ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

I've been playing Tome on-and-off now for some years.
Just recently, I have been trying my hand on the alchemist class.
I am playing as a zombie high elf alchemist, worshipping Melkor.
Just arrived at character level 20.
And behold. Not only do I find a scroll of Mass Genocide in a shop in the Orc caves...
I use my alchemy skill to extract from it and BINGO.
Now I can make my own scrolls of Mass Genocide. I could already make scrolls of *destruction*, (defender) weapons, and most potions of stat gain.
I have a feeling that this class just might get me a lot further through the game than my previous characters.

I've never gotten far with an alchemist. I don't think I've had the patience. From what I've read it seems to be vastly overpowered at high levels. Good luck with it, and keep us updated!

It's fun, right enough - Choppah's long-awaited interview with Melkor was a bit of a non-event.

a) The Slaughter Axe called 'Choppah' (12d10) (+22,+19)(200%) (+10 to speed)
It provides light (radius 3) forever. It increases your wisdom, stealth, searching,
infravision, speed, attack speed and luck by 10. It increases your hit points
by 200%. It does extra damage from acid, electricity, fire and frost. It poisons
your foes. It drains life from your foes. It is very sharp and can cut your foes.
It is very sharp and can make your foes bleed. It is a great bane of dragons.
It fights against evil with holy fury. It is especially deadly against natural creatures.
It makes you invisible. It allows you to see invisible monsters. It allows you to
sense the presence of good beings. It has been blessed by the gods. It cannot
be harmed by acid, cold, lightning or fire.
You made it yourself.

Having spent ages sitting in chapels to get +life (thus -hit, -dam) armour cursed, Santa the Edam Alchemist finally decided randarts won't flip. Then he found one that came with a curse (ready-flipped) but nothing nasty, so that did the job almost as well.

n) The Metal Lamellar Armour called 'Kevlar' (+26,+33) [23,+12](220%) (+11 attacks)
It increases your searching, attack speed and ability to score critical hits by 11.
It increases your hit points by 220%. It makes you invisible. It sustains your
strength, intelligence, wisdom, dexterity, constitution and charisma. It provides
immunity to acid, electricity, fire and cold. It provides immunity to paralysis. It
makes you completely fearless. It provides resistance to life draining, poison,
light, dark, blindness, confusion, sound, shards, nether, nexus, chaos and
disenchantment. It allows you to levitate. It allows you to fly. It allows you to see
invisible monsters. It gives telepathic powers. It speeds your regenerative powers.
It reflects bolts and arrows. It produces a fiery sheath. It cannot be harmed by
acid, cold, lightning or fire.
You made it yourself.

If I go through with the promise (threat ? ) of an 'enhanced' Mt Doom level for Christmas, then Santa will leave these pretty stiffly guarded within - you've not seen Joolie the Amulet yet, or Tootsies the Hard Leather Boots, or ...

I also find Alchemists a bit tedious to play. They don't seem to be overpowered per se, it's just that they really don't fit the difficulty curve of the game. They're pretty weak at the start and far too strong by the end, if you're prepared to put in the hours.

Having said that, you can get around 40 levels from your first kill, if you mess around with friendly wavelords, detonation potions and a handy leviathan/greater kraken. That's not really terribly sporting, though.

overtrix, that really got me wanting to play an alchemist now! I'm getting ready for a D&D game with a 15th level character, so I'm shopping for all sorts of fun magic items. I'm imagining how much fun it can be to build your own.

It can be fun at first, but it becomes increasingly tedious and pointless as you get closer and closer to godhood (let's say 16K HP, +500 to hit/damage, +30 attacks, etc.).

That's eminently true, it's not something you'd want to do more than every couple of years - iirc Santa has about 130 blows per round, and enough HP he failed to notice when Qlzqqlzuup (yes, thankfully did need to look that up) had died protecting him.

You can also play alchemists as a munchkin sorceror. Find a mage staff of wizardry, add something cheap like stealth, and then up the pval. The additions to mana and spell power don't cost anything so it is easy to get it up over 100. Manathrust at level 200 takes out just about anything in one turn.

(I don't remember who suggested this originally. It was in an old thread about the sleaziest tactics.)

^
I enjoyed that tactic combined with spells like Grow Trees. Covering the whole screen with a forest at the touch of a button is good fun

I must say that the further I progress, the more micromanagement it takes to store my essences wisely. Gathering essences takes a lot of gametime. However, I'm used to micromanagement (as a Dwarf Fortress player) so it does not bother me yet.

Btw, Spectral (defender) weapons rule. The regenerative power bonus from the (defender) tag makes the life drain from the Spectral tag quite a lot more bearable.

I can't wait until I get enough skillpoints to buy the artefact creation ability.

Hehehe.. The recipe for a potion of augmentation was very easy to get:
You get a potion of augmentation at Lothlorien's city hall, as a reward for completing the Mirkwood spider quest.
This potion is identified, but not yet *identified*. (*identifying* something gives you the recipe)

You can store effectively unlimited numbers of many essences in wands or staves. I usually keep these in my home so that they don't get drained or burned.

In any case, there are not many kinds of essences that you need to store more than 99 of. A home can handle one stack of each kind.

Yeah I did find out myself just after posting that I can store more than 100 charges in wands / staffs. Pretty nice. I also found out that you cannot extract from a wand that has been magically recharged.

Update on prgress: YASD

Note to self NEVER to hack a baby multihued dragon corpse again

general rule of thumb:

eat before you hack...

that is eat the corpse before you hack it, it will give you resistance to whatever damage you take

_________________
Oliphant am I, and I never lie.