Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Lopezruy]

Admittedly, I am somewhat of an utter noob when it comes to adventuring. I need help. Lotsa help. Here are a few questions, feel free to elaborate to your heart's desire.

1) What is the best race, attributes, and skills are best to start out with and why?
2) What skills do I train first, how should I go about training those skills, and what use are those skills?

I may expand/add more questions later on. Thanks!

[Lida_Brainbroken]

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Adventure_mode_quick_start
http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/Adventurer_mode

[Grey_Wolf]

I'm in a rush atm but Human Demi-God Pikeman, Shield User, superior strength and agility, stuff like that.

[hops]

I suggest a swordman or else you might have a hard time fighting titans.

[GuesssWho]

Don't ask me, I can die in 5 minutes while playing a dragon.

[Larix]

Race: human, currently the only one to have a reasonable shot at getting good equipment fast.
Attributes: mainly dexterity (agility) and strength, to help with speed and lift capacity.
Skills: defensives - shield and dodge; if you have the 'embark' points, getting at least shield up to proficient would help a lot. One or more points in a weapon and _no_ points in unarmed skills guarantee starting with a shield. One or two levels swimming for convenience, rest preferably in observer (no more than proficient, though). You can put a few points in ambusher or a single one in reader, but reader is very situational and ambusher trains very easily.

If you want to go adventuring right out of the gate, getting a few more points in your chosen weapon would be important, but you should generally be careful not to ramp up difficulty too fast - confront vampires when other people are nearby, visit werebeasts when they're not transformed, postpone that dragonkilling quest for a long time.

Get used to taking 'A'imed shots when fighting, and pick those with a decent hitting chance. Unless it looks like you can land an early headshot, go for the legs first.

Thrown stuff can kill most regular enemies with some patience, and when you're sneaking, you can avoid retaliation completely as long as you keep your distance (four tiles, i think). It also trains some valuable attributes.

If you get a prompt whether or not you really want to attack a creature, think again. It's quite possible that going through will give you more trouble than you're able to handle. Most notably with friendly units in settlements - attacking those can easily bring the wrath of the entire town upon you, and getting surrounded is dangerous even for legendary adventurers.

If you actually want to train up your adventurer, you can start with a skill-less peasant. Just grab yourself the nearest small animal and let it go to town on your face without retaliating. Don't try this with a tame ('stray') creature, though. You can get to legendary in the three defensive skills, fighting and wrestling this way. Ambusher, swimming and crutch-walking are trained by simply performing the action. You can train all three at the same time...
It takes quite a bit of patience, but is perfectly feasible.

[TheFlame52]

Try to go for upper arms/legs. Arms will make an enemy drop their weapons. Legs will make an enemy fall over, making him vastly slower. Both will make your enemy bleed out rather quickly.

[Trif]

1.) Start as a human. Important abilities are Strength, Agility, Toughness, Endurance and Willpower. Spatial and Kinesthetic Sense make you faster (very useful), and Social Awareness gets you more followers (also useful).
Important skills are your weapon skill, swimmer, shield and armor user, and dodger. You can also put a few points into observer (good for avoiding traps), ambusher (for sneaking around) and fighter.

Pick whatever weapon you think is coolest, they all have their strengths and weaknesses, just don't pick Bowman or Crossbowman.
Blunt weapons should be made of silver or copper; iron or bronze are good for edged weapons. Armor should be made of iron or bronze, steel is better but rarer.

2.) The only important skills for staying alive are your combat skills (mostly the defensive ones), and you train them by fighting. If you're feeling weak, you can go hunting for animals in the wilderness (the meat makes for good trading), but you can start questing right away if you want to. Good beginner targets are werecreatures or nighttrolls. Vampires aren't too hard either since the townsfolk will keep them busy. Bandits are more difficult. Gather a group of companions before attacking them.

And just some general advice: get some good armor, don't mess with mummies, don't underestimate the power of throwing, retreat when you can't win, and the first one to charge into battle is the first one with an arrow in the face.

[Big_James_B]

Here's some more good advice.

