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[Tawa]

Hey. I'm Tawarochir, and you may or may not know me.

ANYWAY

I've noticed quite a few people have been asking around for little questions that are about core gameplay as opposed to little trivia things that belong on the little questions thread.

I've decided to write a guide from firsthand experience about adventure mode, like where to get food or what to do about this and that.

So begins the guide!

CONTENTS
1. The Very Start (character building and weapon choices)
2. Questing
3. Food
4. Armor
5. Monetary Issues
6. Death to the Megabeast, or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Kill the Dragon
7. And a Word from our Sponsors (located in the same post as Death to the Megabeast)

The Very Start

So, you've cracked open Adventure Mode. Well, it's a tough nut to crack.

At the character selection screen, you're presented with a few choices: race and civilization. A specific race may not be there, or you may be presented with only "Human Outsider". If a race is missing, that race died out in a war; for me, this tends to be elves or dwarves in pocket worlds. If it's only Human Outsider, that means there are no sentient creatures left alive, and you should delete the world immediately, because you'll never be able to do anything interesting short of mods.

Humans have the most weapon choices and are the only ones with sites by default. Elves are really frickin' fast but have few weapon choices. Dwarves can begin with steel armor and can enter martial trances for godlike stats, but have slightly fewer weapon choices than humans.

Gender and name have no impact on gameplay. People don't even freak out if you're naked in Adventure Mode, unlike Fortress Mode.

When it comes to weapons:
Swords cut well and are balanced weapons. They cut and stab well for both and aren't too heavy.
Axes cut very well, but are heavier and don't stab. At all. Unless it's a halberd, which is heavier.
Pikes and spears are pretty much the same, and stab better than swords but don't do much else.
Ranged weapons suck for you, because you need crazy amounts of skill to get decent shots once in a while. Unlike those stupid bandits who get headshots pretty much every time.
Whips rule. They cut through everything like butter, and are actually better if they're bronze or silver. If you have mods, you could make a death machine from platinum or melted gold coins.
Maces are fun. They are like hammers mostly, but morningstars deal stab damage at the same time.
Hammers are deadly. A warhammer is one of the most deadly weapons in-game.
As was stated lower down by a helpful source, Misc. Object User is another good choice, because you can kill stuff with almost anything. Plus, you could funnel points into shield user and just carry around a bunch of shields and use those as weapons.

Choose wisely.

Continued in next post.

[Tawa]

Part 2
QUESTING

Quests are the core of adventure mode. And unlike other games, there is one kind of quest: kill quest. Unlike other games with other staple quests like fetch (FedEx) quests or the ever-present but ever-annoying escort quest, Dwarf Fortress Adventure Mode sees you travelling to the lairs of vampires, werebeasts, night trolls (usually given some other name like "vile ogre" or "slender man" [I seriously got that once]), and bandit camps until kings, queens, lords, ladies, and high priests recognize your valiant efforts to better the world and send you on dangerous quests to slay even viler beasts, ranging from and up to dread bandit lords, dread night trolls, vampires with especially insane kill lists, semi- and regular old megabeasts.

Now for my tips.

-If your first quest is a bandit lord, DON'T LISTEN TO THEM. Bandits (almost) always have ranged soldiers, and those ranged soldiers will kill the unprepared immediately. Train up on harmless animals and weaker night creatures like humanform werebeasts or low-kill list vampires. After a few quests, you can hire a small army of eager meatshields soldiers who will block most of the bolts and arrows for you while you find the actual quest target.

-On the topic of vampires:
  -Only attack when there are others in the room as well. This increases your chances of survival because     
  they'll gang up on him.
  -If you'd like to become immortal, drink their blood when it gets all over you. This works especially well   
  when paired with necromancy, because if you become a vampire then become a necromancer, you can
  raise the dead with tripled stats and never have to eat or drink again.
  -No matter how many Twilight books you've read, nor how much it seems a good idea, don't ever fight
  a vampire with a silver edged weapon. They're still dull as heck, so they don't do crap on DF vampires.
  -They always flash like royalty, so go in the general direction you're referred and look for the flashy   
  dude.

-You will probably die on a few early quests. You know that saying, "you need money to make money"? Well, in DF, you need glory to get glory. Companions are essential, and you get more companions by being more famous.

-When you beat enough quests, people will refer you to kings and queens, among others. Don't try to ask them until you're referred, or they'll just say the DF equivalent of "Ha go away lamz0r noob, I'm too cool for the likes of you."

