Astral Plane
| Astral Plane | |
|---|---|
| Location | Level -5 of the End Game |
| Bones | No |
| Mappable | No |
| Teleportable | No |
| Diggable floor | No |
| Diggable walls | No |
The Astral Plane is the final level of the game. You must bring the Amulet of Yendor to the high altar of your alignment and #offer it to your deity. High altars cannot be converted, but it is possible to fool the gods by wearing a helm of opposite alignment to match your alignment to that of the altar.
Astral is home to the three Riders - Death, Pestilence, and Famine - and to large numbers of priests, angels, and adventurers.
Map
|.............|
|..---------..|
|..|.......|..|
--------------- |..|.......|..| ---------------
|.............| |..|..._...|..| |.............|
|..---------..-- --------- |..|.......|..| --------- --..---------..|
|..|.......|...-- --.......-- |..|.......|..| --.......-- --...|.......|..|
|..|.......|....---.........--|..----+----..|--.........---....|.......|..|
|..|..._...+.....+.....&.....||.............||.....&.....+.....+..._...|..|
|..|.......|....---.........-----.........-----.........---....|.......|..|
|..|.......|...-- --.......-- -----+----- --.......-- --...|.......|..|
|..---------..-- ----+---- --.......-- ----+---- --..---------..|
|.............| ------...--------.........--------...------ |.............|
--------------- |..............|.....&.....|..............| ---------------
|............@.--.........--.@............|
|...............--.......--...............|
|................----+----................|
|.........................................|
-------------------------------------------
|.............|
|..---------..|
|..|.......|..|
--------------- |..|.......|..| ---------------
|.............| |..|..._...|..| |.............|
|..---------..-- --------- |..|.......|..| --------- --..---------..|
|..|.......|...-- --.......-- |..|.......|..| --.......-- --...|.......|..|
|..|.......|....---.........--|..----+----..|--.........---....|.......|..|
|..|..._...+.....+.....&.....||.............||.....&.....+.....+..._...|..|
|..|.......|....---.........-----.........-----.........---....|.......|..|
|..|.......|...-- --.......-- -----+----- --.......-- --...|.......|..|
|..---------..-- ----+---- --.......-- ----+---- --..---------..|
|.............| |...--------.........--------...| |.............|
--------------- |.........|.....&.....|.........| ---------------
-------.@.--.........--.@.-------
|....--.......--....|
---...----+----...---
|...............|
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The first layout will be chosen with 75% probability, otherwise the second. The player enters Astral from a magic portal on the Plane of Water and lands at one of the two spots marked with an @.
The three altars are randomly assigned to lawful, neutral and chaotic alignments (one of each), with an appropriately aligned peaceful high priest in each room. The three riders are randomly assigned to the three round rooms, one to each. Also in each round room are four aligned priests and two Angels of Moloch. Each of the halls surrounding the temple rooms contains two priests and two Angels of each alignment (one each of a type matching the player's alignment will be peaceful). Coaligned priests may be peaceful. Hostile ones will be labeled "renegade", and there is no penalty for killing them as opposed to killing other priests. The level also contains three random D, three random L, three random V, and between three and six randomly-determined player-monsters. The first variant also contains 3d4+6 random hostile Angels, and about half as many random hostile monsters, in the lower rooms.
Upon arriving at the Astral Plane, you may be sent tame or hostile Angels. If you are generating conflict, your god will send one to four hostile Angels to fight you. If you are not generating conflict, and if your alignment score is at least 9, your god will instead send a tame Angel to assist you. This tame Angel will vanish and be replaced with the hostile ones if you later generate conflict in its presence.
Strategy
- Try to be satiated when entering the Astral Plane as protection against Famine. It abuses dexterity, but that won't matter when you're going to ascend in a few minutes.
- When you enter the Astral Plane, you may need to deal with the multitude of hostile Angels in the first variant. Additionally, any master or arch liches will quickly teleport to your location, and if you were generating conflict on arrival there will be the addition conflict Angels. After this, you will have a few moments of quiet to plan your final moves, as the riders usually cannot path to your starting location immediately. Hopefully you have telepathy at this point. Use it to identify your opponents and take note of where each of the Riders is waiting. The Riders and High Altars are distributed at random, so it is reasonable to start with the easiest target and go from there. Most players regard Pestilence as the most dangerous opponent, and Famine as the least, though your ranking may vary based on play style and equipment. (Pestilence is vulnerable to death rays, while Death is not, for instance.)
- The Riders are able to push monsters out of their way to get to you. Killing them will buy you a few turns, but this has its own difficulties. The most important thing is to just keep moving. The biggest danger on the Astral Plane is getting bogged down in the open, surrounded by opponents, while one or more of the Riders slowly push monsters aside and approach you.
