Spider Stomper
Posts: 195
Joined: Thursday, 3rd February 2011, 13:14
Thursday, 31st March 2011, 13:23
Red Sonja survival guide (draft)
For various reasons I've been a bit bored with the main game lately, going so far as to suicide some rather powerful characters because they were just too boring (SETM of Chei who found the hell portal vault in lair:8... and decided to take a visit). So, I've been playing Sprint. I'm finally starting to get some success, once getting far enough to get killed by Lom Lobon. I'd thought I'd share some of my accumulated wisdom. Of course, this is going to be chock-full of spoilers:
THE FIRST THREE:
1. Ijyb. In my experience, very few starting characters can take him out in plain melee without using expendables, unless they get very lucky (of course, if you get unlucky, you'll die no matter what you do but that's the Red Sonja sprint for you.) Stabbers pull it off once in a while, but that's pure luck.
Then there's the option of using expendables: one everyone has is the starting berserk potion. Of the ones I've tried, even the wimpier races can take him out with it, although DE casters should not try to stretch the berserk to the next room. Starting expendables that are class-specific are assassin needles (It's worth it to run, even though there's no pillar to dance: you get hit less), gladiator nets (sometimes powerful, but highly variable effect, not worth saving for long IME) and hunter ammunition - Ogre rocks really shine here. Berserker berserk is always an option, just remember that it is an expendable too (little access to chunks in RS). Artificer wands will work, let him fight the Ogre for you if you have enslavement (as you should).
For casters, very few of the starting spells are good enough to take him out on their own, even with the most powerful races. Sting-and-run can work, but be prepared to use a potion. I mostly just use the berserk potion straight away.
2. The ogre. Same tricks as Ijyb apply. If you killed Ijyb with berserk, you can try to get the ogre on it as well, it usually works for races with decent fighting capability (though you get your share of unavoidable deaths here as well). Thrown items are still great since the ogre has so poor EV, but since it hits so hard you can't kite as much as you could with Ijyb. If you're a caster who did not strech your berserk potion, you may know a second-level spell by now. throw flame and frost can take him down if you're faster than it - but it's risky.
Avoid resting next to the wall in this room if you've got XP in your pool. There's a secret door to some gold, and it will waste your precious XP on mostly useless traps and doors. Trick: If you can learn passwall, you can sneak into room 6, get access to the shop and altar, and flee back the same way once the slug sees you. There's also a secret cache with some gold south of the starting room, inaccessible except with passwall.
3. Sigmund. Do not try to stretch the berserk to him, even if you quaffed it at the ogre! You will rarely kill him quickly enough, and you don't want to meet him slowed. Of the starting expendables, bring out the curare, the nets and the rocks - don't bother with poorer ammo. Quaff the potion of speed if you are in doubt - often it's the only option besides healing you've got left, and often it's not enough (anyone got past Sigmund with a warper yet?) If he confuses you, quaff healing and hope he doesn't do it again. If he turns invisible, you can try slamming the door in his face repeatedly until it wears off. Casters need to bring out the 3+ level spells to have a chance - if you've managed to get here with a venom mage (trickier than it seems!) ye olde mephitic cloud will save you.
CHOOSING A GOD:
4. You can go right to the amoeba. It's highly unlikely that you can kill it, but you can flee back into the starting room, use the blink scroll to get around it and close the door on it. This gives you access to the amoeba's room which has four altars (and the next which has four gold.) If you convert to a corpse-sacing god, run back and sac the first three if you can.
5. Or you can go south to the jelly. If you're taking it out with ranged means, let it get slightly close to you - you don't want it to flee and eat any doors (except the one to room 6, that doesn't matter so much). If I only have melee options, I have sometimes switched to Sigmund's scythe here to avoid corroding my own, but whether that's wise I'm not sure. Usual Jelly-fighting rules apply. Remember it eats (and heals from) open doors, so don't flee. There are two more altars here. The (other) north exit is safe, just some gold behind it. There's a secret door behind one altar, that's also safe.
