Ancient Domains of Mystery: Difference between revisions

* [[Amazing Technicolor Battlefield]]: {{spoiler|The Chaos dimension.}} along with the top level of the Tower of Eternal Flames, level 66 of the Infinite Dungeon and bottom of the Scintillating Cave.

* [[Armor-Piercing Attack]]: There is a weapon called ''phase dagger'' that completely ignores the armour of the target. The downside is that on each hit, the game throws at you a message about you easily cutting through the armour, which requires you to press [more] much more often. And the dagger itself doesn't do much damage anyway, making it useful only against [[Heavily Armored Mook|Heavily Armored Mooks]].

* [[Artifact of Doom]]: {{spoiler|The Chaos Orbs contain powerful magic, but the player is corrupted upon using. There are many other artifacts that qualify; some literally "doom" the player, some corrupt the player merely by carrying them around, some do both and curse themselves on equipping to make it as hard as possible to get rid of them.}}

* [[Artifact Title]]: Averted. When it initially had only one dungeon, ADOM stood for ''Advanced Dungeons of Mystery'', and a couple of versions later for '''''Ancient''''' ''Dungeons of Mystery''. In version 0.9.0, where the overworld was implemented, the title was changed to the current ''Ancient'' '''''Domains''''' ''of Mystery''.

* [[Clingy MacGuffin]]: The si. It has a few uses, though.

** Not really much of a [[MacGuffin]] since the si doesn't ''do'' anything. Except sit there, and {{spoiler|replicate}} once in a while. However, if you bring it into the {{spoiler|Infinite Dungeon}}, you will find out that it does indeed cling.

* [[The Corruption]]: The encroaching Chaos is warping and corrupting the creatures in the lower levels of the dungeons. As the Player Character dives into them, it starts to affect them too, manifesting as "Corruptions". Some of the corruptions make the game more difficult, some are useful, and having too many results in a [[Body Horror|rather nasty]] [[Nonstandard Game Over|death]].

* [[Cryptic Conversation]]: Yggaz the Fool and the Mad Minstrel do this. Also the fortune cookies, which may or may not be flat-out lying to you. (Also, many quest hints you get in conversation are pretty cryptic too.)

** One of the most useful spells is Magic Missile. It's very cheap to cast, spellbooks for it are very common, it can kill many enemies at once, its range increases when trained, and it bounces off walls (so you can kill monsters in positions that other spells and throwable weapons can't reach). However, it's common for a player to make a typo and cast the spell towards a wall at a 180 angle in a narrow corridor. The spell will then hit the player and bounce off the opposite wall, hit the player again and bounce off the first wall again... Essentially, the spell will bounce and rebounce, always hitting the player inbetween, until it has reached its maximum range - at this point the character is usually dead. He's forced to watch a long cycle of messages about the Magic Missile rebouncing and hitting him, his HP steadily sinking, unable to do anything about it.

** Similarly, getting paralyzed by a monster results in an endless series of messages of the monster hitting you, and the player can't control his character. On the other hand paralyzation is much less likely to result in death if the character is strong.

* [[Degraded Boss]]: Played with. The skeletal king guarding an item in the Tomb of the High Kings is actually also a rare monster spawn. It only appears randomly late in the game though, so the player is likely to see the guaranteed boss one first.

* [[Description Porn]]: Many of the monster descriptions, in particular the bosses.

** It's also a valid combat tactic. Let one strong enemy get caught in a dronejam, then drop an Improved Fireball or two on top of him. Alternatively, trap him in between some medium-strength goons in a corridor and let fly with a Lightning Bolt or two -- angle the shot to pinball it off the walls for extra style points.

* [[Dungeons and Dragons]]: A lot of the spell names and monster types are named after their D&D equivalents.

** {{spoiler|His level is the same as that of the PC when they first enter his dungeon level. If the PC wants to risk it, he or she can game this by making a dive to the bottom of said dungeon when they're level 8, then running straight back out, avoiding any monsters along the way. Later, when you're lvl. 12 and he's lvl. 8, he becomes a lot more survivable}}.

* [[Early Installment Weirdness]]: Version 0.2.0 is fascinating to play. There is no overworld, only the main dungeon exists, there are no colours, and the way rooms and corridors are drawn resembles [[Nethack]].

