Alternate Reality: The Dungeon

[Jim Norris]

We have a topic for Alternate Reality the City characters who never died, why not one for Dungeon characters?

 

In that spirit, here is a Dungeon character who has never died.

 

I also did not knowingly use any cheats, except a master thief surprised the character and stole a silver sash and got away clean. This left the character with a silver sash's worth of extra dexterity. I say knowingly because it's so easy to accidently gain free stats from spells and magic items that don't terminate or drop normally.

 

 

I rolled for skill. Everything else was average or lower except for strength. I got lucky on the strength roll and liked that the character matched it's name.

 

 

 

Pinky made a run for the saurian brandy, amethyst rod, amber staff, golden apple, and whetstone. After Pinky had those, he made a run for the razor ice. He avoided fights as much as possible during this run because while your character is level 0, you get easier encounters.

 

 

Then Pinky stayed in the well lit area and only fought the fights he could easily win. When he had enough gold, he would buy armor from the D&P. Fortunately, a full set of armor was available for Pinky. Unfortunately, a couple of sages showed up and knocked the razor ice and amber staff out of Pinky's hands. Since sages were beyond his abilities, he ran and was never able to find these weapons again. So he had to make due with lit torches and a staff from the D&P.

 

 

As soon as Pinky found an eye, he challenged the valkyrie and 3 wraith thingies near the well lit area to obtain the winged sandals and Morganna's tiara. (Note for anyone wanting to try this: the valkyrie is invulnerable to one of the eyes... the amber eye I think.)

 

 

At this point things were looking better for Pinky. He stayed in the well lit area and leveled to 6.

 

 

At this point Pinky made a run to the thieves guild and attempted to learn the luck spell. Unfortunately Pinky had already helped too many paupers and was turned away. He was a little disappointed but immediately headed to their arch enemies, the guild of law and learned some important spells like shield, strength, and vigor. Then, except for a run to pick up an ice axe and the sword of the adept, it was back to the well lit area until level 8. At level 8 Pinky would be able to learn the protection spell from the light wizards guild and have enough levels to have 8 base spells.

 

 

After getting 8 base spells, Pinky obtained the all important temporal fugue spell. Then he spent his time training his spells up to near 95%.

He also achieved a level of great goodness and was invited into the garden where he obtained St. Percival's mace and the dispell evil spell. After donning a couple heavy leather jackets from the D&P, along with Morgana's tiarra and the winged sandals, he headed over to the enchantress and gave her nearly all the crystals he had to add some extra damage. In hindsight, increasing effectiveness might have been better... Once that happened he ventured out and began completing the quests, including getting the mirrored shield, killing the basilisk and the ancient wyrm. Killing the ancient wyrm was worth a crazy amount of xp and put him well over level 10. In hindsight, Pinky probably should have done the ring quest before killing the dragon because the Oracle gave Pinky 5 stamina which would have translated into some more hit points. Somewhere before the ancient wyrm, a devourer showed up and slurped up his crystal plate armor. No problem though, the truesilver coat guarded the by the dwarves near the well lit area was still available.

 

 

After killing the dragon, Pinky grabbed as many jewels as he could, put on the heavy leather jackets again and headed to the dwarven smithy. They were more than happy to take Pinky's 1200 gems and jewels to make him the Pinkinator sword! He made two more trips to the dragon's lair to carry gems and jewels to his guild locker and then went on to other quests. He probably could have kept grabbing jewels since he knows that the Dungeon remembers 16 things on the ground. If he doesn't drop anything or kill anything that drops something, for some reason the dragon's lair seems to stay full of loot.... Or maybe its based on time?

 

Pinky went on questing, returning the remaining staff pieces and obtaining the portal access card. He also defeated the undead knights wielding the ebon blades for some additional stats and hit points. Once Pinkinator was ready, Pinky took it and the crystals obtained from the ancient wyrm and had the enchantress increase it's effectiveness. Then Pinky went on to complete the game. The robots and alien sentries on the bottom level fell easily to the mighty Pinkinator as evidenced by the puddles of green goo and piles of gears strewn about the hallway floors.

 

Feeling invulnerable, Pinky ran around gathering further items, including cloak of levitation. Then Pinky ran into a doppleganger and quickly came to the realization that if the Pinkinator could crit for more hit points than Pinky had, a doppleganger holding a Pinkinator could kill him. Pinky lived and after this kept St. Percival's mace as his primary weapon and only pulled out the Pinkinator when absolutely necessary.

 

 

Pinky Muscles still lives, searching for a way to escape.... Alternate Reality.

