25k turn Raven-born Gnome Monk non-scum speedrun

[Ren]

Having re-discovered this game about a year ago after a 20+ year pause and after scoring some wins, I decided to try my hand at speedrunning inspired by videos from Grond on Youtube. I quickly lost interest in piety-scummed options since I discovered that crowing at level 11 with two pre-crowns and almost unlimited prayers made sub 30k runs a non-event with about any sturdy-enough character that was crowned with a good weapon and used SoRS and the HMV eternium armour.

Thus I wanted to conduct a completely cheese-free non-scummed sub 30k melee run, and I figured I'd give it a try with a raven monk since:
- Getting RCT would open the tower straight away and would serve as the melee weapon of choice for the rest of the game for a monk with their high enough DV bonuses to forgo shields, as I did not want to spend time on tries that require specific starting gear, crowning gifts, or starting stats (I do not have the non-free version that allows to play around with these).
- Monks can literally run circles around monsters at higher levels thanks to their high speed and love movement energy cost, making avoiding turn-killing useless fights easy even for non-pros.
- Having unlimited pick-axe capability via wall-kicking can get handy when teleportations and piety are not practically unlimited.
- Ability to swap positions with hostile monsters at level 25 can save some time at D50.
- I did not want just to follow the steps of well-tried strategies of e.g. paladin justifier crowning or drake assassin offensive alchemy antics but use some creativity on route planning.

Getting RCT as soon as possible is the key for this build. There probably are novel strategies like killing shopkeepers to get e.g. sturdy drakes across this hurdle fast, but those are too sophisticated for me, so I decided to settle for a fast-leveling race. Then do a normal UD run + HMV armour, Thundarr quests 1-3 and stat training with Garth if have enough money + gather some herbs in fungal caves essential for these puny races, head back up for griffyard (for elemental gauntlets fire res) and pyramid (ankh to open merchant guild and AMW as the monk light armour for the rest of the game after getting RCT), loot merchant guild for crowning cash, head back to DT for quest rewards (fire res ring, tactics, ice ring if have teleport) and crowning, then do post-champion arena fights and kill some steel golems to get to level 16. All the while hopefully finding either tele control and means to find the tele wand without having to kick the dusty dungeon to pieces, or ring of the fish along the way to get to the water dragon. And some good enough gear to be a match to those pesky golems.

I first tried some humans (decent stats, extra two skill increases at leveling to bring alertness and find weakness to high levels before the guaranteed traps and big fights, food pres for actually getting that blink dog corpse when one is found + stat increases and intrinsics from others, swimming not to end the run short when an early river cuts a level in half), but was not in luck with finding means to get to the water dragon. Then I switched to gnomes (which are suboptimal but decent when the additional talent at start is used on +2 strength) which happened to work on a first try. This is also my first post on the forum.

The beginning of the run followed the above-mentioned strategy, with a scroll shop containing scroll of item detection found in D1 and a blink dog in big room. DT at 5.5k turns. On D12 I had two down stairs with no trolls in sight (Thundarr guest 1). Debating what to do or whether to reroll, I noticed a wooden ring in my inventory. Screw you Thundarr, I already had one fire res acquired, so I headed straight to fungal caves for my herb loot.

I entered griffyard at level 12/10k turns, and killing Nonnak took two prayers. Then pyramid, merchant guild, water dragon cave and Blup visit, 20 arena fights, and crowning in DT with useless lighting immunity and useless junk gauntlets. This was followed by all the possible post-champion fights in the arena (as I had teleport wand as get out of jail free card) and killing some steel golems with eternium halberd I had gotten somewhere along the way. I entered the tower at 14.5k turns just short of level 16.

Dragon mommy messenger took its time and brought RCT just in time when the top level fight entered the fire demon phase. Before this, I had burned through about all my crowning prayers (confirmed at the next sac) and the healing potions gotten from Thundarr as a reward for the portal quest fighting fire elementals as a result of accidentally kicking through to them and not to the central temple room as was the plan. After this beating, I decided to throw the spear at ACW when he finally decided to join the fight. Some good hits took him down to critical. Then of course the spear decides not to return and the guy picks it up. Debating what to do, I equipped a crossbow and some unidentified quarrels and one-shotted the bastard with what turned out to be dragon slaying ammo. I exited the tower at 16.5k turns.