If you don't feel like going on quests, you could just go and kill random people and depopulate the universe.

[Tawa]

-Part Three-
FOODS

So. This is Dwarf Fortress. You can starve.

Now that we have that down, let's talk about how to prevent it.

So, you need food. First and foremost is seemingly hunting, so if you need FOOD and you need it NOW, go kill something and butcher it. Hunting near beaches is good (albatrosses, the occasional fish, crabs), and so is near rivers. Don't go hunting far inland however, those tend to have more dangerous things as well as a lot of wacky anthropomorphic variations of creatures that you can't butcher. Darn grasshopper men.

Simpler is buying food in a market. In towns, you find markets, which have food vendors. A prime suspect for food-gathering. A bag of mud buys a sack of meat, so that's good, since there's mud EVERY-FRIGGIN-WHERE in towns.

The cheapest way to get food is in farmers' houses. Often, they'll have a few sacks piled in a corner, usually in the house of the rich guy in town with several thousand dollars' worth of clothes in a wardrobe and like three beds. Anyway, the sacks contain lots of stuff. The rope reeds are useless, as are a lot of other things like pig tails, but "berries" (fisher berries, strawberries, prickle berres(?)) and, strangely, pot rat weed are edible. These are really light, and you can take as many as you like. Grab 20 and you're set.

As for water, there should be streams everywhere. If not, go kill something and lick your sword or axe or whatever. You'll obtain blood. Drink blood. You're set. Unless it's a vampire. Don't drink vampire blood without easy access to necromancy.

Ok, that about covers it.

[Tawa]

PART FOUR

ARMOR

So, as you may know, without armor, you will likely die. I mean, no amount of armor will protect against face hits, but everywhere else is safe. Mostly.

How to get this stuff? There are a few choices:

-Cheap Method:
Get the following:
Leather helm
2 pairs of gloves
A pair of mittens
3 robes
6 dresses
2 pairs of pants/long skirts
A pair of leggings
2 high boots
2 socks
6 hoods
As many cloaks/capes as possible

There should be as much leather in this set as possible, and the highest quality goods as possible (even if that involves swapping a skirt out for pants on a male adventurer). You can easily find this stuff in people's dressers, and they're FREE!

Full Method:
Helm
Mail Shirt
Breastplate
Greaves
2 High Boots
2 Socks
2 Gauntlets
As many cloaks and hoods as possible

There should be as much metal as possible. Iron or Steel works best. Always swap out for better metals, even if it means compromising quality levels or swapping greaves for chain leggings. This is very difficult to obtain if you want to buy it; steal it from bandits and take it from castles, they don't care. This will weight you down a lot, so make sure you train Armor User very high; I like to pick up crabs and stand there all day without retaliating. (Yes, that means to drop your weapon.)

Een-Bet'wen's Method (yes, that is a pun on "in-between"
Helm
6 Hoods
Mail Shirt
Shirt/Coat/etc.
Trousers
2 Socks
2 High Boots
2 Gauntlets

The helm, mail shirt, gauntlets, and/or boots should be made of metal.
This method is intended to have protection to vital organs (brain, lungs, spine, heart) while minimizing drag load. I myself like it a lot, because it's light and cheap; castles and bandits have a particular favor for these items.

Feel free to take stuff out of "warehouses" in towns; they don't have $$these$$, so you can take as many as you like. I once found a solid gold throne in one; profit ensued.

So, the progression is this:

Cheap Method/Een-Bet'wen's Method -> Een-Bet'wen's Method (assuming you didn't start with it) -> Full Method

Once your armor user levels up high enough, switch to Een-Bet'wen, and then once it's around Great, go to Full. With the Cheap Method, feel free to omit certain pieces if you feel they are superfluous (the dresses, a robe, the third pair of pants).

That's about it.

[Tawa]

PART FIVE

MONETARY ISSUES

Money money money! It doesn't make Adventurer Mode go 'round, unlike Fortress Mode where wealth=success.

How to get it? Easy!

-Get bandit camps' loot. It usually has random decorations and moderate quality levels.
-Sell the disembodied arms, legs, and heads of your foes. Grisly, but fast cash. You can sell your own hand, too.
-The wiki recommends putting mud in your backpack, but that is a terrible idea. Rather, look in their back rooms. You see the dressers and wardrobes? Take the clothes and sell them. They fetch ~1000 ☼ for about five. (By the way, how the crap do I type that? I copied it from the wiki.)
-If you make a fort that falls later, and you got ahold of some dorfen sugar/sunshine, grab a barrel of the stuff and ditch the place. Put the barrel in a fortress or something, and take the sunshine/sugar any time you need money; you can take from it forever, and it sells high.