 

 

On a side note, when I first played this game on version 1.0... I seem to remember surviving the alien control room without the mirrored shield and having to fight an alien outside the room just like the ancient wyrm.... If you are wondering how I got past Acrinimiral's puzzle in version 1.0, I edited the map... Did anyone else have a similar experience?

Edited September 23, 2013 by Jim Norris

[Jim Norris]

Maybe I set the bar too high...

 

But honestly, if your character survives the run for the amythest rod and the amber staff, it will probably survive to get the golden apple. After that he/she just needs to make it back to the well lit area and figure out a way to get enough levels and cash to get the shield spell. Once your character has shield up and some armor... it probably won't fall to a critical hit from something like a mercenary or sage swinging at your character's legs.

[bfollett]

I've always been too tempted by all the cheats available in the dungeon to ever try a game without them, but maybe you've inspired me to give it a try. I know one strategy that isn't really cheating, but rather taking advantage of the games design. When you are a level zero character, there are only a few low level characters (rats, bats, molds, muggers etc.) that you can encounter (unless you go to a fixed encounter location). Anyway, I used to always try avoid fighting with a new character so I would remain at level zero and then go around collecting treasures like the crystal breastplate, robin's hood, razor ice etc. Only after collecting all the treasures I wanted, would I start fighting. It's too bad the program didn't more gradually add monsters. Once you go from level zero to level one, you can encounter every type of monster.

 

Bob

[Jim Norris]

I've always been too scared to get more than what I listed above before leveling beyond level 0. Maybe I'll make a character where I try for the crystal plate on level 0...

 

I've found level 2 to be the hardest level.... so I use the doppleganger in the well lit area to get through it as quickly as possible. I unready my weapon first though :-)

 

I gotta agree with you on the gradually adding more monsters thing. It would have made the lower levels of the game a little less ridiculous. Or at least have grouped the monsters by area a little better.

Edited September 25, 2013 by Jim Norris

[bfollett]

I gotta agree with you on the gradually adding more monsters thing. It would have made the lower levels of the game a little less ridiculous. Or at least have grouped the monsters by area a little better.

Yeah I think a better grouping of monsters by area and dungeon level is really what the game needed. If you're a low level character and you are sticking to the safer areas of level 1 of the dungeon, I think the monster's should have been easier. If you're a low level character and you decide to venture to level 2 or beyond of the dungeon, then you deserve facing what ever monsters the game throws at you.

 

I forgot to mention one other strategy I had that worked really well. After collecting as many of the fixed treasure items as I dared with my level 0 character, I would navigate the annoying blink mine field on level one and get to the area outside the health fountain. There is a small 1X1 square room with hidden doors just outside the fountain doorway. Just go in and out of that to trigger more frequent encounters. When your health gets low, you simply drink from the fountain to heal. There's also a second perk to locating yourself here. There is an increased chance of encountering Serpent men and they very often drop Armor of all types even Treasures like Golden Grieves or Panther gloves. Unfortunately you'll also encounter more venomous big snakes.

 

Bob

[Jim Norris]

Another AR Dungeon character that has never died.

 

I was rolling for high intelligence but missed and he started with an intelligence of 8, which is the lowest possible I think. But he had a high dexterity so I kept him.

 

He had a very hard time getting crystals, including getting 0 off the ancient wyrm... so his weapons weren't enhanced like Pinky's weapons. In spite of that he seems to be very good at dishing out damage, especially unarmed.

 

Phil also managed to hang on to the amber staff and razor ice. Unfortunately a master thief managed to get his winged sandals. Somehow losing the winged sandals didn't leave Phil with the stat boost.

 

 

Phil currently is wearing 2 crystal belts, and has strength, and dexterity active.

 

Edited October 1, 2013 by Jim Norris

[+therealbountybob]

Hi Guys,

I'll pin this thread too. What other A8 games do you play?

[Jim Norris]

Hi Guys,

I'll pin this thread too. What other A8 games do you play?

 

I pretty much just play these two games. I only play games I have a legal license to play which kinda limits things. I bought a license for Seven Cities of Gold a few years ago from the Ozark people so sometimes I play that.

 

I'd really like to play Eastern Front. Someone let me play theirs a long time ago and really liked it but I never got it myself. I see Chris Crawford is on here sometimes, so I think I'll try to buy a license from him sometime soon if he's the current copyright holder.

 

I also play the Ultima games but I do that on the PC since I went and bought that all in one PC version.

 

I forget what other ones I have.... I bought a bunch off some guy for $50 around 10 years ago which had Eidelon and Lode Runner I think. There were a bunch of cartridges too like Donkey Kong I think... but I don't really play those either. They are all sitting in storage.

 

I kinda wish I had the Eternal Dagger series. A borrowed a friends and played it and it was a lot of fun.