Nightmare of Druaga death & rebirth

I experienced my first non-quest death in Nightmare of Druaga tonight. It stung more than I’d expected it to, probably because I never thought I would actually be dumb enough to die and lose all my items. Admittedly, this death was pretty stupid: I was on floor B17 or so (out of 20) of the Underground Caverns when I found myself up against a red knight and a land urchin. The land lrchin is one of several delightful enemies that are capable of reducing you to 1 HP with one hit, and the knight had a red aura around his feet, indicating that his blow would land before mine could. The urchin hit me once and left me with about 15HP and the Knight knocked me down to 1. At this point, I could have either escaped the dungeon with a feather or tried to heal and fight it out. Really, I had no chance with the latter plan, but I tried it anyway: I took a swig of a Fine Healing Potion and then was killed in two quick hits.

I’m actually grateful for the death now, because it completely killed my inertia and forced me to make some changes in my play style. Up until now I’ve been using only the strongest armor I could find, which killed my agility and left me at the mercy of many knights, slimes, and ghosts. I’d also been practically ignoring item’s inherent spells, when many of them could have made my life easier before this point – especially against those damned Ropers. Soon after reviving I found a rather light, magic-boosting set of body armor. The difference was immediately noticeable: there were hardly any enemies left that could get a hit in before me. I also managed to score a gold chest on an earlier stage (by beating a land urchin, natch) that held a particularly jagged and wicked-looking sword with spells that looked more interesting than the ones my old silver sword held. It was also element-neutral, and I was tired of the strong thunder element of the old sword getting in the way.

I started on the second half of the Underground Caverns and ended up finishing them by the skin of my teeth. I was about to feather out of that one, as the enemies were getting progressively harder and I had two, one, zero health potions left. Once again, judicious gemspell use saved the day: I cleared out two rooms’ worth of enemies with attack spells and used the heal spell in another gem to save myself from near-death. My increased speed helped a lot, too, as did tons and tons of diagonal-travel.

I’m really starting to wish that weapons didn’t require a +15 modifier (i.e. they must have been combined with fifteen other weapons) before ability transfer is allowed, and I’m beginning to wonder how well-thought-out the weapon combination system is. I’ve always been struggling to decide whether to keep whatever weapon I have and apply combinations to it, or to wait until I have a better weapon and then start combining. Waiting can cause trouble, because the further you play into the game, the stronger weapons you find, the more expensive it becomes to make combinations. But powering up a weapon you find early can easily leave you with an expensive crowbar once you find a better weapon on a quest or in a silver/gold chest. I would love to be able to transfer abilities SMT3-style and really make use of magic, but I simply can’t afford to do so with any more than one item or so at a time (let alone my weapon, shield, and entire suit of armor at once).

I think the consumable-item-combination system is much more interesting. It reminds me of alchemy systems found in other games: there are certain herbs that can only be found in dungeons and which don’t do much by themselves (they might grant a few HP or MP), but can be combined in the castle with regular items to make the consumables stronger. There’s a chance of failure, though, so the combination could end up demoting the item you tried to upgrade. For instance, combining a garlic root with a healing potion could leave you with either a fine healing potion or plain refined water. Some herbs work on healing potions, some work on MP-heal potions, and some work on spikes and bottles – which can be thrown to cause damage enemies or an area. (Upgrading spike balls in this way is the only effective way I’ve found to deal with the out-of-depth Roper enemies.) There are two alchemists in the castle to which you can take items, as well: an old sage who’s experienced and who suceeds at combinations most of the time, and a young female alchemist-in-training who bungles your items more often but has a small chance of creating much stronger items.

Now that I think about it, I really should only have been focusing on making combinations with my weapon. Most of the useful skills that I’d want to have are offensive, and I think I’d mostly be content with switching my armor out for any better armor that I find. I think I’ll stick with my current sword (Tebetje, it’s called) and upgrade the hell out of it.

Update 2/1/2005:

So today I finally upgraded my Tebetje sword to +15, only to discover that I had seriously misunderstood the ability-transfer system. I was under the impression that upgrading a weapon to +15 would make it so you can transfer abilities from other weapons to it, but it’s really quite the opposite: any weapon from which you want to transfer abilities must be +15 or higher. Absolutely ridiculous. Upgrading equipment through combinations is still a viable way to keep them usable as enemies get stronger, but ability transfers are COMPLETELY BROKEN and only seem to exist as bait for people happy to level-grind their lives away.

And again, the more I use the consumable-item-combination system the more I’m interested in it. I only discovered today that the younger, inexperienced alchemist has a chance of producing gems with some combinations. I want to continue to explore that system as much as I can.

I made three unsuccessful runs at the fourth optional quest, and I don’t think I want to bother with it again. It’s fifteen floors of enemies that level with you, with very little equipment. Beating it involves searching certain floors for certain materials of equipment and rushing past enemies the rest of the time. On the last trip up I managed to get to the top floor, where I ran out of healing items right about the same time I ran into the boss of the place (a giant blue knight who towers around twice the height of the walls), and managed to take off around 10% of his HP before dying. If I ever did attempt the quest again, I’d have to conserve items even more and run even harder for the exits.

Anyway, I’m currently grinding away at the Deserted Holy Place. I’ve managed to get to B6 or B7 before I have to turn tail. I’ve been using light armor so much that I can’t stand to be slowed down by a heavier set, so until I find a light set of silver armor my progress will be determined by how many healing potions I bring and how much I level-grind my weapon. I’m getting impatient with the game…but I’ll stick it out for a while longer.