That's pretty much it. OH WAIT! You can take stuff from warehouses free of charge, so there's something.

Also, money rarely hits your foes when you throw it. Stick to pointy rocks.

Lastly, if you have mods like wanderer's friend, you can melt down gold coins into warhammers and such. That's a great way to bring death to your foes.

[Tawa]

PART SIX

If you got this far, you're quite lucky. Killing megabeasts is one of the hardest things in game.

So, pointers:

-Have as many companions as possible, which is likely to be ~20.
-Go for the legs. Always go for the legs.
-Bring a shield if it's a dragon. Well, always bring a shield, but especially if it's a dragon.
-Let them do the work. Stay next to it and wait for a good shot at its head, but stay on support moves like cutting off limbs while your companions stab it in the chest.

Congratulations! You've won Dwarf For--
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-And Now, a Word from our Sponsors-

-TO COME SOON-

You can post now.

[Grombardrim]

I would like to state that Misc. Object User is actually a fairly decent skill to have, to the point where I now specialize in it for my adventurer (admittedly, I have a mod that lets me create Serrated Discs to use with it, but still).  It lets you weaponize ANYTHING.  Did your Wrestler just rip a guy's arm off?  Misc. Object User (and Super[LOCAL_RACE_ADJECTIVE] Strength) lets him beat another guy to death with said arm.  Did your sword just get caught in that Goblin's stomach?  Let him keep it for now, pull out a sack of gold coins, and brain him with it (note: this has actually happened to me.  A sufficiently large pouch of gold coins is one of the most lethal blunt weapons out there).

[TheOnlySolitaire]

snip - Misc. Object User

I second this so bad - I've even stopped using regular weapons with adventurers now.

Seriously, try out using a 'silk thread'... No joke, it's freaking lethal.
Severed heads also seem to be rather effective..

Personally though, I like using an iron, steel, or silver chain, and a free hand; Its challenging on big creatures, and it can be largely negated by armour, so you need wrestling to pull of helmets, but it is crazy effective on humanoids and smaller.

And of course menacing spikes and serrated discs are super effective, especially for throwing.


So yeah. Misc. Object User really is a useful skill - even if you are a regular swordsman/hammerman etc, its good to be able to use your shield and random loot to kill creatures in a tough spot.
And of course, you can always beat your enemies to death with wheelbarrows, wild strawberries, buckets, armour...

[Grombardrim]

Using a chain for combat?  Sounds like it'd basically be a whip, to me (AFAIK, most Misc. Objects deal blunt damage, and a chain would be about the impact size of a whip)...  With the added bonus of chair-surgery as necessary.

[TheOnlySolitaire]

Using a chain for combat?  Sounds like it'd basically be a whip, to me (AFAIK, most Misc. Objects deal blunt damage, and a chain would be about the impact size of a whip)...  With the added bonus of chair-surgery as necessary.

That's the way it seems to function, maybe crossed with a regular blunt weapon; I'm not really sure if the character swings the chain like a whip or is just punching things while holding it lol Not quite as lethal as a blade attack to the head, but it's incredibly useful versus zombies too..

I've also used skeletons of the dead, chairs, pipe sections, a coffin, even a slab of secrets... It's why Misc Object User is so much fun - it even gives clutter and useless fort-made craft Artifacts a use if they have a heavy material, or a big item size. And sometimes even that doesn't matter: seriously, the silk thread as a weapon, my god..


To add some tips to the topic of an Adventure Mode guide:

- Always carry something bladed/edged with you to butcher dead creatures for food and blood(to drink).
- Lairs are useful for storing loot to heavy for you to carry with you. The items do not scatter as they normally do when sites are abandoned.
- Carrying a crutch can 'just in case', can mean the difference between survival or death if you ever lose the ability to stand in a fight.
- Igniting fires is !!FUN!!, but can also be useful in some situations.
- Don't let enemies surround you if you can help it, try to keep as few enemies in combat range of you at any time, with multiple enemies you can easily be knocked over and trapped on the ground. So keep moving while you fight, and pay attention to surroundings - don't get trapped!
- camping outside can be dangerous alone, I always do this at the side of a river, with campfires surrounding me on one side, and the river on the other - so if I'm woken rudely, I simply slip into the river, swim across and escape if need be.

