Path: alcyone!uuwest!goonsquad.spies.com!genmagic!bug.rahul.net!a2i!news.erinet.com!uunet!in2.uu.net!newsxfer.itd.umich.edu!news.itd.umich.edu!choplifter.rs.itd.umich.edu!rix From: rix@umich.edu (Rick Garner Sanders) Newsgroups: alt.games.omega Subject: Omega FAQ Message-ID: <44s8fn$luj@lastactionhero.rs.itd.umich.edu> Date: 3 Oct 1995 21:03:51 GMT Organization: University of Michigan Lines: 430 NNTP-Posting-Host: choplifter.rs.itd.umich.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] This is the Omega FAQ. (That is, it attempts to answer Frequently Asked Questions about Omega.) It is posted weekly to alt.games.omega and to rec.games.roguelike.misc. Last updated: April 20, 1995 New since last update: Question 6, about the location of the Archmage's Castle. Questions addressed in this FAQ: 1. Where do I get Omega? 2. a. How should I begin the game? b. Which guild should I join? c. What should I do after I join a guild and get equipped? 3. What order should I do things in? 4. a. What is the Oracle? b. How do I find the Oracle? c. Why do I want to find the Oracle, anyway? 5. How do I find the Archdruid? 6. Where is the Archmage's Castle? 7. How do I become more Lawful or more Chaotic? 8. How do I keep from being slowed down by monsters? 9. Some monsters ignore my attacks -- what do I do? 10. How do I use the Orbs? 11. How do I find the Adept's Challenge? 12. How do I win the Adept's Challenge? How do I completely destroy Death? 13. How do I enter Wizard Mode? *Part One* 1. Where do I get Omega? Omega is available from monu1.cc.monash.edu.au 2. a. How should I begin the game? The guilds are the key to success in Omega, and joining a guild should be your first action upon beginning a game. You want all of the experience you get to count towards advancement in your guild, so you should join a guild before you disarm your first trap or kill your first monster or go on the Oracle's first quest. Some guilds require that you be of a particular alignment in order to join, and you will need to do one or two things before joining the guild in order to become of the appropriate alignment. Notice, though, that there is something you can do in Rampart that will make you slightly Lawful (Lawful enough to join any of the Lawful guilds), and there is something in Rampart you can do to make you slightly Chaotic (Chaotic enough to join any of the Chaotic guilds), so you needn't leave Rampart before you join a guild. In addition to joining a guild, you'll need to obtain some basic equipment, if your guild doesn't provide you with any (some guilds do, and some don't, so don't buy anything before you've joined your guild). You should have some sort of weapon and some sort of armor -- there's an armorer in Rampart who will sell these to you. You should also have a little bit of food on hand when you leave Rampart, in case you need to eat on your journey -- there's a fast food restaurant in Rampart that will sell you food. It's also nice to check out the pawn shop from time to time and see if they have anything you can't live without. b. Which guild should I join? Each player has his or her own favorite guild. The game is set up so that each guild gives you something good, so all of them are worthy (with the possible exception of being a priest of Destiny). Which guild you pick really depends on what kinds of things you like to do and how you like to play. And part of the fun of Omega is that you can join one set of guilds this time and a different set of guilds the next time you play, so your game doesn't get stale. All of the gods except Destiny give their adherents spells and will occasionally remove cursed items for you. The god will also sometimes throw snowballs at monsters that are attacking you. When you advance to the highest level, you get a holy symbol that recharges your mana. You must have the same alignment as your god (Lawful, Neutral, or Chaotic), and you must be of the right alignment every time you pray to your god. Unlike the sorcerers and the paladins, though, you are not required to become more lawful or more chaotic in order to advance. The collegium magi gives you lots of spells, and every time you research a new spell, you get experience for it. Unfortunately, sometimes spell research is unsuccessful. You must pay tuition unless you have an intelligence of 18. Alignment is unimportant. The sorcerers also give you spells, but not nearly as many as the collegium magi does. You can join them no matter what your alignment is, but you must be Chaotic in order to advance, and your alignment must become progressively more chaotic in order to advance to higher levels. There is a fee required to join the guild -- the higher your Power is, the lower the fee is. The thieves' guild requires that you be Neutral or Chaotic when you join, but they don't care what you are after that. They'll identify stuff for you, buy stuff at better rates than the pawnshop, and give you an occasional spell. You can pickpocket other creatures and open locks with a lockpick. One must pay dues in order to