- Opening doors quickly is important to keep moving. All doors start locked, and even at maximum strength they may resist multiple times. A wand of digging will always raze a door, allowing you to pass through diagonally, and will not be reflected by monsters in its path. Alternatively, a wand of opening or spell of knock will preserve the door, allowing you to lock it behind you to prevent most monsters from following you. The Riders can unlock a locked door, but are still restricted from moving diagonally, which can buy you a few turns.
- Wands of teleportation are extremely useful for clearing paths through the monsters on Astral, especially in conjunction with jumping and fast or very fast speed. Many players try to save their teleport wands for this occasion. Be careful not to hit any of the riders or their corpses with the beam, since they will revive and almost certainly teleport next to you.
- The priests are likely to use the summon insects spell on you. Like in the Sanctum, you can use this to your advantage, by letting yourself be shielded behind a buffer of harmless ants and beetles, rather than the more dangerous priests and angels. Again, it is important to not attempt this to shield yourself from the Riders.
- If you have the ability to cast spells, realize that the Amulet will drain more power from you than normal. Dropping the amulet to the ground before attacking Riders with multiple spells preserves power. Spell of Magic Missile is very powerful at high experience levels. Typically only Angels will resist magic missiles, and even the Riders will succumb quickly to a few casts.
- If you have a helm of opposite alignment in inventory and are willing to change teams at the last moment, you have a 2/3 chance of ascending at the first altar you reach, and you are guaranteed to ascend at the second one. This effectively means you can pick any one temple/rider, and completely rule out the need to visit it. For neutral characters, a particular helm will either make you lawful or chaotic, even if you remove and put it back on multiple times. You could carry more than one helm if you have not predetermined their associated alignments to increase your odds of ascending at the first altar. You should be able to uncurse the helm for doing this, though.
- A creative strategy for dealing with the hordes is to reverse genocide purple worms, tame them, then teleport them.
- Good rings to wear on the Astral Plane are free action and conflict, but don't wear a ring of conflict when entering the plane unless you don't mind your god sending you hostile angels instead of a tame one.
- Jumping is a very powerful technique, since it allows you to cross many empty spaces in a single turn. There are two main ways to retain very fast speed while jumping: either wear speed boots and cast the jumping spell, or wear jumping boots and use a potion of speed or the haste self spell. Using the jumping spell will consume more of your magical power, but at expert skill it also allows you to make longer jumps. If you intend to do this, you should use the Candelabrum of Invocation or the light to illuminate your destination, since ordinary light sources will not reach expert jumping's maximum distance.
- Most creatures on the Astral Plane (with the notable exception of the Riders) are vulnerable to stoning attacks. If you can save a wish this long, wishing for a "blessed partly eaten chickatrice corpse" will allow you to mow down most opponents (reverse genocide would be another option, once you have a moment to catch your breath or do it while still in the Plane of Water just before entering the portal).
- High priests are identifiable with a wand of probing, or once you enter their temples. If you try to chat with them while carrying no gold, the two cross-aligned priests will "not be interested", but the co-aligned one will go through the usual donations routine (or give you "two bits for an ale", presumably just before you offer the amulet and ascend to immortality, which is kind of nice).
- Above all, pay attention! It is easy to get distracted by all the tumult and not notice, say, that Pestilence has made you sick and there is a timer running on your life. You still have as much time between turns as you need, inventory is still a "free" action, and so forth. Don't get so excited that you lose your cool.
Scrolls of earth will have no effect in the Astral plane. The only ways to obtain boulders are either wishing (one by one), or polymorphing statues repeatedly until they turn into boulders. Reverse genocided giants will not carry boulders, but giants created through a create monster effect have the possibility to, if one has patience and no source of polymorph or wishing. Boulders can also be carried, by a character polymorphed into a giant, or tame giants with boulders in their inventory can be brought onto the Astral Plane easily with a magic whistle (perhaps via taming the fire giants on the Plane of Fire). Boulders can then be used to keep monsters from entering the temples, or for Rider farming.
SLASH'EM strategy
For the most part, the same strategy apply to SLASH'EM. The biggest difference is that the Riders do not have the ability to displace other monsters, so it is possible to shield yourself from them by letting weaker enemies surround you or deliberately placing sessile monsters at choke points.
Note that unicorn horns work a bit differently in SLASH'EM. Enchantment counts a lot. Make sure to bring a highly enchanted unicorn horn to deal reliably with Pestilence sickening attack.
Another point to take into account is that now you can have considerably stronger insects. Say, with HP of 170! So the summon insect spell is much more annoying. Planning to cut through the insects with your melee weapon is not very practical. Make sure to bring enough teleportation wands.
This page is based on a spoiler by Dylan O'Donnell. The original license is:
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