I love the alchemist class

[martinuzz]

I am happily surprised:

I am now at level 25 with my new alchemist. Haven't hacked any dragon corpses yet.
I was busy trying to make me a good sword: shadow blade + 'of Aman' + chaotic..
After something like 15 tries to get it to +3 attacks AND good resistances, guess what happens when I try to turn a shadow blade of Aman into a chaotic shadow blade of Aman......

'You have succesfully created a shadow blade 'Heulin' (+17,+26)

Okay, no extra attacks, alas.. However, it increases strenght and stealth by 6, does extra damage from electricity, produces chaotic effects, is especially deadly against dragons, giants, natural creatures and fights evil with holy fury. Resistance to poison, dark and chaos.
Also, the see invisible flag (from 'of Aman') is gone, which is no big deal, since I play a zombie Rohanknight.

But hey.. I had no idea that an alchemist could make randarts before even acquiring the artefact creation ability.


EDIT: woohoo this must be my lucky character.
I just found the phial of Galadriel on lev 22 of the Orc caves

[Yottle]

Alchemists have a chance to make a randart any time they add a flag. I sometimes get randart torches (usually totally useless) when I am making money early on.

[martinuzz]

I just found out a neat trick.
It is possible to *identify* wares bought from shops, to acquire their alchemic recipe.

For rings and amulets: make them indestructible, then (E)xtract the item to remove the indestructible status. The item comes out of this process with 'need to *identify*' status.

For scrolls and staves: fireproof them, (E)xtract fireproofing.

Update: Unfortunately, attaching and (E)xtracting a rod tip to a rod does not change the 'bought from market' status on rods of capacity/charging/etc.
Rod tips, however, do come off with 'need to *identify*' status.

[Lord Estraven]

I must say, I've never really felt like putting in the necessary effort to make uber-powerful artifacts as an alchemist. The sheer tedium of scumming for corpse after corpse, making item after item to fuel your artifact's powers... It just doesn't appeal to me. At all.

I'd say alchemists not only need to be made less powerful - they also need to be made less annoying to play.

[budswell]

Hi,
I have finally (after many many attempts, his name is "Dead Again") got an alchemist to survive and have finally reached level 36, thus have learnt artifact creation. Now how does this work? I read the spoiler and it seems I have to sacrifice 10hp and 40 MagicEssence (luckily I've meen amassing a hoard of *ID* scrolls) to start the artifact. Then I have to earn experience with it, and then at some point "close" the artifact. Sounds like the kind of thing I'd like to trial and error with, but only have 350 hp, so don't want to throw a bunch away in "testing".
So my questions are:
- It seems I have to start with an ego or artifact item. Right?
- Do I have to wield the artifact while it gains experience?
- Or is carrying it enough, how about leaving it at home?
- Can I only make wearable artifacts? No junkarts, wands, rods etc?

And everyone seems to talk about alchemists having a bundle of HP. Is this just a matter of big plusses to CON and then adding the MulLife ability (which I have not learnt yet, not found anything)?

Edit: And what's this about corpses? Only reference I saw was you needed one to add a temporary ability once the skill is level 50 (I'm still a fair way off that).

[Yottle]

Hi,
I have finally (after many many attempts, his name is "Dead Again") got an alchemist to survive and have finally reached level 36, thus have learnt artifact creation. Now how does this work? I read the spoiler and it seems I have to sacrifice 10hp and 40 MagicEssence (luckily I've meen amassing a hoard of *ID* scrolls) to start the artifact. Then I have to earn experience with it, and then at some point "close" the artifact. Sounds like the kind of thing I'd like to trial and error with, but only have 350 hp, so don't want to throw a bunch away in "testing".
So my questions are:
- It seems I have to start with an ego or artifact item. Right?

yes

- Do I have to wield the artifact while it gains experience?

yes

- Or is carrying it enough, how about leaving it at home?

no

- Can I only make wearable artifacts? No junkarts, wands, rods etc?

yes

And everyone seems to talk about alchemists having a bundle of HP. Is this just a matter of big plusses to CON and then adding the MulLife ability (which I have not learnt yet, not found anything)?

yes

Edit: And what's this about corpses? Only reference I saw was you needed one to add a temporary ability once the skill is level 50 (I'm still a fair way off that).

You need corpses for certain flags or pluses, either temporary or permanent. When you are trying to add or increase something there is a screen that tells you what you will need. (Note that the various body parts are gotten either by a corpse or pieces of meat from the appropriate corpse. You don't need spleens or whatever it says, which is good because they don't exist in the game. Be aware that hacking corpses can be lethal.) Once your artifact is gaining experience, play around with this all you want. As long as you don't finalize it, it doesn't affect anything. It will make much more sense when you see the possibilities and what each one costs.

The basic idea is to pick an item that is so good or has some unique property such that you will never want to change it out. Then add resistances, immunities, and pluses until you are sickeningly powerful. Some examples of items that I have used: a randart armor with lots of resists and immunities, the Mattock of Nain, the Helm of Knowledge, or a vampiric weapon of Westernesse (resistant to Nazgul breakage). Each additional artifact costs 10 hp, so you don't normally want to get more than a couple going, but on the other hand you are eventually going to have thousands of hp.

[sephiroth2906]

umm...

a Mage Staff of Spell (Exp:0) (1d4) (-2,+10)(13108680%) (+655434)
It can be wielded two-handed. It can be activated for
runespell(Protection, Sphere, 43) every 215 turns and
runespell(Element, Power Surge, 14) every 70 turns if it is being
worn. It increases your spell power by 655434. It increases your mana
capacity by 13108680%. It cannot be harmed by acid, cold, lightning
or fire.
You made it yourself.

What the bloody hell?

And then I find out I don't even have access to the Mana school, and there won't be any fumblefingers as I have ironman on.

[Shoob]

worship eru?

[sephiroth2906]

Should have. Took Melkor. Could switch when the ring is toast I guess.

There is something seriously wrong with that staff. Of course the numbers wrap, so it isn't as bad as it looks.

[Yottle]

Why bother with Manathrust? You should be able to kill everything with Globe of Light.

[sephiroth2906]

Thought of that actually. The staff isn't actually as nasty as it looks though, because the way the numbers wrap bring globe of light to level 75, which is only doing around 180 damage. I also "only" end up with 5800 or so SP. Still, I don't understand how those numbers are even possible or how that thing came into being.

[AnonymousHero]

It could be a 32-bit vs. 64-bit bug. Are you running on 64-bit?

[Yottle]

I thought that maybe you had played the character a *really* long time, but I guess that isn't likely. My alchemist with a souped-up mage staff only had it at +99, and even then the game was silly. http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=7615

[sephiroth2906]

Yes I am playing 64 bit, and, no, this character is a couple of weeks old. This is actually the very first artifact I have ever made, and the character is a lv 46 Yeek. If you notice, the staff has 0 experience. I created a staff of wizardry, turned it into an artifact, then made it a staff of spell, this is the result with no further tampering. Honestly, I am kind of still flying blind on how to properly make artifacts.

[Yottle]

If you can come up with things like that without knowing what you are doing, I would suggest not learning anything more.