join; the higher your Dexterity, the lower the dues. The mercenaries give you lots of cash and not much else. They start you off with a basic weapon and armor, but you don't get any niftier equipment upon advancement. Money is versatile, though -- you can buy equipment or you can buy time at the gym to boost your stats or you can buy spell research at the collegium magi. Some of us find money to be rather a yawn, though. The paladins give you equipment and a horse. Every time you return to their headquarters, they feed you and cure you of any wounds or diseases you may have. In older versions of the game, they also remove the curse on any cursed items you're carrying, but in later versions of the game, this feature has been removed. At later levels, the paladins also give you a spell or two. The paladins' mace of disruption, which you get when you advance enough in their guild, is one of those rare weapons that will hit even those monsters that aren't subject to normal weapons. You must be Lawful to join the order of paladins, and you must become progressively more Lawful in order to advance. The arena gives you free time at the gym, which boosts your stats, one basic (not very good) weapon, and cash every time you win a fight. They also give you an extra maneuver (attack or defense), which is very useful, especially at low levels. If you advance to the highest level, you win Victrix, a very nifty weapon that has a high to-hit and also makes you immune to fear. You must have reasonable physical stats in order to join the arena, but alignment is unimportant. Most guilds raise one or more of your stats every time you advance. For example, the collegium raises your intelligence and power, the mercenaries raise your strength and constitution, and so forth. The arena doesn't do this, but it does give you time at the gym, which accomplishes the same thing. So, if you like to cast spells, you should pray to a god or join the collegium magi or the sorcerers. If you'd prefer to hack and slash, then you should join the mercenaries or the paladins or the arena. Which guild you join may be limited by what your stats are or by whether you can afford tuition or dues or whatever. If you STILL don't know which guild to join, then join the paladins. They take care of you, by feeding you and curing disease and whatnot, so they're good for a new player who doesn't yet know how to avoid becoming diseased or how to avoid some of the other nasty things that the paladins will take care of for you. (This is especially true of older versions of the game, where the paladins remove curses on cursed items.) But remember that you'll have to be VERY Lawful. It is possible to join more than one guild at once, although there are some guilds that don't work together. For example, you can't belong to the arena or the mercenaries and also be a paladin. You can't be a sorcerer and also a member of the collegium magi. When you belong to more than one guild, any experience you gain is split among those guilds (with the exception of the arena, where you only advance by fighting in the arena). This means that the more guilds you belong to, the more slowly you advance in all of them. Hence, low-level characters should probably stick to a single guild (or a single guild plus the arena, if your guild accepts arena members). Once you've advanced as far as you can go in your guild without completing the final guildquest, then it's time to join a second guild. c. What should I do after I join a guild and get equipped? Now is the time for you to consult the Oracle for advice about what to do next. 3. Which order should I do things in? If you visit the Oracle, she will give you excellent advice about what order you should do things in. The Duke, who lives in the castle, will also send you on quests if you present yourself to him. His quests and the Oracle's advice usually overlap, but if they disagree, well, the Duke is just a secular authority, but the Oracle's whole job is being wise.... 4. a. What is the Oracle? The Oracle is a wise person who resides in Rampart and gives advice to adventurers. b. How do I find the Oracle? Since the Oracle is a special and magical person, she doesn't live in an ordinary house in an ordinary part of town. Seek her where Rampart is wilder. c. Why do I want to find the Oracle, anyway? There are a couple of reasons for finding the Oracle. The game is lots easier if you do things in the order the Oracle tells you, rather than just randomly wandering around. The Oracle's initial advice is especially valuable, since she sends you on a quest that is not very dangerous but which will advance you from level one to level three. This means that you will have more hit points and more mana and more experience to take on the next, more dangerous, quest. Another reason for finding the Oracle is that there is a place that you will eventually need to visit that is only reachable via the Oracle. She will send you to this place when you are ready. 