Help with running an alchemist

[martinuzz]

Yay, level 25! Can anybody give me general idea of where I should put these skill points? I'm afraid that I'll misallocate them. I haven't played an alchemist at all, so I have no feel for one.

Ofcourse, alchemy skill.
Next to that, weaponmastery, so you can get those extra attacks and spread blows.
Also, magic device. Your magic devices are your friend as an alchemist.

You will need to save up points also. 70 Skillpoints required for artefact creation.

If you Worship Melkor, Prayer is also a good choice. Curse is da bomb.

[Shoob]

well... technically it depends on which route you want to go... magic or melee.

magic you want to invest in some magic skills and in prayer (depending on your god)

melee you want to invest in weaponmastry and combat...

and <cough> is melkor really necessary with an uber character anyway?

[Derakon]

I actually tend to prefer Tulkas, solely for Stone Prison, which is the best reliable LOS-blocker, in my opinion (as far as unreliable goes, the Thaumaturgist's blast wall creation spell can be a lot of fun). Mind you, Divine Aim is pretty awesome if you aren't planning on ridiculously twinking out your weapon. Triple damage is hard to pass up.

[martinuzz]

I guess you're right. Worshipping Melkor as a melee alchemist might be a bit too much cheese. I'm playing my third alchemist now. Very hopeful of 'winning' the game for the first time ever. You don't even really need it for Udun, for you can make your own scrolls of Genocide and potions of Restore Mana as an alchemist.

About Stone Prison.... I use wands of those.. In the higher level dungeons, (say Angband, for instance) are there many monsters that can destroy my wands?

[Yottle]

...In the higher level dungeons, (say Angband, for instance) are there many monsters that can destroy my wands?

Yes.

Wands and staves are useless at deeper levels.

[martinuzz]

Thanks, that is some very good info.. Need to rethink strategy

[Derakon]

It's not so much that your wands/staves get destroyed; elemental immunities are generally sufficiently available to let you protect your gear from destruction. It's that many of the deeper enemies can hit to drain charges; this picks a random wand or staff from your inventory that has charges and reduces it to 0 charges, healing the monster in the process. Note that rods are immune to this effect -- but of course, there are no rods of Stone Prison. They'd be overpowered if they existed.

Stone Prison really comes into its own when you can target the effect. "Oops, Baphomet woke up before I could finish killing off these sleeping dragons. Into a cage with you, buddy; I'll be with you in a moment."

[budswell]

Just discovered another "slightly dodgey" trick. When adventuring and collecting items, you can leach from weapons etc without ideintifying them. That way if an item does not show up on lits of items to Extract/Leech from, you know you can destroy it. Beats waiting for psuedo ID to kick in.

[martinuzz]

Cursed items are not leechable. You'll miss out on cursed indestructible amulets/rings of something if you destroy items by that method, which can be a good source of (magic/elemental) essences.

But for weapons and armor, yeah, it is a good method. Unless there are some good cursed weapons that would be destroyed that way, but I don't think so. Unless you like flipping weapons of Nothingness.

[budswell]

What is this "flipping". A few people talk about it in various posts, but I don't know what it actually means.

Edit: Another question. It also seems that I cannot extract or recharge the "Digging Wand of Thrain". Is this because its an artifact and thus exempt from all mid level (25) alchemist stuff.

[Shoob]

Cursed items are not leechable. You'll miss out on cursed indestructible amulets/rings of something if you destroy items by that method, which can be a good source of (magic/elemental) essences.

those however are rare and so it doesn't matter much

What is this "flipping". A few people talk about it in various posts, but I don't know what it actually means.

when you read a scroll of remove curse (whichever is strong enough to get rid of the curse) it has a chance to flip the negatives on the ego item (make them positive) it doesnt affect the positive modifiers though, just the negative ones. This chance is based on your character level (I believe at lvl 50 you have 1/3rd of a chance, less for lower levels). You cannot flip randarts or truearts.

Edit: Another question. It also seems that I cannot extract or recharge the "Digging Wand of Thrain". Is this because its an artifact and thus exempt from all mid level (25) alchemist stuff.

yes. all artifacts cannot be extracted from so it is immune to alchemy... however you can still pump it full of charges via recharge (non-alchemy) because it is an artifact and cant be destroyed.

[Ithulta]

So the spell doesn't have this same chance of flipping?

[Yottle]

So the spell doesn't have this same chance of flipping?

Any source of remove curse works- scroll, spell, staff.

[overtrix]

Although you can't flip an artifact, they can come ready-flipped if they were cursed when generated. For an alchemist this means that cursed armour with a life bonus is great ... say The Full Plate Armour of Spondoolix (+53,+34) [25,-11] (-80%) ... a few ugly body parts and some XP will fix the HP issue, meanwhile you're Conan the Alchemist.

If you got really lucky, wouldn't even need to be an alchemist. I always make a point of wreaking carnage on the townsfolk in each dungeon town, just in case - because unlike items on the floor, they always ...

[Ithulta]

What kinda damage does a failed detonation potion do?