6. West from the jelly room is a shop, the rest of the altars in the game and an elephant slug. The elephant slug is so slow, you can hit it, step back, then hit it again just after it moves. Lead it right back that way to the starting room if needed, then run around it (you risk one hit) and continue step, hit, step, hit. If you haven't a god already, remember to take shop contents into account: If it's food, Trog is good, if it's books, you may risk Vehumet over Sif etc. If the shop is trash, consider going Zin and donating some gold - he's more useful in Sprint due to his mutation protection, which gets quite useful in one later room. You can (and should, probably) always switch to TSO after doing that room. If in doubt, try Fedhas, it will save you some grief in three future rooms if you can get there.
SONJA AND HER KOBOLD FRIENDS:
7. You can try the amoeba now, where it was or where you locked it up. It'll be a tough fight, but at least it has no nasty tricks. It's poison immune, though, and senses invisible. Next room behind it just has gold.
8. South from the Jelly room is the curare-shooting Sonja. She is nasty. Other than mephitic cloud, there are few low-risk ways of taking her out. Berserking won't do, as she blinks like crazy. Melee is generally inadvisable, as four hits of distortion or poison is very dangerous. A powerful wand from the shop, fire, cold, paralyze or polymorph can help, though she has good EV. If you see she has poison (not distort), Ice Form is a good idea. If you still have your healing potion, save it for curing poisoning after she's taken care of. This room has a secret door on the west, to another shop (don't open the big door yet.) Don't go east yet. Go south if you either know Fedhas or have 40+ HP and your food dropped off elsewhere (spores + treasure).
9. The Kobold demonologists + eye. They are two rooms east of the amoeba room. They may be a better option than meleeing Sonja. Open the door from diagonally, and retreat back into the amoeba room. When the first K sees you, close the door - then he will go towards it to open it rather than summon more demons. Retreat behind doors this way until you can fight them in a corridor - ideally the K, possibly a 5, hopefully not a 3 or 2. Casters should use mephitic, or their most powerful ranged spells + retreating... avoid entering the room to fight the demonologists, retreat if you see the eye and can't fire at it. Once the eye and both K's are down, do not enter the room if you tricked them out. They will probably have opened the door to the demonic crawlers, four enemies you probably don't want to face yet.
HARD-HITTERS AND EYES:
9. Behind the big door left of Sonja's, is a room full of shining eyes and floating eyes. None of them will do a point of damage, but if you try to charge through, you will die a starving, pissed off, vegetarian wreck (yes, even with mutation resistance). The best a fighter can do is to have some stealth, so you can trick them out one by one, lead them to the spore room and kill them. You will get mutated, quite possibly enough to doom your game, but it's not guaranteed like it is if you barge in. Zin is your friend in this fight, and he'll love you a lot when it's over. TSO will like you too, when you ditch Zin
Casters can do as fighters, and trick them out one by one, but far better is to flood it with summons and stay out of reach of the floating eyes. Your Ice beasts may turn into many interesting things, but they'll generally clean up the place good. Behind the eyes are four shops, where you can buy a few more room's worth of survival... unless you gave your gold to Zin to get here in the first place, that is.
10. East of Sonja's is a corridor with a rock troll. This is the point where you go berserk, and still get killed... Using Sonja's curare on it first may be advisable. There's another shop here, plus a secret door on the north to a small cache, with another secret door north inside the cache. Don't go through that unless you want to meet...
12. The centaur warriors. They are in the room east of the jelly. There's water between them and you, so charging across is inadvisable, as is stabbing attempts. If I must melee them I usually open the secret door in 11's cache, stand in the Rock Troll's corridor and trick them out with shouting (even if I'm a caster, having them at melee range is preferable to have them pelting me with arrows, even though they hit hard enough). If melee power deficit/lack of defense didn't kill you at the troll, it will quite likely do so now. Don't try to conserve resources.
Behind the centaur's is a room with a yellow wasp, it shouldn't be a problem at this point as long as you treat it with respect (it can paralyze you, after all. It's just never had the time in any of my games). Do not open the door to the south right away unless you know Fedhas: There's an Oklob there.
...
For the rest of the game, point by point strategy makes less sense. But your priority should be getting past said oklob, the trap door spiders, the quivering lumps + necrophages + unseen horrors at the end of it. There you'll find the huge array of shops which will hopefully give you one or more of the things you need to get on: See invisible, fire resistance, digging, levitation/apportation, stasis, levitation again, cold resistance, more cold resistance, some means to take out lom lobon etc. You'll need to take expeditions into other rooms to get the gold do buy it. The game ahead is pretty cruel to melee fighters and stabbers, less so to casters and summoners. I haven't won it yet, but it starts to become within reach.