5. How do I find the Archdruid? The Archdruid is in a temple north of the city. Follow the road northeast until you come to a village. (You don't need to enter the village; it's just a landmark.) Explore the forest northwest of the village, and you should find the temple, which is denoted by an X. Once inside the temple, you'll need to explore it rather thoroughly in order to find the Archdruid. Search some likely-looking areas.... 6. Where is the Archmage's Castle? The Archmage's Castle lies to the far northwest. You'll have to search for it once you're in the right area, just as you did to find the Goblin Caves. (Um, you HAVE gone to the Goblin Caves already, haven't you? You're probably not ready for the Archmage's Castle unless you have.) 7. How do I become more Lawful or more Chaotic? There is at least one place in Rampart that will give you the opportunity to become more Lawful, and there is at least one place in Rampart that will give you the opportunity to become more Chaotic. Look at the places in Rampart -- what would a good person do? What would a bad person do? Once you've left Rampart, you'll have ample opportunities to alter your alignment. It's easy, in these sorts of games, to fall into the mindset that monsters are for killing, but think about it for a second -- does a Lawful person really attack anything that hasn't attacked him or her first? What other things might a Lawful person do -- might they not try to reform the monsters somehow? As for a Chaotic person, it's easy to see that they would kill anything that moves, if it would be to their advantage, without regard for whether the monster was hostile or not. But there's another, even more Chaotic thing that you can do with monsters. Think of something sneaky that you could do to betray a monster.... The Archdruid will conduct the ritual of neutralization if you ask him to. If you are a Druid, this makes your alignment completely neutral. If you are not a Druid, the effect is somewhat different. In the most recent version of the game, the ritual will bring your alignment back TOWARDS Neutral -- the less experienced you are, the more nearly Neutral you become. If you are a very advanced character, it doesn't work at all. In previous versions of the game, the ritual always accomplished complete neutralization, so if you're used to the older version, be aware that it doesn't work that way anymore.... 8. How do I keep from being slowed by monsters? Some monsters will reduce your speed, so that you get fewer attacks and move more slowly in general. Goblin shamans (found in the lower levels of the Goblin Cave) often do this, and necromancers (found around levels 3-5 of the Archmage's Castle) do it, too. Preventing slowness is much easier than curing slowness, though both can be done. To keep from being slowed, you need immunity to slowness, which will show up on your stats (when you use a ring of knowledge or look in the Oracle's mirror) as "Hasted." You get hasted by taking a stimtab or by casting the spell of haste on yourself or by wearing boots of speed. Doing these things won't CURE slowness -- they'll only PREVENT slowness, so you have to do them before you start fighting the goblin shamans or the necromancers or whatever. To cure slowness, you can either wait a really long time, or you can rent a condo for a week of rest and relaxation. 9. Some monsters ignore my attack -- what do I do? There are several possible strategies for fighting monsters that are invulnerable to normal damage: a. Some weapons will hit monsters that are invulnerable to attack by normal weapons, and some weapons do more than just physical damage. A mace of disruption (which the paladins will give you if you advance far enough in their guild, and which you can sometimes find just lying around) will hit any creature, even the ones that normal weapons won't touch. A lightsabre, an acid whip, and Demonblade will also hit invulnerable monsters. (Be careful of Demonblade, though -- it's cursed, and it makes you berserk.) A firestar won't *hit* invulnerable monsters, but it will blast them with a fireball, which usually damages them. There are some weapons that are special and LOOK as if they'd hit invulnerable monsters but do not actually do so. The vorpal sword, Victrix, Defender, Goblin's Hewer, scythe of slicing, and giant club all fall into this category -- they look special, and some of them do special things, but they do NOT hit invulnerable monsters. b. Use a wand or scroll or spell of dispell -- it'll make the critters vulnerable to normal physical damage, and then you can hit them with your regular weapons. c. Attack them with wands or spells of fire or cold or whatever. Most monsters that can't be hit with a normal weapon are vulnerable to wand or spell damage. If fire doesn't work, try cold. If cold doesn't work, try disruption. Many monsters are invulnerable to one thing, like cold, but not invulnerable to other stuff, like fire or disruption. Another advantage to this method is that you can attack from a distance, so you can kill that astral vampire when you first detect him, before he has time to