Never, ever, EVER start out playing Adventurer Mode with Maces. I'm, well, I can say that I'm knowledgeable in Adventurer Mode but still a touch green (due to the tombs and towers being added - before that I considered myself a Veteran). The one time I did choose mace as my main skill instead of a bladed weapon (I usually go swordsman in vanilla/fantasy mods) it took me about 15 real life minutes to bludgeon a rabbit; who ended up suffocating in the end. God, all the rabbit was bruised to the Nth degree...
So Demi-God is good for starters, high strength, agility, toughness and endurance. IIRC you should have a little more points to invest in one more skill - you can reduce Empathy, Musicality, Linguistic, Patience and Memory without any ill effects (afaik). Skills, choose one weapon skill, put an equal amount into Dodge, Armour and Shield Use, Adequete Swimmer and Novice Reader are a must - otherwise you'll drown at lower levels and be unable to read the necromantic tomes. FYI, don't bother spending points on Fighter at the beginning - it levels up during combat anyway and is a waste

Also you'll want to do the Ctrl-A to attack instead of walking into things - that'll get your body part selection menu - hint, blue exclamation points next to the attack "strength' (easy attack, will only graze !; but a lighter blue) indicate simple attacks that will 99% of the time hit and damage.
Go to town centers and Forts/Strongholds (the "well" on the map) and find a suit of metal armor. Also hire companions - the guardsmen.
The rest comes with experience.

and the first one to charge into battle is the first one with an arrow in the face.

Not always...

[Trif]

and the first one to charge into battle is the first one with an arrow in the face.

Not always...

Yeah, sometimes bolts instead.

[Volpe]

Throwing will be your best friend; pelt down the baddies with rocks,vomit,socks or anything else you can get your hands on until they come in range of your weapon. You would be surprised what you can take down with random objects.

[Big_James_B]

Throwing will be your best friend; pelt down the baddies with rocks,vomit,socks or anything else you can get your hands on until they come in range of your weapon. You would be surprised what you can take down with random objects.

It'll be at this time I reference my post on this thread:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=105380.msg4032785#msg4032785
Which coincidentally was also the last post. And we probably should mention the fluffy wambler and the bronze colossus too - although I really never use throwing that much tbh.

[Gaybarowner]

All falls down to what special racial abilities you want I prefer dwarves for martial trance but they only wear small armor
Humans are a good starter pick for the nice balance
as for weapon if you want something to do serious damage whips are up your alley but I am more of a great axe person
Training just consists of throwing sand and knapping rocks to legendary then I find a small animal like a deer cripple it and [C]hange combat to close combat and continue to attack it. just make sure you dont strangle it to death. after 3ish minutes you should be a legendary wrestler and fighter plus your attributes should be at above average or high
what I do anyway

[Funk]

you will need to get some armor aim for a steel mail shirt and Helmet min.
a shield can stop most things, get one use it.

you can use any weapon if you have good skills,stats and you know how to use it:

sword are good a stabbing and slashing, but have crappy blunt attacks.
over all a great all rounder.
subtypes:in order usefulness of  2H Sword, Long Sword, Short Sword and Scimitar in last place.
Blowguns and Bow can be used as swords.

Spears great stab attack, crappy blunt.
good a reaching in deep to kill big monsters(i.e. hydras)

Maces,flail's and Morningstars all use the mace skill
great blunt attacks all round, use them to smash pass armor and brake bones.

quick mace primer
main targets are legs and weapon hands, the sole reliable kill shot is the head.
avoid the lower body it is to soft to wound.

axes, come in three types Battle Axe,Great Axe and Halberd.
all are great chopers with poor blunt attacks.
Halberd has a stab attack which is pass able.

axes fight with a heavy focus on chopping away at body parts.

Hammers pick from War hammer or Maul
War hammers are much like maces see mace tips for info.
Mauls are massive warhammers they should be great at blunt attacks but most adventurers lack the strength to use one fully.

Whips come in two type Scourge or cheaty lightslaberwhip
 scourges are cutting weapons, great at dishing out nasty cuts and braking bones

buggy cheat weaponswhips
are bone breakers of the highest oder.

other weapons
Pike see spear
Dagger (Large), a good weapon in skilled hands, use it's stab before it's slash.
Pick bit of an odd ball combining slashing and impaling,use mining skill.
 

[Big_James_B]

quick mace primer
main targets are legs and weapon hands, the sole reliable kill shot is the head.
avoid the lower body it is to soft to wound.

Imagine trying to bludgeon a rabbit in the head continuously with an iron mace...I've never used them again since.