![]() They suffer when you don't have good control over LOS, or when dealing with summoners though, so I had to pretty much stop doing quests right around level 50. You'd be amazed how fast you can chew through an unique's hitpoints, even with a subpar weapon, when you get as many as three free attacks. The killer trio: The ability to hit an enemy with a melee attack from one square away, the ability to knock an opponent back several squares, and a free attack (with *full* blows) whenever an enemy gets in melee range. They get some very useful and abusable abilities. Their weapon choices are a bit restrictive, but get them a good polearm, and they will unleash unholy slaughter. I was able to kill Oberon using a Demigod Polearm Master (forget which flavor, Athena maybe for the device bonus?). But the other two, I fee like the gimmicks don't make the games more interesting, they just get in the way of the interesting part (killing monsters and taking their stuff). I give ADOM a bit of a pass on this, because that game is as much dealing with the environment as it is fighting monsters. Whether it's walls that break your inventory when you dig in them (Frogcomposband), having to tediously follow sandworms (TOME4), or a dungeon that does fire damage with every step (ADOM), and I find these gimmicks incredibly annoying. There apparently is an unwritten law of roguelikes that if you have overland travel, you need to have gimmicky dungeons.This is further exacerbated by throwing you into a wide open space without any cover in a genre where controlling LOS is critical. Mobbed by undead in ADOM, swarmed by orcs in Frogcomposband, ambushed by adventurers in TOME4. *Every* roguelike I've played that has overland travel has obnoxiously difficult (even so far as to call them poorly balanced) overland encounters.I personally have two big gripes with overland travel: And never being able to grind means maybe never finding some of the more iconic artifacts. Sometimes I don't mind grinding for a while. The tough part with coffee break is the relentless requirement to keep descending, whether or not you feel ready, because you can never return to the same depth. Maybe I'll try non-coffee break mode with wilderness turned off. Being able to spam Heal and Haste for a melee character is a game-changer, at least until you do something stupid. I put all the stat gains into STR/DEX for melee damage and use spells just for utility/buffs. ![]() I've done surprisingly well (for me anyway) recently with Half-Orc Priest of Life/Craft - one of the few builds that can cast both Heal and Haste (3rd Craft book) and has decent melee. I've maybe gotten 5 characters up to CL 50. I've gotten a few characters down into the 70's, don't think I've ever made it to 80. What I hate about overland is that nagging feeling of never being quite certain exactly where you are supposed to go next. Nice to meet a fellow overland exploration hater! It seems to be a pretty niche opinion.
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