like, in, *wide*, when you said "descend as a L1 Gnome and kill only the bosses". It took me 2 tries, but only because I was drinking and I misclicked on my first try (which would have been undoubteldy successulf, mind you). Now that I realized that you can Alchemist Pact your way to L3, I'm wondering how could have you failed your first attemt?

Proper wording should've been: kill first boss at L1. Now that's a challenge. Would have folks scum for Tomithy, though, which is pro'lly not ideal. That said, being able to kill the first boss at L3 kind of takes the fun away (especially since you allowed the shops - oh my, another 220% restore and a halfling's leg to boot! woot!). I had Crystal Ball on top but I declined the purchase, because I wanted to see what it's like without. Well, not much to say.

I may be a beginner, but I'm not a *n00b*, mind you. Challenge me properly, if you're a gent.

EDIT: I don't think this has to be limited to Gnomes. I challenge anyone to do it with anything *but* a Gnome. Yeah, Goblin has the upper hand on the first boss, but then falls flat on being, well, a Goblin, instead of a decent race like the *Gnome*. Thought I didn't go all cheeze and buy Yendor as my first action down below, now that would've been a walk in the park. Maybe even a Gobbo can do it?

[Lujo]

He, he, he, good job, good job! Now, either no shops or VT

(Oh, and gobbo can certainly do it, but don't you mind that So can the Halfling, likely.).

[Tinker]

[Lujo]

^ Be careful with what that whole skill part. Gnomes aren't underplayed (if they're underplayed at all) because they take skill to play. They just don't require much luck, either. No shops is easy with Crystal Ball with much less than perfect storm, if I had it on the second run I would've had way more from it than I had from the shops (alch pact XP included). There used to BE no shops in Naga City, no popcorn and the bossess were tougher and we still did it fine. All that stuff was added so you could do warmonger or purist or some badge, can't remember which one.

I didn't put up this challenge because it's hard to do. I put it up for old times sake. And several other reasons.

[Tinker]

I'm not saying Gnomes require lots of skill to play. I do think it requires a degree of acumen to realize just how frickin' powerful the little buggers are, but once you're at it, it all boils down to the nuance details - when you drink the potion, when you pop the glyph, etc. But even this has a (not too steep) learning curve, and once you've done a couple of deliberate runs with them, you figure the sequence out and then it's all a factor of preps and shop luck.

Now, prepping Crystal Ball and hoping to find 1-2 other caster items, or prepping another item like Mage Plate, and hoping to find either Crystal Ball or 1-2 other caster items... Shop luck. And/or scumming. Even less skill than knowing when to quaff and when to pop

But fine, happy to indulge in old times sake, even if they're more for the sake of the actual old timers

EDIT: Gobs / Hobbits still welcome. I'm sure they require a bit more thought and/or luck than Gnomes to cope.

[Lujo]

Well, seeing that my first attempt with the wizard had only the mana pendant and got very, very close to getting it done with nothing in either the subdungeon, secret subdungeon of Pissorff (much stronger with what I had in that setup), I'd say that it's not that random. And I know why it failed, due to missplays. And I know how close I got, one mana pool worth, and also which god I started in and why several others would've been better.

Reason I said to be careful with throwing skill around about this challenge - if this doesn't take much skill, and it doesn't take overly much, and if it doesn't take scumming, and it doesn't really... Well, there are various conclusions to be drawn from that. We are, after all, killing bossess at around lvl 3, without enough resource expenditure and exertion to stop us from lining up 10 in a row, while completely ignoring monsters. Most of the time when things looked like that during the beta, stuff got nerfed.

Kill 10 lvl 10 guys in a row without killing monsters isn't a challenge for a *noob*. Or a pro. It's probably not supposed to be done in the exact same way you'd approach any problem at all. Well, Alchemist Pact, yes, unique unpreppable feature, but killing them starting from level 3 - especially if you can start on the magic imune guy with a spellcaster... And if there's an item you don't need to do it, and if you tack it on it makes you significantly more powerful or lets you, on it's own, substitute it for plenty of elements that allow something like that - even if something is meant to make non-indeal spellcasters into spellcasters, it's probably not a good thing if it makes them THAT good at it.

Wouldn't dwell on it too much, I actually have other ulterior motives, besides providing proof that the sorcerer could really lose a bit of his mana pool (I know why it's there, though, but there's probably a better way to make a spelcastery hybrid that can't do this in Naga City just by spellcasting), that the wizard might've been overbuffed needlesly, that the CB could be possibly trimmed a bit with no harm done, and that the potion races could use a tiny bit of looking into. I'm looking for something else though.

(Btw, how you do the challenge with the halfling is just use the health potions to fuel Alchemist pact, except with CB. Should work decently enough, just not as smoothly as with the Gnome, and you'd probably need the CB and the shops, but I didn't want people bothering with that. Gobbos probably don't need the pact - and goblin wizards offer tons of shennanigans. You haven't yet tried it with Binlor into Mystera, that sets up crazy ass refreshment and you also go down with full magic resists, knockback, might and stuff.)

However, do you know how the PQI works? Why is it not setting me up with Gnomes? And why I'm asking?

[Tinker]

If you're fireballing stuff, the actual utility of a Crystal Ball on Naga City is comparable to Flames/Battlemage Ring. More on Miser runs or 25+ mana pools, less if your mana pool is 20 or lower. All three slightly better than Dragon Soul and Mage Plate, which are comparable to eachother in utility.

When I did my Spellgoat (TM) run on NC, I did a bit of math around it, and I found that I needed either two items and good glyphs, or three items. I could prep one and had to hunt for the rest in the stores. On my successful run I had Mage Plate prepped, and found Dragon Soul - I didn't have any other caster item, but I had awesome glyphs (PISORF + BLUDTUPOWA). So I don't think that Crystal Ball sticks out too much. But let's not debate too long on this

[Caulder]

well since no one has sent a write of challenge Steel Spider Triple Threat Hoarder