Ancient Domains of Mystery: Difference between revisions
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* [[Action Bomb]]: All the flavours of [[Goddamn Bats|vortices]] attack by exploding into a massive ball of acid/fire/etc the turn after they stand next to you. This is as unhealthy as it sounds. {{spoiler|They can't explode in the dark.}}
* [[Adam Smith Hates Your Guts]]: Partially averted. Shops have finite inventories (randomly generated), and if you change your mind after selling them something, you can buy it back ... provided you have enough extra cash to meet their higher sell price.
* [[Adventure Narrator Syndrome]]:▼
** {{spoiler|It's possible to invert this. Using the alchemy skill, it's possible to deliberately try to mix two incompatible ingredients, which creates an explosion similar to the fireball spell. Which means ANY combination of two potions (or a potion and a herb) can be used to simulate the fireball spell. The explosion even increases in diameter based on your willpower, just like the original fireball spell. For fire-resistant (better: fire-immune) wizards, this can be a life saver when you're low on Power Points. For assassins, lucky bards and other Alchemy users, it lets you basically be a wizard without knowing how to even read the letters on the cover of a spellbook of Fireball.}}▼
* [[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 armor 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]]s.
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* [[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?]]: Required for the [[Multiple Endings|Special endings]]. Even a regular ending gives you plenty of opportunity to shine against some pretty horrifying stuff.
* [[Dodge the Bullet|Dodge The Arrow]]: Archers somehow have the ability to dodge missiles; instead of dropping at your feet when they miss, they fly on past.
* [[Dronejam]]: Used intentionally by shopkeepers and one or two important [[NPC]]s. This can be turned to your advantage when you're low on health—run into a shop, pick up something then walk around until you heal.▼
** 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.▼
* [[Dr. Jerk]]: "This is Jharod, the healer. He does not care about you." Good to know.
** An NPC can only be tame (allied), neutral or hostile, and "This is Jharod, the healer. He is tame." would be even weirder.
*** Considering he {{spoiler|has the ability to impart his skills of healing by a simple touch of one's forehead,}} he's being plenty of a [[Dr. Jerk]] {{spoiler|by sitting on his butt somewhere in a cave rather than singlehandedly increasing the life expectancy of an entire country just by traveling around and touching people.}}
** There's also Kranf Niest, the [[Mad Doctor]], whose methods are a bit... crude. {{spoiler|To [[Incredibly Lame Pun|top]] it off, he even steals your [[Nice Hat|hat]].}}
▲* [[Dronejam]]: Used intentionally by shopkeepers and one or two important [[NPC]]s. This can be turned to your advantage when you're low on health—run into a shop, pick up something then walk around until you heal.
▲** 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 & Dragons]]: A lot of the spell names and monster types are named after their D&D equivalents.
* [[Early Bird Boss]]: [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|Keethrax, the evil druid]], one of the two options for your first quest. He's high level, corrupts by hit, and a [[Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards|druid]], at that.
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* [[Hoist by His Own Petard]]: Shooting a [[Magic Missile]] in a narrow corridor? [[Too Dumb to Live|Bad idea]]. Chances are, a typo makes you cast it straight at the wall, so it constantly rebounds at you and hits you again and again and again until you're dead.
** There is a spell called Death Ray. [[Captain Obvious|It also bounces off walls]].
▲* [[Adventure Narrator Syndrome]]:
▲** {{spoiler|It's possible to invert this. Using the alchemy skill, it's possible to deliberately try to mix two incompatible ingredients, which creates an explosion similar to the fireball spell. Which means ANY combination of two potions (or a potion and a herb) can be used to simulate the fireball spell. The explosion even increases in diameter based on your willpower, just like the original fireball spell. For fire-resistant (better: fire-immune) wizards, this can be a life saver when you're low on Power Points. For assassins, lucky bards and other Alchemy users, it lets you basically be a wizard without knowing how to even read the letters on the cover of a spellbook of Fireball.}}
* [[Implacable Man]]: There is an Eternal Guardian guarding a staircase somewhere in the middle of the main dungeon, preventing progress until completing a certain task. If you try to attack him, or even manage to kill him, an even stronger version of him will instantly materialise on the stairs. Screw up and you have multiple copies fighting against you.
* [[Improbable Aiming Skills]]: [[Shoplift and Die|Angry shopkeepers]] can one-shot-kill players with [[Improbable Weapon User|a single coin]].
* [[Improvised Weapon]]: You can use ''anything'' as a melee or projectile weapon, including clothes and scrolls. There are challenges, for example, to get through the game wielding a rock or an anvil.