THE FIRST THREE:
1. Ijyb. In my experience, very few starting characters can take him out in plain melee without using expendables, unless they get very lucky (of course, if you get unlucky, you'll die no matter what you do but that's the Red Sonja sprint for you.) Stabbers pull it off once in a while, but that's pure luck.
Then there's the option of using expendables: one everyone has is the starting berserk potion. Of the ones I've tried, even the wimpier races can take him out with it, although DE casters should not try to stretch the berserk to the next room. Starting expendables that are class-specific are assassin needles (It's worth it to run, even though there's no pillar to dance: you get hit less), gladiator nets (sometimes powerful, but highly variable effect, not worth saving for long IME) and hunter ammunition - Ogre rocks really shine here. Berserker berserk is always an option, just remember that it is an expendable too (little access to chunks in RS). Artificer wands will work, let him fight the Ogre for you if you have enslavement (as you should).
For casters, very few of the starting spells are good enough to take him out on their own, even with the most powerful races. Sting-and-run can work, but be prepared to use a potion. I mostly just use the berserk potion straight away.
2. The ogre. Same tricks as Ijyb apply. If you killed Ijyb with berserk, you can try to get the ogre on it as well, it usually works for races with decent fighting capability (though you get your share of unavoidable deaths here as well). Thrown items are still great since the ogre has so poor EV, but since it hits so hard you can't kite as much as you could with Ijyb. If you're a caster who did not strech your berserk potion, you may know a second-level spell by now. throw flame and frost can take him down if you're faster than it - but it's risky.
Avoid resting next to the wall in this room if you've got XP in your pool. There's a secret door to some gold, and it will waste your precious XP on mostly useless traps and doors. Trick: If you can learn passwall, you can sneak into room 6, get access to the shop and altar, and flee back the same way once the slug sees you. There's also a secret cache with some gold south of the starting room, inaccessible except with passwall.
3. Sigmund. Do not try to stretch the berserk to him, even if you quaffed it at the ogre! You will rarely kill him quickly enough, and you don't want to meet him slowed. Of the starting expendables, bring out the curare, the nets and the rocks - don't bother with poorer ammo. Quaff the potion of speed if you are in doubt - often it's the only option besides healing you've got left, and often it's not enough (anyone got past Sigmund with a warper yet?) If he confuses you, quaff healing and hope he doesn't do it again. If he turns invisible, you can try slamming the door in his face repeatedly until it wears off. Casters need to bring out the 3+ level spells to have a chance - if you've managed to get here with a venom mage (trickier than it seems!) ye olde mephitic cloud will save you.
CHOOSING A GOD:
4. You can go right to the amoeba. It's highly unlikely that you can kill it, but you can flee back into the starting room, use the blink scroll to get around it and close the door on it. This gives you access to the amoeba's room which has four altars (and the next which has four gold.) If you convert to a corpse-sacing god, run back and sac the first three if you can.
5. Or you can go south to the jelly. If you're taking it out with ranged means, let it get slightly close to you - you don't want it to flee and eat any doors (except the one to room 6, that doesn't matter so much). If I only have melee options, I have sometimes switched to Sigmund's scythe here to avoid corroding my own, but whether that's wise I'm not sure. Usual Jelly-fighting rules apply. Remember it eats (and heals from) open doors, so don't flee. There are two more altars here. The (other) north exit is safe, just some gold behind it. There's a secret door behind one altar, that's also safe.
6. West from the jelly room is a shop, the rest of the altars in the game and an elephant slug. The elephant slug is so slow, you can hit it, step back, then hit it again just after it moves. Lead it right back that way to the starting room if needed, then run around it (you risk one hit) and continue step, hit, step, hit. If you haven't a god already, remember to take shop contents into account: If it's food, Trog is good, if it's books, you may risk Vehumet over Sif etc. If the shop is trash, consider going Zin and donating some gold - he's more useful in Sprint due to his mutation protection, which gets quite useful in one later room. You can (and should, probably) always switch to TSO after doing that room. If in doubt, try Fedhas, it will save you some grief in three future rooms if you can get there.
