UPDATE: Bitlitch is now done with the home quests in the four major towns, and I've got scads of Elf Skeletons. Next up I plan to take a Thunderlord-teleport down to the Sacred Land of Mountains, kill off Trone, and recall back and forth with stacks of junk until I get a couple quivers of artifact ammo. Once that's done it's on to Mirkwood for more questing. Seriously, the Barrow-Downs only gave me ONE bloody Fumblefingers quest, and the options were all crap so I ended up taking a boost to Magic-device.
I'm hoping to get Mindcraft up to a 0.5 modifier, then dump points into it for some good utility spells like detection and whatnot. After scumming for so long, I plan to make some rapid progress quickly, and maybe we'll get to kill the Necromancer sometime soon.
Then again, Diablo 3 is out. So maybe we won't get much questing done at all, depending on the servers.
EDIT: Bitlitch bit the big one, sadly enough. Two fairly nasty encounters with various undead left him with no mana and little HP, and there wasn't enough gain from Share Life to prevent death from a nether ball that came out of Bog-knows-where. Serves me right for trying to mass summon in the Paths of the Dead. RIP, good sir. You died as you lived: as insultingly as possible.
CURRENTLY: The next cheapy-cheap character is a Deathmold Possessor. I'm starting out in Bree instead of Mandos this time. The character will use Weaponmastery and Magic-Device, as well as some auxiliary points in Archery. Maybe FF will be kind this time around and I can make something happen.
Just did the home quest and got a Novice Rogue body, sold the Bandit's dagger and used the proceeds to get a wand of Manathrust, then kept going south to the swamp to take out hydras for more cash. Then more wands, then more cash, etc. I don't like using bodies with "non-standard" equipment slots, because usually the lack of body armor or boots or other variety is too much of a disadvantage. Yeah, the Watcher has six ring slots and three weapon slots, but that'll be a judgement call if I actually pull that corpse. If nothing else I'll be a Gold Thunderlord (Great HP, speed) or maybe Maeglin (decent HP, SUMMONS!) for the endgame, depending on how lucky my equipment drops are.
Werrix is now level 12, in the body of a Lizard King, and for once in my ToME career I remembered to buy a shovel BEFORE going to tackle the Barrow-Downs. Here's how I see it going further:
- Lizard King gets me permanent +10 speed, which will make the Downs a breeze. Go through there first, then use the ego-items for either equipment or cash.
- After that, it's up to the mountains with a stack of Manathrust wands. Kill some dragons to get more levels, and scum for a Cyclops body.
- Orc cave is next for equipment, then maybe the Maze for the helmet and rod tip, then Mirkwood for FF quests and ego items.
- If I've got decent kit and Archery is up to snuff, I'll go for the home quests in Lothlorien (yay ammo!) and Gondolin, possibly.
- Who knows? After finishing a couple home quests and getting through the mid-30s, I plan to finalize my character plan to focus either on melee or archery, depending on the body I get and the equipment available.
UPDATE: Werrix just got an Archery bonus from Fumblefingers, bringing the skill up to 0.500 rate. That's enough for me to use it as a dump skill once Possession and Weaponmastery are done, and it should help boost Combat through spillover. Sucks that I can't find a good skill point planner. Zizzo's jtomespoiler seems to have disappeared from the 'net.
. This is now officially my second-luckiest character, after my sorcerer that found a Staff of Wish of Plenty. (Polished PDSM of Immunity, plus a Mage Staff of Wizardry and a bunch of Craftsmanship scrolls to take it up to +100% mana? Best sorc I've ever had, and it died on the Maeglin quest because I got too greedy.)