* [[In-Universe Game Clock]]: Time runs far faster when you travel in the overworld because it's a zoomed-out representation of a large area. (And you do need to keep track of the time or date for several quests: ctrl-E tells you how much time has (E)lapsed since you first set out. Though it's easier to use Alt-q or "@" to check character details.)▼
* [[Infinity+1 Sword]]: {{spoiler|The Trident of the Red Rooster}} is probably the best artifact in the game. It's also required for one of the ultra endings and is a huge [[Guide Dang It]].
▲* [[In-Universe Game Clock]]: Time runs far faster when you travel in the overworld because it's a zoomed-out representation of a large area. (And you do need to keep track of the time or date for several quests: ctrl-E tells you how much time has (E)lapsed since you first set out. Though it's easier to use Alt-q or "@" to check character details.)
* [[Item Crafting]]: You can make your own crossbow bolts or arrows, and improve metal armour and weapons, with the right skills and the raw materials.
* [[It Got Worse]]: The first three levels of the [[Lethal Lava Land|Tower of Eternal Flames]] are hard enough, what with the constant fire damage, melting equipment, and monsters that are hard to take out in melee. You thought THAT was bad? The fourth level is ''hotter'', blocks teleportation, and {{spoiler|requires you to dig through a lot of solid wall to reach a horde of resilient fire elementals and demons, and THEN you can fight the boss, who sees through invisibility and uses [[The Corruption|corrupting attacks]], confusion, stat drain, high-intensity beam attacks, and has huge hitpoints and melee damage output.}}
* [[Izchaks Wrath]]: Stealing from a shop angers the shopkeeper into summoning thugs... and going after you himself. Thrown gold pieces ''hurt''.
** More like, "Gold pieces are ''lethal''." You will only ever underestimate the [[Badass Normal|Casino Shopkeeper]] ''once''.
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** Killing even a single feline of any type makes an enemy of a powerful NPC, causing many to refer to them as [[Goddamn Bats|"those damn cats."]]
* [[Karmic Death]]: Don't eat the corpses of cute little helpless things (eg dwarven children, the tiny girl's puppy). Also, think very hard about attacking obviously good (Lawful) people. Some of them are very, very good at defending themselves. Or have extremely nasty friends who will kick your ass.
* [[Kill It with Ice]]: Naturally, the easiest way to get through the Tower of Eternal Flames. [[That One Level|Still not very easy, though.]]▼
* [[Kill It with Fire]]: Remember these words when you find the Temple of Elemental Water.
▲* [[Kill It with Ice]]: Naturally, the easiest way to get through the Tower of Eternal Flames. [[That One Level|Still not very easy, though.]]
* [[Kill It with Water]]: Specifically, holy water. Use it on the undead for a [[One-Hit Kill]].
* [[Kleptomaniac Hero]]: Almost anything can be useful, so it makes sense to pick up different things. Even a "scroll of cure blindness" (which can be turned into a blank scroll by dipping it in water) or a "potion of uselessness" ({{spoiler|which can be thrown to propel yourself on the [[Slippy-Slidey Ice World|icy level]] of the Caverns of Chaos, resulting in an impressed deity giving you an artifact.}})
* [[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]].▼
* [[Lethal Joke Character]]: Mindcrafters (essentially psions) are hard to play and weak against undead/unlife, but their powers do not miss and (mostly) ignore armour. Gaining Telekinetic Blast at lvl. 15 is the make-or-break point.
* [[Lethal Joke Item]]: {{spoiler|The potion of Uselessness. Really. If you apply the rules for Conservation of Momentum near the end of the game, the gods reward you with a free artifact for your cleverness.}}
▲* [[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.
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** There's also a death by exploding frog...
* [[Mercy Rewarded]]: Leading the [[Brainwashed and Crazy|Brainwashed and]] [[Ax Crazy]] village carpenter to a healer benefits you far more than killing him, including learning the essential Healing skill.
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* [[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.▼
* [[Min-Maxing]]: Apart from the Troll healer above, there are few moderately game-breaking min-max builds. Some race/class combinations do give you advantages because their abilities and stats stack, but it's less "OMG cheat" and more "give your PC the best start". Besides, stats are usually assigned randomly or semi-randomly.
** 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.
** Troll barbarians will have massive strength and toughness, but will be illiterate, ugly, clumsy, and dumb as a post.
▲* [[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.
* [[Monster Compendium]]: And with colorful descriptions to boot. Just hit &.
** [http://l.j-factor.com/misc/adom.html Here] is a list of all monster descriptions in the game.
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