ADOM Guidebook


The Wilderness

Click here for a color map of the wilderness.

The wilderness is the overland map of the Drakalor Chain. It is often regarded as a curse by new players, whose PC's are killed in wilderness encounters and have difficulty keeping their PCs fed during treks across the wilderness. Advanced players with PCs who are well equipped to deal with the wilderness regard it as a wonderful resource.

The Survival skill is very important for lengthy stays in the wilderness, since a high Survival skill means no food is required for traversing the wilderness.

1.2.5.1 Why start the game in the Wilderness?

Many players will start the game in the wilderness, at least for the first kill, because the first monster killed can be controlled according to what type of wilderness square generates an encounter.

1.2.5.2 Strategy and problems in the wilderness

In order to avoid wasting too much time in the wilderness (e.g. because of the dreadful 90 day limit), it is good to know how long it actually takes to do things in the wilderness.

All times are approximate since there are slight variations of some minutes. It is also the case that without apparent reason walking times are sometimes doubled. This can happen for any terrain type and might be a bug. Recent reports (September 25th, 2000) indicate that traveling through the wilderness while burdened or strained does not cause this phenomenon. Being burdened or strained has a marginal, if any, effect on movement time in the wilderness.

Time Spent    Action

nothing       changing body armor
60 min        changing other parts of equipment
60 min        resting
60 min        moving onto a plains, road, water, or special
              (dungeon entrance and the like) square
90 min        moving onto a hills square
120 min       moving onto a forest square
180 min       moving onto a swamp square
300 min       moving onto a mountain square (provided you own a climbing set)
Note that the swimming skill and water breathing intrinsic have no effect on the time needed to move onto a water square. Likewise, the climbing skill and the blessed/uncursed/cursed staus of a climbing set have no effect on the time needed to move onto a mountain square.

Note that a climbing set is required to move onto mountains. It is important to know the status of a climbing set, in particular making sure it is not cursed. A cursed climbing set will fail at the most inopportune moment. At a minimum, the resulting slip while mountaineering will cause extensive equipment destruction. It is often fatal. The blessed vs uncursed status seems to have little or no effect.


Updated November 4th, 2000
© Copyright Andrew Williams 2000-2001