I robbed the borderland potion shop and the scroll shop in D1, removed the cursing in DT, and proceeded to dive rather unglamorously. EG was distracted by some potion (probably unnecessary for a character this fast), casino was skipped, cat ring was earned, and there were no problems acquiring air and earth orbs. Where the run got actually interesting was around D45 where I found a random shop in which I started to gather the goods to go through them in one big pile (another non-pro habit of mine). Suddenly I get zapped and a mass of big baddies surrounds me. What had happened was that the shopkeeper got annoyed by my unholy aura corruption (which I had totally missed), and this dropped my alignment enough to make me a fallen champion. After I teleported away from the summons, I still had tough thugs to fight at down stairs, and a greater titan made an entrance. What a newbie way to almost lose a run close to the finish line.

So I had to survive the rest of the game while cursed and doomed and without prayers. Now mana temple traps had some proper bite (previously a non-issue with alertness at 100% and dex at around 35), and writhing masses scored some good slowing hits (in my experience a monk with DV around 100 normally skates through all the hoi polloi at this point). Luckily I was able to blind Nurgy in the corridor with a potion and bring him down in melee (I had no human slaying ammo) with just a few new corruptions.

In D50 I dug my way to the lower lever room and cleared it, which in my doomed state also cleared all my remaining supply of healing potions. I handled the lever, dug my way to the upper lever room, switched through the opponents, handled the lever, and then blew it to pieces with a wand of destruction I had gotten from a ring of djinni summoning I had found somewhere along the way between EG and the dooming. Then I teleported to the bottom lever, blew it too, and teleported out.

I finished the game at level 27, 25.6k turns, and 60M points. I have to be quite satisfied with the run, especially as it was not helped e.g. by some op artifact drop or a teleport book (I certainly would have been able to read it after the tower at latest). However, a better player would have shaved a few k from the turn count for sure. Examples:
- This run was done in one sitting without saving, playing a relatively loose game without calculating every move. I did empty some temples and vaults for equipment drops and XP as I did not know what level I would be when entering D50, and was hoping to be able to use the monk level 25 swap ability for the cool factor if not more (in the end I entered at XP level 26). On the other hand, a helm of teleportation identified on the second DT visit and the wish ring which I probably also picked up from some of these 'useless' fights did shave off at least a few hundred turns. At finish, I had charging potions left for probably more than 15 teleports.
- I forgot to pick the ring of ice from the mystic on my crowning visit and noticed this during the post-champion arena fights, leading to a needles go-around to DT. I also visited griffyard a second time with a pickaxe from pyramid (which I did not have the first time as I was only level 12) for the sword and map piece as I was not sure if my level 14 merchant guild loot was enough for crowning. It was, but the artifacts were actually useful after the tower on my final pass-through of DT to get rid of cursing from robbing the two shops above.
- Apparently there are things like autopick-up etc. which save turns. I have no idea how to activate these.

Talents and skill increases were all used to buff the character which was anything but a tank at the start to decent melee proportions. I used some increases on higher level-ups to boost literacy and concentration but no spellbook of any beneficial use was found during the run.

A more HC version of the strategy would be to roll already buffed-up orc or drake to leave all levels below DT for after the tower, clear DF for experience and the crown, head to tower still some way off from level 16 and hope that one can survive with some combination of doomed fire immune fighting with the crown, first aid, healing potions, and prayers until the trident appears to finish off ACW. Naturally if one is clearing DF anyway, SoRW steel can be acquired, but then we are talking about a different strategy altogether in which monk is probably not the best class to have instead of something that hits harder from the start and has a good change for an op one-handed weapon at crowning. Maybe for another day.

It is customary to post a shot of the final screen etc. in these YAVP posts. I will if somebody tells me how.