[Tawa]

Using a chain for combat?  Sounds like it'd basically be a whip, to me (AFAIK, most Misc. Objects deal blunt damage, and a chain would be about the impact size of a whip)...  With the added bonus of chair-surgery as necessary.

That's the way it seems to function, maybe crossed with a regular blunt weapon; I'm not really sure if the character swings the chain like a whip or is just punching things while holding it lol Not quite as lethal as a blade attack to the head, but it's incredibly useful versus zombies too..

I've also used skeletons of the dead, chairs, pipe sections, a coffin, even a slab of secrets... It's why Misc Object User is so much fun - it even gives clutter and useless fort-made craft Artifacts a use if they have a heavy material, or a big item size. And sometimes even that doesn't matter: seriously, the silk thread as a weapon, my god..


To add some tips to the topic of an Adventure Mode guide:

- Always carry something bladed/edged with you to butcher dead creatures for food and blood(to drink).
- Lairs are useful for storing loot to heavy for you to carry with you. The items do not scatter as they normally do when sites are abandoned.
- Carrying a crutch can 'just in case', can mean the difference between survival or death if you ever lose the ability to stand in a fight.
- Igniting fires is !!FUN!!, but can also be useful in some situations.
- Don't let enemies surround you if you can help it, try to keep as few enemies in combat range of you at any time, with multiple enemies you can easily be knocked over and trapped on the ground. So keep moving while you fight, and pay attention to surroundings - don't get trapped!
- camping outside can be dangerous alone, I always do this at the side of a river, with campfires surrounding me on one side, and the river on the other - so if I'm woken rudely, I simply slip into the river, swim across and escape if need be.

Good advice, I'll add that in.

[kuudou]

Some of the stuff I've read up on and/or tested in my Adventures, if you think they're relevant to your guide:

-Silver Blunt weapons are better than their Iron or Steel counterparts.

-Steel weaponry can be found in an unmodded game on the bodies of zombie dwarves, or sometimes live kobolds if you're not playing a Dwarf. Best bet is to locate a Necromancer tower and lure the zombies out, and then kill them off one by one and only loot the Dwarf corpses. This requires a Legendary status in every defensive skill as they can swarm you very fast, since zombies can charge.

-Quality modifiers on weapons does not surpass their material limitations (or very very rarely anyways. More tests need to be done). What I mean by this is that a Masterfully crafted Iron Axe will consistently bounce off of Iron armor, whereas a normal-quality Steel Axe will always slice through it.

-Spears have the best critical hit bonus. And I think they can be wielded one handed? Not sure about that one, since you can always remove shields from your backpack and that automatically assigns them to one of your hands.

-You can butcher wildlife with a Morningstar. I guess it counts as an edged weapon in some regard.

[Tawa]

Some of the stuff I've read up on and/or tested in my Adventures, if you think they're relevant to your guide:

-Silver Blunt weapons are better than their Iron or Steel counterparts.

-Steel weaponry can be found in an unmodded game on the bodies of zombie dwarves, or sometimes live kobolds if you're not playing a Dwarf. Best bet is to locate a Necromancer tower and lure the zombies out, and then kill them off one by one and only loot the Dwarf corpses. This requires a Legendary status in every defensive skill as they can swarm you very fast, since zombies can charge.

-Quality modifiers on weapons does not surpass their material limitations (or very very rarely anyways. More tests need to be done). What I mean by this is that a Masterfully crafted Iron Axe will consistently bounce off of Iron armor, whereas a normal-quality Steel Axe will always slice through it.

-Spears have the best critical hit bonus. And I think they can be wielded one handed? Not sure about that one, since you can always remove shields from your backpack and that automatically assigns them to one of your hands.

-You can butcher wildlife with a Morningstar. I guess it counts as an edged weapon in some regard.

Thanks! I noticed some of this, like the silver blunt weapons, but I seriously appreciate the information about quality modifiers and the spear critical chance. I think the spear thing has to do with their tiny tiny points. Also, morningstars are like maces, but with a bunch of pointy spikes, making them more effective than regular maces, but anyway, the morningstars' points let them chop up bodies, making macemens' lives easier.

[brokegamer]

It should be obvious but even I forget to do it:

- You can turn down useless stats (eg musicality) in character gen to get more points for good stats.

[Tawa]

Alright, gracias.

All advice from posters will be quite appreciated and put in "A Word from our Sponsors" under their username.