From: ianf@aifh.ed.ac.uk (Ian Frank)
Newsgroups: rec.games.misc
Subject: Re: UW: Questions (minor spoilers)
Date: 7 Apr 92 13:09:33 GMT
Reply-To: ianf@aifh.ed.ac.uk (Ian Frank)
Organization: Dept of AI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland

rfermier@athena.mit.edu (Robert G Fermier) writes:
# I'm kind of glad that it isn't longer than 8 levels -- heck, I'm only on the
# first 4 levels and it's already stolen a lot of time.  

Is it really only 8 levels? I seem to remember reading an earlier post
saying there were 13. I was looking forward to exploring those 
"unexplored sub-depths", too :-(.

In any case, I'm hooked on this game, and I've had my VFM (value for 
money) already, even though I'm currently just wandering around level
5. When I manage to drag myself away from the PC, I like to read through
other peoples posts on this game, so I thought I'd add some thoughts
on my own.

What kind of characters are the best suited for exploring the abyss?
From early experiments, I found that there were far too many objects
and artifacts in this game to actually be able to carry them all around
(at the beginning I collected _everything_ I could because I thought
you'd be able to sell 'junk' weapons/armour,etc and use the money to 
buy better, enchanted versions, as in previous Ulitma's.... soon got
fed up with that). Anyway, not being able to carry large quantities 
meant having to make too many decisions about which items to cart around
and which ones to stash, so I wanted a character with high strength.
I also hate to be without magic, so I went for a druid, and managed 
to get one with a strength of 27. Anyone else have other preferences?

Then, of course, you have to choose which skills to advance at the shrines.
Some of my preferences, in no particular order:

* Charm --- I don't know if there are any really important items that
            you can obtain only by bartering, but this is one of the few
            skills that can't be simulated by the use of magic (right?)
            so I suppose it's useful to get.

* Appraise, --- More skills that can't be performed with magic,
  Repair        (although there are people who repair items for
                you, it's a pain to wait for them to finish).

* Lore  ---  A surprising number of the objects you come across are 
             enchanted in some way. Since it's impractical to cast
             the name enchantment spell on everything you find, it
             helps to have good knowledge of lore to weed out the 
             obviuosly 'uninteresting' items.

* Sword ---  I wasn't too keen on this skill at the start, but I think
             it turned out to be pretty useful. A surprising number of 
             the 'nasty' enemies (skeletons and bandits, which tend to 
             appear in groups, and the "chaos knight", for example), 
             fight using swords, so this skill helps you defend against
             them as well as providing bonus to hit (providing you're
             using a sword, of course). Also, the first enchanted weapons 
             I came across were swords.

Does anyone have anything good to say about skills like swimming,
acrobat, sneak, track, or traps? My candidate for the Most Useless
Non-Skill Skill competition: Unarmed....

I've still got lots of quests to complete, but I'll work on them
a little longer before asking the world for help. For now, I have 
just two questions about some of the objects you come across...

(Minor Spoilers)
























1) I've got the dragon scales, and I know they're supposed to 
protect against the heat of the lava you find on the lower levels,
but I can't actually get them to do this. Maybe I didn't pay enough 
attention to the converstation when I got them?

2) What actually happens when you burn and then Use the incense? 
When you try this, a picture of a goblet inscribed with some letters
appears, but there doesn't seem to be any change in the character's
stats... 


	- Ian.