* [[Kill It With Fire]]: Remember these words when you find the Temple of Elemental Water.

* [[Kill It With Water]]: Specifically, holy water. Use it on the undead for a [[One-Hit Kill]].

* [[The Legions of Hell]]: The Forces of Chaos are pretty much [[Expy|this game's version]] of them.

* [[Lethal Lava Land]]: [[Exactly What It Says On the Tin|The Tower of Eternal Flames]].

* [[Level Grinding]]: There are useful benefits to gaining a level. You're still not safe (you're NEVER safe), but you're less likely to die without warning. The game tries to avert this by refusing to give experience for killing more than a certain number of a creature, and by making creatures more powerful the more of them you kill. And just don't go to the small dungeon near the start at more than a few levels, because it gets harder as you get tougher, except ''much'' faster. (Although with enough resources at a sufficiently high level, particularly the ability to teleport when and where you like, it can become bearable again to at least run through.)

* [[Level Scaling]]: The more of a single creature you kill the more powerful that type of creature gets. Gets fun when dealing with enemy summoners.

** Subverted by the [[True Final Boss]].

* [[Lizard Folk]]: Drakelings, one of the PC races.

* [[Metal Slime]]: Giant boars, oy. Required for the ultra endings, sadly.

* [[The Minion Master]]: This is the [[Planet of Hats|hat]] of necromancers; bards can be played like this too, although having too many followers at once may result in them jealously attacking one another.

** Having said that, a hurthling Mindcrafter or Priest is more likely to get enough Willpower (16+ Wi -- 1 extra talent), plus their racial bonus (another extra talent) to get 3 Talents at the start, letting you acquire Treasure Hunter (increases amount of equipment [[Randomly Drops|randomly dropped]]) at level 1.

*** There is more than one way to start with three talents or more (plus, it's Mana and not willpower): The maximum number is ''six'' talents, for which you have to be a hurthling or gnome farmer, bard or merchant with 17+ Mana, Candle or Falcon as starsign, and some completely unrelated luck (you get a bonus talent if the sum total of your stats is divisible by 7). This would allow you to get Treasure Hunter and the truly game-breaking seven-league boots, at level 1. Yet - while gunning for extra talents is one aspect of min-maxing, it rarely does more than make the start a little bit easier. Also, while in this particular case you maxxed the crap out of your running speed, you sadly happened to min your combat prowess.

* [[Self-Imposed Challenge]]: Nearly every aspect of the game has been played to death, so there are quite a few of these. One of the most extreme was playing (and ''winning'') with a weight limit of 100s. A normal player would finish the game holding 100-500 times that much in inventory, never mind their equipment. In addition, several artifacts that are needed to complete the game each weigh 100s, so the PC had to be naked and carrying nothing else (including food, armor or weapons) while moving them to the bottom of the dungeon.

** One player nearly won the entire game with a completely blind character. The only reason it wasn't finished was because there is a particular endgame action that cannot be done while blind.

** "They say that at times, things can get zorky."

** It is also possible to find {{spoiler|[[The Lord of the Rings (Literature)|Sting]], though it doesn't shine blue if goblins are near}}.

** The Song of the Mad Minstrel is actually one of [[Robert E Howard (Creator)|Robert E Howard]]'s poems.

** One of the random artifacts is [[Cthulhu Mythos|The Black Tome of Alsophocus]].

* [[Spell Book]]: These can be found randomly in the dungeons, and teach a limited amount of castings upon reading. Once they have been read enough times, they disappear into thin air.

* [[Square Race Round Class]]: All classes are open to characters of all races, which means there are exactly 200 possible combinations. Troll thieves are just the beginning...

** In another example, you can kill a beggar, poison the corpse then feed it to another beggar (which quickly kills the second beggar).

** Bottom line in this game: you're free to attack anyone or anything if you so choose. This includes children, cowering near-dead foes, non-hostile passersby, etc.

* [[Weaksauce Weakness]]: Gremlins are vulnerable to light; the Light spell is one of the easiest spells to learn. It doesn't do ''that'' much damage, but it's oh-so-satisfying to kill these otherwise annoying breeders by repeatedly ''turning the lights on''.

* [[Wizard Needs Food Badly]]: Goes without saying.