SONJA AND HER KOBOLD FRIENDS:
7. You can try the amoeba now, where it was or where you locked it up. It'll be a tough fight, but at least it has no nasty tricks. It's poison immune, though, and senses invisible. Next room behind it just has gold.
8. South from the Jelly room is the curare-shooting Sonja. She is nasty. Other than mephitic cloud, there are few low-risk ways of taking her out. Berserking won't do, as she blinks like crazy. Melee is generally inadvisable, as four hits of distortion or poison is very dangerous. A powerful wand from the shop, fire, cold, paralyze or polymorph can help, though she has good EV. If you see she has poison (not distort), Ice Form is a good idea. If you still have your healing potion, save it for curing poisoning after she's taken care of. This room has a secret door on the west, to another shop (don't open the big door yet.) Don't go east yet. Go south if you either know Fedhas or have 40+ HP and your food dropped off elsewhere (spores + treasure).
9. The Kobold demonologists + eye. They are two rooms east of the amoeba room. They may be a better option than meleeing Sonja. Open the door from diagonally, and retreat back into the amoeba room. When the first K sees you, close the door - then he will go towards it to open it rather than summon more demons. Retreat behind doors this way until you can fight them in a corridor - ideally the K, possibly a 5, hopefully not a 3 or 2. Casters should use mephitic, or their most powerful ranged spells + retreating... avoid entering the room to fight the demonologists, retreat if you see the eye and can't fire at it. Once the eye and both K's are down, do not enter the room if you tricked them out. They will probably have opened the door to the demonic crawlers, four enemies you probably don't want to face yet.
HARD-HITTERS AND EYES:
9. Behind the big door left of Sonja's, is a room full of shining eyes and floating eyes. None of them will do a point of damage, but if you try to charge through, you will die a starving, pissed off, vegetarian wreck (yes, even with mutation resistance). The best a fighter can do is to have some stealth, so you can trick them out one by one, lead them to the spore room and kill them. You will get mutated, quite possibly enough to doom your game, but it's not guaranteed like it is if you barge in. Zin is your friend in this fight, and he'll love you a lot when it's over. TSO will like you too, when you ditch Zin
Casters can do as fighters, and trick them out one by one, but far better is to flood it with summons and stay out of reach of the floating eyes. Your Ice beasts may turn into many interesting things, but they'll generally clean up the place good. Behind the eyes are four shops, where you can buy a few more room's worth of survival... unless you gave your gold to Zin to get here in the first place, that is.
10. East of Sonja's is a corridor with a rock troll. This is the point where you go berserk, and still get killed... Using Sonja's curare on it first may be advisable. There's another shop here, plus a secret door on the north to a small cache, with another secret door north inside the cache. Don't go through that unless you want to meet...
12. The centaur warriors. They are in the room east of the jelly. There's water between them and you, so charging across is inadvisable, as is stabbing attempts. If I must melee them I usually open the secret door in 11's cache, stand in the Rock Troll's corridor and trick them out with shouting (even if I'm a caster, having them at melee range is preferable to have them pelting me with arrows, even though they hit hard enough). If melee power deficit/lack of defense didn't kill you at the troll, it will quite likely do so now. Don't try to conserve resources.
Behind the centaur's is a room with a yellow wasp, it shouldn't be a problem at this point as long as you treat it with respect (it can paralyze you, after all. It's just never had the time in any of my games). Do not open the door to the south right away unless you know Fedhas: There's an Oklob there.
...
For the rest of the game, point by point strategy makes less sense. But your priority should be getting past said oklob, the trap door spiders, the quivering lumps + necrophages + unseen horrors at the end of it. There you'll find the huge array of shops which will hopefully give you one or more of the things you need to get on: See invisible, fire resistance, digging, levitation/apportation, stasis, levitation again, cold resistance, more cold resistance, some means to take out lom lobon etc. You'll need to take expeditions into other rooms to get the gold do buy it. The game ahead is pretty cruel to melee fighters and stabbers, less so to casters and summoners. I haven't won it yet, but it starts to become within reach.
Crazy Yiuf mutters: "Good: bonuses. Bad: Boni. Ugly: Bonii!"
- For this message the author vintermann has received thanks: 4
- atte, dpeg, pratamawirya, Volgon