drain all your mana. 10. What do I do with the Orbs? You'll sometimes find an Orb lying around in the goblin caves or the sewers or the Archmage's castle, but the usual place to find the Orbs is on the Astral Plane. When you go to the Astral Plane, you should get FIVE Orbs: the Orb of Water, the Orb of Earth, the Orb of Air, the Orb of Fire, and the Orb of Mastery. It's kinda hard to get back to the Astral Plane once you've left, so make sure you pick up all five of them while you're there. If you find an Orb somewhere not on the Astral Plane, it's probably okay to activate it. If you find an Orb in the Astral Plane, though, you should hang onto it. The reason for this is that you can only activate the Orb of Mastery if you have the other four Orbs (on your person, not in your backpack). Activating the Orb of Mastery will burn out all four of the other Orbs. Orbs are artifacts and are activated in the same way that you would activate any other artifact. After you've activated it, you will be asked to choose an action from a list -- which action you should choose will be obvious. Then you will be asked for a target. Whatever you choose is about to get blasted, so you shouldn't choose the square where you're standing! Oh, and you might want to show the Orb of Mastery to the Duke before you activate it.... While we're talking about the Astral Plane, please note that there is a bug in the game such that if you save the game while you're on the Astral Plane and then restore it, the Star Gem will be gone. This means that you should only go to the Astral Plane when you have enough time to play all six levels in one sitting. 11. How do I find the Adept's Challenge? If you are a member of the collegium magi or have acquired the spell of ritual magic in some other way, you can reach the Adept's Challenge by casting ritual magic in the appropriate room. Which room LOOKS like it would send you to the Adept's Challenge if you cast ritual magic there? If you have the spell of wishing, you can wish for Location and then ask to be transported to the Temple of Destiny. If you have the Amulet of the Planes, you can use it to transport you to the Temple of Destiny. If you don't have any of these things, you might not be ready to try the Adept's Challenge after all. If you want to do it anyway, then you'll have to hoof it to the Temple of Destiny, which is in a rather inaccessible location.... 12. How do I win the Adept's Challenge? How do I completely destroy Death? The game itself gives you three hints about the Adept's Challenge, which are all that should be necessary for you to figure out what to do and how to win. To get these three hints, make sure you step on every square of the area where the Challenge takes place (except the ones that have stuff on them). The area where the Challenge takes place isn't all that big, so it doesn't take too long to explore it completely. Step on every square and listen to the three things it tells you. As it turns out, it isn't necessary to completely destroy Death to win the Adept's Challenge. If you've been waiting to finish up until you completely destroy Death, you'll wait a loooong time. You only have to kill Death once, to get the item he carries, and then you're ready. Of course, killing Death is good experience, so you might enjoy just hanging out and killing him over and over again, but once is all that's necessary. 13. How do I enter Wizard mode? Go to the northwest corner of Rampart and bash the wall. You'll feel like a cheater. :-) Entering Wizard mode will invalidate your score but will enable you to wish for anything you want (including specific objects, unlike the spell of wishing). This enables you to test out spells or objects or strategies. Be careful, though -- having infinite power with no limits actually gets stale awfully fast, so Wizard mode isn't fun for very long. And after you've been in Wizard mode, it's hard to get used to regular Omega again. I'd recommend that you not enter Wizard mode without a specific reason. If all you want to do is try something out without getting your character killed, just copy the file.... Good luck, and have fun! *End of Part One.* Part Two is still under construction -- look for it soon. (Probably another couple of weeks -- graduate school is demanding attention right now....) Copyright by Cory L. Kerens, January, 1995. This FAQ can be e-mailed or archived, as long as 1) You don't charge anybody for it. 2) This copyright notice is left intact. -- ******************************************************************************* Who needs drugs when we have sex and chocolate? cory@gagme.wwa.com ******************************************************************************* -- /~_\ --Rick Sanders....rix@umich.edu-- / / | | /\_/\ 0------------------------------0 \ \ / o o \ { } \ \~~____~~~~/ -X- \ { "Ignorance is the ground of } { \_ ,_/ { thought. Unproof is the } { / { ground of action." } { /~~___~~~\ __/ { --Faxe the Weaver } / /\ \ / / \ \ { } \__\\__\/_/ \_\ --The Catspaw-- 0------------------------------0